The Torrent (Entre Naranjos)

Rafael noted the dimples that a charming smile traced in those wonderful cheeks! And what perfect teeth—jewels in a casket of red velvet!

"Now, Cupido; off with those wet things of yours; you're not going to catch pneumonia on my account, and thus deprive the city of its one bright spot. Here's something to put on while we are drying your clothes."

And she offered the barber a magnificent gown of blue velvet, with veritable cascades of lace at the breast and on the sleeves.

Cupido nearly fell off his chair.... Was he going to dress in top style for once in his life? And with those side-whiskers?… How the people in Alcira would howl if they could only see him now! And entering at once into the fun of the situation, he hastened into the next room to don his gown.

"For you," Leonora said to Rafael with a motherly smile, "I could find only this fur cloak. Come, now, take off that jacket of yours; it's dripping wet."

With a blush, the young man refused. No, he was all right! Nothing would happen to him! He had been wetter than that many times.

Leonora without losing her smile, seemed to grow impatient. No one in that house ever talked back to her.

"Come, Rafael, don't be so silly. We'll have to treat you like a child."

And taking him by a sleeve, as if he were a refractory baby, she began to pull at his jacket.

The young man, in his confusion, was hardly aware of what was taking place. He seemed to be traveling along on an endless horizon, at greater speed than he had been swept down the river just before. She had called him by his first name; he was a pampered guest in a house he had for months been trying in vain to enter, and she, Leonora, was calling him "child" and treating him like a child, as if they had been friends all their lives. What sort of woman was this? Was he not lost in some strange world? The women of the city—the girls he met at the parties at his home, seemed to be creatures of another race, living far, ever so far, away, at the other end of the earth, cut off from him forever by that immense sheet of water.

"Come, Mr. Obstinate, or we'll have to undress you like a doll."

She was bending over him; he could feel her breath upon his cheeks, and the touch of her delicate, agile hands; and a sense of delicious intoxication swept over him.

The fur coat was drawn snugly about his shoulders. It was a rare garment; a cloak of blue fox as soft as silk, thick, yet light as the plumes of some fantastic bird. Though Rafael passed for a tall man, its edges touched the floor. The young man realized that thousands of francs had suddenly be«n thrown over his back, and tremblingly he gathered the bottom up, lest he should step upon it.

Leonora laughed at his embarrassment.

"Don't be afraid; no matter if you do tread on it. One would think you were wearing a sacred veil from the respect you show that coat. It isn't worth much. I use it only to travel in. A grandduke gave it to me in Saint Petersburg."

And to show more clearly how little she prized the princely gift, she wrapped it closer around the boy, patting at his shoulders to fit it more tightly to him.

Slowly they walked back into the front room. Meanwhile, the appearance of the barber, dressed in his luxuriant gown, was greeted with shouts of laughter in the dining-room. Cupido was taking full advantage of the occasion. The train in one hand and stroking his side-whiskers with the other, he was writhing about like a prima donna in her big scene and singing in a falsetto soprano voice. The peasant family laughed like mad, forgetting the disaster that had overtaken their home; Beppa opened her eyes wide, surprised at the elegant figure of the man, and the grace with which he pronounced the Italian verses. Even poor doña Pepa hitched around in her armchair and applauded. The barber, according to her, was the most charming devil in the world.

Rafael was standing on the balcony, at Leonora's side, his gaze lost in the darkness, his spirit lulled by the music of her sweet voice, his body snug and comfortable in that elegant garment which seemed to have retained something of the warmth and perfume of her shoulders. With marks of very real interest, she was questioning him about the desperate trip down the river.

Rafael answered her inquiries with bated breath.

"What you have done," the prima donna was saying, "deserves my deep, deep gratitude! It is a chivalrous act worthy of ancient times. Lohengrin, arriving in his little boat to save Elsa! Only the swan is lacking …unless you want to call Cupido a swan...."

"And suppose you had been carried off—drowned!…" the youth exclaimed in justification of his rashness.

"Drowned!…I must confess that at first I was somewhat afraid. Not so much of dying, for I'm somewhat tired of life—as you will realize after you've known me a little longer. But a death like that, suffocated in that mud, that filthy, dirty water that smells so bad, doesn't at all appeal to me. If it were some green, transparent Swiss lake!… I want beauty even in death; I'm concerned with the 'final posture,' like the Romans, and I was afraid of perishing here like a rat in a sewer.... And nevertheless, I couldn't help laughing at my aunt and our poor servants to see the fright they were in!… Now the water is no longer rising, and the house is strong. Our only trouble is that we're cut off, and I'm waiting for daylight to come so that we can see where we are. The sight of all this country changed into a lake must be very beautiful, isn't it, Rafael?"

"You've probably seen far more interesting things," the young man replied.

"I don't deny that; but I'm always most impressed by the sensation of the moment."

And she fell silent, showing by her sudden seriousness the vexation that his distant allusion to her past had caused.

For some moments neither of them spoke; and it was Leonora who finally broke the silence.

"The truth is, if the water had gone on rising, we would have owed our lives to you.... Let's see, now, frankly: why did you come? What kind inspiration made you think of me. You hardly know me!"

Rafael blushed with embarrassment, and trembled from head to foot, as if she had asked him for a mortal confession. He was on the point of uttering the great truth, baring in one great explosion all his thoughts and dreams and dreads of past days. But he restrained himself and grasped wildly for an answer.

"My enthusiasm for the artist," he replied timidly. "I admire your talent very much."

Leonora burst into a noisy laugh.

"But you don't know me! You've never heard me sing!… What do you know about my "talent," as they call it? If it weren't for that chatterbox of a Cupido, Alcira would never dream that I am a singer and that I'm somewhat well-known—except in my own country."

Rafael was crushed by the reply; he did not dare protest.

"Come, Rafael," the woman continued affectionately, "don't be a child and try to pass off the fibs boys use to deceive mama with. I know why you came here. Do you imagine you haven't been seen from this very balcony hovering about here every afternoon, lurking in the road like a spy? You are discovered, sir."

The shy Rafael thought the balcony was collapsing underneath his feet. He shivered in abject terror, drew the fur cloak tighter around him, without knowing what he was about, and shook his head in energetic denial.

"So it's not true, you fraud?" she said, with comic indignation. "You deny that since we met up at the Hermitage you have been taking all your walks in this neighborhood? Dios mío! What a monster of falsehood have we here? And how brazenly he lies."

And Rafael, vanquished by her frank merriment, had finally to smile, confessing his crime with a loud laugh.

"You're probably surprised at what I do and say," continued Leonora drawing closer to him, leaning a shoulder against his with unaffected carelessness, as if she were with a girl friend. "I'm not like most women. A fine thing it would be for me, with the life I lead, to play the hypocrite!… My poor aunt thinks I'm crazy because I say just what I feel; in my time I've been much liked and much disliked on account of the mania I have for not concealing anything.... Do you want me to tell you the real truth?… Very well; you've come here because you love me, or, at least, because you think you love me: a failing all boys of your age have, as soon as they find a woman different from the others they know."

Rafael bowed his head and said nothing; he did not dare look up. He felt the gaze of those green eyes upon the back of his head and they seemed to reach right into his soul.

"Let's see your face. Raise that head of yours a little. Why don't you say it isn't so, as you did before? Am I right or not?"

"And supposing you were right?…" Rafael ventured to murmur, finding himself thus suddenly discovered.

"Since I know I am, I thought it best to provoke this explanation, so as to avoid any misunderstandings. After what has happened to-night, I want to have you for a friend; friend you understand, and nothing more; a comradeship based on gratitude. We ought to know in advance exactly where we stand. We'll be friends, won't we?… You must feel quite at home here; and I'm sure I shall find you a very agreeable chum. What you've done to-night has given you a greater hold on my affection than you could ever have gained in any ordinary social way; but you're going to promise me that you won't drift into any of that silly love-making that has always been the bane of my existence."

"And if I can't help myself?" murmured Rafael.

"'And if I can't help myself'," said Leonora, laughing and mimicking the voice of the young man and the expression on his face. "'And if I can't help myself'! That's what they all say! And why can't you help yourself? How can one take seriously a love for a woman you are now seeing for the second time? These sudden passions are all inventions of you men. They're not genuine. You get them out of the novels you read, or out of the operas we sing. Nonsense that poets write and callow boys swallow like so many boobies and try to transplant into real life! The trouble is we singers are in the secret, and laugh at such bosh. Well, now you know—good friends, and the soft pedal on sentiment and drama, eh? In that way we'll get along very well and the house will be yours."

Leonora paused and, threatening him playfully with her forefinger, added:

"Otherwise, you may consider me just as ungrateful and cruel as you please, but your gallant conduct of to-night won't count. You'll not be permitted to enter this place again. I want no adorers; I have come here looking for rest, friendship, peace … Love! A beautiful, cruel hoax!…"

She was speaking very earnestly, without moving, her gaze lost on that immense sheet of water.

Rafael dared to look at her squarely now. He had raised his head and was studying her as she stood there thinking. Her beautiful face was tinted with a bluish light, that seemed to surround her with a halo of romance. Morning was coming on, and the leaden curtains of the sky were rent in the direction of the sea, allowing a livid light to filter through.

Leonora shivered as if from cold, and snuggled instinctively against Rafael. With a shake of her head she seemed to rout a troop of painful thoughts, and stretching out a hand to him she said:

"Which shall it be? Friends, or distant acquaintances? Do you promise to be good, be a real comrade?"

Rafael eagerly clasped that soft, muscular hand, and felt her rings cut deliciously into his fingers.

"Very well—friends then!… I'll resign myself, since there's no help for it."

"In that case you will find what you now believe a sacrifice something quite tolerable and quite consoling; you don't know me, but I know myself. Believe me, even should I come to love you—as I never shall—you would be the loser by it. I am worth much more as a friend than as a lover. And more than one man in the world has found that out."

"I will be a friend, ready to do much more for you than I've done to-night. I hope you will come to know me too."

"No promises now! What more can you do for me? The river doesn't flood every day. You can't expect to be a hero every other moment. No, I'm satisfied with to-night's exploit. You can't imagine how grateful I am. It has made a very deep impression on my—friendly—heart.... May I be quite frank? Well, when I met you there at the Hermitage, I took you for one of these local señoritos who have such an easy time of it in town, and so, look upon every woman they meet as their property for the asking. Afterwards, when I saw you lurking about the house, my scorn increased. 'Who does that little dandy think he is?' I said to myself. And how Beppa and I laughed over it! I hadn't even noticed your face and your figure: I hadn't realized how handsome you were...."

Leonora laughed at the thought of how angry she had been, and Rafael, overwhelmed by such candor, likewise smiled to conceal his embarrassment.

"But after what happened to-night I am fond of you … as people are fond of friends. I am alone here: the friendship of a good and noble boy like yourself, capable of sacrifice for a woman whom he hardly knows, is a very comforting thing to have. Besides, that much doesn't compromise me. I am a bird of passage, you see; I have alighted here because I'm tired, ill—I don't just know what's the matter, but deeply broken in spirit anyhow. I need rest, just plain existence—a plunge into sweet nothingness, where I can forget everything; and I gratefully accept your friendship. Later on, when you least expect it, probably, I'll fly away. The very first morning when I wake up, feel quite myself again—and hear inside my head the song of the mischievous bird that has advised me to do so many foolish things in my life—I'll pack up my trunk and take flight! I'll drop you a line of course; I'll send you newspaper clippings that speak of me, and you'll see you have a friend who does not forget you and who sends you greetings from London, Saint Petersburg, or New York—any one of the corners of this world which many believe so large yet where I am unable to stir without encountering things that bore me."

"May that moment be long delayed!" said Rafael. "May it never come!"

"Rash boy!" Leonora exclaimed. "You don't know me. If I were to stay here very long, we'd finish by quarreling and coming to blows. At bottom I hate men: I have always been their most terrible enemy."

Behind their backs they heard the rustle of the gown that Cupido was dragging along behind him with absurd antics. He was coming to the balcony with doña Pepita to see the sunrise.

Through its dense clouds the sky was beginning to shed a gray, wan light, under which the vast, watery plain took on the whitish color of absinthe. Down the stream the debris of the inundation was floating, sweepings of wretched poverty, uprooted trees, clumps of reeds, thatched roofs from huts, all dirty, slimy, nauseating. Bits of flotsam and jetsam became entangled between the orange-trees and formed dams that little by little grew with the new spoils brought along by the current.

In the distance at the very end of the lake, a number of black points could be seen in regular rhythmic motion, stirring their legs like aquatic flies around some roofs barely protruding above the immense field of water. The rescuers had arrived from Valencia—with whale-boats of the Fleet, brought overland by rail to the scene of the flood.

The provincial authorities would soon be arriving in Alcira; and the presence of Rafael was indispensable. Cupido himself, with sudden gravity, advised him to go and meet those boats.

While the barber was putting on his own clothes, Rafael, with intense regret, removed his fur cloak. It seemed that in taking it off he was losing the warmth of that night of sweet intimacy, the contact of that soft shoulder that had for hours long been leaning against him.

Leonora meanwhile looked at him fixedly.

"We understand each other, don't we?" she asked, slowly. "Friends, with no hope of anything more than that. If you break the pact, you'll not enter this place again, not even by the second-story window, as you did last night."

"Yes, friends and nothing more," Rafael murmured with a tone of sincere sadness, that seemed to move Leonora.

Her green eyes lighted up: her pupils seemed to glitter with spangles of gold. She stepped nearer and held out her hand.

"You're a good boy; that's the way I like you: resignation and obedience. For this time, and in reward for your good sense, we'll make just one exception. Let's not part thus coldly.... So,—you may kiss me,—as they do it on the stage—here!"

And she raised her hand up toward his lips. Rafael seized it hungrily and kissed it over and over again, until Leonora, tearing it away with a violence that showed extraordinary strength, reprimanded him sharply.

"You rogue!… Up to mischief so soon! What an abuse of confidence? Good-bye! Cupido is calling you.... Good-bye."

And she pushed him toward the balcony, where the barber was already holding the boat against the railing.

"Hop in, Rafael," said Cupido. "Better lean on me; the water's going down and the boat's very low," Rafael jumped into his white craft, which was now dirty and stained from the red water. The barber took the oars. They began to move away.

"Good-bye! Good-bye! Many thanks!" cried doña Pepa. The maid and the whole family of the gardener had come out on the balcony.

Rafael let go the tiller, and turned toward the house. He could see nothing, however, but that proud beauty, who was waving her handkerchief to them. He watched her for a long time, and when the crests of the submerged trees hid the balcony from view, he bowed his head, giving himself up entirely to the silent pleasure of tasting the sweetness that he could still feel upon his burning lips.

VI

The elections set the whole District agog. The crucial moment for the House of Brull had come, and all its loyal henchmen, as though still uncertain of the Party's omnipotence, and fearing the sudden appearance of hidden enemies, were running this way and that about the city and the outlying towns, shouting Rafael's name as a clarion call to victory.

The inundation was something of the forgotten past. The beneficent sun had dried the fields. The orchards fertilized by the silt of the recent flood looked more beautiful than ever. A magnificent harvest was forecasted, and, as sole reminders of the catastrophe, there remained only a shattered enclosure here, a fallen fence there, or some sunken road with the banks washed away. Most of the damage had been repaired in a few days, and people were quite content, referring to the past danger jokingly. Until next time!

Besides, plenty of relief money had been given out. Help had come from Valencia, from Madrid, from every corner of Spain, thanks to the whimpering publicity given the inundation in the local press; and since the pious believer must attribute all his boons to the protection of some patron saint, the peasants thanked Rafael and his mother for this alms, resolving to be more faithful than ever to the powerful family. So—long live the Father of the Poor!

Doña Bernarda's ambitious dreams were on the point of realization, and she could not give herself a moment's rest. Her son's cool indifference was something she could not understand for the life of her! The District was his all right, but was that a reason for falling asleep on the job? Who could tell what the "enemies of law and order"—there was more than one of them in the city—might spring at the very last moment? No, he must wake up—go and make a speech—now at this town, now at that—and say a few words of encouragement to the people of property, especially. And why not visit the alcalde, down in X–, just to show that poor devil he was being taken seriously. Rafael must show himself in public, keep everybody talking about him and thinking about him!

And Rafael obeyed, but taking good care to avoid the company of don Andrés on such trips, in order to spend a few hours at the Blue House on the way out or back, or else, to cut his engagement altogether and pass the day with Leonora, trembling to return home lest his mother should have learned what he had been up to.

Doña Bernarda, in fact, had not been slow in detecting her son's new friendship. To begin with, her one concern in life was Rafael's health and conduct. And in that gossipy inquisitive country-town, her son could do virtually nothing which she did not know all about in the course of a few hours. An indiscreet remark of Cupido had even brought her to the bottom of that mysterious and perilous night trip down the flooded river—not to rescue a "poor family," but to call on that comica—that "chorus girl"—as doña Bernarda called Leonora in a furious burst of scorn. Stormy scenes occurred that were to leave a strong undercurrent of bitterness and fear in Rafael's character. Doña Bernarda's harshness of disposition broke the young man's spirit, making him realize with what good reason he had always feared his mother. That uncompromising pietist, with her armorplate of impeccable virtue and "sound principles" about her, crushed him flat with her very first words. What in the world was he thinking of? Was he bound to dishonor the name of Brull? Now after so many, many years of family sacrifice, was he going to make a fool of himself, and give his enemies a hold on him, just because of the first ballet-skirt that came along? And in her rage she did not hesitate to rend the veil of reticence behind which her conjugal fury and her conjugal unhappiness had run their parallel courses.

"The same as your father!" doña Bernarda exclaimed. "There's no escaping blood: a woman-chaser, a friend of low-lives, ready to drive me out of house and home for the sake of any one of them … and I, big fool that I am, work for men like that! Forgetting the salvation of my soul in the next world to see you get farther along in this than your father did!… And how do you repay me? Just as he did; with one disappointment, one irritation, after another!"

Then softening somewhat and feeling the need of imparting her great plans for the future, she would pass from anger to friendly confidence, and give Rafael insight into the condition of the family. He was so busy with Party affairs, and thumbing his big books upstairs, that he did not know how things were going at home. And he didn't need to know for that matter: she was there to take care of that. But Rafael must realize the gaps that had been opened in their fortune by his father's wild conduct just before he died. She was performing miracles of economy. Thanks to her efficient administration of affairs, and to the loyal aid of don Andrés, many debts had already been paid off, and she had redeemed several mortgages. But the burden was a heavy one and it would still be many years before she could call herself quite free of it.

Besides—and as doña Bernarda came to this part of her talk she grew tenderer and more insinuating still—he was now the leading man of the District and so he must be the wealthiest. Now that wouldn't be a difficult thing to manage. All he had to do was, be a good son, and follow the advice of his mama, who loved him more than anything else in the world… A deputy now, and later on, when he came back from Madrid, marry! There were plenty of good girls around—well brought up, educated in the fear of the Lord—and millionairesses besides—who would be more than glad to be his wife.

Rafael smiled faintly at this harangue. He knew whom his mother had in mind—Remedios, the daughter of the richest man in town—a rustic, the latter, with more luck than brains, who flooded the English markets with oranges and made enormous profits, circumventing by instinctive shrewdness all the commercial combinations made against him.

That was why Rafael's mother was always insistently urging her son to visit the house of Remedios, inventing all sorts of pretexts to get him there. Besides, doña Bernarda invited Remedios to the Brull place frequently, and rarely indeed did Rafael come home of an afternoon without finding that timid maiden there—a dull, handsomish sort of girl, dressed up in clothes that did cruel injustice to a peasant beauty rapidly transformed, by her father's good luck, into a young "society" girl.

"But, mama," said Rafael, smiling. "I'm not thinking of marriage!… And when I do, I'll have to consider my own feelings."