The arrival in Madrid of the celebrated singer Tenorini raised the glory
of Maria to its height, not only because of the admiration this colossal
lyric displayed, but because of the earnestness she showed in wishing to
unite her voice to a voice so worthy of hers. Tononi Tenorini--_alias_
the great--came from nobody knew where. Some affirmed that, like Castor
and Pollux, she was couched in an egg--not the egg of a swan, but the
egg of a nightingale. Her splendid and brilliant career commenced at
Naples, where she had eclipsed Vesuvius. Then she passed to Milan, to
Florence, St. Petersburg, and Constantinople. She had now arrived from
New York, passing through Havana, with the purpose of appearing in
Paris, where the inhabitants, furious in not having yet consecrated this
gigantic reputation, had gotten up a resolution to assuage their anger.
From thence Tenorini designed to go to London, where the dilettanti were
dying of longing and of spleen, and where the season promised to be
dull, if that celebrated notability and _artiste_ should not take pity
on them.
Strange thing, and which surprised all the _Polos_ and all the
_Eloisitas_, this sublime _artiste_ did not arrive in Madrid borne on
the wings of genii. The dolphins of the ocean were too badly educated
and too little melodramatic to carry her on their back, as they had
before done for Amphyon, in happier times, those of the Mediterranean.
Tenorini came by the _diligence_. Horror! And that which was more
horrible still, she brought a carpet-bag with her. They formed a plan
to celebrate her arrival by ringing all the bells at the same moment, to
illuminate the houses, and to raise an arch of triumph for her, with
music from all the instruments of the circus orchestra. The alcalde
would consent to nothing of the kind.
While Marisalada shared with the grand singer the unbridled ovation of a
discerning public, who fell on their knees in all humility, a scene of a
character altogether different passed in the poor cabin which she had
quitted scarcely a year ago.
Pedro Santalo was dying on his pallet. Since the departure of his
daughter he had not raised his head. He kept his eyes constantly closed,
and opened them only to look at the chamber of Mariquita, which was
separated from his by a narrow passage which led to the garret. Every
thing remained in the state his daughter had left it: the guitar was
hung on the wall, by a ribbon once rose-colored, and which now hung
without form like a forgotten promise, and faded like a recollection
extinguished. A handkerchief of India was thrown on the bed, and there
could yet be seen on the chair a pair of her little shoes. Old Maria was
seated at the bedside of the invalid.
“Come! come! Pedro,” said the good old woman, “forget that you are a
Catalan, and be not so stubborn. Let yourself be governed for once in
your life, and come to the convent. You know you will want for nothing
there. There at least you can be better cared for, and you will not be
abandoned in a corner like an old broom.”
The fisherman made no reply.
“Pedro, Don Modesto has already written two letters, and has sent them
by the post. They say it is the most sure and prompt way to insure their
arrival.”
“She will not come!” murmured the invalid.
“But her husband will come; and, for the moment, that is of the greater
importance.”
“She! she!” cried the poor father.
An hour after this conversation Maria set off for the convent, without
having been able to decide the obstinate Catalan to let her conduct him
to her home. The old woman rode upon Golondrina, the peaceful Dean of
the chapter of asses of the country.
Momo, now become a man, without having lost any of his native ugliness,
conducted the ass.
“Listen, grandma,” said he; “these visits to the old sea-wolf, will they
continue for a long time yet? These daily walks fatigue me.”
“Certainly they will still continue, since Pedro will not come to the
convent. I fear for the death of this brave man if he does not see his
daughter.”
“I will never die of that disease,” said Momo, with a sardonic laugh.
“Listen, my son,” pursued the old woman; “I have not much confidence in
the post, although they say it is sure. Don Modesto has not much faith
in it either. Then, that Don Frederico and Marisalada learn of the
danger Pedro is now in, there is but one means to employ, and that is
that you go to Madrid, and tell them; for indeed we must not remain here
with our arms folded, and see the father die calling on his daughter
with all his soul, and do nothing to bring her to him.”
“I go to Madrid, and to seek the Gaviota again!” exclaimed Momo
horrified. “Are you in your right senses, grandmother?”
“I am so much in my sound senses, that if you will not go, I will go
myself. I have been to Cadiz without losing myself, and without any
thing happening to me; it will be the same if I go to Madrid. My heart
breaks when I hear this poor father calling on his child. But you, Momo,
you have a bad heart, I say so to you with pain. And I do not know truly
from whence you get this wickedness; it is neither from your father nor
from your mother; but so it is: in every family there is a Judas.”
“The devil himself could not better torment a Christian to damn him,”
murmured Momo. “And that is not the worst; you get this extravagance
into your head, you push it just to its end, and as the only good
result, I will be deprived of my arms and legs for an entire month.”
And Momo, to vent his anger, struck a heavy blow with his stick on the
side of the poor Golondrina.
“Barbarian!” cried his grandmother, “why do you beat the poor animal?”
“Animals are made to be beaten,” replied Momo.
“Who has preached to you such a heresy?”
“Your misfortune, grandma, is, that you resemble the celestial vault,
you protect everybody.”
“Yes, son, yes. And may it please God that I never witness a grief
without sympathizing with it--that I may never be one of those people
who listen to a complaint as if they were listening to the dropping of
rain!”
“That which you tell me applies only to our neighbor, grandmother; but
the animals, the devil!”
“The animals, and do they not suffer? Are they not creatures of the good
God? Here below we suffer the punishment due to the sin of the first
man. The Adam and Eve of asses, what sin have they committed?”
“They have, at least, _eaten the parings of the apple_,” said Momo,
with a laugh which sounded like a detonation.
They then met Manuel and José, who returned with them to the convent.
“Mother,” asked Manuel, “how is Pedro?”
“Ill, my son, ill. My heart bleeds to see him so low, so sad, and so
lonely. I asked him to come to the convent, but it would be easier to
remove the fort of San Cristobal than this obstinate man. A
twenty-four-pounder would not move him. Brother Gabriel must go, and
stay with him, and Momo go to Madrid and bring here Don Frederico and
the daughter of this poor father.”
“Let Momo go,” said Manuel; “he will thus see the world.”
“I!” cried Momo anew; “how can I go to Madrid?”
“In putting one foot before the other,” answered his father. “Are you
afraid of being lost? or do you fear being eaten up on the way?”
“It is this, that I have no desire to go,” replied Momo exasperated.
“Well! I have here a branch of olive which will give you that desire,
scapegrace.”
Momo was quiet, inwardly cursing old Pedro and his family. He commenced
his journey in the company of the muleteers of the mountain of Aracena,
who came to lay in a stock of fish at Villamar. He arrived at Valverde,
and from there passed by Aracena, Oliva, and Barcarota to Badajoz, where
he took the diligence for Madrid from Seville, and arrived at Madrid
without stopping.
Don Modesto had written in big letters the address of Stein, which he
had sent when he arrived in Madrid with the duke. Momo commenced to walk
through the city with this paper in his hand, reciting for the benefit
of the Gaviota a litany of imprecations always new.
We will leave him in search of his enemy, and come back to Villamar.
It was afternoon; old Maria, more grieved than ever, came from visiting
Santalo.
“Dolores,” said she to her daughter-in-law, “Pedro is going. This
morning he rolled up his sheet; that is to say, he made up his parcel
for the journey from which he will never return, and our dog Palomo has
_howled the death_. And yet these people do not arrive! I am on hot
coals. Momo ought already to be returned. He has been ten days gone.”
“The road is long to measure from here to Madrid, mother,” replied
Dolores. “Manuel assures me that Momo cannot be here before four or five
days yet.”
What was the astonishment of the two women when they saw, all of a
sudden, the frightened face of Momo himself, Momo dismayed, fatigued,
and harassed.
“Momo!” both cried out at the same moment.
“Himself, in body and soul,” replied Momo.
“And Marisalada?” asked the old woman with anxiety.
“And Don Frederico?” asked Dolores.
“You may wait for them until the Last Judgment,” said Momo. “Thanks to
you, grandmother, I can boast of having made a famous journey.”
“What is it? what has happened?” asked at the same time both grandmother
and mother.
“That which you will soon hear, so that you will admire the judgments of
God, and who blesses you, inasmuch as He has permitted me to return safe
and sound, thanks to the excellent legs he has given me.”
The old Maria and Dolores remained silent on hearing these words,
symptoms of grave events.
“Speak, for the love of heaven; what has happened?” cried again both
the women. “Do you not see that our souls are drawn out to a thread?”
“When I arrived in Madrid,” commenced Momo, “when I saw myself alone in
the midst of this world, I was seized with vertigo. Each street appeared
to me a soldier, every place a patrol. I entered into a public house
with the paper of the commandant, and which was a paper that spoke.
There I encountered a species of drunkard, who conducted me to the house
indicated on the paper. The servants told me that their master and
mistress were absent, and they were about to shut the door in my face;
but they knew not, these imbeciles, whom they were dealing with. ‘Ha!’
said I to them, ‘pay attention to whom you are speaking, if you please.
Do you know that it was at our house we rescued Don Frederico when he
was dying, and that without us he would have been altogether dead?’”
“You said that, Momo!” exclaimed the grandmother, “one never speaks of
these things. What mortification! what will they think of us? Remind one
of a favor! who has ever seen the like?”
“Well! what? I ought not to have said it? Let’s see then! I spoke much
stronger: I said it was my grandmother who had brought their mistress to
our house when she was ill, running and crying herself hoarse on the
rocks like a gull as she was. These profligates looked at each other,
and mocked me; they told me I was mistaken, that their mistress was the
daughter of a general of the army of Don Carlos. Daughter of a general!
do you understand? Is there in the world a lie more shameful? to say
that the good old Pedro is a general! old Pedro, who has never served
the king! At last I told them that my commission was very pressing, and
that what I wished was, to depart immediately, and lose sight of them,
their masters, and Madrid. ‘Nicholas,’ then said a girl, who seemed to
wish to be as shameless as her mistress, ‘conduct this peasant to the
theatre, he may see the señora there.’ Remark well that she spoke of me,
this viper’s tongue, as a _peasant_; and that she said _señora_, in
speaking of this bad Gaviota. Can you believe that? It is what can only
be seen in Madrid! It is confounding. Then the servant took his hat, and
conducted me to a grand building, high, and constructed like a species
of church. In lieu of tapers and candles, one only sees lamps which
light up like suns. This large room was furnished all around with seats,
upon which I have seen more than a thousand women seated all in _fête_
dresses, stiff as sticks, and ranged like vials on an apothecary’s
shelves. The men were so numerous that one might believe he saw an
ant-hill. Jesus! from whence can so many Christians have come! ‘That is
nothing,’ said I to myself, ‘it is the quantity of bread they must
consume in this city of Madrid!’ But prepare yourself for the saddest.
All this world was there--why? to hear the Gaviota sing!”
“I see nothing in all this to oblige you to come back so promptly and so
amazed,” said the grandmother.
“Wait! wait! I cannot go faster than the music. I relate things as they
happened. Then listen well to this. Then suddenly, without anybody
giving command, more than a thousand instruments commenced playing at
once. There were flutes, trumpets, and violins big as _Golondrina_. What
an uproar! It was enough to assemble together all the blind in Spain.
There is something more wonderful still: without knowing how or why, a
kind of garden which was in front of us disappeared suddenly; and, the
devil mixing in it without doubt, replaced the garden by the stairs of a
palace covered with a magnificent carpet. Then I saw a woman admirably
dressed; she was covered with more velvet, silk, gold, and jewels than
the Virgin of Rosaire. ‘It is Isabella the Second,’ said I to myself.
No, my people, it was not the queen. Do you know who it was? Neither
more nor less than the Gaviota, the wicked Gaviota, who went about among
us with naked legs and feet. Yes, the devil had thus taken her, and made
her a princess. I was stunned, when, at a moment when no one thought of
it, a gentleman, very well dressed, came forward. He was in a frightful
rage! What fury! He rolled his eyes! ‘_Caramba!_’ thought I, ‘I would
not be in this Gaviota’s skin.’ That which astonished me the most was
that both recited their anger in _singing_. ‘Good!’ said I, ‘it is
perhaps the usage among people of high rank.’ Nevertheless, I did not
understand a word of what they were saying. All that I could discover
was, that the gentleman was a general of Don Carlos, that the Gaviota
said he was her father, and that he would not recognize her as his
daughter, although she supplicated him on her knees. ‘That’s well done!’
I cried at this impudence.”
“Why did you mix yourself up with it?” asked the old woman.
“Because that I knew her, and that I could prove it. Do you not know
that he who is silent approves? But it appears that where I was it is
forbidden to speak the truth, because my neighbor, an _employé_ of the
police, said to me, ‘Will you hold your tongue, my friend!’ ‘I have no
desire to do so,’ I replied, and I made my cry ring to the roof, ‘This
man is not her father.’ ‘Are you mad, or do you come from another
world?’ said the policeman to me. ‘I am not the one, nor do I come from
the other, insolent,’ I replied. ‘I know better than you, and I come
from Villamar, where her legitimate father resides, her true father,
the old Pedro Santalo.’ ‘You are an imbecile,’ replied the policeman. I
kicked, and was about to inflict on him a blow, when Nicholas caught my
arm in time, and led me away to take a drink. ‘I have understood it
all,’ I said to Nicholas; ‘this general is he whom this cursed Gaviota
wishes to have for her father. I have heard talk of many villanous
things, of murders, thefts, piracies, but I have never yet heard spoken
of one who would deny her father.’ Nicholas held his sides in laughing:
at Madrid such indignities affright no one. When we re-entered, it is
believed that the general had ordered the Gaviota to take off that
beautiful attire, for she was entirely dressed in white, and appeared
overwhelmed with sadness. She began to sing, and accompanied herself on
an immense guitar which she had placed immediately before her on the
floor, and which she pinched with her two hands. (Of what is she not
capable, this Gaviota?) But here comes the interesting part. Suddenly
there appeared a Moor.”
“A Moor?”
“But what a Moor! blacker and more cruel than Mohammed himself. He held
in his hand a poniard, large as a sabre.”
“Jesus, Maria!” cried Maria and Dolores.
“I demanded of Nicholas who was this proud Moor, and he told me that he
is called _Telo_. To make a finish of my story, the Moor said to the
Gaviota that he was about to kill her.”
“Holy Virgin!” exclaimed the old woman, “it was the public executioner!”
“I do not know if it was the executioner or a paid assassin,” replied
Momo; “but of this I am sure, that he seized her by her hair, and
stabbed her several times with the poniard. I saw it with my own eyes,
those eyes which will one day be in the land of death, and I can affirm
it.”
Momo placed his two fingers on his two eyes with such rigorous force,
that it seemed as if they would start from their sockets.
The two good women raised a frightful cry. Old Maria sobbed and rung her
hands with grief.
“But what did the spectators do?” asked Dolores, shedding abundance of
tears; “was there no one to arrest this scoundrel?”
“That is what I do not know,” answered Momo. “For on seeing this, I took
to my legs, and in the fear that they would call upon me to depose, I
did not cease running until I had put some leagues between the city of
Madrid and the son of my father.”
“We must,” said the poor old Maria, amidst her sobs, “conceal this
misfortune from Pedro. What griefs! what griefs!”
“And who could have courage enough to tell him?” replied Dolores. “Poor
Marisalada! she was well, and would be better. See what has happened to
her!”
“Each one gets what they merit,” said Momo. “This bad daughter should
end badly--it could not be otherwise. If I were not so fatigued, I would
go on the instant, and relate it all to Ramon Perez.”