result. The prevailing opinion was that the play offered little
novelty; but since Clotilde had staked her whole soul upon the
outcome, a big success was predicted. At the dress rehearsal our young
friend had achieved genuine prodigies. There was a moment when the few
of us whom curiosity had brought to witness it, rose to our feet
electrified, convulsed, making a most unseemly outcry. You have no
conception how marvelously she rendered her part. Then and there, all
of a sudden, an idea entered my head. Recalling all my observations of
Clotilde's love affair, I felt convinced, in view of the evidence,
that Inocencio had had no other purpose in winning her love than to
assure an exceptional interpretation of the leading _rôle_ of his
play, and a flattering outcome of his venture. I decided not to
communicate my suspicions to anyone. I kept silent and hoped, but
there is no doubt that from that time on the young man was decidedly
out of favor with me.
"The noise which Inocencio's friends had been making in regard to the
theme of his play, the fact that Clotilde had chosen it for her
benefit performance, and the wide-spread rumor that the celebrated
actress was going to win a signal triumph in it, all worked together
to help the speculators to dispose of every seat in the house at
fabulous prices. I know a marquis who paid eleven _duros_ for two
orchestra stalls. This room where we are now sitting was filled, just
as it is annually, with flowers and presents; it was impossible to
move about in the midst of such a conglomeration of porcelain, books
with costly bindings, ebony work-boxes, picture-frames, and no end of
other fancy trifles.
"The audience room was unusually brilliant. The most resplendent
ladies, the men most distinguished in politics, literature, and
finance; in short, the _high life_, as the phrase goes, was all there.
But even more brilliant and more radiant was Inocencio himself;
radiant with glory and happiness, and graciously receiving the crowds
of visitors who came to see the presents, dictating orders to the
call-boys and scene-shifters regarding the proper setting of the
scene, and multiplying his smiles and hand-shakings to the point of
infinity. Clotilde also seemed more beautiful than ever, and her
expressive face revealed the tender emotion which possessed her, as
well as her deep anxiety to win laurels for her future husband.
"The curtain arose and everyone hurried to occupy his seat. In the
wings there was no one save the author and three or four of his
friends. The opening scenes were received as usual with indifference;
the following ones with a little more cordiality; the versification
was fluent and polished, and, as you know, the public appreciates
sugar-coated phrases. At last the moment arrived for Clotilde's
entrance, and a faint murmur of curiosity and expectation ran through
the audience. She spoke her lines discreetly, but without much warmth;
it was easy to see that she was afraid. The curtain fell in a dead
silence.
"Immediately the waiting-room and passage-way were filled by
Inocencio's friends, who came eagerly to tell him that this first
performance of his play was a great success,--but what was the matter
with Clotilde? She hardly put any movement into her part,--and she was
usually so much alive, so tremendously forceful! Our young friend
acknowledged that, as a matter of fact, she had felt badly scared, and
that this had hampered her seriously. The author, greatly alarmed for
the fate of his work, endeavored to persuade her that there was
nothing to be afraid of, that all she had to do was to be herself, and
that she was not to think of him at all while she spoke her lines.
"'I can't help it,' insisted Clotilde, 'all the time that I am
speaking I keep thinking that you are the author, and imagining that
the play is not going to succeed, and it makes me so frightened.'
"Inocencio was in despair; he tried entreaties, advice, arguments, he
embraced her without caring who saw him; he tried to infuse courage
into her by appealing to her vanity as an artist; in short, he did
everything imaginable to save his play.
"The second act began. Clotilde had a few pathetic scenes. In the
beginning there was a certain slight disturbance in the audience, and
this sufficed to disconcert her completely, and to make her acting
irremediably bad, worse than she had ever acted in her whole life. A
good deal of coughing was heard, and some loud murmurs of impatience.
At the end of that second act a few indiscreet friends tried to
applaud, but the audience drowned them out with an immense and
terrifying series of hisses. The author, who was standing by my side,
pale as death, relieved his feelings with a flood of coarse words, and
made his way to Pepe's room, which faces that of Clotilde, and where
his friends consoled him, casting the whole blame for the failure upon
her, and inflaming more and more the anger surging in his heart.
Meanwhile, our friend was utterly crushed and overcome, and
continually calling for her Inocencio. In order to spare her further
trouble, I told her that the author had accepted the situation
resignedly, and had left the theater to get a breath of air. The
unhappy girl bitterly blamed herself, taking the entire failure on her
own shoulders.
"The curtain rose for the third act; and we all gathered anxiously at
the wings. Clotilde, by a powerful effort of will, showed herself at
first more self-possessed than in the previous acts, but the audience
was in a mood to have some sport, and nothing could have made them
take the play seriously. When the public once scents a trail, it is
like a wild beast that smells blood; there is no way of heading it
off, and you have got to let it have its flesh at any cost. And there
is no doubt that on this occasion it gorged itself full. Coughs,
laughter, sneezes, stampings, hisses,--there was a little of
everything. Tears sprang to our poor friend's eyes, and she seemed
upon the point of fainting. When the curtain finally fell her eyes
sought on all sides for her lover, but he had disappeared. In her
dressing-room, where I followed her, she sobbed, groaned, gave way to
despair, called herself a fool, said that she was going to hire
herself out on some farm to tend the geese and more to the same
effect. It cost me some hard work to calm her down, but at last I
succeeded so that she sank into a sort of silent lethargy. In the
sorrow which her eyes revealed I saw that what tormented her horribly
was the absence of Inocencio.
"The door of the room was suddenly flung open. The defeated poet made
his appearance; he was quite pale but apparently calm. Nevertheless, I
perceived at the first glance that his calmness was assumed, and that
the smile which contracted his lips closely resembled that of a
condemned man who wishes to die bravely.
"A gleam of joy illuminated Clotilde's face. She rose swiftly and
flung her arms around his neck, saying in a broken voice:
"'I have ruined you, my poor Inocencio, I have ruined you! How
generous you are! But listen, I swear to you, by the memory of my
father, that I will atone for the humiliation you have just suffered.'
"'There is no need for you to atone, my dear girl,' replied the poet,
in a soft tone under which a disdainful anger could be felt, 'my
family has not achieved its illustrious name through the intercession
of any actor. From this day henceforth I gladly renounce the theater
and all that is connected with it. Accordingly,--I wish you good-day.'
And, unclasping the arms that imprisoned his neck, and smiling
sarcastically, he retreated a few steps and took his leave. Clotilde
gazed at him in a stupor, then fell unconscious on the divan.
"At the sight of her in such a state I felt my blood take fire, and I
followed the young man out. I overtook him near the stairs, and,
grasping him by the wrist, I said to him:
"'A word with you. The first thing that a man has to be, before he can
be a poet, is a gentleman,--and that is something you are not. Your
play was hissed because it lacks the same thing that you lack,--and
that is a heart. Here, sir, is my card.'"
"And did you not send him your seconds, Don Jerónimo?" inquired the
medical student.
"Silence, silence!" exclaimed another of the group, "here is
Clotilde."
And, in fact, the charming actress at that moment appeared in the
doorway, and her large and sad black eyes, all the more beautiful
beneath her white Louis XV coiffure, smiled tenderly upon her
faithful friends.
CAPTAIN VENENO'S PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE
Pedro Antonio de Alarcón
"Great heavens! What a woman!" cried the captain, and stamped with
fury. "Not without reason have I been trembling and in fear of her
from the first time I saw her! It must have been a warning of fate
that I stopped playing _écarté_ with her. It was also a bad omen that
I passed so many sleepless nights. Was there ever mortal in a worse
perplexity than I am? How can I leave her alone without a protector,
loving her, as I do, more than my own life? And, on the other hand,
how can I marry her, after all my declaimings against marriage?"
Then turning to Augustias--"What would they say of me in the club?
What would people say of me, if they met me in the street with a woman
on my arm, or if they found me at home, just about to feed a child in
swaddling clothes? I--to have children? To worry about them? To live
in eternal fear that they might fall sick or die? Augustias, believe
me, as true as there is a God above us, I am absolutely unfit for it!
I should behave in such a way that after a short while you would call
upon heaven either to be divorced or to become a widow. Listen to my
advice: do not marry me, even if I ask you."
"What a strange creature you are," said the young woman, without
allowing herself to be at all discomposed, and sitting very erect in
her chair. "All that you are only telling to yourself! From what do
you conclude that I wish to be married to you; that I would accept
your offer, and that I should not prefer living by myself, even if I
had to work day and night, as so many girls do who are orphans?"
"How do I come to that conclusion?" answered the captain with the
greatest candor. "Because it cannot be otherwise. Because we love each
other. Because we are drawn to each other. Because a man such as I,
and a woman such as you, cannot live in any other way! Do you suppose
I do not understand that? Don't you suppose I have reflected on it
before now? Do you think I am indifferent in your good name and
reputation? I have spoken plainly in order to speak, in order to fly
from my own conviction, in order to examine whether I can escape from
this terrible dilemma which is robbing me of my sleep, and whether I
can possibly find an expedient so that I need not marry you--to do
which I shall finally be compelled, if you stand by your resolve to
make your way alone!"
"Alone! Alone!" repeated Augustias, roguishly. "And why not with a
worthier companion? Who tells you that I shall not some day meet a man
whom I like, and who is not afraid to marry me?"
"Augustias! let us skip that!" growled the captain, his face turning
scarlet.
"And why should we not talk about it?"
"Let us pass over that, and let me say, at the same time, that I will
murder the man who dares to ask for your hand. But it is madness on
my part to be angry without any reason. I am not so dull as not to see
how we two stand. Shall I tell you? We love each other. Do not tell me
I am mistaken! That would be lying. And here is the proof: if you did
not love me, I, too, should not love you! Let us try to meet one
another halfway. I ask for a delay of ten years. When I shall have
completed my half century, and when, a feeble old man, I shall have
become familiar with the idea of slavery, then we will marry without
anyone knowing about it. We will leave Madrid, and go to the country,
where we shall have no spectators, where there will be nobody to make
fun of me. But until this happens, please take half of my income
secretly, and without any human soul ever knowing anything about it.
You continue to live here, and I remain in my house. We will see each
other, but only in the presence of witnesses--for instance, in
society. We will write to each other every day. So as not to endanger
your good name, I will never pass through this street, and on Memorial
Day only we will go to the cemetery together with Rosa."
Augustias could not but smile at the last proposal of the good
captain, and her smile was not mocking, but contented and happy, as if
some cherished hope had dawned in her heart, as if it were the first
ray of the sun of happiness which was about to rise in her heaven! But
being a woman--though as brave and free from artifices as few of
them--she yet managed to subdue the signs of joy rising within her.
She acted as if she cherished not the slightest hope, and said with a
distant coolness which is usually the special and genuine sign of
chaste reserve:
"You make yourself ridiculous with your peculiar conditions. You
stipulate for the gift of an engagement-ring, for which nobody has yet
asked you."
"I know still another way out--for a compromise, but that is really
the last one. Do you fully understand, my young lady from Aragon? It
is the last way out, which a man, also from Aragon, begs leave to
explain to you."
She turned her head and looked straight into his eyes, with an
expression indescribably earnest, captivating, quiet, and full of
expectation.
The captain had never seen her features so beautiful and expressive;
at that moment she looked to him like a queen.
"Augustias," said, or rather stammered, this brave soldier, who had
been under fire a hundred times, and who had made such a deep
impression on the young girl through his charging under a rain of
bullets like a lion, "I have the honor to ask for your hand on one
certain, essential, unchangeable condition. Tomorrow morning--today--a
soon as the papers are in order--as quickly as possible. I can live
without you no longer!"
The glances of the young girl became milder, and she rewarded him for
his decided heroism with a tender and bewitching smile.
"But I repeat that it is on one condition," the bold warrior hastened
to repeat, feeling that Augustias's glances made him confused and
weak.
"On what condition?" asked the young girl, turning fully round, and
now holding him under the witchery of her sparkling black eyes.
"On the condition," he stammered, "that, in case we have children, we
send them to the orphanage. I mean--on this point I will never yield.
Well, do you consent? For heaven's sake, say yes!"
"Why should I not consent to it, Captain Veneno?" answered Augustias,
with a peal of laughter. "You shall take them there yourself, or,
better still, we both of us will take them there. And we will give
them up without kissing them, or anything else! Don't you think we
shall take them there?"
Thus spoke Augustias, and looked at the captain with exquisite joy in
her eyes. The good captain thought he would die of happiness; a flood
of tears burst from his eyes; he folded the blushing girl in his arms,
and said:
"So I am lost?"
"Irretrievably lost, Captain Veneno," answered Augustias.
* * * * *
One morning in May, 1852--that is, four years after the scene just
described--a friend of mine, who told me this story, stopped his horse
in front of a mansion on San Francisco Avenue, in Madrid; he threw the
reins to his groom, and asked the long-coated footman who met him at
the door:
"Is your master at home?"
"If your honor will be good enough to walk upstairs, you will find
him in the library. His excellency does not like to have visitors
announced. Everybody can go up to him directly."
"Fortunately I know the house thoroughly," said the stranger to
himself, while he mounted the stairs. "In the library! Well, well, who
would have thought of Captain Veneno ever taking to the sciences?"
Wandering through the rooms, the visitor met another servant, who
repeated, "The master is in the library." And at last he came to the
door of the room in question, opened it quickly, and stood, almost
turned to stone for astonishment, before the remarkable group which it
offered to his view.
In the middle of the room, on the carpet which covered the floor, a
man was crawling on all-fours. On his back rode a little fellow about
three years old, who was kicking the man's sides with his heels.
Another small boy, who might have been a year and a half old, stood in
front of the man's head, and had evidently been tumbling his hair. One
hand held the father's neckerchief, and the little fellow was tugging
at it as if it had been a halter, shouting with delight in his merry
child's voice:
"Gee up, donkey! Gee up!"
End of Project Gutenberg's First Love (Little Blue Book #1195), by Various