-Vii-

More Nonsense

They had rested. They walked on until they reached the entrance to the woods beyond Saldeoro. They halted among a clump of ancient walnut trees, whose trunks and roots formed a natural flight of steps in the earth, with mossy hollows and recesses so well suited for seats that art could not have fashioned them better. From the higher part of the woods ran a trickle of water, leaping from stone to stone until its weary flow reached a small pond that served as a reservoir to feed the spout from which the neighbors drew their supply. In front, the ground sloped gently downward, offering a magnificent panorama of green hills clothed with woods and hamlets, and level meadows where hundreds of cattle grazed in roving tranquility. In the farthest background two distant and stately hills that marked the edge of the land revealed between them a long segment of the purest blue sea. It was a landscape whose contemplation revealed to the soul its sublime communion with the infinite.

Pablo sat upon the trunk of a walnut tree, resting his left arm on the rim of the basin. He raised his right hand to touch the boughs that hung down to his forehead, across which, with the stirring of the leaves, a ray of sunshine flickered from time to time.

“What are you doing, Nela?” asked the youth after a pause, hearing neither the footsteps, nor the voice, nor the breathing of his companion. “What are you doing? Where are you?”

“Here,” replied Nela, touching his shoulder. “I was looking at the sea.”

“Ah! Is it very far off?”

“You can see it yonder between the hills of Ficóbriga.”

“Vast, immense—so vast that one might look at it all day without seeing the whole of it, is that not so?”

“You only see a piece of it, like what you take in your mouth when you bite into a piece of bread.”

“Yes, yes, I understand. Everyone says no beauty equals that of the sea, because of its very simplicity.... Listen, Nela, to what I am going to say to you.... But what are you doing?”

Nela, grasping the bough of the walnut tree with both hands, swung herself gracefully back and forth.

“Here I am, my young master. I was thinking why God did not give us humans wings to fly like birds. What a lovely thing it would be to go whirr, and soar up and alight in a single flight upon that peak yonder between Ficóbriga and the sea!...”

“If God did not give us wings, in return He gave us thought, which flies faster and farther than all birds, for it reaches even to God Himself.... Tell me, what would I want with the wings of a bird if God had denied me thought?”

“Well, I should like to have both. And if I had wings, I would take you in my little beak to carry you through the world and lift you to the very highest clouds.”

The blind youth reached out his hand until it touched Nela’s head.

“Sit down beside me. Are you not tired?”

“A tiny bit,” she replied, sitting down and resting her head with childlike trust upon her master’s shoulder.

“You are breathing heavily, little Nela; you are very tired. It comes of so much flying.... Well, what I was going to tell you is this: Speaking of the sea made me recall something my father read to me last night. You know that ever since I was old enough to reason, my father has made it a practice to read to me every evening from various books of science and history, of art and entertainment. Those readings and these walks may be said to be my whole life. The Lord gave me, to compensate for my blindness, a happy memory; and thanks to it I have derived some benefit from the readings; for although they have been without method, I have managed after all to bring some order into the ideas that entered my understanding. What exquisite delight has been mine in understanding the wondrous order of the universe, the harmonious wheeling of the stars, the revolution of minute atoms, and then the laws, more wondrous still, that govern our soul! History too has delighted me greatly, being a true tale of all that men have done before our time; from which it appears, my child, that they have always committed the same wicked deeds and the same foolish acts, though they have never ceased to improve themselves, drawing as near as possible, yet without ever reaching, the perfections that belong to God alone. Lastly, my father has read to me subtle matters, somewhat too deep to be grasped all at once, but which hold one spellbound and enamored when one meditates upon them. It is reading he does not care for, not understanding it, and which has wearied me too at times, while at others it has charmed me. But there is no doubt that when one meets with an author who knows how to speak clearly, those subjects are delightful. They contain ideas concerning causes and effects, concerning the reason for all that we think and the way we think it, and they teach the essence of all things.”

Nela seemed not to understand a single word of what her friend was saying; yet she listened intently with open mouth. To catch those essences and causes of which her master spoke, she opened her lips like a bird watching for the fly it wishes to catch.

“Well then,” he added, “last night my father read a few pages on beauty. The author spoke of beauty, saying that it was the splendor of goodness and truth, with many other ingenious thoughts so well framed and reasoned that it was a joy to hear them.”

“That book,” said Nela, wishing to show her knowledge, “cannot be like one Father Centeno has, which they call... The Thousand and I Don’t Know How Many Nights.”

“Not that, silly child; it treats of absolute beauty... but you will not understand this matter of ideal beauty... nor that either... for you must know that there is a beauty which is neither seen nor touched, nor perceived by any bodily sense.”

“Like the Virgin Mary, for example,” interrupted Nela, “whom we neither see nor touch, because the images are not herself, but only her portrait.”

“You are right; that is just how it is. Thinking of this, my father closed the book, and he said one thing and I another. We spoke of form, and my father said to me: ‘Unfortuately, you cannot understand it.’ I maintained that I could; I said there was only one beauty, and that it must serve for all things.”

Nela, paying little heed to such subtle matters, had taken the flowers from her friend’s hands and was arranging their cheerful colors.

“I had an idea about this,” added the blind youth with great warmth, “an idea with which I have been captivated for some months past. Yes, I maintain it, I maintain it.... No, I do not need eyes for this. I said to my father: ‘I conceive a type of enchanting beauty, a type that contains all possible beauties; that type is Nela.’ My father laughed and said yes.”

Nela turned red as a poppy and could find nothing to say. During a brief moment of terror and anxiety, she fancied the blind youth was actually looking at her.

“Yes, you are the most finished beauty that can be imagined,” added Pablo with warmth. “How could it be that your goodness, your innocence, your purity, your grace, your imagination, your heavenly and loving soul which has been able to brighten my sorrowful days—how could it be that it should not be embodied in beauty itself?... Nela, Nela,” he added, faltering with eager longing, “is it not true that you are very pretty?”

Nela was silent. Instinctively she had raised her hands to her head, weaving among her hair the half-withered little flowers she had gathered before in the meadow.

“Do you not answer?... To be sure, you are modest. If you were not, you would not be the precious darling that you are. The logic of beauty would be wanting, and that cannot be. Do you not answer?...”

“I...” murmured Nela timidly, without letting go of her headdress, “I do not know... they say that when I was a little child I was very pretty.... Now....”

“And now too.”

María, in her extraordinary confusion, managed to say:

“Now... you know very well that people talk a great deal of nonsense... they make mistakes too... sometimes he who has the most eyes sees the least.”

“Oh, how well said! Come here; let me embrace you.”

Nela could not come at once, for having succeeded in fixing in her hair a sort of wreath of little blossoms, she felt a keen desire to observe the effect of that adornment in the clear crystal of the water. For the first time in her life she felt vain. Leaning upon her hands, she peered into the pool.

“What are you doing, Mariquilla?”

“I am looking at myself in the water, which is like a mirror,” she replied with the greatest innocence, betraying her vanity.

“You have no need to look at yourself. You are as beautiful as the angels that surround the throne of God.”

The blind youth’s soul was filled with enthusiasm and fervor.

“The water has begun to tremble,” said Nela, “and I cannot see myself well, master. It trembles just as I do. Now it is quieter, now it is still again.... I am looking at myself... now.”

“How lovely you are! Come here, my child,” added the blind youth, stretching out his arms.

“Lovely, I!” she exclaimed, full of confusion and anxiety. “Well, that creature I see in the pool is not so ugly as they say. The truth is there are many who do not know how to see.”

“Yes, very many.”

“If only I dressed as other girls dress!...” exclaimed Nela with pride.

“You shall dress so.”

“And does that book say that I am pretty?” inquired Nela, grasping at every means of persuasion.

“I say so, and I possess an immutable truth!” exclaimed the blind youth, carried away by his ardent imagination.

“It may be,” observed Nela, turning away from her mirror, thoughtful and not quite satisfied, “that men are very stupid and do not understand things as they are.”

“Humanity is subject to a thousand errors.”

“So I believe,” said Mariquilla, finding great comfort in her friend’s words. “Why should they laugh at me?”

“Oh, wretched condition of men!” exclaimed the blind youth, carried into absurdity by his delirious fancy. “The gift of sight can cause grievous errors... it leads men away from the possession of absolute truth... and absolute truth says that you are beautiful, beautiful without blemish or shadow of ugliness. Let them tell me the contrary, and I will give them the lie.... Let them go their ways with their outward forms. No... form cannot be Satan’s mask placed before the face of God. Ah, wretched creatures, into how many follies your eyes betray you! Nela, Nela, come here; I want to hold you near me and embrace your lovely head.”

María ran to throw herself into her friend’s arms.

“Pretty little one,” he cried, pressing her passionately to his breast, “I love you with all my soul!”

Nela said nothing. In her heart, filled with chaste tenderness, the sweetest feelings overflowed. The young man, trembling and agitated, held her closer still, whispering in her ear:

“I love you more than my life. Angel of God, love me or I shall die.”

María slipped from Pablo’s embrace, and he fell into deep meditation. A powerful, irresistible force impelled the strange creature to look at herself again in the mirror of the water. Gliding softly forward, she reached the brink and saw down upon the greenish bottom her wretched image—the small black eyes, the freckled skin, the sharp little nose (not without grace, though), the scanty hair, and the restless, birdlike countenance. She leaned out over the water to see her figure, and found it deplorably stunted. The flowers in her hair fell into the water, making the surface ripple, and with the surface, the image. The daughter of Canela felt as though her heart were torn up by the roots, and fell back, murmuring:

“Mother of God, how terribly ugly I am!”

“What are you saying, Nela? I thought I heard your voice.”

“I was saying nothing, my boy.... I was thinking... yes, thinking that it is time to return home. It will soon be dinner time.”

“Yes, let us go; you shall dine with me, and this afternoon we will go out again. Give me your hand; I will not have you leave me.”

When they reached the house, Don Francisco Penáguilas was in the courtyard, accompanied by two gentlemen. Marianela recognized the engineer of the mines and the traveler who had lost his way in La Terrible the night before.

“Here are the engineer and his brother,” she said, “the gentleman from last night.”

The three men looked with evident interest at the blind youth as he approached.

“We have been waiting for you this good while, my son,” said the father, taking his son by the hand and presenting him to the doctor.

“Let us go inside,” said the engineer.

“Blessed be wise and charitable men!” exclaimed the father, looking at Teodoro. “Pray enter, gentlemen. Blessed be the hour when you cross my threshold.”

“Let us look into this case,” murmured Golfín.

When Pablo and the two brothers had gone inside, Don Francisco turned toward Mariquilla, who had remained standing motionless and bewildered in the middle of the courtyard, and said to her kindly:

“Look here, Nela, you had better run along. My son cannot go out this afternoon.”

And then, seeing that she did not move, he added:

“You can step into the kitchen. Dorotea will give you some little treat.”