"You're right, don Andrés. Rafael is not my son. He has changed. That
wanton woman has made another man of him. Worse, a thousand times worse,
than his father! Crazy over the huzzy! Capable of trampling on me if I
should step between him and her. You complain of his lack of respect to
you! Well, what about me?... You wouldn't have thought it possible! The
other morning, when he came into the house, he treated me just as he
treated you. Only a few words, but plain enough! He'll do just as he
pleases, or--what amounts to the same thing--he'll keep up his affair
with that woman until he wearies of her, or else blows up in one grand
debauch, like his father.... My God! And that's what I've suffered for
all these years. That's what I get for sacrificing myself, day in day
out, trying to make somebody out of him!"
The austere doña Bernarda, dethroned by her son's resolute
rebelliousness, wept as she said this. In her tears of a mother's grief
there was something also of the chagrin of the authoritarian on finding
in her own home a will rebellious to hers and stronger than hers.
Between sobs she told don Andrés how her son had been carrying on since
his declaration of independence. He was no longer cautious about
spending the night away from home. He was coming in now in broad
daylight; and, afternoons, with his meals "still in his mouth" as she
said, he would take the road to the Blue House, on the run almost, as if
he could not get to perdition soon enough. The dead hand of his father
was upon him!
All you had to do was look at him. His face discolored, yellow, pale;
his skin drawn tight over his cheekbones; and--the only sign of
life--the fire that gleamed in his eyes like a spark of wild joy! Oh, a
curse was on the family! They were all alike ...!
The mother did her best to conceal the truth from Remedios. Poor girl!
She was going about crestfallen and in deep dejection, unable to explain
Rafael's sudden withdrawal.
The matter had to be kept secret; and that was what held doña Bernarda's
rage within bounds during her rapid, heated exchanges with her son.
Perhaps everything would come out all right in the end--something
unforeseen would turn up to undo the evil spell that had been cast over
Rafael. And in this hope she used every effort to keep Remedios and her
father from learning what had happened. She feigned contentment in their
presence, and invented a thousand pretexts--studies, work, even
illness--to justify her son's neglect of his "fiancee." At the same
time, the disconsolate mother feared the people around her--the gossip
of a small town, bored with itself, ever on the alert, hunting for
something interesting to talk about and get scandalized about.
The news of Rafael's affair spread like wildfire meanwhile, considerably
magnified as it passed from mouth to mouth. People told hair-raising
tales of that expedition down the river, of walks through the orange
groves, of nights spent at doña Pepa's house, Rafael entering in the
dark, in his stocking feet, like a thief; of silhouettes of the lovers
outlined in suggestive poses against the bedroom curtain; of their
appearing in windows their arms about each other's waists, looking at
the stars--everything sworn to by voluntary spies, who could say "I saw
it with my own eyes"--persons who had spent whole nights, on the
river-bank, behind some fence, in some clump of bushes, to surprise the
deputy on his way to or from his assignations.
In the cafés or at the Casino, the men openly envied Rafael, commenting
with eyes a-glitter on his good fortune. That fellow had been born under
a lucky star! But later at home they would add their stern voices to the
chorus of indignant women. What a scandal! A deputy, a public man, a
"personage" who ought to set an example for others! That was a disgrace
to the constituency! And when the murmur of general protest reached the
ears of doña Bernarda, she lifted her hands to heaven in despair. Where
would it all end! Where would it all end! That son of hers was bent on
ruining himself!
Don Matías, the rustic millionaire, said nothing; and, in the presence
of doña Bernarda, at least, pretended to know nothing. His interest in a
marriage connection with the Brull family counselled prudence. He, too,
hoped that it would all blow over, prove to be the blind infatuation of
a young man. Feeling himself a father, more or less, to the boy, he
thought of giving Rafael just a bit of advice when he came upon him in
the street one day. But he desisted after a word or two. A proud glance
of the youth completely floored him, making him feel like the poor
orange-grower of former days, who had cringed before the majestic,
grandiose don Ramón!
Rafael was intrenched in haughty silence. He needed no advice. But alas!
When at night he reached his beloved's house--it seemed to be redolent
with the very perfume of her, as if the furniture, the curtains, the
very walls about her had absorbed the essence of her spirit--he felt the
strain of that insistent gossip, of the persecution of an entire city
that had fixed its eyes upon his love.
Two against a multitude! With the serene immodesty of the ancient
idylls, they had abandoned themselves to passion in a stupid, narrow
environment, where sprightly gossip was the most appreciated of the
moral talents!
Leonora grew sad. She smiled as usual; she flattered him with the same
worship, as if he were an idol; she was playful and gay; but in moments
of distraction, when she did not notice that he was watching, Rafael
would surprise a cast of bitterness about her lips--and a sinister light
in her eyes, the reflection of painful thoughts.
She referred with acrid mirth one night to what people were saying about
them. Everything was found out sooner or later in that city! The gossip
had gotten even to the Blue House! Her kitchen woman had hinted that she
had better not walk so much along the river front--she might catch
malaria. On the market place the sole topic of conversation was that
night trip down the Júcar ... the deputy, sweating his life out over
the oars, and she waking half the country up with her strange songs!...
And she laughed, but with a hard, harsh laugh of affected gaiety that
showed the nervousness underneath, though without a word of complaint.
Rafael remorsefully reflected that she had foreseen all that in first
repelling his advances. He admired her resignation. She would have been
justified in rebuking him for the harm he had done her. As it was, she
was not even telling him all she knew! Ah, the wretches! To harass an
innocent woman so! She had loved him, given herself to him, bestowed on
him the royal gift of her person. And the deputy began to hate his city,
for repaying in insult and scandal the wondrous happiness she had
conferred on its "chief"!
On another night Leonora received him with a smile that frightened him.
She was affecting a mood of hectic cheerfulness, trying to drown her
worries by sheer force, overwhelming her lover with a flood of light,
frivolous chatter; but suddenly, at the limit of her endurance, she gave
way, and in the middle of a caress, burst into tears and sank to a
divan, sobbing as if her heart would break.
"Why what's the matter? What has happened ...?"
For a time she could not answer, her voice was too choked with weeping.
At last, however, between sobs, burying her tear-stained face on
Rafael's shoulder, she began to speak, completely crushed, fainting from
virtual prostration.
She could stand it no longer! The torture was becoming unbearable. It
was useless for her to pretend. She knew as well as he what people were
saying in the city. They were spied upon continuously. On the roads, in
the orchard, along the river, there were people constantly on the watch
for something new to report. That passion of hers, so sweet, so
youthful, so sincere, was a butt of public laughter, a theme for idle
tongues, who flayed her as if she were a common street-woman, because
she had been good to him, because she had not been cruel enough to watch
a young man writhe in the torment of passion, indifferently.... But
though this persecution from a scandalized public was bad enough, she
did not mind it. Why should she care what those stupid people said? But,
alas, there were others--the people around Rafael, his friends, his
family, ... his mother!
Leonora sat silent for a moment, as if waiting to see the effect of that
last word; unless, indeed, she were hesitating, out of delicacy, to
include her lover's family in her complaint. The young man shrank with a
terrible presentiment. Doña Bernarda was not the woman to stand by idle
and resigned in the face of opposition, even from him!
"I see ... mother!" he said in a stifled voice. "She has been up to
something. Tell me what it is. Don't be afraid. To me you are dearer
than anything else in the world."
"Well ... there is auntie ..." Leonora resumed; and Rafael remembered
that doña Pepa, remarking his assiduous visits to the Blue House, had
thought her niece might be contemplating marriage. In the afternoon,
Leonora explained, she had had a _scene_ with her aunt. Doña Pepa had
gone into town to confession, and on coming out of church had met doña
Bernarda. Poor old woman! Her abject terror on returning home betrayed
the intense emotion Rafael's mother had succeeded in wakening in her.
Leonora, her niece, her idol, lay in the dust, stripped of that blind,
enthusiastic, affectionate trust her aunt had always had for her. All
the gossip, all the echoes of Leonora's adventurous life, that
had--heretofore but feebly--come to her ears, the old lady had never
believed, regarding them as the work of envy. But now they had been
repeated to her by doña Bernarda, by a lady "in good standing," a good
Christian, a person incapable of falsehood. And then after rehearsing
that scandalous biography, Rafael's mother had come to the shocking
effrontery with which her niece and Rafael were rousing the whole city;
flaunting their wrong-doing in the face of the public; and turning her
home, the respectable, irreproachable home of doña Pepa, into a den of
vice, a brothel!
And the poor woman had wept like a child in her niece's presence,
adjuring her to "abandon the wicked path of transgression," shuddering
with horror at the great responsibility she, doña Pepa, had unwittingly
assumed before God. All her life she had labored and prayed and fasted
to keep her soul clean. She had thought herself almost in a state of
grace, only to awaken suddenly and find herself in the very midst of sin
through no fault of her own--all on account of her niece, who had
converted her holy, her pure, her pious home into an ante-chamber of
hell! And it was the poor woman's superstitious terror, the conviction
of damnation that had seized on doña Pepa's simple soul, that wounded
Leonora most deeply.
"They've robbed me of all I had in the world," she murmured desperately,
"of the affection of the only dear one left after my father died. I am
not the child of former days to auntie; that is apparent from the way
she looks at me, the way she shuns me, avoiding all contact with me....
And just because of you, because I love you, because I was not cruel to
you! Oh, that night! How I shall suffer for it!... How clearly I foresaw
how it would all end!"
Rafael was humiliated, crushed, filled with shame and remorse at the
suffering that had fallen upon this woman, because she had given herself
to him. What was he to do? The time had come to prove himself the
strong, the resourceful man, able to protect the beloved woman in her
moment of danger. But where should he strike first to defend her?...
Leonora lifted her head from her lover's shoulder, and withdrew from his
embrace. She wiped away her tears and rose to her feet with the
determination of irrevocable resolution.
"I have made up my mind. It hurts me very much to say what I am going to
say; but I can't help it. It will do you no good to say 'no'--I cannot
stay under this roof another day. Everything is over between my aunt and
me. Poor old woman! The dream I cherished was to care for her lovingly,
tenderly till she died in my arms, be to her what I failed to be to
father.... But they have opened her eyes. To her I am nothing but a
sinner now and my presence upsets everything for her.... I must go away.
I've already told Beppa to pack my things.... Rafael, my love, this is
our last night together.... To-morrow ... and you will never see me
again."
The youth recoiled as if someone had struck him in the breast.
"Going? Going ...? And you can say that coolly, simply, just like that?
You are leaving me ... this way ... just when we are happiest ...?"
But soon he had himself in hand again. This surely could be nothing more
than a passing impulse, a notion arrived at in a flash of anger. Of
course she did not really mean to go! She must think things over, see
things clearly. That was a crazy idea! Desert her Rafaelito? Absurd!
Impossible!
Leonora smiled sadly. She had expected him to talk that way. She, too,
had suffered much, ever so much, before deciding to do it! It made her
shudder to think that within two days she would be off again, alone,
wandering through Europe, caught up again in that wild, tumultuous life
of art and love, after tasting the full sweetness of the most powerful
passion she had ever known--of what she believed was her "first love."
It was like putting to sea in a tempest with destination unknown. She
loved him, adored him, worshipped him, more than ever now that she was
about to lose him.
"Well, why are you going?" the young man asked. "If you love me, why are
you forsaking me?"
"Just because I love you, Rafael.... Because I want you to be happy."
For her to remain would mean ruin for him: a long battle with his
mother, who was an implacable, a merciless foe. Doña Bernarda might be
killed, but never conquered! Oh, no! How horrible! Leonora knew what
filial cruelty was! How had she treated her father? She must not now
come between a son and a mother! Was she, perhaps, a creature accursed,
born forever to corrupt with her very name the sacredest, purest
relations on earth?
"No, you must be good, my heart. I must go away. We can't go on loving
each other here. I'll write to you, I'll let you know all I'm doing....
You'll hear from me every day, if I have to write from the North Pole!
But you must stay! Don't drive your mother to despair! Shut your eyes to
the poor woman's injustice! For after all, she is doing it all out of
her immense love for you.... Do you imagine I am glad to be leaving
you--the greatest happiness I have ever known?"
And she threw her arms about Rafael, kissing him over and over again,
caressing his bowed, pensive head, within which a tempest of conflicting
ideas and resolutions was boiling.
So those bonds which he had come to believe eternal were to be broken?
So he was to lose so easily that beauty which the world had admired, the
possession of which had made him feel himself the first among men? She
talked of a love from a distance, of a love persisting through years of
separation, travel, all the hazards of a wandering life; she promised to
write to him every day!... Write to him ... from the arms of another
man, perhaps! No! He would never give up such a treasure; never!
"You shall not go," he answered at last decisively. "A love like ours is
not ended so easily. Your flight would be a disgrace to me--it would
look as if I had affronted you in some way, as if you were tired of me."
Deep in his soul he felt eager to make some chivalrous gesture. She was
going away because she had loved him! He should stay behind, sad and
resigned like a maid abandoned by a lover, and with the sense of having
harmed her on his conscience! _Ira de diós_! He, as a man, could not
stand by with folded arms accepting the abnegation of a woman, to stick
tied to his mother's apron-strings in boobified contentment. Even girls
ran away from home and parents sometimes, in the grip of a powerful
love; and he, a man, a man "in the public eye" also--was he to let a
beautiful girl like Leonora go away sorrowful and in tears, so that he
could keep the respect of a city that bored him and the affection of a
mother who had never really loved him? Besides, what sort of a love was
it that stepped aside in a cowardly, listless way like that, when a
woman was at stake, a woman for whom far richer, far more powerful men
than he, men bound to life by attractions that he had never dreamed of
in his countrified existence, had died or gone to ruin?...
"You shall not go," he repeated, with sullen obstinacy. "I won't give up
my happiness so easily. And if you insist on going, we will go
together."
Leonora rose to her feet all quivering. She had been expecting that; her
heart had told her it was coming. Flee together! Have her appear like an
adventuress, drawing Rafael on, tearing him from his mother's arms after
crazing him with love? Oh, no! Thanks! She had a conscience! She did
not care to burden it with the execration of a whole city. Rafael must
consider the matter calmly, face the situation bravely. She must go away
alone. Afterwards, later on, she would see. They might chance to meet
again; perhaps in Madrid, when the Cortes reassembled! He would be
there, and alone; she could find a place at the _Real_, singing for
nothing if that should prove necessary.
But Rafael writhed angrily at her resistance. He could not live without
her! A single night without seeing her would mean despair. He would end
as Macchia ended! He would shoot himself!
And he seemed to mean it. His eyes were fixed on the floor as if he were
staring at his own corpse, lying there on the pavement, motionless,
covered with blood, a revolver in its stiffened hand.
"Oh, no! How horrible! Rafael, my Rafael!" Leonora groaned, clasping him
around the neck, hanging upon him in terror.
Her lover continued to protest. He was free. Had he been a married man;
if, in his flight, he were leaving a wife behind to cry betrayal, or
children calling for his help in vain, it would all be a different
matter. She could properly feel the repugnance of a kind heart unwilling
that love should mean a shattered home! But whom was he abandoning? A
mother, who, in a short time, would find consolation in the thought that
he was well and happy, a mother jealous of any rivalry in her son's
affection, and to that jealousy willing to sacrifice his very happiness!
Any harm an elopement would bring would by no means be irreparable. No,
they must go away together, parade their love through the whole world!
But Leonora, lowering her head again, repeated feebly:
"No, my mind is made up. I must go alone. I haven't the strength to face
a mother's hatred."
Rafael flushed indignantly:
"Why not say outright that you don't love me. You're tired of me, and of
this environment. The hankering for your old life has come over you
again; your old world is calling!"
The actress fixed her great, luminous, tear-stained eyes upon him. And
they were filled with tenderness and pity.
"Tired of you!... When I have never felt such desperation as tonight!
You say I want my old life back. You don't realize that to leave here
seems like entering a den of torture.... Oh, dear heart, you'll never
know how much I love you."
"Well, then ...?"
And to tell everything, to spare no detail of the danger he would face
after separation, Rafael spoke of the life he would lead alone with his
mother in that dull, unspeakable city. Leonora was assuming that
affection played some part in his mother's indignant opposition. Well,
doña Bernarda did love him--agreed: he was her only son; but ambition
was the decisive thing in her schemes, her passion for the
aggrandizement of the House--the controlling motive of her whole life.
She was openly, frankly, using him as security in an alliance she was
planning with a great fortune. She wanted to marry him to money: and if
Leonora were to go, if he were left alone, forsaken, then despair--and
time, which can do all things--would break his will; and eventually he
would succumb, like a victim at the altar, who, in his terror and
abasement, does not sense the real significance of the sacrifice forced
upon him.
The words reached a jealous spot in Leonora's heart. All the scattered
rumors that had come to her ears in former days now echoed in her
memory. She knew that Rafael was telling the truth. The man she loved,
given away by his mother--to another woman!... Lost forever if she lost
him now!... And her eyes opened wide with horror and revulsion.
"And I refuse, Leonora, do you understand? I refuse!" continued her
lover with unaffected resolution. "I belong to you, you are the only
woman I love. I shall follow you all over the world, even against your
wishes, to be your servant, see you, speak to you, and there are not
millions enough in the world to stop me!"
"Oh, my darling! My darling! You love me, you love me--as I love you!"
And in a frenzy of passion she fell impetuously, madly upon him,
clutching him in her arms like a fury. In her caresses Rafael felt an
intensity that almost frightened him. The room seemed to be whirling
about him. Trembling, limp and weak, he sank to the divan, overwhelmed,
pounded to pieces, it seemed, by that vehement adoration, that caught
him up and carried him away like a tumultuous avalanche. His senses left
him in that trembling confusion, and he closed his eyes.
When he opened them, the room was dark. Around his neck he could feel a
gentle arm that was tenderly sustaining him, and Leonora was whispering
in his ear.
Agreed! They would go together: to continue their love duct in some
charming place, where nobody knew them, where envy and vulgarity would
not disturb. Leonora knew every nook in the world. She would have none
of Nice and the other cities of the Blue Coast, pretty places,
coquettish, bepowdered and rouged like women fresh from their dressing
tables! Besides there would be too many people there. Venice was better.
They would thread the narrow, solitary silent canals there, stretched
out in a gondola, kissing each other between smiles, pitying the poor
unfortunate mortals crossing the bridges over them, unaware of how great
a love was gliding beneath their feet!
But no, Venice is a sad place after all: when it rains, it rains and
rains! Naples rather; Naples! _Viva Napoli_! And Leonora clapped her
hands in glee! Live in perpetual sunshine, freedom, freedom, freedom to
love openly, as nakedly as the _lazzaroni_ walk about the streets! She
owned a house in Naples,--at Posilipo, that is--a _villino_, in pink
stucco, a dainty little place with fig trees, nopals and parasol pines,
that ran in a grove down a steep promontory to the sea I They would fish
in the bay there--it was as smooth and blue as a looking-glass! And
afternoons he would row her out to sea, and she would sing, looking at
the waters ablaze with the sunset, at the plume of smoke curling up from
Vesuvius, at the immense white city with its endless rows of windows
flaming like plaques of gold in the afterglow. Like gipsies they would
wander through the countless towns dotting the shores of the miraculous
Bay; kissing on the open sea among the fisherboats, to the accompaniment
of passionate Neapolitan boat-songs; spending whole nights in the open
air, lying in each other's arms on the sands, hearing the pearly
laughter of mandolins in the distance, just as that night on the island,
they had heard the nightingale! "Oh, Rafael, my god, my king! How
wonderful!"
When day dawned, they were still sitting there weaving fanciful plans
for the future, arranging all the details of their elopement. She would
leave Alcira as soon as possible. He would join her two days later, when
all suspicion had been quieted, when everybody would imagine she was
far, far away. Where would they meet? At first they thought of
Marseilles, but that was a long way off! Then they thought of Barcelona.
But that, too, meant hours of travel, when hours, minutes, counted for
so much. It seemed utterly incredible that they could live two days
without each other! No, the sooner they met again the better! And,
bargaining with time like peasants in a market, at last they chose the
nearest city possible, Valencia.
For love--true love--is fond of brazenness!