BETWEEN TWO BASKETS.
Nela had shut herself into her baskets to be alone; we will follow her,
however, and look in upon her thoughts. But first we must give a little
more of her history.
Having entirely lacked all instruction in her infancy, having equally
lacked all those soft endearments, which unfailingly open the mind
to recognize certain truths, Marianela’s powerful imagination had
conceived a strange set of ideas, a wild and fanciful theogony, and
a highly whimsical scheme of cause and effect. Teodoro Golfin’s
comparison of Nela’s mind with the early stage of a primitive race was
a particularly happy one. In her, as in them, the fascination of the
marvellous was the predominant sense; she believed in supernatural
agencies, apart from the one and supreme God, and saw in all natural
objects an abstract personality, by no means cut off from all
communication with men. In spite of all this, however, Nela had some
knowledge of the Gospel. It had never been taught her, to be sure, but
she had heard such things talked of. She saw that people went to a
function they called the Mass, and she understood the idea of a sublime
sacrifice; but beyond this her notions could not go. The contagion of
a common feeling had accustomed her mind to reverence the image of
the Crucified God; she knew it should be kissed, and she even could
repeat some prayers that she had learnt mechanically; she knew whatever
she wanted she could ask of God--but this was all. The absolute
neglect in which her whole nature had been left until the time of her
acquaintance with Pablo Penáguilas was the cause of this confusion,
and her friendship with this strange being, who, shut up in darkness,
nevertheless with his mind’s eye boldly investigated all the problems
of life, had come to her too late. Nela’s system of philosophy, of her
own fabrication, had already petrified--a strange compound of paganism
and sentimentality. At the same time it must be said that Marianela,
though her spirit ranged so far outside the common atmosphere, was well
endowed with good sense, and could form a sound judgment on the things
of daily life, as has been seen in the advice she gave to Celipin.
This, no doubt, was due to the native soundness of her mind.
The strongest instinct of her nature was her love, nay her secret
passion, for physical beauty wherever she saw it. Nothing could be
more natural than this impulse in a human soul growing up in total
solitude, so far as society and teaching were concerned, and in
constant intercourse, in close intimacy we may say, with Nature and all
its sublime or gracious beauty--light, color, eloquent inarticulate
voices, and infinite variety of form. And Marianela’s admiration had
assumed the guise of worship; in obedience to a law, which also governs
the primitive race, she had personified all the beauty she saw around
her and worshipped it in a single incarnation, ideal but human. This
divinity of her imagination she called the Virgin Mary, a conception
she had derived from the domain of religious thought, of which she knew
so little. And the Virgin Mary would not have become her cherished
ideal, if she had not joined to her moral perfections all the physical
gifts of beauty and grace; if her aspect had not been noble and
attractive, at once human and divine; if it had not seemed to Nela the
epitome in which were concentrated all the glory of light, the sober
peace of darkness, the music of running waters, the grace and sweetness
of flowers, the freshness of the dew, the low complaining of the wind,
the spotless purity of the mountain snow, the loving glances of the
stars, and the solemn majesty of the clouds, as they ride across the
vault of heaven.
The person of God himself she conceived of as terrible and austere,
inspiring respect rather than love. All that was gracious was bestowed
by the Virgin, and she was the giver of all that human creatures could
ask for. God frowned, while She smiled; God chastised, but She forgave;
this last notion was by no means a strange one. It is accepted with
almost absolute faith among the laboring classes of the rural parts of
Spain. Nor is it at all uncommon, when we find a strong imagination
joined to extreme ignorance, to meet with the fusion which existed
in Nela’s mind of all the beauties of Nature with the beautiful
personification which combines all the æsthetic charms of the Christian
ideal. If the darkness in which Nela dwelt had only been more complete,
if she had but been rather more destitute of religious notions, she
would have been an utter pagan and have worshipped the moon, the woods,
the rivers, fire and the sun. This was Nela as her life in Socartes
had made her, and such she remained till she was fifteen. After that,
her comradeship with Pablo and her frequent talk with the lad, whose
ideas were so broad and so sound, had somewhat modified her tone of
thought. But she still allowed supreme sovereignty to physical beauty;
she still superstitiously adored the Virgin as the embodiment of all
the loveliness of Nature, and, in a way, of all moral law; crowning her
system with the most extraordinary ideas as to death and the life to
come.
* * * * *
Curling herself up in her basket, Marianela’s reflections took this
form:
“Holy Mother of God! Why--why did you not make me beautiful? Why did
you not look down on me as soon as I was born? For the more I look
at myself, the uglier I seem to grow. Oh! why am I in this world at
all? Of what good can I be? Who can care for me? One single soul, Lady
Mother, only one, and he only because he cannot see me. What is to
become of me when he sees me and casts me off? for it is impossible
that he should ever love me when he sees my miserable little body, my
freckled face, my ugly mouth, my sharp nose, my dirty brown skin--all
my hideous little self--of no good to any one but to kick perhaps. What
is that? Only Nela--nothing at all. She is of no use to any one but the
blind boy. If his eyes are opened, if he turns and looks at me, I shall
drop down dead.
“He is the only being to whom ‘Nela’ is anything more important than
the cats and the birds. He loves me. Loves me as lovers love their
sweet-hearts, as God intends human beings to love each other.--Oh Lady
Mother! now that you are going to work a miracle and let him see, make
me beautiful or strike me dead, for I shall not be wanted any more in
this world. I am good for nothing and ever shall be, excepting to one
person. Am I sorry then that he should be able to see?--No, no, not
that, no. I want him to see; I would give my own eyes for him to see
with his; I would give my life. I hope Don Teodoro can work the miracle
as they say. Blessings on all wise men! What I do not want is that my
master should ever see me. Before I will let him see me, oh Mother! I
will bury myself alive, I will throw myself into the river.--Yes, the
earth shall cover my ugliness. I ought never to have been born.”
She writhed in her narrow basket, and then she went on:
“All my heart and thought are for him. That poor, blind man, who has
taken it into his head to be fond of me--he is the first being in
the world to me next to the Virgin Mary. Oh! If only I were tall and
handsome; if I had the figure, and the face, and the color--above
all, the color--of other girls! If I could only make a lady of myself
and dress myself up.--And then my greatest joy would be to think that
his eyes liked to look at me. If I were like other girls, even like
Mariuca--how soon I would find a way of getting taught and being made
a lady of. Oh Mother Mary, Queen of the world! The only creature that
loves me, I am going to lose: he will leave me. Why did you ever let
him love me, and let me love him? It ought not--never--to have been.”
The tears poured down her cheeks; she folded her arms and turned over,
and even when half asleep she still was speaking to herself:
“Oh, how much I love you, child of my soul! Love me too, love me very
much. It is Nela who is no good to any one.--Love me very much. Let me
give you a kiss--here on your head.--But do not open your eyes, do not
look at me. Shut them--so.”