"What! have you decided to blot him out from the memory of men?"
Senor de Rivera gave him a cold and haughty stare, which Miguel returned
with equal pride and coldness. The uncle mounted the parallels again,
and feeling that he had acted rather discourteously, said with some
difficulty, for his gymnastic effort took away his breath:--
"Enrique is a fool. After annoying me to death all his life with his
follies he wants now to finish his career by bringing dishonor on his
family."
"I have always understood that one who does some vile act dishonors his
family.... But, however, since you do not wish to talk about Enrique, we
will not. He is of age, and he will know what it becomes him to do."
He said these last words with the intention of preparing his uncle for
what might take place.
Don Bernardo made no reply: he descended from the bars, and after
getting his breath he mounted them again, and began to practise the
"frog movement." As Miguel did not immediately take his departure, he
renewed the conversation, saying:--
"It seems to me that you have grown rather thin since I saw you last,
uncle."
"Yes!" replied Don Bernardo, pausing, and sitting astride of the wooden
bars. "But you will see me much more so. There is a reason for it."
"Does your stomach trouble you?"
The _caballero_ was for a moment motionless, with eyes fixed, and then
said in a tone of deep melancholy:--
"I suffer in my mind."
And he took up his exercise with more violence than ever.
Never had Miguel heard from his uncle's lips any reference to his
innermost feelings; in his eyes he had always been in this respect a man
of iron. Thus when he heard that tender confession, it seemed to him as
though he were in a dream.
And imagining that Enrique was the cause of his uncle's griefs, although
the man had no reason to be grieved on account of his son, Miguel still
pitied him sincerely.
"I see that Enrique, of whom I am so fond, is the cause of your
troubles.... But you have two other sons, who must be the source of
unalloyed satisfaction."
"No, Miguel, it is not Enrique.... Enrique has caused me some sorrow,
... but what I feel now has its source far deeper."
Miguel began to puzzle over what he meant, and was inclined to imagine
that it might be some loss or diminution of his property.
Don Bernardo dismounted, leaned against one of the bars to rest, and
rubbed his sweaty forehead with his handkerchief, heaving a deep sigh;
then he took some iron balls and began to open and shut his arms with
the solemnity that accompanied all his acts.
After a few moments' silence, which his nephew dared not interrupt in
spite of the curiosity that piqued him, the old gentleman dropped the
weights, and approaching him with his eyes fixed and open like those of
a spectre, he said in a hoarse tone:--
"Forty years ago I married.... Forty years have I been cherishing a
viper in my bosom! At last its poison has made its way into my blood,
and I shall perish of the wound!"
Miguel did not understand, nor did he wish to understand, those strange
words. However, he said:--
"I have always supposed that you were happy in your marriage."
"I was, Miguel! I was because I had a bandage over my eyes. Would to God
that it had never been taken off!... There is a day in my life, as you
know well, when, in order to rescue the honor of our family, I descended
to give my hand to a women of very different rank from mine. In return
for this immense sacrifice, don't you think that this woman ought to
kiss the very dust on which I walk?... Now then, this woman is a
Messalina!"
"Uncle!"
"More correctly an Agrippina."
"But after forty years, when my aunt Martina is already old and
venerable!"
"That makes her crime all the more odious."
"Aren't you blinded, uncle?"
"It has cost me much to believe it; but I can no longer have any doubt."
"I regret your annoyance from the bottom of my heart; but allow me to
doubt it absolutely...."
"Do you know who the infamous wretch is who has dishonored my name,"
demanded Senor de Rivera, coming closer and speaking into Miguel's
ear,--"This viper, also, I have warmed in my bosom!"
"Who?"
"Facundo! My fraternal friend, Facundo!"
"Senor Hojeda!"
"Not another word more!" exclaimed Don Bernardo, raising his arm
majestically. "You are a member of my family; you are married, and I
have told you my secret--to prepare your mind. A terrible catastrophe is
threatening all our heads."
"But, uncle!"
"Not another word!"
Don Bernardo immediately grasped the rings, energetically raised his
feet, and began to do "the siren."
Miguel left the library, convinced that if his uncle was not already
crazy, he was in a fair way to go to the mad-ouse.