JORGE’S RETURN.
IN returning to Luiza’s house Juliana had followed the advice of Aunt
Victoria.
“The bird has flown, my dear,” the latter had said to her. “It is a
pity, for you might have made a good sum out of the affair; but who
could have guessed that the lover would go away? You can do nothing
now but mourn your loss, for you won’t be able to get so much as
that”--indicating the point of her nail--“out of her.”
“But I can show the letters to her husband, Aunt Victoria.”
The old woman shrugged her shoulders.
“You will gain nothing by that. Suppose they separate; suppose he ill
treats her or puts her in a convent; what do you gain by that? And if
they make up you are left in the lurch, and you get nothing from either
side. And this supposing things to turn out well; for it is not at all
impossible that you should find yourself the richer by a good beating.”
And she added, seeing the look of dismay on Juliana’s countenance, “It
would not be the first time such a thing has happened, my dear. A great
many things take place in Lisbon that never find their way into the
papers.”
What she ought by all means to do, according to Aunt Victoria, was to
return to the house. For what was there now left of the whole matter?
Nothing but the fears of Donna Luiza; and of these it was that she must
now avail herself.
“You return to the house,” she continued, “and wait there the
fulfilment of her promise to you. If she gives you the money, well
and good; if she does not, you are there on the spot, and you can go
picking up whatever Providence may chance to throw in your way.”
Juliana hesitated. It would be hard to live under the same roof with
her mistress without having continual disputes with her.
“I shall say no more,” returned the old woman; “you will find out that
I am right in the end.”
“But I am afraid--”
“Of what?” exclaimed Aunt Victoria. “She is not going to poison you.
‘Nothing venture, nothing have.’ Follow my advice if you like,” she
ended; “if not, settle the matter in your own way. What the deuce does
it matter? You will see that I am right; and if you find it does not
suit you to stay there, why, you can leave the house at any time.”
Juliana made up her mind that she would go and see. By-and-by she
discovered that Aunt Victoria sometimes had right on her side.
Luiza appeared resigned to circumstances. Sebastião had gone again to
Almada, but she was determined that as soon as he returned she would
go to his house some morning, throw herself at his feet, and confess
to him everything,--everything. She bore with Juliana, thinking it a
question of a few days at the utmost, and never opened her lips to her.
The proper course with Juliana was to pay her her wages and put her in
the street. Until she could do this, there was nothing for it but to
bear with her in silence. When Sebastião returned--
Meantime she avoided seeing her. She never called her. She never
left her room in the morning without being certain that her bath was
filled, and everything in readiness for her toilet. During the daytime
she remained in her bedroom, reading, sewing, thinking of Jorge, and
sometimes--with hatred--of Bazilio, desiring Sebastião’s return, and
preparing her confession beforehand.
Juliana came face to face with her one day in the hall, carrying a jug
of water to her room.
“But, Senhora, why did you not call me?” she exclaimed, apparently
shocked.
“I had nothing else to do,” returned Luiza.
Juliana followed her to her bedroom, and closing the door behind her
said,--
“Senhora, things cannot go on in this way. It seems as if you were
afraid to look me in the face. I have come back to perform my duties as
formerly. Of course, I expect the senhora to fulfil her promise, for
I will not give up the letters without securing bread for my old age.
What I said was on the spur of the moment, and I have asked pardon for
it. I want to perform my duties while I am here. If the senhora is not
willing,” she ended curtly, “I will leave the house, and it may be the
worse for every one.”
“But--” began Luiza, in confusion.
“No, Senhora,” Juliana interrupted severely; “_I_ am the servant.”
And she left the room, tossing her head.
Luiza was terrified by so much audacity. This thief, it appeared, was
capable of anything. In order to avoid irritating her, she called her,
from this forth, whenever she had occasion for her services. “Bring
this,” “Bring that,” she would say, without looking at her. But Juliana
was so obliging and so discreet, that Luiza, following the impulse
of her fickle nature, and tired of letting things take their course,
began to lose her first vivid sense of her misfortune, and at the end
of three weeks things had again fallen into their natural order, as
Juliana said. Luiza now called her to her room, and sent her on errands
when she had occasion to do so. They went so far as to exchange a few
words together. “How warm it is!” “The laundress is late in coming.”
One day Juliana ventured on the following words, in a confidential
tone,--
“I met the servant of the Senhora Leopoldina to-day.”
“Is her mistress still in Oporto?” asked Luiza.
“She will remain there a month longer, at least, Senhora.”
Altogether the house wore an aspect of tranquillity; and Luiza,
after so many agitations, surrendered herself to the enjoyment of
this repose. She went occasionally to see Donna Felicidade in the
Encarnação, and continued to wait for Sebastião’s return, but without
impatience, almost happy in the thought that the time was yet distant
when she should say to him, “Sebastião, I have written a letter to a
lover.”
Thus the days wore on until the end of September. One afternoon Luiza
was seated at the window in the dining-room. She had been reading, but
the book had fallen from her hand, and she was now gazing with a smile
at a flock of pigeons that had flown from some neighboring villa and
lighted on the wall of the yard. Then her thoughts reverted to Bazilio.
At this moment Juliana appeared in the doorway.
“What is it?” asked Luiza.
The woman shut the door behind her, and stood close beside her
mistress. “The senhora has not yet come to any conclusion?” she
inquired.
“I have not yet been able to do anything,” responded Luiza, slowly.
Juliana looked at the floor in silence. “Very well,” she muttered at
last, and left the room. When she reached the head of the stairs these
words fell on Luiza’s ears: “When the master returns, we shall settle
accounts.”
When the master returned! Her soul was suddenly shaken by the terrors
and the anguish awakened in it by this menace, as the trees of the
forest are shaken by a sudden gale. She must do something before his
return. Jorge had just written to her that he would be in Lisbon soon,
and that he would send her a telegram to let her know by what train
to expect him. She wished that the Ministry might send him on some
distant journey,--to Spain or Africa,--or that some unforeseen event,
without causing him any injury, might keep him away for months. What
would he do if he were to discover everything? Would he kill her? She
recalled to mind his uncompromising words on the night on which Ernesto
had read them the last act of his play. Would he put her in a convent?
Already she saw in fancy the heavy door close on its hinges behind her
with funereal sound, while the lugubrious eyes of the nuns examined
her with curiosity. Her unreasoning terror caused her even to lose the
clear idea of her husband; another Jorge, sanguinary and vindictive,
presented himself to her imagination, forgetful of his amiable nature,
so little disposed to the melodramatic. One day she went into his
study, took his case of pistols, put it away in a trunk, and hid the
key.
One idea alone sustained her; it was that as soon as Sebastião returned
from Almada she would be saved; yet, notwithstanding the unceasing
anguish she suffered, she almost dreaded to know that he had returned,
so much greater did the anguish appear to her of confessing to him
the truth. Then another idea occurred to her,--to write to Bazilio.
Her ever-present fears had broken down her pride, as the constant
filtration of water saps the foundation of a wall. Every day she found
new excuses for asking help from “that traitor.” He had been her lover,
he knew about the letters, he was her only relative. In this way she
would not be obliged to tell Sebastião. She now regarded her refusal to
accept money from Bazilio as a piece of stupid bravado. She ended by
writing a long letter to him, somewhat confused, in which she asked him
to send her six hundred thousand _reis_. She herself posted it,
covering the envelope with stamps. That same afternoon Sebastião, who
had returned from Almada, came to see her. She received him joyfully,
happy at not being obliged to make her confession to him. She spoke to
him of Jorge’s return, and she even made some allusion to her Cousin
Bazilio, and the shameless behavior of the neighbors.
“It is the first thing I shall tell Jorge,” she ended. She now thought
herself saved. Every day she followed with her thoughts her letter
on its way to France, as if her very life had gone enclosed in that
envelope, intrusted to the chances of the railway-trains and the
confusion of travel. She saw it reach first Madrid, then Bayonne,
and at last Paris. A postman hurried to deliver it in the Rue St.
Florentin; Bazilio opened it with trembling hand, he filled an envelope
with bank-notes, covered it with kisses, and then the missive that
carried her salvation and her peace of mind began its journey towards
her. The day on which the answer ought to arrive she rose early, and
greatly agitated, and straining her ear to catch every sound, began to
await the arrival of the postman. She already saw herself dismissing
Juliana, and shedding tears of joy when she had gone. But at half-past
ten she began to grow nervous, and at eleven she called to Joanna to
ask if the postman had already passed.
“Yes, Senhora; he has already passed.”
“Despicable creature!” she muttered, thinking of Bazilio.
But perhaps he had delayed answering her letter for a day or two. She
waited disconsolately and without hope. Nothing! neither now nor on the
days that followed. “Traitor!” she repeated to herself. The thought of
the lottery occurred to her, for she lived only in the one hope. She
bought some tickets, and although she was neither superstitious nor a
devotee, she placed them under a pedestal of a Saint Vincent de Paul
that stood on the bureau in her bedroom. She neglected nothing; she
looked at them every day, added the units together to see whether they
amounted to nine, a zero at the end, or an even number, which is of
good omen. This daily contact with the image of the saint turned her
thoughts to a source of help till now unthought of,--Heaven; and she
made a vow that she would cause fifty masses to be said if the tickets
drew prizes. But they drew blanks; and then she lost hope altogether.
She surrendered herself, almost with pleasure, to inaction, passing
entire days without taking the slightest interest in anything, without
caring to dress herself, wishing to die, devouring the accounts of
suicides, of accidents, of deaths, in the papers, consoling herself for
her own unhappiness by the thought that all around her the city was
full of sorrow and suffering. At times she was seized by sudden fits of
terror. Then she resolved to confide in Sebastião. Again she reflected
that it would be better to write to him, but she could not find words
in which to do so; she was unable to frame any reasonable story; she
lost her courage, and fell back into her former state of inertness,
always thinking, “To-morrow, to-morrow.”
Sometimes, when in her room alone, she would look out of the window
thinking of what the neighbors would say when they should know all.
Would they condemn her? Would they pity her? Would they cry, “What
a shameless creature!” or “What an unfortunate woman!” Behind her
window-blinds she followed with her glance the promenades of Senhor
Paula on the pavement below, the heavy immobility of the coal-vender
at her door, and the movements of the three Azevedos behind their
window-curtains. They would all exclaim, “Did we not say so?” How
horrible! At other times she suddenly fancied she saw Jorge standing
before her, terrible in his anger, with her letters in his hand, and
she drew back as if she felt the physical pain of his blows. But what
most troubled her was the tranquillity of Juliana, as the latter went
about her work singing, or waited on her at table in her white apron.
What were her secret intentions? What was she plotting? At times an
access of rage seized her. If she were strong and brave she would throw
herself upon this woman, take her by the throat, and tear her letters
from her. But unfortunately she had no more strength than a child.
One morning as she was indulging in thoughts like these Juliana came
into the room, with a black silk dress of her mistress’s hanging over
her arm. She laid it on the sofa and showed Luiza, close by the lowest
flounce, a rent that looked as if it had been cut with a knife; she
had come to ask, she said, if the senhora wanted to send it to the
dressmaker’s.
Luiza remembered that she had torn it one morning on her way to meet
Bazilio.
“That is easily mended,” said Juliana, passing her hand caressingly
over the silk.
Luiza hesitated. “It is scarcely worth while,” she answered at last;
“it is no longer new. You may keep it for yourself.”
Juliana trembled and flushed with pleasure.
“Oh, Senhora!” she exclaimed. “I am very much obliged to you. It is
a handsome present. I am _very_ much obliged to you, Senhora;
really--”
Her emotion rendered her unable to proceed. She took up the gown and
carried it to the kitchen. Luiza followed her stealthily, and heard her
say, very much excited, to Joanna,--
“See what a present! Nothing could be finer! It is almost new, and of
very good silk.”
She trailed the skirt along the floor, listening to the delightful
_frou-frou_ it made. She had always wished for, and now she
possessed, a silk gown of her own.
“The senhora is very good, Joanna,” she said; “she is an angel!”
Luiza returned to her room full of joy. She felt like one who has
lost his way at night in the open country, and suddenly sees a light
shining in a window in the distance. She was saved! She had only to
give Juliana presents,--to satiate her with them. She began to think
of other things she might give her, one by one,--her garnet gown,
under-clothing, a bracelet--
Two days afterwards--it was on a Sunday--she received a telegram from
Jorge. “I leave Carregado to-morrow. Will arrive by the train from
Oporto at six A. M.” What a fright! At last he was coming home!
She was young and she loved Jorge, and every other feeling was soon
swallowed up in the thought of her happiness at seeing him again, and
of his first kiss. She looked at herself in the glass; she had grown
thinner, and her face had a tired expression. Jorge’s image presented
itself to her mind in clearly-defined outlines,--his complexion
slightly bronzed by the sun, his curling locks, and his black eyes. How
strange! Never before had she so longed to see him. She at once began
to busy herself in making preparations for his arrival. Was the study
in order? Perhaps he would wish to take a bath; the large bath-tub must
be filled. She went about the house singing, with a feverish light in
her eyes. The voice of Juliana in the hall made her shudder. What would
she do? If she would at least leave her to enjoy in peace the first few
days after Jorge’s return. She felt a momentary courage, and called to
her.
“Did you wish anything, Senhora?”
“The master is coming home to-morrow,” said Luiza.
She paused, with her heart beating violently.
“Ah!” responded Juliana; “very well, Senhora;” and she was about to go.
“Juliana,” said Luiza, in uncertain accents.
The other turned around in surprise; and Luiza, clasping her hands with
a supplicating gesture, cried,--
“For these first few days--I shall get that for you; don’t be afraid.”
Juliana interrupted her.
“Ah, Senhora! there shall be no trouble as far as I am concerned; all I
want is a crust of bread for my old age. I will keep my mouth shut. The
only thing is, if the senhora could help me a little from time to time.”
“Of course! as much as you like--”
“Well, you may rest assured that from my lips--” and she placed her
finger on her lips, shutting them tightly.
What joy for Luiza! She would have a few days, a few weeks, perhaps,
free from torture, with her Jorge. She surrendered herself to her
delightful impatience to see him once again. It was strange, but she
thought she loved him now more than she had ever done. By-and-by she
would consider what course she should pursue; she would give other
presents to Juliana; she might prepare Sebastião little by little for
her request. She almost felt happy!
In the afternoon Juliana entered her room with a smile on her face, and
said,--
“Joanna has gone out; it was her turn; but I wanted to go out too, if
the senhora does not mind remaining alone.”
“No, I do not mind; you may go.”
Shortly afterwards she heard the noise of Juliana’s high-heeled boots
in the hall, and then the sound of the outer door closing. Then a
thought presented itself to her mind that dazzled her as a flash of
lightning might have done,--to go to Juliana’s room, search her trunk,
and rob her of the letters in her turn. She watched her turn the
corner, and then went upstairs slowly, and with her heart beating,
listening for every sound. The door of Juliana’s room was open;
there came from it an odor of unaired garments that sickened her; a
melancholy light entered through the window, and on the floor, placed
close to the wall, she saw the trunk. It was locked. She went back to
her own room quickly for her bunch of keys. She felt a sense of shame;
but what of that if she found the letters! She began to try the keys,
one by one, with trembling hand; the lock yielded suddenly, with a
creaking sound. She raised the lid; perhaps she should find them here.
She proceeded to take out the contents carefully, placing them on the
bed,--Juliana’s merino gown, a gilded fan wrapped in tissue-paper; some
red and blue ribbons; a rose-colored satin scapulary; some unopened
bottles of perfume, with bouquets of roses, cut out of paper, pasted on
the glass; three pairs of boots wrapped in newspapers; white garments
that diffused a mixed odor of wood and leaves of Indian corn. Placed
between two of these latter was a package of letters tied with a
thread; but neither hers nor Bazilio’s were among them! They were in a
scrawling handwriting, yellow and illegible. What a disappointment! She
remained standing by the empty trunk, her arms hanging helplessly by
her sides.
A shadow darkened the window for a moment. She trembled. It was a cat
walking stealthily on the edge of the roof. She replaced the things in
the trunk exactly as she had found them, locked it, and was about to
leave the room, when it occurred to her to search in the drawer of the
table and under the pillow. Nothing! She grew angry; she would not go
away until she had lost all hope; she shook out the bed-clothing, the
straw mattress; she looked in every corner of the room; still nothing!
The bell rang suddenly, and she ran downstairs quickly. What a
surprise! It was Donna Felicidade!
“Is it you? How are you? Come in!” exclaimed Luiza.
She was better, as she told Luiza in the hall. She had left the
Encarnação the day before. Her foot still pained her, but, thank
Heaven! she had been able to leave. Her first visit was for Luiza.
It was growing dark. They entered the bedroom, and Luiza lighted the
candles.
“How do you think I look?” asked Donna Felicidade, standing in front of
Luiza.
“A little paler.”
Ah, she had suffered a great deal, she said. She raised the skirt of
her gown and showed Luiza her foot, encased in a shoe much too large
for her, which she obliged her to touch with her hand. She had one
consolation, however,--that half Lisbon had gone to see her, thank God!
Yes, all Lisbon,--the better part of Lisbon. “And you did not make your
appearance there the whole of last week,” she ended.
“I was not able to go, my dear. Jorge is coming home to-morrow.”
“Ah, you little rogue! That is well. That little heart--” And she
whispered in Luiza’s ear.
They both laughed.
“I have taken it on myself,” continued Donna Felicidade, seating
herself, “to make up your company this evening. This morning I met the
counsellor, and he promised me he would come. I met him in the Martyrs.
Think what a piece of good fortune,--the first day I was able to go
out. A little farther on I stumbled upon Julião, and he too promised to
come.” And she added in a fainting voice, “Do you know that I should
not mind taking a little refreshment?”
Luiza it was who opened the door in the evening for the counsellor and
Julião, who met on the doorstep, saying to them with a laugh,--
“I am the porter for to-night.”
When they entered the parlor, Donna Felicidade, making an effort to
conceal the disturbance produced in her mind by the sight of her
beloved Accacio, began to scold Luiza for allowing the two servants to
go out on the same day.
“What if you had been taken ill?” she said.
Luiza smiled. She was not given to fainting, she answered. They found
her looking a little pale, and the counsellor asked her with interest,--
“Do you still suffer from your teeth, Donna Luiza?”
“From her teeth!” exclaimed Donna Felicidade. “This is the first time I
have heard of her having the toothache.”
Julião declared that he had never seen so perfect a set of teeth.
The counsellor hastened to quote,--
“Pearls by lips of coral hid;”
adding, “The last time I had the honor of seeing Donna Luiza, one of
her teeth began to trouble her so suddenly that she was obliged to go
with all haste into Vitry’s to have it filled.”
Luiza turned crimson. Fortunately at this moment the bell rang. It must
be Joanna, she said, as she went to open the door.
“We had been taking a delightful promenade,” continued the counsellor,
“when Donna Luiza all at once was seized with a toothache. So intense
was the pain that she hurried up the dentist’s staircase as if she were
crazy.”
_Apropos_ of pain, Donna Felicidade, who was anxious to awaken the
counsellor’s compassion, began to relate the story of her foot; it was
a miracle she had not died. And then she spoke of the numerous visits
of countesses and viscountesses she had received; the anxiety of every
one at the Encarnação on her account; the solicitous attentions of the
good Dr. Caminha.
“Ah, I suffered a great deal!” she sighed, her eyes fixed on the
counsellor, eager to draw from him some word of sympathy.
Accacio said, with an air of authority, “It is always dangerous to go
downstairs without first seeking the support of the banisters.”
“Why, I might have died, might I not?” she said, turning to Julião.
“In this world one may die of anything,” responded Julião, leaning back
comfortably in his easy-chair, and smoking his cigarette with an air
of enjoyment. He himself, he continued, had been almost run over by a
carriage that very afternoon; Sundays he dedicated to amusement, and he
generally took a long walk in the suburbs. “I have been living shut up
in my den for more than a month past, like a Benedictine monk in the
library of his convent,” he ended, laughing, and shaking the ashes from
his cigarette on the carpet.
The counsellor desired to know the subject of his discourse; it would
undoubtedly be very powerful. When Julião told him that its subject was
physiology, Accacio observed in sonorous accents,--
“Ah, physiology! That is an important subject, and one that admits
of an elegant style.” And he began to complain of being himself
overwhelmed by his literary labors. “Let us hope, Senhor Zuzarte,” he
ended, “that our vigils may not prove unfruitful.”
“Yours, Counsellor, yours,” exclaimed Julião. And he added, with an
appearance of interest, “When are we to have your new work? It is
awaited with a great deal of curiosity.”
“So I understand,” returned the counsellor, with an air of gravity.
“Some days since, the Minister of Justice, that illustrious scholar,
said to me,--he did me the honor to say to me,--‘Give us your book
soon, Accacio; we need light on that subject greatly.’ Those were his
words. Of course I bowed and responded: ‘Senhor Minister, _I_
shall not be the one to refuse to my country what my country demands of
me.’”
“Very good, Counsellor; very good!”
“I may tell you here in confidence,” he added, “that the minister gave
me reason to anticipate the decoration of the order of Santiago in the
near future.”
“They should have given it to you before this, Counsellor,” exclaimed
Julião, with secret amusement; “but in this country of knaves--yes, you
should be wearing it on your breast now!”
“That is true!” exclaimed Donna Felicidade quickly.
“Thanks, thanks!” stammered the counsellor, blushing, and in the
expansion of his gratitude offering Julião his snuff-box.
“I will take a pinch to make me sneeze,” said the latter.
Julião was this evening in an agreeable frame of mind; his occupations
and the hopes he founded on them had dissipated his bitterness of
spirit. He even seemed to have forgotten the humiliation he had endured
on the occasion of his meeting with Bazilio in this very parlor; for no
sooner did Luiza return than he asked for him.
“He left for Paris some time ago,” she answered.
Donna Felicidade and the counsellor both launched forth in praise of
Bazilio. He had left cards on them; an attention that had delighted
Donna Felicidade, and filled the counsellor with pride.
“He was a true gentleman!” she said; and Accacio confirmed the
assertion with an air of authority.
“And he has a baritone worthy of the S. Carlos,” he declared in
conclusion.
“And he is very distinguished-looking,” affirmed Donna Felicidade.
“A gentleman,” repeated the counsellor.
Julião rocked his leg in silence. Listening to these eulogistic
expressions, his pique began to revive. He recalled the sarcastic
coldness of Luiza on that morning, and the affectation of Bazilio, and
he could not help saying,--
“He wears too much jewelry, and his embroidered stockings are not in
very good taste; but I believe that is the fashion in Brazil.”
Luiza turned scarlet, and darted at him a glance full of animosity.
There still remained in her mind a vague and melancholy recollection of
Bazilio.
Donna Felicidade asked if any one had seen Sebastião lately. It was an
age since she had seen him, she said, and she regretted it, for he was
a person whom it always gave her pleasure to meet.
“He is a great soul,” declared the counsellor, with emphasis. He
censured him somewhat, he continued, for not making himself useful to
his country. “For after all,” he ended, “to play the piano is a very
pretty accomplishment, but it does not give one a position in society.”
And he adduced, as an example worthy to be followed, Ernesto, who,
although dedicating himself to the dramatic art, was--here his voice
took on a graver accent--is, an excellent employee in the custom-house.
They inquired what Ernesto was doing.
Julião had met him a short time since. He had told him then that “Love
and Honor” would be brought out within a fortnight, and in the Rua dos
Condes they already called him the Portuguese Dumas _fils_.
“I am not acquainted with that author,” said the counsellor, gravely;
“but from his name he would appear to be the son of the famous
writer, the author of the ‘Three Guardsmen,’ and other works of the
imagination. Be that as it may, however, our Ledesma is a skilful
exponent of the art of Corneille. Am I not right, Donna Luiza?”
“Yes,” she answered, smiling vaguely.
She seemed preoccupied. Twice she went to see what time it was by the
clock in her bedroom. Almost ten, and Juliana had not yet returned! Who
was to serve the tea? She herself went to the closet for the cups and
saucers; when she returned to the parlor, observing that her guests
were dull and silent,--
“Shall I play something?” she said.
Donna Felicidade, who, seated beside Julião, was examining the
engravings of a “Dante” illustrated by Doré, the leaves of which she
was turning over as it rested on her lap, said to her suddenly,--
“Have you seen this, Luiza? How pretty!”
Luiza drew near, and looked at the engraving.
“It is a case of unhappy love, Donna Felicidade,” said Julião. “It
is the sorrowful history of Paolo and Francesca da Rimini. The lady
sitting there is Francesca; and this young man with the flowing
locks, kneeling at her feet and embracing her, is her brother-in-law,
and--I regret to say it--her lover. And the man with the beard, who
is lifting up the tapestry in the background with the one hand, while
with the other he draws his dagger, is the husband, who surprises
them, and--_zas_!” he ended, making a gesture as if giving a
dagger-thrust.
“Ugh!” cried Donna Felicidade, horrified. “And what is that book lying
on the floor? Were they reading?”
Julião replied discreetly,--
“Yes, they were reading, but presently,--
‘Quel giorno più non vi leggiemi avante;’
or, which is the same thing: ‘We read no more during all that day.’”
“Perhaps they were tired,” said Donna Felicidade, smiling.
“Worse than that, Senhora; for, according to the confession
of Francesca, this youth with the flowing locks, and her own
brother-in-law,--
‘La bocca me bacciò tutto tremante;’
which signifies: ‘He kissed me, tremulous, upon the lips.’”
“Ah,” said Luiza, stealing a rapid glance at Donna Felicidade, “it is a
novel?”
“It is Dante,” said Accacio, severely,--“an epic poet, and considered
among the best; inferior, perhaps, to our own Camoens, but the rival of
the celebrated Milton.”
“But in those foreign stories the husbands always kill their wives,”
exclaimed Donna Felicidade. “Is it not so?” she added, appealing to the
counsellor.
“Yes, Donna Felicidade, in those countries domestic tragedies such as
this are frequently enacted; the violence of the passions is greater
there. But among us--and I say it with pride--the sanctity of the
domestic hearth is respected. I, for instance, among my numerous
acquaintances know only model husbands and wives.” And he added,
turning to Luiza with a courteous smile, “Among the latter of whom the
mistress of this house is queen.”
Donna Felicidade glanced up at Luiza, who was leaning over her chair,
and touching her on the arm, said,--
“She is a jewel!”
“Our dear Jorge deserves her,” continued the counsellor. “For, as the
poet says,
‘His noble heart, his haughty brow.
His brave and generous nature show.’”
This conversation irritated Luiza. She was about to seat herself at the
piano, when Donna Felicidade exclaimed,--
“But tell me, is there to be no tea here to-night?”
Luiza went to the kitchen and told Joanna to bring in the tea. Shortly
afterwards Joanna entered, in a white apron, with the tray in her
hands, and looking very red and confused.
“And Juliana?” asked Donna Felicidade.
“She has gone out,” returned Luiza; “she is not in good health.”
“And she is in the streets at this hour! That discredits a house.”
The counsellor also thought it not very proper, he said; adding,--
“For, after all, the temptations of a large city are very great.”
“No!” exclaimed Julião, laughing. “If they seek to tempt her, I
renounce my fellow-citizens forever.”
“Oh, Senhor Zuzarte!” returned Accacio, almost with severity, “I
alluded to another class of temptations, such as that of entering a
tavern, of going to the circus and neglecting her duties.”
Donna Felicidade declared that she could not endure Juliana; she
thought she had the face of a Judas, and that she was capable of
anything.
Luiza took her part. She was very obliging, an excellent laundress,
very honest--
“And she is walking the streets at eleven o’clock at night!”
interrupted her friend. “If she were in my house--”
“I understood,” interposed the counsellor, “that she was afflicted with
a fatal malady; is that the case, Senhor Zuzarte?”
“Yes, an aneurism,” replied Julião, without raising his eyes from the
volume he was looking over.
“Another thing in favor of what I say,” exclaimed Donna Felicidade.
“You ought to dismiss her at once. A servant with a thing like that,
which may burst when she is bringing you a glass of water. God forbid!”
The counsellor coincided with her in this opinion, adding,--
“And such an event might even bring one into trouble with the
authorities.”
Julião closed his copy of Dante and said,--
“I forgot to warn Jorge about it; but the day least expected that woman
will drop dead before your eyes upon the floor.”
Luiza was disturbed; it seemed to her as if some new misfortune was
threatening her. She said aloud, that it was so difficult to find
servants.
In this they were all of one mind. They began to talk about the
exactions of servants, who, they said, grew more audacious every
day,--as soon as they became a little familiar with one. And what
morals!
“The mistresses themselves are very often to blame for that,” said
Donna Felicidade. “They make confidants of their servants, and these,
once they get possession of a secret, make themselves mistresses of the
house.”
Luiza’s hands trembled so that she almost spilled her tea, as she said
with a forced smile to the counsellor,--
“And how are you off in regard to servants?”
“Very well,” he returned, coughing. “I have a very respectable person,
who has a gift for cooking, who is scrupulously exact in her accounts--”
“And not altogether ugly,” interrupted Julião; “or at least so it
seemed to me one day I dropped in at Ferregial Street.”
A crimson hue diffused itself over the bald cranium of the counsellor.
Donna Felicidade glanced at him uneasily, with shining eyes. Accacio
said severely,--
“I am not in the habit of remarking upon the personal attractions of my
inferiors, Senhor Zuzarte.”
Julião stood up, putting his hands into his trousers-pockets with an
air of amusement.
“It was a great mistake,” he said, “to have abolished slavery.”
“And the principle of liberty?” burst out the counsellor. “And the
principle of liberty? I concede that the negroes were skilful cooks;
but liberty is a greater good.”
He expatiated on the subject, denouncing the traffic in slaves; he
insinuated doubts regarding the philanthropy of the English; he was
very severe with the planters of New Orleans, and related the case of
_Charles et Georges_. He addressed himself exclusively to Julião,
who continued to smoke, with his eyes bent on the floor.
Donna Felicidade sat down beside Luiza, and whispered with anxiety,--
“Have you ever seen the counsellor’s servant?”
“No.”
“Do you suppose she is pretty?”
Luiza shrugged her shoulders.
“I begin to fear I know not what, Luiza. I am suffocating.”
And while Accacio discoursed, standing before Julião, she continued to
whisper her amatory complaints in Luiza’s ear.
What a relief it was to Luiza when they went away! What had she not
suffered in secret during the evening! How tiresome, how stupid they
were! And that woman, who had not yet returned! What a life was hers!
She went upstairs to the kitchen, and said to Joanna,--
“Wait up for Juliana. Have patience; she cannot remain long now;
perhaps she has been taken sick.”
It was past twelve o’clock, and Luiza had already retired, when the
door-bell rang, at first faintly, then more loudly, and at last
impatiently.
“The girl must be asleep,” said Luiza to herself.
She jumped out of bed and went in her bare feet up to the kitchen.
Joanna was snoring loudly, her head resting on her folded arms upon the
table beside the smoking lamp. Luiza wakened her, saw her on her feet,
and then went back to bed. Shortly afterwards she heard Juliana saying
in satisfied tones,--
“Everything is done, eh? Well, I have been to the theatre. What a
beautiful play! It couldn’t be better, Joanna; it couldn’t be better!”
It was late when Luiza fell asleep, and all night long she was troubled
by unquiet dreams. She thought she was in an immense theatre covered
with gilding. It was an evening in the season; jewels glittered on
ivory bosoms, and decorations shone on court dresses. In his box
a king, young and of melancholy aspect, sat, rigid and immovable,
supporting in his right hand an armillary sphere; his mantle of dark
velvet, sown with precious stones, fell around him in artistic folds
to the floor, causing the multitude of courtiers to stumble as they
approached him.
She was on the stage; she was an actress. She was making her
_début_ in Ernesto’s drama, and, trembling with nervousness, she
saw, in the vast pit before her, rows of intensely black eyes all
gazing at her pitilessly. In the midst of them, towering above the
others, rose the bald cranium of the counsellor, like a large white
flower surrounded by a swarm of bees. On the stage, the scenery,
representing a wood, was oscillating back and forth; on the left stood
a pine-tree, majestic and ancient, whose summit resolved itself into
the traits of a countenance resembling Sebastião’s. The director of
the orchestra clapped his hands. In appearance he was like Don Quixote;
he wore round eye-glasses framed in tin, and brandished in his hand a
roll of the “Jornal do Commercio.” He cried out,--
“Pass on to the love-scene! pass on to that miracle of art!”
Then the orchestra, the eyes of the musicians glittering, their bushy
hair standing on end, played with melancholy slowness the _fado_
of Leopoldina, and a shrill and uneven voice sang in falsetto,--
“I see the clouds, when night is falling,
Float above the boundless sea;
But still I feel thou art beside me,
However distant thou mayst be!”
Luiza now found herself in Bazilio’s arms, which enfolded her, setting
her blood on fire by their contact. She felt herself sinking languidly
in an element warm as sunshine and sweet as honey. She felt her being
thrill with happiness; but, while she sighed with pleasure, she felt
herself covered with shame, for Bazilio repeated before the audience
the kisses and caresses of their secret meetings. How could she ever
have allowed them?
And the audience with one voice shouted, “Brava!” “Encore!”
A thousand handkerchiefs were waved; the women threw bunches of violets
at her feet; the king rose from his seat like a spectre and cast the
armillary sphere on the stage before her; and the counsellor, in order
to follow the example of his Majesty, tore off his bald cranium and
threw it to her also, with a cry of mingled pain and triumph. The
director shouted,--
“Hail, hail!”
She bowed profoundly; her hair, falling loose around her like that
of a Magdalen, swept the stage; at her side Bazilio followed with
gleaming eyes the cigars that were thrown to him, catching them with
the grace of a _torero_ and the dexterity of a clown. Suddenly the
audience gave a cry of terror. There was a moment of tragic and anxious
silence. Thousands of eyes were fixed in amazement on the background
of the stage, where was seen a garden full of white roses. She, too,
followed with her eyes, as if under magnetic influence, the eyes of
the others, and saw Jorge,--Jorge, who came forward dressed in black,
with black kid gloves on his hands, holding in his grasp a dagger the
blade of which glittered less brightly than his eyes. He approached the
footlights, and said, bowing gracefully to the audience,--
“Your Majesty, Senhor Infante, Senhor Governor, gentlemen and ladies,
it is my turn now. Observe how I shall acquit myself.”
He went towards her slowly, with a step that made the boards tremble,
caught her by the hair as if she were a weed he was about to uproot
from the ground, and held back her head. He raised his dagger with a
tragic gesture, pointed it at her heart, and bending forward plunged it
in her breast.
“Excellent!” cried a voice; “a charming piece of acting!”
It was the voice of Bazilio, who was gracefully driving his phaeton
into the pit. Erect in the drivers seat, his hat on one side and a
rose in his buttonhole, he managed his English horses with admirable
skill. Beside him, clad in his sacerdotal vestments, was the Patriarch
of Jerusalem. Jorge now drew out his crimsoned dagger; the drops of
blood ran along the blade towards the point, fell on the floor with a
crystalline sound, and rolled along the boards like red glass beads.
She fell, expiring, against the pine-tree whose summit wore the
likeness of Sebastião. The tree interposed its spreading roots, soft as
a cushion of down, between her body and the hard ground, and protected
her from the sun with its foliage, like a tent, letting drip from its
leaves upon her parched lips drops of wine. Terrified, she beheld the
blood gushing from the wound in her breast, making little pools here
and winding rivulets there; and she heard the cry from the pit,--
“The author! the author!”
At this, Ernesto, his hair carefully curled, and with a placid
expression on his countenance, made his appearance. He bowed to
the audience with a sigh of pleasure, and each time he made his
bow he jumped to one side and another, that he might not stain his
patent-leather slippers with Cousin Luiza’s blood. She felt herself
expiring, when suddenly she heard confusedly a voice saying,--
“Hello! How is every one here?”
It sounded like Jorge’s voice. Whence did it come? From the sky? From
the pit? From the hall? She heard a noise as of luggage being thrown on
the floor, and she sat up in bed.
“Very well, leave it there,” she heard Jorge’s voice saying.
She jumped out of bed and threw on her wrapper. He entered the room,
and they remained clasped in each other’s arms in a long and close
embrace, while their lips met in a silent kiss.
The clock in the bedroom struck seven.