Part 13

Now indeed the little town seems lifeless! There are neither visitors to the springs nor strangers from the surrounding country, neither fairs nor vintages. Everywhere reigns the stillness and solitude of the tomb, and a moisture so persistent that it covers with a minute green vegetation the stones of the houses in course of construction. These little towns in winter are enough to make the most cheerful person low-spirited; they are the very acme of tedium, the quintessence of dullness--the disinclination to arrange one's hair, to change one's dress, the interminable evenings, the persistent rain, the gloomy cold, the ashen atmosphere, the leaden sky!

In the midst of this species of lethargy in which Vilamorta is plunged there are, however, some happy beings, beings who are now at the summit of felicity, although soon destined to end their existence in the most tragic manner; beings who, by their natural instinct alone, have divined the philosophy of Epicurus and practice it, and eat, drink, and make merry, and neither fear death nor think of the unexplored region which opens its gates to the dying, beings who receive the rain on their smooth skins with rejoicing, beings for whom the mud is a luxurious bath in which they roll and wallow with delight, abandoning the discomfort and narrowness of their lairs and sties. They are the indisputable lords and masters of Vilamorta at this season of the year; they who with their pomps and exploits supply the reunions at the apothecary's with food for conversation, and entertainment for familiar gatherings in which their respective sizes are discussed and they are studied from the point of view of their personal qualities, heated discussions taking place as to whether the short or the long ear, the curly tail, the hoof more or less curved upward, and the snout more or less pointed, augur the more succulent flesh and the more abundant fat. Comparisons are made. Pellejo's hog is superb as far as size is concerned, but its flesh, of an erysipelatous rosy hue, and its immense flabby belly, betray the hog of relaxed muscle, nourished on bakehouse refuse; a magnificent swine, that of the Alcalde, which has been fed on chestnuts, not so large as the other, but what hams it will make! What hams! And what bacon! And what a back, broad enough to ride upon! This will be the swine of the season. There are not wanting those who affirm, however, that the queen of the swine of Vilamorta is the pig of Aunt Gáspara, García's pig. The haunches of this magnificent animal look like a highroad; it once came near being suffocated by its own fat; its teats touch its hoofs and kiss the mud of the road. Who can calculate how many pounds of lard it will yield, and the black puddings it will fill with its blood, and the sausages that its intestines will make?

It stops raining for a week; the cold grows more intense, frost falls, whitening the grass of the paths and hardening the ground. This is the signal for the hecatomb, for which the auspices are now favorable, for, in addition to the cold, the moon is in her last quarter; if she were on the wane the flesh would spoil. The hour has come for wielding the knife. And through the long nights of Vilamorta resound at the most unexpected moments desperate grunts--first grunts of fury, that express the impotent rage of the victim at finding himself bound to the bench, and reveal in the degenerate domestic pig the descendant of the wild mountain boar; then of pain, when the knife penetrates the flesh, an almost human cry when its blade pierces the heart, and at last a series of despairing groans which grow fainter and fainter as life and strength escape with the warm stream of blood.

This bloodcurdling drama was being enacted in the house of the lawyer García at eleven o'clock on a clear frosty December night. The girls, wild with delight, and dying with curiosity, crowded around the expiring pig, in whose heart and throat the butcher, with rolled up sleeves and bare arms, was about to plunge the knife. Segundo, shut up in his bedroom, had before him some sheets of paper, more or less covered with scrawls. He was writing verses. But as the sounds of the tragedy reached him, he dropped his pen with dismay. He had inherited from his mother a profound horror of the spectacle of the killing; it usually cost his mother ten or twelve days of suffering, during which she was unable to eat food, sickened by the sight of the blood, the intestines and the viscera, so like human intestines and human viscera, the greasy flitches of bacon hanging from the roof, and the strong and stimulating odor of the black pudding and spices. Segundo abhorred even the name of pig, and in the morbid condition of his mind, in the nervous excitement which consumed him, it was an indescribable martyrdom to be unable to set his foot outside the door without stumbling against and entangling himself among the accursed and repulsive animals, or seeing, through the half-open doors, portions of their bodies hanging on hooks. All Vilamorta smelled of pig-killing, of warm entrails; Segundo did not know at last where to hide himself, and intrenched himself in his own room, closing the doors and windows tightly, secluding himself from the external world in order to live with his dreams and fancies in a realm where there were no hogs, and where only pine groves, blue flowers and precipices existed. Insufficient precaution to free himself from the torture of that brutal epoch of the year, since here in his own house he was besieged by the drama of gluttony and realism. The poet seized his hat and hurried out of the room. He must flee where these grunts could not penetrate, where those smells should not surround him. He walked along the hall, closing his eyes in order not to see, by the light of the candle which one of the children was holding, Aunt Gáspara with her skeleton-like arm, bare to the elbow, stirring a red and frothing liquid in a large earthern pan. When they saw Segundo leaving the house the sisters burst into shouts of laughter, and called to him, offering him grotesque delicacies, ignoble spoils of the dying.

Leocadia had not retired; she felt ill and she was dozing in a chair, wrapped in a shawl and shivering with cold; she opened the door quickly to Segundo, asking him in alarm if anything had happened. Nothing, indeed. They were killing the pig at home--a Toledan night; they would not let him sleep. Besides, the night was so cold--he felt somewhat indisposed--as if he had a chill. Would she make him a cup of coffee, or better still, a rum punch?

"Both, my heart, this very instant!"

Leocadia recovered her spirits and her energy as if by enchantment. Soon there rose from the punch-bowl the sapphire flame of the punch. In its glare the schoolmistress's face seemed very thin. It had lost its former healthy color, a warm brown like that of the crust of a well-baked loaf. The pangs of disappointed love were revealed in the pallor of her cheeks, in the feverish brightness of her eyes, the purplish hue of her lips. Grief had given her prosaic features an almost poetic stamp; as she had grown thinner her eyes looked larger; she was not now the robust woman, with firm flesh and fresh-colored lips, who, pitted though she was by the smallpox, could still draw a coarse compliment from the tavern-keeper; the fire of an imperious, uncontrollable, and exacting passion was consuming her inwardly--the love which comes late in life, that devouring love which reason cannot conquer, nor time uproot, nor circumstances change, which fixes its talons in the vitals and releases its prey only when it has destroyed it.

And this love was of so singular a nature that,--insatiable, volcanic, desperate, as it was,--far from dictating acts of violence to Leocadia and drawing from her furious reproaches, it inspired her with a self-abnegation and a generosity without limits, banishing from her mind every thought of self.

The summer, the vintage season, the whole period during which she had scarcely seen Segundo, when she knew he had not given her a passing thought, that he was devoting himself to another woman, had been horrible for her; and yet not a jealous word, not a complaint had crossed her lips, nor did she once regret having given Segundo the money; and when she saw the poet, her joy was so genuine, so profound, that it effaced, as if by magic, the remembrance of her sufferings and repaid her for them a hundredfold.

Now there was an additional reason why she should lavish her affection upon the poet. He too was suffering, he was ill. What was the matter with him? He himself did not know: hypochondria, the grief of separation, spleen, the impatient disgust produced by the contrast of his mean surroundings with the dreams that filled his imagination. A constant inappetency, depression of spirits, an uneasy sensation in the stomach, nerves on the stretch, like the strings of a guitar. And his love for Nieves was not like Leocadia's love, one of those passions that absorb the whole being, affect the heart, attenuate the flesh, and subjugate the soul. Nieves lived only in his imagination, in his vanity, in his lyrics, in his romantic reveries, those eternal inspirers of love. Nieves was the visible incarnation, in beautiful and alluring form, of his longings for fame, his literary ambition.

Leocadia had served the punch and was pouring out the coffee when, her hand trembling with pleasure and emotion, she spilled some of the hot liquid, scalding herself slightly; she took no notice of the burn, however, but went on, with the same solicitude as always, to minister to Segundo's comfort. Thinking to please and interest the poet she asked him for news of the volume of poems which he had in hand, and which was to spread his fame far beyond Vilamorta, so soon as it should be published in Orense. Segundo did not show much enthusiasm at this prospect.

"In Orense," he said, "in Orense----Do you know that I have changed my mind? Either I shall publish it in Madrid or I shall not publish it at all. The loss to Spanish literature would not be so very great."

"And why don't you want to publish it now in Orense?"

"I will tell you. Roberto Blanquez is right in the advice he gives me in a letter he has just written me from Madrid. You know that Roberto is in a situation there. He says that no one reads books published in the provinces; that he has noticed the contempt with which books that do not bear the imprint of some publishing house of the capital are looked upon there. And besides, that they delay a century here in printing a volume, and when it is printed it is full of errors, and unattractive in appearance--in short, that they do not take. And therefore----"

"Well, then, let the book be published in Madrid. How much would it cost?"

"Child, the prices Roberto tells me are enough to frighten one. It seems that the affair would cost a fortune. No publisher will buy verses or even share with the author the expense of publishing them."

Leocadia answered only by a smile. The little parlor had a look of homelike comfort. Although winter had despoiled the balcony of its charms, turning the sweet basil yellow and withering the carnations, within, the hissing of the coffee-pot, the alcoholic vapor of the punch, the quietude, the solicitous affection of the schoolmistress, all seemed to temper and soften the atmosphere. Segundo felt a pleasant drowsiness stealing over him.

"Will you give me a blanket from your bed?" he said to the schoolmistress. "There is not a spot at home where I could rest to-night. I might sleep a little on the sofa here."

"You will be cold."

"I shall be in heaven. Go."

Leocadia left the room, and returned dragging in with her an unwieldy bulk--a mattress; then she brought a blanket; then, pillows. Total, a complete bed. For all that was wanting--only the sheets--she brought them also.

XXIV.

Leocadia did not vacillate on the following day. She knew the way and she went straight to the lawyer's house. The latter received her with a frowning brow. Did people think he was coining money? Leocadia had now no land to sell; what she brought was of trifling value. If she made up her mind to mortgage the house he would speak to his brother-in-law Clodio, who had some money saved, and who would like to have some such piece of property. Leocadia breathed a sigh of regret, it was not with her as with the peasantry--she had no attachment to land, but the house! So neat, so pretty, so comfortable, arranged according to her own taste!

"Pshaw, by paying the amount of the mortgage you can have it back the moment you wish."

So it was settled. Clodio handed out the money, tempted by the hope of obtaining, at half its value, so cozy a nest in which to end his bachelor existence. In the evening Leocadia asked Segundo to show her the manuscript of his poems and to read some of them to her. Frequent mention was made in them, with reticences and transparent allusions, of certain blue flowers, of the murmur of a pine wood, of a precipice, and of various other things which Leocadia knew well were not inventions, but had their explanation in past, and to her unknown, events. The schoolmistress divined a love story whose heroine could be no one but Nieves Mendez. But what she could not understand, what she could not explain, was how Señora de Comba, now a widow, and free to reward Segundo's love, did not do so immediately. The verses breathed profound despondency, ardent passion, and intense bitterness. Now Leocadia understood Segundo's sadness, his dejection, his mental anguish. How much he must suffer in secret! Poets, by their nature, must suffer more and crueler tortures than the rest of humanity. There was not a doubt of it--this separation, these memories were killing Segundo slowly. Leocadia hesitated how to begin the conversation.

"See, listen. Those verses are beautiful and deserve to be printed in letters of gold. It just happens, child, that I received some money a few days ago from Orense. Do you know what I was thinking of the other night while you were asleep in the little bed I arranged for you? That it would be better for you to go yourself to publish them--yonder--to Madrid."

To her great surprise she saw that Segundo's face clouded. To go to Madrid now! Impossible; he must first learn something of Nieves. The last tragic scene of his love affair, the dénouement of her sudden widowhood, raised between them a barrier difficult to pass. Nieves was rich, and if Segundo should go to her now and throw himself at her feet, he would not be the lover asking her to requite his love, but the suitor to her hand, alleging anterior rights and basing on them his aspirations to replace her defunct husband. And Segundo, who had accepted money from Leocadia, felt his pride rebel at the thought that Nieves might take him for a fortune-hunter, or might scorn him for his obscurity and his poverty. But did not Nieves love him? Had she not told him so? Why, then, did she not send him some message. True, he had made no attempt to communicate with the beautiful widow, or to refresh her memory. He feared to do it awkwardly, inopportunely, and so reopen the wound caused by the death of her husband.

The volume of verses--an excellent idea! The volume of verses was the one means of recovering his place in Nieves' recollection worthily, borne on the wings of popular applause. If this volume were read, admired, praised, it would win fame for its author; the difference between his own and Nieves' social position, which might now make his pretensions appear ridiculous, would disappear. "To marry!" said Segundo to himself. Marriage seemed to him a secondary matter. Let Nieves only love him. It was love he asked, not marriage. Sitting at Leocadia's very table he wrote to Blanquez, giving him instructions, and prepared the manuscript to post it, and made out the index and the title-page with the impatient joy of one who, expecting to win a fortune, buys a ticket in the lottery. When he was gone Leocadia remained sunk in thought. Segundo had no desire to go to Madrid. Then the gleam of happiness that flashed across her mind at the thought that Segundo should establish himself in Vilamorta was quenched by two considerations--one was that Segundo would die of tedium here; the other that she could not long continue to supply his wants. In mortgaging the house she had burned her last cartridge. What should she mortgage now--herself? And she smiled sadly. In the hall resounded the steps of the neglected little cripple, on his way to bed, where Flores would soon lull him to sleep with her solecisms and barbarous litanies. The mother sighed. And this being, this being who had no support but her--what should he live on? When ruin had overtaken her, and she could no longer give him food or shelter, what a mute and continual reproach would the presence of the unhappy child be to her! And how could she set him to work?

To work! This word brought to her mind the plans she had matured in those hours of sleeplessness and despair in which all the past is retraced in thought and new plans are formed for the future and every possible course of action is deliberated upon. It was plain that Minguitos was unfitted for the material labor of cultivating the ground, or for making shoes, or grinding chocolate, like that good-looking Ramon; but he knew how to read and write and in arithmetic, with a little help from Leocadia, he would be a prodigy. To sit behind a counter kills nobody; to attend to a customer, to answer his questions, take the money, enter down what is sold, are rather entertaining occupations that cheer the mind than fatiguing labors. In this way the little hunchback would be amused and would lose a little of his terror of strangers, his morbid fear of being laughed at.

A few years before if anyone had proposed to Leocadia to separate her from her child, to deprive him of the shelter of her loving arms, she would have insulted him. Now it seemed to her so easy and natural a solution of the question to make him a clerk in a shop. Something, nevertheless, still thrilled in the depths of her mother's heart, some fibers still closely attached to the soul, that bled, that hurt. She must tear them away quickly. It was all for the good of the child, to make a man of him, so that to-day or to-morrow----

Leocadia held two or three consultations with Cansin, who had a cousin in Orense, the proprietor of a cloth shop; and Cansin, dilating upon his influence with him, and the importance of the favor, gave the schoolmistress a warm letter of recommendation to him. Leocadia went to the city, saw the shopkeeper, and the conditions on which he agreed to receive Minguitos were agreed upon. The boy would be fed and lodged, his clothes washed, and he would receive an occasional suit, made from the remnants of cloth left over in the shop. As to pay, he would be paid nothing until he should have acquired a thorough knowledge of the business--for a couple of years or so. And was he very much deformed? Because that would not be very pleasant for the customers. And was he honest? He had never taken any money out of his mother's drawer, had he?

Leocadia returned home with her soul steeped in gall. How should she tell Minguitos and Flores? Especially Flores! Impossible, impossible--she would create a scandal that would alarm the neighborhood. And she had promised to take Minguitos without fail on the following Monday! A stratagem occurred to her. She said that a relative of hers lived in Orense and that she wished to take the child there to make his acquaintance. She depicted the journey in glowing colors, so that Minguitos might think he was going on a pleasure trip. Did he not want to see Orense again? It was a magnificent town. She would show him the hot springs, the Cathedral. The child, with an instinctive horror of public places, of coming in contact with strangers, sorrowfully shook his head; and as for the old servant, as if she divined what was going on, she raged and stormed all the week. When Sunday came and mother and son were about to take their departure in the stage-coach Flores threw her arms around the neck of the boy as he was mounting the step, and embraced him with the tremulous and doting fondness of a grandmother, covering his face with kisses, and moistening it with the saliva on her withered lips. She spent the rest of the day sitting in the doorway, muttering words of rage, or of tender pity, her forehead pressed between her hands in an attitude of despair.

Leocadia, once they were in the diligence, tried to convince the boy that the change was for his good; describing to him the pleasant life that awaited him in that fine shop situated in the most central part of Orense, which was so lively, where he would have very little to do, and where he had the hope of earning, if not to-day, to-morrow, a little money for himself. At her first words the boy fixed on his mother his astonished eyes, in which a look of intelligence gradually began to dawn. Minguitos was quick of comprehension. He drew up close to his mother, and laid his head down on her lap without speaking.

As he continued silent, Leocadia said to him:

"What is the matter with you? Does your head ache?"

"No; let me sleep so--for a little--until we reach Orense."

And thus he remained, quiet and silent, lulled to sleep, apparently, by the creaking of the diligence and the deafening noise of the windows rattling in their sashes. When they reached the city Leocadia touched him on the shoulder, saying:

"We have arrived."

They alighted from the stagecoach and then only did Leocadia observe that her lap was moist and that, on the spot where the boy had rested his forehead, sparkled two or three crystal drops. But on finding himself among strangers, in the gloomy shop crowded with rolls of dark cloth, the hunchback's attitude ceased to be resigned; he caught hold of his mother's skirt with a despairing impulse, uttering a single cry in which were concentrated all his reproaches, all his affection:

"M-a-a-a-m-m-a--m-a-a-a-m-m-a!"

This cry still resounded through Leocadia's heart when, on her arrival at Vilamorta, she saw Flores lying in wait for her in the doorway. Lying in wait is the exact expression, for Flores threw herself upon her, the moment she appeared, like a bulldog, like a wild animal asking for and demanding her young. And as a man in a fit of rage throws at his adversary whatever he finds nearest his hand so Flores heaped on Leocadia every species of insult, all sorts of injurious and opprobrious epithets, crying, in a voice that trembled with rage and hatred:

"Thief, thief, wretch! What have you done with your child, thief? Go, drunkard, vagabond, go drink your liqueurs--and your child, perhaps, dying of hunger! Reprobate, wolf, traitress, where is the child? Where is the little angel? Where have you hidden him, schemer? In such a hurry you were to get rid of him so as to be left alone with your trumpery young gentleman! Wolf, wolf--if I had a gun, as sure as I am standing here, I would send a charge of shot into you!"

Leocadia, her face pale, her eyes red with weeping, put out her hand to stop the mouth of the frenzied old woman; but the latter caught her fingers between her toothless gums, biting them and slavering them with the foam of her fury, and when the schoolmistress went upstairs, the old woman followed her, crying after her in hoarse and sinister accents:

"You will never have the grace of God, wolf--God and the Holy Virgin will punish you! Go, go, rejoice now because you have carried out your evil designs! May you be forever accursed, accursed, accursed!"