Chapter 14

THE CAPITULATION

Josefina was wasting away. Her cheeks were as pale as wax; there was constantly a look of terror in her sweet, gentle eyes, around which suffering had traced a purple circle. She spoke little, and never laughed. When she was left in peace she sat in some corner, and remained motionless looking at one spot, or she went to the window and wrote on the panes of the glass with her finger.

Sometimes, in spite of such misery, the childish nature asserted itself. If the cat approached her slowly with his tail in the air, his back arched, soliciting a caress with a weak purr, she would throw herself upon the ground, call him, drag him to her, stroke his fur, scratch his head, tickle the back of his neck, and murmur words of affection in his ear, a course of spoiling that the animal received with transports of delight.

"I love you, I love you. You are my good cat. Are you not good? You must not scratch me as you did. Who do you like best in the house? Say, treasure. Who gave you a sardine yesterday? Who puts you a saucer of milk every day? And if I could always give you fish too, I would, because I know it is what you like best. Is it not, my treasure? But you must not steal or you know you will be beaten. Don't get on Manin's bed and be naughty or you will be killed. I heard so the other day in the kitchen. And catch a lot of mice, so that godmother will like you and will not turn you out."

The cat, delighted, purred from the depths of his throat with pleasure, and rubbed himself more and more vehemently against her. The child held him up to her mouth, put her arms around him, pressed him to her heart, kissed him, and sometimes, forgetting her sufferings, she shed tears of tenderness. But any noise in the next room made her jump up with terror in her eyes, she pushed the cat away from her and stood motionless, waiting for what was to come, and it was almost always some cruel punishment.

"You naughty girl! So you dirty your clothes like that crawling about on the floor! Wait a bit! wait a bit!"

Continual shocks had so upset her constitution that her health was quite out of order. But although it was not her fault she was treated as if it were, and once Concha's fury was so great that she seized her by the ears and made her lick the ground.

The most terrible hour for the little creature was lesson time. Amalia gave her early in the morning long pieces of sacred history and grammar to learn. Josefina retired to a corner and made desperate efforts to commit them to memory. A little before the dinner hour Concha, who was deputed for the task, took a chair, drew out the famous whalebone, and with that in one hand, and the book in the other, she commenced her pedagogic functions. Every time the child hesitated or forgot a word, it cost her a blow from the whalebone on her face, hand, or neck; and as her memory was not very strong the pounding was incessant.

It was still worse when her godmother taught her. Concha was coldly cruel, but Amalia became irritable directly; the crying of the child worried her nerves, she flew into a rage like a hungry panther, and finished by striking her frantically until she fell trembling and bleeding at her feet.

Her hatred to the little creature seemed increased if possible after the letter from the count. Her pride, wounded to the quick by the cold, self-sufficient, insulting diplomacy conveyed to her mind by the words of her old love, she vented her rage upon the daughter. Besides, the idea of Luis being distressed at hearing of the tortures was an additional inducement to continue them unsparingly. Let her suffer! let him suffer! the vile, perfidious creature who had taken her youth, and then when she was old cast her from him like an old rag to be swept away.

On one of these days of intense raging anger the life of Josefina was in imminent danger. At the usual hour she had been summoned to the dining-room for her lessons. Concha took a seat and drew with unfeigned delight the fatal whalebone from her bosom, for the administration of blows seemed a physical pleasure that day. Trembling as usual the child came and gave her the books, and then with stammering tongue began saying a chapter of sacred history, when Manin's entrance interrupted them. He came in with his eternal green jacket, short breeches and rough manners, making the floor tremble under his hobnailed boots. It was this costume, which even in the country was out of date, that chiefly gave rise to the notoriety and fame he had been supposed to have as a formidable bear-hunter. He entered with his head down as usual; he peered in at the door, saying:

"Concha, haven't you anything to eat here?"

"Is your stomach so empty, Manin?" returned the needlewoman laughing.

The peasant opened his mouth wide to join in the laugh.

"Yes, God have mercy! I can't wait a minute more. You all seem barefooted Brothers in this house; you have no thought of food till the time comes."

"Well, come along you great greedy creature," said Concha putting the book and whalebone on the chair, and going in a petulant way to the dresser.

They quite understood each other these two. The needlewoman was hard, cruel, and stubborn, but the majordomo knew how to get at the few grains of good humour she had. He teased her unmercifully, he pinched her when she passed by him, and said a thousand coarse, shameless things to her which she knew how to take in the opposite sense. And the dwarfish maid, who was neither kind nor pretty, and whose cruel nature had choked every germ of pleasantness and transformed her into a priestess of misery, a fatal, pitiless Eumenide, was pleasant and obliging to that brute. She admired his bearish manners, his roughness, his greediness, and his insolent, careless way of treating everybody, including the pompous Señor de Quiñones. Manin was a solemn-faced rogue with his shameful rudeness, his deportment of a brave hunter of wild beasts. Sly-faced rogue! for with all his shameless rudeness, his posing as a hunter of wild beasts, and his slovenly dress, he had known how to take life easily in this world without spoiling his hands, nor hurting his back by hard work in his village. The needlewoman fetched a plate of cold meat and put it on the oilcloth of the table without any apology for a serviette; then she cut half a loaf and left him with the indispensable bottle of white wine and a glass by the side of the meat. Concha then re-seated herself, and the child approaching repeated the words that she had just said. In a few moments, zas! a blow with the whalebone and a cry of pain. Immediately afterwards another blow and another cry, and so it went on. The needlewoman was delighted that she stumbled more than usual. Manin devoured his food in silence, only occasionally turning his head with marked indifference towards the sad scene. Soon he began murmuring at every blow like a machine:

"Give it! Go it! That was good! There's a blow!" and other similar exclamations.

The sacred history lesson came to an end, and there was a respite before taking the grammar, when the maid began joking cheerfully with the majordomo. She was in an angelic humour.

"Did you ever see such meat?"

"Fine, truely fine."

"The worst of it is it will spoil your appetite for dinner."

Whereupon the room then vibrated with the fellow's laughter.

"This? Yes! It would be something for me to lose my appetite. You will have to put a hot iron in the water, like you do for the señora."

"I would put it on your body, you great pig."

"Look here, Concha, none of your teasing; because although you are only a little bit of a thing, and you have roguish eyes and a mouth like a cherry, you shall have such a blow one of these days, without your knowing whence it comes, that all that little row of pearls I see now shall be knocked down your throat."

"Silence! silence, you old clod-hopper; you are a fine one for blows. You couldn't give them if you tried in such a tight costume. You are indeed a fright."

"You are not saying this from your heart, but because you think it fine."

"I know very well that there is a good deal behind all that. (And here he gave her a few rough digs in the ribs). If I could catch you in a maize field!"

"It would only be as if you caught me in the market-place. No; you are nothing but jaw and tongue."

"And hands too to touch what is nice," returned the barbarian, taking hold of the needlewoman's chin with his hand.

"Leave go! leave go, you pig!" And she gave him a blow on the fingers with the whalebone. Then the rude fellow caught hold of her again, and she defended herself again in the same way. He then tried to get hold of her waist, whereupon the maid ran across the room pretending to be angry.

"Don't touch me, Manin, or I will call the señora."

But Manin did not care; he ran after her with grunts and laughter, catching hold of her here and seizing her there, whilst his cheeks, which were as hard and coarse as an elephant's hide, came in for blows from the servant, without showing that he felt them. The furniture was knocked about, the ground shook, the plates rang on the dresser, and still he did not give in, but he grew more and more false and fawning. The rogue knew that, irascible and fiendish as the little woman was, she was open to flattery like all human beings, and that it was for the interest of his stomach to keep her in a good humour. Finally, roaring like a bull, he caught her by the waist and held her up in the air. He held her up without any effort, as if she were a three-year old child.

"Now, little spitfire, what do you say now? Where is your courage? Where are your hands? Come, witch, and ask pardon, or I will let you fall like a frog," roared the great bear, moving her to and fro in the air.

"Let me go, Manin! Let me go, ass! There will be a row! Look here, I shall scream!"

At last he put her down gently, and the maid, panting, dishevelled and frowning, so as to look more angry, said in an excited voice:

"You have no shame, Manin. If we were not in this house as we are I would smash this lamp on your face for your rudeness and insolence. But here are the servants listening to all this, and what will they say? Don't say another word, for I won't answer you."

"So you can scream now, vain little thing, after you have been in the seventh heaven," muttered Manin, in a drawling tone, looking at her angrily and pushing up his beard.

"If you don't get out of my sight, you ruffian!" exclaimed the little servant, as she looked at him with laughter in her eyes, in spite of herself.

Then Manin re-seated himself for the consumption of the rest of the bread, and to drink another glass of white wine. Josefina meanwhile sobbed in a corner, putting her wounded hands to her mouth and patting her cheeks, contused with the whalebone blows. Manin then deigned to cast a look at her.

"Don't cry, little fool, the pain of the blows will go by, and the sense will remain in your head for ever," he said, cutting a piece of bread with his clasp-knife and putting it into his mouth. "If you would like to know my opinion, the more they beat you, the more pleased you ought to be. What would you be if Concha was not kind enough to beat you well? A little ignoramus, not worth a measure of acorns, a little beast, God save the comparison. And now what will you be? As fine a woman as you can see." (He paused whilst he cut another piece of bread and chewed it so that it caused a large lump in his right cheek). "Come, if I had had masters like you have to bruise my skin with blows, I should not be an ass now; they would not call me Manin, but Don Manuel, and instead of being a miserable underling I should be going about giving myself airs, walking down Altavilla with my hands behind me like the señores, and reading the papers in the casinos." (Another pause, and another cutting of a hunch of bread). "It is nothing but just, if you will see it so. How can you learn such difficult things without a few whippings? Whoever learned _daqué_ without being beaten? Nobody. Then if you get learning you should thank God for having put a mistress over you like an aureole. For the end will please you; you will have soft hands and delicate feet, is it not so?"

Concha, having now resumed her severe manner, seated herself and made an imperious gesture to the child to approach. It was the turn for grammar and it went worse than the history, either from want of memory or because she was upset by fear. Then the whipping recommenced; a whalebone blow now and then, then oftener and oftener. Manin, true to his pedagogical opinions, applauded with his mouth full, and cut his bread into wonderful geometrical shapes before conducting them with all solemnity to his mouth. The faults were many, the blows were the same. But at the end of the lesson Concha thought that besides the punishment at every fault there was a certain reparation due for general naughtiness, and so she had better conclude by a beating that would include everything. Therefore she jumped up from her chair, and brandishing the formidable whalebone, exclaimed:

"Now to make you study better and to open your mind! Now!"

The blows were so hard and so many that, trying to escape the torture, the little creature seized hold of the skirts of her torturer with her clenched hands. Without knowing how, perhaps through having carelessly caught hold of them, the string which held them broke and they fell off, leaving the needlewoman only in her undergarment. She gave a cry of shame and quickly pulled up the skirts. Then, without waiting to tie them on again, she cast a glance of the deepest anger at the child and left the room holding her things on with her hands.

"You have done it finely now--finely, finely, finely!" said Manin, dexterously cutting the mouthful he was about to raise to his lips.

The little creature paralysed with terror did not cry even; her wounds ceased to hurt her. At the end of a few minutes Concha reappeared accompanied by the señora, who came in with a sarcastic smile.

"It seems that the señorita takes pleasure now in unrobing girls in public. You like that, señorita, do you not? Manin must have had a nice view of Concha. Eh, Manin?"

She took a few steps forward. The child receded in dismay.

"Don't be afraid, señorita. I have not come to beat you. Who gives heed to whippings? I have only come to invite you to take a turn in the cellar--the cellar with the rats--you know it. There you can amuse yourself in undressing any rat of the many that will pay their respects to you. Come along. Give me your hand so that I can take you with all ceremony."

The child ran behind a chair, from whence, being pursued by Amalia and Concha, she got under the table, and finally took refuge behind the majordomo.

"Manin! Manin! For God's sake hide me!"

But he took her by the arm and handed her over to the señora. Then they each took a hand, and in spite of her piercing cries they dragged her off.

"To the cellar, no! to the cellar, no! Godmother, pardon. Kill me sooner. See what a terror I have. No, not to the cellar for the rats to eat me!"

The servants came out in the passage and assisted at the scene in solemn silence. The cries of the child were soon lost in descending the dark winding staircase leading to the underground cellar.

Amalia opened the door of the horrible place and pushed her daughter inside. She banged the door to, and the child running to get out, caught her hand in it. A fearful cry of pain was heard. The Valencian reopened the door, and gave such a rough push to the child that she was thrown on the ground, and then she turned the key.

The cellar was a dark, damp prison, only lightened by a few stray rays of light from an ox-eye above. It had once been used as a wine-cellar, now there were only empty bottles there. Scarcely was the child alone, when she got up, looked round mad with fright, tried to cry, but she was unable to utter, and finally, extending her hands in an excess of fearful trembling, she fell senseless to the ground. At the end of half an hour the stable-boy, who had witnessed the incarceration, came to the door being moved by compassion, and looked through the keyhole. There was nothing to be seen. He called very gently:

"Josefina."

The child did not reply. He called louder. The same silence. Alarmed, he called and knocked at the door with all his might without obtaining any reply. Then, at the risk of losing his place, he went quickly upstairs to say what had happened. Amalia sent Concha with the key to see what had occurred. Paula and she together carried the little creature upstairs senseless, cold, and with all the signs of death upon her face. Afraid of the complications that might arise, the wife of the Grandee put her quickly to bed, where she soon came to herself, but a serious fever immediately set in. The doctor was sent for. He found her very