Chapter 8

And thinking thus, he would close his eyes, seeming to feel that all about him the air was perfumed with violets. And then when he once more opened his eyes, the emeralds of the necklace, green and hard as Alicia's pupils, seemed to say to him: "All your dreams and hopes, all your sweet visionings, shall now come true!" It was the secret voice of temptation, a voice which had transformed itself to radiance.

One night, as he was recovering from one of these long, deep fits of abstraction, before the jeweler's window, he saw that Alicia Pardo and her friend Candelas were really drawing near. They, too, had seen him. Upset, almost speechless, the student saluted them. Alicia affectionately pressed his hand; and now more strongly than ever he breathed that violet odor which had perfumed all his dreams of theft. The girl asked:

"Well, what are you doing here?"

"Nothing much, only passing a little time."

Alicia inspected the shop window.

"Ah, yes, yes, you were looking at my necklace, weren't you?"

"Yes, that's just what I _was_ doing."

And as he said this, he blushed deeply, because this confession was equivalent to another, that he was drawing closer to her. Smilingly Candelas peered at the student. Alicia added with cruel malice:

"You know, dear, I asked him to get it for me."

"Yes, I know, I remember," said Enrique.

He spoke sadly. Alicia began to laugh.

"Well, how about it? Are you really thinking of giving it to me?"

"_¿Quién sabe?_"

Sudden anger had endowed his face with virile and aggressive tension. Forehead and lips grew pale. Candelas, good-natured in a careless way, tried to salve his misery.

"You'd better leave us women alone," said she. "We're a bad lot. Believe me, the best of us, the most saintly of us, isn't worth any man's sacrificing himself for."

Alicia interrupted her friend, exclaiming:

"What a little fool you are, to be sure! We were only joking. Do you think Enrique would really do any such crazy thing for me? What nonsense!"

Proudly the student repeated:

"_¿Quién sabe?_"

Then, after a little silence, he added:

"I don't know what makes you talk that way. You've never proved me. You don't know what kind of a man I am!"

Two months earlier, the laughing, mocking words of these girls would have disconcerted him. But now he felt himself transfigured; he felt new, vigorous ardors in his blood. He no longer doubted. An extraordinary dominating concept of his own person had taken possession of him; and this concept of his youth and boldness, of his strength and courage, had exalted him like strong drink. In a single moment the youth had grown to be a man.

Alicia closely observed him. Her mouth grew serious, and under the parting of her hair, that lay symmetrically on her forehead, her eyes became pensive. She knew little of primitive man's hunting-ways, but was expert in judging characters and stirring up passions. And though she did indeed care little for books, men's consciences lay open to her eyes; which kind of reading is far better. Her keen instincts, rarely amiss, perceived something dominant, something desperate in the student's voice and gestures. She judged it wise to end the conversation.

"So long, Enrique. By the way, Manuel's been asking for you, a number of times."

"Thanks. Give him my best regards."

"When are you coming to see me?"

Still shrouded in gloom, Darlés answered:

"I don't know, Alicia. But you can be sure I'll come as soon as I have the right to."

In this allusion to what he now called his duty, trembled indefinable bitterness and pride.

When the student found himself alone, rage seized him--rage that, unable to express itself in words, found vent in tears. He felt convinced that his answers, somewhat mysterious, had duly impressed the girl. Yes, they had been good. Now his conduct must back up his words, or he would lose all his gains. Boastingly he had pledged himself to something very serious. Nothing but ridicule could fall on him, if he failed to make good his offer. This meant he must go through, to the bitter end.

"Yes, I will become a thief," he pondered.

Calmer now, he took his way to his tavern, where he ate a peaceful supper, and went home and early to bed. He slept well, with that peace which irrevocable decisions produce in minds long racked by stress and storm. It was noon when he awoke. He got up at once, put on clean clothes and wrote his father a quiet letter that contained nothing except his studies. Then he tied up all his books and went down to the street with them enveloped in a big kerchief.

"They've all got to be sold," thought he. "If I'm caught, I'll need money. If I get away and nothing is ever found out about me, I can get them back, some time."

After having disposed of the books, he went to a fashionable restaurant and had rather a fine dinner. In all these little details, so different from the order and simplicity of his usual life, you could have seen a certain sadness of farewell. After dinner, he went to drink coffee on the terrace of the Lion d'Or, and stayed a while there, observing the women. Many, he saw, were beautiful. As yet he had decided nothing definite about what he meant to do. He preferred to let things take their own, impromptu course. Sometimes great battles are best decided off-hand, on the march, in the imminent presence of danger.

At exactly six o'clock he got up, crossed the Calle de Sevilla and went through the Carrera de San Jerónimo toward the Puerta del Sol. The street-lamps and the lights in the shops had not yet begun to burn. It was an April evening; a cool, fresh, damp breeze wafted through the streets. Far to the west, shining in rosy space, Venus was shedding her eternal beams. Darlés went peacefully along, his calm movements in harmony with the perfect equanimity that had taken possession of him. When he reached the Ministerio de la Gobernación, he stopped a while to watch the street-cars, the carriages, the crowds circulating about him. Then the idea that, before long, these people would catch him, rose in his mind once more.

"To-morrow," thought he, "I'll be seeing nothing of all this."

In his eyes gleamed the sadness of a last farewell. It seemed to him he had gone too far, now, to change his resolution of stealing.

A romantic desire, almost a dandified pride, that drove him to make good with the girl, formed the basis of his madness, rather than any carnal desire. This desire, which had at first possessed him, had now evolved into a refined and purely artistic sentiment, a wish to accomplish some heroic deed. At last analysis, merely to get possession of Alicia had become unimportant. The most vital factor, practically the only one now, was to assume in her opinion a splendid heroism. Darlés wanted to show this kind of heroism, which the adventurous soul of woman always admires. He was finding himself on a par with great criminals, with illustrious artists, with multimillionaires who wreck their fortunes in a single night, with every man who steps outside the common, beaten paths. And the poor student, reflecting how the girl would always remember that an honorable man had gone to jail for love of her, thought himself both happy and well-paid.

Absorbed in these chimerical fancies, Enrique Darlés came to the jeweler's shop in Calle Mayor. Its lights had just been turned on, and now they flung bright radiance across the sidewalk. The boy stopped in front of the window, which was filled with blinding splendor. There, in the middle of the display, was the terrible necklace of emeralds. It was hung about a half-bust of white velvet. Darlés studied it a long time, and at first felt that mingled chill and fear which the sight of firearms will sometimes produce in us. But soon this sensation faded. The green light of the emeralds exalted him. It seemed to exercise a kind of magnetic attraction, resistless as the force of gravitation. Nevertheless, the boy still hesitated. He still understood that in this little space between him and the shop-window a great abyss was yawning. But suddenly he thought:

"Suppose Alicia should see me here, now?"

This idea overthrew his last fears. With a sure hand he opened the shop door. He walked up to the counter. His step was easy and self-possessed. A tall, finely-dressed clerk, with large red mustaches, advanced to meet him.

"What can I show you, sir?" asked the clerk.

With an aplomb that just a moment before would have seemed impossible to him, Enrique answered:

"I'd like to see that emerald necklace in the window."

"Yes, sir."

Darlés glanced about him. He noted that a white-bearded old gentleman--doubtless the proprietor--was closely observing him from the rear of the shop. Already the student had made up his plan of attack. He would snatch the jewels and break for the door. He had left this door ajar, on purpose.

The clerk came back with the necklace, which he laid on the moss-green cloth that covered the show-case. Enrique hardly dared touch it.

"How much?" asked he.

"Fifteen thousand pesetas."

The student clacked his tongue, like a drinker savoring the state and quality of good wine. The clerk added:

"I'm sure you've seen very few emeralds like these."

The white-bearded old gentleman had now come nearer. Saying nothing, he slid his hands into his trouser pockets. His face looked grave and puzzled. You would have thought his merchant soul had scented danger. Darlés gave him a glance. It was not yet too late. He still was honest. There was still time for repentance.

The clerk set out a number of trays, and from these took various necklaces. His way of handling them, of caressing them with careful fingers, of spreading them out on the cloth, all showed his love of jewels. There were diamond, turquoise, sapphire, topaz necklaces.

The student hesitated. A dizzying pleasure, bitter-sweet, enveloped this nearness to crime. He kept asking:

"What's this one worth? And this?"

"This is very cheap. Two thousand pesetas."

"How about this ruby one?"

"Forty-five hundred."

Darlés took them up, studied them carefully, put them down again. Suddenly he felt his cheeks were growing very pale. To give himself countenance he commented:

"This black pearl one is very beautiful."

"Yes, and it's more expensive, too. Ten thousand pesetas."

Suddenly the old gentleman, who till then had uttered no word, exclaimed brusquely:

"Now then, I think you've talked enough!"

He turned to the clerk.

"Look out for these trays," he ordered.

Darlés raised his head, and proudly looked the old man in the eyes, with the hauteur of one still innocent.

"What are _you_ interfering for?" he demanded. "What's the idea?"

"We can't waste any more time on you," answered the jeweler. "If I'm not mistaken, you're not overburdened with money."

He turned to his clerk again. The clerk stared in amaze. Imperatively the old man ordered:

"I tell you to put these trays away!"

The student had not yet, perhaps, fully decided to steal. Perhaps something good and sound still lay in his conscience, that might have barred him from fatal temptation at the crucial moment. But the merchant's provoking words spurred him on and made him sin. A spirit of revenge drove him to it. This is no novelty. How many times is crime nothing more than the logical reaction against injustice!

Beside himself, Enrique stretched out his hand toward the place where lay the emerald necklace. His fingers clutched convulsively. He turned, and with one leap reached the door.

At that second, two shots crackled.

Darlés flung himself into mad, headlong flight toward the Viaducto. At first he heard a voice behind him, screaming:

"Stop him! Stop the thief! Stop thief!"

It was a horrible, nightmare voice. Then came the thunderous tumult of the pursuing mob. Before him, the pedestrians opened out. He saw astonishment and fear in their faces. As he rushed into the Calle de Bordadores, a man brandished a stick and tried to stop him. Darlés veered to the left, and ran up the grade of the Calle Siete de Julio with the speed of a hare.

Some one threw a chair at him, from a doorway. It hardly grazed him, but tripped up his nearest pursuers. When the human hunting-pack, raging and giving tongue, rushed in under the archways of the Plaza Mayor, its menacing tumult echoed louder than ever:

"_Thief, thief! Stop thief!_"

Beside himself with terror, the student flung himself along. He kept straight ahead, reached the park railing and leaped it with one bound. This saved him. The dim light and the shadows under the trees masked his figure. Still, he kept on running till he came to the fence again, and once more jumped it.

This time as he landed, his knees could no longer hold him up. They doubled, and he almost fell on his face. But he struggled up, once more, and still ran on and on. Now the pursuers' voices sounded far-off, under the echoing archways of the Plaza.

Darlés kept fleeing down the Calle Toledo. He noticed that a good many women were looking at him with uneasiness. One woman cried:

"He's wounded!"

When he reached the Puerta Cerrada, the student drew near the famous cross that gives its name to the square. He could do no more. His legs were collapsing with exhaustion, his heart was bursting, his tongue protruding. A number of women, frightened, crowded about him.

"You're wounded!" they exclaimed. "What's the matter? They've shot you!"

There was no anger in their cries, but only simple pity. The student felt calmer. One of the women had a water-jug.

"Give me a drink!" stammered Enrique. "Water! I'm dying of thirst!"

He raised the lip of the jug to his mouth, and drank in huge swallows. The women kept saying:

"You're wounded. Poor man! You'd better hurry to the hospital!"

To avoid waking suspicion, Darlés answered:

"Yes, I'm on my way there, now."

Then he swallowed a few more mouthfuls, and fled toward the Calle de Segovia. He ran a long, long time, till his last strength was gone. He stopped then, and gathered his wits together. His wet clothes were glued to his body, giving him a disagreeable feeling of cold. His hands were red. What he had believed to be sweat, was blood.

"I'm wounded!" he murmured.

Then he understood what the women at Puerta Cerrada had told him. Just at that moment a slight nausea overcame him, and he had to lean against a wall. Presently he opened his eyes, and looked about him. He was in a steep, deserted little alleyway, with humble houses on either hand. Very near, looming up against the black immensity of the sky, appeared the huge mole of El Viaducto--that splendid, sinister height, that bridge spanning the city, whence so many a poor soul had bowed itself down to death in the leap of suicide.

Enrique Darlés began to think again:

"Yes, I'm really wounded."

His ideas became more coherent. He thought of Alicia, of his little room in the Calle de la Ballesta. He felt of his pockets. His fingers closed on the necklace--"Her necklace!"

The student smiled. Unspeakable joy soothed his troubled heart. He sighed, and wiped away a few tears. Alicia was his! The book of his life was written, was at an end.

V

Candelas and Alicia were coming back in a landau from the race-track. The afternoon had been unseasonably chilly, but the sun had shone brightly, and the races had been exciting. Alicia smiled, contented. She had won eight hundred pesetas, and her eyes still beheld the jockeys speeding with dizzy swiftness against the background of the April landscape.

There suddenly, in the last half of the race, a horse had leaped ahead from that party-colored group of red, blue and yellow blouses and of white trousers. A horse had sped away to cross the tape; and she had found herself a winner.

There was something personal, something flattering to her vanity, in this triumph.

"The count's jockey rides like a centaur," she exclaimed. "He's English, isn't he?"

"No, Belgian," Candelas answered.

Alicia hardly remembered, very clearly, where the Low Countries might be. This answer did not satisfy her. But no matter; after all, it was enough for her to know the victorious jockey had come from one of those northern countries where all the men are blond and well-dressed.

Candelas began to explain the blind faith that the count, her friend, had in this remarkable Belgian connoisseur of horses. Then she briefly outlined the brilliant program of travels and pleasures the count and she were planning. Along toward the beginning of May they would go to London, and in June to Paris, where the count was hoping to win the _grand prix_ at Longchamps. They expected to pass the autumn at Nice.

Alicia answered:

"In September, the little marquis and I will be going to Monte Carlo. You and I simply _must_ see each other, there. There's not much fun just with the men, you know. They don't really know how to amuse us."

When the landau reached the Plaza de Castelar, Alicia asked her friend:

"Have you anything on for to-night?"

"No."

"Well then, come to the Teatro Real with me. They're going to give the divine Bizet's _Carmen_, and Nasi and Pacteschi are going to sing. Enough said!"

Candelas accepted.

"And now," said Alicia, "I want to go home, to see if any important message has come. Then I'll take you home, dear. You can change your dress and we'll go get Manuel, so he'll invite us out to supper."

The carriage stopped before Alicia's door. Teodora, who had been on the balcony, hurried down. She had a letter in her hand.

"This came for you," said she.

"Who from?"

"From Señor Enrique."

"Enrique!" repeated Alicia, surprised. And she tore the envelope with feverish haste. She read:

"_Come to my room, I beg you. I must see you to-day, without fail._"

The only signature was "_E. D._"

Alicia seemed to ponder. She peered at her friend.

"Do you understand this?" asked she. "It's from Enrique Darlés. Remember him? A young chap--Manuel's friend."

Then she asked Teodora:

"Who brought this?"

"An old woman."

"What kind of a looking woman?"

"I don't know. Well--she looked like a janitress."

Alicia lacked decision how to act. The curt authority of those few words had created a good deal of an impression on her. This was the letter of a man; children cannot speak thus. An impatient hand, perhaps a desperate one, had written with vigorous letters the one word, "Urgent," on the envelope.

"What shall we do?" asked she.

"When he summons you, that way," judged Candelas, "something serious must have happened to him. Well----"

Alicia looked at her watch. It was just six. Without upsetting the program for the evening, she could still afford the luxury of a little condescension. She ordered the coachman:

"Number X, Calle Ballesta. Hurry!"

For a moment the two young women remained silent. Suddenly Candelas exclaimed:

"Have you seen what the papers have been saying about the robbery in Calle Mayor, last night?"

"No. What about it?"

"Oh, a jeweler's shop was robbed."

"A jeweler's!" repeated Alicia.

Her face assumed an expression of unspeakable anxiety and alarm. She remembered the emerald necklace she had spoken of, so often; and she remembered the evening, too, when Candelas and she had come across Enrique standing motionless in front of the shop window. Suddenly the student's sad face seemed to rise up in her memory. She seemed to be hearing his last words: "You've never proved me. You don't know what kind of a man I am!" And those words, that she had never paid any attention to, now sounded in her ears with prophetic tones.

"What did they steal?" she asked.

"I can't say. I only just glanced over the paper."

"And who's the thief?"

"No one knows."

"Haven't they caught him?"

"No. He was too quick for them."

"And he got away?"

"Yes."

The mystery surrounding the criminal increased Alicia's uneasiness. Still, it was an agreeable sensation, which caused her a certain vanity. "Suppose the robbery really has been done for me!" she thought. She felt a proud, unhealthy emotion, like that of man when he meets his friends and they know some woman has killed herself for love of him.

Candelas, who could read Alicia's thoughts, exclaimed:

"Strange if the criminal were Enrique Darlés!"

"I don't think it could be!"

"Well, now--it might."

"That would be a terribly bad thing for him to have done."

"Of course!"

"But if he really did do it, I don't care! Let the fool suffer for it. Did _I_ tell him to? When you come right down to it, even if I had, what the devil? The one that does a thing is more to blame than the one that asks him to!"

The carriage stopped, and Alicia and Candelas got out. They made their way in under a poverty-stricken doorway. Candelas called:

"Janitress! Janitress!"

No answer.

"Follow me," said Alicia. "I know the way."

She started along, daintily holding up her pearl-hued petticoat and shaking the big plume of her hat with a graceful motion. They went through a damp, ugly yard, then another, and began to climb a high stairway. The silken frou-frou of their skirts and the tinkling of their bangled bracelets broke the stillness. They reached the fourth story, and stopped in front of a door that stood ajar. Alicia tapped with her knuckles. No one answered. She knocked again. A voice, the voice of Enrique, feebly answered from within:

"Come!"

The girls found themselves in a dark room that stank of blood. Alicia could not repress a coarse exclamation of disgust.

"How sickening! Phew!" she cried. "What's this smell?"

At the end of the room, the silhouette of the bed was dimly visible. From that bed, Enrique Darlés stammered:

"There, on the little table--you'll find matches. Light--the lamp."

Candelas stood motionless, near the door, afraid of stumbling over something. When Alicia had made a light, the two friends cast a rapid glance about the room. The only furniture was a writing-table, a bureau with a looking-glass on it, and, along the walls, half a dozen rush-bottomed chairs. The student was lying, fully dressed, on the bed. Against the whiteness of the pillow, his crisp and very black hair lay motionless. He opened his eyes, a moment, and then, very slowly, closed them again. Over his beardless face, saddened by the pallor of his lips, wandered the ethereal, luminous whiteness of the last agony.

The two girls drew near him. Alicia called:

"Enrique! Enrique!"

He half-opened his eyes. His dark pupils fixed their gaze on Little Goldie, in a look of gratitude. She repeated:

"Enrique! Can you hear me?"

"Yes."

"They shot you, did they?"

"Yes."

"You--committed that--robbery in the Calle Mayor?"

"Yes."

Alicia looked exultingly at Candelas, as if asking her to take full cognizance of this exploit of hers. Her expression showed the same kind of pride that people sometimes manifest when they are exhibiting a work of art. She had just won a great triumph, because men dare such crimes only for women capable of inspiring mad love. Then the girl lowered her head again, to look more carefully at the student's clothing; and as she found it all stained with blood she felt a new attack of nausea. The contrast was too sharp between the hot, sickening air of that long-closed room and the life-giving breeze of the street.

"Shall I open the window?" asked she.

"No, no," murmured Enrique. "I'm very weak. The cold would kill me."

Alicia, seated on the bed--that poor bed one night perfumed with violets by her body--silently looked at him. A broad-brimmed crimson hat, decked with a splendid white plume, shaded her pale face. Her green eyes shone wickedly in the livid, bluish circles under them. The free-and-easy grace of her manner, the childish shortness of her waist, the robust fullness of her hips and breast, and the uneasiness with which her impatient, dancing little feet tapped the floor as if they wanted to run away, strongly contrasted with the ugliness of the room--the bare, half-furnished room heavy with the odors of death.