-Viii- · II

No, you are weeping. Well, you must know that my heart told me so. You are goodness itself; your soul and mine are bound together by a mysterious, divine tie: they cannot be parted, is it not so? They are two parts of the same thing, are they not?”

“It is true.”

“Your tears answer me more clearly than anything you could say. Is it not true that you will love me just the same whether they give me sight or I remain deprived of it?”

“Just the same, yes, just the same,” said Nela with vehement agitation.

“And you will stay with me?...”

“Always, always.”

“Listen to me,” exclaimed the blind youth with a passionate outburst, “if they gave me my choice between not seeing and losing you, I would rather....”

“You would rather not see.... Oh, holy Mother of God, what joy I have within me!”

“I would rather not see your beauty with my eyes, for I see it within me as clearly as the truth I proclaim in my soul. Here within you dwell, and your presence charms and enchants me more than all things else.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” affirmed Nela wildly. “I am beautiful, I am very beautiful.”

“Listen to me,” exclaimed the blind youth with an ardent outburst, “I have a presentiment... yes, a presentiment. Within me God seems to be speaking, telling me that I shall have eyes, that I shall see you, that we shall be happy.... Do you not feel the same?”

“I.... My heart tells me you will see me... but it breaks in telling me so.”

“I shall see your beauty, what happiness!” exclaimed the blind youth with that impassioned expression natural to him at certain moments. “But I see it already; I see it within me, as clear as the truth I proclaim and which fills my whole being....”

“Yes, yes, yes...” repeated Nela wildly, with frightened eyes and trembling lips. “I am beautiful, I am very beautiful.”

“Blessed be you...”

“And you!” she added, kissing him on the forehead. “Are you sleepy?”

“Yes, I begin to feel drowsy. I did not sleep last night. It is so good here...”

“Sleep, my boy....”

She began to sing as one sings to children to lull them to sleep. Soon afterwards Pablo was asleep. Nela heard the voice of La Trascava once more, saying to her:

“My child... here, here.”

-IX-

The Golfíns

Teodoro Golfín did not find time hang heavy at Socartes. On the first day after his arrival he spent many hours in the laboratory with his brother, and on the days following he traversed the mines from end to end, inspecting and admiring the diverse sights to be seen there, which astonished him now by the grandeur of natural forces, now by the power and skill of human ingenuity. At night, when all was still in busy Socartes and only the bustling calcining furnaces remained active, the good doctor, who was a passionate lover of music, delighted in hearing his sister-in-law Sofía play the piano—Sofía, wife of Carlos Golfín and mother of several children who had died.

The two brothers were bound to each other by the warmest affection. Born in the humblest station, they had struggled alone in early youth to escape ignorance and poverty, finding themselves on the brink of ruin more than once; but so powerful was the impulse of a heroic will that they reached at last, breathless, the longed-for shore, leaving behind the troubled waves in which the vulgar crowd tosses in perpetual shipwreck.

Teodoro, the elder, was a physician before Carlos was an engineer. He assisted the latter with all his might as long as the youth needed his help, and when he saw him fairly started on his career, followed the prompting of his adventurous heart and sailed for America. There he worked in company with other renowned European doctors, quickly gaining fame and fortune. He made a voyage to Spain, returned to the New World, and came back again later only to cross the ocean once more after a brief stay. On each of these journeys he traveled through Europe to master the latest advances in ophthalmic science, which he cultivated.

He was a man of coarse features, dark-complexioned, with a countenance as intelligent as it was sensual, thick lips, bristling black hair, sparkling eyes, an indefatigable nature, and a robust constitution, though somewhat worn by the American climate. His broad, round face, his prominent forehead, his unruly though short hair, the fire of his eyes, and his large hands had led people to say of him: “He is a black lion.” He looked like a lion indeed, and like the king of beasts, did not fail to display at every turn the high regard in which he held himself. But the vanity of that eminent man was the most pardonable of all vanities, consisting as it did in bringing forward two titles to glory: his passion for surgery and the humble obscurity of his origin. He spoke as a rule incorrectly, being incapable of constructing sentences with grace or polish. His utterances were rapid and jerky, keeping pace with the emission of his thoughts, which was a kind of electric discharge. Often Sofía, on asking his opinion about anything, would say: “Let us see what the Havas Agency thinks of this.”

“We,” Teodoro was wont to say, “though descended from the grass of the field, which is the lowest lineage known, have made ourselves into sturdy trees.... Long live human toil and initiative!...”

I believe that we Golfíns, though apparently sprung from the Maragatos, have English blood in our veins.... Even our name seems of pure Saxon stock. I would break it down thus: Gold, gold... to find, to discover.... That is, as one might say, gold-finder.... And so, while my brother seeks it in the bowels of the earth, I seek it in the wondrous interior of that miniature universe called the human eye.

At the period of this true history he had arrived from America by way of New York and Liverpool, and according to his account, his exile was ended for good and all; but people did not believe him, since he had said the same on previous occasions and done the exact opposite.

His brother Carlos was a simple, worthy soul, a man of peace, studious, devoted to duty, and so passionate about mineralogy and metallurgy as to set those two mistresses a hundred cubits above his wife. For the rest, the couple lived in complete accord, or as Teodoro put it, in an isomorphic state, because they crystallized in the same system. As for himself, whenever marriage was mentioned, he would say with a laugh:

“Marriage would be for me an epigenesis or pseudomorphic crystal; that is, a system of crystallization that does not belong to me.”

Sofía was an excellent lady of moderate beauty, which grew less every day through a regrettable tendency to stoutness. She had been told that a coal-smoke atmosphere was thinning, and on that account had come to live at the mines, intending to spend the entire year there. Otherwise, that atmosphere laden with calamine dust and smoke caused her no small displeasure. She had no surviving children, and her chief occupation consisted in playing the piano and organizing charitable ladies’ committees for home relief and the support of hospitals and schools. In Madrid, over a good many years, her energy had worked wonders, affording examples worthy of imitation to all charitable souls. Aided by two or three ladies of high rank, equally devoted to their neighbors, she had succeeded in holding more than twenty theatrical performances, as many masked balls, six bullfights, and two cockfights, all for the benefit of the poor.

Among her passions, which were apt to be short-lived, was one perhaps not quite so commendable as that of relieving the destitute: namely, surrounding herself with dogs and cats, bestowing upon those animals an affection resembling love itself. Lately, during her stay at Socartes, she had kept a toy terrier that Ulises Bull, the head of the machine shops, had brought her from England to order. It was a slender, elegant little greyhound, as delicate and petted as a child. It was named Lili, and had cost two hundred duros in London.

The Golfíns went for walks on fine days; on wet ones they played the piano or sang, for Sofía had a certain shrill pipe that passed for singing at Socartes. The assistant engineer had a deep bass voice; Teodoro was also a deep bass. Carlos was not far behind; so they made up a kind of chorus of priests, in which Sofía’s voice stood out like that of a priestess led to the slaughter. All the pieces they sang were, or seemed to be, of sacrificing priests and a sacrificed priestess.

On walking days they usually had an afternoon picnic in the country. One afternoon (toward the end of September, six days after Teodoro’s arrival at the mines), they were returning from their excursion in the following order: Lili, Sofía, Teodoro, Carlos. The narrowness of the path did not permit them to walk two abreast. Lili wore his little blue cloak or coat embroidered with his mistress’s initials. Sofía rested the handle of her parasol on her shoulder, and Teodoro carried his walking stick in the same posture, with his hat on the tip. He loved walking with his massive head bare to the breeze. They were passing the edge of La Trascava when Lili, darting from the path with the springy lightness of his wire-like legs, set off at a run down the grassy slope of the funnel. First he ran, then he slid. Sofía uttered a shriek of terror. Her first impulse, prompted by an affection almost maternal, was to rush after the endangered creature; but her husband held her back, saying:

“Let the devil take Lili, wife; he will come back. You cannot go down there; this grass is very slippery.”

“Lili, Lili!...” shrieked Sofía, trusting that her loving cries would check the animal in his path of perdition and bring him back to virtue.

The tenderest appeals produced no effect upon Lili’s unruly temper, and he kept sliding down. Now and then he looked back at his mistress, and with his expressive little black eyes seemed to say: “Madam, for heaven’s sake, do not be so foolish.”

Lili brought up against the great whitish, mossy, perforated rock that stood at the very mouth of the abyss as though concealing it. All eyes were fixed on that spot, and presently they noticed something moving there. At first they fancied they saw some noxious animal hiding behind the boulder, but Sofía uttered a fresh cry, one of surprise rather than terror, and exclaimed:

“Why, it is Nela.... Nela, what are you doing there?”

Hearing her name, the girl appeared, all flustered and blushing.

“What are you doing there, madcap?” repeated the lady. “Catch Lili and bring him up to me... Heaven help us, what will this creature invent next! Look where she has gone and put herself. It is your fault that Lili ran down.... What tricks you teach the little creature! Through your doing he is so ill-behaved and capricious.”

“That girl has the very devil in her,” said Don Carlos to his brother. “Look where she has perched herself.”

While this was being said on the brink of La Trascava, Nela had started down below in pursuit of Lili, who, more frisky and mischievous that day than ever before in his monotonous existence, eluded the girl’s hands. The lady called down to him, exhorting him to be good and sensible; but Lili, casting aside the commonest notions of duty, began to caper about and look impudently up at his mistress, as if to say: “Madam, will you take yourself off and leave me in peace?”

At last Lili landed his elegant body in the middle of the brambles that overhung the mouth of the cave, and there the little coat he wore proved a tremendous hindrance. The creature, finding it impossible to extricate himself from the brushwood, began to yelp for help.

“He will be lost, he will be killed!” wailed Sofía. “Nela, Nela, if you bring him out safe, I will give you a big copper coin; bring him out... take care... hold fast.”

Nela slid down boldly, setting her foot upon the briars and stout fennel stalks that masked the abyss; and holding on with one hand to the rough face of the rock, reached out the other until she seized Lili by the tail, whereby she hauled him out of his predicament. Caressing the creature, she climbed up in triumph to the rim of the funnel.

“You, you, you are to blame,” said Sofía crossly, giving her three gentle taps on the head, “for if you had not gone down there... You know he follows you wherever he sees you.... What a precious piece of goods!”

And then, kissing the truant animal and administering two smacks on his hindquarters after satisfying herself that his worthy person had suffered no essential injury, she straightened his little coat, which had slipped over his ears like a cap, and handed him to Nela, saying:

“Here, carry him in your arms, for he must be tired, and these long walks may do him harm. Be careful.... Walk in front of us.... Take care, I say again.... Remember I am behind you watching what you do.”

The family set off again, preceded by Nela. Lili looked back at his mistress over Nela’s shoulder, and seemed to say: “Oh, mistress, what a simpleton you are!”

Teodoro Golfín had said nothing during the moving peril of handsome Lili; but when they set out across the broad meadow where the three could walk abreast without crowding, the doctor said to his brother’s wife:

“I have been thinking, my dear Sofía, that that animal takes up too much of your time. It is true that a dog costing two hundred duros is not like any ordinary dog. But I ask myself why you have spent time and money making a coat for that canine dandy, and it never occurred to you to buy a pair of shoes for Nela.”