What more do you wish to know?
Miguel staggered like an athlete who receives a blow in the midst of his
forehead; but he did not succumb. In the unavoidable obligation upon him
of protecting his baby boy, who had lost his mother just as he was
beginning to stammer her name, he found strength to live.
His story, far from romantic, becomes even less interesting from this
time forward. It is reduced almost entirely to meditations, doubts,
hopes, discouragements,--storms such as only rage in the secret depths
of the spirit. The story of it can be interesting only to the
psychologist. Therefore we will condense this long and wearisome
narration.
He devoted his whole life to his son. Work and study, if they did not
assuage his grief, sometimes made him forget it, lifting him at the same
time to a loftier plane; as years went on, he maintained a deep and
serious sadness which left him calm enough for thought. Day nor night
did he leave his son. As often as he could, he took him with him to his
office; he used to set him down opposite him, so that when he looked up,
his eyes might fall upon that little face, in which he sought anxiously
to discover lines and features of another that was graven as with a
chisel on his very heart. If his friends wanted to make him happy for a
moment, they had only to assure him that the little one would in time
come to look exactly like his mother. On the other hand, if any one told
him that he was going to resemble him, he would stand sad and thoughtful
for a long time.
Sometimes, catching from his lips or in his eyes some expression
peculiar to Maximina, he would burst out sobbing.
The little innocent creature would then look at him in surprise and
dismay, until his father would gather him up into his arms, and kissing
him again and again, would say:--
"Blessed child, you know not what you have lost!"
Likewise, many days he would take him to the cemetery and make him kiss
after him the stone under which his mother was lying. Oh! if those
kisses did not make their way through the marble, and cause the dust of
the little maiden of Pasajes to tremble, you may be certain that nothing
in this world could ever stir it.
Nor was it only in his boy that he saw his wife's living image. Any
great spectacle, any heroic action, any touch of kindness, any work of
art, above all, music, brought her suddenly to his imagination, and made
the tears spring to his eyes; as though that dear woman, even if she no
longer existed, were still united to all that is noble, beautiful, and
lofty in this earth. Consequently, he tried to stimulate these emotions
as frequently as he could. He cultivated and kindled the religious
sentiment, which had often seemed fainting, though never had it died out
in his soul; he loved the arts; he clung to the friendship of the good.
As time went on, that same Mendoza, with whom he had not exchanged a
word since he had been ruined and gone to live at Chamberi, became
minister.
This will certainly surprise no one. Certain premises being granted, the
results are sure to follow. As soon as he became minister, he sent
Miguel a message, whether through generosity or egotism, we cannot say,
asking him to be his private secretary, and at the same time retain his
place in the Council of State.
The weak flesh felt like revolting at such a proposition. However, he
was able finally to bring it into subjection. Long since, by force of
prayer and meditation, he had emancipated himself from the dominion of
pride. By means of terrible struggles, his soul had succeeded in
breaking the chains that bound him to earthly objects. He had learned
and would never forget the sublime truth which will eternally rise above
human science, and will be the compendium of all truths,--SELF-NEGATION.
As soon as he set foot on this sacred ground of liberty, his life began
to glide away in perfect serenity, in sweet and tranquil repose. In the
sea of human passions, in the whirlwind of his own emotions, he had at
last the good fortune to _find himself_, and understand what he was. His
only thought thenceforward was to advance further and further along the
road of liberty, until the hour of supreme emancipation should come for
him. The only and most ardent desire of his life was to be able _to
love death_. Consequently, he employed the healthy and divine power of
his imagination in creating another world, new and free, where he lived
with his wife in the same sweet communion as of yore, sharing with her
his love and his sorrows. When he completed any action of his life, he
never failed to ask himself:--
"Would Maximina approve of it?"
Every day he confessed to her and told her the inmost secrets of his
soul. And when he had the misfortune to fall into sin, profound grief
would take possession of him, and he would think how, on that day, he
had departed a little from his wife. In this way, sharing like a divine
being in the august privilege of God, he succeeded in attaining a new
life, or rather a foretaste of eternal life.
But, as a human being, his soul was many times shaken by the storm of
doubt. He suffered the cruel assaults of temptation, and; like the Son
of God in the Garden of Gethsemane, endured hours of agony which left
deep scars upon his soul and diminished, if they did not entirely
destroy, his strength. Let us witness one of them.
After he came out of the Ministerio, or from Congress, Mendoza was in
the habit of riding in an open carriage through the Retiro. Miguel
accompanied him. After whirling for a while among the throng of
carriages the minister would begin to feel drowsy and would drop off to
sleep, lulled by the gentle motion of the carriage. Miguel, almost
always neglectful of the curious and gay sights of the promenade, would
meditate, with his eyes fixed on the sky or on the landscape.
It was a mild afternoon, the mildest and most brilliant that spring had
as yet bestowed that year on the citizens of Madrid.
The sun was setting. Through the open window our young secretary saw it
descending between the trees over the wide plains of Vallecas,
descending majestically till it reached the edge of a cloud, and casting
a golden trail over the earth.
Carried away by the train of thought which often took possession of him,
he began to speculate upon the time during which this orb had thus been
hurtling through space. Toward what mysterious region of heaven, was it
taking the earth in its tremendous march? From whence had that immense
mass originally sprung? When and how would its light become
extinguished?
He thought how its history, long as it seems, is only an instant in the
history of Creation. In the numberless worlds which are forever forming
and perishing, what an insignificant role is played by this poor sun,
which is the prime actor for us! Why, then, does it seem to us so great
and so beautiful? Who saw, before we were created, that "wake of gold,"
as it is called by the poets? How many thousand years had it been
sweeping across the earth without gilding other heads than those of
gigantic saurians, pterodactyls, megalosauruses, and other fearful
monsters?
The veil that hides the infinite mysteries of space--will it some day be
removed? will there be creatures who will ever understand them?
He spent much time buried in such thoughts, in ecstatic contemplation of
the horizons, brought up before him by the frequent and long turns that
they took in the carriage. When he came down from these heights, and
cast his eyes on the equipages which were gathered in that delectable
place, he was given the same impression as though he were looking upon
an anthill; and what else was it, except that the ants, instead of
working, were riding? By his side there were crowded together a
multitude of atomic animals, with their faces fixed on the ground,
carried along by other animals whom they had made their slaves. But ants
also own slaves. All the masters, and the horses also, appeared to
believe that they themselves, and nothing else, constituted the world;
and their schemes, their desires, their loves, their _restaurants_, and
their daily allowance of oats, the only and highest ends of creation.
But there among the pedestrians he saw a pale face adorned with a long
white beard, with melancholy, dreamy eyes likewise fastened on the
skies. As he passed, this face smiled affectionately. Miguel replied,
saying, "Good afternoon, Don Ventura."
It was the tenderest and most spontaneous of Spanish poets, the famous
Ruiz Aguilera. Then his eyes fell upon Mendoza, who was dozing
deliciously. He looked at him attentively for a few moments, and
suddenly felt inclined to laugh.
"Poor man! he thinks that he is on the pinnacle of glory because he has
the disposal for a few months of a few dozen offices, and to this he has
consecrated his whole life, all the powers that God has given him.
To-morrow this man will die, and he will not have known the love of a
tender and innocent wife, nor the enthusiasm awakened in the soul by a
heroic action, nor the deep emotion caused by the study of nature, nor
the pure delight in contemplating a work of art; he will never have
thought, never felt, never loved! Nevertheless, he thinks in good faith
that it is his right to swell with pride because a bell rings at the
Ministerio when he comes in, and a few unhappy wretches take off their
hats before him! How much energy and fawning meanness this ant has had
to exercise in order that other ants may greet him respectfully!"
He could not help laughing out loud. Mendoza opened his eyes on hearing
him, but being accustomed to these original sallies of his secretary, he
instantly closed them again, and once more slumbered.
Miguel, however, went on with his thinking.
"Religion, art, love, heroism, these signs in which I think that I can
see the expression of a more elevated nature--may they not also be
illusions, like those which this poor devil has, of his own importance?
May not the far-off country to which I aspire be a false reflection of
my own desires?"
The idea of annihilation came into his mind, and made him tremble.
"If all vanishes at the end like smoke, like a shadow, if the purest
emotions of my soul, if my wife's love, if my boy's innocent smile, have
the same worth in nature as the hate of the miscreant and the coarse
laughter of the vicious; if two beings unite and love only to be
separated for an eternity, oh! how gladly would I hate you, infamous
universe! If beyond those spaces, beautiful as they are, there is no one
capable of compassion, what is the worth of your mighty masses, or your
rythmic movements, or your tremendous rivers of light? I, miserable
atom, am more noble, because I can love and can feel compassion...."
He remained a few moments lost in suspense, with his eyes fixed on
vacancy. A strange depression, such as he had rarely felt, was gradually
taking possession of his spirit. In thought he took a rapid survey of
his past life, and it appeared to him like a chain of misfortunes; even
the pleasures of his youth seemed to him detestable and beneath
contempt. In it there was only one delicious and sweet oasis,--the two
years of his marriage.
"If all men," he said to himself, "were to look back, they would find it
the same; perhaps even worse, because the majority have not been blessed
as I have, by Heaven, for a few short moments."
His memory brought up a few friends who had died in the flower of life
after cruel sufferings; others, who, weary of struggling against fate,
had fallen at last into the depths of misery; he saw the noblest and
most intelligent of them filling humble stations, and elevating the low
and degraded ones; he remembered his good father, whose last years were
embittered by a proud and wilful wife; he remembered his sister, a
creature all light and joy, vilely deceived and forever disgraced; he
remembered finally that angelic half of his own being snatched from the
world when she had just touched her lips to the cup of happiness....
Creation suddenly presented itself before him in a terrible aspect;
beings pitilessly devouring each other; the stronger constantly pushing
the weaker to the wall--all deceived by the illusion of happiness which
is beyond the reach of any, working, suffering for the advantage of
other species, and these for still others, and so on to infinity! The
world, in fine, appeared to him like an immense fraud, a place of
torment for all living beings, more cruel still for those gifted with
consciousness; absolute happiness for the All-existent because It is and
ever will be: absolute misery for individuals, because they will
eternally be created anew to suffer and to die.
Before that terrible picture which he saw in the intensest light, his
soul was tormented, and a shudder of horror shook his frame.
"My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" his trembling lips repeated
again and again, and a wrenching sob which had been gathering for some
time in the depths of his breast suddenly burst forth.
The minister opened his eyes; in affright.
"Man alive!" said he, "you spend your life either laughing or crying."
"That is true," replied the secretary, raising his handkerchief to his
eyes.