-Vii- · I

Julián was returning preoccupied to the ancestral mansion, accusing himself of excessive simplicity for not having noticed things of such great moment. He was simple as a dove; only in this wicked world one needs also to be wise as a serpent.... He could no longer remain at the Pazos.... How could he return to live at his mother’s expense, with no other emoluments than his Mass? And how could he leave so abruptly the young master Don Pedro, who treated him so affably? And the House of Ulloa, which stood in need of a zealous and loyal restorer? All that was true: but what of his duty as a Catholic priest?

These thoughts distressed him as he crossed a maize field, on whose border camomile and honeysuckle gave off a pleasant fragrance. The night was mild and balmy, and Julián appreciated for the first time the sweet peace of the countryside—that tranquility which Mother Nature pours over our sorely tried spirit. He looked up at the dark, lofty sky.

“God above all!” he murmured, sighing at the thought that he would have to inhabit a town of narrow streets and encounter people at every step.

He walked on, guided by the distant barking of the dogs. Already he descried near at hand the vast mass of the Pazos. The postern gate must needs be open. Julián was only a few paces from it when he heard two or three shrieks that froze his blood: inarticulate cries as of a wounded beast, to which was joined the disconsolate weeping of a child.

The chaplain plunged into the gloomy depths of corridor and cellar, and quickly reached the kitchen. On the threshold he stood paralyzed with astonishment before the scene illuminated by the sooty light of the great oil lamp. Sabel, stretched on the floor, was howling despairingly; Don Pedro, beside himself with fury, was belaboring her with the butt of his gun; in a corner Perucho, with his fists dug into his eyes, was sobbing. Without considering what he was doing, Julián rushed toward the group, calling to the Marquis at the top of his voice:

“Señor Don Pedro..., Señor Don Pedro!”

The Lord of the Pazos turned round and stood motionless, his shotgun grasped by the barrel, panting, livid with rage, his lips and hands trembling violently; and instead of excusing his frenzy or going to the victim’s aid, he gasped hoarsely:

“Bitch..., bitch..., cursed jade..., see that you get supper ready quickly, or I will break every bone in your body! Up with you... or I will help you up with the gun!”

Sabel raised herself, assisted by the chaplain, groaning and uttering broken cries. She still wore the holiday attire in which Julián had seen her dancing a few hours earlier by the wayside cross and in the churchyard; but the petticoat of rich cloth was stained with dirt; the scarlet kerchief was falling from her shoulders, and one of her long earrings of silver filigree, battered by a blow from the gun-stock, had driven into the flesh of the nape of her neck, down which a few drops of blood were trickling. Five red weals upon Sabel’s cheek told clearly enough how the intrepid dancer had been felled to the ground.

“Supper, I say!” repeated Don Pedro brutally.

Without answering, though not without groaning, the girl made for the corner where the child was hiccuping, and took him in her arms, pressing him tightly to her breast. The little angel went on crying bitterly. Don Pedro then approached, and changing his tone, asked:

“What is that? Has Perucho anything the matter with him?”

He laid his hand upon the boy’s forehead and felt it moist. He lifted his palm: it was blood. Throwing his arms wide, clenching his fists, he let fly an oath that would have horrified Julián still more had he not known since that very afternoon that he had perhaps before him a father who had just wounded his own son. And the father rose up again, cursing himself, parting the child’s curls, dipping a handkerchief in water, and binding it with unspeakable care over the wound.

“See that you look after him...” he shouted, turning to Sabel. “And see that you have supper ready in a flash.... I’ll teach you, I’ll teach you to spend hours at the pilgrimages shaking your heels, you bitch!”

With her eyes fixed upon the ground, complaining no longer, Sabel stood still, her right hand gently feeling her left shoulder, on which she must have had some painful bruise. In a low, piteous voice, yet with the utmost energy, she pronounced without looking at the young master:

“Find someone else to make your supper... and someone else to stay here.... I am going, I am going, I am going, I am going....”

And she repeated it obstinately, without inflection, like one stating a natural and inevitable fact.

“What are you saying, you hussy?”

“That I am going, that I am going.... To my poor little home.... Who brought me here! Oh, my mother of my heart!”

The girl burst into bitter weeping, and the Marquis, grasping his shotgun again, ground his teeth with rage, ready to commit some notable outrage, when a new character entered upon the scene. It was Primitivo, stepping forth from a dark corner; one would have said he had been hidden there for some time past. His appearance instantly altered Sabel’s attitude: she trembled, grew silent, and checked her tears.

“Do you not hear what the young master says to you?” asked the father quietly of the daughter.

“I he-ar, ye-es, si-ir, I he-ar,” stammered the girl, swallowing her sobs.

“Then make supper at once. I am going to see if the other girls have returned yet to help you. La Sabia is out yonder: she can light the fire for you.”

Sabel made no further reply. She rolled up her sleeves and took down a frying-pan from the rack. As if evoked by one of her sisters in sorcery, the old crone with the white matted hair, La Sabia, entered the kitchen at that moment, treading sideways, with her enormous apron crammed with firewood. The Marquis still had the shotgun in his hand: Primitivo took it respectfully from him and carried it to its usual place. Julián, giving up the attempt to comfort the child, believed the moment had come to strike a diplomatic blow.

“Señor Marquis..., would you care to take a little air? The night is very fine.... We might take a turn in the garden....”

And in his heart of hearts he thought:

‘In the garden I will tell him that I am going too.... Neither this life nor this house was made for me.’

They went out into the garden. The croaking of frogs could be heard in the pond, but not a leaf on the trees stirred, so serene was the night. The chaplain plucked up courage, for darkness emboldens one greatly to say difficult things.

“Señor Marquis, I regret having to give you notice....”

The Marquis turned round abruptly.

“I know..., hush! We need not waste breath. You have caught me at one of those moments when a man is not master of himself.... They say one should never strike a woman.... Frankly, Don Julián, that depends on what they are like.... There are women and women, by heaven..., and certain things would exhaust the patience of holy Job were he to rise from the grave! What I regret is the blow that fell to the child’s lot.”

“I was not referring to that...” murmured Julián. “But if you wish me to speak to you with my heart in my hand, as is my duty, I believe it is not right to maltreat anyone thus.... And for the lateness of the supper, she does not deserve....”

“The lateness of the supper!” pronounced the young master. “The lateness! No Christian likes to spend the day on the mountain eating cold food and arrive home to find not a hot morsel; but if that evil wench had no other tricks...! Have you not seen her? Have you not seen her all day long, yonder at Naya, dancing like one possessed, without shame? Did you not meet her on her return, well accompanied? Ah!... Do you think girls of her kidney come home alone? Ha, ha! I have seen her, with these very eyes, and I assure you that if I have any regret, it is that I did not break a leg for her, so that she might dance no more for some months to come!”

The chaplain maintained silence, not knowing what to reply to this unexpected revelation of ferocious jealousy. At length he judged that a way was opening for him to utter what was sticking in his throat.

“Señor Marquis,” he murmured, “forgive the liberty I take.... A person of your rank ought not to demean himself to care what a servant girl does or does not do.... People are malicious, and will think you have dealings with that girl.... I say will think: everyone thinks so already.... And the fact is that I... well... cannot remain in a house where, according to public report, a Christian lives in concubinage.... It is severely forbidden us to authorize scandal by our presence and make ourselves accomplices to it. I regret it with all my soul, Señor Marquis; you may believe me when I say that for a long time I have not suffered such a grief.”

The Marquis halted, with his hands plunged in his pockets.

“Nonsense, nonsense...” he muttered. “One must make allowance for youth and strength.... Do not preach me a sermon, do not ask impossibilities of me. What the devil! The best of us is a man like the rest.”

“I am a sinner,” retorted Julián; “only that I see clearly in this matter, and by the favors I owe you, and the bread I have eaten in your house, I am bound to tell you the truth. Señor Marquis, frankly, does it not grieve you to live thus mired in the bog? A thing so far below your station and your birth! A wretched kitchen maid!”

They continued walking, drawing near the edge of the wood, where the garden ended.

“A shameless hussy, which is the worst of it!” exclaimed the Marquis after a moment’s silence. “Listen to me...” he added, leaning against a chestnut tree. “That woman, Primitivo, the accursed witch of La Sabia with her daughters and granddaughters, all that gang that makes my house a bear-garden, the entire village that shelters them—one ought to take them thus (and he seized a branch of the chestnut tree, crushing it into small fragments) and grind them to powder. They are plundering me, they eat me alive..., and when I think that that rogue abhors me and goes off more willingly with any barefoot clown of those who come to hire themselves out to thresh rye, I have a mind to crush her brains like a snake’s!”