THE CAPITULATION
Josefina was wasting away. Her cheeks were as pale as wax; there was
constantly a look of terror in her sweet, gentle eyes, around which
suffering had traced a purple circle. She spoke little, and never
laughed. When she was left in peace she sat in some corner, and remained
motionless looking at one spot, or she went to the window and wrote on
the panes of the glass with her finger.
Sometimes, in spite of such misery, the childish nature asserted itself.
If the cat approached her slowly with his tail in the air, his back
arched, soliciting a caress with a weak purr, she would throw herself
upon the ground, call him, drag him to her, stroke his fur, scratch his
head, tickle the back of his neck, and murmur words of affection in his
ear, a course of spoiling that the animal received with transports of
delight.
"I love you, I love you. You are my good cat. Are you not good? You must
not scratch me as you did. Who do you like best in the house? Say,
treasure. Who gave you a sardine yesterday? Who puts you a saucer of
milk every day? And if I could always give you fish too, I would,
because I know it is what you like best. Is it not, my treasure? But you
must not steal or you know you will be beaten. Don't get on Manin's bed
and be naughty or you will be killed. I heard so the other day in the
kitchen. And catch a lot of mice, so that godmother will like you and
will not turn you out."
The cat, delighted, purred from the depths of his throat with pleasure,
and rubbed himself more and more vehemently against her. The child held
him up to her mouth, put her arms around him, pressed him to her heart,
kissed him, and sometimes, forgetting her sufferings, she shed tears of
tenderness. But any noise in the next room made her jump up with terror
in her eyes, she pushed the cat away from her and stood motionless,
waiting for what was to come, and it was almost always some cruel
punishment.
"You naughty girl! So you dirty your clothes like that crawling about on
the floor! Wait a bit! wait a bit!"
Continual shocks had so upset her constitution that her health was quite
out of order. But although it was not her fault she was treated as if it
were, and once Concha's fury was so great that she seized her by the
ears and made her lick the ground.
The most terrible hour for the little creature was lesson time. Amalia
gave her early in the morning long pieces of sacred history and grammar
to learn. Josefina retired to a corner and made desperate efforts to
commit them to memory. A little before the dinner hour Concha, who was
deputed for the task, took a chair, drew out the famous whalebone, and
with that in one hand, and the book in the other, she commenced her
pedagogic functions. Every time the child hesitated or forgot a word, it
cost her a blow from the whalebone on her face, hand, or neck; and as
her memory was not very strong the pounding was incessant.
It was still worse when her godmother taught her. Concha was coldly
cruel, but Amalia became irritable directly; the crying of the child
worried her nerves, she flew into a rage like a hungry panther, and
finished by striking her frantically until she fell trembling and
bleeding at her feet.
Her hatred to the little creature seemed increased if possible after
the letter from the count. Her pride, wounded to the quick by the cold,
self-sufficient, insulting diplomacy conveyed to her mind by the words
of her old love, she vented her rage upon the daughter. Besides, the
idea of Luis being distressed at hearing of the tortures was an
additional inducement to continue them unsparingly. Let her suffer! let
him suffer! the vile, perfidious creature who had taken her youth, and
then when she was old cast her from him like an old rag to be swept
away.
On one of these days of intense raging anger the life of Josefina was in
imminent danger. At the usual hour she had been summoned to the
dining-room for her lessons. Concha took a seat and drew with unfeigned
delight the fatal whalebone from her bosom, for the administration of
blows seemed a physical pleasure that day. Trembling as usual the child
came and gave her the books, and then with stammering tongue began
saying a chapter of sacred history, when Manin's entrance interrupted
them. He came in with his eternal green jacket, short breeches and rough
manners, making the floor tremble under his hobnailed boots. It was this
costume, which even in the country was out of date, that chiefly gave
rise to the notoriety and fame he had been supposed to have as a
formidable bear-hunter. He entered with his head down as usual; he
peered in at the door, saying:
"Concha, haven't you anything to eat here?"
"Is your stomach so empty, Manin?" returned the needlewoman laughing.
The peasant opened his mouth wide to join in the laugh.
"Yes, God have mercy! I can't wait a minute more. You all seem
barefooted Brothers in this house; you have no thought of food till the
time comes."
"Well, come along you great greedy creature," said Concha putting the
book and whalebone on the chair, and going in a petulant way to the
dresser.
They quite understood each other these two. The needlewoman was hard,
cruel, and stubborn, but the majordomo knew how to get at the few grains
of good humour she had. He teased her unmercifully, he pinched her when
she passed by him, and said a thousand coarse, shameless things to her
which she knew how to take in the opposite sense. And the dwarfish maid,
who was neither kind nor pretty, and whose cruel nature had choked every
germ of pleasantness and transformed her into a priestess of misery, a
fatal, pitiless Eumenide, was pleasant and obliging to that brute. She
admired his bearish manners, his roughness, his greediness, and his
insolent, careless way of treating everybody, including the pompous
Senor de Quinones. Manin was a solemn-faced rogue with his shameful
rudeness, his deportment of a brave hunter of wild beasts. Sly-faced
rogue! for with all his shameless rudeness, his posing as a hunter of
wild beasts, and his slovenly dress, he had known how to take life
easily in this world without spoiling his hands, nor hurting his back by
hard work in his village. The needlewoman fetched a plate of cold meat
and put it on the oilcloth of the table without any apology for a
serviette; then she cut half a loaf and left him with the indispensable
bottle of white wine and a glass by the side of the meat. Concha then
re-seated herself, and the child approaching repeated the words that she
had just said. In a few moments, zas! a blow with the whalebone and a
cry of pain. Immediately afterwards another blow and another cry, and so
it went on. The needlewoman was delighted that she stumbled more than
usual. Manin devoured his food in silence, only occasionally turning his
head with marked indifference towards the sad scene. Soon he began
murmuring at every blow like a machine:
"Give it! Go it! That was good! There's a blow!" and other similar
exclamations.
The sacred history lesson came to an end, and there was a respite before
taking the grammar, when the maid began joking cheerfully with the
majordomo. She was in an angelic humour.
"Did you ever see such meat?"
"Fine, truely fine."
"The worst of it is it will spoil your appetite for dinner."
Whereupon the room then vibrated with the fellow's laughter.
"This? Yes! It would be something for me to lose my appetite. You will
have to put a hot iron in the water, like you do for the senora."
"I would put it on your body, you great pig."
"Look here, Concha, none of your teasing; because although you are only
a little bit of a thing, and you have roguish eyes and a mouth like a
cherry, you shall have such a blow one of these days, without your
knowing whence it comes, that all that little row of pearls I see now
shall be knocked down your throat."
"Silence! silence, you old clod-hopper; you are a fine one for blows.
You couldn't give them if you tried in such a tight costume. You are
indeed a fright."
"You are not saying this from your heart, but because you think it
fine."
"I know very well that there is a good deal behind all that. (And here
he gave her a few rough digs in the ribs). If I could catch you in a
maize field!"
"It would only be as if you caught me in the market-place. No; you are
nothing but jaw and tongue."
"And hands too to touch what is nice," returned the barbarian, taking
hold of the needlewoman's chin with his hand.
"Leave go! leave go, you pig!" And she gave him a blow on the fingers
with the whalebone. Then the rude fellow caught hold of her again, and
she defended herself again in the same way. He then tried to get hold of
her waist, whereupon the maid ran across the room pretending to be
angry.
"Don't touch me, Manin, or I will call the senora."
But Manin did not care; he ran after her with grunts and laughter,
catching hold of her here and seizing her there, whilst his cheeks,
which were as hard and coarse as an elephant's hide, came in for blows
from the servant, without showing that he felt them. The furniture was
knocked about, the ground shook, the plates rang on the dresser, and
still he did not give in, but he grew more and more false and fawning.
The rogue knew that, irascible and fiendish as the little woman was, she
was open to flattery like all human beings, and that it was for the
interest of his stomach to keep her in a good humour. Finally, roaring
like a bull, he caught her by the waist and held her up in the air. He
held her up without any effort, as if she were a three-year old child.
"Now, little spitfire, what do you say now? Where is your courage? Where
are your hands? Come, witch, and ask pardon, or I will let you fall like
a frog," roared the great bear, moving her to and fro in the air.
"Let me go, Manin! Let me go, ass! There will be a row! Look here, I
shall scream!"
At last he put her down gently, and the maid, panting, dishevelled and
frowning, so as to look more angry, said in an excited voice:
"You have no shame, Manin. If we were not in this house as we are I
would smash this lamp on your face for your rudeness and insolence. But
here are the servants listening to all this, and what will they say?
Don't say another word, for I won't answer you."
"So you can scream now, vain little thing, after you have been in the
seventh heaven," muttered Manin, in a drawling tone, looking at her
angrily and pushing up his beard.
"If you don't get out of my sight, you ruffian!" exclaimed the little
servant, as she looked at him with laughter in her eyes, in spite of
herself.
Then Manin re-seated himself for the consumption of the rest of the
bread, and to drink another glass of white wine. Josefina meanwhile
sobbed in a corner, putting her wounded hands to her mouth and patting
her cheeks, contused with the whalebone blows. Manin then deigned to
cast a look at her.
"Don't cry, little fool, the pain of the blows will go by, and the sense
will remain in your head for ever," he said, cutting a piece of bread
with his clasp-knife and putting it into his mouth. "If you would like
to know my opinion, the more they beat you, the more pleased you ought
to be. What would you be if Concha was not kind enough to beat you well?
A little ignoramus, not worth a measure of acorns, a little beast, God
save the comparison. And now what will you be? As fine a woman as you
can see." (He paused whilst he cut another piece of bread and chewed it
so that it caused a large lump in his right cheek). "Come, if I had had
masters like you have to bruise my skin with blows, I should not be an
ass now; they would not call me Manin, but Don Manuel, and instead of
being a miserable underling I should be going about giving myself airs,
walking down Altavilla with my hands behind me like the senores, and
reading the papers in the casinos." (Another pause, and another cutting
of a hunch of bread). "It is nothing but just, if you will see it so.
How can you learn such difficult things without a few whippings? Whoever
learned _daque_ without being beaten? Nobody. Then if you get learning
you should thank God for having put a mistress over you like an aureole.
For the end will please you; you will have soft hands and delicate feet,
is it not so?"
Concha, having now resumed her severe manner, seated herself and made an
imperious gesture to the child to approach. It was the turn for grammar
and it went worse than the history, either from want of memory or
because she was upset by fear. Then the whipping recommenced; a
whalebone blow now and then, then oftener and oftener. Manin, true to
his pedagogical opinions, applauded with his mouth full, and cut his
bread into wonderful geometrical shapes before conducting them with all
solemnity to his mouth. The faults were many, the blows were the same.
But at the end of the lesson Concha thought that besides the punishment
at every fault there was a certain reparation due for general
naughtiness, and so she had better conclude by a beating that would
include everything. Therefore she jumped up from her chair, and
brandishing the formidable whalebone, exclaimed:
"Now to make you study better and to open your mind! Now!"
The blows were so hard and so many that, trying to escape the torture,
the little creature seized hold of the skirts of her torturer with her
clenched hands. Without knowing how, perhaps through having carelessly
caught hold of them, the string which held them broke and they fell off,
leaving the needlewoman only in her undergarment. She gave a cry of
shame and quickly pulled up the skirts. Then, without waiting to tie
them on again, she cast a glance of the deepest anger at the child and
left the room holding her things on with her hands.
"You have done it finely now--finely, finely, finely!" said Manin,
dexterously cutting the mouthful he was about to raise to his lips.
The little creature paralysed with terror did not cry even; her wounds
ceased to hurt her. At the end of a few minutes Concha reappeared
accompanied by the senora, who came in with a sarcastic smile.
"It seems that the senorita takes pleasure now in unrobing girls in
public. You like that, senorita, do you not? Manin must have had a nice
view of Concha. Eh, Manin?"
She took a few steps forward. The child receded in dismay.
"Don't be afraid, senorita. I have not come to beat you. Who gives heed
to whippings? I have only come to invite you to take a turn in the
cellar--the cellar with the rats--you know it. There you can amuse
yourself in undressing any rat of the many that will pay their respects
to you. Come along. Give me your hand so that I can take you with all
ceremony."
The child ran behind a chair, from whence, being pursued by Amalia and
Concha, she got under the table, and finally took refuge behind the
majordomo.
"Manin! Manin! For God's sake hide me!"
But he took her by the arm and handed her over to the senora. Then they
each took a hand, and in spite of her piercing cries they dragged her
off.
"To the cellar, no! to the cellar, no! Godmother, pardon. Kill me
sooner. See what a terror I have. No, not to the cellar for the rats to
eat me!"
The servants came out in the passage and assisted at the scene in solemn
silence. The cries of the child were soon lost in descending the dark
winding staircase leading to the underground cellar.
Amalia opened the door of the horrible place and pushed her daughter
inside. She banged the door to, and the child running to get out, caught
her hand in it. A fearful cry of pain was heard. The Valencian reopened
the door, and gave such a rough push to the child that she was thrown on
the ground, and then she turned the key.
The cellar was a dark, damp prison, only lightened by a few stray rays
of light from an ox-eye above. It had once been used as a wine-cellar,
now there were only empty bottles there. Scarcely was the child alone,
when she got up, looked round mad with fright, tried to cry, but she was
unable to utter, and finally, extending her hands in an excess of
fearful trembling, she fell senseless to the ground. At the end of half
an hour the stable-boy, who had witnessed the incarceration, came to the
door being moved by compassion, and looked through the keyhole. There
was nothing to be seen. He called very gently:
"Josefina."
The child did not reply. He called louder. The same silence. Alarmed, he
called and knocked at the door with all his might without obtaining any
reply. Then, at the risk of losing his place, he went quickly upstairs
to say what had happened. Amalia sent Concha with the key to see what
had occurred. Paula and she together carried the little creature
upstairs senseless, cold, and with all the signs of death upon her face.
Afraid of the complications that might arise, the wife of the Grandee
put her quickly to bed, where she soon came to herself, but a serious
fever immediately set in. The doctor was sent for. He found her very
ill. To account for the injury of her hand and the contusions about her,
Amalia, clever in lying, invented a story that the doctor believed, or
pretended to believe. She hovered for some days between life and death.
Amalia followed the course of the illness with anxious eyes. She was not
unhappy at the thought of losing the being upon whom she had vented the
bitter disappointment of her heart, but she was distressed at the idea
of losing her revenge at one blow. When Josefina had been in bed three
days, she heard that Fernanda had left for Madrid the previous evening
in the postchaise, and that Luis would only be four or five days before
joining her. This was a severe shock; a burning wave of bile inundated
her heart, and that night she too had fever. So they were escaping!
There would be no possible revenge for the traitor. He would go to
Madrid; he would marry; he would perhaps have news there of his
daughter's death, but the caresses of his adored bride would soon put it
out of his mind. Of that long, ardent love affair there would be nothing
left but a man parading his bliss through Europe, and a poor old sad
woman in Lancia, a laughing-stock for the Lancian circles. Her flaccid
flesh trembled. The revengeful instincts of her race cried out in futile
rage. No, no, it could not be! She would sooner drag his dead daughter
to his feet; she would sooner kill him with a stab in the heart!
A singular and terrible idea occurred to her--to tell her husband
everything. She ignored what she would incur herself, but it would
provoke an immediate scandal. Don Pedro was violent, and he enjoyed
great power and prestige. Who could say the harm that such a bomb would
cause? Certainly he was paralysed, and he could not take personal
revenge; but would not that proud, punctilious man find means of
repaying the injury that had been done him? She would come to grief
herself, but she would willingly fall if the traitor paid for his
treachery. After a long struggle with these thoughts she did not dare
run the risk of making the confession by word of mouth, nor writing
under her own name, but, disguising the handwriting, she wrote an
anonymous letter:
"The child that you adopted six years ago is the daughter of your
wife and a gentleman who visits your house, whom you call your
friend. I do not tell you the name. Look for him, and you will soon
come across the traitor.
(Signed) A FAITHFUL FRIEND."
She posted the epistle and anxiously waited to see the effect.
Don Pedro received it in her presence and read it, whilst her face
violently contracted and assumed a cadaverous pallor.
"Who writes to you?" she asked in a natural way.
The Grandee replied immediately, and folding and retaining the letter,
he said, with some effort to control his voice that trembled:
"Nobody. One of the persons I recommended, complains that he has been
kept waiting. This governor! He has nor memory, no regularity at all!"
Anxiously and restlessly awaiting the course of events, she retired to
her boudoir. Jacoba came in the evening with an air of mystery and gave
her a letter from the count.
"What does this man want with me?" she asked in a surprised, vexed tone.
"I don't know, senorita. He wrote the letter in my house, and is there
waiting for the answer."
The count's letter ran thus:
"Amalia, I know that our child is in danger of death. By all that
you love best in the world, by the salvation of your soul, grant me
an interview. I must speak to you. If this evening it cannot be,
come to-morrow to Jacoba's house.
Yours, LUIS."
"Yours! yours!" she murmured with a bitter smile. "You have been mine,
but you have changed your owner, and it will cost you dear."
"Shall I take the answer, senorita?"
She stood pensive for a few minutes, walked up and down the room
completely absorbed in thought, went to the window and looked through
the panes. Finally, half turning round, she said very abruptly:
"Very well; I will go to-morrow at the hour of Mass."
"He asked after the child with the greatest interest."
"Say that she is better."
The intermediary retired, and Amalia remained for a long time looking at
the street through the window-panes without seeing it. From seven
o'clock in the morning of the following day, Luis was waiting for her in
Jacoba's little house. It only consisted of a kitchen on the
ground-floor and a little bedroom upstairs, and both so low that the
count's head, with his hat on, touched the ceiling. In this little room
he was walking up and down with impatient steps, with his hands in his
pockets looking cautiously every minute through the blinds of the only
window there was. The lady did not arrive until nine o'clock. He saw
her coming with her mantilla veiling her eyes, her missal in her hand,
and her rosary hanging on her wrist, with a firm, self-assured step, as
if she were coming to give orders to her old protegee. When he heard her
voice in the kitchen his heart beat quickly, he began to tremble, and in
his agitation he forgot all that he was going to say.
"How are you, count?" she said, with perfect naturalness as she came in
and gave him her hand.
"Very well--and thou?"
She raised her head as if she were surprised to hear him _tutoyer_ her,
and replied, as she looked at him fixedly:
"Perfectly."
"And the child?"
"Somewhat better."
The man's face brightened at hearing this news. A ray of happiness shone
in his eyes, and taking the hand of his former lover, he led her to the
poor, straw-stuffed sofa, and said:
"Let us sit down, Amalia. Although it may be a liberty on my part, I beg
of you to let me go on _tutoyant_ you when we are alone. I do not
forget, I never can forget, how many happy hours I owe you, and how much
happiness you brought into my sad, monotonous life. You revealed to me
all that was sweetest and best in my heart without my hardly suspecting
it. All the first impulses of my soul were for you. Until now, you alone
had penetrated it and sounded, and knew its melancholy, weakness, and
tenderness. If I separate from you, it is only in obedience to a law of
nature which impels us all to found a family. I have nobody in the world
but my mother, who may soon leave me alone. You ought not to mind my
wishing to make a home, and have an heir to my name and estates.
Besides, my conscience rebukes me."
The count, delighted at the improvement of the child, was more expansive
and loquacious than usual, being unable to hide his happiness, and
thinking everything was arranged according to his wishes. Josefina was
happy with her mother, he happy with Fernanda, and Amalia, being
resigned, would grant him a sweet affection that would get purer every
day.
She looked at him now with a certain quizzical curiosity.
When he had finished, she said, with a sarcastic smile:
"From the night you saw Fernanda in her splendid _recherche_ dress, this
feeling of conscience must have been insupportable."
The count smiled too, somewhat shamefacedly.
"Don't believe it, Amalia. I have always felt remorse. Certainly, on
getting old, one sees things more clearly. My beard is white in many
places, as you can see. That which is excusable in a youth as wildness,
as an irrepressible ebullition of vitality, becomes crime in an older
person. Love at my age ought not to clip the wings of reason, and if it
does, it merits the term of madness. My determination may be hard for
both of us. It is very trying to me; it costs me a good deal to break
loose from a _liaison_ that force of time has almost converted into a
habit. Besides, unfortunately, there exists a bond between us which is
impossible to break completely. Destiny has brought forth from the mire
of our sin a beautiful blossom, a sweet white lily. Let us remove the
stain from her brow, although she is the offspring of an unlawful
passion, do not let us corrupt her with our blameworthy conduct. Let us
make ourselves worthy of her by living like Christians."
"All this is very well, only I am sorry that this course of Christian
doctrine has come so late, and so simultaneous with the arrival of your
old _fiancee_ to the place, because it seems as if you had completely
forgotten your catechism, until she came to refresh your memory. But,
after all, it is not for me to interfere as it does not concern me. The
gist of it all is that you are going to marry. You do well. Man is badly
off alone, and when he finds a worthy companion like you have done, he
ought not to lose the opportunity. Fernanda is a very good girl; I am
sure that she will make you happy; you will have many sons, and after a
long and happy life you will go to heaven."
This state of resignation surprised Luis and he could not help feeling
somewhat taken aback.
"And you, too, will be happy?" he timidly asked.
"I? what does it signify if I am happy or unhappy?" she said, shrugging
her shoulders disdainfully.
"Don't say that, Amalia! Happiness is not that madness to which we have
given ourselves up these seven years. There is a taste of bitterness in
that, which I have noticed for some time and which you will soon
perceive. A pure, worthy life, a quiet conscience, and the esteem of
honourable persons will give you more pleasure than criminal passion.
Besides, you have what I have not; you have an angel with you, a
fragrant, beautiful lily that will sweeten your existence."
"Ah, yes, Josefina! Really, so she is to be the one who is to afford me
my only pleasant times in the future!"
This was said with such a strange inflexion of voice, so sharp and so
strident that Luis shivered.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I mean what I say, that it is fortunate I have Josefina to cheer me."
"But you say it in such a strange way."
The Valencian then gave a curious forced laugh of sinister sound that
came from the back of her throat.
Luis looked at her fixedly, getting more and more uneasy.
"But what a fool you are, Luis! How more than foolish! Egotism has so
blinded your eyes that you cannot see what is before you. If you were
twenty, this innocence might perhaps inspire me with pity, but at your
age it only fills me with scorn and derision. To think that three or
four insolent remarks on morality and conscience will suffice to make
me contentedly accept the humiliation you impose upon me; to suppose
that I, whom if you do not know, you ought to know, am going to consent
to be cast away like an old rag, that I am to crawl like an enamoured
slave at the feet of Fernanda, to serve her as a footstool when she
mounts to her couch, is the height of stupidity and nonsense. Why don't
you ask me to be bridesmaid at once?"
The count looked at her with dilated eyes full of anxiety and fear.
"So what I have heard of the tortures you have inflicted on our daughter
is true?"
"Quite true! And you do not yet know all. Look here, I am going to tell
you all, so that you may not say you are deceived."
Then, in a few incisive words, with a cruel satisfaction revealed in her
voice, she put before him the fearful picture of the pain and misery
suffered by the unhappy little creature during the last few months. The
account was infinitely more shocking than the one Maria, the ironer, had
given. The count, pale and overwhelmed, without making the slightest
movement, looked the picture of despair. He soon covered his face with
his hands, and so listened until the end.
"Oh, how infamous! oh, how infamous!" he groaned to himself.
"Yes, very infamous, but I hope to be more so. Have you heard all these
infamies? Then they are nothing compared to what I shall do."
"You shall not do it, you wicked woman!" exclaimed Luis. "I would sooner
strangle you with my own hands."
The Valencian rushed to the door.
"If you come a step nearer, I'll shriek!"
"Oh, infamous, infamous person!" exclaimed the count, again in a deep
voice, "and God allows such monsters upon the earth!"
He took a few steps back and cast himself again upon the sofa. He
rested his elbows on his knees, and put his head between his hands.
After some time he raised it saying:
"Well, what do you exact from me?"
Amalia took a step towards him.
"That which you ought to expect, if you have any common sense left. I
don't ask for our connection to continue, because at the pass we have
come to it is not possible; it would be like giving the lie to love, and
I have too much pride for that. But I do not want you or this woman to
make me a laughing-stock; I am not going to be made a subject of
derision to those who know of our connection: and those are all who
visit at the house. I demand as the condition of the child being as she
was, that you immediately break with Fernanda and think no more of her."
"But, Amalia," he exclaimed, in accents of misery, "you know quite well
it is impossible; my wedding is fixed; all Lancia knows it. Fernanda is
waiting for me in Madrid; only a few days are wanting----"
"And if only a minute were wanting, this wedding shall not take place.
If you marry Fernanda the child shall pay for the offence in the way you
know."
"Oh, I will prevent it. I will tell the authorities. I will ask for the
care of the child."
"This is only talking for talking sake, Luis," replied Amalia, calm and
smiling. "The authorities of Lancia are under the Quinones. Nobody would
dare say a word against me."
"If I refer the whole matter to Don Pedro."
"He will not believe you, and if he did believe you, instead of impeding
my revenge which is also his, he would help me."
A long silence then ensued. The count was plunged in thought with his
hand pressed against his brow. Suddenly he rose hastily, and walked up
and down the room in an agitated way.
"It cannot be! it cannot be!"
The Valencian followed him with her eyes. At last she said, as she
walked to the door:
"Good-bye."
The count retained her with a gesture. "Stop."
Amalia stopped motionless, with her hand on the latch of the door as her
piercing glance rested upon him.
The count went on walking for some time without paying any attention to
her.
"Very well," he said, in a hoarse voice, stopping short, "the marriage
shall not take place; you will tell me what I am to do."
His altered face evinced the calmness of despair.
"You will have to write a letter to Fernanda to bade her farewell."
"I will write it."
"Now, at once."
"Now, at once."
Amalia went to the stairs and asked Jacoba for a writing-case. As there
was no table there, she put it on the chest of drawers. The count
approached and began to write standing. Amalia approached too.
"This is what I want you to write to her."
It was the rough draft of the letter. The count cast his eye over it.
"My good friend Fernanda," it ran, "I wanted you to be away so as
to tell you in writing what would be beyond my powers to say to
you. I cannot be yours. It is not necessary to give you the reasons
because you will guess them. Would that I loved you enough to
ignore everything and fly with you! Unfortunately, or fortunately,
there are things that weigh on my heart more than love. Pardon me
for having deceived you and try to be happy as it is the wish of
your best friend.
"LUIS."
He traced the lines of this letter with a trembling hand, and before
finishing it, tears rose to his eyes.