How did it happen that a ray of divine joy, of unreasoning but delicious
hope, fell upon my soul--a light, in short, like that which according to
popular tradition, penetrates the darkness of the limbo on Candlemas
Day? Let me see whether I can recollect it, with all its most
insignificant and even ludicrous details; with its intermingling of
dreams and realities, so inseparable that I do not know where the first
end or the second begin; indeed, I cannot affirm that the latter ever
existed except within the soul that perceived them, in my own
representative faculty, though that is for me the supreme reality.
It happened that Trinito, our philharmonic Cuban, on receiving quite a
large sum of money from his island home, set about spending it right and
left in the most reckless manner. One of his extravagances was to take
orchestra chairs at the Real and invite us all to go to the opening
night of a Spanish opera, which had been greatly discussed and commented
upon in the newspapers beforehand. In vain did we object that this
lavishness was unnecessary, since we would feel much more at our ease in
the gallery, between girls both plain and good-looking, and skilled
devotees of the “divine art.”
But what he really aspired to was to put on airs and give a certain
dress-coat its opening night, and he would not listen to us, but dragged
Portal and me off to the theater; but as for the poor boy from Zamora,
he would not budge, even if they were to cut him in pieces.
Neither Portal nor I owned dress-coats, but we did justice to the
festive occasion and put on our long frock-coats, which we dragged out
from the bottom of our trunks, hoping that no one would notice us, and
that all eyes would be fixed on the Cuban, who was resplendent in his
finery. His new dress-coat and trousers glistened with the peculiar
luster of broadcloth, and the narrow satin lappel, reaching down to his
waist, set off the snowy whiteness of his shirt-front. The fellow, in
order not to omit any accessory, had spent his quarter for a fragrant
gardenia, which rested proudly in his button-hole in irreproachable
style. He did not buy a crush hat for lack of time, but entered the
theater concealing his slouch hat under his cloak, so as not to
disarrange his curls and the beautiful parting of his hair.
We took our seats, feeling somewhat bashful, hoping that nobody would
see us; but Trinito stood up with his back to the orchestra, and,
thrusting out his chest where the fine shirt-front bulged out, passed
his gloveless hand over his carefully dressed hair, and looked just like
a dandy of the loftiest and most overpowering sort. Although his sight
was as keen as his hearing, he had hired an enormous pair of
opera-glasses, and leveled them alternately at the boxes and orchestra
seats, scanning the society belles, their low-cut dresses, their
ornaments and jewels. Portal, very quiet and somewhat abashed, amused
himself by saying _sotto voce_ that Queen Christina was gazing at him
through her lorgnette, and that the Infanta Isabel was making signs to
the Infanta Eulalia to call her attention to the unknown and fascinating
dandy.
As soon as the curtain went up, Trinito experienced his musical seizure,
and closely followed the construction of the opera, which for five hours
gave us siftings of Wagner and Meyerbeer, Donizetti and Rossini, as it
had a little of everything in it except what was new and Spanish.
Trinito, carried away by excitement, and with his unfailing, retentive
memory, would not let us rest.
“Boys,” he said, “this is simply an _olla podrida_. Here the fellow has
put in the _largo assai_ of Mendelssohn’s thirty-second _opus_. Well,
well! If he hasn’t taken the entire _allegretto_ of the overture of ‘Don
Juan.’ I declare, that’s from ‘The Magic Flute;’ fifteen measures, at
least, are exactly like it, stolen bodily! This _maestoso_ is from ‘The
Flying Dutchman’ or ‘Parsifal.’”
“Or from ‘Green Beans,’” added Portal, phlegmatically.
“Don’t you laugh, for there is something from ‘Green Beans,’ also, or
very much like it, because I have heard that sort of a clatter in comic
opera. Now he skips to the Symphony in A minor of the _sordo
sublime_--fellows, I am infuriated! I shall protest! This is simply
highway robbery!”
In the second act Trinito’s indignation went on in a _crescendo_ no less
noisy than that of the closing duet. In the third, he completely bored
us with his exposures of reminiscences and plagiarisms, shouting so
loudly as to attract the attention of the audience, pointing out the
fragments of a hand of Mozart’s or a shin of Beethoven’s, which were
scattered through the opera; and at the fourth act, his rage grew so
overwhelming that he would not allow us to stay till the end of the
opera.
“Let us go before they call out that counterfeiter! I would hiss him if
I remained, and one must not raise a rumpus here. Come on, then; let us
be discreet. I am so enraged I scarcely know what I am doing. Hold me,
carry me to the street!”
We were amazed at this outburst, as surprising in the usually calm and
equable Cuban as it would have been in a canary or a lamb, and
consented to leave before anybody else, making off through the lobby
toward the door.
Without transition, we passed from the heated, vibrating, and echoing
air of the orchestra circle, out to the chilly lobby, which was all the
colder for being deserted, since only two ushers were walking up and
down there. A current of air, sharp as a stiletto, entered my
half-opened mouth, while I was laughing, and my dilated nostrils, and
went as by instinct to my chest, where I felt a singular compression.
“Cover your mouths, gentlemen,” said the practical Luis, “or we shall
catch the greatest pneumonia of the Christian era. Cover your mouth,
Salustio; don’t be childish.”
I searched for my handkerchief in order to protect myself with it, but I
already felt that strange warning, that dull, numb pain of the disease
which so insidiously enters our bodies, taking advantage of our
imprudence or carelessness, as a thief who sees the key in the door and
improves the opportunity to investigate the chest.
“I believe that I have already caught it,” I murmured, with some
anxiety.
“Don’t worry; let us go to Fornos’s and take some punch. Come on, you’ll
see how nice and hot it will be,” said my companions, as we emerged into
the bleak Plaza de Oriente. We proceeded to Fornos’s and took our punch.
Trinito treated us, and gave us a fresh monograph on the plagiarisms and
rhapsodies in the opera; while he sang his indignation for us, and even
played it for us on the table. That time he was determined to write a
musical criticism; of course he would! He was going to pulverize the
composer, or the rat, to be more explicit, which he had caught in the
act of visiting Wagner’s pocket.
I went to bed late and did not sleep well. The next day I awoke feeling
inexplicably tired and depressed, with that species of despondency or
dejection which precedes any great physical disorder. Carmen noticed
that I did not look well and begged me to lie down, scolding me gently
for having gone to bed the night before at such an unearthly hour.
I consented because I felt so worn out, and every bone in my body ached,
as we say in the country. As I withdrew I said to Carmiña, in a
supplicating tone:
“Will you come to see me?”
“Of course I will. I shall take you a cup of tea made of boiled
mallow-flowers to give you a sweat. You have taken cold; probably
through some crazy imprudence.”
As soon as I lay down, in a flash, the fever broke out triumphantly, as
did my exhaustion and the congestion of my lungs. I began to wander in
my mind and grow delirious. It could not have been delirium so much as a
capricious and fanciful flight of the imagination through those regions
of which I was most fond when in my normal state.
In my lucid intervals, and between the paroxysms of my struggle for
breath, I seemed to see the yew tree once more, with its dark green
foliage, standing out against the heavenly blue sky and the pale verdure
of the river-lands. I heard the songs of working-women, pipes announcing
the dawn, the whizz of rockets, the sound of a piano, and there were
moments when I was positive that an ugly black bat came fluttering
through the window, and, with a pin run through it, expired before me.
Of course, Father Moreno was there, and sometimes his presence consoled
me, while at other times it would so irritate me, that I would have
gladly flung something at his head.
During my delirium, it seems that I sang loudly and gave formulas and
propounded problems, in mathematics. What I am sure of is that, over and
above my delirium and the fever and terrible discomfort, and the
strictures in my bronchial tubes and lungs, an enchanting sensation used
to hover. Carmen did not leave my room; she gave me my medicines,
smoothed my sheets, and waited on me and attended to me all through. At
one time, when, by an involuntary impulse produced by the fever, I threw
my arms around her neck, I fancied--was I really out of my head?--that
Carmen, so strong, so invincible, far from making the slightest movement
to draw away from me, was returning my embrace. I would swear that her
eyes gazed at me with a sweet and tender look; that her hands caressed
and petted me as one pets and caresses a child; that her lips murmured
sweet words which sounded like music of the heart. Allowing myself to be
carried away by my fancy, I thought, as I sank to sleep under the
influence of a powerful narcotic:
“Carmen loves me; she loves me, without doubt. How happy I shall be if I
do not die!”
I sighed, half turned over in bed, and, if I could have put into words
the feeling which filled my heart, I would have added, “And how happy I
shall be, even if I do die.”