Prefacio · IV

Pupils came to him by dozens, not only because he was an excellent teacher, but because his ridiculous appearance and hump reassured parents. What young lady, even the most impressionable, could run any danger with that baboon, whose waist was like a jar, whose disproportionate hands looked like half-crushed pale spiders wandering over the keys? And the mother of pretty María Vega told him so to his face when engaging him to teach her daughter singing and piano. Only to a person “such as he” would she permit access to so artless a girl.

Yet the lady’s frankness was neither prudent, nor delicate, nor charitable. No one should be the drop of water that makes the cup of bitterness overflow, and however convinced a wretch may be of his misery, it is a hard thing to fling it in his teeth. The thoughtless lady doubtless fancied that Trifón, having looked in the glass, knew well enough he was a monster; and indeed Trifón knew his sad aspect; yet the phrase that excluded him from the number of men wounded him like a cowardly insult; and that very night, tossing upon his cold bed, biting the sheets in rage, he resolved: “This girl shall pay for all: this shall be my revenge. The foolish mother, who looked only at my body, knows not that through the spirit one can seduce women who have souls as well!”

Next day began the lessons of María, who was indeed a heavenly child, delicate and languid as a white rose such as a breath of air suffices to wither. Accustomed to his pupils stifling laughter on first seeing him, Trifón noticed that María, on the contrary, looked at him with infinite pity; and the girl’s compassion, instead of moving him, hardened his pitiless resolve. It was easy to observe that the new pupil possessed a sensitive soul: music produced a profound impression upon her, her blue eyes moistening at melancholy passages, while passionate melodies quickened her breath. The secluded life she led made her more prone to romantic dreams. Cautiously, like a calculating criminal preparing an outrage, Trifón observed María’s habits, the hours she spent in the garden, the flower-pots she tended alone; and prolonging the lesson without arousing suspicion, choosing the most unsettling music, he cultivated the unhealthy reverie to which María was about to surrender herself.

The girl had been studying music for two or three months when one morning, at the foot of a flower-pot she watered daily, she found a folded note. Surprised, she opened and read it. Rather than a declaration of love, it was a gentle prelude: it had no signature, and the writer announced that he did not wish to be known, nor asked for any answer: he was content to express his sentiments, peaceful and of ideal purity. María, thoughtful, tore up the note; but next day, when watering the plant, her heart leaped in her breast and her hand trembled. A week later came another note—tender, sweet, poetic; another week past, two devoted sheets, now insinuating and ardent. The girl lingered in the garden, fancying at every rustle of the wind among the leaves she saw the gallant stranger appear, speaking pearls as he wrote gold. But the author did not show himself, and the notes continued, placed there by an invisible hand. After much hesitation, she traced a few lines, which she placed in the pot, kissing it—the artless confession of her virginal love. The tone of the letters changed: from respectful they became triumphant; yet the unknown would not reveal himself; he feared to lose what he had won; why behold the physical envelope of a soul? What did the clay matter to María? And María, having yielded her will to her mysterious lover, longed to behold him, certain he was a model of perfection. At last she received a letter saying: “I will that thou come to me”; and after a sleepless night of tears and remorse, the girl placed in the pot the terrible reply: “I will come when and how you please.”

Oh, what a tremor of unholy joy seized Trifón, the monster, the ridiculous Freak, when in the unlit carriage where he awaited her, he received María in his arms! The pitch darkness of the night did not allow the poor enamoured girl even a glimpse of her seducer’s features... But stammering, fainting with sublime love in that gloom, María whispered in the deformed creature’s ear words he had never heard, broken phrases wrung from woman’s heart by conquering passion... and a drop of delicious moisture, refreshing as a desert spring, wet the hunchback’s emaciated cheek... The effect of those words, of that sacred tear, was that Trifón, thrusting his head through the window, gave an order in a hoarse voice, the coach turned back, and a few minutes later María, astonished, re-entered her home by the garden door that had favoured her flight.

Great was the surprise of María’s parents when they learned that Trifón would give no more lessons in that house; but greater was the incredulity of his few friends when they heard him say, sighing with downcast head:

“Me too a lovely woman has loved, and dearly, and disinterestedly!...”

The Green Domino

It seemed incredible to me that that woman should leave me in peace, that she should attempt to see me no more, write me no letters, nor resort to every imaginable means to approach me. On breaking the chain of her burdensome love, I breathed as though freed from mortal hatred.

Whoever has not studied the complications of the spirit will deem it improbable that we should so desire to untie bonds no one forced us to bind, and will deplore that while brute beasts show gratitude for affection, man, harder and more unfeeling, is irritated by flattery, and at times hates the woman who offers him love. But it is not our fault if we were fashioned of this clay, if the feeling we do not share annoys us, if the tokens of passion that finds no echo incite us to mockery, and if we take pleasure in trampling a heart because we know it will bleed under our cruel feet.

Certain it is that I, when I saw that María was silent at last, when a month passed without messages or letters, felt so light-hearted that I plunged into the world with the zest of a schoolboy on holiday, with that instinct of renewal that gives fresh zest to existence. I went to the promenades, frequented theatres, accepted invitations, attended balls, and sought even vulgar amusements. In short, I gave myself up to a miserable instinct of humorous revenge, which translated into a desire to bestow upon any woman, the first I met, the moments of fleeting intoxication I denied to María—to pale, sad María, distracted by my desertion, wounded in her inmost soul by my implacable disdain.

Chance is so whimsical in providing adventures that while at times it offers them in clusters, at others it affords not one for love or money. In many days of dissipation, seeking sport in various circles, I found nothing to tempt me; and my caprice was already heightened when on Shrove Sunday, bored and to kill time, I entered the mask ball at the Teatro Real.

After more than an hour, I felt weariness coming over me, and was debating whether to take my leave and seek my bed with a new book, when through the eddying crowd passed a mask wrapped in an ample domino of rich green silk. The mask was of distinguished bearing, a thing rare enough at that ball, and I noticed that with singular persistence she fixed her eyes upon me as if wishing to approach, yet not daring, despite the license of the vizard. The flash of her ardent eyes aroused in me a sudden interest, a kind of emotion at which I laughed within, yet which impelled me to cleave the throng and draw near the unknown. Doing so, I became convinced that she of the green domino was a lady of high degree, and that only curiosity or some deeper motive could have drawn her to a ball of so low a stamp. And seeing that she continued to watch me, it occurred to me that that decisive interest might be myself.

At such a thought my blood leaped, and elbowing my way as best I could, I struggled to reach the graceful hooded figure. The crowd, unfortunately, swarmed compact and dense, forming a living wall impossible to break. From afar I saw the hood of the domino and its floating ribbons, concealing the shape of a youthful head; but she slipped away, and fear of losing her spurred me on. I gained ground, but the masked lady had a great advantage, and I began to suspect she was fleeing from me, and after pouring the poison of her fiery eyes into my soul, was now evading me, vanishing like a vision... This fear was an ardent incentive to join the mask. With a superhuman effort I burst through the barrier, and found myself close to the green domino. But she quickened her pace and disappeared through one of the doors.

A regular pursuit I then began: a frank, ardent chase. Panting and anxious, as though the woman endeavouring to escape were something of great moment to me, I traversed corridors, staircases, galleries, and the foyer, seeking the tempting mask everywhere. Doubtless she had divined my desire, for she seemed to take pleasure in driving me to despair, and if when far off she allowed herself to be surrounded by a group or paused carelessly, no sooner did she see me approach than she took flight like a sylph and baffled me by an unexpected turn. Suddenly a box was brightened by the green domino; I rushed forward, and reaching the door found the unknown had vanished to another tier above, to mount to which took five minutes, giving the mask time to slip down a corridor and appear far ahead of me. Mad with heated fancy, I hurried, descended, mounted, straining every power of body and soul without overtaking the mysterious beauty who delighted in mocking me.

Cunning served me better than speed in this case. Reflecting that so aristocratic a domino would not remain past the early hours, avoiding the time of suppers; confident that having come only to bewilder me she would disappear when that was achieved, I divined that her strategy was to retreat towards the door, and that cutting off her exit would trap her. I posted myself on watch with such fortune that within a quarter of an hour I saw the hooded green domino appear, looking cautiously to right and left. I sprang forward to bar her path, and to my first suppliant words she replied in the shrill falsetto usual with masks, begging me for heaven’s sake to let her pass and not insist on pursuing her so.