A few days’ sojourn in Bayonne sufficed to alleviate greatly the pain of
Miranda’s foot and to make Pilar Gonzalvo and Lucía acquainted, and even
in some degree intimate with each other. Like Miranda, Pilar was on her
way to Vichy, with the difference that, while what Miranda required of
the waters was that they should eliminate the bile from his system, the
little Madridlenian was going to the health-giving springs in search of
particles of iron to enrich her blood and restore the brilliancy to her
lustrous eyes. Eager, like all people of weak and delicate organization,
for novelty and excitement, the new friendship with Lucía, the curious
incidents of the wedding journey, and the inspection of her bridal
finery, which Pilar looked at, article by article, examining the lace on
every jacket, the flounces on every dress, the initials on every
handkerchief, served to divert her greatly. Besides, the frank
simplicity of the Leonese offered a virgin and uncultivated soil in
which to plant the exotic flowers of fashion, and the poison weeds of
society scandal. Pilar, at the time we speak of twenty-three years old,
had the precocious malice characteristic of young girls who, connected
with the aristocracy, through their social relations, and belonging to
the middle class, through their antecedents, are familiar with society
in all its aspects, and can as easily discover who has given a
rendezvous to a duke as who it is that corresponds with the neighbor on
the third floor. Pilar Gonzalvo was tolerated in the distinguished
houses of Madrid. To be tolerated is one of the degrees of social
standing; to be received, as her brother was, is another degree; beyond
being tolerated and received is the highest degree of all--to be
courted; few enjoy the privilege of being courted; this being reserved
for the notabilities who are chary of their society, who allow
themselves to be seen once or twice a year; for the bankers and wealthy
men who give balls, entertainments, and midnight masses, with a supper
afterward; for beauties, during the brief and dazzling period of their
full efflorescence; for politicians during the time when they are in
power, like cards when they are trumps. There are cases of persons who
have been received and who suddenly find themselves courted for some
particular reason,--for inventing a new style of wearing the hair, on
account of a winning horse, a whispered scandal of which they are the
heroes, and which people fancy they can read in their faces.
Of these ephemeral successes Perico Gonzalvo had had many; his sister
not one, in spite of repeated efforts on her part to obtain one. She did
not succeed even in being tolerated or admitted. The world is wide for
men, but narrow, narrow for women. Pilar always felt the invisible
barrier that raised itself between her and those noblemen’s daughters
whose brothers associated so familiarly with Perico. Hence sprung up in
her breast a secret rancor that, struggling with admiration and envy,
produced the nervous irritation that undermined the health of the
Madridlenian. The fever of an unsatisfied desire, the pangs of wounded
vanity, destroyed the equilibrium of a not very healthy or well-balanced
organization. Like her brother, she had a skin of lymphatic whiteness,
whose many freckles she concealed with cosmetics; her eyes were blue and
expressive though not large, and her hair, which she had the art of
arranging becomingly, was fair. Her ears, at this time, seemed made of
wax, her thin lips appeared like a faint red line above the sallow chin,
her blue veins showed under the skin and her gums, pale and flaccid,
imparted to the sparse teeth the hue of old ivory. Spring had set in
for her under very unfavorable auspices; the Lenten concerts and the
last balls of the Easter holidays, of which she had not missed one, had
cost her palpitations of the heart every night, indescribable weariness
in the limbs, strange caprices of appetite; the anæmia was turning to
neurosis; and Pilar masticated, in secret, bits of the clay statuettes
that adorned the corner shelves of her dressing-room. She experienced
intolerable pains in the epigastrium, but in order not to interrupt her
amusements she was silent about all this. At last, as summer approached,
she resolved to speak of her ailments, thinking, not without reason,
that the malady offered a good pretext for taking a trip to the country,
in conformity with the canons of good society. Pilar lived with her
father and a paternal aunt, neither of whom was willing to accompany
her; the father, a superannuated magistrate, being reluctant to leave
the Bourse, where, on the sly, he speculated with moderation and
success; the widowed aunt dreading the dissipations which her niece was
no doubt planning as a part of the treatment. This task then devolved
upon Perico Gonzalvo, who accompanied his sister to El Sardinero,
counting upon finding there friends who would relieve him in his duties
as escort. And so it was; there were plenty of acquaintances at the
seashore, who undertook to keep Pilar constantly on the go and to take
her everywhere. But, unfortunately for Perico, the sea baths, which in
the beginning had been of service to his sister, ended, when she
indulged in them to excess, wishing to swim and display her skill in the
water, in inflicting serious injury on her delicate organization; and
she began once more to suffer from lassitude, to awaken bathed in
perspiration, to lose her appetite for plain food, while she ate
voraciously of dainties. What most terrified her was to see that her
hair had begun to fall out in handfuls. It enraged her every time she
combed it, and she would scream out to Perico and tell him to bring her
some remedy before she should become entirely bald. One day the
physician who attended her took her brother aside and said to him: “You
must be careful with your sister. Don’t let her take any more baths.”
“But is she seriously ill, seriously ill?” asked the young man, opening
his small eyes to their fullest extent.
“She may become so in a short time.”
“The devil, the devil, the devil! Do you think she has consumption,
consumption?”
“I do not say that. I do not think the lungs are affected as yet, but
the moment least expected there will be a determination of blood to
them, congestion will supervene and---- We see cases of that kind every
day. The blood is greatly impoverished. She has the pulse of a chicken
and there is present, besides, an extreme degree of nervous excitement,
which increases periodically, with profound gastric disturbance. If you
follow my advice you will avail yourselves of the autumn for a course of
mineral waters.”
“Panticosa, Panticosa?”
“In this case I think the iron springs of Vichy preferable. Anæmia is
the first enemy to be combatted, and the gastric symptoms are also
benefited by those waters. After Vichy come Aguas Buenas and
Puertollano; but attend to the matter at once. Within the last fortnight
she has lost ground, and the falling of the hair and the sweats are very
serious symptoms.”
And as Perico was going away with bent head, the doctor added:
“Above all, no excitement, no dancing, no swimming--mental
repose--neither music nor novels. Peasant women, afflicted with the
disease from which your sister is suffering, cure themselves with water
into which a handful of nails or old iron has been thrown. Civilization
tends to make everything artificial. If she wants to get well let her
not keep late hours, let her attend no entertainments;--a loose
corset--low heels----”
“Yes, yes, order the impossible, the impossible,” lisped Perico, under
his breath. “Ask my sister to give up a single one of her pleasures; she
would not do so though she knew Old Nick were to carry her off if she
refused.”
When Pilar heard the opinion of the Esculapius she threw her arms around
Perico’s neck in a transport of sisterly affection such as she had never
before manifested. She employed a thousand wiles to obtain her desire;
she grew gentle, obedient, prudent in all things, and promised all and
more than all that was asked of her.
“Periquin, precious, come, say that you will take me. Say that you will
take me, silly. There is no one in the world to be compared to you. What
Puertollano are you talking about? Let us go to France. How delightful!
It seems like a dream. What will Visitacion and the de Lomillos say when
they hear it! But you see, when the doctor orders it, it has to be done.
You think I am going to be in your way, hanging on to you all the time?
No, my dear boy, I shall find plenty of friends. Don’t you suppose there
will be some one there whom we know? I will manage, you shall see. I
will make a gown of gray holland, that will last me--Well, well, don’t
be waspish. I know that I must lead a regular life, of course, and go to
bed early--at eight, with the chickens. What more do you want? Ah, what
a treasure of a brother Heaven has bestowed upon me. No wonder all the
girls are dying of love for him!”
“Do you think, do you think that you are deceiving me with your
flatteries? Go, leave me in peace. I shall take you because it is
necessary, it is necessary; if I did not, who could put up with you, put
up with you next winter? But see that you behave sensibly, or I shall
throw all that confounded hair into the fire,--with all your efforts you
never look like a lady.”
Pilar swallowed the insult, as in such circumstances she would have
swallowed a much more disagreeable dose, and thought only of the
fashionable excursion which was to crown, with so much splendor, her
summer expedition. Gonzalvo senior, who, besides his half-pay, had some
private means, loosened his purse-strings on the occasion, not without
advising his daughter, however, to be prudent and economical. With
Perico’s affairs he never interfered; he made him a monthly allowance
and pretended not to see that Perico spent ten times as much as he
received, gave himself the airs of a prince, and never asked for an
increase in the sum given him.
Thus provided, the brother and sister set out from El Sardinero in
triumph for France. They rested at Bayonne, putting up at the Hotel St.
Étienne, where we had the honor of making their acquaintance. Perico
thought he saw the heavens open before him when he learned that Miranda
and his wife intended to go on to Vichy, and recognized that Lucía was
the person best suited to relieve him in the duty of bearing Pilar
company, and even of nursing her should it become necessary. He
accordingly encouraged the intimacy between the two women, and it was
arranged that they should all travel together to Vichy.
The details given by her brother concerning Lucía and Miranda sharpened
singularly the eager curiosity of the sick girl, and her keen scent
perceived romantic possibilities in the events that had happened to the
newly married pair. The brother and sister had conversed at length about
the matter, in half-finished phrases, venturing at times on some coarser
or more graphic expression than usual, with much laughter on both sides.
One of Lucía’s greatest pleasures was the conversations she occasionally
held with Perico, when the latter deigned to treat her, not as a child,
but as a grown woman, communicating to her certain details, anecdotes,
and events which, as a general thing, do not reach the ears of young
girls brought up with strictness and decorum. Perico and his sister, who
had no great amount of tenderness or affection for each other, had yet a
perfect understanding in the field of scandal, and at times the sister
completed the piquant phrase arrested on the lips of the brother by a
touch of the delicacy which the presence of a woman inspires in the man
least capable of delicacy. Pilar experienced an unhealthy enjoyment in
witnessing aspects of the cosmograma of life unknown to the noblemen’s
daughters so greatly envied by her, who, living in the cloistral
atmosphere of their palaces, watched over constantly by the mother or
the austere governess, bear on their brows, at the age of twenty-five,
the stamp of their haughty innocence.
“I went up to Artegui’s room,” said Perico to Pilar, “because, to tell
you the truth, to tell you the truth, my curiosity was aroused when I
heard he had a fine girl, a fine girl with him.”
“It was enough to arouse the curiosity of the statue of Mendizabal
itself. That Artegui, who has never been known to make a slip.”
“An eccentric fellow, an eccentric fellow. Rich as Crœsus and he
leads the life of a friar. If I had his money, his money--you should
see!”
“But tell me, don’t you think there is something between Artegui and
Lucía?”
“Pish, no,” said Perico, who, differing in this from his sister, was not
addicted to speaking ill of people unless they had given him some cause
of offense. “This Artegui has only milk in his veins, milk in his veins,
and I am very sure he has not said as much as that to her!” and he
snapped his thumb nail against the tip of his forefinger.
“The truth is that she has not a particle of style about her. But let us
come to facts, Periquin; did you not tell me that she was greatly
grieved and upset when he went away and Miranda came in afterward?”
“But put yourself in her place, put yourself in her place. Miranda
looked like a scarecrow----”
“No, I should not like to be in her place,” exclaimed Pilar, bursting
into a laugh.
“And then the idiot did what all coxcombs do when they are angry,”
continued Perico, laughing in his turn. “When he ought to have tried to
make himself agreeable, to say something to the poor girl, he launched
into a philippic against her because she did not return to Miranda de
Ebro, de Ebro, to take care of his dislocated foot. And then, it could
have happened to no one but him to faint for a dislocation and neglect
to telegraph to his wife to inform her of it. And he asked her with a
tragic air, ‘Where is your attentive companion gone to?’ The man was
heavenly.”
“You see, it is as I said, the husband is jealous. You are nothing but a
simpleton.”
“Child, child, child! No one can deceive me in those matters! I tell
you, I tell you, there was nothing between Artegui and Lucía, Lucía. I’d
bet a hundred dollars this moment, this moment----”
“And I,” insisted Pilar, with the clairvoyance of an invalid, “can
assure you that as far as she is concerned--as for him I have not seen
him, if I were to see him I should know--but as for her, I heard her
heave sigh after sigh--and they were not for Miranda. She is pensive at
times, and then again she brightens and laughs and is like a child.”
“Bah, bah, bah! I don’t say that in her secret heart--but you know
nothing about those matters, and I can assure you that as for there
being anything between them, there was nothing of the kind. I ought to
know.”
“And I too,” persisted Pilar. “Well, we are both right. There is nothing
between them, but she is--what is it they say of pigeons?--struck on
the wing.”
“Bah, bah!” said Perico again, manifesting in this way his contempt for
everything like sentiment, illusion, or the like romantic nonsense.
“That is of no consequence, that is of no consequence. Miranda will be
lucky if nothing worse awaits him than that. It is a piece of stupidity,
a piece of stupidity to dislocate one’s foot and be obliged to wait two
days to have it set, to have it set, leaving one’s bride to travel about
the world alone. It is charming, charming. What vexes him most is that
it should be known, be known--I tease him----”
“No, see here, don’t make him angry. You know they have come to us as if
they had dropped down from heaven.”
“Don’t worry, child; don’t worry. The truth of the matter is that
Miranda cannot live, cannot live without me, because he is bored to
death; and no one but me can drive away the spleen, the spleen, the
spleen, talking to him of his conquests. And he looks like a piece of
putty. He would need to drink half Vichy to cure him--To begin cutting
capers at his age, at his age----”
It was not spleen that was the matter with Miranda, however; it was the
affection of the liver, greatly aggravated by anger caused by the
ridiculous adventure which had cut short the wedding trip. His temples
had a greenish hue, the shadows under his eyes were purple, the bile had
imparted a yellow tinge to the skin; and, as the proximity of a new
house makes old houses look still older, so did Lucía’s youthful bloom
emphasize the deterioration in her husband. The enchanting transition
from girlhood to womanhood was now taking place in Lucía; her movements,
slower and more composed, were more graceful than formerly, while in him
maturity was fast passing into old age, rather because of physical decay
than of years. The stronger the evidence he gave of failing health, the
deeper the traces left upon his countenance by suffering, the more
tender and affectionate did Lucía show herself toward him. A certain
moroseness, a certain inexplicable harshness on the part of Miranda, did
not discourage her in her task; she waited upon him with the solicitude
of a daughter; she spoke to him affectionately; she herself prepared his
medicines and bandaged the injured foot with the pious care she might
have displayed in dressing the image of a saint; she was happy, touched
even, if he but found the bandage properly adjusted. At last, Miranda
was able to walk without risk. Dislocations are not generally attended
by serious consequences, although at Miranda’s age they are apt to be
somewhat obstinate. He was soon pronounced cured, and the whole party
prepared to set out for Vichy.
The season was advancing; it was now almost the middle of September, and
to wait longer would be to expose themselves to the persistent rains of
that place. At Miranda’s request, the landlord wrote to the Springs to
engage lodgings. With a verbosity peculiarly French he tried to convince
Miranda and Perico that they ought to hire a _châlet_ in order to save
the ladies the annoying familiarity of the hotel table, and make them
feel as if they were at home. Divided between the two families the
expense would not be excessive, and the advantages would be many. This
was agreed upon, and Miranda asked for his bill at the hotel, which was
brought to him, written in almost illegible characters. When he had
succeeded in deciphering them he sent for the landlady.
“There is an error here,” he said, putting his finger on the scrawl,
“you have made a mistake against yourself. You have made out my wife’s
bill for the same number of days as mine, while in reality it should be
made out for two days more.”
“Two days more?” repeated the landlady reflectively.
“Yes, Señora, was she not here two days before I came?”
“Ah, you are right--but Monsieur Artegui paid for those days.”
Lucía, who, at the time, was folding some articles of clothing
preparatory to packing her trunk, turned her head suddenly, like a bird
at the fowler’s call. Her face was pale.
“Paid!” repeated Miranda, in whose lackluster eyes flashed a short-lived
spark. “Paid! and by what right did he pay for them, Señora, I should
like to know?”
“Señor, that does not concern me” (_ce n’est pas mon affaire_),
exclaimed the landlady, having recourse, the better to explain her
meaning, to her native tongue. “I receive travelers, is it not so? A
lady and a gentleman arrive, is it not so? The gentleman pays me for the
time the lady has been here, when he takes his departure, and I do not
ask if he has the right to pay me or not. Is it not so? He pays, and
that is all (_voilà tout_).
“Well,” said Miranda, raising his voice, “this lady’s bills are paid by
me and by no one else, and you will do me the favor to send a check
to--that gentleman, returning him the amount he has paid.”
“The gentleman will be so kind to excuse me,” protested the landlady,
slaughtering the Spanish language, without compunction, in her
confusion. “I must decline to do what the gentleman asks; I am truly
desolate, but this cannot be done; this has never been done in our
house. It would be an offense, a serious offense, and Monsieur de
Artegui would have much reason to complain. I beg the gentleman’s
pardon.”
“Go to the devil!” answered Miranda in excellent Spanish, at the same
time turning his back upon his interlocutor, and forgetting, as was
usual with him when he was annoyed, his artificial politeness in his
mortification at the landlady’s refusal to comply with his wishes.
Lucía on this night, too, bandaged Miranda’s foot, now almost well. She
did it with her accustomed lightness of touch and skill, but, as she
placed her husband’s foot upon her knee, the better to arrange the
compress and secure the elastic bands around the joint, she did not
smile as formerly. In silence she performed her task of mercy, and on
rising from the ground she breathed a light sigh, such a sigh as one
breathes after completing some task fatiguing alike to mind and body.