La Gaviota

Momo placed his two fingers on his two eyes with such rigorous force, that it seemed as if they would start from their sockets.

The two good women raised a frightful cry. Old Maria sobbed and rung her hands with grief.

“But what did the spectators do?” asked Dolores, shedding abundance of tears; “was there no one to arrest this scoundrel?”

“That is what I do not know,” answered Momo. “For on seeing this, I took to my legs, and in the fear that they would call upon me to depose, I did not cease running until I had put some leagues between the city of Madrid and the son of my father.”

“We must,” said the poor old Maria, amidst her sobs, “conceal this misfortune from Pedro. What griefs! what griefs!”

“And who could have courage enough to tell him?” replied Dolores. “Poor Marisalada! she was well, and would be better. See what has happened to her!”

“Each one gets what they merit,” said Momo. “This bad daughter should end badly – it could not be otherwise. If I were not so fatigued, I would go on the instant, and relate it all to Ramon Perez.”

CHAPTER XXIV

THE news spread quickly through the village that the daughter of the fisherman had been assassinated. Thus this egotist, this rustic, this stupid Momo, thanks to his evil spirit, and his bad instincts, took what he saw at the theatre for reality, and he not only made a useless journey, because he had not accomplished his mission, but his folly led all the good people into an error.

The face of Don Modesto lengthened amazingly. The cura said a mass for the soul of Marisalada. Ramon Perez put a black ribbon on his guitar.

Rosa Mistica said to Don Modesto —

“God pardon her! I predicted that she would end badly. Do you remember that the more pains I took to make her go the right way, the more obstinate she was in going the wrong?”

Old Maria, calculating that this catastrophe prevented the arrival of Don Frederico, decided to confide the cure of Pedro to a young physician who had taken the place of Stein at Villamar.

“I do not know much of his science,” she said to Don Modesto, who recommended this Esculapius to her; “he knows only how to order medicinal drinks, and there is nothing which more weakens the stomach. For nourishment he prescribes chicken broth. Will you tell me what strength such a beverage can give? All is topsy-turvy, my commandant. But all this will come right in the future, and experience will always be experience.”

The doctor found Pedro very ill; he declared he was anxious to prepare for his death.

Maria could not hear this news without weeping bitterly; she called Manuel, and charged him with the painful mission to announce his approaching death to Pedro, with every possible precaution.

“Believe me,” she said, “I would never have the courage to do it.”

Manuel set off to visit the patient.

“Hallo! Pedro,” he said to him, “how are you?”

“I am sinking, Manuel,” replied the invalid: “if you have any commands for the other world, tell me immediately: I am about to weigh anchor, my son.”

“Come! Pedro, this is not so. You will live longer than I; and, as the proverb says – ”

“Do not finish, Manuel,” replied Pedro without moving. “Say to your mother that I am ready. It is now a long time since I have felt my last moment approaching. I think only of that – and of her!” he added, in a broken voice.

Manuel went away with his eyes filled with tears, although he had seen, during his military life, much bloodshed, and painful agonies.

The following day there was one of those terrible storms which the equinox usually brings. The wind whistled in every variety of tone. One could believe he heard the seven heads of the hydra breathing all at once. It beat against the cabin, which seemed to complain and moan. The invisible element sent its doleful sounds through the resounding vaults of the ruins of the fort; it struck furiously across the forest, became softer in the orchards, and vanished in a long murmur in the deserted plain, as gradually disappears the shadow of a landscape on the horizon.

The sea dashed its waves angrily, as fury agitates serpents among the leaves. The clouds piled themselves up without pause, and their black flanks opened to emit their torrents on the earth. All was shivering, all trembling, all complaining. The sun had fled, and the color of day was dark as the pall of death.

Although the cabin was protected by the rock, the tempest had swept away a part of the roof during the night. To prevent its complete destruction, Manuel, aided by Momo, had stayed it with some wood and some stones of the ruins.

“You do not wish to shelter your host?” said Manuel. “Wait at least for it to fall down, and then there will be no more need of you.”

If any other look than that of God could through the tempest penetrate the desert, he would have seen some men following along the margin of the sea, braving the fury of the storm, enveloped in their mantles, wrapt and silent, their bodies bent towards the earth, and their heads bowed down. He would have seen an old man, grave, and wrapt in meditation, like those who followed him, his arms crossed on his breast, in the manner of Orientals, and preceded by a child ringing a bell. There could be heard at intervals, despite the roaring of the tempest, the tranquil and sonorous voice of this old man, saying, “De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine,” and of the men who responded, “Domine, exaudi vocem meam.”

The rain fell in torrents, the wind blew furiously, and the men continued their onward, impassible march, their step at once grave and slow.

They were the cura and some pious parishioners, who, conducted by Manuel, went to carry to the dying fisherman the last consolations of a Christian.

The priest approached the invalid, whose poor dwelling had been metamorphosed, thanks to the attentions of old Maria and of brother Gabriel. They had placed on the table a crucifix, surrounded with lights and flowers.

“Light and perfume,” said the good old woman, “are the exterior homage which we ought to offer to the Lord.”

After the ceremony, the priest, Maria, and brother Gabriel alone remained near the dying man. Pedro was calm. After a few moments he opened his eyes —

“Is she not come?” he asked.

“My good Pedro,” replied Maria, while streams of tears prevented her from seeing the invalid, “it is far from this to Madrid. She wrote she would set out, and we will see her arrive very soon.”

Santalo again fell into a lethargy. An hour passed, and then he came to himself. He fixed his look for a long time on Maria, and said to her —

“Maria, I have implored of my Divine Saviour that he will deign to come and visit me; that he will pardon me, that he will make you happy, and recompense you for all you have done for us.”

Then he swooned. He again revived, opened his eyes, in which already one could read death, and he murmured —

“She has not come!”

His head fell on the pillow, and he exclaimed —

“Pity, Lord!”

“Let us repeat the Credo,” said the priest, taking in his hands those of the dying man, and approaching his mouth to his ears, to make him understand the last words of faith, hope, and charity. A majestic and imposing silence reigned in this humble retreat, which death had come to penetrate.

Without, the tempest raged in all its terrible power; within, all was peace and repose: because God takes from death all its fears, and all its horror, when the soul springs to heaven at the cry of pity!

CHAPTER XXV

THE world is composed of contrasts: nothing is more true than this eternal verity.

It was thus that, when the poor fisherman presented to his humble and pious friends the sublime spectacle of the death of a believer, his daughter rendered the public of Madrid enthusiastic even to frenzy. A prima donna without a drop of Italian blood in her veins, eclipsed the grand Tenorini herself. The impression produced by the singer was so great, so general, that the employés deserted their offices, and the students the benches of their classes.

This enthusiasm manifested itself one evening at the door of the theatre, in a group of young men, who sought to make two strangers, recently landed, share their admiration. They commented, they analyzed the quality of the voice, the suppleness of her throat, the superiority of her method of the Diva, without forgetting to eulogize her physical advantages. A young man, covered up to his eyes in a cloak, remained immovable and silent some paces from this group; but when they boasted of the physical advantages of the singer, he stamped his foot with anger.

“I will bet a hundred guineas, dear viscount,” said our friend Sir John Burnwood, who, not having obtained authority to carry off Alcazar, proposed to himself to ask leave to take Escurial – “I will bet that this woman will make more noise in France than Madame Lafarge; and in England, more than Tom Thumb; and in Italy, than Rossini.”

“I do not doubt it,” replied the viscount.

“What magnificent black eyes!” added a new admirer. “What an elegant and subtle form! As to her feet, one does not see them, and we can only guess: the Magdalen would envy her her hair.”

“I am impatient to hear this wonder,” said the viscount; “let us enter, gentlemen.”

The mysterious young man had disappeared.

Maria, in the costume of Semiramis, came on the stage. The man in the mantle, who was no other than Pepe Vera, entered at this moment, approached the actress, and without any person hearing him, said to her —

“I do not wish you to sing.”

And he went on his way, cold and indifferent.

Maria at first turned pale, then the blush of indignation mounted to her face.

“Come!” said she to her waiting-woman; “Marina, arrange the folds of this mantle. We are about to commence.” And she added in a loud voice, so that Pepe, who was far off, heard her, “We do not play for the public.”

The boy of the theatre came to her, and said —

“Señora, shall we raise the curtain?”

“I am ready.”

But she had scarcely pronounced these words when she uttered a sharp cry.

Pepe Vera had come and placed himself behind her; he laid hold of her arm violently, and said to her a second time —

“I do not wish you to sing.”

Vanquished by her grief, Maria seated herself on a chair, and wept.

Pepe had disappeared.

“What is it? what has happened?” asked those who were present.

“I feel ill,” answered Maria, who continued to weep.

“What is the matter, señora?” asked the director, who had been informed of what had occurred.

“It is nothing,” said Maria, rising, and drying her tears. “It is already passed. I am ready. Come!”

Pepe Vera, pale as a corpse, then came and interposed between the director and the artist.

“This is cruelty,” said he, with an imperturbable calmness, “to force on to the stage a woman who can hardly support herself.

“What!” cried the director; “are you ill, señora? Since when? it is but a moment since I saw you very joyous!”

Maria was about to reply, but she dropped her eyes, and could not open her lips. Pepe’s look fascinated her.

“Why not avow the truth?” he said, without losing any of his calmness. “Why not say it is impossible for you to sing? would it be a great crime? Are you a slave, that they can oblige you to do more than you can?”

The public was impatient, the director knew not what to do. The authorities sent to demand the cause of the delay, and while the director recounted the incident which had occurred, Pepe Vera, who had approached Maria as if to offer his attentions, seized her arm as if he would break it, and said to her in a firm voice —

“Caramba! is it not enough to tell you I do not wish it?”

Maria must decide. When she was in her room with Pepe her anger broke out.

“You are an insolent, an infamous fellow,” she cried, suffocated with fury. “What right have you to treat me thus?”

“I love you.”

“Cursed be your love!”

Pepe began to laugh.

“You curse my love, and you cannot live without it. We will see! we will see! I will never again appear before you until you summon me.”

“I would sooner call a demon.”

“You may call him, I am not jealous.”

“Go then! quit me.”

“Be it so,” said the toreador. “I depart, and go to Lucia del Salto.”

Marisalada was very jealous of this woman, a dancer, whom Pepe had courted before he knew Maria.

“Pepe! Pepe!” screamed Maria, “traitor! add perfidy to insolence.”

“That,” said Pepe, without moving, “that will not make me do but what I choose. You are too grand a lady for me. If then you wish that we get along well together, it must be that every thing is done as I wish. I will command, and you obey. You have enough of dukes, ambassadors, and serene excellencies at your feet.”

So saying, he made some steps towards the door.

“Pepe! Pepe!” called Maria, tearing in pieces a mantle richly garnished with lace.

“Call sooner the demon.”

“Pepe! remember this well: if you ever go near Lucia I will accept the love of the duke.”

“You dare do that?” said Pepe, starting with a gesture of menace.

“I dare every thing, for revenge.”

Pepe placed himself in front of the Gaviota, his arms crossed, and darting on her the most terrible looks. Maria sustained them without flinching. These brief moments sufficed for these two characters to study and know each other.

They comprehended that both were powerful in pride and in energy. This combat could no longer continue; it must be broken or suspended. With mutual and tacit accord each renounced the triumph.

“Come, Mariquita,” said Pepe, who was the culpable one, “let us be friends. I will not go near Lucia, but in exchange, and to have confidence in each other, conceal me this evening at your house, in such a manner that I can convince myself that you do not deceive me.”

“That cannot be,” replied Maria haughtily.

“’Tis well. I go where I go in leaving you.”

“Infamous! you put the knife to my throat,” cried Maria, doubling her fists with fury. “Depart!”

An hour after this scene Maria was half reclining on the sofa, and her husband was feeling her pulse. The duke was seated near her.

“It is nothing, Maria,” said Stein. “It is nothing, duke. A nervous attack, already dissipated. Her pulse is perfectly tranquil. You need only repose, Maria. Work is killing you. It is already some time that your nerves have been extraordinarily irritated. Your nervous system rebels against the zeal you devote to the study of your characters. I am in no way uneasy, and now I go to attend a patient, who is in a dangerous condition. Take the prescription which I will order for you, and some orgeat on retiring; and to-morrow when you rise some ass’s milk. Duke, I leave you with regret, but duty obliges me: á dios!”

After the departure of Don Frederico, the duke gazed on Maria for a long time; her face was altogether changed.

“Are you fatigued, Maria?” asked he, with that penetrating sweetness which love alone knows how to give to the voice.

“I will repose myself,” replied Maria coldly.

“Do you wish that I retire?”

“If it so pleases you.”

“That would pain me.”

“Remain then.”

“Maria,” said the duke, after a short silence, taking out of his pocket a paper, “when I cannot talk to you I sing your praises; here are some verses which I have written for you; to-night, Maria, I will have agitating dreams, without sleep. Sleep has fled from my eyelids since peace fled from my heart. Pardon me, Maria, if this avowal which escapes from my heart offends the purity of your sentiments, but I have suffered from your sufferings, and – ”

“You see,” said Maria, smiling, “that my sufferings are already ended.”

“Would you like, Maria, that I read these verses to you?”

“Be it so.”

The duke read his sonnet in honor of the Diva.

“Your verses are very beautiful, duke,” remarked Maria with more than animation. “Will you have them published in the Heraldo?”

“Do you wish it?”

“I think they merit it.”

The duke at this reply let his head fall on his hands. When he raised it again, he saw as it were a light pass in the look which Maria fixed on the glass door of her alcove. He turned his head to that side, but saw nothing.

He had, in his abstraction, rolled the paper on which the verses were written, and which the singer had not taken into her possession. She asked him if he intended to make a cigarette of her sonnet.

“Then, at least,” said the duke, “it would serve for something.”

“Give it to me; I will keep it.”

The duke passed the roll of paper to her in a magnificent ring.

“What! the ring also, my lord duke?”

Maria placed the ring on her finger, and let fall the paper on the carpet.

“Ah!” thought the duke, “there is no love in that heart, there is no poetry in that soul, no blood in these veins. And yet heaven is in her smile, hell in those eyes, and her voice chants all the harmonies of earth and heaven. Repose yourself, Maria,” he said, rising; “leave your soul in its happy quietude, and do not give entrance to the importunate idea that others grow old and suffer because of you.”

The duke departed.

CHAPTER XXVI

HARDLY had the duke closed the door of the saloon, when Pepe Vera came out of the alcove, laughing.

“Will you keep quiet?” said Maria, occupied in lighting the fire with the precious production of the duke.

“No, my dear, I cannot; I would stifle if I did not laugh. I am no longer jealous, my Mariquita, no more than the sultan in his seraglio. Poor woman! if you had not me to love you ardently, what could you do with a husband, who proves to you his love by his prescriptions – with a bashful lover, who courts you in reciting to you his verses? Now that one of them has gone to dream without sleeping, and the other wishes to sleep, we will go, you and I, and sup with the gay companions who wait for us.”

“No, Pepe, I am not well. The disorder you have caused me, the cold I felt on leaving the theatre, has injured me. I am chilly.”

“You do the princess! Come with me, a good supper will cure you sooner than ass’s milk. Come, let us go.”

“I will not go out. We have one of those north winds, which, while it would not extinguish a candle, kills a man.”

“It is well! if it pleases you, so let it be. Since you wish to pamper yourself, pamper thyself, and – good-evening!”

“How! you are going to supper? You leave me? You leave me alone, and ill, as you see, and ill because of your fault!”

“Well! what? Do you wish I put myself on diet? No, no, my beauty. They are waiting for me, and I go; you lose some hours of pleasure.”

Maria seemed to regain courage. She rose, went out, and slammed the door with anger. Pepe Vera laughed. An instant after she came back, dressed all in black, her face hidden under a thick mantle, and enveloped in a large shawl. Thus disguised she went out with Pepe Vera.

On entering his house, well advanced in the night, Stein received from his servant a billet, which he read as soon as he was in his chamber. It ran thus —

“Señor Doctor,

“Do not believe that this is an anonymous letter; I act frankly, and I tell you my name at the commencement —Lucia del Salto. It seems to me it is a name sufficiently known.

“Husband of the Santalo, one must be as simple as you are, not to have perceived that your wife is the mistress of Pepe Vera, who was my lover; I may say so, because I am not married, and deceive no one. If you wish that the scales fall from your eyes, go to-night to No. 13 – street, and there you will do as St. Thomas did.”

“Can one be guilty of such an infamy?” cried Stein, letting the letter fall from his hands. “My poor Maria has those who are envious of her, and without any doubt they are the women of the theatre. Poor Maria! she is ill! and now perhaps she is sleeping in a sweet slumber. But let us see if she is calm. Last evening she was not well. Her pulse was agitated and her voice was hoarse. Affections of the chest are common now in Madrid. Let us see!”

Stein took a light, went out, and walked on tiptoe through the rooms which led to his wife’s apartment. Arrived near to the chamber, he redoubled his precautions; he softly approached the bed, drew aside the curtains – the bed was empty!

A man as loyal, as confident as Stein, could not easily convince himself of the possibility of such treason.

“No,” said he, after some instants of reflection, “no, it is impossible! Her absence at such an hour is from some other cause, some unexpected circumstance. Still, I cannot remain in the dark, with a doubt in my heart. I must have the power to reply to that calumny, not only with contempt, but with irrefutable proofs, with a formal contradiction without reply.”

He went out.

Thanks to the night watchmen, he arrived easily at the place indicated in the letter.

The house designated had no porter. The street door was open, and Stein entered. He climbed the first flight of stairs, and, arriving at the first landing-place, he knew no longer how to direct his steps, nor where to go.

Recovered from his first movement, he commenced to feel ashamed of his action. “To spy,” said he to himself, “is a base action. If Maria knew what I am doing, she would be irritated, and she would be right to feel so. O my God! suspect her whom I love, is it not to call down the cloud which will obscure the heaven of our love? I a spy! This has happened from the contemptible letter of a woman more contemptible still. Yes, I will return home. To-morrow I will demand of Maria what I desire to know. It is the way the most simple, and the most natural. Come – no more suspicions, no more doubts!”

Stein sighed so deeply that it seemed to suffocate him, and he wiped the sweat from his forehead.

“Oh, suspicion!” he cried – “suspicion, which makes the most confident heart believe treason to be possible. Infamous suspicion, the fruit of bad instincts and wicked insinuations! For a moment this monster had vanquished my soul, and now I dare no more look at Maria without being ashamed of myself.”

Stein was at last about to depart when a door, which communicated with the landing-place where he was, opened. This door, when opened, let forth the sound of glasses clashing, joyous songs, and bursts of laughter.

A servant who came out from within, his hands full of empty bottles, moved to make room for Stein to pass, whose appearance and costume inspired him with a sort of respect.

“Enter,” he said to him, “although you come late, and they have already supped;” and he descended without saying any thing more.

Stein found himself in a little antechamber which communicated with the adjoining room: he approached. Hardly had his look penetrated into the interior of this room than he stopped motionless, struck with stupor – Maria was there!

What must he have suffered when he saw his wife, with naked shoulders, seated at table on a stool, and having at her feet Pepe Vera, who sang, accompanying himself on the guitar —

“Una mujer andaluzaTiene en sus ojos el sol:Una aurora en su sonrisa,Y el Paraiso en su amor.”6

“Bravo! bravo! Pepe,” cried the company. “Now it is Mariquita’s turn to sing. Come, sing, Mariquita! We are not the gents of yellow gloves and varnished boots, but we have, as well as grand lords, ears to listen. Come, Mariquita, sing; sing, and so that your countrymen can understand you. The gold-laced, embroidered, and decorated world knows only how to sing in French.”

Mariquita took the guitar, which Pepe presented to her on his knees, and sang —

“Mas quiere un jaleo pobre,Y unos pimientos asados,Que no tener un usiaDesaborio á mi lado.”7

This couplet was received by a storm of vivas, bravos, and applause, which made a concussion among the glasses.

Shame, more than indignation, caused Stein to blush.

“This Pepe was born with a caul,” said one of his companions; “he has more happiness than he wants.”

“I would not change my condition for an empire,” said the toreador.

“But what will the husband say to all this?” asked a picador, the oldest in the band.

“The husband!” replied Pepe, “I only know him to render him my duty. Pepe Vera associates only with valiant bull-fighters.”