Mariquita listened with avidity, while the duke contemplated with rapture the play of this countenance, alternately cold and full of enthusiasm, alternately impassible and energetic.
When the duke retired, Mariquita pinched the ear of Stein, and said to him eagerly —
“We will go! we will go! and whatever happens, I feel called to go. Crowns are promised me, and will I remain deaf to all that? No! no!”
Stein sorrowfully followed the duke.
CHAPTER XV
WHEN they entered the convent, old Maria demanded of the noble convalescent, who always received his nurse with much kindness, how he had found her dear Marisalada.
“Is she not a beautiful creature?” she said.
“Certainly,” replied the duke. “Her eyes, as a poet says, are such as an eagle only can look at.”
“And her grace?” pursued the old woman; “and her voice?”
“Her voice! it is too beautiful to be lost in this solitude. You have nightingales enough, and goldfinches. Husband and wife must go with me.”
The thunder had fallen at the feet of Maria; and all the other words he spoke were as nothing.
“And do they wish it?” she cried in affright.
“They must wish it,” replied the duke, leaving the room.
Maria remained some moments confused and in a state of consternation. Then she went to find brother Gabriel.
“They are going,” she said to him, her eyes filled with tears, “they are going!”
“Thank God!” replied the brother. “They have enough deteriorated the marble pavement of the Prior’s cell. What will his reverence say when he comes back?”
“You have not understood me. Those who are going are Don Frederico and his wife.”
“They are going away! It’s impossible,” said the brother.
“Is it true?” asked Maria of Stein, who came in.
“She wishes it,” he replied dejectedly.
“That is what her father has always said,” continued Maria; “and with this response he would have let her die, if it had not been for us. Ah! Don Frederico, you are so well here! You would be like that Spaniard who being well would be better.”
“I hope for nothing better; I believe in nothing better in the world, my good Maria.”
“One day you will repent it. And poor Pedro! My God! why has this earthquake fallen on us?”
Don Modesto entered. For some time his visits had been very rare, not but the duke would have received him most amiably, nor but that his lordship would have exercised on him the same irresistible attraction which was felt by all who approached him, but Modesto was the slave of ceremony, and he imposed upon himself the rule not to present himself before the duke, general, and ex-minister of war, but in grand and rigorous ceremony.
Rosa Mistica had told him that his grand uniform could not stand active service, and this was the cause of the suspension of his visits. When Maria learned that the duke contemplated to depart in two days, Don Modesto retired immediately. He had formed a project, and he required time to realize it.
When Marisalada announced to her father the resolution she had taken to follow the advice of the duke, the grief which attacked the poor old Pedro would have softened a heart of stone.
He listened silently to the magnificent plans of his child, without either condemning or approving them; to her promises to revisit him in his cabin, he neither made request nor refusal. He regarded his child as a bird regards her offspring, when they try to quit the nest which they may never again enter. In one word, this excellent father wept in secret.
Next day the servants, horses, and mules which the duke had ordered for his departure arrived.
The cries, the good wishes, and the preparations for travel resounded throughout the convent.
Morrongo climbed upon the top of the roof and slept in the sun, and cast a look of contempt upon the tumult raised below him.
Palomo barked, growled, and protested so energetically against the strange invasion, that Manuel ordered Momo to fasten him up.
“There is no doubt,” said Momo, “but my grandma, who is a charlatan the most skilful to be found under the canopy of heaven, has no lover now to attract invalids to this house.”
The day of departure arrived. The duke was ready in his room. Stein and the Gaviota had arrived, followed by the poor fisherman, whose looks were on the ground, and his body bent double under the weight of his grief. This grief had made him old more than his years, more than ocean’s tempests; he let himself fall on the steps of the marble cross.
As to Modesto, he was there also; consternation was painted in his face. The infinitely small lock of hair on his head fell flabby and soft on one side; profound sighs escaped him.
“What ails you, my commandant?” asked Maria of him.
“Good Maria,” he replied, “to-day is the 15th of June, the day of my holy patron, a day sad and memorable in the past of my life. O San Modesto! is it possible that you treat me thus, even on the day which the church celebrates?”
“But what new thing has happened?” asked Maria, with impatience.
“See!” said the veteran, raising his arms and displaying a large rent, across which was seen the white lining of his uniform, like a row of teeth behind a laughing mocker.
Don Modesto was identified with his uniform; in losing it, there would have vanished the last hope of his profession.
“What a misfortune!” Maria sadly sighed.
“Rosita is laid up with a cold,” continued Don Modesto.
A servant entered.
“His excellency prays the commandant to have the goodness to go to him.”
Don Modesto rose proudly, took in his hand a letter carefully folded and sealed, pressed as near as possible the arm nearest his unfortunate rent, and presented himself to the duke, and saluted him respectfully in the strict military position.
“I wish your excellency,” he said, “a pleasant journey; and I hope that you will find the duchess and all your family in good health. I take, also, the liberty to pray your excellency to deliver into the hands of the minister of war this report, relative to the fort which I have the honor to command. Your excellency can be convinced by personal observation, of the urgency for repairs to re-establish the fort San Cristobal, now above all, when there is the question of a war with the Emperor of Morocco.”
“My dear Don Modesto,” the duke replied to him, “I cannot risk the promise of success to your report, but I advise you to plant a cross upon the battlement of your fort, as upon a sepulchre. In any case, I promise to recommend you, so that you will be paid the arrears for your services.”
This agreeable promise was not sufficiently powerful to efface the sad impression made on his heart by the sentence of death which the duke had pronounced against the citadel.
“Meantime,” said the duke, “I pray you to accept this as the souvenir of a friend.”
And, so saying, he pointed with his finger to a chair which was near to him. What was the surprise of this brave man when he saw exposed on that chair a complete uniform, new and bright, with two epaulets worthy to adorn the greatest captain of the age! Don Modesto, it was very natural, remained confused, astonished, dazzled at the sight of so much splendor and magnificence.
“I hope, commandant,” said the duke, “that you will live to such an age that this uniform may last you at least as long as its predecessor.”
“Ah! excellent señor,” replied Don Modesto, recovering by degrees the use of speech, “it is far too much for me.”
“Not at all,” replied the duke; “how many people are there who wear more splendid uniforms than this, who do not merit it as you do! I know, also, that you have a friend, an excellent hostess, to whom you would not be sorry to convey a souvenir. Do me the pleasure to convey this bijou to her.”
It was a chaplet of filigree, in gold and coral.
Then, without giving Don Modesto time to recover from his astonishment, the duke joined the family, which he had called together, to express to them his gratitude, and to leave them some gifts.
This noble lord did not confer his gifts with that disdainful generosity, and therefore wounding, which is so often met with among the rich; he conferred them knowing how to address those on whom fortune had not lavished her favors; he studied the needs and the tastes of each one. Thus all the inhabitants of the convent received what was the most necessary and the most agreeable to them. Manuel had a clock and a good watch; Momo a complete suit of clothes, a belt of yellow silk, and a fowling-piece; the women and children stuffs for their toilet and playthings; Anis, a kite of such vast dimensions that she disappeared behind this plaything as a rat would disappear behind the shield of Achilles. To the grandma Maria, the indefatigable nurse, the skilful maker of substantial soups, the duke gave a regular pension. As to poor brother Gabriel, he had nothing. He made so little noise in the world, and was so much hidden from the eyes of the duke, that he had never been seen by him. The grandma cut, at the suggestion of everybody, some ells from a piece of cloth the duke had given her; she added two cotton handkerchiefs, and went to find her protégé.
“Here, brother Gabriel,” she said to him, “here is a little present the duke makes you; I will take care to make the shirt.”
The poor brother remained as confused as the commandant. Gabriel was more than modest, he was humble.
All being ready to depart, the duke entered the court.
“Adieu, Momo,” said Marisalada. “Honor to Villamar! If I have ever seen you, I have forgotten you.”
“Adieu, Gaviota,” replied Momo, “if everybody weeps your departure as my mother’s son weeps, they will ring the bells to the whole bevy.”
Old Pedro remained seated on the steps of the cross. Maria was near him, and wept burning tears.
“Do not believe,” said the Gaviota, “that I depart for China, and that we will never come back again, when I tell you that I will come back! See – one would think you were assisting at the death of Bohemians! Have you taken a vow to spoil my pleasure in going to the city?”
“Mother,” said Manuel, much affected in witnessing the grief of the good Maria, “if you weep so much now, what will you do when I die?”
“I will not weep, son of my heart,” replied the mother, smiling in spite of her grief; “I shall not live to weep for thy death.”
The horses arrived. Stein cast himself into Maria’s arms.
“Do not forget us, Don Frederico,” said the old woman, sobbing: “return!”
“If I return not,” replied Stein, “it will be because I am dead.”
The duke, to distract Marisalada, in this painful separation, wished her at once to mount the mule which, by his orders, was destined for her use. The animal set off on a trot, the others followed, and all the cortège soon disappeared behind the angle of the convent. The poor father stretched out his arms towards his daughter.
“I shall never see her more!” he cried, suffocated by his grief; and he let fall his head on the steps of the cross.
The travellers continued their route, falling into a trot. Stein, arrived at Calvary, soothed his heart in addressing a fervent prayer to the Lord of Good-help, whose kind influence spread over all this country like the light around the sun.
Rosa Mistica was at her window when the travellers passed through the village.
“God pardon me!” she exclaimed, on seeing Marisalada on her mule at the duke’s side, “she does not even look at me! She does not even salute me! The demon of pride has already whispered in her heart. I bet,” she said, advancing nearer the window, “that she will not either salute the cura, who is below under the porch of the church; but the duke has set her the example. Hollo! he stops to speak to the pastor. He hands him a purse for the poor. He is so good, so generous a man! he does well, and God will recompense him!”
Rosa Mistica knew not yet the double surprise which was to happen to her. When Stein passed, he sadly saluted her with his hand.
“God accompany thee,” said Rosita, waving her handkerchief. “He is the best of men! Yesterday on quitting me he wept like a child. What a misfortune that he remains not in the village! He would not have left if he had not espoused this fool of a Gaviota, as Momo so well calls her.”
The little troop had arrived at the summit of a hill, and commenced to descend it. The houses of Villamar soon disappeared to Stein’s view, who could not tear himself away from this spot where he had lived so happily and so tranquilly.
The duke, all this time, imposed on himself the useless task of consoling Marisalada, and painting to her, in colors the most flattering, the brilliant projects of the future. Stein had no eyes but to contemplate the country which he was abandoning.
The cross of Calvary and the chapel of our Lord of Good-help were lost in the distance; then the grand mass of convent walls was effaced little by little. At last, in all this corner of the world, so calm and so peaceful, there was soon nothing seen but the ruins of the fort, its sombre form reflected upon the horizon of the azure firmament, and the tower which, according to the expression of a poet, like a gigantic finger pointed ceaselessly to Heaven with an irresistible eloquence.
Then all vanished. Stein burst into tears, covering his face with his hands.
CHAPTER XVI
JULY was an extremely hot month in Seville. People assembled in the delicious courts, or near the magnificent marble fountains, and the jets-d’eau fell behind the innumerable tufts of flowers. From the circular ceilings of the galleries were suspended large lamps incased in globes of crystal, and throwing out on every side torrents of light. The air was embalmed with the perfume of flowers. The richest furniture set off the sumptuousness of these fêtes every evening, which imparted a peculiar grace to the beauty of the Sevilleans, whose animated and joyous conversation rivalled the sweet murmurs of the fountains.
One evening, towards the end of July, there was a grand reunion at the residence of the young, elegant, and beautiful Countess d’Algar. It was esteemed a great favor to be introduced into this house; the mistress was so amiable, and possessed of such graceful manners, that she received all her guests with the same smile and the same cordiality.
In her eagerness, she had gathered around her all those who had been presented to her, without consulting the will of her uncle. General Santa-Maria, warlike par excellence, and, according to the spirit of warriors in those times, a little exclusive, absolute, and disdainful; in fine, a classic son of the god Mars, fully convinced that all relations among men consist in those who command and those who obey, and that the principal object, the sole utility of society, is to class each of its members; above all, Spanish like Pelayo, and brave like Cid.
The general, with his sister, the Marchioness de Guadalcanal, mother of the countess, and some other persons, were playing a species of game of cards called tresillo. Several guests were walking under the galleries discussing politics. The young people of both sexes, seated near the tufts of flowers of a thousand colors, chatted and laughed as if the earth produced only flowers, as if echo should send back only their own joys.
The countess, half reclined on a sofa, complained of a headache, which, however, did not prevent her from laughing. Her figure was small, and delicately formed. Her thick blonde hair waved in long ringlets, as worn by the English, on her alabaster shoulders. Her large brown eyes, her teeth white as ivory, her mouth, and the oval of her face were models of perfection. As to her grace, nothing could surpass it. Passionately cherished by her mother, idolized by her husband, who, without loving the world, left his wife unlimited liberty, because he knew her to be virtuous, and had full confidence in her, the countess was truly an accomplished woman, abusing none of her privileges, such was the nobleness of her character. It is true she possessed in no degree grand intellectual faculties, but she had the talent of heart; her sentiments were just and delicate. All her ambition was reduced to the desire to amuse and please, without effort, like the bird which flies without knowing it, and sings because she sings. This evening she mingled in the promenade, fatigued, and a little indisposed. She had replaced her rich toilet by a robe of white muslin of great simplicity. The long hanging sleeves garnished with lace, exposed her white and rounded arms. A bracelet and some jewels were the only ornaments which she had retained of her first attire. Near her was seated a young colonel recently arrived from Madrid, after having been distinguished in the war of Navarre. The countess, with her accustomed frankness, fixed on him all her attentions.
General Santa-Maria regarded them from time to time, and bit his lips impatiently.
“New fruit!” said he. “She would not be a daughter of Eve if the novelty had not pleased her. A white-beak! Twenty-four years of age, and already colonel! Has one ever seen such prodigality of rank? Here, for five or six years one goes yet to school; and here one already commands a regiment! They will tell us no doubt that he owes his grade to his brilliant actions; for my part, I say that valor does not give experience, and without experience no one knows how to command. Colonel at twenty-four years of age! I was one at forty, after having been at Roussillon, in America, and in Portugal, and I gained the scarf of a general only on my return from the North, after having fought during the war of independence. By my faith, gentlemen, in Spain we are all becoming crazy, some by what they do, and others by what they leave undone.”
At this moment loud exclamations were heard. The countess herself shook off her languor, and suddenly rose up. “At last,” she cried, “we again see him whom we had lost! A thousand times welcome, unfortunate sportsman, ill-treated señor! You have caused a frightful alarm! But what is it then? You stand there as if nothing had happened! Is it true, what has been told us of a wonderful German doctor starting out from the ruins of a fort, and those of a convent, in the manner of fantastic creations? Relate to me then, duke, all these extraordinary things.”
The duke, after having received the congratulations which each one offered him on his happy return and cure, placed himself near the countess, and commenced the recital of events which the reader already knows.
Then, after having spoken much of Stein and Marisalada, he finished by saying, he had persuaded them to come and establish themselves at Seville, to become known and useful, he by his knowledge, and she by the extraordinary faculties with which nature had endowed her.
“It was badly done,” earnestly interrupted General Santa-Maria.
“Why so, my uncle?” asked the countess.
“Because these people were living contented, without ambition; and which once broken up will never more be the same. Do you recollect the Spanish comedy, the title of which has passed into a proverb: ‘Ninguno debe dejar lo cierto por lo dudoso.’ ” (Never quit a certainty for an uncertainty.)
“Do you believe, my uncle, that this woman, gifted with a voice so remarkable, can regret the oyster bank where she vegetated without glory, without profit to herself, or to society, or to the arts?”
“Come, my niece, would you seriously make us believe that human society would make much progress because a woman exhibits herself on the boards, and sings Di tanti palpiti?”
“Go along,” said the countess, “we see very well that you are not musical.”
“And I greatly thank the Lord that I am not so,” replied the general. “Would you that, like so many others, I lose my judgment by this melomaniac furor, by this deluge of notes which is showered on Europe like an avalanche, according to the expression now-a-days. Would you that I go, thanks to my stupid enthusiasm, and swell the excessive pride of those kings and queens of harmony? Would you that my money serve to increase their colossal receipts, while so many good officers covered with wounds die of hunger; while so many virtuous, and meritorious women pass their lives in tears, without having bread to eat? These things cry for vengeance! Here is a veritable sarcasm (as they say now-a-days), and that passes unheeded, while the mouths of our hypocrites are continually uttering the word humanity. Shall I go, and throw bouquets at the feet of a prima donna whose whole recommendable qualities are reduced to ‘do, ré, mi, fa, sol?’ ”
“My uncle is the most perfect personification of the statu quo. Every thing new annoys him. I will try to grow old soon, to please him.”
“You will take good care of yourself, my niece; but do not require of me that I grow young to please the new generation.”
“What is my brother discussing?” demanded the marchioness, who, until then occupied with her game, had taken no part in the conversation.
“My uncle,” said a young officer, who had entered without saying a word, and was seated near the duke, “my uncle is preaching a crusade against music. He has declared war against the andante, proscribed the moderato, and gives no quarter to allegro.”
The new speaker was of small form, but elegant, well proportioned, of a distinguished tournure, and a handsome face, too handsome, perhaps, for a man.
“Dear Raphael!” cried the duke, embracing the officer, who was his relation and his friend.
“And I,” added the young officer, affectionately pressing the hand of the duke, “I who would have broken my arms and legs to spare you the painful hours you have passed! But we were speaking of the opera, and I would not be impious towards the melodrama.”
“Well thought of,” said the duke; “you had better relate to me what has passed in my absence. What do they say?”
“That my cousin, the Countess d’Algar,” said Raphael, “is the pearl of women.”
“I asked you what was new,” replied the duke, “and not what everybody knows.”
“My lord duke,” continued Raphael, “Solomon has said, and many other wise men – I am of the number – that there is nothing new under the azure vault of heaven.”
“God grant it!” sighed the general, “but my dear nephew Raphael Arias is a living contradiction of his axiom. Every day he brings new faces to our reunions, and it is insupportable.”
“There, already, is my uncle,” said Raphael, “who ever tilts against strangers. A stranger is the blue-devil of General Santa-Maria. My lord duke, if you had not appointed me your aid-de-camp when you were minister of war, I could not have found so many acquaintances at Madrid among foreign diplomatists, and these gentlemen would not have pressed me so with their letters of introduction. Do you believe, uncle, that it is very amusing to me to act as cicerone to every traveller? It has been my only occupation since my arrival at Seville.”
“And who obliges you,” replied the general, “to open our doors – open them wide – to all new-comers, and put ourselves at their orders? That is not done in Paris, and much less so is it the custom in London.”
“My uncle,” said the countess, “all people have their peculiar characteristics; each society its usages. Strangers are more reserved than we, and they have the same reserve among themselves: be just.”
“Has any one recently arrived?” demanded the duke. “I ask you this, because I expect Lord G., one of the most distinguished men I know. Is he in Seville?”
“I think not,” replied Raphael. “At present we have here, first, Major Fly, whom we call Mosca– it is the translation of his name. He serves in the Queen’s Guards, and is nephew of the Duke of W., one of the grand personages of England.”
“Yes, nephew of the Duke of W.,” said the general, “as I am of the Grand Turk.”
“He is young,” pursued Raphael, “elegant, and a good fellow, but of colossal stature: he should be placed at a certain distance from you to have his whole form appreciated; close, he appears so large, so robust, so angular, so stiff, that he loses a hundred per cent. When he is not at table, he is always at my side, whether I am at home, or whether I am out. When my servant told him I was out, he replied that he would wait for me; and when he came in at the door, I escaped by the window. He has the habit of using his cane as a weapon: his thrusts, however, are very innocent, and wound only the air. As he has very long and vigorous arms, and as my room is small, he damages all the walls; and he has already broken, I do not know how many squares of glass. Seated on a chair, he so moves about, so tosses, and stretches himself out in such a fashion, that he has already broken four of them.
“The sight of this man is sufficient to throw my hostess into a rage. Sometimes he takes a book; and it is the best thing he could do, for it puts him to sleep. But conquest is his mania – his fixed idea – his war-horse. In it lies all his hopes, which, however, are yet in embryo. He has for the fair sex the same illusion that the Castilian peasant who goes to Mexico has for the hard dollars: the poor man arrives in Mexico, believing that he has only to present himself to grasp them. I have tried to undeceive the major, but I have preached in the desert. When I speak reasonably to him, he smiles with an air of incredulity, caressing his enormous mustache. He is in correspondence with a millionaire heiress; and that which is very curious, is, that this Ajax of thirty years, who devours four pounds of beef-steak and drinks three bottles of sherry at a single repast, makes his betrothed believe that he is travelling for his health! The other knave, as my uncle would call him, is a Frenchman, the Baron de Maude.”
“Baron,” replied the general maliciously, “yes, a baron as I am a pope.”
“But in truth, my uncle,” replied the countess, “what reason is there that he should not be a baron?”
“The reason is, my niece, that real barons – not the barons of Napoleon, nor the Constitutional barons, but the barons of good stock, neither travel nor write books for money; and they are not either so badly educated, or so curious, or such fastidious questioners.”
“But, uncle, he can be both a baron and a questioner. They lose not their nobility because they question. On his return to his country he is to be married to the daughter of a peer of France.”
“Certainly he will marry her,” replied the general, “as I will marry the Grand Turk.”
“My uncle,” said Arias, “is like St. Thomas; he must see to believe. Let us come back to our baron: we must admit he is a very handsome man, and of noble deportment, although he has, like me, ceased to grow. His character is one of the most amiable; he has it as a man of learning and as a writer; he converses with the same ease on music, statistics, philosophy, agriculture, and the fashions. He is occupied at this moment in writing a serious book, which may serve as a ladder by which to mount to the Chamber of Deputies. This book is to be entitled: ‘Travels, scientific, philosophical, artistic, and geological, in Spain, formerly Iberia; with critical observations on the government, the cooks, the literature, the routes, the agriculture, the dances, and the system of imposts of that country.’ With an affected negligence in his toilet, he is grave, circumspect, economical in the extreme; it is an imperfect fruit of that warm greenhouse of public men, who give precocious products without spring, without vivifying breezes, and without free air – products without savor or perfume. These men precipitate themselves into the future blindly, at the discovery of what they call a position; and it is for that they sacrifice all: sad, tormented existences, for which life has no aurora.”
“Raphael, you talk like a philosopher,” said the duke, smiling; “do you know that if Socrates existed in our time, you would more likely be his disciple than my aid-de-camp?”
“I would not change my place of aid-de-camp for an apostleship, my general,” replied Arias. “But the truth is, that were there not so many ignorant disciples, there would not be so many bad masters.”
“Well said, my good nephew,” cried the old general. “What of new masters! each one of them teaches his dogma, preaches his doctrine more and more new and advanced: the progress! the magnificent and inevitable progress!”
“General,” replied the duke, “to maintain the equilibrium of our globe, it is necessary that there be fluid, that there be solid materials; these two forces ought to regard each other reciprocally as necessary, in lieu of wishing to destroy them with so much fury.”
“What you advance,” replied the general, “savors of the doctrines of the odious half-way, which, more than all others, have ruined us with these shameful opinions, and these discourses, as low as insipid, as the people say, who often have more good sense than the learned sectarians of moderatism, grand hypocrites of beautiful outward show and bad heart, adorers of the Supreme Being, who do not believe in Jesus Christ.”
“My uncle,” hinted Raphael, “so hates the moderate, that he loses all moderation in combating them.”
“Hold your tongue, Raphael,” replied the countess; “you attack and rail at all opinions, and you have none yourself, without doubt, so as to avoid the trouble of defending them.”
“My cousin,” said Raphael, “I am liberal; my empty purse says so.”
“What have you to be liberal with?” exclaimed the general, in a commanding voice.
“And why should I not be? The duke is so.”
“You would be liberal!” said anew the old soldier in a terrible tone, sounding like the roll of a drum.
“Well!” murmured Raphael, “one easily sees that my uncle will only accord the title liberal to the arts which bear that denomination. General,” he added, excited with refined joy, “why cannot the duke and I be liberal?”
“Because the military,” replied the general, “have no right to be any thing but the supporters of the throne, the sustainers of order, and the defenders of their country. Do you understand, my nephew?”
“But, my uncle – ”
“Raphael,” interrupted the countess, “do not take so much trouble: continue your recital.”
“I obey. Ah! cousin, in the army which you command, I have never committed the fault of insubordination. We have still another stranger in Seville, a Sir John Burnwood. He is a young man of fifty years, somewhat fair, smiling, with hair worthy of the veriest lion of Atlas; an eye-glass unremovable – smile ditto; great talker, hullaballoo, turbulent, full of vivacity, like that German who, for a whim, threw himself out of a window; great lover of jollity, celebrated sportsman, and proprietor of vast coal-mines, which produce him an income of twenty thousand pounds sterling.”