NIGHT
Orbajosa slept. The melancholy street-lamps were shedding their last
gleams at street-corners and in by-ways, like tired eyes struggling in
vain against sleep. By their dim light, wrapped in their cloaks, glided
past like shadows, vagabonds, watchmen, and gamblers. Only the hoarse
shout of the drunkard or the song of the serenader broke the peaceful
silence of the historic city. Suddenly the “Ave Maria Purisima” of some
drunken watchman would be heard, like a moan uttered in its sleep by the
town.
In Doña Perfecta’s house also silence reigned, unbroken but for a
conversation which was taking place between Don Cayetano and Pepe Rey,
in the library of the former. The savant was seated comfortably in
the arm-chair beside his study table, which was covered with papers
of various kinds containing notes, annotations, and references, all
arranged in the most perfect order. Rey’s eyes were fixed on the heap of
papers, but his thoughts were doubtless far away from this accumulated
learning.
“Perfecta,” said the antiquary, “although she is an excellent woman, has
the defect of allowing herself to be shocked by any little act of folly.
In these provincial towns, my dear friend, the slightest slip is dearly
paid for. I see nothing particular in your having gone to the Troyas’
house. I fancy that Don Inocencio, under his cloak of piety, is
something of a mischief-maker. What has he to do with the matter?”
“We have reached a point, Señor Don Cayetano, in which it is necessary
to take a decisive resolution. I must see Rosario and speak with her.”
“See her, then!”
“But they will not let me,” answered the engineer, striking the table
with his clenched hand. “Rosario is kept a prisoner.”
“A prisoner!” repeated the savant incredulously. “The truth is that I do
not like her looks or her hair, and still less the vacant expression
in her beautiful eyes. She is melancholy, she talks little, she
weeps--friend Don José, I greatly fear that the girl may be attacked by
the terrible malady to which so many of the members of my family have
fallen victims.”
“A terrible malady! What is it?”
“Madness--or rather mania. Not a single member of my family has been
free from it. I alone have escaped it.”
“You! But leaving aside the question of madness,” said Rey, with
impatience, “I wish to see Rosario.”
“Nothing more natural. But the isolation in which her mother keeps
her is a hygienic measure, dear Pepe, and the only one that has been
successfully employed with the various members of my family. Consider
that the person whose presence and voice would make the strongest
impression on Rosarillo’s delicate nervous system is the chosen of her
heart.”
“In spite of all that,” insisted Pepe, “I wish to see her.”
“Perhaps Perfecta will not oppose your doing so,” said the savant,
giving his attention to his notes and papers. “I don’t want to take any
responsibility in the matter.”
The engineer, seeing that he could obtain nothing from the good
Polentinos, rose to retire.
“You are going to work,” he said, “and I will not trouble you any
longer.”
“No, there is time enough. See the amount of precious information that
I collected to-day. Listen: ‘In 1537 a native of Orbajosa, called
Bartolome del Hoyo, went to Civita-Vecchia in one of the galleys of
the Marquis of Castel Rodrigo.’ Another: ‘In the same year two brothers
named Juan and Rodrigo Gonzalez del Arco embarked in one of the six
ships which sailed from Maestricht on the 20th of February, and which
encountered in the latitude of Calais an English vessel and the Flemish
fleet commanded by Van Owen.’ That was truly an important exploit of
our navy. I have discovered that it was an Orbajosan, one Mateo Diaz
Coronel, an ensign in the guards, who, in 1709, wrote and published
in Valencia the ‘Metrical Encomium, Funeral Chant, Lyrical Eulogy,
Numerical Description, Glorious Sufferings, and Sorrowful Glories of the
Queen of the Angels.’ I possess a most precious copy of this work, which
is worth the mines of Peru. Another Orbajosan was the author of that
famous ‘Treatise on the Various Styles of Horsemanship’ which I
showed you yesterday; and, in short, there is not a step I take in the
labyrinth of unpublished history that I do not stumble against some
illustrious compatriot. It is my purpose to draw all these names out of
the unjust obscurity and oblivion in which they have so long lain. How
pure a joy, dear Pepe, to restore all their lustre to the glories, epic
and literary, of one’s native place! And how could a man better employ
the scant intellect with which Heaven has endowed him, the fortune which
he has inherited, and the brief period of time on earth allowed to even
the longest life. Thanks to me it will be seen that Orbajosa is the
illustrious cradle of Spanish genius. But what do I say? Is not its
illustrious ancestry evident in the nobleness and high-mindedness of
the present Urbs Augustan generation? We know few places where all the
virtues, unchoked by the malefic weeds of vice, grow more luxuriantly.
Here all is peace, mutual respect, Christian humility. Charity is
practised here as it was in Biblical times; here envy is unknown; here
the criminal passions are unknown, and if you hear thieves and murderers
spoken of, you may be sure that they are not the children of this
noble soil; or, that if they are, they belong to the number of unhappy
creatures perverted by the teachings of demagogues. Here you will see
the national character in all its purity--upright, noble, incorruptible,
pure, simple, patriarchal, hospitable, generous. Therefore it is that
I live so happy in this solitude far from the turmoil of cities where,
alas! falsehood and vice reign. Therefore it is that the many friends
whom I have in Madrid have not been able to tempt me from this place;
therefore it is that I spend my life in the sweet companionship of my
faithful townspeople and my books, breathing the wholesome atmosphere of
integrity, which is gradually becoming circumscribed in our Spain to the
humble and Christian towns that have preserved it with the emanations of
their virtues. And believe me, my dear Pepe, this peaceful isolation has
greatly contributed to preserve me from the terrible malady connatural
in my family. In my youth I suffered, like my brothers and my father,
from a lamentable propensity to the most absurd manias; but here you
have me so miraculously cured that all I know of the malady is what I
see of it in others. And it is for that reason that I am so uneasy about
my little niece.”
“I am rejoiced that the air of Orbajosa has proved so beneficial to
you,” said Rey, unable to resist the jesting mood that, by a strange
contradiction, came over him in the midst of his sadness. “With me it
has agreed so badly that I think I shall soon become mad if I remain in
it. Well, good-night, and success to your labors.”
“Good-night.”
Pepe went to his room, but feeling neither a desire for sleep or the
need of physical repose,--on the contrary, a violent excitation of mind
which impelled him to move, to act,--he walked up and down the room,
torturing himself with useless cavilling. After a time he opened the
window which overlooked the garden and, leaning his elbows on the
parapet, he gazed out on the limitless darkness of the night. Nothing
could be seen, but he who is absorbed in his own thoughts sees with the
mental vision, and Pepe Rey, his eyes fixed on the darkness, saw the
varied panorama of his misfortunes unroll itself upon it before him. The
obscurity did not permit him to see the flowers of the earth, nor those
of the heavens, which are the stars. The very absence of light produced
the effect of an illusory movement in the masses of foliage, which
seemed to stretch away, to recede slowly, and come curling back like the
waves of a shadowy sea. A vast flux and reflux, a strife between forces
vaguely comprehended, agitated the silent sky. The mathematician,
contemplating this strange projection of his soul upon the night, said
to himself:
“The battle will be terrible. Let us see who will come out of it
victorious.”
The nocturnal insects whispered in his ear mysterious words. Here
a shrill chirp; there a click, like the click made with the tongue;
further on, plaintive murmurs; in the distance a tinkle like that of
the bell on the neck of the wandering ox. Suddenly Rey heard a strange
sound, a rapid note, that could be produced only by the human tongue and
lips. This sibilant breathing passed through the young man’s brain like
a flash of lightning. He felt that swift “s-s-s” dart snake-like through
him, repeated again and then again, with augmented intensity. He looked
all around, then he looked toward the upper part of the house, and he
fancied that in one of the windows he could distinguish an object like
a white bird flapping its wings. Through Pepe Rey’s excited mind flashed
instantly the idea of the phoenix, of the dove, of the regal heron, and
yet the bird he saw was noting more than a handkerchief.
The engineer sprang from the balcony into the garden. Observing
attentively, he saw the hand and the face of his cousin. He thought
he could perceive the gesture commonly employed of imposing silence by
laying the finger on the lips. Then the dear shade pointed downward and
disappeared. Pepe Rey returned quickly to this room, entered the hall
noiselessly, and walked slowly forward. He felt his heart beat with
violence. He waited for a few moments, and at last he heard distinctly
light taps on the steps of the stairs. One, two, three--the sounds were
produced by a pair of little shoes.
He walked in the direction whence they proceeded, and stretched out
his hands in the obscurity to assist the person who was descending the
stairs. In his soul there reigned an exalted and profound tenderness,
but--why seek to deny it--mingling with this tender feeling, there
suddenly arose within him, like an infernal inspiration, another
sentiment, a fierce desire for revenge. The steps continued to descend,
coming nearer and nearer. Pepe Rey went forward, and a pair of hands,
groping in the darkness, came in contact with his own. The two pairs of
hands were united in a close clasp.