Produced by Ted Garvin and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
First Love
And Other Fascinating Stories
of Spanish Life
Emilia Pardo-Bazan
and Others
LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 1195
Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY
GIRARD, KANSAS
CONTENTS
First Love
_Emilia Pardo-Bazan._
An Andalusian Duel
_Serafin Estebanez Calderon._
Mariquita the Bald
_Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch._
The Love of Clotilde
_Armando Palacio Valdés._
Captain Veneno's Proposal of Marriage
_Pedro Antonio de Alarcón._
FIRST LOVE
Emilia Pardo-Bazan
How old was I then? Eleven or twelve years? More probably thirteen,
for before then is too early to be seriously in love; but I won't
venture to be certain, considering that in Southern countries the
heart matures early, if that organ is to blame for such perturbations.
If I do not remember well _when_, I can at least say exactly _how_ my
first love revealed itself. I was very fond--as soon as my aunt had
gone to church to perform her evening devotions--of slipping into her
bedroom and rummaging her chest of drawers, which she kept in
admirable order. Those drawers were to me a museum; in them I always
came across something rare or antique, which exhaled an archaic and
mysterious scent, the aroma of the sandalwood fans which perfumed her
white linen. Pin-cushions of satin now faded; knitted mittens,
carefully wrapped in tissue paper; prints of saints; sewing materials;
a reticule of blue velvet embroidered with bugles, an amber and silver
rosary would appear from the corners: I used to ponder over them, and
return them to their place. But one day--I remember as well as if it
were today--in the corner of the top drawer, and lying on some collars
of old lace, I saw something gold glittering--I put in my hand,
unwittingly crumpled the lace, and drew out a portrait, an ivory
miniature, about three inches long, in a frame of gold.
I was struck at first sight. A sunbeam streamed through the window and
fell upon the alluring form, which seemed to wish to step out of its
dark background and come towards me. It was the most lovely creature,
such as I had never seen except in the dreams of my adolescence. The
lady of the portrait must have been some twenty odd years; she was no
simple maiden, no half-opened rosebud, but a woman in the full
resplendency of her beauty. Her face was oval, but not too long, her
lips full, half-open and smiling, her eyes cast a languishing
side-glance, and she had a dimple on her chin as if formed by the tip
of Cupid's playful finger. Her head-dress was strange but elegant; a
compact group of curls plastered conewise one over the other covered
her temples, and a basket of braided hair rose on the top of her head.
This old-fashioned head-dress, which was trussed up from the nape of
her neck, disclosed all the softness of her fresh young throat, on
which the dimple of her chin was reduplicated more vaguely and
delicately.
As for the dress--I do not venture to consider whether our
grandmothers were less modest than our wives are, or if the confessors
of past times were more indulgent than those of the present; I am
inclined to think the latter, for seventy years ago women prided
themselves upon being Christianlike and devout, and would not have
disobeyed the director of their conscience in so grave and important a
matter. What is undeniable is, that if in the present day any lady
were to present herself in the garb of the lady of the portrait, there
would be a scandal; for from her waist (which began at her armpits)
upwards, she was only veiled by light folds of diaphanous gauze, which
marked out, rather than covered, two mountains of snow, between which
meandered a thread of pearls. With further lack of modesty she
stretched out two rounded arms worthy of Juno, ending in finely molded
hands--when I say _hands_ I am not exact, for, strictly speaking, only
one hand could be seen, and that held a richly embroidered
handkerchief.
Even today I am astonished at the startling effect which the
contemplation of that miniature produced upon me, and how I remained
in ecstasy, scarcely breathing, devouring the portrait with my eyes. I
had already seen here and there prints representing beautiful women.
It often happened that in the illustrated papers, in the mythological
engravings of our dining-room, or in a shop-window, that a beautiful
face, or a harmonious and graceful figure attracted my precociously
artistic gaze. But the miniature encountered in my aunt's drawer,
apart from its great beauty, appeared to me as if animated by a subtle
and vital breath; you could see it was not the caprice of a painter,
but the image of a real and actual person of flesh and blood. The warm
and rich tone of the tints made you surmise that the blood was tepid
beneath that mother-of-pearl skin. The lips were slightly parted to
disclose the enameled teeth; and to complete the illusion there ran
round the frame a border of natural hair, chestnut in color, wavy and
silky, which had grown on the temples of the original.
As I have said, it was more than a copy, it was the reflection of a
living person from whom I was only separated by a wall of glass.--I
seized it, breathed upon it, and it seemed to me that the warmth of
the mysterious deity communicated itself to my lips and circulated
through my veins. At this moment I heard footsteps in the corridor. It
was my aunt returning from her prayers. I heard her asthmatic cough,
and the dragging of her gouty feet. I had only just time to put the
miniature into the drawer, shut it, and approach the window, adopting
an innocent and indifferent attitude.
My aunt entered noisily, for the cold of the church had exasperated
her catarrh, now chronic. Upon seeing me, her wrinkled eyes
brightened, and giving me a friendly tap with her withered hand, she
asked me if I had been turning over her drawers as usual.
Then, with a chuckle:
"Wait a bit, wait a bit," she added, "I have something for you,
something you will like."
And she pulled out of her vast pocket a paper bag, and out of the bag
three or four gum lozenges, sticking together in a cake, which gave me
a feeling of nausea.
My aunt's appearance did not invite one to open one's mouth and devour
these sweets: the course of years, her loss of teeth, her eyes dimmed
to an unusual degree, the sprouting of a mustache or bristles on her
sunken-in mouth, which was three inches wide, dull gray locks
fluttering above her sallow temples, a neck flaccid and livid as the
crest of the turkey when in a good temper.--In short, I did not take
the lozenges. Ugh! A feeling of indignation, a manly protest rose in
me, and I said forcibly:
"I do not want it, I don't want it."
"You don't want it? What a wonder! You who are greedier than a cat!"
"I am not a little boy," I exclaimed, drawing myself up, and standing
on tiptoes; "I don't care for sweets."
My aunt looked at me half good-humoredly and half ironically, and at
last, giving way to the feeling of amusement I caused her, burst out
laughing, by which she disfigured herself, and exposed the horrible
anatomy of her jaws. She laughed so heartily that her chin and nose
met, hiding her lips, and emphasizing two wrinkles, or rather two deep
furrows, and more than a dozen lines on her cheeks and eyelids; at the
same time her head and body shook with the laughter, until at last her
cough began to interrupt the bursts, and between laughing and coughing
the old lady involuntarily spluttered all over my face. Humiliated,
and full of disgust, I escaped rapidly thence to my mother's room,
where I washed myself with soap and water, and began to muse on the
lady of the portrait.
And from that day and hour I could not keep my thoughts from her. As
soon as my aunt went out, to slip into her room, open the drawer,
bring out the miniature, and lose myself in contemplation, was the
work of a minute. By dint of looking at it, I fancied that her
languishing eyes, through the voluptuous veiling, of her eyelashes,
were fixed in mine, and that her white bosom heaved. I became ashamed
to kiss her, imagining she would be annoyed at my audacity, and only
pressed her to my heart or held her against my cheek. All my actions
and thoughts referred to the lady; I behaved towards her with the most
extraordinary refinement and super-delicacy. Before entering my aunt's
room and opening the longed-for drawer, I washed, combed my hair, and
tidied myself, as I have seen since is usually done before repairing
to a love appointment.
I often happened to meet in the street other boys of my age, very
proud of their slip of a sweetheart, who would exultingly show me
love-letters, photographs, and flowers, and who asked me if I hadn't a
sweetheart with whom to correspond. A feeling of inexplicable
bashfulness tied my tongue, and I only replied with an enigmatic and
haughty smile. And when they questioned me as to what I thought of the
beauty of their little maidens, I would shrug my shoulders and
disdainfully call them _ugly mugs_.
One Sunday I went to play in the house of some little girl-cousins,
really very pretty, the eldest of whom was not yet fifteen. We were
amusing ourselves looking into a stereoscope, when suddenly one of the
little girls, the youngest, who counted twelve summers at most,
secretly seized my hand, and in some confusion and blushing as red as
a brazier, whispered in my ear:
"Take this."
At the same time I felt in the palm of my hand something soft and
fresh, and saw that it was a rosebud with its green foliage. The
little girl ran away smiling and casting a side-glance at me; but I,
with a Puritanism worthy of Joseph, cried out in my turn:
"Take this!"
And I threw the rosebud at her nose, a rebuff which made her tearful
and pettish with me the whole afternoon, and for which she has not
pardoned me even now, though she is married and has three children.
The two or three hours which my aunt spent morning and evening
together at church being too short for my admiration of the entrancing
portrait, I resolved at last to keep the miniature in my pocket, and
went about all day hiding myself from people just as if I had
committed some crime. I fancied that the portrait from the depth of
its prison of cloth could see all my actions, and I arrived at such a
ridiculous extremity, that if I wanted to scratch myself, pull up my
sock, or do anything else not in keeping with the idealism of my
chaste love, I first drew out the miniature, put it in a safe place,
and then considered myself free to do whatever I wanted. In fact,
since I had accomplished the theft, there was no limit to my vagaries.
At night I hid it under the pillow, and slept in an attitude of
defense; the portrait remained near the wall, I outside, and I awoke
a thousand times, fearing somebody would come to bereave me of my
treasure. At last I drew it from beneath the pillow and slipped it
between my nightshirt and left breast, on which the following day
could be seen the imprint of the chasing of the frame.
The contact of the dear miniature gave me delicious dreams. The lady
of the portrait, not in effigy, but in her natural size and
proportions, alive, graceful, affable, beautiful, would come towards
me to conduct me to her palace by a rapid and flying train. With sweet
authority she would make me sit on a stool at her feet, and would pass
her beautifully molded hand over my head, caressing my brow, my eyes,
and loose curls. I read to her out of a big missal, or played the
lute, and she deigned to smile, thanking me for the pleasure which my
reading and songs gave her. At last romantic reminiscences overflowed
in my brain, and sometimes I was a page, and sometimes a troubadour.
With all these fanciful ideas, the fact is that I began to grow thin
quite perceptibly, which was observed with great disquietude in my
parents and my aunt.
"In this dangerous and critical age of development, everything is
alarming," said my father, who used to read books of medicine, and
anxiously studied my dark eyelids, my dull eyes, my contracted and
pale lips, and above all, the complete lack of appetite which had
taken possession of me.
"Play, boy; eat, boy," he would say to me, and I replied to him,
dejectedly:
"I don't feel inclined."
They began to talk of distractions, offered to take me to the theater;
stopped my studies, and gave me foaming new milk to drink. Afterwards
they poured cold water over my head and back to fortify my nerves; and
I noticed that my father at table or in the morning when I went to his
bedroom to bid him good morning, would gaze at me fixedly for some
little time, and would sometimes pass his hand down my spine, feeling
the vertebrae. I hypocritically lowered my eyes, resolved to die
rather than confess my crime. As soon as I was free from the
affectionate solicitude of my family, I found myself alone with my
lady of the portrait. At last, to get nearer to her, I thought I would
do away with the cold crystal. I trembled upon putting this into
execution; but at last my love prevailed over the vague fear with
which such a profanation filled me, and with skillful cunning I
succeeded in pulling away the glass and exposing the ivory plate. As I
pressed my lips to the painting I could scent the slight fragrance of
the border of hair, I imagined to myself even more realistically that
it was a living person whom I was grasping with my trembling hands. A
feeling of faintness overpowered me, and I fell unconscious on the
sofa, tightly holding the miniature.
When I came to my senses I saw my father, my mother, and my aunt, all
bending anxiously over me; I read their terror and alarm in their
faces; my father was feeling my pulse, shaking his head, and
murmuring:
"His pulse is nothing but a flutter, you can scarcely feel it."
My aunt, with her claw-like fingers, was trying to take the portrait
from me, and I was mechanically hiding it and grasping it more firmly.
"But, my dear boy--let go, you are spoiling it!" she exclaimed. "Don't
you see you are smudging it? I am not scolding you, my dear.--I will
show it to you as often as you like, but don't destroy it; let go, you
are injuring it."
"Let him have it," begged my mother, "the boy is not well."
"Of all things to ask!" replied the old maid. "Let him have it! And
who will paint another like this--or make me as I was then? Today
nobody paints miniatures--it is a thing of the past, and I also am a
thing of the past, and I am not what is represented there!"
My eyes dilated with horror; my fingers released their hold on the
picture. I don't know how I was able to articulate:
"You--the portrait--is you?"
"Don't you think I am as pretty now, boy? Bah! one is better looking
at twenty-three than at--than at--I don't know what, for I have
forgotten how old I am!"
My head drooped and I almost fainted again; anyway, my father lifted
me in his arms on to the bed, and made me swallow some tablespoonfuls
of port.
I recovered very quickly, and never wished to enter my aunt's room
again.
AN ANDALUSIAN DUEL
Serafin Estebanez Calderon
Through the little square of St. Anna, towards a certain tavern, where
the best wine is to be quaffed in Seville, there walked in measured
steps two men whose demeanor clearly manifested the soil which gave
them birth. He who walked in the middle of the street, taller than the
other by about a finger's length, sported with affected carelessness
the wide, slouched hat of Ecija, with tassels of glass beads and a
ribbon as black as his sins. He wore his cloak gathered under his left
arm; the right, emerging from a turquoise lining, exposed the merino
lambskin with silver clasps. The herdsman's boots--white, with Turkish
buttons,--the breeches gleaming red from below the cloak and covering
the knee, and, above all, his strong and robust appearance, dark curly
hair, and eye like a red-hot coal, proclaimed at a distance that all
this combination belonged to one of those men who put an end to horses
between their knees and tire out the bull with their lance.
He walked on, arguing with his companion, who was rather spare than
prodigal in his person, but marvelously lithe and supple. The latter
was shod with low shoes, garters united the stockings to the
light-blue breeches, the waistcoat was cane-colored, his sash light
green, and jaunty shoulder-knots, lappets, and rows of buttons
ornamented the carmelite jacket. The open cloak, the hat drawn over
his ear, his short, clean steps, and the manifestations in all his
limbs and movements of agility and elasticity beyond trial plainly
showed that in the arena, carmine cloth in hand, he would mock at the
most frenzied of Jarama bulls, or the best horned beasts from Utrera.
I--who adore and die for such people, though the compliment be not
returned--went slowly in the wake of their worships, and, unable to
restrain myself, entered with them the same tavern, or rather
eating-house, since there they serve certain provocatives as well as
wine, and I, as my readers perceive, love to call things by their
right name. I entered and sat down at once, and in such a manner as
not to interrupt Oliver and Roland, and that they might not notice me,
when I saw that, as if believing themselves alone, they threw their
arms with an amicable gesture round each others' neck, and thus began
their discourse:
"Pulpete," said the taller, "now that we are going to meet each
other, knife in hand--you here, I there,--_one, two_,--_on your
guard_,--_triz, traz_,--_have that_,--_take this and call it what
you like_--let us first drain a tankard to the music and measure
of some songs."
"Señor Balbeja," replied Pulpete, drawing his face aside and spitting
with the greatest neatness and pulchritude towards his shoe, "I am not
the kind of man either for La Gorja or other similar earthly matters,
or because a steel tongue is sheathed in my body, or my weasand slit,
or for any other such trifle, to be provoked or vexed with such a
friend as Balbeja. Let the wine be brought, and then, we will sing;
and afterwards blood--blood to the hilt."
The order was given, they clinked glasses, and, looking one at the
other, sang a Sevillian song.
This done, they threw off their cloaks with an easy grace, and
unsheathed their knives with which to prick one another, the one
Flemish with a white haft, the other from Guadix, with a guard to the
hilt, both blades dazzling in their brightness, and sharpened and
ground enough for operating upon cataracts, much less ripping up
bellies and bowels. The two had already cleft the air several times
with the said lancets, their cloak wound round their left arm--first
drawing closer, then back, now more boldly and in bounds--when Pulpete
hoisted the flag for parley, and said:
"Balbeja, my friend, I only beg you to do me the favor not to fan my
face with _Juilon_ your knife, since a slash might use it so ill that
my mother who bore me would not know me, and I should not like to be
considered ugly; neither is it right to mar and destroy what God made
in His likeness."
"Agreed," replied Balbeja; "I will aim lower."
"Except--except my stomach also, for I was ever a friend to
cleanliness, and I should not like to see myself fouled in a bad way,
if your knife and arm played havoc with my liver and intestines."
"I will strike higher; but let us go on."
"Take care of my chest, it was always weak."
"Then just tell me, friend, _where_ am I to sound or tap you?"
"My dear Balbeja, there's always plenty of time and space to hack at a
man; I have here on my left arm a wen, of which you can make meat as
much as you like."
"Here goes for it," said Balbeja, and he hurled himself like an arrow;
the other warded off the thrust with his cloak, and both, like skilful
penmen, began again tracing S's and signatures in the air with dashes
and flourishes without, however, raising a particle of skin.
I do not know what would have been the end of this onslaught, since my
venerable, dry, and shriveled person was not suitable for forming a
point of exclamation between two combatants; and the tavern-keeper
troubled so little about what was happening that he drowned the
stamping of their feet and clatter of the tumbling stools and utensils
by scraping street music on a guitar as loud as he could. Otherwise he
was as calm as if he were entertaining two angels instead of two
devils incarnate.
I do not know, I repeat, how this scene would have ended, when there
crossed the threshold a parsonage who came to take a part in the
development of the drama. There entered, I say, a woman of twenty to
twenty-two years of age, diminutive in body, superlative in audacity
and grace. Neat and clean hose and shoes, short, black flounced
petticoat, a linked girdle, head-dress or mantilla of fringed taffeta
caught together at the nape of her neck, and a corner of it over her
shoulder, she passed before my eyes with swaying hips, arms akimbo,
and moving her head to and fro as she looked about her on all sides.
Upon seeing her the tavern-keeper dropped his instrument, and I was
overtaken by perturbation such as I had not experienced for thirty
years (I am, after all, only flesh and blood); but, without halting
for such lay-figures, she advanced to the field of battle.
There was a lively to-do here; Don Pulpete and Don Balbeja when they
saw Doña Gorja appear, first cause of the disturbance and future prize
for the victor, increased their feints, flourishes, curvets, onsets,
crouching, and bounds--all, however, without touching a hair. Our
Helen witnessed in silence for a long time this scene in history with
that feminine pleasure which the daughters of Eve enjoy at such
critical moments. But gradually her pretty brow clouded over, until,
drawing from her delicate ear, not a flower or earring, but the stump
of a cigar, she hurled it amidst the jousters. Not even Charles V's
cane in the last duel in Spain produced such favorable effects. Both
came forward immediately with formal respect, and each, by reason of
the discomposure of his person and clothes, presumed to urge a title
by which to recommend himself to the fair with the flounces. She, as
though pensive, was going over the passage of arms in her mind, and
then, with firm and confident resolution, spoke thus:
"And is this affair for me?"
"Who else should it be for? since I--since nobody--" they replied in
the same breath.
"Listen, gentlemen," said she. "For females such as I and my parts,
of my charms and descent--daughter of La Gatusa, niece of La Mêndez,
and granddaughter of La Astrosa--know that there are neither pacts nor
compacts, nor any such futile things, nor are any of them worth a
farthing. And when men challenge each other, let the knife do its work
and the red blood flow, so as not to have my mother's daughter present
without giving her the pleasure of snapping her fingers in the face of
the other. If you pretend you are fighting for me, it's a lie; you are
wholly mistaken, and that not by halves. I love neither of you.
Mingalarios of Zafra is to my taste, and he and I look upon you with
scorn and contempt. Good-by, my braves; and, if you like, call my man
to account."
She spoke, spat, smoothed the saliva with the point of her shoe,
looking Pulpete and Balbeja full in the face, and went out with the
same expressive movements with which she entered.
The two unvarnished braggarts followed the valorous Doña Gorja with
their eyes; and then with a despicable gesture drew their knives
across their sleeve as though wiping off the blood there might have
been, sheathed them at one and the same time, and said together:
"Through woman the world was lost, through a woman Spain was lost; but
it has never been known, nor do ballads relate, nor the blind beggars
sing, nor is it heard in the square or markets, that two valiant men
killed each, other for another lover."
"Give me that fist, Don Pulpete."
"Your hand, Don Balbeja."
They spoke and strode out into the street, the best friends in the
world, leaving me all amazed at such whimsicality.
MARIQUITA THE BALD
Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch
It is as sorry a matter to use words of whose meaning one is ignorant
as it is a blemish for a man of sense to speak of what he knows
nothing about. I say this to those of you who may have the present
story in your hands, however often you may have happened to have heard
_Mariquita the Bald_ mentioned, and I swear by my doublet that you
shall soon know who Mariquita the Bald was, as well as I know who ate
the Christmas turkey, setting aside the surmise that it certainly must
have been a mouth.
I desire, therefore, to enlighten your ignorance of this subject, and
beg to inform you that the said noted Maria (Mariquita is a diminutive
of Maria) was born in the District of Segovia, and in the town of San
Garcia, the which town is famed for the beauty of the maidens reared
within its walls, who for the most part have such gentle and lovely
faces that may I behold such around me at the hour of my death.
Maria's father was an honest farmer, by name Juan Lanas, a Christian
old man and much beloved, who had inherited no mean estate from his
forefathers, though with but little wit in his crown,--a lack which
was the cause of much calamity to both the father and the daughter,
for in the times to which we have attained, God forgive me if it is
not necessary to have more of the knave than of the fool in one's
composition.
Now it came to pass that Juan Lanas, for the castigation of his sins,
must needs commit himself to a lawsuit with one of his neighbors about
a vine stock which was worth about fifty _maravedis_; and Juan was in
the right, and the judges gave the verdict in his favor, so that he
won his case, excepting that the suit lasted no less than ten years
and the costs amounted to nothing less than fifty thousand
_maravedis_, not to speak of a disease of the eyes which, after all
was over, left him blind. When he found himself with diminished
property and without his eyesight, in sorrow and disgust he turned
into money such part of his patrimony as sufficed to rid him of the
hungry herd of scriveners and lawyers, and took his way to Toledo with
his daughter, who was already entering upon her sixteenth year, and
had matured into one of the most beautiful, graceful, and lovable
damsels to be found throughout all Castile and the kingdoms beyond.
For she was white as the lily and red like the rose, straight and tall
of stature, and slender in the waist, with fair, shapely hips; and
again her foot and hand were plump and small to a marvel, and she
possessed a head of hair which reached to her knees. For I knew the
widow Sarmiento who was their housekeeper, and she told me how she
could scarcely clasp Mariquita's hair with both hands, and that she
could not comb the hair unless Maria stood up and the housekeeper
mounted on a footstool, for if Maria sat down the long tresses swept
the ground, and therefore became all entangled.
And do not imagine, her beauty and grace being such, that she sinned
greatly in pride and levity, as is the wont of girls in this age. She
was as humble as a cloistered lay-sister, and as silent as if she were
not a woman, and patient as the sucking lamb, and industrious as the
ant, clean as the ermine, and pure as a saint of those times in which,
by the grace of the Most High, saintly women were born into the world.
But I must confide to you in friendship that our Mariquita was not a
little vain about her hair, and loved to display it, and for this
reason, now in the streets, now when on a visit, now when at mass, it
is said she used to subtilely loosen her mantilla so that her tresses
streamed down her back, the while feigning forgetfulness and
carelessness. She never wore a hood, for she said it annoyed her and
choked her; and every time that her father reproached her for some
deed deserving of punishment and threatened to cut off her hair, I
warrant you she suffered three times more than after a lash from the
whip, and would then be good for three weeks successively; so much so
that Juan Lanas, perceiving her amendment, would laugh under his
cloak, and when saying his say to his gossips would tell them that his
daughter, like the other saint of Sicily, would reach heaven by her
hair.
Having read so far, you must now know that Juan Lanas, the blind man,
with the change of district and dwelling did not change his judgment
and if he was crack-brained at San Garcia, he remained crack-brained
at Toledo, consuming in this resort his money upon worthless drugs and
quacks which did not cure his blindness and impoverished him more and
more every day, so that if his daughter had not been so dexterous with
her fingers in making and broidering garments of linen, wool, and
silk, I promise you that this miserable Juan would have had to go for
more than four Sundays without a clean shirt to put on or a mouthful
to eat, unless he had begged it from door to door.
The years passed by to find Maria every day more beautiful, and her
father every day more blind and more desirous to see, until his
affliction and trouble took such forcible possession of his breast and
mind, that Maria saw as clear as daylight that if her father did not
recover his sight, he would die of grief. Maria thereupon straightway
took her father and led him to the house of an Arabian physician of
great learning who dwelt at Toledo, and told the Moor to see if there
were any cure for the old man's sight. The Arabian examined and
touched Juan, and made this and that experiment with him, and
everything prospered, in that the physician swore great oaths by the
heel-bone of Mohammed that there was a complete certainty of curing
Juan and making him to see his daughter again, if only he, the
physician, were paid for the cure with five hundred _maravedis_ all in
gold. A sad termination for such a welcome beginning, for the two
unhappy creatures, Juan and Maria, had neither _maravedi_ nor
_cuarto_ in the money box! So they went thence all downcast, and Maria
never ceased praying to his Holiness Saint John and his Holiness Saint
James (the patron saint of Spain) to repair to their assistance in
this sad predicament.
"In what way," conjectured she inwardly, "in what way can I raise five
hundred _maravedis_ to be quits with the Moor who will give back his
sight to my poor old father? All! I have it. I am a pretty maid, and
suitors innumerable, commoners and nobles, pay their addresses and
compliments to me. But all are trifling youths who only care for
love-making and who seek light o' loves rather than spouses according
to the law of the Lord Jesus Christ. I remember, notwithstanding, that
opposite our house lives the sword-cutler, Master Palomo, who is
always looking at me and never speaks to me, and the Virgin assist me,
he appears a man of very good condition for a husband; but what
maiden, unless she were cross-eyed, or hunch-backed, could like a man
with such a flat nose, with that skin the color of a ripe date, with
those eyes like a dead calf's, and with those huge hands, which are
more like the paws of a wild beast that the belongings of a person who
with them should softly caress the woman whom Destiny bestows upon him
for a companion? 'Tis said that he is no drunkard, nor cudgeler, nor
dallier with women, nor a liar, and that he is besides possessed of
much property and very rich. Pity 'tis that one who is so ugly and
stiff-necked should unite such parts."
Thus turning the matter over and over in her mind, Maria together
with Juan reached their home, where was awaiting them an esquire in a
long mourning robe, who told Maria that the aunt of the mayor of the
city had died in an honest estate and in the flower of her age, for
she had not yet completed her seventy years, and that the obsequies of
this sexagenarian damsel were to be performed the following day, on
which occasion her coffin would be carried to the church by maidens,
and he was come to ask Maria if she would please to be one of the
bearers of the dead woman, for which she would receive a white robe,
and to eat, and ducat, and thanks into the bargain.
Maria, since she was a well-brought-up maid, replied that if it seemed
well to her father, it would also seem well to her.
Juan accepted, and Maria was rejoiced to be able to make a display of
her hair, for it is well known that the maidens who bear one another
to the grave walk with disheveled locks. And when on the morrow the
tiring-women of the mayoress arrayed Maria in a robe white as the
driven snow and fine as the skin of an onion; and when they girt her
slender waist with a sash of crimson silk, the ends of which hung down
to the broad hem of the skirt; and when they crowned her smooth and
white forehead with a wreath of white flowers, I warrant you that,
what with the robe and the sash and the wreath, and the beautiful
streaming hair and her lovely countenance and gracious mien, she
seemed no female formed of flesh and blood, but a superhuman creature
or blessed resident of those shining circles in which dwell the
celestial hierarchies. The mayor and the other mourners stepped forth
to see her, and all unceasingly praised God, who was pleased to
perform such miracles for the consolation and solace of those living
in this world.
And there in a corner of the hall, motionless like a heap of broken
stones, stood one of the mutes with the hood of his long cloak
covering his head, so that nothing could be seen but his eyes, the
which he kept fixed on the fair damsel. The latter modestly lowered
her eyes to the ground with her head a little bent and her cheeks red
for bashfulness, although it pleased her no little to hear the praises
of her beauty. At this moment a screen was pushed aside, and there
began to appear a huge bulk of petticoats, which was nothing less than
the person of the mayoress, for she was with child and drawing near to
her time. And when she saw Maria, she started, opened her eyes a
hand's-breadth wide, bit her lips, and called hurriedly for her
husband. They stepped aside for a good while, and then hied them
thence, and when they returned the mutes and maidens had all gone.
While they were burying the defunct lady I must tell you, curious
readers, that the mayor and mayoress had been married for many years
without having any children, and they longed for them like the
countryman for rain in the month of May, and at last her hour of bliss
came to the mayoress, to the great content of her husband. Now, it
was whispered that the said lady had always been somewhat capricious;
judge for yourselves what she would be now in the time of her
pregnancy! And as she was already on the way to fifty, she was more
than mediocrely bald and hairless, and on these very same days had
commissioned a woman barber, who lived in the odor of witchcraft, to
prepare for her some false hair, but it was not to be that of a dead
woman, for the mayoress said very sensibly that if the hair belonged
to a dead woman who rejoiced in supreme glory, or was suffering for
her sins in purgatory, it would be profanation to wear any pledge of
theirs, and if they were in hell, it was a terrible thing to wear on
one's person relics of one of the damned. And when the mayoress saw
the abundant locks of Maria, she coveted them for herself, and it was
for this reason that she called to the mayor to speak to her in
private and besought him eagerly to persuade Mario to allow herself to
be shorn upon the return from the burial.
"I warn you," said the mayor, "that you are desirous of entering upon
a very knotty bargain, for the disheveled girl idolizes her hair in
such wise that she would sooner lose a finger than suffer one of her
tresses to be cut off."
"I warn you," replied the mayoress, "that if on this very day the head
of this young girl is not shorn smooth beneath my hand as a melon, the
child to which I am about to give birth will have a head of hair on
its face, and if it happens to be a female, look you, a pretty
daughter is in store for you!"
"But bethink yourself that Maria will ask, who knows, a good few
crowns for this shaving."
"Bethink yourself that if not, your heir or heiress, begotten after
many years' marriage, will come amiss; and bear in mind, by the way,
that we are not so young as to hope to replace this by another."
Upon this she turned her back to the mayor, and went to her apartment
crying out: "I want the hair, I must have the hair, and if I do not
get the hair, by my halidom I shall never become a mother."
In the meantime the funeral had taken place without any novelty to
mention, excepting that if in the streets any loose fellow in the
crowd assayed to annoy the fair Maria, the hooded mute, of whom we
made mention before, quickly drew from beneath his cloak a strap, with
which he gave a lash to the insolent rogue without addressing one word
to him, and then walked straight on as if nothing had happened. When
all the mourners returned, the mayor seized hold of Maria's hand and
said to her:
"And now, fair maid, let us withdraw for a little while into this
other apartment," and thus talking whilst in motion he brought her
into his wife's private tiring-room, and sat himself down in a chair
and bent his head and stroked his beard with the mien of one who is
studying what beginning to give his speech. Maria, a little foolish
and confused, remained standing in front of the mayor, and she also
humbly lowered before him her eyes, black as the sloe; and to occupy
herself with something, gently fingered the ends of the sash, which
girded her waist and hung down over her skirt, not knowing what to
expect from the grave mien and long silence of the mayor, who, raising
his eyes and looking up at Maria, when he beheld her in so modest a
posture, devised thence a motive with which to begin, saying:
"Forsooth, Maria, so modest and sanctimonious is thy bearing, that it
is easy to see thou art preparing thyself to become a black-wimpled
nun. And if it be so, as I presume it to be, I now offer of my own
accord to dispose of thy entry into the cloisters without any dowry,
on the condition that thou dost give me something that thou hast on
thy head, and which then will not be necessary for thee."
"Nay, beshrew me, Sir Mayor," replied Maria, "for I durst not think
that the Lord calls upon me to take that step, for then my poor father
would remain in the world without the staff of his old age."
"Then, now, I desire to give thee some wise counsel, maid Maria. Thou
dost gain thy bread with great fatigue. Thou shouldst make use of thy
time as much as is possible. Now one of thy neighbors hath told me
that in the dressing of thy hair thou dost waste every day more than
an hour. It would be better far if thou didst spend this hour on thy
work rather than in the dressing and braiding which thou dost to thy
hair."
"That is true, Sir Mayor," replied Maria, turning as red as a
carnation, "but, look you, it is not my fault if I have a wealth of
tresses, the combing and plaiting of which necessitate so long a time
every morning."
"I tell thee it is thy fault," retorted the mayor, "for if thou didst
cut off this mane, thou wouldst save thyself all this combing and
plaiting, and thus wouldst have more time for work, and so gain more
money, and wouldst also give no occasion to people to call thee vain.
They even say that the devil will some day carry thee off by thy hair.
Nay, do not be distressed, for I already perceive the tears gathering
in thine eyes, for thou hast them indeed very ready at hand; I
admonish thee for thine own good without any self-interest. Cut thy
hair off, shear thyself, shave thyself, good Maria, and to allay the
bitterness of the shearing, I will give fifty _maravedis_, always on
condition that thou dost hand me over the hair."
When Maria at first heard this offer of so reasonable a sum for this
her hair, it seemed to her a jest of the mayor's, and she smiled right
sweetly while she dried her tears, repeating:
"You will give me fifty _maravedis_ if I shave myself?"
Now it appeared to the mayor (who, it is said, was not gifted with all
the prudence of Ulysses) that the smile signified that the maid was
not satisfied with so small a price, and he added:
"If thou wilt not be content with fifty _maravedis_, I will give thee
a hundred."
Then Maria saw some hangings of the apartment moving in front of her,
and perceiving a bulky protuberance, she immediately divined that the
mayoress was hiding behind there, and that the protuberance was caused
by her portly form. Now she discovered the mayor's design, and that it
was probably a caprice of his spouse, and she made a vow not to suffer
herself to be shorn unless she acquired by these means the five
hundred _maravedis_ needful to pay the Arabian physician who would
give her father back his eyesight.
Then the mayor raised his price from a hundred _maravedis_ to a
hundred and fifty, and afterwards to two hundred, and Maria continued
her sweet smiling, shaking of the head, and gestures, and every time
that the mayor bid higher and Maria feigned to be reluctant, she
almost hoped that the mayor would withdraw from his proposition, for
the great grief it caused her to despoil herself of that precious
ornament, notwithstanding that my means of it she might gain her
father's health. Finally the mayor, anxious to conclude the treaty,
for he saw the stirring of the curtains, and knew by them the anxiety
and state of mind of the listener, closed by saying:
"Go to, hussy, I will give thee five hundred _maravedis_. See, once
and for all, if thou canst agree on these terms."
"Be it so," replied Maria, sighing as if her soul would flee from her
flesh with these words--"be it so, so long that nobody doth know that
I remain bald."
"I will give my word for it," said the mayoress, stepping from behind
the curtains with a pair of sharp shears in her hands and a wrapper
over her arm.
When Maria saw the scissors she turned as yellow as wax, and when they
told her to sit down on the sacrificial chair, she felt herself grow
faint and had to ask for a drink of water; and when they tied the
wrapper round her throat it is related that she would have immediately
torn it asunder if her courage had not failed her. And when at the
first movement of the shears she felt the cold iron against her skull,
I tell you it seemed to her as if they were piercing her heart with a
bright dagger. It is possible that she did not keep her head still for
a moment while this tonsuring was taking place; she moved it in spite
of herself, now to one side, now to another, to flee from the clipping
scissors, of which the rude cuts and the creaking axis wounded her
ears. Her posture and movements, however, were of no avail to the poor
shorn maiden, and the pertinacious shearer, with the anxiety and
covetousness of a pregnant woman satisfying a caprice, seized the hair
well, or ill, by handfuls, and went on bravely clipping, and the locks
fell on to the white wrapper, slipping down thence till they reached
the ground.
At last the business came to an end, and the mayoress, who was beside
herself with joy, caressingly passed the palm of her hand again and
again over the maid's bald head from the front to the back, saying:
"By my mother's soul, I have shorn you so regularly and close to the
root that the most skilful barber could not have shorn you better.
Get up and braid the hair while my husband goes to get the money and I
your clothes, so that you can leave the house without anyone
perceiving it."
The mayor and mayoress went out of the room, and Maria, as soon as she
found herself alone, went to look at herself in a mirror that hung
there; and when she saw herself bald she lost the patience she had had
until then, and groaned with rage and struck herself, and even tried
to wrench off her ears, which appeared to her now outrageously large,
although they were not so in reality. She stamped upon her hair and
cursed herself for having ever consented to lose it, without
remembering her father, and just as if she had no father at all. But
as it is a quality of human nature to accept what cannot be altered,
poor angry Maria calmed down little by little, and she picked up the
hair from the ground and bound it together and braided it into great
ropes, not without kissing it and lamenting over it many times.
The mayor and the mayoress returned, he with the money and she with
the every-day clothes of Maria, who undressed and folded her white
robe in a kerchief, put on her old gown, hid herself with her shawl to
the eyes, and walked, moaning, to the house of the Moor, without
noticing that the man with the hood over his head was following behind
her, and that when she, in a moment of forgetfulness, lowered her
shawl through the habit she had of displaying her tresses, her bald
head could be plainly seen. The Moor received the five hundred
_maravedis_ with that good-will with which money is always received,
and told Maria to bring Juan Lanas to his house to stay there so long
as there was any risk in the cure. Maria went to fetch the old man,
and kept silence as to her shorn head so as not to grieve him, and
whilst Juan remained the physician's guest, Maria durst not leave her
home except after nightfall, and then well enveloped. This, however,
did not hinder her being followed by the muffled-up man.
One evening the Moor told her in secret that the next morning he would
remove the bandages from Juan's eyes. Maria went to bed that night
with great rejoicing, but thought to herself that when her father saw
her (which would be with no little pleasure) he would be pleased three
or four times more if he could see her with the pretty head-dress
which she used to wear in her native town. Amidst such cavillation she
donned the next day her best petticoat and ribbons to his to the
Arabian's house; and while she was sitting down to shoe herself she of
a sudden felt something like a hood closing over her head, and,
turning round, she saw behind her the muffled-up man of before, who,
throwing aside his cloak, discovered himself to be the sword-cutler,
Master Palomo, who, without speaking, presented Maria with a little
Venetian mirror, in which she looked and saw herself with her own hair
and garb in such wise that she wondered for a good time if it were not
a dream that the mayoress had shorn her.
The fact was that Master Palomo was a great crony of the old woman
barber, and had seen in her house Maria's tresses on the very same
afternoon of the morning in which he saw Maria was bald, and keeping
silence upon the matter, had wheedled the old woman into keeping
Maria's hair for him, and dressing for the mayoress some other hair of
the same hue which the crone had from a dead woman--a bargain by which
the crafty old dame acquired many a bright crown. And the story
relates that as soon as Maria regained her much lamented and
sighed-for hair by the hands of the gallant sword-cutler, the master
appeared to her much less ugly than before. I do not know if it tells
that from that moment she began to look on him with more favorable
eyes, but i' sooth it is a fact that upon his asking her to accept his
escort to the Moor's house, she gave her assent, and the two set out
hand in hand, the maiden holding her head up free from mufflers. As
they both entered the physician's apartment her father threw himself
into Maria's arms, crying:
"Glory to God, I see thee now, my beloved daughter. How tall and
beautiful thou art grown! Verily, it is worth while to become blind
for five years to see one's daughter matured thus! Now that I see
daylight again, it is only right that I should no longer be a burden
to thee. I shall work for myself, for as for thee it is already time
for thee to marry."
"For this very purpose am I come," broke in at this opportune moment
the silent sword-cutler; "I, as you will have already recognized by
my voice, am your neighbor, Master Palomo. I love Maria, and ask you
for her hand."
"Lack-a-day, master, but your exterior is not very prepossessing.
Howbeit, if Maria doth accept you, I am content."
"I," replied Maria, wholly abashed, and smoothing the false hair
(which then weighed upon her head and heart like a burden of five
hundred weight)--"I, so may God enlighten me, for I durst not venture
to reply."
Palomo took her right hand without saying anything, and as he did so
Maria looked at the master's wrists, and observed the wristbands of
his shirt, neatly embroidered, and with some suspicion and beating of
her heart said to him:
"If you wish to please me, good neighbor, tell me by what seamstress
is this work?"
"It is the work," replied the master, jocularly, "the work of a pretty
maiden who for five years has toiled for my person, albeit she hath
not known it till now."
"Now I perceive," said Maria, "how that all the women who have come to
give me linen to sew and embroider were sent by you, and that is why
they paid me more than is customary."