THE MARQUESA GOES TO A CONCERT.
Leon’s house was to the north-east of Madrid, on one side overlooking
the town with its pretty, bright houses and verdurous gardens,
and on the other, miles of dusty waste. The capital of Spain lies
within strict limits, as laid down by its builders; it does not
straggle and melt away into the country and is not enclosed in that
half agricultural, half urban zone which surrounds many cities and
through which the bustle of the streets imperceptibly dies away into
the silence of the fields. The medley of dwellings ends abruptly; not
a house has dared to part company and step forth, for fear of heat,
of cold, and of thieves. It reminds us of a vast caravan settled down
for a night’s rest and which will be raised in the morning to pursue
its march without ever looking back at the place of its encampment.
On the eastern side of the house lay the melancholy landscape of
parti-coloured downs--in winter showing a prevailing, dingy green
tint, in summer yellow, grey and brown; fields that are never tilled,
that are swept by the winds that dance in the hollows of the hills
and fling clouds of dust in each other’s teeth. Here and there the
dreary monotony is broken by a smoking brick-kiln, or a lonely
and forlorn house which, if it has any expression, it is that of
astonishment at finding itself there. The brick factory is surrounded
by hovels constructed of straw and mud--architectural efforts
which the house-martin, the mole, and the beaver would laugh to
scorn; and round these huts, that a good kick would demolish, those
eager speculators in nastiness, the scavengers, busily analyse the
morning’s dust-heap, raking in the mounds of rags, sweepings, paper
and other nameless trash which form the daily refuse of a great town.
A little way off, groups of half-naked brats are at play, their dirty
brown skins scarcely distinguishable from the soil. They look as if
they had just sprung from a crack in the earth and must vanish there
again--graceful, blaspheming, mischievous creatures, engagingly and
innocently impudent, a combination of angel and gipsy. Here too,
routing away the heaps of refuse, sneak numbers of mangy dogs--not
above biting your calf if you give them the chance--and here, in
April and May, starveling hens bring out their broods of chicks and
teach them the rudiments of gaining a living. Here and there is a
pool of stagnant water into which the sky looks down, astonished to
see itself so dingy; black caravans of ants cross the land in every
direction, loaded with tares stolen from some carelessly sown field.
In the mornings the silence of these barren solitudes is broken by a
delightful pastoral concert--the bleating of the flocks that wander
from Vallehermoso to their pasture at Abroñigal to return in the
evening, when the sweet stillness of the twilight is disturbed by
their low, melancholy tones. Goats too go by, jumping and butting,
and meditative asses for milking, whose shrill bells are heard at
break of day at the door of the consumptive sufferer, pass calmly by.
This dismal, drouthy, thankless, stubborn landscape, with its gloomy
suggestion of robbery and assassination and its look as of an
abandoned graveyard--this landscape, which does not invite and yet
detains the traveller, whose yellow stony stare stays his steps and
makes his heart quake with Dantesque terrors--is a very different
scene when night has fallen on it, when the winds are at peace and
a mysterious calm broods over it all, under the immensity of the
starry sky. The purple arch looks so high and remote that the eye
and mind throb as they gaze upward. The wanderer holds his breath
as he contemplates the glorious firmament that covers the wide plain
of Castile, like a spiritual life bending above the barrenness
of asceticism. In some lands the beauty of the landscape lies in
smiling meadows, woods and streams, tenderly overshadowed by fleecy
clouds. The views from Madrid must be sought overhead in the vast
space sprinkled with suns and worlds. From Leon’s house, as evening
fell, might be seen the fiery glow on the horizon reflected from
the setting sun and the pleasing regularity of the landscape which
seems to set no bar to the east--where the most vital events in the
world’s history have taken place; then the successive lighting up of
infinitely distant suns, as though each one dropped into its place
and burst into flame; the vast vault of the sky, where some stars
seem to be eager to rise while others, wearied out, sink to rest;
the rapid scintillation of some, which wax and wane; the wondrous
fixity of others which pierce, as it seems, with a single shaft of
light, the immensity of space; the twinkling hesitancy of some, the
solemn, almost stern, steadiness of others, the grand haze of the
milky way--and beneath the sky the wide unbroken levels of the earth,
noiseless, treeless, streamless, a present image of humanity which
lies dreaming--in sleep or in death--with darkened senses under the
splendours of the midnight heavens.
“María, give me your arm; I want to go into the garden and look at
the sky,” said Luis Gonzaga to his sister. It was the end of July and
the heat was suffocating. Leon had had a cane seat placed in the
garden so that the invalid might enjoy the evening till the breeze
from the Guadarrama should begin to blow. The four went out together.
The sick man walked a very little way in front of Leon, and as he
went he dilated with eager eloquence on the beauty of the scene, on
his joy in the approach of death and on the mercies of God.
During the past month his illness had varied greatly; there had been
days when he was thought to be dying, and then came days, or even
weeks, of such visible amendment that the marquesa began to entertain
some hopes. The doctors however encouraged no illusions, but said to
Leon, “short of a miracle, he cannot survive the fall of the leaf.”
On this particular evening he was feeling better, remarkably happy
and alert, and unusually eager and quick of speech, except when Leon
approached him.
As they were all sitting in the garden, they heard carriage-wheels
and immediately after the voices of the Marquesa de Rioponce and
her daughter, who had come to persuade the Marquesa de Tellería to
go with them to a public concert in the garden of the “_Retiro_.”
The invitation had already been often repeated, but the lady had
always excused herself on the score of her son’s serious illness.
“Really she could find no enjoyment in anything; how could she take
any pleasure when her household was in such anxiety? Her friends she
was sure would excuse her, they would not insist on carrying her off
to entertainments and would understand that she could not--in fact
ought not.... She had sacrificed herself to stay in this furnace to
be with her son, she had submitted to make the move to Leon’s house,
though it was exile--complete exile.... But her feelings as a mother
... she could not hesitate. And how could she be seen in public at
the gardens when every one knew that her poor Luis was suffering so
constantly.... He was better no doubt, much better; you could see
it in his face; but in spite of the improvement she--the miserable,
anxious mother--could not think of amusements and music. To be sure,
her spirits sadly needed cheering, that she knew very well ... and
what more innocent or soothing pleasure could she have than a little
good music?... But she really could not make up her mind to leave
him--not for a single evening. She was so absorbed and fettered by
her sorrow that she could not escape from its clutches. Suffering as
she was, her very anguish bound her to the side of her dear invalid.”
Her friend found arguments to combat all this declamation, for human
logic and a woman’s tongue can find arguments for every circumstance
of life.
“It was as clear as day that Luis Gonzaga was better ... better?
Why, out of danger. It was visible in his brighter looks, his eager
gaze, the way he walked about the garden, and the gay tone of his
voice when he spoke--the marquesa might go out without the faintest
shadow of a doubt and come to the concert. Why not? Was it not her
duty to take care of her own health? Was she wise to allow herself
to be crushed by groundless anxieties; that high sense of duty
which had kept her by her son’s side demanded some care of her own
health to enable her to continue to bear her burthen of affectionate
solicitude. She could not be required to make such extravagant
sacrifices to the injury of her own health, and the thorny crown
of abnegation might surely be varied from time to time by the
introduction of some little innocent flowers.”
This skilful reasoning, seconded by the love of festivity that
seethes in the veins of every native of Madrid, was too much for the
constancy of poor Milagros. Still she made difficulties: “she did not
wish to go, and besides she must dress, and to get a dress she must
go home.”
“What nonsense. You look very nicely, quite well dressed as you
are, you want nothing more. You have the art of always looking well
whatever you wear, and this evening you really are charmingly dressed
as if you had guessed that you were going out.”
At last her son’s entreaties persuaded her, really in spite of
herself.
“I will go then, if it is only to please you,” she said tenderly.
Luis pulled two roses from a bush by which he was standing and gave
them to his mother to pin to her dress.
“I know you like the simplest kind of adornment,” she said to him
with a smile, “and I am only going to oblige Rosa and to please you.
I am of your school, dear boy; obedience sometimes is doing the thing
we like. Good night.”
“Good night, mother.”
And the carriage rolled away, carrying the marquesa towards the blaze
of gas that lighted up the haze of city dust and the exhalations of
the dog-days.