-Xviii-

Nela Resolves to Depart

Nela wandered alone the whole day, and at night hovered round the house of Aldeacorba, approaching as near to it as she could without danger of being discovered. Whenever she heard the sound of footsteps, she hurried away like a thief. She went down into the hollow of La Terrible, whose frightful crater-like aspect pleased her on that occasion; and after roaming about the bottom, contemplating the stone giants that stood within its enclosure like people gathered in a circus, she climbed onto one of them to catch sight of the lights of Aldeacorba. There they were, shining upon the edge of the mine against the darkness of heaven and earth. After gazing at them as though she had never seen lights in her life before, she left La Terrible and went up toward La Trascava. Before reaching it she heard footsteps, halted, and presently saw Señor Celipín coming along the path with a resolute step. He carried a small bundle hanging from a stick over his shoulder, and his gait and demeanor showed a firm resolve not to stop until his legs had measured the whole breadth of the earth.

“Celipín... where are you going?” asked Nela, stopping him.

“Nela... you in these parts?... We thought you were at Señorita Florentina’s house, eating ham, turkey, and partridge at all hours, and drinking lemonade with sugar cakes. What are you doing here?”

“And you, where are you going?”

“Are we coming to that now? Why do you ask me when you know already?” replied the boy, hitching up his stick and bundle. “You know very well I am off to learn a great deal and earn money.... Did I not tell you tonight was the night?... Well, here you have me, merry as a grig, though a little sad when I think how father and mother will weep.... Look, Nela, the Most Holy Virgin has favored us tonight, for father and mother began to snore earlier than usual, and I, who had my bundle all tied up, climbed up to the little window, and through the window dropped outside... Are you coming or not?”

“I am going too,” said Nela with a sudden movement, seizing the arm of the intrepid traveler.

“We will take the train, and go by train as far as we can,” said Celipín with generous enthusiasm. “And then we will beg our way until we reach the Madriles of the King of Spain; and once we are in the Madriles of the King of Spain, you will enter service in the house of some marquis or count, and I in another, and so while I study you will be able to learn many fine accomplishments. By jove, of all that I learn I will teach you a little bit, just a little bit, for women do not need as much learning as we doctor gentlemen.”

Before Celipín had finished speaking, the two had set out on their way, walking as fast as if they already saw the towers of the Madriles of the King of Spain.

“Let us get off the path,” said Celipín, giving proof on that occasion of great practical sense, “for if they see us, they will lay hands on us and give us a sound drubbing.”

But Nela let go the hand of her companion in adventure, and sitting down upon a stone, murmured sadly:

“I am not going.”

“Nela... what a simpleton you are! You have not a heart the size of those rocks in La Terrible, as I have,” said Celipín boastfully. “Confound it, what are you afraid of? Why will you not come?”

“I... what should I go for?”

“Do you not know Don Teodoro said that those of us who grow up here turn into stones?... I do not want to be a stone, not I.”

“I... what should I go for?” said Nela with bitter despair. “For you it is time; for me it is too late.”

Nela let her head fall upon her breast, and for a long time remained deaf to the seductive eloquence of the future Hippocrates. When she saw that she was about to cross the boundary of that land where she had lived and where her mother slept her eternal sleep, she felt torn from her native soil. The beauty of the country, with whose features she felt united by a kind of kinship; the little happiness she had tasted there; the very misery; the memory of her young master and of the happy hours spent walking in the woods and toward the spring of Saldeoro; the feelings of admiration and sympathy, of love and gratitude that had blossomed in her soul in the presence of those very flowers, those clouds, those leafy trees, those red rocks, as if associated with the beauty, growth, progress, and permanence of those very parts of Nature—all were so many moral roots whose violent tearing away caused her the sharpest pain.

“I will not go,” she repeated.

And Celipín talked and talked, as though already miraculously mounted to the pinnacle of his profession, belonging to all the academies founded and yet to be founded.

“Then are you going home?” he asked, seeing that his eloquence was as useless as that of those official centers of learning.

“No.”

“Are you going to the house at Aldeacorba?”

“Neither.”

“Then are you going to Señorita Florentina’s town?”

“No, neither.”

“Then, confound it all, where are you going?”

Nela answered nothing: she continued to gaze with terror at the ground, as though upon it lay the fragments of the loveliest and richest thing in the world, which had just fallen and been shattered.

“Well then, Nela,” said Celipín, weary of his long speeches, “I leave you and am off, for they may discover me.... Would you like me to give you a peseta, in case you need anything tonight?”

“No, Celipín, I want nothing.... Go, you will be a man of mark.... Be good, and do not forget Socartes or your parents.”

The traveler felt something unbecoming so grave and respectable a man: he felt an inclination to weep; but stifling that untimely emotion, he said:

“How should I forget Socartes?... That would be a fine thing! I will not forget my parents, nor you, who helped me to this.... Good-bye, little Nela.... I hear footsteps.”

Celipín raised his stick with a resolution that proved how well-tempered his soul was to confront the perils of the world; but his courage was wasted, for it was a dog that approached.

“It is Choto,” said Nela, trembling.

“Farewell,” murmured Celipín, setting out.

He vanished in the shadows of the night.

Geology had lost a stone, and society had gained a man.

Nela felt a shudder run through her as she felt herself caressed by Choto. The generous animal, after leaping around her and whining with so much expression that his whines were well-nigh words, dashed off at top speed toward Aldeacorba. One would have thought he was chasing game; but unlike certain orators, good Choto spoke in barking.

At the same hour Teodoro Golfín was leaving the house of Penáguilas. Choto ran up to him and poured out in all haste we know not what. It was like a sudden appeal uttered amid the pantings of fatigue and the chokings of emotion. Golfín, who knew many tongues, was not strong in the canine dialect, and paid no heed. But Choto ran some forty times round him, uttering from his foaming mouth sounds like insults that afterwards seemed affectionate cries and then threats. Teodoro then stopped, paying attention to the quadruped. Choto, seeing that he had made himself understood a little, dashed off in the opposite direction from that Golfín was taking. The doctor followed, muttering: “Well, let us go then.”

Choto came running back as if to satisfy himself that he was being followed, and then ran off again. About a hundred yards from Aldeacorba Golfín thought he heard a human voice saying:

“What do you want, Choto?”

He instantly suspected that it was Nela who spoke. He checked his step, listened attentively, standing in the shadow of a beech tree, and soon made out a figure that, leaving the stone wall, was walking slowly along. The shadow of the brambles prevented him from seeing it clearly. He followed slowly at a safe distance, leaving the path and walking upon the grass so as to make no noise. Undeniably it was she. He recognized her perfectly when she reached open ground where neither trees nor thickets darkened the earth.

Nela then quickened her pace. At last she began to run. Golfín ran too. After a spell of this uneven race, Nela sat down upon a rock. At her feet opened the hollow gulf of La Trascava, gloomy and dreadful in the darkness of the night. Golfín waited, and with a very soft step drew nearer. Choto was in front of Nela, crouched on his haunches with his forepaws straight, gazing at her like a sphinx. Nela was looking down.... Suddenly she began to descend rapidly, sliding rather than running. Like a lion Teodoro dashed toward the chasm, shouting with a giant’s voice:

“Nela! Nela!”

He looked, and saw nothing in the black mouth. He heard, indeed, the whines of Choto running round and round the slope in spirals, as if carried along by a whirlpool sucked down into the frightful abyss. Teodoro tried to descend, and took a few steps cautiously. He shouted again, and a voice answered from below: “Sir....”

“Come up this instant!”

He received no reply.

“Come up, I say!”

Presently the figure of the wanderer was outlined in the lowest visible part of the horrible funnel. Choto, after sniffing at the swallow-hole of La Trascava, came up describing the same spirals. Nela was coming up too, but very slowly. She halted, and then her voice was heard saying faintly: “Sir?...”

“Come up, I tell you.... What are you doing down there?”

Nela climbed a little higher.

“Come up quickly... I have something to tell you.”

“Something?...”

“Yes, something; I have something to tell you.”

Nela came up, and Teodoro did not consider himself victorious until he had grasped her hand firmly to lead her away.