HOW THE VIRGIN MARY APPEARED TO NELA.
The thoughts which fade and fly as sleep overcomes us, very commonly
lurk in some hole or corner ready to take us by storm again as soon
as we wake. Thus it was that Mariquilla, who, having fallen asleep
with her head full of strange fancies of the Virgin, of the blind lad,
and of her own ugliness which, she longed so wildly to see changed
into wonderful loveliness, woke with the same ideas in her brain when
Señana’s call roused her in her basket. As soon as her eyes were open,
Nela put up her usual prayer to the Virgin Mother--a sort of Litany,
compounded of the ordinary Litany to the Virgin and of certain clauses
of her own devising, and forming altogether an address which would look
strange enough if it were written down. Among other things, Nela’s
prayer said:
“Thou didst appear to me in my dreams last night, oh Lady! and promise
to comfort me to-day. Now I am awake, and still I feel as if I saw thy
face just before me, and far lovelier than all the grand and lovely
things in the world.” And as she spoke she turned and gazed round her.
Noticing in herself the utter vagueness with which she did so, she
thought to herself: “Something has come over me.”
“What is the matter, Nela?” asked Señana, seeing the girl stand with
her eyes wide open and fixed on a spot in space. “Do you see a vision,
simpleton?”
But Nela did not answer, her mind was absorbed in self contemplation.
“What ails me?” she asked herself. “It cannot be anything evil, or
wicked, for I do not feel the black ugly figure of a devil inside me,
but something heavenly: a beautiful face, a smile and a look which--if
I am in my right mind--are those of the Virgin Mary herself. Oh Lady
Mother! Can it be true that thou wilt give me comfort to-day? And
how?--By giving me what I prayed for last night?”
“Now then, brat!” screamed Señana in her harsh tones, like a cracked
bell. “Go and wash your ugly little snout.”
Nela went at once. Her spirit had felt a shock as of a sudden gleam
of great hope. She looked at herself in the quivering surface of the
water, and her heart shrank within her.
“No difference,” she muttered. “As ugly as ever; the same child’s face
with a woman’s years and a woman’s heart!”
But after washing herself she went through the same experience as
before--a sort of agony of anticipation, and, in spite of her narrow
vocabulary, Nela could classify these feelings as presentiments.
“Pablo and I,” said she to herself, “have often talked of how we feel
when something sad or something pleasant is going to happen. Pablo told
me that just before an earthquake people have strange sensations; there
is something in the air, and the beasts feel it too. Is there going to
be an earthquake, I wonder?” And she knelt down and felt the ground
with her hand.
“I cannot tell. But something is going to happen, and I cannot doubt
that it will be something good.--The Virgin told me last night that
to-day she would comfort me. What has come over me? The Heavenly Queen
seems to be close to me. I cannot see her, but I feel her--before
me--behind me....”
She went close by the machines for washing the ore towards the inclined
plane, looking about her with eager eyes. There was nothing to be seen
but the arms and wheels of iron, toiling with fiendish shrieks amid the
hideous confusion of whirling cylinders, lashing the water to powder,
as it seemed, and breathing out dust and smoke. Presently, when she
had gone some little distance, she stopped; putting her hand to her
forehead, and fixing her eyes on the ground in all the bewilderment of
doubt: “The question is,” said she to herself, “am I happy or am I sad?”
She looked up at the sky, half wondering to see it appear the same as
on other days--and it was a lovely day--and then she walked on faster,
to reach Aldeacorba as soon as possible. Instead of going through
the gallery in the mines and up the wooden steps, she kept above the
hollow way, along by the gutter that bordered the inclined tram-way,
intending to get out into the fields, and walk straight on by the level
road to the village. This way was much the prettiest, and she almost
always chose it, for that reason. It went by lanes full of sweet and
gay flowers, where crowds of bees and butterflies fluttered and sipped;
there were thickets of bramble loaded with the black fruit beloved
of children; clumps of cherry-trees overgrown with honeysuckles, and
enormous ilex, tall, spreading, densely shady, and proud, it would
seem, of their wide, black shadows.
Here Nela went more slowly, uneasy in herself, puzzled at her own
sensations, and at the anxious excitement that stirred in her. Her
rapid fancy presently hit upon a formula to express the state of her
feelings, and remembering having heard it said of such and such a one,
“the devil is in him,” she said to herself: “The angels are in me,
the Virgin Mary is with me this day. What I feel are the wings of her
angels fluttering inside me. Thou art near me, Lady Mother, I see you
and yet I do not see you--as we see with our eyes shut.”
She shut her eyes, and then she opened them again. She had just passed
a grove of trees and turned an angle of the road to go to a place where
she knew of a bramble copse, the greenest, prettiest, and most fruitful
in all the neighborhood. There were luxuriant ferns too, honeysuckle,
wild vine, and other climbing plants, all clinging and tangled together
in mutual dependence.
Nela heard a rustle in the brushwood close to her, and turning round
she saw--Merciful Heaven! There, in a frame of greenery, stood the
Immaculate Virgin herself--the face, the eyes, which in their gaze
seemed to have all the calm beauty of the sky. Nela stood silent,
petrified; with a feeling at once of devotion and terror. She could
not stir, nor cry out, nor hardly breathe, nor take her eyes off this
beatific vision.
It stood among the verdure, the face and figure to the waist perfectly
displayed. This was--yes, certainly--the very presence of the Maiden
of Nazareth, whose moral loveliness every painter has endeavored to
express by means of physical beauty, from St. Luke downwards through
eighteen centuries. Have not men indeed seen that sacred form with
the eyes of sense--with the eyes of Albert Dürer--of Rafael--of Van
Eyck--of Bartolomé Murillo? It was under the Rafaelesque aspect that
she now appeared to Nela, the most realistic of all, if realism can
mean the nearest approach of perfect human beauty to an artistic
representation of divine goodness. The oval of her face was less
narrow than the Seville painter’s type, and had more of the tender
roundness of the Italian form. Her eyes, which were finely shaped, were
gentleness itself, with a softness and sweetness as far removed from
indifference, as from the lightning glow of the eyes of Andalucia; the
brows that overarched them were delicately curved, and as fine as if
they had been traced with a paint-brush. Her forehead was unshadowed
by any cloud of weariness or sadness, and her lips, which were rather
full, parted in a smile that revealed the pearliest teeth that ever bit
into the apples of Paradise. And so, without in the least intending
it, I have compared her to our Mother Eve--wide as the distance is
between her who yielded to the Serpent and her who set her heel on
his head; but the beauty of a lovely girl is enough to betray us into
such unlucky blunders. To put a finishing touch to this imperfect
description of the divine vision which had so utterly dismayed poor
Marianela, it must be said that her complexion was of that faded rose
color, or warm clear brown which gives an enchanting glow to the faces
of those glorious pictures which successive generations, of believers
and heretics alike, have worshipped in ecstasy.
After the first shock of surprise was over, the first thing that Nela
observed, and which confused her judgment greatly, was that the fair
Virgin wore a blue ribbon round her throat, a detail she had never
before seen in any picture or dream of the Virgin Mary; then she
perceived that her shoulders and bosom were covered by a dress in every
respect similar to that worn by other ladies; but the thing which
puzzled and disturbed her most was that the fair creature was picking
blackberries--and eating them.
She was beginning to draw accurate inferences from this remarkable
behavior, when she heard a loud man’s voice calling:
“Florentina, Florentina!”
“I am here, Papa--here, eating blackberries.”
“Naughty child--how can you like to eat blackberries? What next whim
will you take? Have I not told you that they are only fit for the poor
children that run about the country, and not for a young lady who has
been properly brought up.--Do you hear? And lived in good society.”
Nela saw the speaker come towards them. He was a man of advanced middle
age and medium height, rotund, and with a ruddy countenance that seemed
to radiate satisfaction as the sun radiates light. His legs were thin,
his nose was large, and his person decorated with a variety of splendid
objects, among which a thick watch-chain was conspicuous, while he wore
a broad-brimmed hat of fine black felt.
“Come, come, child,” said Don Manuel Penáguilas, for he it was,
“respectable people do not eat blackberries nor skip and jump about
like that. There, you have torn your dress--I do not care about the
dress, for I can buy you another as I bought you that--I only speak
because the people here who see you might think you had no dress but
the one you have on.”
Nela, who by this time understood the case, looked at the young lady’s
dress. It was good and handsome, but her face betrayed unmistakably
the transition--and a rapid one--from the position of a rich peasant’s
daughter to that of a fine lady. Every detail of her attire, from her
shoes to her comb, stamped her as the daughter of the people in holiday
clothes. But the girl’s natural grace and beauty were so transcendent,
that no deficiency, as measured by any conventional standard of
elegance, could dim them. It was not to be denied, however, that her
whole individuality cried out for a short peasant’s skirt, hair dressed
in plaits with a bunch of poppies to adorn it with affected simplicity,
a sleeveless bodice, a coral necklace--in short, the costume which
good taste and the nature of things would have suggested, without any
admixture of the devices of the fine lady.
As the young girl came out from among the brambles, Don Manuel
perceived Nela, at the moment when she had just recovered from her
delusion, and he called out as he turned to her:
“Hallo! and who are you? Why, look Florentina, it is Nela, the little
body that waits upon your cousin. You remember--I spoke of her to you?
And how are you now-a-days?”
“Very well, Señor Don Manuel. And you.--How are you, Señor?” asked
Mariquilla without taking her eyes off Florentina.
“Perfectly well--as you see. This is my daughter.--Well, what do you
think of her?”
Florentina had just set out on a butterfly chase.
“My dear child, where are you going? What do you want now?” said the
father, visibly annoyed. “Now do you think it looks well that you
should be running after an insect like some poor child? You must not be
so wild, my child. Young ladies brought up in good society do not do
such things--never do such things....”
It was a trick with Don Manuel to repeat the last clause of his
sentences to give them emphasis.
“Ah! do not be cross, Papa,” said the girl, returning from her
fruitless chase to shelter herself under the protecting brim of the
paternal hat. “You know how much I love the country and that I am half
crazy when I see trees and flowers and meadows. And in that dismal town
of Campó I never see anything of the kind....”
“Oh! but you must not say anything against Santa Irene de Campó; it is
a famous town where you find every comfort and convenience, and a great
deal of very distinguished society. It stands in the foremost ranks
of civilization--yes, of civilization. You can admire the beauties
of Nature while you walk properly by my side. I admire them too, but
without cutting capers or turning somersaults. You can tell when a
young person has moved in good society only by her way of walking and
looking at the scene around her. This way of calling out at every
minute: Ah! Oh! Look there, Papa!--How pretty!--and pointing to a fern,
perhaps, or an oak-tree, or a rock--a thorn-bush even, a brook--is not
at all in good taste--people will think you have lived in a desert. So
come and walk by me.--Nela will show us the way home, for, to tell you
the truth, I do not know where we are.”
“If we turn to the left, past that old house,” said Nela readily, “we
shall be there directly.--But here comes Don Francisco.”
And, in fact, Don Francisco came on towards them, calling out: “The
chocolate is getting cold.”
“What would you have my good fellow.--This child was so anxious
to scamper across the country that she would not wait, so we went
springing from bush to bush like goats--just like goats from bush to
bush.”
“Well come in now, come home. Nela do you come too, and have some
chocolate,” said Penáguilas, laying a hand on the child’s head. “Well,
and what do you think of my niece? Is not she pretty?--Florentina, when
you have had your chocolate, Nela will take you and Pablo for a walk,
and you will see all the beauties of the neighborhood--the mines, the
wood, the river....”
Florentina sent a kind glance to the hapless little creature who, as
she ran by her side, seemed to have been formed by Nature expressly as
a foil and contrast to one of the loveliest and most perfect of her
creations.
When they reached the house the table was ready laid with the chocolate
pots full of the thick and nutritious beverage, and a small hillock of
slices of bread. There too were the _mantequilla_ (a sort of cake),
duly decked with fern leaves, and no lack of other household dainties.
The bright glasses of crystal water reflected and magnified all these
gastronomical objects.
“Here we have something to support life,” said Don Francisco, seating
himself.
“And you will have some chocolate too, Nela,” said Pablo. He had
hardly spoken when Florentina had offered her the chocolate pot, and
everything that was on the table was pressed on her acceptance. She
refused at first, but the Señorita insisted with so much kindness
and gentle grace, that she had at last no choice. Don Manuel cast
side glances at his daughter, not feeling perfectly satisfied with
her advance in the arts and manners of the best society, since one of
the most important points, in his estimation, consisted in a delicate
appreciation of the shades of civility due to different people
according to their rank and position, “showing to each neither more nor
less than was appropriate by the rules of social distinction; since, by
this means, each would keep his place, while true dignity would hold
its own and observe that happy medium of courtesy, which was not too
haughty or reserved to the rich, nor too humble and condescending to
the poor--not too humble to the poor.”
When they had done breakfast, Don Francisco said:
“Now, you children, go out for a walk. Pablo, this is the last day that
Don Teodoro will allow you to walk out. You three go and have a run,
while my brother and I go over the farm.--Fly away birds!”
There was no need to speak twice; the beauty of the day was invitation
enough, and the three young people set out for the fields.