La Gaviota

The family of the duchess, like many families among the great, was entirely devotional; Leonore had been educated in the same spirit. Her modesty and her austerity kept her away from the pleasures and the noise of the world, for which, indeed, she felt no desire. She read little, and her hand never opened a novel. She was quite ignorant of the dramatic effects of the grand passions; she had never learned, neither at the theatre, nor from looks, the interest inspired by adultery, which she regarded as a crime as abominable as homicidal. She could never be made to believe, as had been told her, that there was adopted in the world a standard under which to proclaim the emancipation of women. Never could she comprehend this pretension; no more than she could comprehend much of other women who, nevertheless, did not live so retired, and did not adopt a reserve so strict as the duchess. If she had heard said that there are apologists for divorce and for detractors of marriage, she would believe she dreamt; she would think the end of the world had come. Loving and devoted as a daughter, generous and sure friend, tender and devoted mother, a wife consecrated to her husband even to blindness, the Duchess of Almansas was the type of the woman whom God loves, of whom poets sing, society admires and venerates, and who should take the place of those amazons who possess nothing of the exquisite delicacy of woman.

The duke submitted himself for a long time to the attractive influence Marisalada exercised over him, without the slightest cloud arising to trouble that peace, calm and pure as heaven, which reigned in the heart of his wife. He, however, until then so affectionate, neglected the duchess each day more and more. The duchess wept, but she was silent. Later she learned that this Cantora, who upset all Madrid, was protected by her husband, who passed his life in the house of this woman. The duchess shed fresh tears, and still doubted. One day the duke conducted Stein to his house, to give lessons to his young son; and soon he wished, as we have said, that Marisalada should also give lessons to his daughter, a beautiful creature, eleven years of age. Leonore energetically opposed this last wish of the duke, alleging that she could not permit a woman of the theatre the least contact with her child. The duke, accustomed to the easy compliances of his wife, saw in this opposition a doctrinal scruple, a want of the habits of the world, and he persisted in his idea. The duchess yielded, in obedience to her confessor: a double motive, which, if comprehended, would cause bitter tears.

She received, then, Marisalada with excessive circumspection, extreme reserve, cold politeness. Leonore, who, according to her tastes, lived very retired, received but few visits, and these chiefly those of her relations. Her other visitors were priests, and some few persons in whom she had full confidence. She followed the lessons of her daughter with a perseverance which never tired, and she devoted so much care as not to separate her child from her maternal regards: so the system of surveillance could not give offence to the susceptibility of Marisalada. The duchess’s visitors had but a cold salute for the mistress of song, and never addressed a word to her. All this rendered very humiliating, in this noble and austere house, the position of this woman whom the public of Madrid adored. The Gaviota felt it, and her pride daily became indignant: but how to complain? The duchess always practised an exquisite politeness; never a smile of disdain had passed over the serenity of her calm and beautiful countenance; her eye had never shown a haughty look. On the other hand, the duke, so full of dignity and of delicacy, would he have permitted a complaint against his wife? Marisalada was endowed with sufficient penetration and taste to know that silence was necessary on her part, and that she could lose neither the friendship of the duke, which flattered her; nor his protection, which was indispensable; nor his presents, which enchanted her. She must bear her trials until a proper occasion should present itself to put an end to this painful position.

One day when, all decked out in silk and velvets, resplendent with bijoux and diamonds, enveloped in a rich mantle of lace, she entered the duchess’s drawing-room, she met there her grace’s father, the Marquis of Elda, and the bishop of – . The marquis was an old and austere man, one of the partisans of the olden time, a Catholic Spaniard and pure loyalist. He lived near the court since the death of the king, whom he had faithfully served since the war of independence.

There was a great deal of coldness in the relations of the marquis with his kindred, whom he reproached with conceding too much to the ideas of the present times. This coldness increased when this virtuous and severe old man heard the public rumors which accused the duke of being the protector of a singer of the theatre.

When Maria entered the drawing-room, the duchess rose with the intention of thanking her, and giving her congé for this day; but the bishop, ignorant of what was passing, manifested the desire to hear his little grand-daughter sing. The duchess resumed her seat, saluted Marisalada with her accustomed politeness, and called her child, who came immediately at the request of her mother. She had hardly executed the three measures of the prayer of Desdemona when there were heard three taps on the door.

“Quick, quick,” said the duchess, showing by her earnestness that she knew the person by this manner of knocking; and with a vivacity which Marisalada had never given her credit for, she rose to get away before the visitor could enter.

Maria was more astonished at the sight of the new personage. She was an ugly woman, at least fifty years old, and of common aspect. Her clothes were as coarse as strange. The duchess received her with the greatest mark of consideration and cordiality, the more remarkable when contrasted with the icy reserve which she always observed towards the mistress of song. The duchess took the old woman by the hand, and presented her to the bishop. Marisalada knew not what to think. She had never seen such a costume, never had she met a person in a position less in harmony with the people of distinction where she was received.

After a quarter of an hour’s animated conversation the old woman rose. It rained. The marquis insisted that she accept his carriage; but the marchioness said to him —

“My father, I will order mine.”

So saying, she approached the new arrival, who took leave, and obstinately refused to use a carriage.

“Come, my child,” said the duchess to her daughter, “come, with the permission of your mistress, and salute the good friend.”

Maria could not believe what she saw and heard. The child embraced her whom her mother had called her good friend.

“Who is this woman?” Marisalada asked of the child when she came to her.

“She is a sister of charity,” replied the child.

Marisalada was annihilated. Her pride, which rose in array against all superiority which defied the dignity of the nobility, the rivalry of artists, the power of authority, and even all the prerogatives of genius, to bend before the grandeur and elevation of virtue!

She rose to retire. It still rained.

“You have a carriage at your disposal,” said the duchess, saluting her.

Marisalada, on arriving in the court, remarked that they had taken away the horses from the duchess’s carriage. A lackey respectfully let down the steps of a hired hack, and Maria was driven off, swelling with rage. Next day she declared to the duke that she had ceased giving lessons to the young duchess. She took great care to hide the true motive for this decision. The duke, as blind by his enthusiasm for Maria as by the dangerous means he had adopted to make her celebrated, supposed that his wife was the cause of this resolution, and he appeared before her colder than ever.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE arrival in Madrid of the celebrated singer Tenorini raised the glory of Maria to its height, not only because of the admiration this colossal lyric displayed, but because of the earnestness she showed in wishing to unite her voice to a voice so worthy of hers. Tononi Tenorini —alias the great – came from nobody knew where. Some affirmed that, like Castor and Pollux, she was couched in an egg – not the egg of a swan, but the egg of a nightingale. Her splendid and brilliant career commenced at Naples, where she had eclipsed Vesuvius. Then she passed to Milan, to Florence, St. Petersburg, and Constantinople. She had now arrived from New York, passing through Havana, with the purpose of appearing in Paris, where the inhabitants, furious in not having yet consecrated this gigantic reputation, had gotten up a resolution to assuage their anger. From thence Tenorini designed to go to London, where the dilettanti were dying of longing and of spleen, and where the season promised to be dull, if that celebrated notability and artiste should not take pity on them.

Strange thing, and which surprised all the Polos and all the Eloisitas, this sublime artiste did not arrive in Madrid borne on the wings of genii. The dolphins of the ocean were too badly educated and too little melodramatic to carry her on their back, as they had before done for Amphyon, in happier times, those of the Mediterranean. Tenorini came by the diligence. Horror! And that which was more horrible still, she brought a carpet-bag with her. They formed a plan to celebrate her arrival by ringing all the bells at the same moment, to illuminate the houses, and to raise an arch of triumph for her, with music from all the instruments of the circus orchestra. The alcalde would consent to nothing of the kind.

While Marisalada shared with the grand singer the unbridled ovation of a discerning public, who fell on their knees in all humility, a scene of a character altogether different passed in the poor cabin which she had quitted scarcely a year ago.

Pedro Santalo was dying on his pallet. Since the departure of his daughter he had not raised his head. He kept his eyes constantly closed, and opened them only to look at the chamber of Mariquita, which was separated from his by a narrow passage which led to the garret. Every thing remained in the state his daughter had left it: the guitar was hung on the wall, by a ribbon once rose-colored, and which now hung without form like a forgotten promise, and faded like a recollection extinguished. A handkerchief of India was thrown on the bed, and there could yet be seen on the chair a pair of her little shoes. Old Maria was seated at the bedside of the invalid.

“Come! come! Pedro,” said the good old woman, “forget that you are a Catalan, and be not so stubborn. Let yourself be governed for once in your life, and come to the convent. You know you will want for nothing there. There at least you can be better cared for, and you will not be abandoned in a corner like an old broom.”

The fisherman made no reply.

“Pedro, Don Modesto has already written two letters, and has sent them by the post. They say it is the most sure and prompt way to insure their arrival.”

“She will not come!” murmured the invalid.

“But her husband will come; and, for the moment, that is of the greater importance.”

“She! she!” cried the poor father.

An hour after this conversation Maria set off for the convent, without having been able to decide the obstinate Catalan to let her conduct him to her home. The old woman rode upon Golondrina, the peaceful Dean of the chapter of asses of the country.

Momo, now become a man, without having lost any of his native ugliness, conducted the ass.

“Listen, grandma,” said he; “these visits to the old sea-wolf, will they continue for a long time yet? These daily walks fatigue me.”

“Certainly they will still continue, since Pedro will not come to the convent. I fear for the death of this brave man if he does not see his daughter.”

“I will never die of that disease,” said Momo, with a sardonic laugh.

“Listen, my son,” pursued the old woman; “I have not much confidence in the post, although they say it is sure. Don Modesto has not much faith in it either. Then, that Don Frederico and Marisalada learn of the danger Pedro is now in, there is but one means to employ, and that is that you go to Madrid, and tell them; for indeed we must not remain here with our arms folded, and see the father die calling on his daughter with all his soul, and do nothing to bring her to him.”

“I go to Madrid, and to seek the Gaviota again!” exclaimed Momo horrified. “Are you in your right senses, grandmother?”

“I am so much in my sound senses, that if you will not go, I will go myself. I have been to Cadiz without losing myself, and without any thing happening to me; it will be the same if I go to Madrid. My heart breaks when I hear this poor father calling on his child. But you, Momo, you have a bad heart, I say so to you with pain. And I do not know truly from whence you get this wickedness; it is neither from your father nor from your mother; but so it is: in every family there is a Judas.”

“The devil himself could not better torment a Christian to damn him,” murmured Momo. “And that is not the worst; you get this extravagance into your head, you push it just to its end, and as the only good result, I will be deprived of my arms and legs for an entire month.”

And Momo, to vent his anger, struck a heavy blow with his stick on the side of the poor Golondrina.

“Barbarian!” cried his grandmother, “why do you beat the poor animal?”

“Animals are made to be beaten,” replied Momo.

“Who has preached to you such a heresy?”

“Your misfortune, grandma, is, that you resemble the celestial vault, you protect everybody.”

“Yes, son, yes. And may it please God that I never witness a grief without sympathizing with it – that I may never be one of those people who listen to a complaint as if they were listening to the dropping of rain!”

“That which you tell me applies only to our neighbor, grandmother; but the animals, the devil!”

“The animals, and do they not suffer? Are they not creatures of the good God? Here below we suffer the punishment due to the sin of the first man. The Adam and Eve of asses, what sin have they committed?”

“They have, at least, eaten the parings of the apple,” said Momo, with a laugh which sounded like a detonation.

They then met Manuel and José, who returned with them to the convent.

“Mother,” asked Manuel, “how is Pedro?”

“Ill, my son, ill. My heart bleeds to see him so low, so sad, and so lonely. I asked him to come to the convent, but it would be easier to remove the fort of San Cristobal than this obstinate man. A twenty-four-pounder would not move him. Brother Gabriel must go, and stay with him, and Momo go to Madrid and bring here Don Frederico and the daughter of this poor father.”

“Let Momo go,” said Manuel; “he will thus see the world.”

“I!” cried Momo anew; “how can I go to Madrid?”

“In putting one foot before the other,” answered his father. “Are you afraid of being lost? or do you fear being eaten up on the way?”

“It is this, that I have no desire to go,” replied Momo exasperated.

“Well! I have here a branch of olive which will give you that desire, scapegrace.”

Momo was quiet, inwardly cursing old Pedro and his family. He commenced his journey in the company of the muleteers of the mountain of Aracena, who came to lay in a stock of fish at Villamar. He arrived at Valverde, and from there passed by Aracena, Oliva, and Barcarota to Badajoz, where he took the diligence for Madrid from Seville, and arrived at Madrid without stopping.

Don Modesto had written in big letters the address of Stein, which he had sent when he arrived in Madrid with the duke. Momo commenced to walk through the city with this paper in his hand, reciting for the benefit of the Gaviota a litany of imprecations always new.

We will leave him in search of his enemy, and come back to Villamar.

It was afternoon; old Maria, more grieved than ever, came from visiting Santalo.

“Dolores,” said she to her daughter-in-law, “Pedro is going. This morning he rolled up his sheet; that is to say, he made up his parcel for the journey from which he will never return, and our dog Palomo has howled the death. And yet these people do not arrive! I am on hot coals. Momo ought already to be returned. He has been ten days gone.”

“The road is long to measure from here to Madrid, mother,” replied Dolores. “Manuel assures me that Momo cannot be here before four or five days yet.”

What was the astonishment of the two women when they saw, all of a sudden, the frightened face of Momo himself, Momo dismayed, fatigued, and harassed.

“Momo!” both cried out at the same moment.

“Himself, in body and soul,” replied Momo.

“And Marisalada?” asked the old woman with anxiety.

“And Don Frederico?” asked Dolores.

“You may wait for them until the Last Judgment,” said Momo. “Thanks to you, grandmother, I can boast of having made a famous journey.”

“What is it? what has happened?” asked at the same time both grandmother and mother.

“That which you will soon hear, so that you will admire the judgments of God, and who blesses you, inasmuch as He has permitted me to return safe and sound, thanks to the excellent legs he has given me.”

The old Maria and Dolores remained silent on hearing these words, symptoms of grave events.

“Speak, for the love of heaven; what has happened?” cried again both the women. “Do you not see that our souls are drawn out to a thread?”

“When I arrived in Madrid,” commenced Momo, “when I saw myself alone in the midst of this world, I was seized with vertigo. Each street appeared to me a soldier, every place a patrol. I entered into a public house with the paper of the commandant, and which was a paper that spoke. There I encountered a species of drunkard, who conducted me to the house indicated on the paper. The servants told me that their master and mistress were absent, and they were about to shut the door in my face; but they knew not, these imbeciles, whom they were dealing with. ‘Ha!’ said I to them, ‘pay attention to whom you are speaking, if you please. Do you know that it was at our house we rescued Don Frederico when he was dying, and that without us he would have been altogether dead?’ ”

“You said that, Momo!” exclaimed the grandmother, “one never speaks of these things. What mortification! what will they think of us? Remind one of a favor! who has ever seen the like?”

“Well! what? I ought not to have said it? Let’s see then! I spoke much stronger: I said it was my grandmother who had brought their mistress to our house when she was ill, running and crying herself hoarse on the rocks like a gull as she was. These profligates looked at each other, and mocked me; they told me I was mistaken, that their mistress was the daughter of a general of the army of Don Carlos. Daughter of a general! do you understand? Is there in the world a lie more shameful? to say that the good old Pedro is a general! old Pedro, who has never served the king! At last I told them that my commission was very pressing, and that what I wished was, to depart immediately, and lose sight of them, their masters, and Madrid. ‘Nicholas,’ then said a girl, who seemed to wish to be as shameless as her mistress, ‘conduct this peasant to the theatre, he may see the señora there.’ Remark well that she spoke of me, this viper’s tongue, as a peasant; and that she said señora, in speaking of this bad Gaviota. Can you believe that? It is what can only be seen in Madrid! It is confounding. Then the servant took his hat, and conducted me to a grand building, high, and constructed like a species of church. In lieu of tapers and candles, one only sees lamps which light up like suns. This large room was furnished all around with seats, upon which I have seen more than a thousand women seated all in fête dresses, stiff as sticks, and ranged like vials on an apothecary’s shelves. The men were so numerous that one might believe he saw an ant-hill. Jesus! from whence can so many Christians have come! ‘That is nothing,’ said I to myself, ‘it is the quantity of bread they must consume in this city of Madrid!’ But prepare yourself for the saddest. All this world was there – why? to hear the Gaviota sing!”

“I see nothing in all this to oblige you to come back so promptly and so amazed,” said the grandmother.

“Wait! wait! I cannot go faster than the music. I relate things as they happened. Then listen well to this. Then suddenly, without anybody giving command, more than a thousand instruments commenced playing at once. There were flutes, trumpets, and violins big as Golondrina. What an uproar! It was enough to assemble together all the blind in Spain. There is something more wonderful still: without knowing how or why, a kind of garden which was in front of us disappeared suddenly; and, the devil mixing in it without doubt, replaced the garden by the stairs of a palace covered with a magnificent carpet. Then I saw a woman admirably dressed; she was covered with more velvet, silk, gold, and jewels than the Virgin of Rosaire. ‘It is Isabella the Second,’ said I to myself. No, my people, it was not the queen. Do you know who it was? Neither more nor less than the Gaviota, the wicked Gaviota, who went about among us with naked legs and feet. Yes, the devil had thus taken her, and made her a princess. I was stunned, when, at a moment when no one thought of it, a gentleman, very well dressed, came forward. He was in a frightful rage! What fury! He rolled his eyes! ‘Caramba!’ thought I, ‘I would not be in this Gaviota’s skin.’ That which astonished me the most was that both recited their anger in singing. ‘Good!’ said I, ‘it is perhaps the usage among people of high rank.’ Nevertheless, I did not understand a word of what they were saying. All that I could discover was, that the gentleman was a general of Don Carlos, that the Gaviota said he was her father, and that he would not recognize her as his daughter, although she supplicated him on her knees. ‘That’s well done!’ I cried at this impudence.”

“Why did you mix yourself up with it?” asked the old woman.

“Because that I knew her, and that I could prove it. Do you not know that he who is silent approves? But it appears that where I was it is forbidden to speak the truth, because my neighbor, an employé of the police, said to me, ‘Will you hold your tongue, my friend!’ ‘I have no desire to do so,’ I replied, and I made my cry ring to the roof, ‘This man is not her father.’ ‘Are you mad, or do you come from another world?’ said the policeman to me. ‘I am not the one, nor do I come from the other, insolent,’ I replied. ‘I know better than you, and I come from Villamar, where her legitimate father resides, her true father, the old Pedro Santalo.’ ‘You are an imbecile,’ replied the policeman. I kicked, and was about to inflict on him a blow, when Nicholas caught my arm in time, and led me away to take a drink. ‘I have understood it all,’ I said to Nicholas; ‘this general is he whom this cursed Gaviota wishes to have for her father. I have heard talk of many villanous things, of murders, thefts, piracies, but I have never yet heard spoken of one who would deny her father.’ Nicholas held his sides in laughing: at Madrid such indignities affright no one. When we re-entered, it is believed that the general had ordered the Gaviota to take off that beautiful attire, for she was entirely dressed in white, and appeared overwhelmed with sadness. She began to sing, and accompanied herself on an immense guitar which she had placed immediately before her on the floor, and which she pinched with her two hands. (Of what is she not capable, this Gaviota?) But here comes the interesting part. Suddenly there appeared a Moor.”

“A Moor?”

“But what a Moor! blacker and more cruel than Mohammed himself. He held in his hand a poniard, large as a sabre.”

“Jesus, Maria!” cried Maria and Dolores.

“I demanded of Nicholas who was this proud Moor, and he told me that he is called Telo. To make a finish of my story, the Moor said to the Gaviota that he was about to kill her.”

“Holy Virgin!” exclaimed the old woman, “it was the public executioner!”

“I do not know if it was the executioner or a paid assassin,” replied Momo; “but of this I am sure, that he seized her by her hair, and stabbed her several times with the poniard. I saw it with my own eyes, those eyes which will one day be in the land of death, and I can affirm it.”