Category: Novels

Leon Roch: A Romance, vol. 1 (of 2)

“DEAR LEON: Think no more of my letter of yesterday; it must have crossed yours, which I have just received. Vexation, and a fit of petty jealousy, made me write a great deal of nonsense, and I am ashamed of having covered my paper with so many dreadful words, mixed up with su...

Chapters

33. CHAPTER XXXII.

The following day Leon had visitors; two friends who gave him some information which, though certainly interesting, was far from pleasing to him, and he spent the day in agitati...

32. CHAPTER XXXI.

An hour later Monina and Tachana were playing on the floor with paper birds and boxes that Leon had made for them, while he restored order and sorted out what could be saved fro...

15. CHAPTER XIV.

This he said to himself one night as he sat alone with his wife in the silent quietude of his home, at the hour when the mind wanders in the vague meditation that is the precurs...

27. CHAPTER XXVI.

Quite early in the morning Leon set out in his carriage for Carabanchel. The air was fresh from the rain which had not ceased during the night, and every object was reflected du...

21. CHAPTER XX.

“No,” said she, looking anxiously at a dark shadow that came towards them from the other side of the garden, “here comes.... No,” she added, after watching it for a minute, “he...

8. CHAPTER VII.

But Cimarra put his hand through his arm and held him so that he was forced to spin round on one foot. Their tottering gait, and their position, arm in arm, might have led a spe...

31. CHAPTER XXX.

“Now then, Facunda, make haste, Señor Don Leon will be in soon from his ride and he will be put out if his room is not done. Though, Lord knows, he is never put out! A better ma...

9. CHAPTER VIII.

Several months had passed since that spring season by the sea; Leon Roch--on the appointed day, at the appointed hour, and in the appointed church--had been duly married, withou...

26. CHAPTER XXV.

After calling on the doctor, who lived in the house opposite his own, and imploring him to go at once to Carabanchel, for which he lent him his carriage, Leon went home, fully d...

24. CHAPTER XXIII.

The sky was in a state of anarchy, neither clear nor overcast, blue and smiling in one quarter, dark and gloomy in another. The tempest seemed about to do battle with the fine w...

25. CHAPTER XXIV.

They sat down to dinner, as Pepa had said, a party of four. Happy to find herself with friends so good and few, the millionaire’s daughter showed her pleasure frankly but discre...

19. CHAPTER XVIII.

Leon was not long in discovering that Luis Gonzaga was out of his element in his father’s house. The lean, angular figure, wrapped in a black gown with a cord round the slender...

29. CHAPTER XXVIII.

From this moment Ramona’s illness needed no special attention, and as soon as its favourable termination was known in Madrid, the great house was filled with friends who called...

30. CHAPTER XXIX.

For several days Leon did not go to Suertebella excepting once to leave a complimentary card at the door. He spent most of his time away from home; he had given up study and pac...

10. CHAPTER IX.

The Tellería family occupied the whole of their house, so Leon Roch, willing that there should be as large an expanse as possible of the habitable globe between them, had taken...

13. CHAPTER XII.

He looked at him and a friendly smile lighted up his melancholy face in token of welcome; then they both gazed out--for they were sitting by the window, at the fresh and scented...

11. CHAPTER X.

He was a little man, with delicate and effeminate features, on which he wore a look of assumed gravity, at first carefully cultivated, but now as much a matter of habit as thoug...

4. CHAPTER III.

“It is quite clear that Leon is going to be married to the Marqués de Tellería’s daughter,” said Cimarra. “She is no great catch, for the marquis is more out at elbows than an a...

2. CHAPTER I.

“DEAR LEON: Think no more of my letter of yesterday; it must have crossed yours, which I have just received. Vexation, and a fit of petty jealousy, made me write a great deal of...

17. CHAPTER XVI.

The season of exodus and dispersion had arrived. Madrid was swarming and bustling like an ant-hill, every one exhausted by the heat and eagerly seeking money. The price of gold...

7. CHAPTER VI.

Leon Roch having seen enough, left the house. A calm mild night invited him to walk along the terrace where there was not a living soul to be seen, and not a sound to be heard b...

14. CHAPTER XIII.

The man whom we have seen in the retirement of his study, disturbed at intervals during many months by such scenes as we have described, did not, however, give up his whole time...

18. CHAPTER XVII.

In fact the doctors’ verdict was a hopeless one, though they thought the end was as yet far off, and this brought some relief and even hope to the anxious household. Time, wheth...

12. CHAPTER XI.

One morning when Leon Roch was sitting at work in his study he was suddenly interrupted; raising his eyes and looking in the large mirror that hung over the chimney opposite to...

20. CHAPTER XIX.

Leon’s house was to the north-east of Madrid, on one side overlooking the town with its pretty, bright houses and verdurous gardens, and on the other, miles of dusty waste. The...

6. CHAPTER V.

It was getting late and the dancing was beginning to flag. The last whirling couples were gradually disappearing, as do the last circles of a pool into which a stone has been dr...

5. CHAPTER IV.

In front of the grotto where the water-drinkers swallowed glass after glass, eager to counteract the _oidium_ in their blood, there was a summer-house. It was now ten o’clock, t...

3. CHAPTER II.

The young man who was reading this letter was walking while he read, up and down an avenue of tall trees. At one end there was a low building with a pretentious Greco-Roman faça...

22. CHAPTER XXI.

Our hero, whom we have found to be almost always grave and silent in the midst of the events and personages that surrounded him, performing as it were a wordless rôle with the w...

16. CHAPTER XV.

He sat in silence for some little time; suddenly María gave a loud and terrified cry; he flew to her alcove and found her sitting up in bed, her eyes fixed, her arms extended.

28. CHAPTER XXVII.

What a night they passed. Nothing happened, and yet it was as full of interest as the years of an eventful life. Pepa was in such a state of nervous excitement that her brain se...

23. CHAPTER XXII.

“The worst danger that awaits you is that you will be asked to yield to compromises, to arrange matters. Guard yourself against this snare of the devil. It is a snare, though it...

1. VOLUME I.