THE MOTHER.
What a night they passed. Nothing happened, and yet it was as full
of interest as the years of an eventful life. Pepa was in such a
state of nervous excitement that her brain seemed to be affected; she
laughed while she cried, and her broken sentences, often incoherent
and irrelevant, betrayed that her mind was tossed between despair
and hope. She would sit trembling like an old woman, and again, flit
restlessly about the room like a child that does not know what it
wants.
Monina’s skin was still warm and moist--that moisture was as a dew
from Heaven. The deadly greyness of her face gave way to a faint pink
tinge; it was a joy to watch the frail flowers of life blossoming
again where, so lately, had been a desert of death. Her breathing
grew easy, and on her silent and slightly parted lips dawned the
sweetest charm of infancy, a happy smile. It was impossible to look
at her and not to hope; and it was impossible to refuse to listen to
that hope which seemed an inspiration from Heaven.
The dawn was breaking when Moreno Rubio once more addressed Pepa:
“I can now pronounce a definite opinion.”
“Yes? My little girl....”
“The child is out of danger,” said the doctor, clasping the mother’s
hand. “This favourable reaction has saved her. Leon wanted me to try
tracheotomy.... But the treasure we thought we had lost is restored
to us.”
Pepa kissed his hands, bathing them in tears.
“It is none of my doing, Señora, but Nature’s, helped by tartar
emetic and the caustic solution ... nay, Nature’s only; or, to speak
truly, God’s. Now it is time that I should get a little rest.”
And after giving a few instructions he left.
Pepa could not speak; she was dumb with joy; she knelt down and
remained absorbed in prayer for more than half an hour. Leon sat by
the child’s bed, his head sunk between his hands. Suddenly he heard
a voice close to him; he looked up and saw Pepa.
“What a night you have had,” she said. “Hours of anxiety--death and
then joy! You have no children; if you had, how happy your children
would be! The interest you have shown in this little one--a friend’s
child only, not related to you....”
“It is an irresistible passion,” he said, “that I cannot account for;
it is a strange folly indeed.”
“A folly! Oh, no! I like you to love my child. If I were to live for
a thousand years, Leon, I should never forget the hours during which
my heart and brain went through so much suffering; and the last thing
I should forget would be the moment which was to me the most solemn
and critical of all, and the words I heard and which are stamped on
my mind as if they had been burnt in.”
“I do not know what you are talking about.”
“Nor I, either, I believe,” she answered, leaning over him. “Joy
has turned my brain, I think, I feel a sort of aberration or
bewilderment.... Can it be true that I have my little one? That this
angel is still left to comfort me in my loneliness?”
She looked at the child and bending over her, kissed her forehead
very softly, so as not to disturb her sleep. When she looked up again
at her friend he noted a strange light in her eyes.
“You are too much excited,” he said. “You ought to go to bed and
sleep for some time. Poor little mother! You have gone through a
great deal since the night before last.”
“Yes,” replied Pepa, “a great deal; but not only now; before that
too; I am familiar with misery.”
“Be calm, you are half delirious.”
“And as I was saying,” she went on with an air of sudden
recollection, and a bright smile, “I shall never forget your words:
‘Spare her life. She is what I love best in the world.’” Leon looked
down. “But I am glad, so glad, that you are so fond of her,” said
Pepa on the point of crying. “For then I am not the only creature
to love her. You are a good old friend, a friend of my childhood. I
have always valued you, and now more than ever, when I see what an
interest you take in Monina, a true warm interest.--Leon, I feel that
I must break a silence that is killing me and tell you a secret that
I cannot bear to keep....”
Her head drooped on Leon’s shoulder; she wept copiously, and he
did not speak. He felt the weight of her head, the warmth of her
breath, and the moisture of her tears, and he sat silent--stern and
self-controlled. Pepa might have been shedding her tears on a rock.
Suddenly a sense of dignity and modesty sprang up in Pepa’s soul; she
lifted her head, crimson with blushes and gave a little cry of dismay.
“Pepa,” said Leon, taking her hand in a firm, kind grasp, “your child
is safe. I am going now.”
At this instant they were both startled by hearing a sweet, silvery
voice--an angel’s voice speaking from Heaven--which said:
“Mamma, Mamma!”
Pepa covered her with kisses. Monina sat up and began to ask for
everything: she wanted meat, and fish, beef, sugar-plums, bread and
butter--all at once, altogether and a great deal, more, more ...
and then not knowing words enough for her desires, she asked for
‘things,’ a comprehensive word, representing in a child’s vocabulary
its insatiable desire for possession; epitomising its instincts of
craving and greed.