To an Angel · III

Marcelo seems to me too much of an idealist—Tresmes remarked in a disdainful tone.”

—We all are...—declared Donato—. And beauty is an idea, a few drops of illusion, for internal use...

Memento

The liveliest recollection of my student days—said the doctor, smiling at the memory—is not that of several little intrigues and amorous adventures similar to those everyone can relate, nor of certain pretty cheeks whose roses perfumed my dreams. What I do not forget, what at every step I see in sharper relief, is... the gathering of my aunt Gabriela, an elderly spinster, who was accompanied every afternoon by three other moth-eaten old dames, likewise aspiring to the palm upon the coffin.

The four met, as I have said, in the afternoon—for at night fears, ailments, and devotions restrained them—in the little sitting-room, from whose windows one could discern the rich Gothic mullions and high walls of the Cathedral; and I was wont to forsake the promenade—at that hour full of girls eager to hear compliments—to shut myself up between those four walls lined with a floral paper that once was green and now was whitish, sit down in the armchair of weary springs, broad and soft, in the end elderly too, and receive from a tiny, dry hand, covered by the netting of a black mitten, a gentle pat on the shoulder, while a cracked voice murmured: “Well, have you come, you calamity? Candidita is dying with joy today.”

Of the spinsters, Candidita was the youngest, for she had not yet reached sixty-three. According to the chronicles of the remote days when Candidita flourished, she never shone by her beauty. She always had the left eye somewhat drooping and her shoulders excessively bowed. What in her could please was her seraphic disposition. Candidita possessed, in keeping with her Christian name, a high degree of credulity and good faith. Whatever improbable nonsense I took a fancy to invent, Candidita swallowed without effort; on the other hand, no one could convince her of the reality of any roguery. Her soul rejected slander as an alien element is rejected, impossible of assimilation. I amused myself infinitely disputing with Candidita when she refused to give credit to notorious wickedness... and in doing so, I felt sprouting in my heart a kind of tenderness, a mysterious respect for the innocent creature, who without removing her black merino gown and her buckled shoes, would ascend to heaven at the least expected moment.

My aunt Gabriela, on the other hand, was shrewd, sharp as pepper. Her retired life, in a sleepy provincial city, prevented her from knowing the world thoroughly, and perhaps she exaggerated the dirty tricks and intrigues committed in it, yet approaching reality and judging a thousand times with malicious accuracy. Vain of her lineage, with parchments and without moneybags, Aunt Gabriela was a lady at once modest and imposing, of the old school, with a spirit more erect than a lance; the other three spinsters seemed her ladies-in-waiting rather than her friends.

Doña Aparición was the curiosity of that archaeological museum. Handsome and worldly in her prime, she retained at seventy-six touches of coquetry and manias for adornment that made my aunt Gabriela purse her lips, so majestic in her plain habit of the Carmelites. Doña Aparición’s toupee, with curls and ringlets of an angelic blond; her narrow footwear; her light-coloured eight-button gloves; her silk dresses with green and pink stripes; her blue gauze fans, and the cluster of artificial flowers that prettily pinned her mantilla, gave us plenty of cause for laughter.

As she was half-blind and almost deaf and was dressed by her maid, as often as not she wore her wig back to front, or had on her nose the touch of rouge meant for her cheeks, or gloves with one lilac and the other straw-coloured; and as she suffered from gout, the vice of the tight boots came to torture her so much that my aunt would lend her a pair of roomy slippers. In such cases Doña Aparición invariably exclaimed: “Good heavens! Nothing like this ever happened to me before. A crease in the stocking has grazed my heel... It is a nuisance to have such delicate skin.”

It was not Doña Peregrina, the fourth spinster, who would inflict tortures upon herself to show off her foot. Quite the contrary: she declared herself sans façon. Reduced to pinched orphanhood, she bought her fly-wing coloured capes from second-hand clothes dealers. For the rest, she was a woman of spirit and vigour, tall, stout, with a stale freshness—if one may be permitted so to express it—lively of eye and ruddy of complexion, fond of a joke, yet prudish by fits and starts, always within the key of good humour and martial briskness.

How those four ladies fussed over me! There are places to which we go attracted, not by our own pleasure, but by that which we give to others. It was perhaps ten years since the spinsters had seen a youthful countenance at close quarters. My presence and my assiduity were a mark of gallantry of incalculable value, flattering the never-extinguished sentimental vanity of woman. Let the young man who wishes to gain a good name be kind to old women, to the discarded, to those retired from the game. Young girls are grateful for nothing. Those four invalids, with their gentle chattering, created for me a fabulous reputation for being discreet, gallant, engaging, and studious. In their own way, they smoothed my path toward a distinguished position and a brilliant marriage. In examinations I might answer well or ill, but my mark was secure: such subterranean labour did my spinsters perform with the professors. About my health they never ceased to think. “You look pale, Gabriel... What ails you? Beware of those hussies!” And they sent me home remedies, and sweetmeats, and cordial wines, and miraculous relics, and even sheets, in case those at the inn were not “dependable” and “nicely washed.”

In order to enliven the gathering, it occurred to me to read aloud romantic verses and novels. Such an audience no reader has ever dreamed of. One would have said that, to listen, they suspended their very breath. As the reading progressed, their interest grew. An indignation, comical by dint of being naive, against traitors; a vivid terror when the good were about to fall into the ambushes of the wicked; a childish joy when virtue emerged triumphant... Exclamations constantly interrupted me. “That scoundrel makes a mistake and takes the poison? God’s retribution!” “Oh, if Gontran enters the forest he will find the other with the dagger! Let him not enter, let him not enter!” “Good heavens, at last he stabs him!” “Infamous wretch!” “Do you see how the child the tumbler stole was the princess’s son?” etc.—In the vehement episodes, when the lovers speak words of tenderness by the light of the moon, the spinsters melted. A faint pink animated their yellowish cheeks; their dry eyes moistened; their shrunken bosoms heaved; the fair phantom of their distant youth appeared, and a sweet, warm breeze stirred for a moment those resigned spirits, as the spring air stirs the dust of a dry and barren earth.

The appointed time arrived when I had to undertake my journey to the capital to pursue my doctorate. I gave the news to my spinsters, and although it could not surprise them, no less was the effect it produced. My aunt Gabriela, without losing the measure of her dignity, began to tremble, and cautioned me, in phrases that revealed genuine tenderness, that old folk must be excused if they were affected by farewells, because they were not certain of ever seeing again those who departed. Doña Peregrina gesticulated, protested, fumed, scolded me, and at last burst into tears like a fountain. Doña Aparición sighed, raised her eyes to heaven, and said with coquettish airs: “A young man of such gifts... naturally, will shine at court! Tomorrow you will receive an emerald stick-pin... which belonged to my papa.” For her part, Candidita kept silence, and shortly after rose, assuring us she had an urgent call to make. I seized the pretext to cut the scene short; I went out with her, helped her put on her shawl, and offered her my arm down the staircase of worm-eaten steps.

Suddenly, on the first landing, I heard a stifled sob; frail arms encircled my neck, and a face cold as snow pressed against my beard. I understood in a flash... and, believe me, I stood more bewildered and more filled with pity than if I had seen my own mother on her knees before me! I noticed that Candidita weighed as inert bodies weigh; I fancied she had fainted and leaned her against the balustrade, stammering with deep pity: “Farewell, farewell, you know you are loved.” But as she did not release me, I felt ridiculous and pushed her away... In doing so, it seemed to me I was butchering a sick lamb, and pity compelled me to turn back and return Candidita’s embrace with a swift, violent caress, filial and holy in intention. Then I broke into a run, and hurried into the street resolved never to return to the gathering. Ah, yes! Charity has its limits...—And now that I too am old, I often remember Candidita... Poor woman!

The Gold Box

I had always seen it upon her table, within reach of her pretty hand, which at times amused itself by stroking the lid softly; but it was impossible for me to discover what that box of gold filigree with exquisite enamels contained, because scarcely did I attempt to seize the plaything than its mistress hid it hurriedly and nervously in the pockets of her dressing gown, or in still more secret places, within her bosom, rendering it thus inaccessible.

And the more its mistress concealed it, the greater was my eagerness to learn what the box contained. Irritating and tempting mystery! What did the artistic trinket hold? Bonbons? Rice powder? Scents? If it contained any of these so harmless things, why the concealment? Did it hide a portrait, a dried flower, hair? Impossible: such tokens are either kept much closer or preserved much farther off: either they rest upon the heart, or are filed away in a well-locked, secure desk... They were no relics of an amorous history that slept in the gold box, enamelled with blue chimeras, fantastic roses, and scrolls of green acanthus.

Let those incapable of following the scent of a story, perhaps a novel, describe my conduct as they please. Call me, by all means, indiscreet, whimsical, and to crown it all, an impertinent busybody and meddler. The truth is that the little box was driving me frantic, and having exhausted lawful means, I brought into play unlawful and desperate ones... I appeared madly in love with the owner, when I was only in love with the gold box; I courted in appearance a woman, when I was only courting a secret; I acted as though I were pursuing happiness... when I was only pursuing the gratification of curiosity. And fortune, which would perhaps deny me victory if victory really mattered to me, granted it to me... for the very reason that in granting it, it laid a remorse upon my shoulders.

Nevertheless, after my triumph, she who now surrendered to me all that a yielded will surrenders, still defended, with invincible obstinacy, the mystery of the gold box. Displaying coaxing coquetry or sudden, melancholy reserves; disputing or jesting; exhausting the wiles of tenderness or the threats of coldness, pleading or angry, I obtained nothing; the mistress of the box persisted in refusing to let me learn its contents, as though within the pretty object existed the proof of some crime.

I shrank from employing force and acting as a boor would act, and besides, my self-esteem being now aroused (in default of another sweeter and deeper passion), I wished to owe to the affection and solely to the affection of the fair lady the key to the enigma. I persisted, outdid myself, brought all resources into play, and like the artist who cultivates inspiration by means of rules, reached such a degree of mastery in the comedy of sentiment that I succeeded in captivating my audience. One day when a few feigned tears vouched for my jealousy, my conviction that the little box held the portrait of a rival, of someone who still disputed with me that woman’s soul, I saw her change countenance, tremble, turn pale, throw her arms about my neck, and exclaim at last with a sincerity that shamed me:

“What would I not do for you! You have willed it... so be it. This very moment you shall see what is in the box.”

She pressed a spring; the lid of the box flew open, and I discerned at the bottom a few little pellets about the size of peas, whitish and dry. I looked without understanding, and she, repressing a groan, said solemnly:

“Those pills were sold to me by a healer who performed almost miraculous cures among the people of my village. I paid very dearly for them, and he assured me that, taking one whenever I felt ill, my life was secure. He only cautioned me that if I parted with them or showed them to anyone, they lost their virtue. It may be superstition or what you will; the truth is that I followed the healer’s prescription, and not only were the ailments I suffered removed (for I am very delicate), but I enjoyed enviable health. You insisted on finding out... You have succeeded... To me you are worth more than health and life. Now I have no panacea; now my remedy has lost its efficacy: serve me as remedy yourself; love me dearly, and I shall live.”

I was struck cold. My purpose achieved, I found inside the little box nothing but the disappointment of a hoax and the guilty conscience of the harm done to the person who after all loved me. My curiosity, like all curiosities, from the fatal one of Paradise to the no less baleful one of contemporary science, bore within itself its punishment and its curse. I would have given something fine then never to have set eyes on the little box. And so repentant that I believed myself in love, falling upon my knees at the feet of the weeping woman, I stammered:

“Do not be afraid... All that is a farce, a despicable deceit... The healer lied... You will live, you will live a thousand years... And even if the pills had lost their virtue, what of it? We will go to the village and buy more... I will give the healer my whole fortune for them.”

She held me close, and smiling in the midst of her anguish, whispered in my ear:

“The healer is dead.”

From that time on the mistress of the little box—who no longer hid it nor even looked at it, leaving it to gather dust in a corner of the bookshelf lined with blue plush—began to decline, to waste away, displaying all the symptoms of a languishing disease, refractory to remedies. Anyone who does not take me for a monster will suppose that I installed myself at her bedside and nursed her with charity and devotion. Charity and devotion I say, because there was nothing else in me for that creature of whom I had been the involuntary executioner. She was dying, perhaps of grief of mind, perhaps of apprehension, but through my fault; and I could not offer her, in compensation for the life I had stolen from her, that which makes amends for all: the gift of myself, unconditional and absolute. I attempted to deceive her holily to make her happy, and she, with belated lucidity, divined my indifference and my disguised weariness, and sank ever closer toward the grave.

And at last she sank into it, without either the resources of science or my care succeeding in saving her. Of all the mementoes her affection wished to bequeath me, I took only the gold box. It still contained the famous pills, and one day it occurred to me to have them analysed by a chemist friend of mine, for my wretched curiosity was not yet satisfied. When I asked the result of the analysis, the chemist burst out laughing.

“You might well have imagined—he said—that the pills were made of breadcrumbs. The healer (shrewd rogue that he was!) ordered that no one should see them... so that it would never occur to anyone to analyse them. Accursed analysis withers everything!”

The Mermaid

It is impossible to portray the care and vigilance with which the mother mouse attended to her brood of little mice. Plump and sleek she reared them, merry and lively and with an ashen coat so glossy that it was a joy to behold; and not wishing to neglect the spiritual for the worldly, she lavished upon her offspring wise and upright moral warnings, putting them on guard against the snares and perils of the wicked world. “They will be mice of good sense and sound judgment,” the mother mouse said to herself, seeing how attentively they listened to her, and how placidly they twitched their little snouts in token of pleasant approval.

But I will tell you here, in strict confidence, that the little mice showed themselves so well behaved because they had not yet poked their heads outside the hole where their mother pampered them. Hollowed out in the trunk of a tree, the burrow sheltered them admirably, and was warm in winter and cool in summer, always soft, and so hidden that the schoolboys never even suspected a murine family dwelt there.