To an Angel · 14

Tongues wagged, and tales were concocted of illicit passions and excesses on the part of the Marquess, horrible tragedies, duels, attempted poisonings, and a thousand other fanciful inventions that proved the fiery imagination of the natives of Abencerraje. The truth was not known until some years had elapsed, when the Marquess of Alcalá commissioned a priest to prevail upon his wife to forgive him and consent to live at his side. The priest’s diplomacy having failed completely, in the first moments of disappointment he unbosomed himself to the parish priest of Abencerraje, the latter to the apothecary, the apothecary to the doctor, the notary, the mayor... and thus the district came to learn the following adventure.

After a journey that was an idyll, the enamoured couple arrived in Paris in search of some quiet, for the interesting condition of María demanded it, exposed as she was to mishaps in inns and trains. Notwithstanding the care and routine the Marchioness observed, toward the sixth month of her pregnancy she took to her bed with symptoms of premature labour. The dreaded misfortune came to pass, and the worst was that a violent haemorrhage placed the lady’s life in imminent peril. «She is bleeding to death, she is slipping away from us», the doctor had said, an illustrious Spaniard, after trying all the resources of his science, fighting valiantly against death which was silently approaching. And then the husband, seeing his wife swoon in a mortal syncope, white as the pillow where she rested her waxen brow, asked the physician:

“Is there no means of saving her? None at all?”

“There is still one—the doctor replied.—If a healthy, robust, young person can be found who loves this lady enough to give blood from the veins of their arm... we will perform the transfusion and you will see the patient revive.”

Speaking thus, the doctor looked searchingly at the Marquess, fixing upon his face, and still more upon his soul, his interrogating, disillusioned eyes of a man who has witnessed many wretched things in this rogue of a world; and noticing that the Marquess did not answer and turned as pale as though they were already drawing from his veins the blood which love begged of him as an alms, the physician shrugged his shoulders, murmuring vaguely:

“But it is difficult... very difficult. That hope must be abandoned.”

At that very moment a woman who had remained crouched at the foot of the dying lady’s bed arose, and simply, baring her left arm, white, thick, furrowed with blue veins, exclaimed:

“Here you are, sir... here you are... Blood I do not lack, and I am as healthy as the apples upon the tree... Here you are, and heaven grant that the blood of a poor country girl may serve to revive the mistress.”

Not a minute did the doctor lose in accepting Luisilla’s offer. Applying the cannula, he bled the sturdy arm copiously, for much, very much blood was needed, seven hundred grammes, to repair the losses sustained. The girl, smiling, flinched not, repeating at every step:

“Draw away, sir; I have a sea of good blood to offer my mistress.”

The Marquess had fled the room. When the subtle syringe began to inject the precious fluid into the dying woman’s body, and she began to feel the delicious warmth that passed from the veins to the heart, reviving it; when her marble countenance took colour and her eyes opened slowly, the first thing they sought was her beloved, the half of her being, for she had understood upon reviving that someone was giving her their blood in compensation for what she had lost, and she believed that it could only be he, her husband, her companion, her adored one, the idol of her soul. And on not finding him; on seeing Luisa, whom they were bandaging and making drink black coffee to revive her from exhaustion, the wife understood, and closed her eyes again, as though yearning for the swoon from which one awakens only in the arms of death...

As soon as she was able to travel, María departed with no other companion than the country girl, whose humble blood she bore in her veins and to whom she owed her existence. All the overtures of the Marquess of Alcalá shattered against the invincible repugnance, or rather horror, of his wife. Too proud to seek comfort for that disillusionment, she lived with Luisilla, doing good works and weeping in secret many a time—above all on Easter Monday, when implacable nature blossomed anew.

Consolation

Teodoro was about to marry, desperately in love. His betrothed and he took advantage of every second to billing and cooing and indulge that sweet communion which exalts love through the hope soon to be realized. The wedding was to be in May, if no obstacle crossed the path of the lovers’ happiness. But as the agreed date drew near, a terrible one arose: Teodoro entered the ballot for officers, and fortune was adverse to him: his country summoned him.

Everyone knows what happens on such occasions. The betrothed suffered swoons and nervous attacks; she shed tears that ran down her fresh cheeks, pale as magnolia leaves, or soaked her lace handkerchief; and in the last days that Teodoro was able to spend at his beloved’s side, vows of constancy were exchanged and happiness was postponed until his return. Such were the girl’s frantic expressions that Teodoro departed with a less heavy heart, almost rejoiced at times, for he was courageous and did not shun, even in thought, the acceptance of duty.

He wrote whenever he could, and loving, fervent letters were never lacking in answer to his own somewhat laconic ones, penned after a day of dreadful fatigue, stealing time from rest, and avoiding recounting the hardships and privations of the cruel campaign, so as not to distress the absent maiden. A trusted friend, commissioned to keep an eye upon Teodoro’s sweetheart—there is no man who does not fall into these puerilities if he goes far away and loves truly—sent news that the girl lived in seclusion, like a widow. Upon learning this, Teodoro felt a joy that made him forget the burning thirst, the scorching sun, the fever that hung in the air, and the thorns that tore the flesh.

One day, from a thick thicket, several shots were fired at the passing of the column Teodoro commanded. Teodoro closed his eyes and swayed upon his horse: they caught him and sought to dress his wound, while the invisible enemy fled cowardly. The wounded man being conveyed to the hospital, it was seen that the bone of his leg was shattered—a compound, most grave fracture. The doctor gave his verdict: to save his life, amputation above the kneecap had to be performed urgently, warning that he considered it dangerous to administer chloroform to the patient. Teodoro endured the operation with his eyes open, and saw how the scalpel incised his skin and severed his muscles, how the saw bit into the bone until reaching the marrow, and how his right leg, bloody, already dead, was carried away to be buried... And he uttered neither a cry nor a groan: only, in the paroxysm of pain, he bit through the cigar he was smoking.

According to the surgeon, the operation had gone divinely. There was neither inflammation nor gangrene; it healed well and quickly, and Teodoro was soon trying his wooden leg, a vulgar peg, until he could order another from Germany made according to the latest improvements...

In writing to his betrothed from the hospital he had spoken only of a wound, and a slight wound at that. He did not wish to grieve or terrify her. Even so, the news of the wound alarmed the girl so greatly that her letters were cries of terror and outpourings of affection. Why was she not there to nurse him, to keep him company, and to sweeten his tortures? How was she to endure until the next letter, in which he should announce his improvement?

Those tender, simple pages, which ought to have consoled Teodoro, caused him, on the contrary, deep anxiety. He thought at every instant that he was going to return, to see his adored one, and that she would see him too... but how! What a difference! He was no longer the gallant officer of slender silhouette and resolute, spirited gait. He was an invalid, a poor wretched invalid, a helpless cripple. Farewell to marches, farewell to spirited chargers, farewell to the intoxicating waltz, farewell to fencing that gives strength: he would have to live seated, to rot in inaction, and to receive an alms of love or pity, granted out of charity to his misfortune. And Teodoro, taking his first steps leaning upon his crutch, foresaw his sweetheart’s impression when he should arrive thus, lame and mutilated—he, the handsome suitor whom her friends once envied. To see the light of pity in beloved eyes... how sad it would be, how sad! He looked at himself in the mirror and verified upon his face the traces of suffering, and thought of the dry tap of the wooden peg upon the stairs of his future wife’s house... With the back of his hand he dashed away a tear of rage that rose to the corner of his eye: he called for paper and pen, and wrote a brief letter of rupture and eternal farewell.

Two years passed. Teodoro had returned to the Peninsula, though not to the city where he had loved and hoped. By necessity he had to visit it for a few days, and although he avoided going into the street, one afternoon he unexpectedly met her who had been his betrothed, and—choked with emotion, trembling—stopped and let her pass. She was walking on the arm of a man—her husband. The amputee, recovered, steady now upon his peg skilfully fashioned in Berlin, a marvel of orthopaedics that concealed his lameness and ended in a shining boot, noticed that his beloved’s husband was ridiculously shaped, knock-kneed, with bony knees and an ignoble foot... and a smile of melancholy mockery played upon his grave, manly countenance.

Raimundo’s Romance

“Do you suppose there is nothing dramatic in my memories, nothing that arouses interest, a tremendous romance?—the placid Raimundo Ariza said to us, almost offended, whom we considered the most steady youth of all of us who were taking the waters at that quiet beach and meeting in the afternoons to play for modest stakes at the Casino.—We could not help looking at Raimundo with surprise and some incredulity. Nevertheless, Raimundo was not ill-favoured: he had a well-proportioned figure, regular features, soft hazel eyes, an engaging smile, and fair skin; but his pleasant appearance distilled dullness; he was not born a charmer; he seemed formed by nature to be at forty a good family man, and Mayor of his native town.”

“We doubt your romantic novel—one of us exclaimed at length.”

“Well, it is of the genuine kind...—Raimundo retorted.—There are two classes of novels, skeptical gentlemen: the voluntary and the involuntary. The first, their heroes seek out with their own hands. The others... fall into their hands. Of these was mine. To certain persons it is wont to be said that «everything happens to them»; and it is because they are ever on the hunt for occurrences... In truth, if they only kept still, women would not rush to present them with petitions.”

In my town, as you know, there are not usually great excitements, and anything becomes an event. Everything constitutes a distraction, breaking the monotony of that existence.—About three years ago, in spring, the arrival of a wandering tribe of gypsies or Zingari caused a great stir among us. They pitched their blackish tents and tethered their gaunt beasts upon a certain barren field near one of the quarters under construction, and we formed the habit of going in the afternoons to pry into the physiognomies and habits of such strange folk.

We liked to see how they mended and tinned cauldrons and repaired halters and breastplates, all in the sun and with bared heads, for inside the tents they never stirred. Much discussed was the report that the chief of so sordid and ragged a band had deposited in the Bank, on the day of his arrival, several thousand dollars in rich Spanish gold doubloons, such as are no longer to be found anywhere. They travelled with their fortune, and to avoid being robbed, upon pitching their camp they secured it thus. It was also said that they possessed dozens of superb gold chains and barbarous jewels of precious stones; but the truth is that outwardly they displayed only wretchedness, rags, and a thick layer of grime, it being not a little astonishing that so foul a covering was not sufficient to conceal or degrade the noble beauty and picturesque originality of the Bohemians we admired.

This beauty was conspicuous in all the younger members of the tribe; but, as is natural, I preferred to observe it in the women, and was wont to draw near the tent where dwelt a young gypsy girl of the purest Oriental type that can be dreamed of. Slender, with an exquisite olive skin; gazelle-like, sad, almond-shaped, and immense eyes; hair bluish from sheer blackness and divided into two plaited braids on either side of her face, the gypsy was crying out for a painter to take inspiration from her figure. Although she was, as I learned afterwards, the wife of the chief of the tribe, her attire consisted of a very old skirt and a torn jacket, through whose rents her bosom peeped, and instead of the fantastic jewels of the mysterious treasure, a string of false coral adorned her neck. Her tender youth and singular beauty shone forth, illuminating the rags and the interior of the tent, which in other respects resembled a caprice of Goya, where a pot steamed upon a trivet over a glowing fire, tended by an old gypsy woman so perfectly cast as a witch that I thought she was about to fly off astride a broomstick.

As soon as the gypsy girl saw me, with a very melodious voice and guttural foreign accent she asked for my hand to tell my fortune. I held it out to her, with two pesetas as a pledge, and having heard the prophecies that gypsies always utter, I gladly left the two pesetas in her possession. The woman spoke rapidly, because a naked child of coppery skin, crawling upon the ground, was whimpering; as soon as his mother took him in her arms, he fell silent, grasping her breast. Suddenly the gypsy uttered a cry of pain: the babe had just bitten her cruelly, and she, almost in jest, gave the infant two light slaps. I know not which happened sooner, whether the child burst into disconsolate weeping or the chief of the tribe entered the tent, an arrogant Bohemian of energetic features and hair curled in long ringlets; and without commending himself to God or the devil, uttering curses in his jargon, he dealt his wife a ferocious kick that felled her to the ground.

Indignant at such brutality, I rushed forward to raise her; she stood up pale and trembling; her oblong eyes, so soft a moment before, blazed with a somber fire that seemed to me of hatred and fury, but upon fixing on me they flashed gratitude. I could not help it; although as a rule I interfere with no one and in nothing, that scene had upset me: I apostrophized and upbraided the gypsy, and even threatened him, if he mistreated a defenceless creature in such fashion, with denouncing him to the authorities, who would visit upon him condign punishment. I know not what passed within the Bohemian’s soul: I know that he listened to me very gravely, stammered excuses, and at the same time, in the manner of a host doing courtesies, accompanied me, conducting me out of his domicile under the pretext of showing me the horses and carts; so that, on parting from that man, I felt it my duty to part with some more coins... which he accepted without forfeiting his dignity.

On the following day, and the days after, I returned to the camp and went straight to the gypsy’s tent... Do not raise a clamour or tease me! I felt nothing akin to what is wont to be called, not even love, but merely interest or fancy for a woman. Perhaps on account of the savage filth in which the gypsy lived enveloped, or the exotic character of her sixteen-year-old beauty, what she inspired in me was a kind of affectionate pity united to a strange aloofness: I could conceive, with such a woman, only the disinterested and remote contemplation awakened by a painting or a museum curio. At times I believed myself inferior to her, who sprang from a purer, nobler race, from that Orient in which humanity had its cradle; at other times, on the contrary, she seemed to me a wild creature, a being of instinct and passion whom I dominated by intelligence. And I found pleasure in going to see her, solely because she, upon my appearance, displayed a childish joy, an inexplicable excitement, smiling with very red lips and very white teeth, speaking coaxing words to me, recounting her wanderings, her fatigues, and her longings to return to a homeland where the firmament had no clouds, nor ever wept rain. «Ugly when it rains», she would repeat. To this our idyll was reduced... I have nothing of the hero in me, and as soon as I noticed that the arrogant gypsy knit his jet-black and handsome brows upon encountering me in his domain, I spaced my visits, and did not even take leave of my friend—for the Bohemians struck their camp unexpectedly one morning, and vanished, leaving no other traces of their passing than several heaps of charcoal and ashes upon the ground, and two or three petty thefts attributed to them, perhaps falsely.