So he lived for a period of several years, in divine bliss, when one
afternoon he thought he noticed that some one was prowling about his
house, and later he surprised a man fitting his eye to the key-hole of
one of the garden-doors.
“There are robbers about,” he said. And he determined to inform the
nearest town, where there was a brace of civil guards.
“Where are you going?” asked his wife.
“To the town.”
“What for?”
“To inform the civil guards that I suspect some one is prowling about
our house.”
When his wife heard that, she paled slightly. He, giving her a kiss,
continued:
“I am going on foot, for it is not far. Good-bye till I come again.”
On passing through the court-yard to reach the gate, he stepped into the
stable a moment, looked his horse over and, patting him, said:
“Good-bye, old fellow, good-bye; to-day you shall rest, for yesterday I
put you to your paces.”
The horse, who was accustomed to go out every day with his master,
whinnied sadly on hearing him depart.
When Andrés was about to leave the premises, the dog began to frolic for
joy.
“No, you are not coming with me,” he exclaimed, speaking as if the dog
would understand. “When you go to the town, you bark at the boys and
chase the hens, and some fine day somebody will give you such a blow
that you will have no spirit left to go back for another. Don’t let him
out until I am gone,” he continued, addressing a servant, and he shut
the gate that the dog might not follow him.
He had taken the turn in the road before he ceased hearing the prolonged
howls.
He went to the town, despatched his business, had a pleasant half-hour
with the _alcalde_, chatting of this and that, and returned home. On
reaching the neighborhood of his estate, he was greatly surprised that
the dog did not come out to welcome him, the dog that on other
occasions, as if aware of his movements, would meet him half way down
the road.--He whistles--no response! He enters the outer gates. Not a
servant! “What the deuce is the meaning of this?” he exclaims
disquieted, and proceeds to the house.
Arrived, he enters the court. The first sight that meets his eyes is the
dog stretched in a pool of blood at the stable door. A few pieces of
cloth scattered over the ground, some threads still hanging from his
jaws, covered with crimson foam, witness that he made a good defence and
that in the defence he had received the wounds so thick upon him.
Andrés calls him by his name; the dying dog half opens his eyes, tries
in vain to get upon his feet, feebly wags his tail, licks the hand that
caresses him, and dies.
“My horse! where is my horse?” then exclaimed Andrés with a voice hoarse
and stifled by emotion, as he saw the stall empty and the halter broken.
He dashes thence like a madman; he calls his wife,--no answer; his
servants,--nothing. Beside himself, he rushes over the whole
house,--vacant, abandoned. Again he goes out to the street, sees the
hoof-marks of his horse, his own,--no doubt of it,--for he knows, or
thinks he knows, even the tracks of his cherished animal.
“I understand it all,” he says, as if illumined by a sudden idea. “The
robbers have taken advantage of my absence to accomplish their design,
and they are carrying off my wife to exact of me for her ransom a great
sum of money. Money! my blood, my soul’s salvation, would I give for
her.--My poor dog!” he exclaims, returning to look at him, and then he
starts forth running like a man out of his wits, following the direction
of the hoof-prints.
And he ran, he ran without resting for an instant after those tracks;
one hour, two, three.
“Have you seen,” he asked of everybody, “a man on horseback with a woman
on the crupper?”
“Yes,” they answered.
“Which way did they go?”
“That way.”
And Andrés would gather fresh force and keep on running.
The night commenced to fall. To the same question he had ever the same
reply; and he ran, and he ran, until at last he discerned a village, and
near the entrance, at the foot of a cross which marked the point where
the road divided into two, he saw a group of people, laborers, old men,
boys, who were regarding with curiosity something that he could not
distinguish.
He arrives, puts the same question as ever, and one of the group says:
“Yes, we have had sight of that pair; look! for a clearer trace see the
horse that carried them, who fell here ruptured with running.”
Andrés turns his eyes in the direction they indicated, and indeed sees
his horse, his beloved horse, which some men of the place were preparing
to flay for the sake of its hide. He could scarcely resist his grief,
but recovering himself, he turned again to the thought of his wife.
“And tell me,” he exclaimed impetuously; “how you failed to render aid
to that woman in distress.”
“And didn’t we aid her!” said another of the circle. “Didn’t I sell them
another saddle-horse so that they might press on their way with all the
speed that seemed so important to them!”
“But,” interrupted Andrés, “that woman was stolen away by force; that
man is a bandit, who, regardless of her tears and her laments, drags her
I know not whither.”
The sly rustics exchanged glances and compassionate smiles.
“Not so, _señorito_! what tales are you telling us?” slowly continued
the man with whom he was talking. “Stolen away by force! But how if it
were she herself who said with the greatest earnestness: ‘Quick, quick,
let us flee from this district! I shall not be at rest until it is out
of my sight forever.’”
Andrés comprehended all; a cloud of blood passed before his eyes--eyes
which shed no tear, and he fell to the earth prone as the dead.
He went mad; in a few days, he died.
There was an autopsy; no organic trouble was found. Ah! if it were
possible to dissect the soul, how many deaths similar to this would be
explained!
* * * * *
“And did he actually die of that?” exclaimed the youth, who was still
playing with the charms that hung from his watch chain, as I finished my
story.
I glanced at him as if to say: “Does it seem to you so little?” He
continued with a certain air of profundity: “Strange! I know what it is
to suffer; when in the last races my Herminia stumbled, killed the
jockey and broke a leg, the misfortune of that animal vexed me
horribly; but, frankly, not so much as that--not so much as that.”
I was still regarding him with astonishment, when I heard a melodious
and slightly veiled voice, the voice of the girl with the azure eyes.
“Strange, indeed! I love my Medoro dearly,” she said, dropping a kiss on
the snout of the sluggish and blear-eyed lap-dog, who gave a little
grunt, “but if he should die, or somebody should kill him, I do not
believe that I would go mad nor anything like it.”
My astonishment was passing into stupefaction; these people had not
understood me, nor wished to understand me.
Finally I turned to the gentleman who was taking tea, for at his years
he might be expected to be somewhat more reasonable.
“And you? how does it seem to you?” I asked.
“I will tell you,” he replied. “I am married; I loved my wife; I have,
it seems to me, a regard for her still; there came up between us a
domestic unpleasantness, that by its publicity forced me to demand
satisfaction; a duel followed; I had the good luck to wound my
adversary, an excellent fellow, as full of jest and wit as any man
alive, with whom I am still in the habit of taking coffee occasionally
in the Iberia. Since then I have ceased to live with my wife, and have
devoted myself to travel.--When I am in Madrid, I stay with her as a
friend visiting a friend; and all this has taken place without any
violent passions, without any great emotions, without any extraordinary
sufferings. After this slight sketch of my character and of my life,
what shall I say to you about these phenomenal explosions of feeling
except that all this seems to me strange, very strange?”
When he had finished speaking, the blonde girl and the young man who was
making love to her looked over together an album of Gabarni’s
caricatures. In those few moments the elder gentleman treated himself
with exquisite enjoyment to his third cup of tea.
When I called to mind that on hearing the outcome of my story they all
had said--_Strange!_--I for my part exclaimed to myself--_Natural!_