The elections set the whole District agog. The crucial moment for the
House of Brull had come, and all its loyal henchmen, as though still
uncertain of the Party's omnipotence, and fearing the sudden appearance
of hidden enemies, were running this way and that about the city and the
outlying towns, shouting Rafael's name as a clarion call to victory.
The inundation was something of the forgotten past. The beneficent sun
had dried the fields. The orchards fertilized by the silt of the recent
flood looked more beautiful than ever. A magnificent harvest was
forecasted, and, as sole reminders of the catastrophe, there remained
only a shattered enclosure here, a fallen fence there, or some sunken
road with the banks washed away. Most of the damage had been repaired in
a few days, and people were quite content, referring to the past danger
jokingly. Until next time!
Besides, plenty of relief money had been given out. Help had come from
Valencia, from Madrid, from every corner of Spain, thanks to the
whimpering publicity given the inundation in the local press; and since
the pious believer must attribute all his boons to the protection of
some patron saint, the peasants thanked Rafael and his mother for this
alms, resolving to be more faithful than ever to the powerful family.
So--long live the Father of the Poor!
Doña Bernarda's ambitious dreams were on the point of realization, and
she could not give herself a moment's rest. Her son's cool indifference
was something she could not understand for the life of her! The District
was his all right, but was that a reason for falling asleep on the job?
Who could tell what the "enemies of law and order"--there was more than
one of them in the city--might spring at the very last moment? No, he
must wake up--go and make a speech--now at this town, now at that--and
say a few words of encouragement to the people of property, especially.
And why not visit the _alcalde_, down in X---, just to show that poor
devil he was being taken seriously. Rafael must show himself in public,
keep everybody talking about him and thinking about him!
And Rafael obeyed, but taking good care to avoid the company of don
Andrés on such trips, in order to spend a few hours at the Blue House on
the way out or back, or else, to cut his engagement altogether and pass
the day with Leonora, trembling to return home lest his mother should
have learned what he had been up to.
Doña Bernarda, in fact, had not been slow in detecting her son's new
friendship. To begin with, her one concern in life was Rafael's health
and conduct. And in that gossipy inquisitive country-town, her son could
do virtually nothing which she did not know all about in the course of a
few hours. An indiscreet remark of Cupido had even brought her to the
bottom of that mysterious and perilous night trip down the flooded
river--not to rescue a "poor family," but to call on that
_comica_--that "chorus girl"--as doña Bernarda called Leonora in a
furious burst of scorn. Stormy scenes occurred that were to leave a
strong undercurrent of bitterness and fear in Rafael's character. Doña
Bernarda's harshness of disposition broke the young man's spirit, making
him realize with what good reason he had always feared his mother. That
uncompromising pietist, with her armorplate of impeccable virtue and
"sound principles" about her, crushed him flat with her very first
words. What in the world was he thinking of? Was he bound to dishonor
the name of Brull? Now after so many, many years of family sacrifice,
was he going to make a fool of himself, and give his enemies a hold on
him, just because of the first ballet-skirt that came along? And in her
rage she did not hesitate to rend the veil of reticence behind which her
conjugal fury and her conjugal unhappiness had run their parallel
courses.
"The same as your father!" doña Bernarda exclaimed. "There's no escaping
blood: a woman-chaser, a friend of low-lives, ready to drive me out of
house and home for the sake of any one of them ... and I, big fool that
I am, work for men like that! Forgetting the salvation of my soul in the
next world to see you get farther along in this than your father did!...
And how do you repay me? Just as he did; with one disappointment, one
irritation, after another!"
Then softening somewhat and feeling the need of imparting her great
plans for the future, she would pass from anger to friendly confidence,
and give Rafael insight into the condition of the family. He was so busy
with Party affairs, and thumbing his big books upstairs, that he did
not know how things were going at home. And he didn't need to know for
that matter: she was there to take care of that. But Rafael must realize
the gaps that had been opened in their fortune by his father's wild
conduct just before he died. She was performing miracles of economy.
Thanks to her efficient administration of affairs, and to the loyal aid
of don Andrés, many debts had already been paid off, and she had
redeemed several mortgages. But the burden was a heavy one and it would
still be many years before she could call herself quite free of it.
Besides--and as doña Bernarda came to this part of her talk she grew
tenderer and more insinuating still--he was now the leading man of the
District and so he must be the wealthiest. Now that wouldn't be a
difficult thing to manage. All he had to do was, be a good son, and
follow the advice of his mama, who loved him more than anything else in
the world... A deputy now, and later on, when he came back from Madrid,
marry! There were plenty of good girls around--well brought up, educated
in the fear of the Lord--and millionairesses besides--who would be more
than glad to be his wife.
Rafael smiled faintly at this harangue. He knew whom his mother had in
mind--Remedios, the daughter of the richest man in town--a rustic, the
latter, with more luck than brains, who flooded the English markets with
oranges and made enormous profits, circumventing by instinctive
shrewdness all the commercial combinations made against him.
That was why Rafael's mother was always insistently urging her son to
visit the house of Remedios, inventing all sorts of pretexts to get him
there. Besides, doña Bernarda invited Remedios to the Brull place
frequently, and rarely indeed did Rafael come home of an afternoon
without finding that timid maiden there--a dull, handsomish sort of
girl, dressed up in clothes that did cruel injustice to a peasant beauty
rapidly transformed, by her father's good luck, into a young "society"
girl.
"But, mama," said Rafael, smiling. "I'm not thinking of marriage!... And
when I do, I'll have to consider my own feelings."
After that interview a moral gulf had opened between mother and son. As
a child, Rafael had known his mother to frown and sulk after some
mischievous prank of his. But now, her aggressive, menacing,
uncommunicative glumness was prolonged for days and days.
On returning home at night he would find himself subjected to a
searching cross-examination that would last all during supper. Don
Andrés would usually be present, though he did not dare raise his head
when that masterful woman spoke. Where had he been? Whom had he seen?...
Rafael felt himself surrounded by a system of espionage that followed
him wherever he went in the city or in the country.
"No sir, today you were at the chorus-girl's house again!... Take care,
Rafael! Mark my word! You're killing me, you're killing me ...!"
And then those absurd clandestine trips to the Blue House began, the
leading man of the district, the advocate of Alcira's fortunes, creeping
on his stomach, skulking from bush to bush, in order not to be seen by
telltale observers!
Don Andrés did his best to console the irate woman. It was just a
passing whim of Rafael's! Boys will be boys! You've got to let them have
a good time now and then! What do you expect with a handsome fellow like
that and from the best family in the region! And the cynical old man,
accustomed to easy conquests in the suburbs, blinked maliciously, taking
it for granted that Rafael had won a complete triumph down at the Blue
House. How else explain the youth's assiduity in his visits there, and
his timid though tenacious rebelliousness against his mother's
authority?
"Such affairs, oh you enjoy them--what's the use! But in the end they
weary a fellow, doña Bernarda," the old man said sententiously. "She'll
be clearing out some fine day. Besides, just let Rafael go to Madrid as
deputy, and see the society there! When he comes back he'll have
forgotten this woman ever existed!"
The faithful lieutenant of the Brulls would have been astonished to know
how little Rafael was progressing with his suit.
Leonora was not the woman that she had shown herself on the night of the
flood. With the fascination of danger gone, the novelty of the
adventure, and the extraordinary circumstances of their second
interview, she treated Rafael with a kindly indifference like any other
of the adorers who had flocked about her in her day. She had come to
look upon him as a new piece of furniture that she found in place in
front of her every afternoon; an automaton, who appeared as regularly as
a clock strikes, to spend hours and hours staring at her, pale,
shrinking with an absurd consciousness of inferiority, and often
answering her questions with stupid phrases that made her laugh.
Her irony and deliberate frankness wounded Rafael cruelly. "Hello,
Rafaelito," she would say sometimes as he came in. "You here again?
Better look out! People will be talking about us before long. Then what
will mama say to you?" And Rafael would be stung to the quick. What a
disgrace, to be tied to a mother's apron-strings, and have to stoop to
all those subterfuges to visit this place without raising a rumpus at
home!
But try as he would, meanwhile, he could not shake off the spell that
Leonora was exercising over him.
Besides, what wonderful afternoons when she deigned to be good!
Sometimes, wearied with walks about the open country, and bored, as
might have been expected of a frivolous, fickle character like hers,
with the monotony of the landscape of orange-trees and palms, she would
take refuge in her parlor, and sit down at the piano! With the hushed
awe of a pious worshipper, Rafael would take a chair in a corner, and
gluing his eyes upon those two majestic shoulders over which curly
tresses fell like golden plumes, he would listen to her rich, sweet,
mellow voice as it blended with the languishing chords of the piano;
while through the open windows the breath of the murmurous orchard made
its way drenched in the golden light of autumn, saturated with the
seasoned perfume of the ripe oranges that peered with faces of fire
through the festoons of leaves.
Shubert, with his moody romances, was her favorite composer. The
melancholy of that sad music had a peculiar fascination for her in her
solitude. Her passionate, tumultuous soul seemed to fall into a
languorous enervation under the fragrance of the orange blossoms. At
times, she would be assailed by sudden recollections of triumphs on the
stage, and on such occasions, setting the piano ringing with the sublime
fury of the Valkyries' Ride, she would begin to shout Brunhilde's
"Hojotojo," the impetuous, savage war-cry of Wotan's daughter--a
melodious scream with which she had brought many an audience to its
feet, and which, in that deserted paradise, made Rafael shudder and
admire, as if the singer were some strange divinity--a blond goddess
with green eyes, wont to charge across the ice-fields through whirlwinds
of driving snow, but who, there, in a land of sunshine, had deigned to
become a simple, an entrancing woman!
And then again, throwing her beautiful body back in her chair, as if in
her mind's eye she could see some old palatial hall festooned with
roses, and in it a maze of hoop skirts, powdered wigs, and red heels,
whirling in the dance, she would brush the keys with a minuet by Mozart,
as subtly fragrant as priceless perfume, as seductive as the smile of a
painted princess with beauty-patches and false dimples!
Rafael had not forgotten the first night of their friendship, nor the
fingers that had been offered to his lips in that selfsame parlor. Once
he was moved to repeat the scene, and bending low over the keys, had
tried to kiss Leonora's hand.
The actress started, as if awakening from a dream. Her eyes flashed
angrily, though her lips did not lose their smile; and she raised her
hand threateningly, with all its fantastic glitter of jewelry, and
pretended to strike at him:
"Take care, Rafael; you're a child and I'll treat you as such. You
already know that I don't like to be annoyed. I won't send you away this
time, but if you do it again, you'll get a good cuffing. Don't forget
that when I want my hand kissed I begin by giving it voluntarily. What a
nuisance! Such a thing happens only once in a life-time.... But, I
understand: no more music for today; it's all over! I'll have to
entertain the little boy so's he won't fuss."
And she began to tell him stories of her professional career, which
Rafael at once appraised as new progress toward intimacy with the divine
beauty.
He looked over her pictures for the various operas in which she had
sung; a rich collection of beautiful photographs, with studio signatures
in almost every European tongue, some of them in strange alphabets that
Rafael could not identify. That pale, mystic Elizabeth of _Tannhäuser_
had been taken in Milan; that ideal, romantic Elsa of _Lohengrin_, in
Munich; here was a wide-eyed, bourgeois Eva from _die Meistersinger_,
photographed in Vienna; there a proud arrogant Brunhilde, with hostile,
flashing eyes, that bore the imprint of St. Petersburg. And there were
other souvenirs of seasons at Covent Garden, at the San Carlos of
Lisbon, the Scala of Milan, and opera houses of New York and Rio de
Janeiro.
As Rafael handled the large pasteboard mountings, he felt much like a
boy watching strange steamers entering a harbor and scattering the
perfumes of distant, mysterious lands all around. Each picture seemed
to wrap him in the atmosphere of its country, and from that peaceful
salon, murmuring with the breathing of the silent orchard, he seemed to
be traveling all over the earth.
The photographs were all of the same characters--heroines of Wagner.
Leonora, a fanatic worshipper of the German genius, was ever speaking of
him in terms of intimate familiarity, as if she had known him
personally, and wished to sing no operas but his. And in her eager
desire to compass all the Master's work, she did not hesitate to
compromise her reputation for power and vigor by attempting roles of
lighter or tenderer vein.
Rafael gazed at the portraits one by one; here she seemed emaciated,
wan, as if she had just recovered from an illness; there, she was strong
and proud, as if challenging the world with her beauty.
"Oh, Rafael!" she murmured pensively. "Life isn't all gaiety. I have had
my stormy times like everybody else. I have lived centuries, it seems,
and these strips of cardboard are chapters of my life-story."
And while she surrendered to a dreamy re-living of the past, Rafael
would go into ecstasies over a picture of Brunhilde, a beautiful
photograph which he had more than once thought of stealing.
That Brunhilde was Leonora herself; the arrogant Valkyrie, the strong,
the valiant Amazon, capable of trying to beat him for the slightest
unwarranted liberty he took--and of doing it besides. Beneath the helmet
of polished steel, with its two wings of white plumes, her blond locks
fell, while a savage flash glittered in her green eyes, and her
nostrils seemed to palpitate with indomitable fierceness. A cloak fell
from her shoulders that were round, muscular, powerful. A steel coat of
mail curved outward around her magnificent bust, and her bare arms, one
holding the lance, and the other resting on a burnished shield, as
shining and luminous as a sheet of crystal, showed vigor and strength
under feminine grace of line. There she was in all her goddess-like
majesty--the Pallas of a mythology of the North, as beautiful as
heroism, as terrible as war. Rafael could understand the mad enthusiasm,
the electrified commotion of her audiences as they saw her stepping out
among the rocks of painted canvas, setting the boards a-tremble with her
lithe footsteps, rudely raising her lance and shield above the white
wings of her helmet and shouting the cry of the Valkyries--"_Hojotoho!_"
which, repeated in the green tranquility of that Valencian orchard,
seemed to make the lanes of foliage quiver with a tremor of admiring
ecstasy.
Across the whole world, and everywhere in triumph, that whimsical,
adventuresome, madcap woman, of whose life as an actress so many stories
were told, had carried the arrogance of the virgin warrior-maid
conceived by the master Wagner. In a bulky book, of uneven irregular
pages, where the singer with the minute conscientiousness of a child,
had preserved everything the newspapers of the globe had written about
her, Rafael found echos of her stormy ovations. Many of the printed
clippings were yellow with age, but they could still evoke before his
dazzled eyes, visions of theaters packed with elegant, sensuous women,
as beautiful as Wotan's daughter in the coat-of-mail; atmospheres hot
with light and enthusiasm, a-glitter with sparkling jewels and
sparkling eyes; and in the background, with her helmet and her lance,
the dominating Valkyrie herself greeted with frantic applause and
limitless admiration.
In the collection were newspaper reproductions of the singer's
photographs, biographical notices, critical articles relating to the
triumphs of the celebrated _diva_ Leonora Brunna--for such was the stage
name adopted by Doctor Moreno's daughter--clipping after clipping
printed in Castilian or South American Spanish; columns of the clear,
close print of English papers; paragraphs on the coarse, thin paper of
the French and Italian press; compact masses of Gothic characters, which
troubled Rafael's eyes, and unintelligible Russian letters, that, to
him, looked like whimsical scrawls of a childish hand. And all in praise
of Leonora, one universal tribute to the talent of that woman, who was
looked upon so scornfully by the citified peasants of the boy's native
town. A divinity, indeed! And Rafael felt a growing hatred and contempt
for the gross, uncouth virtue of those who had left her in a social
vacuum. Why had she come to Alcira, anyway? What could possibly have led
her to abandon a world of triumphs, where she was admired by everyone,
for the life, virtually, of a barnyard?
Later she showed him some of her more personal mementoes; jewels of rare
beauty, expensive baubles, "testimonials," reminiscent of "evenings of
honor," when admirers had surprised her in the green room while outside
the audience was applauding wildly, and she, lowering her lance, and
surrounded by ushers with huge bouquets, would step forward to the
footlights and make her bow of acknowledgment, under a deluge of tinsel
and flowers. One medallion bore the portrait of the venerable don Pedro
of Brazil, the artist-emperor, who paid tribute to the singer in a
greeting written in diamonds. Gem-incrusted frames of gold spoke of
enthusiasts who perhaps had begun by desiring the woman to resign
themselves in the end to admiration for the artist. Here was a
collection of illuminated diplomas from charitable societies thanking
her for assistance at benefits. Queen Victoria of England had given her
a fan with an autograph dated from a concert at Windsor Castle. From
Isabel II came a royal bracelet, as a souvenir of various evenings at
the Castilla Palace in Paris. Millionaires, princes, grand-dukes,
presidents of Spanish-American republics, had left a whole museum of
costly trinkets at her feet. Characteristic of adorers from the United
States, where people always temper enthusiasm with usefulness, were a
number of portfolios, their bindings much worn by time, containing
railroad shares, land titles, stocks in enterprises of varying
stability, suggesting the rambles of the American promotor from the
prairies of Canada to the pampas of the Argentine.
In the presence of all the trophies that the arrogant Valkyrie had
gathered in on her triumphal passage through the world, Rafael felt
pride, first of all, at being friends with such a woman; but at the same
time a sense of his own insignificance, exaggerating, if anything, the
difference that separated them. How in the world had he ever dared make
love to a person like Leonora Brunna?
Finally came the most interesting, the most intimate of all her
treasures--an album which she allowed him hurriedly to glimpse through,
forbidding him, however, even to look at certain of the pages. It was a
volume modestly bound in dark leather with silver clasps; but Rafael
gazed upon it as on a wonderful fetish, and with all the awe-struck
adoration inspired by great names. Kings and emperors were the least
among the celebrities who had knelt in homage before the goddess. The
overshadowing geniuses of art were there, dedicating a word of
affection, a line of verse, a bar of music, to the beautiful songstress.
Rafael stared in open-mouthed wonderment at the signatures of the old
Verdi and of Boito. Then came the younger masters, of the new Italian
school, noisy and triumphant with the clamor of art brought within range
of the mob. In gallant phrases the Frenchmen, Massenet and Saint-Saens,
paid their respects to the greatest interpreter of the greatest of
composers; Rafael could decipher what was in Italian, scenting the sweet
perfume of Latin adulation despite the fact that he scarcely knew the
language. A sonnet by Illica moved him actually to tears. Other
inscriptions were meaningless to him--the lines from Hans Keller,
especially, the great orchestral conductor, disciple and confidant of
Wagner, the artistic executor, charged with watching over the master's
glory--that Hans Keller of whom Leonora was speaking all the time with
the fondness of a woman and the admiration of an artist--all of which
did not prevent her from adding that he was "a barbarian." Stanzas in
German, in Russian and in English, which, as the singer re-read them
brought a contented smile to her features, Rafael, to his great
despair, could not induce her to translate.
"Those are matters you wouldn't understand. Go on to the next page. I
mustn't make you blush."
And that was the only explanation she would give--as though he were a
child.
Some Italian verses, written in a tremulous hand and in crooked lines,
attracted Rafael's attention. He could half make their meaning out, but
Leonora would never let him finish reading them. It was an amorous,
desperate lament; a cry of racking passion condemned to disappointment,
writhing in isolation like a wild beast in its cage: Luigi Macchia.
"And who is Luigi Macchia?" asked Rafael. "Why such despair?"
"He was a young fellow from Naples," Leonora answered, at last, one
afternoon, in a sad voice, and turning her head, as if to conceal the
tears that had come to her eyes. "One day they found him under the pine
trees of Posilipo, with a bullet through his head. He wanted to die, you
see, and he killed himself.... But put all this aside and let's go down
to the garden. I need a breath of air."
They sauntered along the avenue that was bordered with rose-bushes, and
several minutes went by before either of them spoke. Leonora seemed
quite absorbed in her thoughts. Her brows were knitted and her lips
pressed tightly together, as if she were suffering the sting of painful
recollections.
"Suicide!" she said at last. "Doesn't that seem a silly thing to do,
Rafael? Kill yourself for a woman? Just as if we women were obliged to
love every man who thinks he's in love with us!... How stupid men are!
We have to be their servants, love them willy-nilly. And if we don't,
they kill themselves just to spite us."
And she was silent for a time.
"Poor Macchia! He was a good boy, and deserved to be happy. But if I
were to surrender to every desperate protestation made to me!...
However, he went and did just what he said he would do.... How crazy
they get! And the worst of it is, I have found others like him in my
travels."
She explained no farther. Rafael gazed at her, but respected her
silence, trying in vain to guess the thoughts that were stirring behind
her shining eyes, as green and golden as the sea under a noonday sun.
What a wealth of romance must be hidden in that woman's past! What
tragedies must have been woven into the checkered fabric of her
wonderful career!...
So the days went by, and election time came around. Rafael, in passive
rebellion against his mother, who rarely spoke a word to him now, had
completely neglected the campaign. But on the decisive Sunday he
triumphed completely, and Rafael Brull, Deputy from Alcira, spent the
night shaking hands, receiving congratulations, listening to serenades,
waiting for morning to come that he might run to the Blue House and
receive Leonora's ironic good wishes.
"I'm very glad to hear it," the actress said. "Now you'll be leaving
very soon and I'll lose sight of you. It was high time really! You know,
my dear child, you were beginning to get tiresome with your assiduous
worship, that mute, persistent, tenacious adoration of yours. But up in
Madrid you'll get over it all. Tut, tut, now ... don't say you won't. No
need to perjure yourself. I guess I know what young men are like! And
you're a young man. The next time we meet, you'll have other things in
your head. I'll be a friend, just a friend; and that's what--and all--I
want to be."
"But will I find you here when I come back?" Rafael asked, anxiously.
"You want to know more things than anybody I ever knew! How can I say
whether I'll be here or not? Nobody in the world was ever sure of
holding me. I don't know where I'll be tomorrow myself.... But, no," she
continued, gravely, "if you come back by next spring, you'll find me
here. I'm thinking of staying surely until then. I want to see the
orange-trees in bloom, go back to my early childhood--the only memories
of my past that have followed me everywhere. Many a time I have gone to
Nice, spending a fortune and crossing half the world to get there--and
just to see a handful of puny orange-trees in bloom; now I want to take
one great, deep, plunge into the deluge of orange blossoms that
inundates these fields every year. It's the one thing that keeps me in
Alcira.... I'm sure. So if you come back about that season, you will
find me; and we will meet for one last time; for that will be the limit
of my endurance. I shall simply have to fly away, however hard poor
auntie takes it.... For the present, however, I am quite comfortable.
You see I was so tired! I find this solitude a welcome refuge after a
stormy voyage. Only something very important indeed could persuade me to
leave it at once."
But they saw each other on many another afternoon in the garden, there.
It was saturated now with the fragrance of ripe oranges. The vast valley
lay blue beneath the winter sun. Oranges, oranges, everywhere, reaching
out, it seemed, through the foliage, to the industrious hands that were
plucking them from the branches. Carts were creaking all along the
roads, trundling heaps of golden fruit over the ruts. The large shipping
houses rang again with the voices of girls singing at their work as they
selected and wrapped the oranges in paper. Hammers were pounding at the
wooden crates, and off toward France and England in great golden waves
those daughters of the South rolled--capsules of golden skin, filled
with sweet juice--the quintessence of Spanish sunshine.
Leonora, standing on tiptoe under an old tree, with her back toward
Rafael, was looking for a particularly choice orange among the dense
branches. As she swayed this way and that, the proud, graceful curves of
her vigorous slenderness became more beautiful than ever.
"I'm leaving tomorrow," the young man said, dispiritedly.
Leonora turned around. She had found her orange and was peeling it with
her long pink nails.
"Tomorrow?" she said, smiling. "Everything comes if you wait long
enough!... The best of success to you, señor deputy."
And bringing the fragrant fruit to her lips, she sank her white,
glistening teeth into the golden pulp, closing her eyes rapturously, to
sense the full warm sweetness of the juice.
Rafael stood there pale and trembling, as if something desperate were
in his mind.
"Leonora! Leonora!... Surely you are not going to send me away like
this?"
And then suddenly, carried away by a passion so long restrained, so long
crushed under timidity and fear, he ran up to her, seized her hands and
hungrily sought her lips.
"Oh! What in the world are you up to, Rafael?... How dare you!" she
cried. And with one thrust of her powerful arms she threw him back,
staggering, against the orange-tree. The young man stood there with
lowered head, humiliation and shame written on every line of his face.
"You see, I'm a strong woman," said Leonora, in a voice quivering with
anger. "None of your foolish tricks, or you'll be sorry!"
She glared at him for a long time; but then gradually recovered her
equanimity, and began to laugh at the pitiable spectacle before her.
"But what a child you are, Rafael!... Is that what you call a friendly
good-bye?... How little you know me, silly! You force matters, you do, I
see. Well just understand, I'm impregnable, unless I choose to be
otherwise. Why, men have died without being able to kiss so much as the
tip of my fingers. It's time you were going, Rafael. We'll still be
friends, of course.... But in case we are to see each other again, don't
forget what I tell you. We are through with such nonsense once and for
all. Don't waste your time. I cannot be yours. I'm tired of men; perhaps
I hate them. I have known the handsomest, the most elegant, the most
famous of them all. I have been almost a queen; queen 'on the left hand
side,' as the French say, but so much mistress of the situation that,
had I cared to get mixed up in such vulgarity, I could have changed
ministries and overturned thrones. Men renowned in Europe for their
elegance--and their follies--have grovelled at my feet, and I have
treated them worse than I have treated you. The most celebrated women
have envied me and hated me--copying my dresses and my poses. And when,
tired of all that brilliancy and noise, I said 'Good-bye' and came to
this retreat, do you think it was to give myself to a village
_señorito_, though a few hundred country bumpkins think he is a
wonder?... Oh, say, Rafael, really...."
And she laughed a cruel, mocking laugh--that cut Rafael to the quick.
The young man bowed his head and his chest heaved painfully, as if the
tears that could not find issue through his eyes were stifling, choking
him. He seemed on the point of utter collapse.
Leonora repented of her cruelty.
She stepped up to the boy until she was almost touching him. Then taking
his chin in her two hands, she made him raise his head.
"Oh, I have hurt you, haven't I! What mean things I said to the poor
child! Let me see now. Lift that head up! Look me straight in the eye!
Say that you forgive me.... That cursed habit I have of never holding my
tongue! I have offended you; but please, don't pay any attention to
that! I was joking! What a fine way of repaying you for what you did
that night!... No; Rafael, you are a very handsome chap indeed ... and
very distinguished ... and you will make a great name for yourself, up
in Madrid!... You'll be what they call a 'personage,' and you'll
marry--oh my--a very stylish, elegant, society girl! I can see all
that.... But, meanwhile, my dear boy, don't depend on me. We are going
to be friends, and nothing more than friends, ever! Why, there are tears
in your eyes! Well, here. Come ... kiss my hand, I will let you ... as
you did that night--there, like that! I could be yours only if I loved
you; but alas! I shall never fall in love with the dashing Rafaelito!
I'm an old woman, already, and I've been so lavish with my heart, spent
it so freely, I'm afraid I have none left.... Poor, poor little Rafael!
I'm so sorry ... but, you see, you came so late ... so late ...!"