El cisne de Vilamorta 🦢✨
The Swan of Vilamorta is a fascinating story that takes us to the heart of Galicia, where the destinies of its characters are intertwined with passions and secrets. The work of Countess Emilia Pardo Bazán presents a rich narrative of love, betrayal, and the fight for justice in a rural and mysterious setting. Throughout the pages, the characters invite us to reflect on morality, honor, and the internal conflicts that arise in a society marked by tradition and family expectations. Chapter 1. Beyond the pine forest, the setting sun extended a fiery zone, above which the trunks of the pines stood out, resembling bronze columns. The path was steep, showing signs of having been devastated by winter torrents; in places, loose stones, resembling molars out of their sockets, made it impassable . The sadness of twilight was beginning to veil the landscape: little by little, the incandescence of the setting sun faded, and the moon, white and round, ascended into the sky, where the morning star was already shining. The melancholic diphthong of the toad was distinctly heard; a breath of fresh air shook the withered grasses and dusty brambles growing along the roadside; the trunks of the pine forest grew darker, standing out like bars of ink against the greenish clarity of the horizon. A man was walking down the path very slowly, as if intending to enjoy the poetry and contemplation of the place and time. He was leaning on a sturdy cane, and from what the dim, diffuse light showed, he was young and not bad- looking. At each step he paused, looking right and left, as if searching and trying to locate a predetermined spot . Finally, he stopped, orienting himself. Behind him lay a hill covered with chestnut trees; to his left lay a pine grove; to his right lay a low church with a shabby bell tower; in front of him lay the first shacks of the village. He took ten steps back, stood facing the church atrium, looking at its walls, and, now certain of his position, raised his hands to the level of his mouth to form a phonic funnel, and shouted in a silvery, youthful voice: “Echo, let’s talk. ” From the corner of the walls immediately came another voice, deeper and more inarticulate, mysteriously sonorous and gravelly, which he repeated with emphasis, entwining the answer with the question and drawing out the last syllable: “Let’s talk! ” “Are you happy? ” “Happy!” replied the echo. “Who am I? ” “It’s meeee!” These questions, calculated so that the echo’s reply would form a meaning with them, were followed by phrases hurled with no other object than to hear them reverberate with strange intensity against the wall.—”Beautiful night!”—”The moon is shining!”—”The sun has set!”—”Echo, do you understand me? “—”Echo, are you dreaming something?”—”Glory! Ambition! Love!”—” The nocturnal wanderer, entranced, persisted, varied his words, combined them; and in the intervals of silence, while short periods passed, the faint rustling of the pines could be heard, caressed by the gentle night breeze, and the concerted wailing of the toads. The clouds, once pink and crimson, were now ashen, and struggled to ascend to the broad stretch of firmament where the full moon reigned without the slightest veil to conceal it. The honeysuckle and elderflowers, from the edge of the pine grove, perfumed the air with a subtle and delightful fragrance. And the echo’s interlocutor, docile to the influence of the ambient poetry, ceased shouting questions and exclamations and, in a slow, crooning voice, began to recite verses by Bécquer, no longer heeding the voice of the wall, which, in its haste to repeat them, returned them to him truncated and confused. Absorbed in his task, possessed by what he was doing, entertained by the cadence of the stanzas, he didn’t see three men of grotesque and strange appearance coming up the road, wearing enormous, wide-brimmed felt hats . One of the men was leading a mule by the right hand, loaded with a round leather saddle, undoubtedly swollen with vine juice; And since they all walked slowly, and the thick, clayey ground muffled the sound of their footsteps, they were able to arrive unnoticed as far as the young man. They whispered something in low voices. “Who is it, man?” “Second.” “The lawyer’s?” “The same one.” “What is he doing? Is he talking to himself?” “No, he’s talking to the wall of Saint Margaret’s.” “Well, we’re no less.” “You start…” “At one o’clock … here it goes…” From those sinful mouths , interrupting the “ Dark Swallows,” which the young man was then reciting in a very expressive manner, came a deluge of vulgar phrases, of coarse words and boorish filth, which fell upon the gentle and harmonious silence of the night like the clanging of mortars and pans in a piece of German music. The softest thing that could be heard was in this style: “Re… here’s a suit! Long live the wine of the Borde! Long live red wine, which gives a man his breast!” Re… here’s what the reader can surmise, if he considers that the Bécquerian dreamer’s interrupters were three unruly muleteers, safely transporting a skin of vine blood. The nymph residing in the wall offered no resistance to the profanation, and repeated the rounded curses as faithfully as the poet’s stanzas. Hearing the shouts and muffled laughter that the wall ironically returned, Segundo, the lawyer’s son, turned around furiously, understanding that the savages were mocking his sentimental amusement. Embarrassed and humiliated, he gripped his cane, longing to break it on someone’s ribs; and muttering under his breath—Kaffirs—brutes—herd—and other insults, he turned to the left, jumped into the pine grove, and headed toward the town, avoiding the path to escape the profane group. The town was, as they say, just around the corner. The walls of its first houses whitened in the moonlight, and the ashlars of some under construction, walls, vegetable plots, and other vegetable plots filled the vacant space between the town and the pine grove. The path widened, leading to the main road, along whose banks, leafy chestnut trees cast patches of shadow. The town was undoubtedly asleep, for no lights were visible, nor were the murmurs and buzzings that reveal the proximity of human hives heard. Truly, Vilamorta is a miniature hive, a modest little village, the capital of a district. Nevertheless , bathed in the splendor of its romantic satellite, Vilamorta lacks a certain grandeur, like that of an important town, due to the new buildings that, in accordance with the peculiar architectural order of the grilleras, were hastily erected by a Galician American, recently arrived with a supply of hundreds. Segundo threaded his way down a strange street—if there ever was one in towns like this. Only the sidewalks were paved; the stream was a real one; there were mud puddles in it, and piles of filth and cooking waste, unscrupulously dumped there by the neighbors. Segundo avoided two things: stepping into the stream and being hit by the moonlight. A man brushed past him, muffled, despite the heat, in a wide-brimmed Montecristo, and with a huge open umbrella, although there was no threat of rain: he was undoubtedly a water collector, a convalescent breathing the pleasant night air with hygienic precautions. Segundo, upon seeing him, pressed close to the houses, turning his face away, afraid of being recognized. With no less modesty, he crossed the Town Hall square, the pride of Vilamorta, and instead of joining the groups of people enjoying the cool air seated on the stone benches near the public fountain, he slipped down a side alley and, crossing a secluded little square shaded by a gigantic poplar, headed toward a small house half hidden by the tree. Between the house and Segundo stood a ramshackle contraption: a bus, a box on wheels, uncoupled, lance in hand, as if about to charge. Segundo circled the obstacle, and as he turned around distractedly, two huge animals, two monstrously fat pigs, shot out through the half-open gate of a corral, and with a trot that swung their vast backs and flapped their short ears, came blind and stupid to entangle themselves around the legs of Becquer’s reader. He did not measure the ground by special favor of Providence; but, having already finished his suffering, he gave each pig a pair of angry kicks, which drew grunts from them. broken and ferocious, while the young man almost cursed aloud : “What a town this is, sir!… To be run over in the street by these beasts! Ah, what misery! Ah… hell must be better!” When he reached the door of the little house, something calmed down. It was a small, pretty, brand new house; the balcony was missing its iron railing; it only had a stone ledge, loaded with flowerpots and boxes of plants; behind the glass windows a light could be seen, filtered through muslin curtains, and the silent facade offered something peaceful and pleasant, inviting one to enter. Segundo pushed open the gate, and almost at the same time a rustling of petticoats was heard in the gloomy doorway ; A woman’s arms opened wide, and Becquer’s reader allowed himself to fall into them, led, dragged, and almost carried himself up the stairs to a small room where a nightstand covered with a white crocheted doily supported a divinely adorned oil lamp. Right there, on the sofa, the gallant and the lady sat down. Truth above all. The lady is almost thirty-six or thirty- seven, and worse still, she should never have been pretty, not by a long shot. Her coarse complexion was made by the pox into something leathery and pitted, like the skin of a sieve: her small, black eyes, similar to two fleas, match well with her thick, poorly kneaded nose, similar to those that chocolatiers put on chocolate figures; it is true that her fresh, dog-like mouth displays good teeth; But the rest of the person, the attire, the manners, the accent, the very little grace of the whole, are more to cure temptations than to instill them. The lamp illuminating itself as well as it does, it is preferable to contemplate the gallant. He has, for his medium height, elegant proportions, and in his youthful head I know not what attractiveness makes one look again. The forehead, whose slope is a little alarming, is hidden and adorned by the copious hair, somewhat longer than our current severe fashions allow. The face, gaunt, thin, and wiry, casts upon the whitewashed wall a silhouette all acute angles. The mustache grows and curls over the thin lips, without quite covering the upper one, with that special grace of a new mustache, accompanying the undulation of a woman’s hair . The beard does not dare to thicken, nor the neck muscles to stand out, nor the Adam’s apple to stand out brazenly. Their complexions are dark, pale, and somewhat bilious. Seeing such a handsome boy reclining on the breast of that plump, gentle, and frankly ugly woman, it was logical to mistake them for son and mother. But anyone who made such a mistake after observing them for a minute would denote a lack of insight, because in the manifestations of maternal love, however passionate and extreme, there is some kind of majestic stillness of spirit that is lacking in the other kind of love. Segundo undoubtedly felt nostalgia for the moon, because as soon as he stopped on the sofa, he went to the balcony, and his companion followed him. They opened the glass windows wide and sat very close together on two low chairs, level with the plants and flowerpots. A clump of 1-ounce carnations rose to a convenient height to regale the nose with enticing perfumes; the moon silvered the foliage of the poplar, whose broad shadow enveloped the small square. Segundo opened the conversation in this way: “Did you make me some cigars? ” “Here,” she replied, reaching into her pocket and taking out a handful of cigarettes. “I managed to get you two and a half in total. I’ll finish you off tonight before I go to bed. ” The “risssch!” of the match was heard, and with his voice choked by the first puff of smoke, Segundo asked again: “So, has anything new happened? ” “New… no. The girls… fixing the house… then Minguitos… He got me up with a headache and started complaining… complaining all afternoon about God! He said his bones were aching. And you? Are you busy out there? Reading to your death? Ruminating? Writing, huh? Definitely! ” “No… I took a very nice walk. I went to Penas Albas and came back via Santa Margarita… One of the few afternoons. ” “Wow, you’d probably write some poetry.” —No, woman… The ones I made, I made last night, after I retired. —Oh! And you didn’t tell me! Go, for the love of God… go, recite, you must know them by heart. Go, baby Jesus. The vehement plea was followed by a rapturous caress, which disappeared between the poet’s hair and temples. He raised his eyes, stepped back a little, left the cigar between his fingers, first shaking off the ash with his fingernail, and recited. It was a Becquerian birth of his genius. The audience, after listening to it with religious attention, placed it above all others produced by the muse of the great Gustavo. And she ordered another, and another, and some bits of Espronceda, and I don’t know what fragments of Zorrilla. The cigar was no longer burning : the poet threw away the butt and lit a new one. They resumed their conversation. —Shall we have dinner soon? —Right away… Do you know what I have to give you? He thinks. —What do I know, woman?… —Think about what you like best. What you like best, best. —Bah!… You know what I… As long as you don’t give me anything smoked or greasy… —French omelet! You didn’t get it right, eh? Look, I found the recipe in a book… Since I’d heard it was a good thing, I was rehearsing… I always made omelets the way they are here, thick, so they can be thrown against the wall and not fall apart… But this one… I think it has to be to your liking. As for me, I don’t know much about it… I prefer the old-fashioned ones. I showed it to Flores… What was in the one you ate at the inn in Orense? Chopped parsley, eh? —No, ham. But what does it matter? —I’ll run and get it out of the cupboard! I thought… The book says parsley! Wait, wait. He knocked over his low chair to walk faster, and in the distance the jingling of his keys and the slamming of some doors could be heard; a cracked voice grunted something from the kitchen. Two minutes later he returned. “Look, and those verses, aren’t they printed? Won’t I see them in print ? ” “Yes,” replied the poet, slowly turning his head and releasing a puff of smoke. ” They’re on their way to Vigo, to Roberto Blánquez to be inserted in the _Amanecer_. ” “I’m glad! You’ll have more fame, salty heart! How many newspapers write about you?” Segundo laughed ironically, shrugging his shoulders. “Few…” And, somewhat downcast, he let his gaze wander over the flowerpots and the top of the poplar, which swayed with the pleasant rustle of leaves. The poet mechanically shook the hand of his interlocutor, and she responded to the pressure with ardent energy. “And of course, how do you expect them to talk about you, if you don’t sign your verses?” she asked. “They don’t know who they’re by. They’ll be rambling on… ” “What does it matter… Just like Segundo García, they can talk about the pseudonym I’ve adopted. What a fine name to have in print! Segundo García! The few people who bother to read what I write will call me the SWAN OF VILAMORTA.” Chapter 2. Segundo García, the lawyer’s wife, and Leocadia Otero, the schoolteacher from Vilamorta, met in the spring at a pilgrimage. Leocadia attended it with several girls whom she had taught a, b, c, and backstitch. Before that chorus of nymphs, Segundo recited poetry for more than two hours in an oak grove, far from the din of the bass drum and bagpipes, where only the faintest murmurs of the festivities and the crowd reached him. The audience was as if at mass, although certain passages, syrupy or fiery, provoked nudges, pinches, and instantly suppressed laughter among the girls. But from the teacher’s black eyes, along her pockmarked and pale cheeks, two warm, thick tears trickled down, and then others, so many and so close together that she had to take out her handkerchief and wipe them away. Then, on their way back, when the stars were shining in the sky , along the paths of the mountain where the sanctuary stood, rough paths covered with grass and bordered by heather and heather, the group descended in this way: in front the girls, running, jumping, pushing each other to fall on the heather and celebrate with an explosion of laughter; Leocadia and Segundo behind, as day laborers, Sometimes stopping and then speaking more quietly, almost in her ear. An ugly and sad story was told about Leocadia Otero. Although she, with calculated reluctance, tried to feign being a widow, it was whispered that she had never had a husband; that while she was living in Orense, an orphan under the guardianship of a paternal uncle, that poor offspring was born, that deformed, rickety, and always sick Dominguito. Those who were better informed affirmed that the wicked uncle was the one who abused the maiden, entrusted to his care, without being able to make amends for the crime because he was married and his wife lived, God knows where or how. The truth is that the uncle died early, leaving his niece some small farms and a house in Vilamorta, and Leocadia, having passed a competent examination, graduated from school and came to settle in the town. She had lived there for thirteen years, exhibiting exemplary conduct, caring for Minguitos day and night, and saving money to rebuild the dilapidated house, as she finally did shortly before meeting Segundo. Leocadia was an extremely industrious woman: her closets were always stocked with linen, her living room with wicker furniture and a small rug in front of the sofa, her pantry with hanging grapes, rice, and ham, and her balconies with carnations and basil. Minguitos walked as clean as gold; when she rolled up her Dolores habit, made of fine merino, she displayed thick petticoats, stiff with pure starch, heavily embroidered with eyelets. Therefore, despite her ugliness and her ancient history, the teacher did not lack suitors: a wealthy retired muleteer with an open tavern, and Cansín, the clothier. She snubbed the suitors and continued living alone with Minguitos and Flores, the old maid, who already enjoyed the privileges of a grandmother in the house. The wicked rape suffered in her early youth had left Leocadia, wrapped in bitter memories, with a profound horror of the realities of marriage , the foundation of the family, and a perpetual thirst for ideal and delicate things, a dew that refreshes the imagination and satisfies the feelings. She possessed the average education of the teachers, rudimentary, but sufficient to instill exotic tastes in Vilamorta, e.g., literature, in its most accessible forms—novel and verse. She devoted the leisure time of her monotonous and honest life to reading. She read with faith, with enthusiasm, without criticism: she read, believing and accepting everything, merging with the heroines, hearing the sighs of the poet, the songs of the troubadour, and the laments of the bard resonate in her heart. Reading was her secret vice, her mysterious happiness. When she begged her friends in Orense to renew her subscription at the bookstore, they made fun of her and nicknamed Leocadia “literary.” Literary she! If only! If only she could give substance to what she felt, to the fantastic world she carried within! Impossible: no matter how hard she racked her brain, she would never be able to produce even a sad little seguidilla. So much poetry and so much sensitivity remained stored away in the recesses and convolutions of her brain, like the heat of the sun in coal. What came out was pure prose: household management, economics, stews. When Leocadia encountered Segundo, chance lit a flaming fuse to the formidable powder keg of feelings and dreams locked within the teacher’s soul. Finally, she had found a worthy use for her amorous faculties, an outlet for her affections. Segundo was poetry made flesh; in him were encoded and summarized all the interesting and divine details of verse: the flowers, the aura, the nightingale, the dying light of the sun, the moon, the shadowy forest. The combustion occurred with astonishing rapidity. It burned and was consumed in a sudden blaze, first by the honorable resolution to erase the stigma of the past with impeccable conduct, then by the vigorous and heartfelt maternal affection. Not a single thought crossed Leocadia’s mind that Segundo could be her husband: although they were both free, the difference in their ages and the intellectual superiority of the young poet placed an insurmountable limit on the teacher’s aspirations. He fell in love like an abyss, and neither looked back nor forward. He had had a second in Santiago, during his school years, Student shenanigans, a trivial matter, and the kind of excesses no man avoids between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five, also experiencing what in the Romantic era were called “orgies” and today are known as “revelries.” However, he was not vicious. The son of a hysterical mother, whom repeated breastfeedings exhausted to the point of exhaustion, Segundo had a spirit much more demanding and insatiable than his body. He had inherited from his mother a melancholic complexion, a thousand worries, a thousand instinctive repulsions, a thousand superstitious practices. He had loved her and cherished her memory like a cult. And, even more vivid than his mother’s affectionate memory, he retained an invincible antipathy toward his father. It was hardly possible to say that the lawyer had been his wife’s executioner, and yet, Segundo clearly guessed the slow martyrdom of that fine nervous organization, and he always saw, in dark hours, the wretched coffin in which they had enclosed the deceased, not without first choosing, to shroud her, the most worn sheet they could find. Segundo’s family consisted of his father, an old aunt, two brothers , and three girls still in their early teens. Lawyer García enjoyed a reputation for wealth: nothing between two plates: a village fortune, scraped together penny by penny, with usurious loans and sordid privations. The office was ample, but ten mouths, and the careers of three sons, swallowed something. The eldest of the sons, an infantry officer, was in the Philippines and didn’t send a penny; thank goodness he didn’t ask for it. Segundo, who was a jurist in chronological order, had just graduated: yet another jurist in the Spanish nation, where this fruit is so abundant. The little one studied at the Orense Institute, intending to pursue a career in pharmacy. The girls spent their days running around orchards and cornfields, half -barefoot, not even going to Leocadia’s school for lack of a little decency. As for their aunt… Miss Gaspara…, she was the soul of that house, a narrow and lifeless soul, a stiff, silent, and spectral old age, agile despite her sixty years, and who, without ceasing to play the mediation with fingers as stale as a harpsichord, sold rye in the barn, rented wine in the cellar, lent a fifty-fifty duro to the fruit sellers and bargain hunters in the market, collected her money in kind, appraised her nephews’ food, electricity, and clothing, fattened a pig with loving diligence, and was respected in Vilamorta for her formicary skills. The lawyer aspired to transfer his clientele and business to Segundo. Except the boy showed no signs of being capable of muddling through lawsuits and cases. How had he accomplished the miracle of passing the exams, without opening his law textbooks the entire term, and always missing class whether it was sunny or pouring rain? Bah! With a first-rate memory and average clarity: learning, when necessary, pages and pages of the text, and recalling and reciting them with the same ease as the Doloras de Campoamor, if not with as much gusto. Spread across Segundo’s desk were volumes by Zorrilla and Espronceda, poor translations of Heine, works by regional poets, Lamas Varela, alias Remedia Vagos, and other volumes no less heterogeneous. Segundo was not a tireless reader; He chose his readings according to the whim of the moment, and read only what suited his interests, thus acquiring a veneer of deficient and varied culture. More intuitive than reflective and studious, he taught himself French by touch, in order to read Musset, Lamartine, Proudhon, and Victor Hugo in the original. His brain was like an uncultivated wasteland where, in places, a rare and stray flower grew , a shrub from remote climates; he ignored the serious and positive sciences, the solid and serious readings, nurses of mental vigor, the classical era, authentic literature, the severe lessons of history; and instead, by a rare phenomenon of intellectual kinship, he identified with the Romantic movement of the second third of the century, and in a corner of Galicia he revived the psychological life of already deceased generations. Not otherwise would some venerable academic, Jumping across the nineteen centuries of our era, he now rejoices in what delighted Horace and lives platonically enamored of Lidia. Segundo rhymed his first verses, disillusioned and skeptical in intent, naive in reality, when he was barely seventeen . His classmates applauded him wildly. He acquired a certain prestige among them, and when he published the scoops of his muse in a newspaper , he had, without leaving the narrow circle of the classroom, admirers and envious people. From then on, he acquired the right to walk alone, to laugh little, to hide his adventures, and not to play or get tipsy for companionship, but only when he felt like it. And he rarely did. Purely physical and brutal excitement had no appeal for him; If he drank for the sake of bravado, he was repulsed by the sight of drunkenness, the final moments of student revelry, the stained tablecloth, the foolish disputes, the friends lying under the table or sprawled on the sofa, the shamelessness and insensitivity of venal women ; he would emerge disdainful and utterly sick, and at times a reaction very typical of his complicated character would drive him, a sincere reader of Proudhon, Quinet, and Renan, to the confines of some solitary church , where his lungs breathed with delight the humid air saturated with incense. Lawyer García did not protest against his son’s literary interests, because he judged them to be a fleeting diversion of youth, a youthful pursuit, like dancing at parties. He began to get worried, so that Segundo, now a graduate, refused to assist him in handling his tortuous little lawsuits. Would the boy turn out to be useless at everything and good only for mending verses? It wasn’t a crime to mend them, but like that… when there weren’t so many lawsuits to sift through and tricks to devise to entangle the litigants. From the moment he realized this, the lawyer treated his son with greater distrust, with more stubborn impertinence and deflection. Every day, at the table or wherever he could, he preached incisive little sermons about the necessity of earning one’s bread, with assiduity and work, without depending on anyone. These constant admonitions, in which he employed the same captious inveighing as in the tangled protocols, drove Segundo away from his home. Leocadia ‘s house served as his refuge, and he began to allow himself to be passively loved, flattered at first by the success his verses had achieved, earning him such selfless and ardent homage, and later attracted by the moral well-being engendered by unconditional approval and boundless complacency. His lazy, dreamy mind rested on the cotton wool that affection can soften for the beloved head. Leocadia admitted, outlined, and expanded all his plans for the future; she encouraged him to write, to publish; she praised him without restriction or pretense, because for her, whose critical faculty resided in the cavities of her heart, Segundo was the most melodious swan in the entire universe. Little by little, the teacher’s loving foresight began to extend to other spheres of Segundo’s life. Neither the lawyer García nor Aunt Gaspara could conceive that a boy, his education now complete, would need a cent for any extraordinary expense. Aunt Gaspara, in particular, would uproariously protest every outlay: after filling her nephew’s suitcase with shirts for a year, it had to be at least stocked for ten years: the clothes weren’t allowed to be torn or simply worn out. Leocadia noticed her idol’s shortages; today she realized he wasn’t short on handkerchiefs, and hemmed and marked a dozen for him; tomorrow she realized that only figs gave her half a duro for a cigar supply, and she took it upon herself to make them for him, supplying the raw materials gratis. She heard the fruit sellers murmur about Aunt Gaspara’s greed, understood that Segundo ate poorly, and dedicated herself to preparing appetizing and nutritious dishes for him, in addition to ordering books from Orense, mending his clothes, and buttoning them. She did all this with inexplicable joy, walking around the house with a brisk, almost youthful pace, renewed by the sweet motherhood of the love, and so happy that she forgot to scold the school girls, thinking only of shortening their homework so she could be back with Segundo sooner. There was a great deal of generosity and spirituality in her affection, and the best moments of her satisfied passion were those night hours when, close to the balcony, sitting very close to each other, transforming the carnation and basil bushes into virgin forest in their imaginations, she would listen, leaning on Segundo’s shoulder , to the verses he recited in a well-pitched voice, verses whose harmony seemed to Leocadia like a celestial canticle. The medal had its downside. The morning hours were bitter when Flores, with his long, difficult face, drawn or angry, his cotton handkerchief twisted, wrinkled, and fallen over his eyes, would come to inform her, in brief, truncated words, that: “We’re out of eggs… are there any more coming?” There’s no sugar: which kind should I bring? That expensive old-fashioned one that came last week? Today I brought coffee, coffee, two pounds, just like someone doing laundry… I’m not buying any more liquor: it’s up to you: not me. “What are you saying, woman? What’s the matter with you?” “If you like giving Ramón, the candy store owner, twenty-four reales for a bottle of aniseed, when it’s eight at the pharmacy, fine; but I’m not going to slip that thief the money into his hand: let’s see how he doesn’t ask you for five duros for each little bottle.” Leocadia, sighing, emerged from her lethargy; she went to the dresser and took out some money, not without thinking that Flores was right: her little savings, her couple of thousand reales for a pinch, must already be trembling; it was better not to find out about the state of the breastplate: she should delay any unpleasantness . “God forbid!” And she scolded the old woman with feigned anger. “Go get the bottle, don’t upset me… The girls are coming in at eight, and I still have my petticoat to iron… Make the hot chocolate for Minguitos; you’d better not have him starving… And give him some cake. ” “I’ll give it, I’ll give it… If only I hadn’t given it to the poor wretch!” grumbled the maid, who felt her anger growing at the name of Minguitos. In the kitchen, one could hear the furious blow given to the hot chocolate pot to seat it on the fire and the angry whirl of the grinder in the frothy whirl of chocolate. Flores entered the room of the deformed man, who had not yet left the sheets, and took his hands. “You’re hot, boy… Here comes the hot chocolate, eh?” “Will Mother give it to me? ” “I’ll give it to you. ” “And Mother, what does she do?” —Starching a petticoat. The little hunchback fixed his eyes on Flores, laboriously raising his head from between the double arch of his chest and back. Those were deep, childlike eyes: his mouth, with its protruding jaws, had a sardonic tension and a pale smile. He threw his arms around Flores’s neck and, pressing his lips to his ear, asked, “Did the other one come yesterday? ” “Yes, man, yes. ” “Will he come today? ” “He will.” “Well, no! Shut up, filliño, shut up… have the chocolate. It’s just the way you like it: clear and foamy. ” “I’m hardly hungry… Put it here, to the side.” Chapter 3. In Vilamorta there was a Casino, a real Casino, small, it is true, and dilapidated to boot, but with its billiard table bought by chance, and its waiter, a man in his seventies who year after year shook and beat the green cloth. Because in the Casino of Vilamorta hardly anyone usually gathered on a daily basis except the rats and moths, busying themselves with scratching the woodwork. The most frequented meeting places were two pharmacies, Doña Eufrasia’s, located in the plaza, and Agonde’s, on the best street. Crouched in the dark corner of an arcade, Doña Eufrasia’s pharmacist’s was gloomy; it was lit during the hours of conciliation by a reeking kerosene lamp, and its furniture consisted of four grimy chairs and a bench. Anyone looking from outside would see inside a black group of cloaks, balandranes, wide hats, two or three priestly tonsures, which from a distance stood out like beret badges against the somber background of the apothecary. Agonde’s, on the other hand, proudly displayed a clear illumination, six large glass flasks. Brightly colored and with a fantastic effect, a triple shelf laden with white porcelain jars bearing imposing, scientific Latin inscriptions in black letters, a divan, and two gutta-percha armchairs. These two antithetical pharmacies were also antagonistic; they had declared war to the death. The liberal and enlightened Agonde pharmacy said of the reactionary pharmacy that it was a hotbed of perpetual conspiracies, where during the Civil War “El Cuartel Real” and all the factional proclamations had been read, and where for five years supplies had been prepared with the utmost diligence for a Carlist party that never took the field. And according to the reactionary pharmacy, Agonde was a rendezvous point for Freemasons, libels were printed on a hand-held printing press, and Jorge was shamelessly hated. The reactionary pharmacy’s social gathering closed religiously at ten in the winter and at eleven in the summer , while the liberal pharmacy would project the ray of light from its two bright lamps and the blue, red, and emerald-green reflections of its flasks onto the street floor until midnight; thus the liberal social gathering members called each other “owls,” while the reactionaries called their opponents “partners in the Casino de la Timba.” Segundo never set foot in the reactionary pharmacy, and ever since his relationship with Leocadia Otero, he fled from Agonde’s because the jokes and barbs of the apothecary, a scoundrel and a swindler like no other, wounded his pride . One night, as Saturnino Agonde crossed the Álamo square at an odd hour to go where he and the devil knew where, he saw Leocadia and Segundo on the balcony and overheard the psalmody of the poet’s verses. From then on, in the face of Agonde, a sanguine and well-balanced young man, Segundo read such disdain for sentimental trivialities and poetry that by instinct he stayed away from him as much as possible. Nevertheless, whenever he had the opportunity to read El Imparcial and learn some news, he would enter Agonde’s house for a short while. He did so the day after his conversation with the echo. The gathering was very lively. Segundo’s father, reclining on the couch, had a newspaper on his knees; his brother-in-law, the clerk Genday, Ramón the confectioner, and Agonde were arguing heatedly with him. In the back, near the back room, Carmelo the tobacconist, the doctor Don Fermín, alias Tropiezo, the municipal secretary, and the mayor were playing tresillo at a small table. Upon entering, Segundo noticed something unusual in the attitude of his father and the group surrounding him, and, convinced that they would give him the news, he sank into one of the armchairs, lit a cigar, and picked up El Imparcial, which was rolling on the counter. “Well, the papers don’t bring anything here; nothing at all,” exclaimed the confectioner. From the tresillo table, the doctor raised his voice, confirming Ramón’s doubts; the doctor, too, didn’t believe it could happen without bringing the papers. “You’re dying to say no to everything,” replied Agonde. “I’m sure of it, come on; and it seems to me that if I’m sure…” “And I’m the same,” affirmed Genday. If it’s necessary to cite witnesses, here they go: I know it from my own brother, do you understand? From my own brother, who told you Méndez de las Vides; go see if the news is authoritative. Do you want more? Well, they’ve ordered from Orense, for las Vides, two armchairs, a good gilded bed, plenty of crockery, and a piano. Are you convinced? “Anyway, they won’t come so soon,” Tropiezo objected. “They’ll come. Don Victoriano wants to spend the holidays and the grape harvest here; he says he’s very fond of the country, and that all winter he was heard to speak of nothing but his trip. ” “He’s come here to die,” Tropiezo muttered; “I heard say he’s in a terrible state. You’re going to be left without a leader. ” “Go to… You devil of a man, you little owl, who only announces dire things. Keep quiet or don’t spout nonsense.” Pay attention, pay attention to the game as God commands. Segundo looked indifferently at the flasks in the pharmacy, distracted. by the bright blue, green, or crimson light that flickered in each of them . He now understood the subject of the conversation: the arrival of Don Victoriano Andrés de la Comba, the minister, the country’s great politician, the district’s organic representative. What did Segundo care about the arrival of such a phantom? And gently inhaling his cigar, he abstracted himself from the noise of the argument. Then he absorbed himself in reading the _Hoja_ of _El Imparcial_, where they were highly praising a budding poet. Meanwhile, the tresillo game was getting into a frenzy. The apothecary, standing behind the mayor, was giving him advice. A complicated and arduous case: a solo from a smaller case; the counterattacks all gathered around the tobacconist and Don Fermín: they caught the man in the middle: a devilish position. He was the mayor of those old, timid retinues, as worn out as a penny, who think about it for a hundred years before making a move, calculating all the contingencies and all the possible card combinations. He no longer wanted to play that solo—what nonsense!—but the impetuous Agonde had urged him on, saying, “Well, I’ll buy it.” Put on the spot, the mayor made up his mind, not without protest. “Well, we’ll play it… A prank, gentlemen. So they don’t say I’m tying the knot.” And everything happened as expected; he found himself between two fires: on one side, they blew his king of cups; on the other, they crushed his jack of trumps, taking advantage of the knight; Don Fermín got into tricks without knowing how, while the tobacconist, with a malicious smile, almost completely saved his counter . The mayor raised his pleading eyes to Agonde. “Didn’t I tell you? We’ve gotten ourselves into a real mess!” It’s going to be a knuckle, a sung knuckle. —No, man, no… you’re a slob, rushing into everything… You’re out there playing with more fear than if someone pointed a shotgun at you… Drag, drag! Slobs always die of indigestion from trumps. The adversaries winked at each other malignantly. —_De posita non tibit_, exclaimed the tobacconist. —_Si codillum non resultabit_, Don Fermín corroborated. The mayor felt a shiver in his very hair, and, on Agonde’s advice, he resolved to watch what was at stake, finding out the tricks of his companions and counting the trumps. _Tropiezo_ and the tobacconist grumbled. —What a mania for lifting the skirts of the cards! The mayor, somewhat calmer, finally decided to clear his doubts. He sighed, and with a few spirited and decisive moves, the play was resolved, leaving everyone equal at three tricks each. “That’s a wise man,” the tobacconist and the doctor said almost simultaneously. “See? By putting on the worst possible show in the world, they haven’t given him any courage,” Agonde observed. “To make the bet, they needed certain conditions… ” The throbbing interest of the play had everyone in suspense, except for Segundo, absorbed in one of those lazy meditations in which physical well-being heightens the activity of the imagination. The players’ voices reached his ears like a distant murmur; he was a hundred leagues away: he was thinking about the newspaper article, from which certain particularly complimentary phrases had remained engraved in his memory , swabs of honey with which the critic concealed the defects of the praised poet. When would his turn come to be judged by the Madrid press? God knows… He paid attention to what was being said. “We must at least give her a serenade,” Genday declared. “Well… a serenade!” Agonde responded: “A big deal! More than a serenade: we must make a real racket in the street; a kind of demonstration to prove that the town is hers here… We’ll have to appoint a commission, and welcome her with a lot of fireworks, and music at all hours… Those boors Doña Eufrasia are going to be furious.” The name of the other pharmacy provoked an explosion of jokes, witticisms, and kicks. There were comments. “Don’t you know?” the sarcastic Tropiezo asked. “It seems that Nocedal has written Doña Eufrasia a very fine letter, telling her that he represents Don Carlos in Madrid and that, because of her merits, she should represent him in Vilamorta.” Homeric laughter, general uproar. Genday the clerk speaks. “Well, that may be a lie; but it’s true, a truth as big as a temple, that Dona Eufrasia sent Don Carlos her portrait with a dedication. ” “And the party? Did they set a day for it to rise? ” “Well! He says the Abbot of Lubrego will send it.” The rejoicing of the gathering doubled, because the Abbot of Lubrego was approaching seventy and so exhausted that he could barely stay on the mule. A young boy entered the pharmacy, swinging a glass flask. “Don Saturnino!” he cried in a high-pitched voice. “Let’s see, man,” replied the apothecary, imitating him. “Give me what this smells like. ” “We’re clear,” murmured Agonde, holding the flask to his nose. “What does it smell like, Don Fermín?” —Well… it’s like… laudanum, eh? Or arnica. —Go with arnica, which is less dangerous. God grant you a good one. —It’s time to retire, gentlemen, warned Lawyer García, consulting his silver onion. Genday also stood up, and Segundo followed suit. The three-card players became engrossed in calculating and settling their winnings cent by cent, choosing white chips and yellow chips. Upon stepping onto the street, one received a pleasant sensation of freshness; the night was between clear and serene; the stars gave off a loving light, and Segundo, in whom the perception of external poetry was immediate , felt the impulse to ditch his father and uncle and go down the road, alone as usual, to enjoy such a peaceful night. But his uncle Genday clung to his arm. —Boy, you’re in luck. —Congratulations, uncle? —Aren’t you itching to get out of here? Don’t you want to fly somewhere else? Don’t you have a grudge against the law firm? —Well, the lawyer intervened; he’s already crazy, and you’re making his head spin even more… —Shut up, fool! Don Victoriano is coming, we’ll introduce him to the kid and ask for a job… And he’s got to give it a good one, because even if he thinks otherwise, if it doesn’t please us, it’ll cost him a fortune… The district isn’t what he thinks, and if those of us who support him go to bed, the priests will play him down. —And Primo? And Méndez de las Vides? —They can’t handle them… One day they least expect it, they’ll snub them, leave them in a state of shame… But you, lad… Look at it carefully: don’t you have a taste for the law? —Segunda Segundo shrugged his shoulders, smiling. —Well, think about it… like this, let’s see what would be best for you… Because you have to be something; you have to stick your head in somewhere. Would you like a courtroom from the start? A post in the postal service? An office? They were walking around the square to get closer to García’s house, and as they passed Leocadia’s balcony, the scent of carnations penetrated Segundo’s brain. He experienced a poetic reaction, and, flaring his nostrils to absorb the fragrance, he exclaimed: “Neither a judge nor a postal worker… Leave me alone, uncle. ” “Don’t argue, Clodio,” the lawyer said sourly. ” This one doesn’t want to be anything, anything, but a solemn idler, and spend his life making little blots on scraps of paper… Nothing more, nothing less. There goes the money for my tuition, everything I spent; there goes high school, university, the vest, the frock coat, the brand-new boot; And then, just when you think you’ve got them covered, they’re back to piling on your shoulders… smoking and eating on their own… Yes, sir… I have three, three sons to spend and suck up, and none to help me… That’s how these young gentlemen are… wow! Segundo, standing with his features pinched, twisted the end of his mustache. They all stopped at the corner of the square, as is often the case when a conversation gets heated. “I don’t know where you get that from, Papa,” declared the poet. “Do you think I’ve decided not to go beyond Segundo García, the lawyer’s son? Well, you’re very mistaken. You’re probably eager to get rid of the burden I’m putting on you ; but I’m even more eager not to do it to you. ” “So then, what are you waiting for? Uncle’s proposing a thousand things to you, and none of them suit you. Do you want to start with Minister?” The poet gave his mustache new torment. “There’s no need to tire yourself out, Papa. I’d be a very poor employee in the post office and a worse judge. I don’t want to be tied to entering a given career, where everything is planned and proceeds in a prescribed manner… For that, I’d be a lawyer like you or a notary like Uncle Genday. If we really find Don Victoriano of good character, ask him for anything for me … an unnamed position that will allow me to reside in Madrid… I ‘ll manage it later. ” “You’ll manage it… Yes, yes, you speak well… You’ll write me little letters, eh? Like your brother in the Philippines… Well, serve as a government, I can’t … I didn’t steal what I have, nor do I make money. ” “I’m not asking for anything,” Segundo shouted with savage anger. “Am I in your way ?
Well, I’ll enlist in the army or I’ll run off to America… There, that’s the end of it.” —No, said the lawyer, calming himself. As long as you don’t demand any more sacrifices… —None… even if I were to die of hunger! The lawyer’s door opened: old Aunt Gaspara, in her petticoats, a mere wreck, came out to answer it; she wore a cotton handkerchief so low over her face that her sullen features were indistinguishable. Segundo recoiled at this image of domestic life. —Aren’t you coming in? his father asked. —I’m going with Uncle Genday. —Are you coming back soon? —Right away. He walked down the small square and explained his plans to Genday. The latter, tiny and phosphorescent in temperament, was moving like a lizard, approving. He wasn’t displeased with his nephew’s ideas. His active and organizing mind, that of an electoral agent and a cunning notary, accepted vast plans better than the methodical mind of Lawyer García. Uncle and nephew were very much in agreement about how to benefit from Don Victoriano’s influence. Chatting thus, they arrived at Genday’s house, and his maid , a pretty young woman, opened the door with all the flattery of an incorrigible bachelor’s servant. Instead of returning home, Segundo, worried and excited, went down to the road, stopped in the first chestnut grove, and sitting at the foot of a wooden cross that the Jesuits had left there during their last mission, indulged in the harmless pastime of gazing at the stars, the constellations, and all the other sidereal magnificences. Chapter 4. During the long siestas of Vilamorta, while the water-drinkers were digesting their glasses of mineral water and compensating for the early morning with a restorative lethargy, the amateur musicians of the popular band were rehearsing the pieces they would soon perform together. From the shoemaker’s shop came melancholic trills of a flute; from the baker’s shop , spirited and martial notes of a cornet resounded; from the tobacconist’s, a clarinet moaned; through the cloth warehouse, the stifled sighs of a figle wandered. Those who thus consecrated themselves to the cult of Euterpe were shop assistants, sons of families, the young element of Vilamorta. Such fragments of melody emerged with penetrating sonority from the lazy and warm atmosphere. When the news spread that Don Victoriano Andrés de la Comba and his family would arrive within twenty-four hours, to leave immediately for Las Vides, the brass band was already highly tuned and in tune, ready to thunder with series of waltzes, dances, and paso dobles in the ears of the distinguished man. An unusual stir was noticed in the town. Agonde’s house was opened, aired, and swept clean, clouds of dust pouring out of the windows. Agonde’s sister appeared shortly after, her hair in a fringe and a necklace of pearly shells. The housekeeper of the priest of Cebre, a famous cook, was bustling about in the kitchen, and the clang of the mortar and the sizzle of the oil could be heard. Two hours before five o’clock, when the carriage from Orense arrives, the distinguished figures of the Radical Communist Party are already sizing up the square, and Agonde is waiting on the threshold of his pharmacy, having sacrificed his classic velvet cap and slippers to the solemnity of the occasion , and wearing patent leather boots and an English frock coat, which makes him look shorter in neck and more paunchy. The carriage from Orense entered through the woods, and as its Jingle bells and handbells, the trot of his eight mules and horses, and the rumble of his heavy bulk, the residents of Vilamorta hung from their balconies and leaned out of their doorways; only the reactionary pharmacy remained closed and hostile. When the great contraption entered the square, the groups stirred; several barefoot children climbed onto the step, begging in plaintive voices for a farthing; the fruit sellers in the arcades sat up to get a better view, and only Cansín, the clothier, wearing slippers and his hands in his pockets, continued pacing his store from top to bottom, affecting Olympian indifference. The foreman reined in the team, saying in a conciliatory tone to a stubborn mule: “Eeeeeeh… All right, all right, Canon…” The band, formed in front of the town hall, broke out in a deafening prelude and the first rocket went off whistling, throwing off sparks… The group rushed en masse towards the door to offer a hand, an arm, anything… And a stout woman and a priest with his temples covered by a checked cotton handkerchief got out with difficulty… Agonde, with more laughter than anger, signaled to the band and the rocket-makers to stop their work. “He’s not coming yet! He’s not coming yet!” he shouted. In fact, the bus had no more people. The foreman wasted no time explaining. —They’re coming there, a couple of steps away, as they say… In the Count of Vilar’s carriage… In the carriage… Because of the lady… I’m bringing the luggage here… And they paid for their seats as if they were occupying them… It wasn’t long before the rhythmic, twin trot of the Count of Vilar’s trunk was heard, and the open carriage, of archaic form, entered majestically into the square. A man was reclining in the back , wrapped, despite the heat, in a cloth coat; beside him, a woman in a gray drill raincoat, the whimsical brim of her traveling hat standing out against the pure blue of the sky . In the front seat, a girl of about ten years old, and a mademoiselle, a kind of ultra-Pyrenean nanny . Second, having lagged behind when the coach arrived, he was unable to approach the step. This time he was less reluctant, and the hand that, covered with a long Swedish glove, was reaching out for support, found another, pressing energetically and nervously. The minister’s wife looked at the gallant with surprise, gave him a reserved nod, and, taking the arm offered to her by Agonde, walked briskly into the pharmacy. The politician took longer to dismount. His supporters looked at him in surprise. He had changed greatly since his last stay in Vilamorta—eight or ten years before, in the midst of the revolution. His slate-gray hair, whiter at the temples, emphasized the yellowness of his skin; the whites of his eyes were also yellow and streaked with blood; and his face, plowed and withered, bore visible signs of the troubles of social struggle, the vicissitudes of political banking, and the sedentary labors of the forum. His body seemed to be wasted, lacking the poise, the attitude that betrays physical vigor. Nevertheless , when the handshakes became more frequent, when the _so many good things_… _finally_… _after a thousand years_… resounded around him with flattering murmurs, the lifeless gladiator regained his strength, straightened himself, and a friendly smile spread across his dry lips, lending a pleasing expression to his already stern mouth. He even opened his arms to Genday, who moved in them with the fluttering of an eel, and patted the mayor on the shoulders. García the lawyer tried to make himself visible and stand out from the group, murmuring in the grave tone of someone expressing opinions on very delicate matters: “Come on, now up, up, to rest, to have a drink…” Finally, the turmoil calmed down, and the personage went up to the pharmacy, and after him García, Genday, the mayor, and Segundo. In Agonde’s parlor they sat down, respectfully leaving the gooseberry rep sofa
to Don Victoriano, and forming a semicircle of chairs and armchairs around them. A little later the ladies appeared, now without their hats, and it was then clear that the lady from Comba was pretty and fresh, resembling, more than a mother, an older sister to the girl. With her copious shock of hair falling down her back, her seriousness like that of a precocious young woman, she had a sad, ethically sapling appearance; while her mother, a smiling blonde, displayed great freshness. They spoke of the trip, of the fertile banks of the Avieiro, of the weather, of the road; the conversation was cooling when Agonde’s sister opportunely entered, preceding the priest’s housekeeper, laden with two enormous trays on which steaming cups of chocolate were simmering, since the guests had no idea what supper was about . By placing it on the table, serving it, and passing it around, the gathering was enlivened. The people of Vilamorta, finding a topic suitable for their oratorical faculties, began to urge the strangers, praising the excellence of the delicacies, and, calling Mrs. Comba by her first name and adding an affectionate diminutive to the girl’s, they dissolved into exclamations and questions. —Nieves, is the hot chocolate to your liking? —Do you usually have it light or thick? —Nieves, this pinch of Maimón sponge cake is for me: it’s something superior, which only we know how to make here. —Victoriniña, come on, let’s lose our shame: this fresh butter tastes great with warm bread. —A little piece of toasted sponge cake? Ahaha! There’s no such thing in Madrid, is there?
—No, answered the girl’s clear, prim voice… In Madrid we used to have buñuelos and churros with hot chocolate. —It’s not the custom here to have buñuelos, but rather little biscuits… This on top, the golden stuff… That’s nothing: a little bird would peck at it… Don Victoriano intervened in the debate , raising the price of bread: he couldn’t eat it; They had forbidden it altogether, since his illness prevented him from eating starches and gluten, to the point that they used to send him loaves from France prepared ad hoc, without any glucogenic element; and as he said this, he turned to Agonde, who approved, showing he understood the term. And Don Victoriano felt the prohibition doubly so, because he found nothing comparable to the bread of Vilamorta: better in its kind than sponge cake, yes sir. The people of Vilamorta laughed, very flattered in their pride; but García, shaking his head sententiously, explained that the bread was already declining; that it wasn’t like it used to be, and that only Pellejo, the baker from the plaza, kneaded it conscientiously, having the saintly composure to select the wheat grain by grain, and not admitting any that had been bitten by the weevils; that’s why the bread turned out so tasty and so firm. There was a discussion about whether bread should have eyes or not, and whether it was indigestible when hot. Don Victoriano, revived by these trivialities, spoke of his childhood, of the lumps of bread spread with butter or honey that he was given for a snack; and when he added that his uncle the priest also used to administer him a good beating, his smile softened the sunken lines of his face again. His expression softened with this effusion, erasing the years of combat and the scars of his wounds, and displaying a reflection of his bygone youth. How he longed to see again in Las Vides a trellis from which he had stolen grapes a thousand times as a boy! “You’ll still steal them now,” Clodio Genday exclaimed cheerfully. ” We’ll tell the gentleman of Las Vides to post a guard on the Jaén vine. ” The joke was shared with supreme hilarity, and the little girl let out her high-pitched giggle at the thought of her father stealing grapes. Segundo did nothing but smile. His eyes were fixed on Don Victoriano and he thought about his destiny. He reviewed the character’s entire history: at Segundo’s age, Don Victoriano was also an obscure little lawyer, buried in Vilamorta, eager to break out of his shell. He had gone to Madrid, where a famous jurist took him on as a clerk. The jurist was tempted by politics, and Don Victoriano followed in his footsteps. How did he begin to flourish? Thick shadows surrounded his genesis. Some said _rres_ and others _haches_. Vilamorta found him, when he least realized it, a candidate and deputy: by then he was almost thirty-five, and his talent and future were exaggerated. Once he was in Congress, Don Victoriano’s importance grew, and when the September Revolution came, it found him high enough to improvised a minister for him. His brief ministry gave him no time to wear himself out or demonstrate any special talents, and, with his prestige almost intact, the Restoration admitted him to a fusionist cabinet. He had just let go of his portfolio and came to recover his broken health in his native country, where his influence was incontestable and robust, thanks to his connection with the illustrious house of Méndez de las Vides… Segundo wondered if the fate of Don Victoriano would satisfy his aspirations. Don Victoriano had money: shares in the bank and railroads, on whose board of directors the able jurist appeared… Our versifier raised his eyebrows disdainfully and looked at the minister’s wife: that gentle beauty certainly did not love her owner. She was the daughter of de las Vides’s second son, a magistrate: she would have married deluded by the position. By God! The poet did not envy the politician. Why had that man risen to prominence? What extraordinary gifts did he possess? A vague parliamentary orator, a passive minister, some forensic ability … In short, mediocrity… While Segundo’s mind was elaborating these thoughts, Mrs. Comba amused herself by analyzing the costumes and appearances of those present. Through half-closed eyes, she analyzed Carmen Agonde’s entire attire, squeezed into a tight, deep blue bodice that drew the blood from her flushed cheeks. She then lowered her mocking glance to the pharmacist’s patent leather boots and raised it again to Clodio Genday’s cigar-rimmed toes and the lawyer García’s purple-and-white checked velvet vest. Finally, she rested on Segundo, investigating some detail of his attire. But she was repelled like a shield by another fixed, ardent gaze. Chapter 5. Agonde got up early and went down to the pharmacy, leaving his guests asleep, and Carmen in charge of putting the chocolate in their mouths as soon as they were awake. The apothecary wanted to enjoy the effect produced in the town by Don Victoriano’s stay. He was leaning back on the gutta-percha couch when he saw Tropiezo cross, riding his brown mule, and he said to him: “Hello, hello… Where are you going so early in the morning? ” “To Doas, man… I need him all the time.” And as he said this, the doctor dismounted, tying his saddle to a ring embedded in the wall. “Is it so urgent? ” “Tssss! The old woman, Ramón the confectioner’s grandmother… She says she ‘s already in the sacraments. ” “And they’re sending the message now? ” “No; If I went the day before yesterday… and I gave him two dozen leeches that bled profusely… He looked like a kid… He was very weak, like a wafer… Maybe if instead of leeches I give him something else I was thinking… —Come on, a _stumble_, Agonde interrupted maliciously. —In life, everything is a stumble… the doctor replied, shrugging his shoulders. And above? he added, looking at the ceiling. —Like princes… snoring. —And… him… how is he? Don Fermín spelled out, lowering his voice. —Him? Agonde pronounced it imitating him… Like… like that… a bit old! With a lot of white hair… —But then what does he have, let’s see? Because he is, he is sick. —He has… a new disease, very rare, one of the latest fashions… And Agonde smiled mischievously. —New? Agonde narrowed his eyes, pressed his mouth close to Tropiezo’s ear, and uttered two words, a verb and a noun. “…sugar.” Tropiezo burst out laughing loudly; suddenly he became very serious and repeatedly rubbed his nose with his index finger. “I know, I know,” he declared emphatically… I read about it a little while ago… It’s called… wait, hom… _di_… _saccharin diabetes_, which comes from _sácar_, sugar… and from… Precisely the waters from here and others in France are the only ones that cure that evil! If he drinks a few glasses from the fountain, we’ll have a man. ” Tropiezo issued his pronouncement, leaning on the counter, no longer remembering the little mule that was kicking at the door. Winking an eye, he suddenly asked : “And what does the lady say about her husband’s illness? ” “What can she say, man! She won’t know it’s serious.” A grimace of indescribable and coarse mockery metamorphosed across the doctor’s expressionless face; he looked at Agonde and, stifling another burst of laughter, said: “The lady… The lady certainly wouldn’t know! Have you read the symptoms of the illness? Well, exactly… ” “Shh!” the apothecary interrupted furiously. The entire Comba family was bursting into the pharmacy through the doorway. Mother and daughter formed a pretty group, both wearing enormous hats of coarse straw, adorned with a colossal ribbon of flame-colored wool; their raw cloth dresses, embroidered with red braid, completed the rustic look, resembling a bouquet of poppies and hay. The child’s rich shock of dark hair hung down, while the mother’s blond tresses tangled in the shadow of the brim of her large hat. Nieves wasn’t wearing gloves, nor were there any traces of rice powder or other cosmetic tricks on her skin, unjustly attributed by provincial women to those from Madrid. On the contrary, signs of vigorous washing and rubbing with a towel were visible on her rosy ears and neck. As for Don Victoriano, the morning light better revealed the devastation of his countenance. He wasn’t, according to Agonde’s saying, old: what was evident there was virility; but tormented, exhausted, mortally wounded.
“Jesus, Maria! Have you had any chocolate?” asked Agonde, confused. “No, my friend Saturnino… nor will we, with your permission, until you return… Don’t worry about us… Victorina has looted your cupboard… your sideboard…” The girl opened a handkerchief that she had tied at the four corners, revealing a pile of bread, biscuits, and local cheese. —At least I’ll bring you a whole cheese… I’ll go see if there’s fresh bread, right now… Don Victoriano didn’t want it; for God’s sake, he shouldn’t be deprived of the pleasure of going to the water avenue for breakfast, just like when he was a boy. Agonde observed that such foods weren’t healthy for him; and upon hearing this, Tropiezo scratched his ear and murmured in a skeptical tone: —Bah, bah, bah… These are new things for him, novelties… What’s healthy for the body, will you take it? It’s what the body asks for and demands… If the gentleman craves bread… And for your illness, Señor Don Victoriano, there’s nothing like these waters anymore. I don’t know why people are giving money to the French when we have better things here. The minister looked at Tropiezo with lively interest. He remembered his last consultation with Sánchez del Abrojo and the pursed lips with which the learned physician had said: “I would send you to Carlsbad or Vichy… but waters are not always indicated… Sometimes they hasten the natural course of illnesses… Rest for a while and observe your regimen: we’ll see how you return in the fall…” What a devilish face Sánchez del Abrojo had when he spoke like that! A reserved, sphinx-like physiognomy. _Tropiezo_’s explicit statement aroused tumultuous hopes in Don Victoriano. That village doctor must have known a lot from experience: perhaps more than the plump court doctors. “Come on, Papa,” the girl pleaded, tugging at his sleeve. They set off. Vilamorta, an early riser by nature, was busier then than in the afternoon. The shops were open ; the fruit baskets were full; Cansín measured his store with his hands in his pockets, pretending not to notice by not greeting Agonde or acknowledging his triumph; Pellejo, covered in flour, was bargaining with three bakers from Cebre, who were asking for good wheat; Ramón, the confectioner, was tapping a large board full of pounds of chocolate on the counter, and before they had completely cooled, he quickly branded them with an iron. The morning was clear, and the sun was already shining more than it should have. The procession, swelled by García and Genday, entered through small orchards and cornfields to the entrance of the avenue. Don Victoriano exclaimed with joy. It was the same double row of elms, aligned above the river, the foaming and playful Avieiro, which trickled down to gushing, in gentle cascades, with a most pleasant murmur, kissing the rocks worn smooth by the friction of the current. He recognized the thick willow groves; he remembered the whole _saudal_ yesterday, and, moved, he leaned against the parapet of the avenue. The place was almost deserted; half a dozen, at most, withered and bilious water-dwellers were pacing slowly, talking in low voices about their sufferings, belching the bicarbonate of the water. Nieves, reclining on a stone bench, contemplated the river. The girl touched her shoulder. “Mama, the boy from yesterday.” On the other bank, on a rock, Segundo García was standing, distracted, with his straw hat pushed back and his hand on his hip, no doubt to maintain his balance in such a dangerous position. Nieves scolded the girl. —Don’t be silly, daughter… You gave me a scare… Say hello to that gentleman. —He’s not looking… Ah! He already looked… Say hello to him, Mommy… He takes off his hat… he’s going to slip… Oh no! He’s in a safe place now… Don Victoriano was descending the stone steps that led to the mineral spring. The naiad lived in a poor grotto: a shed supported by rough posts, a narrow basin from which the spring overflowed, some filthy pigpens for bathing, and a strong and nauseating smell of rotten eggs, caused by the stagnation of the sulfurous water, were all that the demanding tourist found there. Nevertheless, Don Victoriano’s soul was flooded with the purest joy. That naiad epitomized youth, lost youth: the years of illusions, of hopes as fresh as the banks of the Avieiro River. How many mornings had he come to drink from the fountain as a joke, to wash his face with the water that was renowned in the country for its stupendous medicinal properties for the eyes! Don Victoriano stretched out both hands, dipped them in the warm stream, feeling it slip through his fingers with delight, playing with it and touching it as one touches the flesh of a loved one. But the swaying body of the naiad slipped away from him just as youth slips away: it was impossible to stop it. Then the former minister’s thirst awoke. There, on the edge of the basin, stood a glass; and the lifeguard, a poor doddering old fool, offered it to him with an idiotic smile. Don Victoriano drank, closing his eyes, with inexplicable pleasure, savoring the mysterious water, enchanted by the magical arts of memory. After draining the glass, he straightened up and climbed the stairs with a firm, springy step . In the avenue, Victorina, who was having breakfast with bread and cheese, was astonished when her father jovially took a lump of bread from her lap, saying: “We all belong to God.” Chapter 6. Almost as much as the arrival of Don Victoriano was the arrival of the Lord of the Vines himself, accompanied by his steward, Primo Genday. This memorable event occurred on the afternoon of the day when Don Victoriano broke the rules of science by eating half a pound of fresh bread. At three o’clock, under a blazing sun, Genday the Major and Méndez entered the plaza, the latter riding a powerful mule, the former on a medium-sized nag. The Lord of the Vines was a very old man, as withered as a vine shoot. His exquisitely shaved cheeks, his thin lips, his aristocratically pointed beard and nose, his benevolent, malicious eyes with their thousand crow’s-feet wrinkles, his intelligent profile, his hairless face, all cried out for the curled wig, the embroidered jacket, and the gold snuffbox of the Campomanes and Arandas families. His sharp and subtle physiognomy contrasted sharply with that of Primo Genday. The butler had the pale, rosy complexion, the fine, transparent skin of a hemiplegic, beneath which injected veins branch. Of his greenish eyes, one seemed attached to a straight, drooping eyelid, and the other rolled, moistened, with a roguish vivacity. His silver-white, very curly hair gave him a distant resemblance to King Louis Philippe, just as his effigy preserves the stamp of Napoleon. Through a combination common in small towns, Primo Genday and his brother Clodio were active in opposing political factions, possessing a single will and striving for the same ends. Clodio was a well-known figure among the radicals: Primo was the mainstay of the Carlist party, and in times of need, during electoral contests, they would shake hands over the wall. As the trot of Primo Genday’s nag resounded on the sidewalk, the balconies of the reactionary pharmacy opened , and two or three hands waved in a sign of affectionate welcome. Primo stopped, and Méndez continued his way until he reached the Agonde gate, dismounting there. He was welcomed by Don Victoriano’s arms, and disappeared into the depths of the staircase. The mule remained tied to the ring, kicking as hard as it could, while the curious onlookers in the plaza regarded with respect the hidalgo’s ancient trappings, studded with silver on the worked leather, already gleaming with use. Little by little , individuals of the donkey and horse breed began to gather around the mule, led by the right hand, and the people distributed them with great skill. The bailiff’s chestnut nag, a fine figure, with its tortoiseshell and silk headstall, would be for the minister, for sure. The black donkey, with its ham-padded red velvet chair, would undoubtedly be for the lady. The girl would get the other tame white colt. The mayor’s donkey would be for the maiden. Agonde would ride his usual mare, Morena, with more ridges on her hocks than bristles on her tail. Meanwhile, the radicals— García, Clodio, Genday, and Ramón—were examining their mounts and the condition of their gear, calculating the chances of success offered by the attempt to reach Las Vides before nightfall. The lawyer shook his head, saying emphatically and sententiously: “They’re taking a lot of time for that— ” “And they’re bringing Don Victoriano the bailiff’s horse!” exclaimed the tobacconist. “Rinchón, like a demon! There’s going to be hell to pay here… You, Segundo, when you mounted him… did he do anything to you? ” “Nothing to me… But he’s cheerful. ” “You’ll see, you’ll see.” The travelers were already leaving, and the cavalcade began to get ready. The ladies secured themselves in their jamúas, and the men sat in the stirrups. Then the drama announced by the tobacconist was enacted, causing a great uproar and further delaying the procession. The sheriff’s nag had scarcely sniffed at a female of his breed when he began to snort in a fit of rage, uttering passionate whinnies. Don Victoriano gathered the reins, but the feisty animal didn’t even feel the iron in its mouth, and at first rearing up, then launching brave kicks, and finally turning its head to bite its rider’s thigh, it did so much that Don Victoriano, somewhat pale, thought it prudent to dismount. Agonde, furious, also dismounted. “What the hell is that horse?” he shouted. “Now, you two brutes… Who ordered you to bring the sheriff’s horse? It seems you don’t know what a beast it is! You… Mayor… or you, García… quick… Requinto’s mule, which is just a few paces away… Señor Don Victoriano, take my mare… And that tiger, to the stable with him.” —No, objected Segundo… I’ll ride him, since he’s already saddled. I’ll go to the crossroads. No sooner said than done: Segundo, armed with a strong stick, grabbed the nag by the mane and leaped into the saddle. Instead of leaning on the stirrup, he pressed his thighs together, while raining down a shower of tremendous blows on the animal’s head. The animal, which was already heading for the steep slope, let out a whinny of pain and subdued its spirits, remaining still, trembling, and tame. The cavalcade began to move as soon as Requinto’s mule arrived, not without prior handshakes, hat tips, and even a shameful “hurray!” from who knows where. The procession took off down the road, the mare and mules leading the way, and the donkeys staying behind, beside whom rode the nag, honest with all the whipping. The sun was already setting, gilding the dust on the road, the chestnut trees were extending their shadows, and a gentle breeze was rising from the valley, carrying the humidity of the river. Segundo remained silent. Victorina, delighted to be riding on the donkey’s back, smiled, struggling in vain to hide her pointed kneecaps with her dress, which the rigging board forced her to raise and uncover. Nieves, leaning against the hammock, held her ecru lace parasol with a transparent rose, and as she began to walk, she took a tiny watch from her chest and checked the time. Embarrassing moments. Finally, Segundo understood the need to say something. “How are you, Victorina? Are we doing all right?” The girl blushed extraordinarily, as if she were being asked very private and intimate questions, and said in a muffled voice: “Yes, very well. ” “Would you rather ride on my horse? If you’re not afraid, I’ll take you in front. ” The girl, who could not have been more embarrassed by now, lowered her eyes without answering, but her mother, with a gracious smile, intervened in the conversation. —And tell me, García, why don’t you address the girl informally? You treat her with such respect… She’ll think she’s already gone for it. —Without your permission, I won’t dare address her informally. —Come on, Victorina, give this gentleman permission… The girl shut herself up in the invincible silence of adolescents, in whom exquisite and early sensitivity produces an extremely painful shyness. Her lips smiled, and her eyes, at the same time, filled with tears. Mademoiselle said something to her in French, with great gentleness, and meanwhile Nieves and Segundo, laughing confidentially over the episode, had the paths of conversation open. “What time do you think we’ll arrive at Las Vides? Is it pretty there? Will we be comfortable there? How will Victoriano like it? What kind of life will we lead? Will people come to see us? Is there a garden?” “Las Vides is a beautiful place,” declared Segundo… “A place that has an ancient air, a kind of… stately air. I like the stonework , and a magnificent grapevine that covers the entrance courtyard, and the camellias and lemon trees in the orchard, which have the appearance of medium-sized chestnut trees, and the view of the river, and above all, a pine grove that talks and even sings… don’t laugh, please… it sings, yes, madam, better than most professional singers. Don’t you think so? Well, you’ll see.” Nieves looked at the young man with great curiosity, and then pretended to look elsewhere, remembering the quick and nervous pressure of his hand she had noticed the day before when she got out of the carriage. For the second time in the space of a few hours, that young man surprised her. Nieves led an extremely proper, mesocratic life in Madrid, without any incident that wasn’t commonplace. She went to mass and to the shops in the morning; in the afternoon to the Retiro or to visit; at night, to her parents’ house, or to the theater with her husband; for the most extraordinary, a dance or dinner at the home of the Duke and Duchess of Puenteancha, clients of Don Victoriano. When Victoriano obtained the portfolio, he showed his wife little. Nieves received a few more greetings in the Retiro; in the shops, the clerks were more obsequious; the Duchess of Puenteancha recommended her, calling her “lovely,” and that was all that the pleasures of the ministry came to for Nieves. Coming to Vilamorta, to the picturesque country her father had spoken so much about, was a new incident in her leisurely existence. Segundo seemed to her an original detail of the trip. He looked at her and spoke in such an unusual way… Well, apprehensions. Between that boy and her, there was nothing in common. A superficial relationship, like two hundred one finds at every turn … So the pines were singing, eh? Bad year for Gayarre! And Nieves laughed affably, hiding her strange thoughts, and continued asking questions, to which Segundo responded with expressive phrases. Night was approaching. Suddenly the cavalcade, leaving the main road, turned onto a path opened between pine trees and mountains. Turning from the path, the dark stone cross appeared, romantic, with its steps that invited one to pray or to dream sentimental ravings. Agonde stopped there, bidding farewell to the procession, and Segundo imitated him. As the tinkling of the bells on the altar faded, little donkeys, Segundo felt an inexplicable sense of loneliness and abandonment, as if people he loved very much or who played a very important role in his life were leaving him forever . Brave fool! the poet said to himself. What do I have to do with these people, nor they with me? Nieves has invited me to go to Las Vides to spend a few days _with her family_… With her family! When Nieves returns to Madrid this winter, she will say of me: “That lawyer’s boy, whom we met in Vilamorta…” “Who am I, what position would I occupy in the house? Entirely secondary. That of a boy who is flattered because his father has the votes…” While Segundo was pondering, the apothecary approached him, finally pairing horse and mule. The clarity of twilight showed the poet Agonde’s placid smile, his russet cheeks embellished by a lustrous black mustache, his expression of sensual kindness and epicurean beatitude. Enviable, the apothecary’s condition! That man was happy in his comfortable and clean pharmacy, with his friendly gathering, his cap and his embroidered slippers, taking life as one takes a glass of stomach-boosting liquor, savored and digested in peace and in the grace of God and in good harmony with the other guests at the banquet of existence. Why shouldn’t what satisfied Agonde completely be enough for Segundo? Where did this thirst for something that wasn’t precisely money, pleasure, triumphs, or love affairs come from? He had everything and encompassed everything, and perhaps could not be quenched by anything? “Segundo. ” “Eh?” he answered, turning his head toward Agonde. “Boy, you’re keeping quiet! What do you think of the minister?” “What do you want me to think?” “And the lady…? Come on, you must have noticed her… She’s wearing black silk stockings , like the priests! By the time he got on the donkey… ” “I’m going to make a run for Vilamorta. Are you up for it, Saturno? ” “Run away on this mule? I’d arrive with my guts in my mouth! Go ahead, if your heart tells you to. ” The nag would gallop for about half a league, urged on by the rider’s staff. As they approached the riverbank, Segundo set him back to a very slow pace. He could hardly be seen now, and the coolness of the Avieiro River grew more humid and sticky. Segundo remembered that he hadn’t set foot in Leocadia’s house for two or three days. Surely the teacher was wasting away, weeping, and waiting for him at all hours. This thought was immediately balm for Segundo’s ulcerated spirit. Leocadia loved him so much! So extraordinary was her joy, so vivid were her expressions upon seeing him enter! She was so moved by the poet’s words and verses! And why didn’t he feel the enthusiasm? Segundo had never deigned to reap even half of such boundless and absolute love; and of the beautiful caresses sung by the muse, he chose for Leocadia the least lyrical, the least dreamy; just as from the money we carry in our pockets we set aside the gold and silver, leaving the small change, the most mendicant farthing, for the importunate poor . Segundo bargained over the treasures of passion. A thousand times , strolling through the countryside, he would gather in his hat a harvest of violets, wild hyacinths, and flowering blackberry branches; and upon reaching the town, he would throw the flowers into the river, rather than take them back to Leocadia. Chapter 7. As she distributed the task to the girls, saying to one: “That little hem is very straight,” and to another: “The stitching is more even, the stitching is more fine,” and to this one: “You mustn’t blow your nose on your dress, but on your handkerchief,” and to the one beyond: “Don’t stamp your feet, woman, stay very still.” Leocadia turned her eyes from time to time toward the little square, in case Segundo felt like passing by. No sign of Segundo. The flies, buzzing, settled on the roof to sleep; the heat subsided; evening came, and the girls left. Leocadia felt profoundly sad, and without bothering to tidy the room, she went to her bedroom and lay down on the bed. They gently pushed open the glass window, and someone entered with very soft feet. “Mama,” she said in a low voice. The teacher didn’t answer. “Mama, Mama,” the hunchback repeated more loudly. “Mama!” he finally shouted . “Is that you? What can I do? ” “Are you sick? ” “No, man. ” “Since you went to bed… ” “I’ve got a bit of a headache… Leave me alone.” Minguitos turned around and walked silently toward the door. Seeing the prominence of his arched spine, the teacher felt a pang in her heart. That arch had cost her so many tears in the past! She raised herself up on one elbow. “Minguitos! ” “Mama? ” “Don’t go… How are you today? Does anything hurt? ” “I’m okay, Mama… It’s just my chest that hurts. ” “Let’s see… come here?” Leocadia sat on the bed and took the child’s head in both hands, looking into his face with the hungry gaze of a mother. Minguitos had a long, melancholic face; The protruding lower jaw was in harmony with the distorted, tortured character evident in the rest of his body, resembling a cracked building, destroyed by an earthquake, a tree twisted by a hurricane. Minguitos’s hump wasn’t congenital: he was born delicate, though, and it was always noticeable that his skull weighed heavily and his weak little legs held up poorly… Leocadia recalled the details of his childhood, one by one… At five, the boy fell, tumbling down the stairs; from that day on, he lost all his vitality; he walked little and never ran; he took to sitting like a Moor, playing tag for hours on end. If he stood up, his legs immediately told him: “Stop!” When he stood, his movements were hesitant and clumsy. When still, he felt no pain, but twisting movements caused him slight back pain. As time went by, the discomfort grew: the child complained of a sort of iron belt or ring pressing on his chest. Then the mother, now frightened, consulted a renowned doctor, the best in Orense. He was prescribed iodine rubs, a large amount of phosphate of lime , and sea baths. Leocadia rushed with him to a small port… After two or three baths, the condition worsened: the child could not bend over, his spine was rigid, and only in a horizontal position could the sick man withstand the already acute pain. From lying down, his skin became sore; and one morning, when Leocadia, weeping, begged him to sit up and tried to help him sit up by holding him by the armpits, he let out a horrible scream. “I’ve split, Mama! I’ve split!” he repeated anguishedly, while his mother’s trembling hands ran over his body, searching for the pupa. It was true! The spine had been raised, forming an angle at the level of the shoulder blades; the softened vertebrae were depressed, and the kyphosis, the hump, the indelible mark of eternal misfortune, already marred that piece of Leocadia’s insides! The teacher had experienced a moment of animal and sublime pain, the pain of a beast that sees its cub mutilated. She had wept with howls, cursing the doctor, cursing herself, tearing at her hair and scratching her face. Then the tears flowed, the delirious but soothing and sweet kisses came, and affection took on a resigned form. For nine years, Leocadia did nothing but care for her little hunchback night and day, sheltering him with her tenderness, distracting him with ingenious inventions from the leisurely pursuits of her sedentary childhood. A thousand details came flooding back to Leocadia’s memory . The child suffered from persistent dyspnea due to the pressure of the sunken vertebrae on the respiratory organs, and the mother would get up barefoot late at night to hear if he was breathing properly and to raise his pillows… As she recalled these memories, Leocadia felt her soul soften and something like the remains of a great love stir deep within her, like the warm ashes of an immense fire, and she experienced the instinctive reaction of motherhood, the irresistible impulse that makes mothers see only in their adult child the child they had suckled and protected, to whom they would give their blood if only he were alive. They lacked milk. And exhaling a squeal of passion, pressing her feverish, lover’s mouth to the little hunchback’s pale temples, she exclaimed the same thing she had on other days, resorting to dialect as if to a coo: “Malpocadiño! Who loves you?… Say, who loves you very much? Who? ” “You don’t love me, Mama. You don’t love me,” he articulated, half-smiling, reclining his head with delight on that breast and shoulders that had sheltered his sad childhood. His mother, meanwhile, was madly kissing his hair, his neck, his eyes—as if making up for lost time—lavishing him with the sugary words that suckling children are enraptured with, words profaned in hours of passion, which now returned to their pure maternal channel . “Rich… treasure… king… my glory…” Finally, the hunchback felt a tear fall on his skin. Delicious refreshment! At first, the round, thick drop of tears almost burned; but it spread, evaporated, and remained only in the place bathed by a pleasant coolness. Vehement phrases thronged the lips of mother and son. “Do you love me so much, so much, so much? The same as always? ” “The same, my dear, my darling. ” “Will you love me always?” “Always, always, my darling. ” “Will you please me, Mama? I wanted to ask you… ” “What? ” “A favor… Don’t turn your face away!” The hunchback noticed his mother’s body suddenly become inflexible and rigid, as if an iron shaft had been driven into her. He could no longer feel the sweet warmth of her moistened eyelids and the tickling of her wet eyelashes. In a somewhat metallic voice, Leocadia asked her son: “So what do you want? Let’s see?” Minguitos murmured without rancor, resigned now: “Nothing, Mom, nothing… It was just a laugh. ” “But then, why did you say it? ” “Nothing. Nothing, by God. ” “Nothing, you said it for a reason,” the teacher insisted, seizing on the excuse to get angry. “But you’re very sneaky and very cunning. You keep everything in your little pocket, very secret. Those are lessons from Flores: do you think I’m not responsible?” Saying this, she rejected the boy and jumped out of bed. Almost at the same time, a firm tapping of a young person’s heels was heard in the corridor. Leocadia shuddered and, stammering: “Go on, go to Flores…” she ordered Minguitos. “Leave me alone, I’m not fit, and you’re making me even more confused.” Segundo arrived, somewhat clouded, and after the joy of seeing him, Leocadia was seized by the desire to clear the clouds from his face. First , she summoned patience and waited. Then, throwing her arms around his neck, she complained: Where had he been? How had he taken so long to come? The poet gave vent to his bad mood: well, it was unbearable to be in the retinue of a famous figure. And, allowing himself to be carried away by the pleasure of talking about whatever occupied his imagination, he described Don Victoriano and the radicals, satirized Agonde’s reception and lodging , explained the hopes he based on the protection of the former minister, and with them motivated the need to pay court to Don Victoriano. Leocadia fixed her canine gaze on Segundo’s face. “And how about… the lady… and the girl? You say they’re very pretty?” Segundo narrowed his eyes to better see an attractive, enchanting image within himself , and to reflect that he played no role in Nieves’s existence, and that it was manifest foolishness to think of Mrs. Comba, who didn’t remember him. This idea, quite natural and simple, brought him out of his senses. He felt the piercing nostalgia for the inaccessible, that senseless and unbridled desire that instills in a dreamer the sight of a portrait of a beautiful woman, dead for centuries, in a museum. “But tell me… are those ladies so pretty?” the teacher continued. “Their mother, yes,” Segundo replied, speaking with the indifferent sincerity of one who dominates his audience. “She has ash-blond hair and blue eyes, a light blue, that recall the verses of Bécquer…” And he began to recite: ” Your pupil is blue, and when you laugh, its soft clarity reminds me…” Leocadia listened to him, at first, with her eyes lowered; then, with her face turned away. As soon as he finished the poem, she said in an altered voice, feigning serenity: “They’d invite you to go there. ” “Where? ” “To Las Vides, my friend. He says they want people to entertain them. ” “Yes, they’ve invited me, urging me very much… I won’t go. Uncle Clodio insists that I should become close to Don Victoriano, so that he can give me a hand in Madrid and clear the way for me… But, my dear, I don’t like going to play a miserable role. This suit is the best I have, and it’s from last year. If we’re playing tresillo, or if we have to tip the servants… And my father can’t be convinced of that… nor will I try, God forbid. So they won’t see a hair of me at Las Vides.” Upon learning of these plans, Leocadia’s face cleared, and rising, radiant with satisfaction, the teacher ran into the kitchen. Flores, by the light of a candle, was washing plates and cups, angrily banging the crockery and furiously rubbing it with a scouring pad. “That coffee machine, did you clean it? ” “Now, now,” the old woman replied. “It seems like he’s a wooden one, who won’t get tired… who has to do everything by air… ” “Daca, I’ll clean it… Add more wood, that fire’s going out and the steaks are going to turn out bad…” And so saying, Leocadia rubbed the machine, unclogs the filter with a knitting needle , put fresh water to boil in a new pot, and stoked the fire. “Add it, add wood!” Flores snorted. “They’re giving it to you for nothing!” Leocadia ignored her, busy cutting thin rounds of potato for the steaks. Having prepared what she deemed necessary, she washed her hands quickly and poorly in the dumpster’s jug, filled with dirty water, iridescent with large patches of filth. She ran to the living room where Segundo was waiting, and Flores was soon bringing them dinner, which they ate at the nightstand. Turning to the coffee, Segundo became somewhat more communicative. This coffee was Leocadia’s triumph. She had bought a set of English china, an imitation lacquer pot, some vermeil tongs, two silver teaspoons, and she always served with the coffee a decanter stocked with cumen, rum, and anisette. She enjoyed watching Segundo pour himself two cups of coffee in a row and savor the liqueurs. After the third glass of cumen, seeing the poet affable and propitious, Leocadia put her arm around his neck. He stepped back abruptly , noticing with intense repulsion the smell of stews and parsley that permeated the teacher’s clothes. This happened at the very moment when Minguitos dropped his shoes to the floor and sighed, covering himself with the quilt. Flores, sitting on a low chair, began to pray the rosary. To fall asleep, the sick man needed the mechanical lullaby of the hoarse voice that lulled him to sleep, ever since his mother’s company was gone at bedtime. The _Ave Marias_ and _Gloria Patris_, mumbled better than spoken, were gradually dulling his thoughts, and when he reached the litany he fell asleep and, half-lost, he could hardly reply to the old woman’s atrocious barbarities: _Juana celi_… Ora pro nobis… _Sal es enfirmó run_… nobis… _Rejajos pecadóun_… bis… _Conseláte flitórun_… sss… The child responded only with his breathing, which passed unevenly, restlessly, labored between his sleepy lips… Flores slowly extinguished the wind-up candle, took off her shoes so as not to make a noise, and withdrew little by little, leaning against the dining room wall. Since Minguitos had been resting, no more clattering of dishes had been heard in the kitchen. Chapter 8. It wasn’t until very late that the Swan blew out the brass candlestick where the thrifty Aunt Gaspara, always reluctantly, placed a tallow candle. Seated at the small table, among the scattered books, he had in front of him a sheet of paper, already half covered with uneven lines, mottled with blots and erasures, with mounds of sand and the occasional scribble. Segundo wouldn’t sleep a wink all night if He didn’t write the poetry that had been racing through his head from the crossbar. Except that, before picking up the pen, it seemed to him that inspiration lay there, perfect and complete, so that with a turn of the tap, it would burst forth in torrents. And as soon as his fingers pressed the blessed pen, the verses, instead of bursting forth with force, hid, evaporated. Some stanzas fell onto the paper, rounded and easy, topped with harmonious and opportune consonants, with a certain sonority and sweetness very delightful to the author himself, who, fearful of losing them, wrote them down on the fly, in uneven handwriting. But of others, only the first two lines and perhaps the final one occurred to him, resounding and of great effect, and the third rhyme was missing; it was essential to catch it, fill that gap, ingest the rubble. The poet would stop, staring at the ceiling and searching with his teeth for a stub of his mustache to bite, and then his idle pen would trace, obeying the automatic impulses of his hand, a tricorn hat, a comet, or some such nonsense… Sometimes, having erased seven or eight rhymes, he would finally resign himself to the ninth, no better and no worse than the previous ones. It also happened that an importunate syllable would spoil a verse, and you should go look for another adverb, another adjective, because if not… And the accents? If the poet had the privilege of saying, for example , _my heart_ instead of _my heart_, it would be so convenient to rhyme! Damned technical difficulties! The inspiration encouraged and burned, like a sacred fire, in Segundo’s mind; But when it came to appearing there, patent, on the sheets of paper… That it appeared expressing everything the poet felt, condensing a world of dreams, a psychic nebula… That’s nothing! To achieve the difficult conjunction of form and idea, to ignite feeling with the golden links of rhythm! Ah, what a chain so light and florid in appearance and so difficult to forge in reality! How deceptive is the naive ease, the easy harmony of the master! How feasible it seems to say simple, intimate things, to narrate chimeras of the fantasy and the heart in loose and unconstrained meter, and yet how impossible it is, for someone not named Becquer, to lend to verse those palpitating, diaphanous, blue wings with which the Becquerian butterfly flies! While the Swan erases and amends, Leocadia undresses in her bedroom. She used to enter it on other nights with a smile on her lips, her face flushed, her eyes moist, half-closed, the dark circles under her eyes, her hair disheveled… And on those nights she took a long time to go to bed, busied herself arranging things on the dresser, and even looked at herself in the mirror on her vulgar vanity table. Today her lips were dry, her cheeks pale; she approached the bed, unbuttoned it, dropped her clothes, turned off the oil lamp , and buried her face in the coolness of the thick linen sheets. She didn’t want to think; she just wanted to forget and sleep. She tried to stay still. A thousand needles pricked her body: she turned over once, looking for the cool spot, then another, then she pulled down the sheets… She felt horribly restless, a great bitterness in her mouth. In the midst of the night silence , she heard the disordered beating of her heart; if she lay on her left side, the noise almost deafened her. She tried to fix her thoughts on indifferent things, and repeated to herself a thousand times, with monotonous regularity and insistence: “Tomorrow is Sunday… the girls won’t come.” Not even then could she stem the stirring in her brain and the unhealthy ardor in her blood… Leocadia was jealous! Pain without measure and without a name to express its cruelty! Until then, the poor teacher had ignored the counterweight of love, the black jealousy, with its sting that pierces the soul, its burning thirst that sears the jaws, its polar cold that freezes the heart, its impatient anguish that frays the nerves… Segundo barely noticed the girls of Vilamorta; as for the country girls, they didn’t exist for him, nor did he consider them women; so that Leocadia attributed the hours of coldness of the Swan to the evil offices of the muse… But now! I remembered the poem _To the Blue Eyes_ and the way it was recited. Poison Those were honeyed verses: yes, poison and bitter! Leocadia felt tears welling up in her ducts, and the tears sprang forth amid convulsive sobs that shook her body, made the bedframe creak, and the corn husks of the mattress rustle. Not even then did her brooding brain suspend its activity. Segundo was undoubtedly in love with Señora de Comba; but she was a married woman… Bah! In Madrid and in novels, all ladies have lovers… And besides, who could resist Segundo, a poet emulating Bécquer, young, handsome, passionate when he chose to be so? What could Leocadia do against this great catastrophe? Wasn’t it better to resign herself? Ah! resign herself. It’s easy to say! No, no: fight and win by any means. Why did God deny her the ability to express her feelings? Why hadn’t she knelt before Segundo, begging for a little love, painting and communicating to him the flame that consumed the marrow of her bones? Why remain silent when she could say so many things? Segundo wouldn’t go to Las Vides. Better. He lacked money. Magnificent. He wouldn’t find any position, nor would he leave Vilamorta. Better, better, better… And what? If in the end Segundo didn’t love her; if he turned away from her with a gesture that Leocadia was still seeing in the dark, or rather, in the strange light of jealous passion. What heat, what restlessness! Leocadia threw herself out of bed, letting herself fall to the floor, where she thought she found a comforting coolness. Instead of relief, she felt a trembling, and a blockage in her throat, like a choking pear stuck there, that didn’t allow her to breathe. She tried to get up but couldn’t. The convulsion was beginning, and Leocadia held back her screams, her sobs, her nodding off, so as not to wake Flores. She managed for a while, but finally overcame the nervous breakdown, mercilessly twisting her rigid limbs, forcing her nails to tear at her throat, her body to writhe, and her temples to beat against the floor… Then came, preceded by cold sweats, a moment when Leocadia lost consciousness. When she regained consciousness, she found herself calm, although terribly battered. She got up, climbed back into bed, covered herself, and was left stunned, brainless, plunged into a restorative stupor. The pleasant sleep of dawn enveloped her completely. She awoke quite late, not satiated with rest, exhausted and as if dazed. She could barely dress; it seemed to her that at least a year had passed since the previous night . And as for her jealous anger, her plans for struggle… But how could she have thought of such things? That Segundo be happy, that alone mattered and was appropriate; that he fulfill his lofty destinies, his glory… The rest was a delirium, a convulsion, a passing crisis, suffered in hours that a loving soul doesn’t want to be solitary. The teacher opened the chest of drawers where she kept her savings and pocket money . Not far from a pile of stockings, she felt a pocket, already very limp and bare. It had contained, a little while ago, a few thousand reales, her entire cash nest egg. There were about thirty duros left unbalanced, and for that she owed a cut of black merino to Cansín, liqueurs to the confectioner , and orders to some friends in Orense. And her little income didn’t expire until November . A brilliant situation! After a minute of anguish, caused by the struggle between her economic principles and her resolve, Leocadia washed, smoothed her hair, put on her dress and silk cloak, and went out. Because it was mass day, many people were walking the street, and the cracked bell of the chapel rang incessantly . In the plaza, there was bustle and bustle. At the door of Doña Eufrasia’s pharmacy , three or four clerical mounts were suffering badly the impertinence of the flies and horseflies, turning their heads with each step with the unpleasant clatter of ironwork, and irritating their flanks with their shaggy tails. Nor did the fruit sellers, between bargaining and laughter, neglect to shoo away the stubborn insects, perched where the cracked skin of the greengages and tomatoes revealed the syrupy pulp or the red flesh. But the real mosquito conclave was the candy store. Ramón. It was tiring and nauseating to watch those creatures buzz, stumble in the warm atmosphere, catch their legs in the caramel of the egg yolks, and then make painful efforts to free themselves from their sweet captivity. A swarm of flies swirled around a sponge cake, meringue, and cream cake that took center stage in the shop window. Ramón no longer bothered to defend it, and the invading army was looting it with all their might. On the banks of the fountain lay the flies, dead in the procession: some dried up and shrunken, others sprawled out, revealing whitish, cadaverous abdomens… Leocadia went into the back of the shop. Ramón was standing in his shirtsleeves, rolled up, showing off his valiant muscles and stirring a saucepan to cool the sugar paste inside; Then she cut it with a red-hot knife, and the sugar squealed as it browned, giving off a comforting smell. The confectioner rubbed the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead. “What did you want, Leocadia? Brizar’s aniseed, eh? Well, we’re out of it. You, Rosa, aren’t we out of aniseed? ” Leocadia saw, in the corner of the back kitchen, the confectioner’s wife, feeding baby food to a weak baby. The confectioner fixed the teacher with the dark gaze of a hysterical and jealous woman and exclaimed harshly: “If you come for more aniseed, remember the three bottles you haven’t paid for. ” “I’ll pay for them right now,” replied the teacher, taking a handful of duros out of her pocket. “No, woman, be quiet for God’s sake… what’s the hurry?” the confectioner muttered, embarrassed. “Get some, Ramón, come on… That’s exactly what I came for, man.” —If he insists… Damn the hurry he was in. Leocadia ran off. Forget the confectioner! Who would ask Ramón for anything in front of that jealous tigress, who, small and weak as she was, used to sing solfeggio to her Herculean husband? Let’s see if Cansín… The clothier was selling, surrounded by country women, one of whom insisted that a flannel was cotton, and rubbed it to prove it. Cansín, for his part, rubbed it with diametrically opposed intentions. —Woman, what could that be cotton, what could that be cotton, he repeated in his sour little voice, bringing the cloth close, pressing it right up to the buyer’s face . Cansín seemed so annoyed that Leocadia didn’t dare call him. He walked on past and quickened his pace. She thought about her other suitor, the tavern keeper… But suddenly she remembered with disgust his thick lips, his cheeks dripping with blood… And, considering every possible solution that could get her out of the conflict, an idea occurred to her. She rejected it, weighed it, accepted it… At a brisk pace, she headed toward the lawyer García’s house. At the first knock, Aunt Gaspara opened the door. What a significant furrowing of eyebrows and lips! What a general folding of wrinkles! Leocadia, embarrassed and dying of shame, remained on the threshold. The old woman, resembling a watchful dog, blocked the door, ready to bark or bite at the slightest danger. “What did he want?” she growled. “To speak with Don Justo. Is it possible?” the teacher humbly asked. “I don’t know… we’ll see…” And the vestigal, without further ceremony, shoved the door in Leocadia’s face. Leocadia waited. After ten minutes, a hoarse voice told her: “Come on.” The teacher’s heart fluttered as if it were filled with quicksilver. To cross the house where Segundo had been born! It was gloomy and dilapidated, cold and bare, like the dwellings of the miserly, where the furniture is never replaced and is worn to the point of extreme antiquity. As she crossed a corridor, Leocadia saw, through a half-open door , some of Segundo’s clothes hanging on a hanger, and she recognized them, not without a tingling in her soul. At the end of the corridor was the lawyer’s office; a grimy, worn room, crammed with papers and tedious books, dusty inside and out. Aunt Gaspara escaped, while the lawyer greeted the teacher standing in a distrustful and hostile attitude, asking in the stern tone of a judge: “And what is it that you have in mind, Señora Doña Leocadia?” An external formula connected with an internal one: “So that scoundrel of a teacher comes to tell me she’s marrying that crazy boy and that I should support them! ” Leocadia fixed her downcast eyes on García, searching his dry, weathered features for the traits of a beloved countenance. He did indeed resemble Segundo, except for his expression, very different, cautious and suspicious in the father, as dreamy and focused on the son. “Mr. Don Justo…” the teacher stammered. “I’m sorry to bother you… I beg you not to be surprised by this step… because they assured me that V… sir, I need a loan… ” “Money!” roared the lawyer, clenching his fists. “You’re asking me for money! ” “Yes, sir, for some property… ” “Ah!” the lawyer’s transition, everything loosened and became more flexible. But how foolish I am! Come in, come in, Doña Leocadia, and take a seat… Eh?” Are you all right? Well… anyone is in a hurry… And what are these properties? People understand each other when they talk, my lady… By chance, the vineyard at Junqueira and the other small one at Adro…? These years don’t yield much… They debated the point, and the _obliga_ or promissory note was signed. Aunt Gaspara, restless, with a ghostly step, was wandering around the corridor. When her brother came out and gave her some orders, she quickly made several crosses on her face and chest. She went furtively down to the cellar and took some time to go up and empty her apron onto the lawyer’s table, from where , covered in dust and cobwebs, four objects fell, bouncing with the special sound of metal money. The objects were a clay piggy bank, a sock, a boot or cat, and a linen sack. That afternoon she said to Segundo Leocadia: “Do you know something, my love?” It’s a shame that for a suit or some such trifle you lose your position and the chance to achieve what you want… Look, I have some money over there that… I don’t really need. You want it, eh? I’d give it to you now and you’d give it back to me later. Segundo stood up with a sincere burst of honor and dignity: “Don’t ever propose things like that to me again. I sometimes accept your kindnesses so I don’t have to see you weep profusely. But that thing about you dressing and supporting me… Woman, not so much.” The teacher insisted lovingly half an hour later, taking advantage of the opportunity when the Swan was somewhat thoughtful. There was no room between him and her for “mine” or “yours.” Why did he hesitate to accept what they gave him with such great pleasure? Perhaps his future depended on those miserable quarters . With them he could present himself decently at Las Vides, print his verses, go to Madrid. She would be so fortunate to see him triumph, to outshine Campoamor, Núñez de Arce, them all! And who was depriving Segundo of the right to return the money, even more than enough?… Chatting like this, Leocadia threw into a handkerchief, tied at the four corners, ounces and hemlocks and centenes in bulk, and gave it to the poet, asking him in a voice muffled by tears: “Are you snubbing me?” Segundo took the teacher’s thick, coarse head in both hands, and fixing his eyes on the pupils that looked at him, moist with inexplicable happiness , he pronounced: “Leocadia… I know now that you are the person who has loved me most in the world! ” “Segundiño, my love…” she stammered, beside herself. “You are worthless, my king… As I give you this… so God save me… I would give you blood from my veins! ” And who would have told Aunt Gaspara that several ounces from the sock, the money box, the wineskin, and the sack would immediately return, by dint of being well trained and loyal, to sleep, if not under the beams of the cellar, at least under Don Justo’s roof? Chapter 9. The vine of the Vides, so beloved by Don Victoriano Andrés de la Comba, is one of those thick grapes known in the country as _náparo_ or _Jaén_, grapes tinged with the light red and pale green hues that dominate the bunches in Flemish still lifes. Their cones hang in long corymbs, with graceful dissymmetry, breaking up the dense foliage. The vine sheds very cool shade, and the trickle of water that falls into a rough stone basin, bathing the Soaked vegetables. The massive house has the appearance of a fortress: two quadrangular towers flank the central body, with a squat roof and deep windows. In the middle of the building, on a long iron balcony, stands the large coat of arms with the Méndez crest, five vine leaves , and a severed wolf’s head dripping with blood. From this balcony, one can see the mountainside and the course of the river. To the side of the tower, there is a wooden sunroom that juts out onto the orchard, and thanks to its southern exposure, 1-ounce carnations bloom in old pots filled with cracked earth, and from small wooden boxes , squat basils, Saint Teresa’s feathers, cacti, milkweed, and mallows overflow : a scorched, succulent, Arabian flora with intoxicating perfumes. Inside, the house is reduced to a series of limed parlors, with exposed beams and almost no furniture, except for the central one, called the “balcony room,” furnished with straw chairs and wooden backs depicting a lyre, from the Imperial period. Above the sofa, a mirror, almost devoid of mirrors, displays its large ebony frame, with gilt brass allegories depicting Phoebus guiding his chariot. The pride of Las Vides is not the parlors, but the wine cellar, the immense, dark, and cool wine cellar, like the nave of a cathedral, with its magnificent vats lined up on both sides. This unrivaled room on the Borde is the one that the Lord of Las Vides shows off most proudly, as well as his bedroom, which offers the singularity of being impregnable, being carved into the thickness of the wall and having no entrance except through a passageway that doesn’t fit a man facing forward. Méndez de las Vides never embodied the classic type of the ignorant heir apparent, who signs his name with a cross, a type so common in that inland country. Méndez, on the contrary, boasted of being educated and cultured. He wrote with correct, neat, and small handwriting, like that of a stubborn old man; he read well, putting on his glasses, holding the newspaper or book farther away, emphasizing words, with a calm voice. However, his culture had become entrenched in a period: the Encyclopedia, which his father had come to know late, and which arrived to him a century late. He read Holbach, Rousseau, Voltaire, and the fourteen volumes of Feijóo. He was ascribed and sealed even physically. In religion, he became a deist, continuing to attend mass and eat fish during Holy Week; in politics, he absorbed a whiff of regalism. However, since the arrival of Don Victoriano, some movement occurred in the already stratified ideas of the hidalgo de las Vides. He liked English autonomy, individual liberty, combined with respect for tradition and the civilizing influence of the aristocratic classes: a series of more or less successful Saxon imports, but to which Don Victoriano owed his political fortune. Dispersing these depths of social science, uncle and nephew would spend long hours, during which Nieves worked, listening for the sound of a horse’s trot on the stones of the path; a visit, a distraction from his idle existence. Segundo, to descend to Las Vides, called for the sheriff’s devilish nag . From the crossroads, the path became steep and difficult. It was blocked in places by very smooth and slippery rocks, and the rider had to hang on to the reins because the horseshoes slipped, throwing off sparks, and the animal, dragged by its weight, could fall. The ground, scorched by the sun, was extremely broken; The houses, rather than sitting on firm foundations, seemed to be hanging from the slopes, about to break away and tumble into the river, and the indispensable pot of carnations , sticking out and almost spilling out of the small wooden balconies, reminded one of the flowers a gypsy woman casually places in her hair. Sometimes Segundo crossed a pine grove; he breathed in the balsamic scent of the resin and stepped on a carpet of dry leaves that muffled the thud of his mount’s hoof. Suddenly, between two fences, a narrow path appeared, lined with blackberry, foxglove, and honeysuckle, and Segundo often experienced the feeling of well-being that these flowers caused. hours of sunlight covered the vegetal awnings, and he trotted under the shelter of a tunnel of greenery, a high trellis supported by stone posts, seeing above his head the bunches of grapes that were already turning black and listening to the excited chirping of the sparrows and the shrill whistling of the blackbirds. Lizards scampered along the moss-covered walls. When they came across two or three small paths, Segundo reined in his horse, searching for the direction of the Vineyards and asking the women who were climbing laboriously, dragging their bodies, laden with a bundle of pine firewood, or the children who were frolicking at the doorsteps of the houses. Down below, very deep, ran the Avieiro, and seen from above, it could be compared to a blade of steel that, when brandished, wriggles and flashes. Facing the mountain, where tiers of support walls for the vines, built of whitish stone, were staggered like the steps of a colossal amphitheater, the pale stripes against the green background forming a bizarre combination, highlighting the red roof of some dovecote or manor house, and at the top of the mountain the darker greenery of the pine groves. Segundo could already see the roof tiles of the Vineyards below him. He descended a slope that was more vertical than horizontal and found himself in front of the gate. Under the vine were Victorina and Nieves. The girl amused herself by skipping, and she did so with remarkable agility, keeping her feet together, without moving from one spot, turning the rope so quickly that it simulated a kind of mist around the elegant academy of the jumper. Since the gaps in the vine allowed large patches of sunlight to pass through, perhaps the girl’s body was flooded with light, radiating from her shock of hair, her arms, or her bare legs, for she was wearing only a short, sleeveless, navy-blue blouse. When she spotted Segundo, she gave a cry, let go of the rope, and disappeared. Nieves, on the other hand, rising from the bench where he was working, a smile on her lips , a little flushed with surprise, extended her hand to the newcomer, who quickly dismounted his horse. “And Señor Don Victoriano? How is he? ” “Ah! He was over there, in poor health; but very amused by the farm work, very satisfied…” And as she said this, Nieves’s face had that distracted expression that we use when we talk about things that interest us little. Segundo noticed that the minister’s wife was noticing his brand-new attire, recently arrived from Orense. And for a moment he was tormented by the doubt that she would find him pretentious or ridiculous, to the point of regretting not having brought his usual clothes. “You frightened Victorina,” Nieves added, laughing. “Where has that silly girl gone? I’m sure she only hid because she was wearing a blouse. You treat her like a woman, and she becomes unbearable. Come on .” Nieves rolled up her white chintz gown sprinkled with rosebuds and boldly entered the kitchen, which was at the same level as the courtyard. Following her Louis XV heels, hidden by the Breton lace of her petticoat, Segundo walked through several rooms: kitchen, dining room, the rosary room, so called because Primo Genday used to pray it there with the servants, and finally, the balcony room. There Nieves stopped, exclaiming, “I’ll call them in case they’re in the vineyard.” And leaning out, she cried, “Uncle!” “Victoriano! Uncle!” Two voices responded: “What?… Here we go.” Finding nothing opportune to say, Segundo remained silent. Her conscience now at ease after having summoned the proper people, Nieves turned and said with the affability of a housewife who knows her obligations: “How kind, how kind you have been! Until the grape harvest, we didn’t expect you to come… And now, the festivities are approaching… So much so that I thought I’d see you in Vilamorta sooner, because Victoriano insists on taking the waters for two weeks…” As she spoke, she leaned against the wall, and Segundo beat himself with the toe of his boots with his whip. Méndez’s voice came from the orchard. “Nieves, Nieves… Come down, if it’s all the same to you. ” “If you’re excused… I’ll go get an umbrella.” He was soon back, and Segundo offered his arm. They went down to the orchard through the sunny side, and amidst the usual greetings, Méndez protested against the idea of Segundo returning to Vilamorta that same afternoon. “Well! Of course! Catching heat twice in one day!” And the Lord of the Vines, taking advantage of the opportunity a rural proprietor never wastes, seized the poet, devoting himself to showing him the estate in detail. At the same time, he explained his viticultural ventures. He had been one of the first to successfully apply sulfur, and he was using new fertilizers that might solve the problem of cultivation. He was experimenting, trying to imitate the Bordeaux wine made with grass, with common Bordeaux wine; to lend it, with powdered orris root, the bouquet, the fragrance of French wines. But routine and fanaticism got in his way, as he said confidentially, lowering his voice and placing a hand on Segundo’s shoulder. The other winegrowers in the country accused him of forgetting sound traditions; of adulterating and compounding the wine. As if they didn’t compound it! Only they did it using common drugs, e.g., campeche and nightshade . He was content to apply rational methods, scientific discoveries, the advances of modern chemistry, proscribing the absurd use of pitch on wineskins, because while the people of the Borde praised the hint of pitch in the wine, saying that the pitch made people drink again, the exporters were rightly repulsed by that mess. Anyway, if Segundo wanted to see the cellars and winepresses… There was no other option. Nieves stayed at the door, afraid of staining her gown. So they left, and they tried to search the orchard in detail. The orchard was also a series of stepped walls, supporting narrow strips of earth, and this layout of the land gave the vegetation an almost tropical exuberance. Camellias, peacocks, and lemon trees grew freely, irregularly, and untamed, laden with leaves, fruit , or flowers. Bees and butterflies fluttered and buzzed, sipping, fertilizing, wild with joy and intoxicated by the sun. From wall to wall, one descended a few difficult steps. Segundo gave Nieves his arm, and on the last step, they stopped to contemplate the river running far below. “Look over there,” said Segundo, pointing to a somewhat distant hill to his left. “There’s the pine forest… I bet you don’t remember it? ” “Yes, I remember,” responded Nieves, blinking her blue eyes in the sun . “The pine forest that sings… Look how I remember! And tell me, do you know if it will sing today?” Because I would gladly hear him this afternoon. “If there’s even a breeze… With the prevailing calm, the pines will be almost still and almost silent. And I say _almost_, because they are never completely so. Just the touch of their tops is enough to make them vibrate in a special way and form a whisper… ” “And that,” Nieves asked jokingly, “does that only happen in this pine forest , or is it the same in all of them? ” “Who knows?” Segundo responded, staring at her. “Perhaps the only pine forest that will sing to me will be the one at Las Vides.” Nieves lowered her gaze, and then glanced around, as if searching for Don Victoriano and Méndez, who were one step higher. Segundo noticed the movement, and with imperious discourtesy said to Nieves: “Let’s go up.” He joined Méndez and didn’t leave his side until they entered the dining room, where Genday and Tropiezo were waiting. The last to arrive was the girl, now very modest, wearing long stockings and a white piqué dress. The table at which they ate was not in the center, but on one side of the dining room; it was rectangular, and the guests, instead of chairs, had two blackened oak benches facing each other. The ends of the table were left free for serving. Instinctively sober, Segundo noted with surprise the incredible amount of food Don Victoriano consumed, not without also noticing that his face was more haggard than ever. Sometimes the politician stopped, because a remorse would assail him. “I’m devouring,” protested the host, and Tropiezo and Genday, in turn, expounded broad and comforting doctrines. “Nature is very wise,” said Mr. de las Vides, who hadn’t forgotten Rousseau, “and he who obeys her cannot err.” Primo Genday, a glutton like all gluttons, added with a certain theological unction: “For the soul to be ready to serve God, one must first attend to the just demands of the body.” Tropiezo, for his part, stuck out his lower lip, denying the existence of certain very new illnesses. Throughout history, there have been people who suffered from urinary incontinence, and they were never deprived of food and drink; on the contrary. For the same reason that illness wears us down, one must nourish oneself.” Don Victoriano was easily persuaded. Those delicacies of yesteryear, those miraculous old-fashioned vinegar cruets from which oil flowed from one tube and vinegar from another without ever mixing, that immense roll placed as a centerpiece, were so many charming archaisms to him, reminding him of happy hours, limbo years of existence. At dessert, when Primo Genday, still suffocated by a political argument in which he called the liberals uncircumcised, suddenly became very grave and began to pray the Lord’s Prayer, the minister, already a seasoned rationalist, was surprised by the devotion with which his lips murmured: Our daily bread… Gosh, these things from when one was young! Don Victoriano revived at the touch of his vanished youth. He was even reminded of fleeting courtships, of two-week-long love affairs with young ladies from the Borde, who by now must have been shriveled spinsters or respectable mothers of families. What a brave folly! The former minister dismissed the napkin and stood up. “Are you taking a siesta?” he asked Segundo. “No, sir. ” “Me neither. Come and we’ll have a cigar.” Chapter 10. They sat in the living room, near the balcony, in two rocking chairs brought from Orense. From the orchard and the vines rose a lazy tranquility, a silence so absolute that one could hear the dull sound of the ripe pavías as they broke from the branches and hit the dry ground. Scents of fruit and honey entered through the half-open balcony. No one was stirring in the house. “A welcome?” —A thousand thanks… The match struck, and Segundo rocked, imitating Don Victoriano. The rhythmic swaying of the rocking chairs, the sleepy peace of the place, all invited an important and confidential conversation. —And what are you doing, let’s see, in Vilamorta? You’re a lawyer, aren’t you? I have an idea that you intend to succeed your father, such an intelligent person… Segundo saw the moment as propitious. The wisp of cigar smoke veiled his eyes with a soft mist, predisposing him to openness and banishing his usual reserve. —The thought of beginning now the life my father is ending horrifies me; he replied to the former minister’s question. —That petty struggle to earn a little money, more or less; those local intrigues, those shady dealings, that expedient, all of it, Señor Don Victoriano, was not made for me. It’s not that I can’t practice: I’ve been a mediocre student because my good memory always saved me in exams. But what good is that degree? It’s just a basic one. It’s a passport, it’s an entry ticket into any office. “Well… damn…” and Don Victoriano shook the ash from his cigar, “that’s true, very true. What you study in the classroom is hardly ever used afterward. If it weren’t for my apprenticeship at Don Juan Antonio Prado’s house, where I had to work my elbows and learn how many prongs a comb has, I wouldn’t be doing much with my Compostela science. Friend, what trains and unskills you is that terrible apprenticeship and that predicament a young man finds himself in when they put a pile of papers like that in front of him and a very pompous gentleman says: “Study that for me today, and have a report ready for me tomorrow.” That’s where the good stuff is, the sweating, the nail-biting! There, laziness and ignorance are of no use. The thing has to be done, and since it can’t be done by magic… “Not even in Madrid and on a large scale does the forum attract me… I have my aspirations. ” “Let’s find out.” Segundo hesitated, with the modesty of someone recounting a dream or a vision of love. He glanced two or three times at the vague blue smoke, and finally the dimness of the room, discreet as a confessional, dispelled his misgivings. “I want to pursue a career in literature. ” The politician stopped rocking and smoking. “But son, literature isn’t a career! There isn’t such a thing! Let’s be clear: have you ever left Vilamorta… I mean, Santiago and these towns like that? ” “No, sir. ” “Then I understand these illusions and these childish things! Around here they still believe that a writer or a poet, merely by virtue of being one, can aspire to… And what do you write?” “Verses.” —Prose, no? —Some articles or a few sketches… Almost nothing. —Bravo! Well, if you trust in verse to navigate the world, onward… I have noticed something curious in this country, and I am going to communicate my observations to you. Here, verses are still read with great interest, and it seems that the girls learn them by heart… Well, back at court, I assure you that there is hardly anyone who entertains themselves with that. Around here, they live twenty or thirty years behind: in the midst of Romanticism. Segundo, annoyed, asked with some vehemence: —And Campoamor? And Núñez de Arce? And Grilo? Aren’t they famous poets? Don’t they enjoy great popularity? —Campoamor… They read him because he is very rascally and says things that make girls think and men laugh… He has his substance, and he philosophizes like that, entertaining… But look, you see; Neither he nor Núñez de Arce lives off uneven little lines… They’d have a good haircut… Grilo, what do I know… He’s popular there among the high-class ladies, and his poetry is printed by the Queen Mother, who apparently is in the money… In short, believe me, neither will achieve much by the way to Parnassus… And you see; we’re talking about the masters, because second-rate poets, young ones who rhyme better or worse, there must be some two or three hundred in Madrid now … Do you know them? Well, I don’t have the pleasure either… Four buddies praise them when they publish something in a backwater magazine… And stop counting. Speaking plainly, it’s a waste of time. Segundo, very silent, wasted his cigar. “Don’t take it as an offense,” Don Victoriano continued. I understand little about literature, although in my youth I composed quatrains like everyone else ; besides, I know nothing about you… So my judgment is impartial, and my advice most sincere. —I… Segundo finally articulated, —do not have my aspirations set solely on lyric poetry… Perhaps later I might opt for drama… or prose: what do I know. I only want to try my luck… Don Victoriano stood up and went out onto the balcony for a moment. Suddenly he turned; put both hands on Segundo’s shoulders, and, pressing his damp face almost to the poet’s face, exclaimed with unfeigned pity: —Poor boy! How many, many troubles await you! And as Segundo remained silent, astonished by this sudden effusion: —You, a novice that you are, cannot guess what you are getting into; it makes me feel sorry for you: you are already amused. In the present state of society, to excel or shine in anything, you must sweat blood like Christ in the garden… If it is in lyric poetry, God help us… If you write comedies or dramas, you will see what is good: flattering the actors, leaving the manuscript in a corner, rotting in a drawer, having half an act cut out with a snip of scissors, and then the fear of the opening night , and what comes after… which may be the blackest… If you become a journalist… you won’t rest for ten minutes, you will make the reputation of others and you will never even see the beginning of your own… If you write books… But who reads in Spain? And if you throw yourself into politics… Ah! Segundo listened without moving his lips, his eyes lowered and his gaze wandering over the knots in the wooden floorboards, to that persuasive voice that seemed to tear the rose leaves from his illusions one by one, with the same shrill click of his fingernail that scattered the ash from his cigar. Finally, he raised his contorted face and looked at the politician, murmuring, not without a certain irony in his accent: “Well, about politics, Señor Victoriano, I don’t think you should speak so badly… She has treated you with affection; you can’t complain about her. She was no stepmother to you.” Don Victoriano’s expression fell, revealing the ravages of his illness… and rising again , throwing away his cigar and taking a brisk look around the room, he began to speak passionately, his sentences gushing out in sudden waves, in impetuous and uneven jets, like the blood rushing through a severed artery. “Don’t touch that point… be quiet, child… What do you know, what do you, and what does anyone know, what these things are like, until you fall headlong into them and are trapped and can’t get out! If I were to tell you … But it’s impossible to recount a whole life, day by day, to relate a battle that lasts for years, without respite or rest!” To fight so that people begin to know you, to keep fighting so that they don’t forget you, to go from the law firm to politics, from a wheel of knives to a bed of hot coals, to fight in the forum, in Congress, without faith, without conviction, just because, so as not to leave vacant the position you’ve won; and on top of all this, not a free hour, not a calm minute, not a single time for anything… You achieve fortune when you no longer have the humor to enjoy it; He marries and starts a family, and… he’s hardly inclined to accompany his wife to the theater… Don’t talk to me… Hell, hell in short, is politics… You’ll believe… and here he burst out with the interjection that when my little one began to walk, one day I tried to have the pleasure of taking her for a walk by the hand… A whim, a rarity… Well, I was very satisfied going down the stairs with the little one in my arms, and lo and behold, I met the Marquis of Cameros and an aspiring deputy for Galicia, who came to ask me for fifteen or twenty letters in my own handwriting to be more effective… And I was so beastly, man, I was so beastly, that instead of throwing the Marquis down the stairs, I went back up my two flights of stairs, gave the child to the nanny and locked myself in the study to prepare for the election! And so on, all my life; So tell me, am I right or wrong in detesting so much stupidity and so much farce? Ah! What trouble we go to to make ourselves unhappy! There was no doubt about it. In the politician’s voice trembled repressed tears; in his larynx, imprecations and blasphemies churned, stifled . Segundo, to do something, opened wide the balcony window. The sun was far from its zenith, the heat was less intense. “And worst of all… the queue!” Don Victoriano continued, stopping. “You fight and struggle without calculating, without pausing to observe the state of your forces… You fight in the manner of those ancient knights, with your visor pulled down. But since you are not made of iron, but of flesh, when you least expect it, bang!” He is sick, sick, wounded without knowing where… You are not losing blood, but you are losing juice… like a lemon when it is squeezed… —And the ex-minister laughed bitterly.—And you want to stop, recover, buy health with its weight in gold … and it is no longer time… you no longer have a drop of water in your entire body… Go on, get tired, dry up and burst! Well, you have already shone with your work and your victories! You are fresh… you are prepared! He said this acting, putting his hands in his pockets, in a paroxysm of confidence, expressing himself as if he were alone. And in reality, he was speaking to himself. It was a monologue, a loud translation of the dark thoughts that Don Victoriano concealed, thanks to efforts of heroism. The strange illness from which he suffered It caused horrible nightmares; he dreamed he was turning into a sugar cane, and that his intelligence, blood, and life were escaping through a very deep, very deep channel, converted into pure syrup. Awake, his mind rejected, as one rejects ignominy, such a strange malady. Sánchez del Abrojo must have been mistaken: this was a physiological and temporary disorder , a common and common ailment, a consequence of a sedentary life, and Tropiezo and his routine would perhaps triumph over science. And if they didn’t triumph? The politician felt a cold breath pass through his hair bulbs that made his heart clench. To die at forty-something, with a firm intelligence and with so many things undertaken and achieved! And symptoms of death must undoubtedly be that burning thirst, that never-slaked bulimia, that enervating sensation of melting, of fusion, that constant liquidation. Suddenly, Don Victoriano remembered Segundo’s presence, which he had almost forgotten. And, placing both hands on his shoulders once more, and fixing his arid eyes, which were burning with suppressed tears, on the poet’s , he exclaimed: “Do you want to hear the truth and receive some good advice? Do you have ambition, aspirations, and hopes? Well, I have disappointments, and I want to do you a favor by sharing them with you now. Don’t be a fool; stay here all your life; help your father, inherit his office, and marry that fresh-faced girl from Agonde… Never leave this country of fruit, of vineyards, of such a mild climate… How much I would give now to have never left it! If only one could see the future life in pictures, like a panorama! Nothing, son… Stay here; put down roots here; live many years with numerous offspring… Have you noticed how healthy your father is?” It’s a pleasure to see you with such strong, intact teeth… I don’t have a tooth left to rot: they say it’s one of the symptoms of my ailment… Ah! If your mother were alive, your little brothers would be born now! Segundo smiled. “But, Señor D. Victoriano,” he murmured, “in accordance with your theories, instead of living… we would vegetate. ” “And what greater happiness than vegetating!” responded the politician, appearing on the balcony. “Do you think those trees aren’t worthy of envy?” The orchard did indeed possess, at such an hour of sunset, a certain voluptuous bliss, as if enjoying a happy dream. The lustrous leaves of the lemon and camellia trees, the rubbery trunks of the fruit trees seemed to drink with delight in the fresh evening breath, the precursor of the vital dew of the night. The golden atmosphere was tinged in the distance with shades of lilac watercolor. A thousand murmurs began to be heard , preludes to insect songs, to concerts of frogs and toads. The contemplative tranquility of the scene was interrupted by the hurried trot of a mule, and Clodius Gendaya himself, breathless, spinning like a reel, entered the orchard. With his hands, his head, his whole body, he called, shouted, and yelled: “I’m in good shape… good shape! I’m coming up, I’m coming up.” They went to meet him at the solarium steps, and he entered quickly, like a pinwheel, and it was evident that he was wearing neither a collar nor a cravat, and that he was unbelted, a disgrace. —Nothing, Don Victoriano, they’re playing us, they’ve played us… If measures aren’t taken soon we’ll lose the district… It would seem a lie to you what they’ve been muscling and plotting for days now in Doña Eufrasia’s pharmacy… And we’re innocent, completely careless… All the priests are mixed up in the mess: the one from Lubrego, the one from Boan, the one from Naya, the one from Cebre… They’re putting forward as a candidate the young gentleman from Romero, from Orense, who’s ready to loosen the purse strings… But where’s Primo? That fool, that idiot who didn’t understand a thing? —Let’s go find him, man… What are you telling me! What are you telling me! I never thought they’d dare… And Don Victoriano, revived, excited, followed Clodio who was shouting around the hall: —Primo! Primo! Shortly after, Segundo saw that the two brothers and the former minister were walking around the orchard, chatting and gesticulating heatedly. Clodio accused, Primo defended himself, and Don Victoriano conciliated. In his fury, Clodio thrust his fists into Primo’s face, unbuttoned his waistcoat, while the accused only managed to reply stammeringly, quickly crossing himself: “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus… A gracious Hail Mary!” The poet watched them pass, observing Don Victoriano’s transformation . As he withdrew from the balcony, he saw Nieves standing in front of him saying affably: “And those gentlemen? Did they leave you alone? The pines must be singing by now . A breeze has sprung up. ” “They’re sure to be singing now,” replied the poet. I’ll hear them from the saddle on my horse, on the way to Vilamorta. Nieves’s startled expression did not go unnoticed by Segundo, who, fixing his eyes on her, added with haughtiness and coldness: “Unless you tell me to stay.” Nieves fell silent. Out of courtesy, she felt it necessary to detain her guest; and at the same time, saying to him, “Please stay,” when the two of them were alone, seemed a strange and grave undertaking. Finally, with a forced laugh, she uttered an ambiguous phrase: “But what’s your hurry? And… will you come back and visit us again?” “We’ll see each other in Vilamorta… Goodbye, Nieves… I don’t want to interrupt Don Victoriano… Give him my regards, and he can count on me and my father for everything.” Without taking the hand Nieves offered her and without turning her face, she went down to the patio. She was placing her foot on the stirrup when a small figurine jumped nearby. It was Victorina, her hands full of sugar cubes, who was coming to offer them to the nag. He anxiously extended his lips, with the intelligent undulations of an elephant’s trunk. Segundo intervened. “Daughter, he’s going to bite you… look how much he bites…” Then, in a playful tone, he added: “Do you want me to lift you up here? No? I’ll lift you up!” He picked her up and sat her on the front edge of the saddle. The girl struggled to escape, and her beautiful hair enveloped Segundo’s face and shoulders , as he held her under the arms and around the waist. Not without surprise, he noticed that the girl’s heart was beating rapidly and wildly beneath the imperceptible swelling of her prepubescent breast. Victorina, very pale, cried: “Mom… Mom!” Finally, she managed to free herself and ran toward Nieves, who was laughing uproariously at the incident. Halfway there, he stopped, stepped back, linked his arms around the horse’s neck, and gave it a very affectionate kiss on its muzzle . Chapter 11. Eight or ten days elapsed between Segundo’s visit to Las Vides and the return of Don Victoriano and his family to Vilamorta. Don Victoriano wanted to take the plunge and at the same time thwart the sinister plot, the Romero candidacy. His plan was simple: offer Romero a district elsewhere, where he wouldn’t have to spend a cent; and thus, with his only rival with any prestige in the country out of the way, he would avoid the blow of defeat in Vilamorta. This was important to do before October, the time designated for the electoral struggle. And while Genday, García, the Mayor, and the other Combististas handled the sticks, Don Victoriano, installed in Agonde’s house, drank two or three glasses of the salutary liquor every morning ; He would then read his mail, and in the afternoon, when the sticky heat made it necessary to take a nap, he would read or write in the cool apothecary’s parlor. Segundo frequently accompanied him during such hours of solitude. They spoke amicably, and the politician, far from insisting on the thesis he had developed there in Las Vides, encouraged the poet, offering very willingly to find him a position in Madrid suitable for his purposes. “A position that won’t take up too many of your hours or make your head spin too much… I’ll see, I’ll see… We’ll investigate… ” Segundo observed signs of evident improvement in the minister’s parched face . Don Victoriano experienced the fleeting relief that mineral waters produce in the first moments, when His energy stimulates the organism, even if only to wear it down further later. Digestion and circulation had been activated, and even perspiration, entirely suppressed by the illness, pleasantly dilated the pores, imparting to the dry fibers the elasticity of soft flesh. Like the light of a candle that shines more when combustion is accelerated , Don Victoriano seemed to be regenerating himself, when in reality he was wasting away… He, thinking he was reborn, happily breathed the cramped atmosphere of electoral intrigues, enjoying contesting his district inch by inch, gathering endorsements and expressions of sympathy, and secretly flattered even by the absurd proposal to incense him in the church made to the parish priest of Vilamorta by his parishioners. At night he would delight himself patriarchally in the Agonde gathering with the comical stories of Doña Eufrasia’s pharmacy and with the slight swell caused by the approaching festivities. Little by little, Agonde’s innocent little table was changing, becoming something more malicious. There were no longer four people sitting, but just one; the rest, standing in a group, had their eyes fixed on the hands of the seated man. The banker’s left hand twitched, clutching the cards, and with a nervous impulse of the right thumb, he slowly made the last card rise until one could glimpse and guess, first the suit, then the number, then the club of a club, the yolk of a coin, the blue tail of a horse, the pointed crown of a king. And there were other hands that were picking up or taking money from their pockets and depositing it on the fateful pieces of cardboard, and one could hear the cry: “Seven! Four! Ace in the door!” Out of modesty, Agonde refrained from carving while Don Victoriano was there, barely restraining the only passion that had the privilege of somewhat warming his blood and spreading his lymph, and yielding the place to Jacinto Ruedas, a famous itinerant gambler, known throughout the universe, who wandered around in the scent of gambling like others in the scent of banquets: a strange type, somewhere between a pimp and a policeman, who told low-class jokes in a hoarse voice. The chroniclers do not clarify whether the civil authority of Vilamorta, that is, the judge, attempted to put a stop to the illegal entertainment the pharmacy’s regulars indulged in; but it is a well-known fact that, since the judge had one leg shorter than the other, the sound of his crutch on the sidewalk tiles always warned of his proximity to the players. And as for the municipal authority, it is known for certain that one day, or more precisely, one night, he burst into the apothecary’s back room like a bomb, with money in his hand, and throwing it on a letter, he shouted: “I’m a horse, gentlemen! ” “Be a donkey, if you want!” Agonde replied, shoving him with notable irreverence. That year, the presence of Don Victoriano and the already declared struggle between his supporters and Romero’s gave the festivities the air of a battle. The Combistas wanted more than ever to make them splendid and brilliant, and the Romeroistas wanted to spoil them if possible. In the Town Hall hall, the main globe was being prepared, stretching out its entire length. Its white panels were being covered with labels, figures, emblems, and attributes, and scattered on the floor were tin cauldrons filled with paste, small pots of vermillion, sienna, and ochre, balls of twine, and paper clippings. From the gigantic globe, tiny babies were born daily, miniature balloons made from scraps and heavily trimmed in blue and pink. Such preparations were spoken of with disdain at Doña Eufrasia’s social gathering , and people commented on the boldness of the innkeeper’s son, a solemn buffoon, who proposed to paint Don Victoriano in the panels of the large globe. The young ladies of the Romera party, pursing their lips and shrugging their shoulders, protested that they would not attend the fireworks or the dance, even if their opponents used the saints in the novena to obtain them. On the other hand, those of the Combista faction formed a group around Nieves . a kind of court. Every afternoon they would go looking for her to go out for a walk, and besides Carmen Agonde, she was surrounded by Florentina, the Mayor’s wife, Rosa, Tropiezo’s niece, and Clara, the eldest of García’s daughters. The latter was walking barefoot, very busy picking blackberries and putting them in her apron, when she received the wonderful news that her father was ordering a dress from Orense for her to visit the minister’s wife. And the dress arrived, with its very stiff laces and its very gummed percaline linings, and the little girl, washed and dressed, her feet encased in new chagrín boots, with her eyes lowered and her hands one on top of the other, in a symmetrical posture, went to swell Nieves’s retinue . Victorina declared herself Clara García’s protector; she fixed her up, gave her a bracelet, and they became inseparable. They used to walk along the road, but as soon as Clara grew more confident, she protested, assuring them that the paths and shortcuts were much more fun and that they found more beautiful sights. And she squeezed Victorina ‘s arm , exclaiming: “Segundo knows some beautiful walks!” That same afternoon, as they were returning to the village, they spotted a man slipping along close to the houses, and Clara, from the opposite sidewalk, ran up and grabbed him by the waist. “Hey… you… Segundo… don’t run away, we can see you clearly.” The poet met his sister in a friendly manner and ceremoniously greeted Nieves, who responded with the utmost cordiality. —Look, this girl… Come on, she’s surely done you a bad deed… Excuse me… They sat down to soak up the fresh air on the benches in the plaza, and when the caravan left the next day after siesta time, Segundo joined them, making a point of not going near Nieves, as if there were some secret understanding, some mysterious complicity, between the two. He mingled with the group of girls and, putting aside his usual seriousness, laughed and joked with Victorina, for whom he gathered , at the edge of the hedges, ripe blackberries, oak acorns, early chestnut berries, and a thousand little wild flowers that the girl filed away in a small Russian leather bag. Sometimes Segundo took them along deep, coastal paths cut into the living stone, lined with walls, covered by trellises that barely let in the dying light; Others, through bare, bare, and arid hillocks, until they reached some ancient oak grove, some chestnut tree inside whose trunk, cracked and split by age, Segundo could hide while the girls, holding hands, danced around him. One day he led them to the backwater of the Avieiro, to the stone bridge under whose arches the black, cold, and motionless water slept a sinister sleep. And he told them that there, because the river was deeper and the sun warmed less, the largest trout sheltered, and that a corpse had appeared next to the abutment the previous month. He also led them to the echo, where the girls enjoyed themselves madly, all talking at once, without giving the wall time to repeat their screams and laughter. And another afternoon he showed them a curious lake, about which a thousand tales were told in the country: that it was bottomless, that it reached the center of the earth, that beneath its dead waves submerged cities could be seen, that strange woods floated in it, and never-before-seen flowers grew there. This lake was, in reality, a great excavation, probably a flooded Roman mine, which, trapped among the series of mounds of clayey tuff that the miners’ shovels had piled up everywhere, offered a sepulchral and fantastic appearance, aiding the illusion of the melancholy of the marsh vegetation that grew green on the surface of the great pool. As nightfall approached, the girls declared that such a gloomy place inspired a terrible fear in them; the girls confessed the same, and they hurried off to get to the main road, leaving Nieves and Segundo behind. It was the first time such a thing had happened, because the poet avoided the occasion. Nieves, however, looked uneasily at her around and then lowered her eyes, finding Segundo’s fixed on her, questioning and ardent. And then, the gloom of the landscape and the solemnity of the twilight tugged at her heart, and without knowing what she was doing, she ran just like the girls. She heard Segundo’s footsteps behind her, and when she finally stopped, not far from the road, she saw him smile and couldn’t help laughing at her own foolishness too. “Jesus… what a stupid fear… I’ve shown off… I’m on par with the girls! That damn puddle is so imposing… Tell me: how could they not have caught sight of it? It’s very strange and very picturesque.” They were returning along the road after dark, and as if Nieves were trying to erase the impression of her childishness, she was happy and affectionate with Segundo; two or three times their eyes met, and, no doubt out of distraction, she didn’t take them off. They discussed the next day’s expedition: it was to be along the riverbanks, more cheerful than the lake; an admirable viewpoint, not fatal, like the pond. Indeed, the path they followed the next day was very beautiful, although difficult, due to the thick willow and reed beds, and the tangle of new birches and poplars that sometimes obstructed their path. Every now and then Segundo had to reach out to Nieves and push aside the cool, pliable branches that whipped his face. Despite all his precautions, he couldn’t prevent her from getting her feet wet, nor from leaving shreds of her lace hat on a poplar. They stopped where the river, dividing, formed a small island populated by cattails and simple gladioli in the middle. A stream, flowing down from the mountain, ended up lost in the Avieiro, humble and quiet. On its banks grew jagged and varied ferns and graceful aquatic flora. Segundo knelt in the puddled ground and began to search among the plants. “Here, Nieves. ” She approached, and he, on one knee, handed her a bunch of blue flowers, a pale turquoise blue, with very thin stems; flowers she had only seen misshapen, in hat ornaments, and whose existence seemed like a myth to her: dream flowers, which she imagined would grow only on the banks of the Rhine, there where all the romantic things happen; flowers that are known by such a beautiful name: forget-me-not. Chapter 12. Nieves was what is usually called a proper lady, without a single dark page in her life, without a thought of infidelity to her husband, with no more coquetry than that of her dress and headdress, and even that, free of makeup or tempting disarray, limited to servile complacency with fashion. Her ideal, if she had one, consisted of a comfortable, elegant life, surrounded by social consideration. She had married very young, with Don Victoriano giving her a dowry of a few thousand duros, and on the day of the wedding, her father called her to his magistrate’s office, and having her stand like a prisoner, he strongly urged her to respect and obey the husband she was taking. She obeyed and respected. And this obedience and respect drove Don Victoriano to despair, who sought in marriage the revenge for the many years he had spent in the law firm. Years of amorous abstinence, during which his assiduous work and sedentary life did not allow him to forge a tender bond or cultivate sweet affections, allowing him at most some quick fling, some violent and irritating adventure that did not satisfy his spirit. He judged that the beautiful daughter of the president of the court would repay his arrears of love, and he noted with sterile and painful spite that Nieves saw in him the serious husband whom one accepts docilely, without repugnance, and nothing more. Unwillingly respecting the tranquility of that superficial creature, he neither knew nor dared to awaken her, and only succeeded in wasting away and dissolving in vain, accelerating the destruction of his organism and hastening the crisis of maturity, multiplying the white gusts that streaked his black hair. When the girl was born, Don Victoriano hoped to be more than compensated in new and holy caresses, in a pure oasis. But the demands of his political position , the hustle and bustle of business, the complications and the interlocking The implacable nature of his existence stood between him and his paternal delights. He always saw his daughter from a distance and barely managed, at coffee time, to have her straddle his thighs for a moment. And then came the attacks of the illness… From the moment it declared itself, with its afflictive symptoms, Nieves, by some strange chance, found herself detached from the marital bond, and in a certain way, single. She sincerely and in good faith believed that the important and essential aspect of marriage was the spouses’ common life , the obligatory cohabitation. Free of this obligation, it seemed to her that she had returned to the rosy days of school, when she would flit about and play sweethearts with her classmates, who would send her harmless love letters and slip them under her pillow. Those were the days! She was a young girl… She hadn’t had any fun since then, no. What a brave diversion from that methodical and routine life in Madrid!… Yes, there was a time when the Marquis of Cameros, the rich young client of Don Victoriano, came quite frequently, and had even been invited to dinner two or three times, _without compliment_… Nieves persisted in remembering that the Marquis often glanced at her furtively, and that at night they would always run into him, by chance, in the same theater where they went… It didn’t go any further. Now Nieves’s second youth was blossoming, twenty-nine or thirty years of age, a terrible time in a woman’s life; and if she couldn’t produce red chalices filled with burning passion, she longed to adorn herself with the dreamy _forget-me-nots_ of the poet… It seemed to Nieves that a flower was missing from the porcelain vase of her existence, and the fragile little blue bouquet came to complete the grace of the table toy… Bah! How wrong was it all! A childish thing. Those flowers, preserved between the leaves of a luxurious prayer book, would only inspire in her thoughts of a low sky blue, inert like the poor corollas, already pressed and dried… She pinned the blue cluster to her breast. How good it looked among the cascade of raw lace! “Mama,” Victorina asked her at night, before going to bed, “did Segundo give you those pretty flowers?” “Ah… I don’t remember… Yes, I think García picked them. ” “Will you give them to me, to put in my little bag? ” “Come on, my child, send them to bed early… Mademoiselle, please make her pray! ” Chapter 13. The approaching festivities interrupted the long walks. She only went out a little towards the road, returning soon to the town, where many people were in the square. The parade was made up of well-dressed young combista girls, dejected, badly shaved, and sick village priests , gamblers of a heterogeneous appearance, and strangers from the Borde, all of whom Agonde commented on with mordacity, quite entertaining Nieves. “See those? They’re the young ladies from Gondás, three spinsters and a spinster, who treat her like a niece, but since the ones from Gondás don’t have a brother… Those other two are from Molende, from over there in Cebre, very _aristocratic_ people, God forbid… The fat one is capable of shooting the son of the sun with a revolver… and the other one makes some verses!” I encourage Segundo García to declare his love: they will make a most refined couple… They are guests at Lamajosa’s house: there they are in their element, because Doña Mercedes Lamajosa, so that her visitors know that she is noble, says to her daughters: “Girls, bring me the sock, it should be in the closet above the writ of execution… Those two, so pretty and so nice, are the ones from Camino, daughters of the judge…” On the eve of the fair, the music came out morning and evening, deafening the streets with its din of a victorious murga. The town hall square was dotted with sheds that created a showy confusion of garish and uneven colors. In front of the town hall stood some strange contraptions, which could have seemed instruments of martyrdom, like children’s toys or scarecrows, and they were none other than the trees and fire wheels that were to be burned that night with magnificent pomp, favored by the serenity of the air. From the balcony of the town hall, like a titanic arm, rose the mast where the great balloon was to be hoisted; and along the railing ran a series of colored cups, forming the letters VADLC: a delicate gift to the representative of the country. Night had fallen when Don Victoriano and his family left for the town hall to witness the gunpowder display. They had a hard time breaking through the crowd that filled the plaza, where a thousand different and contrasting sounds clashed: now the tambourine and castanets of a dance group, now the hurdy-gurdy, now a sad and prolonged popular song, now the interjection of an aggressive drunk, who wanted to claim the fair grounds for his own. Agonde linked arms with Nieves, diverted the crowd, and explained the program for the evening’s festivities. “We’ve never seen a balloon like this year’s: it’s the largest in living memory: the pilgrims are furious. ” “And how did my portrait turn out?” Don Victoriano asked with interest. “Ah! A superb thing! Better than the portrait in _The Enlightenment_.” At the Town Hall entrance, the difficulties redoubled, and it was necessary to trample mercilessly on the chests, stomachs, and backs of people installed there, determined not to move or lose their place. “Look at those huge asses,” Agonde muttered. “Even if someone trampled on them, nothing… they wouldn’t get up. They don’t have an inn, and they spend the night there; Tomorrow they stretch and go off happily to their little villages… They jumped over that jumble as best they could, where men, women, and children were piled up in disgusting promiscuity, intertwined, clinging, and mingling. Even on the landings of the stairs lay suspicious groups, or a snoring peasant, gorged on octopus, or an old woman counting coins on her lap. They entered the living room, where there was no light except the dubious light projected by the colored glasses. Some young ladies were already occupying the balcony; but the Mayor, hat in hand, losing his sheer solicitude, pushed them aside to leave ample room for Nieves, Victorina, and Carmen Agonde, around whom a sort of obsequious circle or gathering formed. Chairs were brought for the ladies, and the Mayor took Don Victoriano to the Secretariat, where bottles of Tostado and infamous thistles were waiting for him on a tray. The children and the girls took their places in the front row, leaning on the balcony railing, defying the risk of a rocket flying at them. Nieves stayed a little further back and wrapped herself more closely in her silver-woven Algerian shawl, because it felt cool in that gloomy, empty room. There was an unoccupied chair beside her, and suddenly a human figure took possession of it. “Goodbye, García… Lucky the eyes… We haven’t seen you for two days. ” “Nor can you see me now, Nieves,” murmured the poet, leaning over to speak to her in a low voice. “It’s not easy to see oneself here.” “That’s true,” replied Nieves, troubled by such a simple observation. “Why couldn’t they have brought a light?” “Because it would be detrimental to the fire’s effect… Don’t you prefer this sort of semidarkness?” she added, anticipating a smile at the very elegance of the phrase. Nieves didn’t complain. Instinctively, she liked the situation, which was a delicate mixture of risk and security, and had its touches of romance; she felt protected by the open balcony, by the girls who crowded around it, by the square teeming with people, and from which issued oceanic murmurs and songs and confused voices, full of loving melancholy; but at the same time, the solitude and darkness of the room and the sort of isolation in which she and the Swan found themselves prepared one of those chance occasions that tempt semi-light women , neither so passionate as to plunge headlong nor so cautious as to flee to the shadow of danger. She remained silent, almost feeling Segundo’s breath on her face. Suddenly, they both shuddered. The first rocket tore through the sky with a very long luminous arc, and its explosion, although muffled by the distance, raised a clamor in the plaza. Following that advanced sentry, one after another, at equal intervals, came eight formidable, slow, and resounding palenque bombs, the signal announced in the festivities’ program. The balcony trembled at the deep explosion, and Nieves didn’t dare look up at the firmament, no doubt for fear that it would collapse with the repercussions of the bombs. Afterward, the noise of the fliers chasing each other through the solitudes of space seemed pleasant and light to her. The first rockets were ordinary and without any novelty: a trace of light, a muffled thunder, and a sheen of sparks. But soon it was the turn of surprises, novelties, and artistic marvels. There were some fires that, when they burst, split into three or four cascades of flame, and with fantastic rapidity were buried in the depths of the sky; from others, with mysterious slowness and silence, came little purple, green, and red lights, just as if little angels were tipping over a box full of amethysts, emeralds, and rubies from above. The lights fell slowly, slowly, like tears, and before reaching the ground they were suddenly extinguished. The most beautiful were the golden shower rockets , which capriciously exhaled a constellation of sparks, a stream of drops of flame as quickly lit as extinguished. Nevertheless , the rejoicing in the square was greater at the three- burst and culverin fireworks. These were not lacking in grace; They shot out and exploded like simple rockets, and soon afterward they released a lizard of light, a reptile that, snorting and zigzagging, scampered across the sky and suddenly sank into shadow. No sooner did the scene fall into darkness than it was flooded with light, and the plaza seemed to rise to the balcony, with its wasp nest of people, the colorful patches of the sheds, and the hundreds of human faces turned upward, enjoying and savoring the great pleasure of the children of Galicia, a race that has preserved the Celt’s cult and love for igneous phenomena, for the illuminated night, compensation for the hazy daytime horizon. Nieves, too, liked the alternation of light with darkness, a faithful image of the ambiguous state of her soul. When the firmament ignited and shone, she would raise her eyes, attracted by the brilliance and jubilation of the lights that gave such pleasant moments a Venetian hue. When everything fell dark again, he dared to look at the poet, without seeing him, for his pupils, dazzled by the fireworks, could not distinguish any contours. The poet, on the other hand, kept his eyes fixed tenaciously on Nieves, and saw her flooded with light, with that beautiful and rare lunar hue that the brilliance of rockets lends, and which increases a hundredfold the softness and freshness of features. He felt a strong impulse to condense into a fiery phrase everything that was now time to be said, and he leaned forward… and finally, he uttered a name… “Nieves? ” “What? ” “Have you never seen fireworks like that? ” “Never… It’s a specialty of this country… I like them very much! If I were a poet like you, I would say beautiful things about them.” Come on, think of something… —That’s how happiness should shine in our lives… brief moments, Nieves… but while it shines… while we feel it… Segundo was secretly cursing the pretentious phrase, which wouldn’t come out… What nonsense he was stringing together! Wouldn’t it be better to lower himself a little further and play with his lips?… What if he screams?… He won’t scream, by God! Cheer up… A commotion broke out on the balcony. Carmen Agonde was shouting for Nieves. —Nieves, come… come… The first tree… a wheel of fire… Nieves got up quickly and leaned back on the balcony, thinking it was best to dissemble and not spend the whole night chatting with Segundo. The tree was beginning to burn at one end, apparently not without difficulty, spitting out red sparks with difficulty; but suddenly it communicated the fire to the entire device, and a flaming wheel erupted, an enormous wafer of green and red light, which revolved and revolved and expanded, releasing its hair of flying sparks and thundering the space with the sound of shrapnel. It fell silent for a few moments and was even close to being extinguished; a veil of pink smoke spread out, and behind it a focus of fire could be seen, a golden sun that soon began to spin vertiginously, opening up and surrounding itself with a halo of rays. These went out one by one, and the sun waned and became smaller until it was reduced to the size of a small candle, which idly made a few languid turns and, sighing, died. As Nieves stepped back to sit down again, she felt arms around her neck. It was Victorina, drunk with enthusiasm, enthralled by the fires, shrieking in her thin little voice. —Mom… Mom… how funny, huh? How lovely! And Carmen says they’re going to burn other trees and a bucket… She interrupted herself, seeing Segundo standing behind Nieves’s chair. She lowered her head, very ashamed of her childish joy. And instead of returning to the balcony, she stayed rooted to the spot, caressing her mother, to hide the shyness and timidity that took hold of her the moment Segundo looked at her. Two more small trees were burning in the corners of the plaza, representing a crinoline and a grid of lights, first gold, then blue. The little girl, despite her admiration for fireworks, showed no signs of leaving Nieves and Segundo alone. The latter sat for about ten minutes; But when he noticed that the mother and daughter group wasn’t breaking up, he stood up violently, seized by a sudden frenzy, and walked around the dark room with uneven steps, realizing that for that moment he was no longer in control of himself, nor capable of restraining himself. “Good heavens… Well spent… Who told him to be a fool and waste favorable moments!” Nieves had encouraged him: he hadn’t dreamed it, no sir; glances, imperceptible but evident smiles; signs of pleasure and benevolence, everything existed, everything advised him to clarify such a dubious and enigmatic situation. Ah, if only that woman loved him! And she had to love him, and not just as a joke or pastime, but with delirium. Segundo wasn’t content with less. His ambitious soul disdained light and ephemeral triumphs: it was all or nothing. If the Madrid woman thought of flirting with him, she would be disappointed: he would grab her by her butterfly wings, and even at the cost of tearing them off, he would stop her. He who wants to possess butterflies sticks a pin in them or squeezes the region of their hearts tightly until they expire. Segundo had done it a thousand times as a child; he would do it again now; he was determined. Whenever a light, mocking laugh, a reserved gesture, or a calm expression from Nieves indicated to Segundo that Señora de Comba remained calm, a concentrated spite rose in his throat, threatening to suffocate him. And seeing the girl there, with whom his mother was engaged in a lively conversation, as if to amuse her and serve as her defense, he made the firm decision not to let the night pass without knowing what to expect. He returned to Nieves’s side, but she had sat up, and the girl, taking her hands, was dragging her onto the balcony. It was the solemn and critical moment : they had just suspended the monstrous balloon from the pole to inflate it; and in the plaza a great uproar could be heard, the murmur of anxiety. A phalanx of combist artisans, among whom was Ramón the candy maker, cleared the site to leave an empty space where the fuse could burn freely and the difficult operation could be carried out. The silhouettes could be seen illuminated by the light of the fuse, moving, bending, rising, dancing a step from a macabre dance. The rockets no longer illuminated the night darkness, and the sea of people seemed as tenebrous as a lake of fish. Still folded into innumerable folds, like a whip, the balloon fainted, kissing the ground with its wire mouth, where the stinking fuse was beginning to ignite and take shape. The artisans of the They were gently and lovingly unfurling the colossal balloon, lighting other wicks beneath it to assist the central one and facilitate the rarefaction of the air in the paper belly. The latter was becoming more pronounced, the folds opening with soft clicks, and the balloon, from languid and overwhelmed, was becoming turgid in some parts. The designs on its panels still appeared extended, as they do from a distance on the polished and convex surfaces of coffee pots; but already many borders and inscriptions were peeking out here and there, assuming their natural proportions and placement, and the crude brushstrokes of vermillion or blue were clearly visible. The trouble was that the balloon had such a wide mouth: the expanded air escaped through there, and if the wicks were increased, there was a danger of setting fire to the paper and instantly reducing the superb machine to ashes. A terrible calamity, which was essential to prevent at all costs. So many arms were outstretched, and when the balloon tilted in one direction, several hands held it up frantically, all accompanied by shouts, swearing, and cursing. The tides in the plaza were rising, and anxiety grew. Carmen Agonde, laughing with her thick laugh, explained to Nieves the intrigues going on behind the scenes. Those pushing and trying to get into the circle to knock over the fuses and prevent the balloon from ascending were from the Romero party . The rocket man had had to keep a good watch all day to avoid being drenched in gunpowder. But the greatest hatred was against the balloon, for bearing the portrait of Don Victoriano: they had sworn to it, and they affirmed that such a monstrosity would not rise in their lifetime, and that they would launch another balloon, better than the one from the City Hall, and the only one that would succeed. That’s why they applauded and let out mocking howls every time the great balloon, discouraged and unable to move away from the earth, dropped to the right and left, while Don Victoriano’s supporters, on the one hand, were busy protecting the balloon’s enormous bulk from harm, and on the other, warming its insides and inflating its belly so it could fly. Nieves watched the contraption intently, but his distracted spirit was a thousand leagues away. Segundo had managed to make his way through the spectators on the balcony, and there Nieves was, to his right, beside him. No one was looking at them then, and the poet, without further ado, put his arm around Nieves’s body, vigorously placing the palm of his open hand on the anatomical location of the heart. Instead of the elastic and morbid curve of the breast and the accelerated beating of the viscera, Segundo found the stiffness of one of those long, armor-like corsets, encased in steel springs, that are the fashion today: an artifice that gave Nieves’s figure much of its modest slenderness. Damned corset! Segundo wished his fingers were hooks or pincers that, through the fabric of the dress, the sturdy whalebone, the underwear, the flesh , and the ribs themselves, would penetrate and sink into the heart, grasping it, red, smoking, and bloody, and squeezing it until it was crushed , shattered, and destroyed forever. Why couldn’t the beating of that heart be felt? Leocadia’s and even Victorina’s leaped like birds when they were touched. And Segundo, desperate, supported his hand, insisted, without fear of hurting Nieves, eager, on the contrary, to suffocate her. Overwhelmed by Segundo’s audacity, Nieves remained silent, not daring to make the slightest movement for fear that people would notice something, and protesting only with the rigidity of her waist and a look of anguish, which she soon lowered, unable to resist the expression in the poet’s eyes. He continued searching for the absent heart without being able to perceive anything but the pounding of his own arteries, of his pulse compressed by the firm iron of the corset. And finally, fatigue won , his fingers loosened, his arm fell inert, and without strength or hope, he rested on the waist, flexible yet iron at the same time, the waist of Whale and steel. Meanwhile, the balloon, despite the Romero maneuvers, rounded its enormous belly, which was filling with gas and light, illuminating the plaza like a gigantic streetlight. It swung majestically, and on its magnificent panels, all the inscriptions and dedications conceived by the Comista enthusiasm were clearly legible . The effigy, or rather the colossus of Don Victoriano, which occupied an entire front, followed the rotund shape of the balloon and stood out, so ugly and disproportionate that it was a source of joy. It had two frying pans for eyes, two eggs that were undoubtedly frying in them for pupils, a mouth of some kind of fish or lizard, and a tangled forest or map of sienna flecks and black smoke for whiskers. Monumental green laurel branches crossed over the giant’s head, matching the gold palm leaves of his ministerial uniform, drawn with ochre brushstrokes… And the balloon grew, widened, its walls became ever tauter, and the rope holding its mass was tightened, already impatient to launch itself into the heights of heaven. The combists roared with joy. A murmur arose, a deep murmur of anxiety… The rope had been skillfully cut, and serene, powerful, magnificent, the balloon rose a few meters in the air, ascending with it the apotheosis of Don Victoriano, the glory of his laurels, labels, and attributes. A salvo of applause and triumphant acclamations resounded from the balcony and below it . Oh, the vanity of human joy! It wasn’t one Romero stone, but at least three that then, fired by a sure hand, made a breach in the paper monument, and through the wounds the vital fluid, the hot air, began to escape rapidly . The balloon shrank, contracting like a worm when it is stepped on, finally bending at the waist and surrendering itself to the fire of the wick, which in a word, Jesus seized it and wrapped it in a blanket of flame. At the same time that the official candidate’s balloon miserably perished , the Romero balloon, small and round, daubed with obscene drawings, rose ready and lively from a corner of the plaza, determined not to stop until the last pavilion of clouds. Chapter 14. Nieves spent a restless night, and upon awakening, the memories of the previous day seemed to her doubtful and dreamlike; She couldn’t quite believe the reality of Segundo’s singular audacity, that direct seizure of power, that passionate outrage she couldn’t resist. What a grave compromise the poet’s audacity had placed her in! What if someone had noticed? As she said goodbye to the girls who accompanied her on the balcony, they laughed in such a peculiar way. Carmen Agonde, the plump young woman, with her sleepy eyes and her shortcrust pastry temper, sometimes revealed so much of her malice… But perhaps… how could they see anything? The Algerian shawl was long and covered the entire body… And Nieves took the shawl, put it on, and looked at herself in two mirrors to make sure that with that garment, she couldn’t see an arm around a waist… She was engaged in this activity when the door opened and someone entered. She dropped the mirror, shuddering. It was her husband, more yellow than ever, or rather, spleen-colored, with the marks of suffering written on his face… Nieves ‘s blood churned. Did Don Victoriano know something? She soon calmed down hearing him speak, with ill-suppressed spite, of the failure of the balloon and the impudence of the pilgrims. The minister needed to vent his annoyance by complaining about the slight pain from the pinprick. “But you see, daughter… what do you think?” He then lamented the continuous noise of the fair, which had kept him from closing his eyes. Nieves agreed that it was extremely annoying: she, too, was awake. The minister opened the window, and the noise rose, louder and more deafening. It resembled a great choral or symphony composed of human voices, neighing of beasts, grunts of pigs, mooing of cows, calves and oxen, cries, fights, songs, Curses and the sounds of musical instruments. The swell of the fair covered Vilamorta. From the window, the waves could be seen, a swarm of men and animals mingling, crammed, so to speak, into one another. A herd of six or eight frightened calves frequently made their way through the mass of villagers , in a dramatic attitude; a mule, led by the mule, formed a circle, kicking in a semicircle; squeals and cries of pain could be heard, but those behind pushed forward, and the gap filled again. A nag, excited by the proximity of the mares, reared up, exhaling desperate whinnying, finally fell, and, hydrophobic with zeal, bit the first thing it found. The felt mushroom merchants cut a very strange figure, parading their wares all on their heads: a tower of twenty or thirty hats, similar to Chinese pagodas. Other dealers sold, from a portable counter hung around their necks by two straps, balls of thread, thimbles, and scissors; the sellers of distaffs and spindles wore them around their waists, their chests, everywhere, like an inept swimmer carries bladders; and the pan-slingers glittered in the sun, like feudal combatants. The confusion, the uninterrupted swaying of the crowd, the intermingling of creatures and beasts was dizzying, and the mournful lowing of the beaten cows, the terrified shrieks of the women, the brutal hilarity of the drunks, who emerged from the taverns with their hats thrown back, their tongues spit-roasted, eager for air and movement, to attack the men and pinch the girls, were tiresome. These distressed women raised their cries, unable to avoid the drunken embrace except to fall on the horns of some ox or receive the snout of some mule, which bathed their temples and forehead in foamy drool. And the most terrifying thing was seeing a few infants, carried aloft by their mothers, rowing like flimsy skiffs in such a turbulent gulf. Nieves remained peeking out for about half an hour, until her eyes and ears grew tired, and she withdrew. At dusk, she sat by the window for another while. The commercial bustle had calmed down somewhat, and the Borde lordship was beginning to attend the fair. Agonde, who had not been seen all day because he was absorbed in the desperate gambling business going on in the back room, then went upstairs for a while, and wiping away the copious sweat, explained to Nieves the notables as they appeared, naming the archpriests, the parish priests, the doctors, the young gentlemen… “That skinny, skinny fellow, wearing a sifted matalón, and silver saddle decorations, and silver spurs too… is the young gentleman of Limioso… a house, God save us, at the Cid’s leg… The Pazo de Limioso is on the Cebre side… As for wealth, they don’t have a penny, a few rye plots and four vineyards that no longer bear grapes… But do you think the young gentleman of Limioso will go to some inn to dine? No, madam: he’ll have his bread and cheese in his pocket… and he’ll sleep… who knows where?” Since he’s a Carlist, they’ll let him lie down in Doña Eufrasia’s back room on the nag’s saddle, because on a day like today there aren’t any mattresses… If the scabbard he’s wearing is so bulky, it’s probably because the nag’s feed is coming in there… “You’re exaggerating, Agonde. ” “Exaggerating? Yes, yes… You have no idea what these young gentlemen are. Here they call them _seven on beast_, because they usually bring seven on a single horse, which they ride in turns two by two; and a little before the town they stop to enter on horseback one by one, heavily armed with whip and spurs, and the nag passes seven times with seven different riders… Well, look who’s coming over there on a donkey and a mule… The young ladies of Loiro! They’re friends of those from Molende… Consider the mess they’re making: it’s the dress for today’s ball. ” “But is it for real? ” “Oh!” Yes, ma’am: everything will come there, everything: the crinoline or whatever that thing that bulges out in the back is called, the shoes, the petticoats and even the blush… Ah! “Well, these are very fine women who come to the town to dress. For years, most of them used to dress in the pine grove next to the Echo of Santa Margarita… Since they didn’t have a house here, as you can see, they weren’t going to miss the dance, and at ten-thirty or eleven they were among the pines buttoning up their low-cut tops, pinning bows and ruffles, and looking so pretty… Among all this nobility, believe me, Nieves, they can’t get together for the value of a peso… They are people who, to avoid wasting fat or making broth, eat soup in wine for lunch… They hang the wheat bread roll up there from the beams so that no one can reach it and it will last for years… You know them now: vanity and nothing more… The apothecary raged on, multiplying details and overloading them, with the rage of a commoner who seizes on the fly an opportunity to ridicule the poor aristocracy, and relating stories of all the young gentlemen and Young ladies, miseries more or less skillfully concealed. Don Victoriano laughed, recalling some of those tales, already proverbial in the country, while Nieves, reassured by her husband’s laughter, began to think, not with terror, but rather with a certain hidden complacency, about the episodes of the fireworks. She had feared seeing Segundo among the crowd, but as night fell and the bright colors of the sheds faded, and the lights came on, and the drunken chants grew more hoarse, her spirits calmed, and the danger seemed very remote, almost nonexistent. In her inexperience, she had immediately imagined that Segundo’s arm would leave a mark on her waist, and that the poet would take advantage of the first moment to appear demanding and lovestruck, betraying himself and compromising her. But the day passed serenely and without incident, and Nieves experienced the inevitable impatience of a woman who doesn’t see the man who occupies her imagination arrive. Finally, she thought of the ball. Segundo would be there, in fact. Chapter 15. And she prepared herself for the village ball with a secret little excitement, putting in the same effort as if it were a soiree at the Puenteancha palace. Of course, the headdress and dress were very different, but the study and artistry in their selection were no less. A white crepe de Chine gown, high and short, trimmed with Valenciennes lace: a pleated gown, clinging and pliable, like a batiste shirt, and whose original simplicity was completed by the long, dark Swedish gloves , wrinkled at the wrist, reaching up to the elbow. A black velvet ring surrounded her throat and was closed by a horseshoe of diamonds and sapphires. Her beautiful blond hair, tied back in the English style, was somewhat unruly on her forehead. She was almost ashamed of having planned this attire when she crossed the muddy plaza on the arm of Agonde, and heard the ratty music, and saw that, as on the previous evening, the vestibule of the Town Hall was full of huddled people, whom one had to tread on to reach the stairs. The dregs of the fair ran along the landings, a dark, wine-colored stream… Agonde diverted her. “Don’t step there, Nieves… be careful…” She felt repelled by such an ugly entrance, and remembered the vestibule and staircase of the Duke and Duchess of Puenteancha, made of marble, carpeted in the center, with flowerpots on the sides… At the door of the salon she now entered, there was a bar stocked with sugar cubes, doughnuts, and sweets, and the wife of Ramón the confectioner, with her inseparable suckling pig, was selling the goods, glancing sullenly at the young ladies who were entering to amuse themselves. They seated Nieves in the most conspicuous place in the hall, facing the door. The polished walls were not very clean, nor were the benches covered with scarlet cloth very splendid; and neither the poorly lit lights nor the tin chandelier with candles created a splendid illumination. The large crowd made the heat almost unbearable. Toward the center of the hall, the men crowded together, the youth of Vilamorta mingling in a black mass with watermen, strangers, gamblers, and young mountain gentlemen. Every time the music thundered through the hall with the indiscreet sound of its brass, the central group stood out. The spirited dancers were rushing off in search of a partner. Nieves watched, surprised, the scene at the ball. The young ladies, with their bouffant, coily hairdos , their complexions streaked with coarse rice powder, their necklines barely below their necks, their long trains of cheap fabrics, trampled and torn by the heavy boots of the leading men, their badly pinned pastel flowers, and their short , thick kid gloves that made their hands look like squiffy… Nieves remembered Agonde’s descriptions of the dressing room set up in the pine grove, and she fanned herself with her large black codpiece, trying to dispel the pestilent atmosphere in which the ballroom enveloped her. There, the dancing was carried out relentlessly, as if they were competing for a prize offered to whoever could breathe the fastest. The couples were dragged along by their own momentum as well as by the shoves, footsteps, and knee-bumps of others; and Nieves, accustomed to witnessing the rhythmic and refined dancing at the parties, marveled at the faith and determination with which they pranced about in Vilamorta. Some girls, whose heels had ripped the ruffles of their dresses, would stop, roll up their trains, quickly tear off the ornament from all around, roll it up, and after throwing it into a corner, return smiling and happy to their partner’s arms . The gentlemen wiped their sweat with their handkerchiefs, but it was useless; Collars and shirtfronts softened, hair stuck to foreheads, a stain spread under the armpits of silk bodices , and the five fingers of the gallants were pointed and left imprinted on the backs of the ladies… And the gymnastics continued, and the dust and the molecules of sweat polluted the air, and the floor of the hall shook… There were beautiful couples, fresh young women and gallant young men, who danced with the healthy joy of youth, with shining eyes, overflowing with physical expansion; and other very laughable ones, of short men with tall women, of big women with children with beards, of a bald old man with an immense ham. Some brothers danced with their sisters, out of shyness, not daring to bring out other young ladies, and the town clerk, married for years to a rich, old, and very jealous woman from Orense, jumped all night with his wife, and to avoid dying of suffocation, he set the polkas and waltzes to the rhythm of habaneras. When Nieves entered, the other women looked at her with curiosity at first , and then with surprise. Strange thing! To come so plain! Not to wear a train and a half long, nor a flower in her hair, nor bracelets, nor silk shoes! Two or three strangers from Orense, who harbored the intention of putting a stop to the Vilamorta dance, whispered among themselves, commenting on this artistic negligence and the modesty of that white, high-waisted bodice and the grace of that small head, almost without a bun, vaporous like those in the engravings of _La Ilustración_. The women from Orense were planning to copy the costume; On the other hand, those from Vilamorta and Borde harshly criticized the Minister. “She comes here dressed like she’s from home… ” “She does it because no one wants to wear anything good here… You can see, for a ball here… She’ll think we don’t understand… But woman, she could have at least combed her hair a little better… And it’s well known that she’s bored; look, she looks like she’s falling asleep! ” “Before, it seemed as if she couldn’t sit still… she’d kick her foot on the floor, she wanted to leave… Ah! Indeed, Nieves was bored! And if the young ladies in charge could guess the reason! She couldn’t see Segundo anywhere, no matter how much she looked for him with her eyes, at first surreptitiously and then openly. Finally, the lawyer García came to greet her, and then she couldn’t contain herself, and, forcing herself to speak in a natural and ordinary tone, she asked him: “And the chicken? It’s a miracle it’s not around! ” “Who?” Second? He’s second over there… so strange… who knows what he’s doing at this hour! Reading poetry, or composing it… We ought to leave him with his manias. And the lawyer waved his hands, as if indicating that it was necessary to respect the genius’s extravagances, while thinking to his buddies: “He’ll be with that damned old woman.” The truth was that the poet, given the circumstances, would not for anything in the world go to a ball like that, where his acquaintances, the girls of the town, would force him to dance, to be jostled, and to sweat like the other boys. And his restraint, born of aesthetic instinct, had a marvelous effect on Nieves, completely erasing all traces of fear, stimulating coquetry, and piquing curiosity. At the ball itself, in the radical circle that formed around Don Victoriano and his wife, there was talk of leaving immediately for Las Vides to witness the grape harvest: a project that delighted the former minister, as any extraordinary diversion delights a child . The people the gentleman had invited or was planning to invite for such a joyful season were named, and when Agonde pronounced Segundo’s name, Nieves raised his eyes, his face brightened, as he said to himself: “He’s capable of not coming.” Chapter 16. A great day in Las Vides, that which the town council has set for the grape harvest! The entire year passes in preparation and anticipation of the beautiful time of the harvest. The vine has dressed itself in purple and gold, but it is already slowly shedding some of its rich adornment, like a bride her veils at the foot of the bridal bed. The wasps swarm over the bunches, warning men that they are ripe. September displays the serene placidity of its final days: it’s time to harvest without delay. Neither Primo Genday nor Méndez give themselves a moment’s rest. The crews of grape pickers who come from distant parishes to hire themselves must be looked after, their work distributed, and the harvest organized so that it is harmonious and fruitful. The
work of grape harvesting is somewhat like a great battle, demanding extraordinary energy from the soldier, a waste of muscle and blood. However, in return, it is essential to always have what is necessary to restore their strength during their moments of rest. For the grape harvesters to be ready and motivated for the arduous task, it was important that they find a wide vessel full of must ready in the cellar, where the carts could drink freely upon arriving, exhausted from carrying the heavy coleiro, or basket filled with grapes, up the steep slopes. It was important that the thick pumpkin broth, seasoned with mutton tallow, the sardines, herring, and rye bread were plentiful when the devouring appetite of the groups called for them; to this end, the Vides hearth never went out, nor were the enormous cauldrons where the stew boiled unoccupied. If we add to this the presence of numerous and distinguished guests, we can understand the bustle of the manor house on such incomparable days. Its walls enclosed, apart from the Comba family, Saturnino and Carmen Agonde, the young and affable priest of Naya, the monumental archpriest of Loiro, Tropiezo, Clodio Genday, the young gentleman of Limioso, and the two young ladies of Molende. All classes were represented there , and it was like a microcosm or brief compendium of the world of that province; The priests were attracted by Primo Genday, the radicals by the deputy, and the aristocracy by the Méndez estate. And all these people of such diverse backgrounds, upon finding themselves together, enjoyed themselves and had fun in the best possible harmony and concord. The jubilation of the grape pickers echoed that of the guests. It was impossible to resist the Bacchic exhilaration, the intoxication that permeated the air. Among the delightful spectacles that nature offers, none is more pleasing than its fecundity during the grape harvest: those baskets filled with golden bunches or the color of curdled blood, which burly, almost naked men, resembling fauns, carry up and empty into the vat or the winepress; that laughter of the grape pickers hidden among the foliage, disputing, challenging each other to sing from one vineyard to another, challenges that ended at dusk as all violent expansions in which much muscular vigor are spent end; with melancholic outbursts, with some prolonged Celtic moan, some plaintive _a laá laá_… The pagan sensation of well-being, the rustic joy, the contentment of life, were communicated to the spectators of such beautiful tableaux; and at night, while the choruses of fauns and bacchantes danced to the sound of the flute and the tambourine, the noble family amused themselves tumultuously, with childish frolics, in the mansion. The young ladies slept together in a large, dilapidated room, the Rosary Room, and Méndez had housed the male guests in another very spacious room, called the _Biombo_, because it enclosed one as ugly as it was old; With no one except the archpriest exempt from this system of quartering , whose obesity and snoring were such that no person of average sense could tolerate him as a roommate; and with the mischievous and debauched people thus divided into two sections , it happened that a kind of war broke out, and the tenants of the Rosario room thought only of playing tricks on the tenants of the Biombo room, resulting in a thousand humorous inventions and amusing skirmishes. Between the two camps was a neutral one: the Comba family, respected in their sleep, invulnerable when it came to practical jokes, although the female side usually took Nieves as a confidant and inspiration. —Nieves, come here… Nieves, look how silly Carmen Agonde is… Look… she says she likes the archpriest, that barrel, more than Don Eugeniño, the one from Naya… Because she says it makes her laugh to see how he sweats, and those rolls of flesh he has on the back of his neck… And tell me, Nieves, what are we going to do to Don Eugeniño tonight? And to Ramón Limioso, who has been challenging us all day long? The one who spoke like this was usually Teresa Molende, dark and manly, with black eyes, a fine example of mountain stock. —They’ll pay for what happened yesterday, added her sister Elvira, the sentimental poetess. —So what happened? —You must know that they locked Carmen up; they’re the devil! They locked her in Méndez’s room… How they don’t think! They tied her hands behind her back with a silk handkerchief, covered her mouth with another so she wouldn’t scream, and left her there like a mouse in a mousetrap… We kept looking for Carmen, and Carmen never appeared… We were having bad thoughts… Until Méndez went to bed and saw her there… Of course they stumbled upon this fool, and if they found me… “They might as well lock you up,” Carmen pleaded. “Me!” exclaimed the Amazon, straightening her robust body. “If only they weren’t the ones locked up! ” “But they caught me in the act…” asserted the woman from Agonde, putting on the sad face of a baby. “Look, Nieves, they told me this: ‘Put your hands back, Carmiña, we’re going to put a five-peso coin in them.’ And I did… and they were so treacherous that they tied them up!” Here Nieves joined in the laughter of the two sisters. That simplicity, it cannot be denied, had a great deal of charm. Nieves believed she lived in a new world where routine and the worn-out formulas of Madrid society did not exist. It is true that such candid and boisterous sports could border on the inconvenient or vulgar, but sometimes they were truly entertaining. From the moment the guests rose at the table in the evenings, everything was fun and revelry. Teresa had made it her mission to never let Tropiezo eat in peace, and with great skill she would catch flies in flight and surreptitiously throw them into his broth, or pour vinegar instead of wine, or smear his napkin with pitch so that it would stick to his mouth. She had another trick for the archpriest: to get him talking about ceremonies, a conversation he was very fond of, and when she saw him engaged, she would take the plate away from him, which was equivalent to tearing out half of his heart. At night, in the hall of murky mirrors, where the piano and the Rocking chairs were in full swing, a brilliant gathering was forming: fragments of old-fashioned zarzuelas were sung , such as _The Oath_ and _The Cabin Boy_; games of hide-and-seek were played, brisca with signs and malilla; tired of cards, they turned to the prizes, to the flower card, to try out a letter and guess a thought… And with the playful peasant blood now aroused, they moved on to physical games, to four corners, to blind man’s buff, which have the salt and pepper of exercise, of shouting, of collision and of slapping… Afterwards, they would retire, still excited by the game, and it was the most tremendous hour, that of the greatest pranks: the hour when lit matches were tied to the bodies of the crickets, to slip them under the bedroom door; the hour when the boards were being removed from _Tropiezo_’s platform, so that when he lay down he would sink and give a formidable fall… Laughter and silent footsteps could be heard in the corridors, and white bundles could be seen hastily slipping away, and doors being locked and in front of which furniture was piled up, while a deep, thick voice came from within saying: —They’re coming! —Lock it up tight, girls!… It won’t even open to the Holy Spirit!… Chapter 17. Segundo was the last to enjoy the hospitality of the Vines. Since he was not very fond of games, and Nieves did not take much of an active part in them either, they would have been isolated were it not for Victorina, who never left her mother’s side as soon as she saw Segundo nearby, and also for Elvira Molende, who from the first moment clung to the poet like a vine to a wall, bestowing upon him a repertoire of glances, sighs, confidences, and vague remarks capable of sickening a pastry boy. The moment Segundo stepped onto the Vides, Elvira lost all her vitality and adopted her customary languid and sentimental posture, which made her cheeks appear even more sunken and her eyelids more haggard and withered. Her gait recovered the melancholy inclination of a willow, and, leaving aside her jokes and frolics, she devoted herself completely to the Swan. Since the moon was out and the nights were inviting for enjoyment, as soon as the sun was setting and the work was over, and the grape-picking couples were gathering to dance, some of the guests would gather in the orchard, especially at the foot of a wall bordered by leafy camellias, or else, upon returning from a stroll, they would stop in one of those places that invites one to sit down and chat for a while. Elvira knew by heart many verses, both good and bad, usually belonging to the sad, erotic, and elegiac genre; she was not unaware of any of the flowers and tenderness that constitute the sweet treasure of regional poetry; And as they passed through her thin lips, through her soft voice, resonant with a crystalline timbre, as she intoned them with her affectionate local accent, the Galician verses acquired something of what the Andalusian saeta acquires in the sensual mouth of the gypsy: an intimate and penetrating beauty, the concretization of the soul of a race in a poetic pearl, in a tear of love. From such plaintive stanzas, ironic laughter sometimes rose , just as the joyful ringing of castanets often stands out among the wailing strains of the bagpipes. The poems gained in dialect and seemed to increase their freshness and rustic aroma when a woman recited them, with a soft pronunciation, at the edge of a pine grove or under the shade of a trellis, on serene moonlit nights; and the rhythm became a vague and dreamy melody like that of some German ballads; labial music, sprinkled with springy diphthongs, affectionate eñes, and x’s modulated with a tone more mellow than that of the Castilian whistling ch. Generally, after reciting for a while, songs were sung: Don Eugenio, who was a native of the region, knew Portuguese fados; and Elvira was all alone in intoning that extremely popular and soulful cantiga by Curros, which seems made for the druidic, lunar nights. Segundo trembled with vanity when, in turn with those of the poets known and loved in the country, Elvira recited fluently the major part of the Swan songs, printed in newspapers in Vigo or Orense. Segundo had never written in dialect, and yet Elvira had a book where she cut out and pasted with glue all the productions of the unknown Swan. And Teresa, joining in the lively conversation, betrayed her sister, with the best of intentions. “She composes too. Go on, woman, say something of yours.” She has a notebook like that of her own things, thought up, written by her. After the indispensable mincing words, the poetess recited two or three little things almost without poetic form, weak, sincere amid their sentimental falsehood: those verses that do not reveal artistic talents, but are a sure, infallible indication that the author feels an unsatisfied longing, aspires to fame or passion, as the inarticulate cry of a child declares its hunger. Segundo tormented his mustache; Nieves lowered her eyes and played with the tassels of her fan, impatient and even somewhat bored and nervous. This happened two or three days after Segundo’s arrival, who still hadn’t been able to make the slightest attempt to say a word to Nieves. “What snobbish young ladies!” thought the woman from Comba, while she repeated aloud: “How beautiful, how tender! It’s like some of Grilo’s compositions… ” Chapter 18. The eldest son of Vides, nor the Gendays, nor the archpriest, who were installed on the balcony under the pretext of enjoying the moonlight, were not speaking of verses; in reality, they were debating the pressing question of the grape harvest. “Good harvest, good!” The grapes showed no sign of powdery mildew: they were clean, plump, and so ripe that they stuck to the fingers as if they had been sprinkled with honey. Surely the new wine from that year was worth more than the old one from the previous year. The previous year was a complete nonsense! Hail here, water there!… The grapes were already open with all that rain and without a trace of substance; the result was a wine that barely stained the sleeves of the muleteers’ shirts… Recalling such a calamity, Méndez wrinkled his wrinkled mouth, and the archpriest snorted… And the conversation continued, supported by Primo Genday, who, very verbose, salivating and laughing, recalled details of harvests from twenty years earlier, affirming: “This year’s is exactly the same as in sixty-one. ” “Same, man,” Méndez confirmed. The chamois isn’t giving any less damage this time; and the cricket, I don’t know, I don’t know if she’ll even get us six or seven more into the house… The cricket has a lot of vineyards!” After such joyful predictions of a bountiful harvest, Méndez took pleasure in detailing to his attentive audience some of the improvements he was making to his crops: he had fitted most of his pipes with iron arches, more expensive than wooden ones, but more durable and saving the heavy work of preparing and taming the arches for each harvest. He also planned to install, as a trial, a winepress with I don’t know what hydraulic devices, which would avoid the ugly spectacle of grapes being trodden by human feet; and, not wanting to waste the grape pomace, he would distill a refined alcohol, which Agonde would buy him worth its weight in gold for medicines… To the lullaby of the deep voices discussing important agricultural matters on the balcony, Don Victoriano, somewhat exhausted from his expedition to the vineyards, smoked in the rocking chair, buried in painful meditations. Since his return from the waters, he felt increasingly weaker: the fleeting relief evaporated, and the prostration, bulimia, thirst, and desiccation of his poor body grew. He remembered that Sánchez del Abrojo had told him how much relief a light sweat would bring him , and upon observing the restoration of this function of the skin in the first few days after drinking the sulfurous water , his joy knew no bounds. But what was his terror when he realized that his shirt, stiff and hard, was sticking to his skin, as if it were soaked in syrup! He placed his lips on a fold of his sleeve and perceived a sweet taste. Evident! He was sweating sugar! The glucose secretion was, therefore, uncontrollable, and by a tremendous irony of fate, all the bitterness of his existence were coming down to that strange elaboration of sweet substances! For a few days now, he had noticed another alarming symptom. His vision was deteriorating. As the aqueous humor in his eye dried, his lens was clouding , and the diabetic cataract appeared. Don Victoriano felt chills. He already regretted having put himself in Tropiezo’s murderous hands and taken the waters. Undoubtedly, they had given him the wrong cure. From that day on, a strict regimen, a diet of fruit, starch, and milk. To live, to live even for a year, and hide the evil! If the voters saw their deputy blind and dying, they would all go with Romero… The slap of losing the upcoming elections seemed so humiliating! Argentine laughter and youthful exclamations rising from the orchard changed his thoughts. Why didn’t Nieves take notice of her husband’s serious condition? He wanted to dissemble from the whole world, but from his wife… Ah! His wife belonged to him, his wife should be there holding his forehead, caressing him, instead of enjoying herself and wandering about among the camellias like a little girl! If she was pretty and fresh and her husband was sickly, so much the worse for her… Let her put up with it, as was her duty… Bah, what nonsense! Nieves didn’t love him; she had never loved him! The laughter and uproar were increasing downstairs. The fact is that, having exhausted their verses, Victorina and Teresa had proposed playing hide-and-seek. Victorina kept shouting: “Tulé… gang Teresa!” “Tulé… Panda Segundo!” The orchard was very suitable for such an exercise, due to its almost labyrinthine complexity, due to its layout on sloping plateaus, supported by small walls, divided by dense trees, and connected by uneven staircases, as is the case with all the estates in such a rugged country. So the game was a source of great excitement, since it was difficult for the panda player to guess who was hiding. Nieves tried to hide well, out of laziness, so as not to get caught and then have to run too far after the other players. Fortune provided her with a superb refuge, the large lemon tree, located at the end of a plateau, near several small steps that made it easier to retreat. So she hid in the thickest part of the foliage, trying to conceal her light-colored clothing. She had been there for a few moments when darkness increased and a voice murmured very softly: “Nieves?” —Hey! she squealed in fear. —Who’s looking for me around here? —No, they’re not looking for you… I’m the only one looking for you, exclaimed Segundo forcefully, entering Nieves’s inn with such impetuosity that the late orange blossoms still whitening on the branches of the massive tree dropped their petals on their heads, and the foliage groaned harmoniously. —For God’s sake, García, for God’s sake… Don’t be imprudent… go away … or let me out… If they come and find us here, what will they say… for God’s sake… —That I leave?… pronounced the poet. But madam, even if they find me here… it won’t be anything special; A little while ago I was with Teresa Molende over there behind a camellia… either you play or you don’t… Anyway , if you command it, to please you… But first, tell me something I need to know… —Somewhere else… in the parlor… Nieves stammered, listening anxiously to the distant murmurs and shouts of the game. —In the parlor!… Surrounded by one and all!… No, it can’t be… Now, now… can you hear me? —Yes, I can hear, she said in a voice muffled with fear. —Well, I adore you, Nieves. I adore you, and you love me. —Shh! Silence, silence! They’re close… They sound like footsteps… —No, it’s the leaves… Tell me you love me, and I’ll go. —They’re coming! For God’s sake, I’m going to die of fright! Enough joking. García; I beg you… —You know too well that this is no joke… Don’t you remember the day of the fireworks? If you didn’t love me, that day I would have turned away … or screamed… You look at me sometimes… you look back at me… You can’t deny it! Segundo stood beside Nieves, speaking with ardent enthusiasm, but without touching her, even though the embalmed and rustling cell they both occupied gently pressed their bodies, as if advising them to come closer. But Segundo remembered the cold, hard whales, and Nieves, trembling, drew back. Trembling, yes, with fear. She could have called out to the people; but if Segundo didn’t turn aside, what a disappointment, what explanations, what shame. After all, the poet was right: on the night of the fireworks, she had been weak, and she was trapped. And what would Segundo do after hearing the _yes_? He reiterated his proud and vehement affirmation. “You love me, Nieves… You love me… Say it once, just once, and I’ll leave…” Teresa Molende’s faint voice could be heard in the distance, making a kind of summons… “Nieves, where are you?” Victoriniña, Carmen… inside, the dew is falling… And another high-pitched organ, Elvira’s, echoed: “Segundo! Segundo! We’re leaving!” Indeed, that imperceptible mildness was falling that refreshes the hot nights of Galicia; the glossy leaves of the lemon tree, into which Nieves hid to escape Segundo, were damp with dew; the poet bent down and his hands found others frozen with cold and fear… He squeezed them until they were crushed. “Or, tell me if you love me… ” “But my God, they’re calling us… they miss me… I’m cold! ” “Then tell me the truth. Otherwise, there’s no human strength that can tear me from here… whatever happens. Is it so difficult to say a single word? ” “And what am I to say, come on? ” “Do you love me? Yes or no. ” “And will you let me go out… go home?” —Everything… everything… but do you love me? The _yes_ was almost inaudible. It was a breath, a prolonged _s_. Segundo unwound her wrists. —Do you love me as I love you? Say it clearly. This time Nieves, with an effort, articulated a round _yes_. Segundo let go of her hands, brought hers to his mouth in a passionate gesture of gratitude, and jumping down the steps, disappeared among the fruit trees. Chapter 19. Nieves breathed. She was… like… dazed. She shook her wrists, aching from the pressure of Segundo’s fingers, and arranged her hair, wet with dew and tangled by the brush of the branches. What had she said, sir? Anything, to get out of such a serious predicament… She felt the blame for herself, for withdrawing from the crowd and hiding in a secluded spot… And, with that desire to publicize indifferent acts that overwhelms people when they have something to hide, she shouted to everyone: “Teresa! Elvira! Carmen! Carmen! ” “Where is she? Nieves! Nieves!” came the response from various quarters. “Here… next to the large lemon tree… I’m coming!” When they entered the house, Nieves, calmer, reconsidered and was amazed at herself. “Telling Segundo ‘yes’!” It had come out half-forced; but in the end, it had come out of her mouth. How dare the poet! It seemed impossible that the lawyer’s boyfriend from Vilamorta could have been so resolute. She was a lady of distinction, highly respected: her husband had just become a minister. And that García family … Bah!… nobodies; the father wore every collar so frayed that it was pitiful; they didn’t have a maid, the sisters sometimes ran barefoot… Segundo himself, in truth… his provincial air and Galician accent were very noticeable. No, he couldn’t be called ugly: there was something unusual about his face and his figure… He spoke with such passion! As if he were commanding instead of begging… What an air of dominance he had! And such an enthusiastic and intrepid pursuer was flattering… Who had fallen in love with Nieves up to that point? Four courtships, one who looked at her through binoculars… Everyone in Madrid treated her with that warmth and consideration that respectable ladies inspire… Besides, Segundo’s determination didn’t cease to compromise her. Would people find out? Would her husband notice? Bah!… her husband He only thought about his ailments, the elections… He barely spoke of anything else with her. What if she took charge? How awful, my God! And those of hide-and-seek, wouldn’t they be malicious?… Elvira seemed more languid and sighing than usual… Elvira liked Segundo! He… no; he didn’t pay the slightest attention to her… And Segundo’s verses sounded good, they were beautiful; they could appear in La Ilustración… Anyway… Since they would have to leave for Madrid before the elections, there was hardly any serious danger… She would always have a pleasant memory of the summer… The point was to avoid it, avoid it… Nieves didn’t dare tell herself what she should avoid, nor had she fully considered this point when she entered the living room, where the tresillo game was already in progress. Mrs. Comba sat down at the piano and typed out several light little pieces, polkas and rigodons, for the girls to dance. They shouted for another piece of music. “Nieves, the muiñeira! ” “The riveirana, for God’s sake! ” “Do you know it all, Nieves? ” “All of it. Haven’t I heard it at the parties? ” “Let’s play it. Come on. ” “Who’s playing it? ” “Who’s playing it repinica? Let’s see, let’s see!” Several voices rose up, betraying the crowd. “Teresa Molende… oh! It’s a pleasure to watch her dance. ” “And the couple? ” “Here… Ramonciño Limioso, who plays like a charm.” Teresa laughed with virile and resounding laughter, swearing that she had forgotten the muiñeira, that she never knew it right. A protest rose from the tresillo table: that of the owner of the house, Méndez. Teresiña danced well! That she shouldn’t apologize, that the excuse was of no use to her: there wasn’t a girl in all of Borde who could throw the _riveirana_ with more grace: it’s true that the custom and the wit for these traditional, ancient things were being lost every day… Teresa gave in, not without affirming her incompetence for the last time. And after pinning the skirt of her dress so that it wouldn’t get in her way, she stopped laughing and assumed a modest and candid demeanor, letting the veil fall from her eyelids over her thick, burning eyes, leaning her head on her breast, hanging her arms down alongside her body, giving them a slight sway while she rubbed the pads of her thumb and forefinger against each other; and so, walking with small steps, her feet close together, following the rhythm of the music, she walked around the room with singular decorum, her eyes fixed on the floor, finally stopping at the end of the room. While this was going on, the young gentleman of Limioso took off his tailcoat, leaving himself in his shirtsleeves, put on his hat, and asked for an indispensable object: “Victoriña, the false ones. ” The girl ran and brought two pairs of castanets. The young gentleman fastened the strings between his fingers and, after an arrogant ringing, entered the scene. He was the very image of Don Quixote, dry and nutty, and like the gentleman of La Mancha, his distinction and nobility could be denied , no matter how scrupulously he imitated the clumsy movements of the village youths. He placed himself in front of Teresa and addressed her with a hurried, courteous, but urgent tapping, analogous to a declaration of love. Sometimes she struck the ground with the entire sole of her foot, other times with her heel or just the toe, dislocating her ankle and making a thousand little taps, all the while briskly touching the false heels, which in Teresa’s hands responded with a weak and modest tapping. Throwing his hat back, the gallant looked boldly at his partner, brought his face close to hers, pursued her, harassed her tenderly in a thousand ways, without Teresa ever changing her humble and submissive attitude, nor he his conquering appearance, his gymnastic and determined movements of attack. It was primitive love, the courtship of heroic times, revealed in that expressive Cantabrian dance, warlike and harsh; the woman dominated by the strength of the male and, better than in love, timid; all of which seemed even more piquant considering Teresa’s Amazon type and the habitual shrinking and circumspection of the young man. He arrived, without However, at one point, the gallant appeared from under the barbarian victor, and in the midst of the most complicated and devoted tapping of feet, bent his knee before the beautiful woman, making the figure known as the “point of the Sacrament.” It was instantaneous: he leaped to his feet, and giving his partner a flattering shove, they stood back to back, pressed close together, caressing and rubbing lovingly shoulder to shoulder and spine to spine. Two minutes later, they suddenly separated, and with some complicated ankle exercises and a few quick turns that swirled Teresa’s petticoats, the “riveirana” ended and a riot of applause broke out in the room. While the young man wiped the sweat from his forehead, and Teresa took off her skirt, Nieves, rising from the piano, noticed that Segundo was not in the room. Elvira made the same observation, but out loud. Agonde gave them the key to the mystery. “Surely at such and such an hour he’s in the pine grove, or by the riverbank… Rare is the night that he doesn’t go for such extravagant strolls: in Vilamorta he does the same. ” “And how can the door be locked without him coming? That boy is crazy,” declared Primo Genday. “We’re not all going to be left without sleep, having to get up early for work, because of some fool. Hey, do you understand me? I’ll lock it, and let him sort it out as best he can. Hail Mary!” Méndez and Don Victoriano protested in the name of courtesy and the duties of hospitality, and the Vides gate remained open until midnight , awaiting Segundo’s return. But since he didn’t return, at twelve o’clock Genday went in person to bar the doors, muttering to himself: “Hail Mary… Let the night watchman sleep if he feels like it.” Segundo, indeed, was climbing toward the pine grove. He felt very excited and found it impossible to appear before people or to engage in any conversation. Nieves, that woman so respected, so beautiful, had said yes to him! It was not, then, a vain dream, nor the aspiration of a fool, the drive toward ideal fortunes that tormented his spirit, nor would glory be inaccessible when love was already within reach of his anxious and feverish right hand, and with an extension he could touch it. Thinking of this, he climbed the steep path and wandered deliriously through the pine grove, sometimes leaning against one of the black trunks, entranced, hatless, drinking in the night air, listening as if in dreams to the mysterious voice of the trees and the mournful voice of the river that flowed at his feet. Ah! What moments of bliss, what supreme satisfaction was promised by that love that flattered his pride, excited his imagination, and satisfied his delicate poetic selfishness, eager for passion, for joys that the dreamy imagination polishes and the muse can sing of without diminishment! Everything he had dreamed of until then in verse was going to be real in life; and the song would rise more penetratingly, and inspiration would inspire more powerfully, and the stanzas would be written in blood, making the readers’ hearts beat! In spite of duty and reason, Nieves loved him… She had said it! The poet smiled disdainfully, thinking of Don Victoriano, and felt the ideologue’s great contempt for the practical but inept man in matters of the soul… Then he looked around. The pine forest was sad at that hour. And it was cold… Besides, it must be late. They would miss his absence in Las Vides . Had Nieves gone to bed already? With these thoughts in mind , he went down the difficult path and arrived at the door ten minutes after Genday’s solicitous hand had secured the bar. The setback didn’t alarm Segundo: he would have to scale some wall, and he almost liked the novelty of the challenge… How would he get in? Undoubtedly the easiest way was through the orchard, to which he could descend by a very rapid slope formed by the mountain: a matter of scraping his thighs, brushing his palms, but being within ten minutes without encountering the dogs guarding the courtyard, or any people, since that part, which corresponded to the dining room, was uninhabited. No sooner said than done. He went back and He climbed, not without difficulty, to the small hillock: once there, he dominated the sunny side and a good part of the orchard. He studied the descent so as not to fall on the small wall and perhaps break his leg. Since the hillock was bare and without vegetation, the figure of the Swan stood out against the sky. As he fixed his eyes on the sunny side to orient himself, Segundo saw something that troubled his senses with a very gentle dizziness: something that caused him one of those delightful jolts that rush all the blood to the heart to then distribute it joyfully and ardently through the veins. In the dim light of the sunny side, among the flowerpots, his penetrating sight distinguished, without leaving him the slightest doubt about the reality of his vision, a white figure, the silhouette of a woman whose attitude seemed to indicate that she had also seen him, that she was watching him, that she was waiting for him there. Swiftly, her imagination drew the outlines and contours of the scene: a conversation, a divine conversation of love with Nieves, among the carnations and vines, alone, with no other witnesses than the already setting moon and the flowers, envious of such happiness. And with a swift movement, she began to roll down the steep slope, falling against the hard wall. She paid no attention to the blow, the bruises, or the grinding of her bones: she jumped from the wall to the orchard and looked for the direction of the sunny side. The fruit trees hid her path, and two or three times she missed the route. Finally, she managed to emerge at the foot of the sunny side , and then she raised her eyes to ascertain the truth of the desired apparition. Indeed, a woman was waiting there, anxious, dressed in white, leaning on the wooden balustrade of the sunny side; but the distance no longer allowed for optical illusions. It was Elvira Molende, with her calico dressing gown and her hair spread out, like an actress playing the _Sonámbula_. With what eagerness the poor thing bent down! Her body was almost out of the balcony. The poet could have sworn that she was even calling him by his name, very softly, with an affectionate lisp… And he passed on. He walked all the way around the garden, entered the courtyard by the inner door, which was not locked at night, and knocked loudly on the kitchen door… The servant came, complaining about the young gentlemen who go to bed late because they don’t have to get up early to open the cellar to the treaders. Chapter 20. As the grape harvest and the work of preparation went on for so long in the great Méndez winery, and in that country everyone who wants more or less has their bit of _Borde_ to harvest and collect, some of the guests emigrated , eager to tend to their own vineyards. The young gentleman of Limioso needed to see firsthand how, amidst the powdery mildew, blackbirds, neighbors, and wasps, they hadn’t left him a single bunch for a remedy; the young ladies of Molende had to hang the grapes for their famous Tostado, renowned throughout the country, with their own hands; and for similar reasons, Saturnino Agonde, the archpriest, and the priest of Naya took their leave, leaving the court of Las Vides reduced to Carmen Agonde, lady- in-waiting, Clodio Genday, court counselor, Tropiezo, court physician, and Segundo, who could very well be the page or troubadour charged with entertaining the Castilian woman with his lamentations. Segundo was burning with a feverish impatience he had never felt before. From the day of the conversation in the lemon grove, Nieves avoided any opportunity to be alone with him; and the feverish sleep of his nights, the intolerable anguish that consumed him was not going beyond the fugitive _yes_, which at times he even doubted he had heard. The Swan could not, could not endure this slow torture, this incessant martyrdom: less wretched would he have been if, instead of encouraging him, Nieves repaid him with clear disdain. It was not the brutal desire for positive victories that tormented him thus: he only wanted to convince himself that he was truly loved, and that beneath the steel corset a heart beat and felt. And such was his madness that when everyone stood between him and Nieves, he was overcome by violent impulses to cry out: — “Nieves, tell me again that you love me!” — Always, always obstacles between the two; always the girl at his mother’s side! What was the point of being free of Elvira Molende, who from the famous sentry on the sun terrace looked at the poet with eyes somewhere between satirical and elegiac? The poetess’s departure removed one obstacle, but did not resolve the situation. And Segundo suffered in his pride, wounded by Nieves’s systematic reserve, and also in his amorous ambition, in his ardent thirst for the impossible. It was already the first ten days of October; the former minister, dejected and full of apprehension, spoke of leaving as soon as possible; And although Segundo expected to settle in Madrid soon through her influence and find Nieves again, his infallible instinct told him that between Nieves and himself there was no other bond except their brief stay at Las Vides, the poetry of autumn, the chance of living under the same roof, and that if he didn’t consolidate this flirtation before separating, it would be as ephemeral as the vine leaves, which fell wrinkled and drained of juice. Autumn was saying goodbye to its finery: the wrinkled and gnarled deformity of the bare vines could be seen , the dry thinness of the shoots, and the wind was already moaning sadly, stripping the branches of the fruit trees. One day Victorina asked Segundo: “When shall we go to the pine grove, to hear her sing?” “Whenever you like, daughter… If your mother wants it to be this afternoon…” The girl made the proposition to Nieves. The fact is that Victorina had been, for some time now, more clingy and coy than ever to her mother: she would continually rest her head on her breast, bury her cheek in Nieves’s neck, run her hands through her hair, over her shoulders, and, for no reason or motive, murmur in a voice that begged for caresses: “Mama… Mama!” But the miniature woman’s eyes, half-closed, with an anxious and loving gaze through her thick eyelashes, were not fixed on her mother, but on the poet, whose words the girl drank in, turning bright red whenever he made any jokes or gave any indication that he was aware of her presence. Nieves, at first, resisted somewhat, boasting of being a proper person. “But who puts it in your head…” “Mama, when Segundo says the pines sing… They sing, woman: have no doubt about it.” —But don’t you know… Nieves murmured, giving the poet a smile that was more sugar than salt,—that Segundo writes verses, and that those who write verses are allowed to… to lie… a little? —No, madam, exclaimed Segundo: don’t teach your daughter errors; don’t deceive her. Lies are, generally, the things we talk about in society, what we have to pronounce with our tongues, even if we keep the opposite in our hearts; but in verse… In verse we reveal and discover the great truths of the soul, what among people must be kept silent out of respect… or prudence… Believe it or not. —And tell me, Mama: are we going to that today? —What, daughter? —To the pine forest. —If you insist… What a girl’s mania! And it’s that I’m also curious to hear that orchestra… Only Nieves, Victorina, Carmen, Segundo, and Tropiezo took part in the expedition . The older people remained smoking and witnessing the important operation of covering and sweeping some of the first vats so that the now fermented must could settle. Seeing the procession leave, Méndez said to them in a tone of paternal warning: “Be careful on the descent… The pine needles, in this heat, are slippery, they feel like they’re covered in soap… Give the ladies your arm… You, Victorina, don’t be crazy, don’t run that way… ” The famous pine forest was about a quarter of a league away, but it took at least three-quarters of an hour to climb, which was as steep as heaven, so steep, narrow, and steep, and at a certain distance it began to be carpeted with polished, smooth, and dry pine needles, which, while probably making the descent easier than necessary, made the ascent more difficult, putting pressure on the foot and tiring the ankles and knees. Nieves, annoyed, stopped from time to time, until she took Carmen Agonde’s plump arm. “Wow… this road is a trial! On the way back, whoever doesn’t kill themselves!” “You’ll never be without skill!” “Pack it up, pack it up,” said the sturdy young woman… “They’ve already broken a few legs here, for sure… This climb is frightening.” They finally reached the summit. The view was beautiful, with that kind of beauty that borders on the sublime. The pine forest seemed to hang over an abyss; between the trunks could be seen the mountains opposite, an ashen blue that tended towards violet at their highest and most remote points; while on the other side of the pine forest, the one that fell toward the river, the terrain, very uneven, formed a very steep escarpment, a slope almost sheer, if not sheer, at least with a terrifying decline; And far below, far below, flowed the Avieiro, neither calm nor oblique, but turbulent and foaming, impatient with the barrier posed by sharp, black rocks, determined to stop it and only succeeding in making it leap with epileptic fury, breaking into several angry torrents, which coiled around the stones like angry, greenish serpents intertwined with silver. The pine forest echoed the river’s bellows and sobs with its perpetual complaint, intoned by the tops of the pines, which vibrated, swayed, and moaned, transmitted by the wave of the wind, a painful kiss that wrung from them that incessant “ah!” The expeditionaries remained silent, impressed by the tragic appearance of the landscape, which locked their lips. Only the girl spoke; but as softly as if she were in church. “Well, it’s true, Mama!” The pines are singing. Do you hear? It sounds like the bishops’ chorus from *The Africana*… They’re even saying words… pay attention… in low voices… like in *The Huguenots*… Nieves agreed that the murmur of the pines was indeed musical and very solemn. Segundo, leaning against a trunk, was looking down at the riverbed; and when the girl approached, he stopped her and forced her to back away. “No, my dear… Don’t come any closer… It’s a bit of a risk: if you slip and roll down that little slope… Come on, move away.” Since they could think of nothing else to say on the subject of the pines, they thought about returning. Nieves was worried about the descent, and she wanted to start before the sun had set. —Now we’re really going to break something, Don Fermín…—he was saying to the doctor. —Now you really have to prepare bandages and splints… —There’s another way—affirmed Segundo, emerging from his abstraction. —Certainly , it’s much less troublesome, and with fewer slopes. —Yes, show us the other way!—exclaimed Tropiezo, faithful to his habit of voting against. —It’s even worse than the one we brought. —Well, what can it be? It’s a little longer, but since it’s less steep, it’s easier. It goes around the pine forest. —Will you want to show it to me, to me who knows this whole country like the back of my hand? That way is untravelable: I’ll tell you so. —And I tell you yes; and I’ll prove it. You ought not to be stubborn in your life. If I crossed it, it wouldn’t be many days ago! Do you remember, Nieves, the night we played hide-and-seek in the orchard; the night they locked the gate against me and I came in very late through the little wall? If the place weren’t so gloomy with the thick pine trees and the faint, scant sunlight, Nieves’s face would be visible. “Let’s go,” she said, evading the answer, “where it’s easier and has better ground… I’m very clumsy at navigating winding roads.” Segundo offered her his arm, murmuring jokingly: “This blessed Tropiezo is as strong on roads as he is in the art of healing… Come and you’ll see that we’re winning a lot.” Tropiezo, for his part, was saying to Carmen Agonde, stubbornly shaking his head: “Well, we’ll also have the pleasure of taking the shortcut and arriving before them, safe and sound, thank God. ” Victorina, as usual, went to stand by her mother’s side; But the doctor called her. “Hold on here, to the handle of my cane, go on, or you’ll slip… It’s enough for Mama not to slip… And God save us from a _stumble_!” she added, laughing heartily at her own joke. The voices and footsteps faded away, and Segundo and Nieves continued their route, without uttering a single sentence. Nieves was beginning to feel a certain fear, due to the very devilish nature of the path they were treading on. It was a small path dug into the overhang of the pine forest, at the very edge of the cliff, almost perpendicular to the river. Although Segundo left Nieves on the less exposed side, that of the pine forest, leaving him with no ground to plant his foot on and having to place one foot horizontally in front of the other, Nieves’s terror did not subside, nor did he think the adventure any less risky: his apprehension increased a hundredfold when he saw that they were alone. “They’re not coming!” he murmured in anguish. “They’ll reach them in ten minutes…” They’re going the other way, Segundo replied, without adding another loving word, or even clasping the arm that was tightening around his with all the energy of terror. “Well, let’s go,” Nieves pleaded with urgent entreaty. “I want to get there… ” “Why?” asked the poet, who suddenly stopped. —I’m tired… out of breath… —Well, go rest and drink if you like… And with mad ardor, without waiting for a reply, Segundo dragged Nieves along, turned to the left, went down a small slope, and turning around the rock, stopped on a narrow plateau that jutted boldly out over the river. In the last rays of the sun, a clear spring could be seen oozing trickle by trickle through the black face of the rock. —Drink, if you like… in the hollow of your hand, because we don’t have a glass, —Second instructed. Nieves obeyed mechanically, without knowing what he was doing, and letting go of Segundo’s arm, he tried to get closer to the spring; But the base of the rock, continually bathed by water, had grown that damp vegetation , slippery like seaweed, and Nieves, as she put her heel to the ground, felt herself slip, that she was losing her footing… There, in the depths of her vertigo, she saw the terrible, roaring river, the sharp rocks that were to receive and destroy her, and she felt the cold atmosphere of the abyss… An arm took her by whatever he could, by her clothes, perhaps by her flesh, and held her and lifted her… She bent her head on Segundo’s shoulder, and he felt Nieves’s heart beat for the first time under his hand… And very quickly! It was beating with fear. The poet bent down and poured this question into Nieves’s very mouth : “Do you love me, tell me? Do you love me?” The answer could not be heard, because, as if it had been formed in the larynx, the sealed lips could not articulate it. During that very brief space of time, which nevertheless amounted to an eternity, a certain powerful, destructive idea crossed Segundo’s mind, like an electric spark… The poet was facing the precipice, and Nieves was at its edge, with her back to the edge, supported only by the arm of her savior. With a little more pressure on her lips, with a two- inch incline, the group would fall into the void… It was a very beautiful ending, worthy of an ambitious soul, of a poet… Thinking about it, Segundo found it tempting and appealing… and yet, the instinct of self-preservation, an animal impulse, but far greater in force than the romantic idea, placed an impregnable wall between thought and action. He reveled in his imagination, imagining the sight of the two bodies entwined, which the river waters would carry away… He even sensed the scene of their rescue, the exclamations, the profound impression such an event would make on the region… and something, something lyrical that stirred and throbbed in his youthful soul, advised him to leap… but at the same time, a cold fear froze his blood, forcing him to walk slowly, not toward the abyss, but in the opposite direction, toward the path… All this, brief in the narration, was momentary in his mind. Segundo felt an ice within him, which paralyzed him for love as for death… It was Nieves’s frozen mouth, faint in his arms… He dipped his handkerchief in the fountain, and applied it to her temples and wrists. She half-opened her eyes. He could hear Tropiezo speaking, Carmen laughing: they were undoubtedly coming to find them and sing victory. Nieves, upon recovering the spirits and seeing herself alive, she didn’t make the slightest move to leave the poet. Chapter 21. As if by tacit agreement, the two heroes of the adventure downplayed the danger they had run, first to their fellow travelers, then to the Senate of Las Vides. Segundo remained somewhat reserved about the details of the case; Nieves, on the other hand, spoke more than usual, with nervous loquacity, repeating the same insignificant details a hundred times: she had slipped; García held out his hand; she took it, and since she was so, timid, she was a little frightened, even though the thing didn’t deserve it… But the stubborn Tropiezo, with gentle sarcasm, contradicted her. Jesus, what nonsense! There was no danger! Well, it was a miracle that Nieves wasn’t swimming in the Avieiro at this hour! The ground there slides like pure soap, and the stones below cut like knives, and the river carries a force I don’t know… Nieves denied it, pretending to laugh; but the terror of the catastrophe remained written on her face with such indelible features that her fresh physiognomy, of a healthy and warm pallor, had become a haggard, wasted face, a body shaken by chills and spasms, those they call _little death_… Segundo longed to say a few words to her, to ask for an interview: he understood that it was necessary to take advantage of the first instant in which gratitude and fear softened Nieves’s soul, making her insensitive heart beat beneath the whalebones of her corset. In the brief scene of the precipice, Tropiezo’s arrival barely allowed Nieves to explicitly respond to the poet’s rapture, and Segundo wanted to arrange something, devise a way to see each other, to speak, to establish once and for all that those efforts, worries, and intrigues were love, and reciprocated love: mutual passion, in short… Where and when would he find the desired opportunity to come to an agreement with Nieves? It could be said that in every love affair there exists an initial period in which obstacles pile up and difficulties are reborn, powerful and invincible, driving the lover determined to overcome them to despair; and also that there always comes a second period in which the mysterious force of desire and the dynamism of the will overthrow these obstacles, and circumstances, momentarily subdued, are placed at the service of the lovers. Thus it happened on the night of that memorable day. Since the girl had been somewhat frightened upon learning of her mother’s danger, they made her go to bed early; And so that she could fall asleep more easily, Carmen Agonde accompanied her, ready to tell her stories and nonsense. With the main witnesses thus eliminated, and the elderly gentlemen engrossed in one of their interminable discussions about viticulture, agriculture, and sociology, Nieves, who had gone out onto the balcony to breathe because she felt a lump in her throat, was able to chat for ten minutes with Segundo, who was positioned outside, between the glass windows and not far from the rocking chairs. At times, both interlocutors raised their voices, discussing indifferent matters : the danger of the afternoon, the strange noise in the pine forest… And quietly, very quietly, the poet’s diplomatic negotiation continued its course… An interview, a conversation with a certain freedom… Well, it couldn’t be!… And why not in the sunroom, that very night?… Bah! No one would have the whim to go there to look into what was going on… He would easily slink down to the orchard… Wouldn’t he? She was very timid… To do wrong? Why? Tired and sort of sick… Yes, it’s understandable. She preferred it to be during the day… Fine; it would be better the other way around, but… Without fail? At siesta time? In the drawing room? No, no one ever came; everyone was asleep… Formal word? Thank you! Yes, it was better to dissemble so that no one would notice. Meanwhile, the gentlemen at the three-seater table were talking about the grape harvest and its consequences… The poor girls of the country earned quite a bit at that job: but bah! murmured _Tropiezo_ laughing: they didn’t earn only money… Sometimes they earned other things… With all this mixing of groups, and retreating at night along dark roads, it turned out that… It was already axiomatic in the country that the children of carnival and the grape harvest have no known fathers. Regarding this, Don Victoriano offered some ideas from his favorite repertoire, citing English legislation, praising the wisdom of that great nation, which, when regulating material work, carefully studies the problems involved, and worries about the fate of children and women… With these serious disquisitions, the evening ended, each owl retiring to its olive tree. Seated at the small table where her vanity case was open and a silver-framed mirror was standing on it, Nieves took out, one by one, the shell pins that held the coils of her bun, while Mademoiselle collected and arranged the pins carefully in a case… She then braided Nieves’s hair, and she sat back, breathing heavily; suddenly, she raised her head. “If you could make me a cup of lime tea?… There in your room… without disturbing anyone? ” The Frenchwoman left, and Nieves, very thoughtful, rested her elbow on the table and her cheek on the palm of her hand, without taking her eyes off the mirror… She had a face as if she had been exhumed, which was imposing. No, that life could not continue, or else they would take her to the cemetery… She felt extremely nervous: what chills, what unease, what bitter moments ! She had seen death face to face, and endured more fears, more misgivings, more anguish in one day than in all the previous years of her life. If that was love, in truth it had little to do with fun: she was no good for such agitations… It’s one thing to be pleased to look beautiful and to hear it and even to possess a passionate lover, and quite another to be pleased with these incessant anguishes, these adventures that leave one’s soul on a thread and place one two fingers from shame, and break one’s body… And the poets assure us that this is happiness… It must be for them what it is for poor women… And let’s see why she lacked the courage to say to Segundo—let’s finish, I can’t bear these anxieties, I’m afraid, I’m feeling very bad! Ah! She was afraid of him too… He was capable of killing her: his beautiful black eyes sometimes gave off sparks of electricity and phosphorescent glimpses. And then he always took control of her situation, imposed himself on her, dominated her… For his sake she was on the point of falling into the river, of being shattered on the rocks… Holy Mary! Well, half an hour ago, it was not nearly enough to make the appointment with her in the sunroom? Which was the greatest folly, since it was impossible to go to that corner of the house without Mademoiselle, or anyone else, missing her and giving the lie to herself. Oh, my God! It was all terrible, terrible! And tomorrow she had to go to the drawing room, at siesta time!… Well, a firm resolution: she would go, ordinary; but she would go to unravel this mess, to tell Segundo a few truths to make him restrain himself: to love her, granted; he did not object, very good and very saintly; to compromise her in that way, that was unheard of; she would beg him to return to Vilamorta; They would soon be leaving for Madrid… Ah! How long that blessed Mademoiselle was taking with the linden tea! The door opened… It was not Mademoiselle who entered, but Don Victoriano. His appearance was not surprising, for he slept in a sort of small office next to his wife’s room and divided from it by a corridor, and every night before retiring he would kiss the child, whose bed was right next to her mother’s. Nevertheless, Nieves’s skin crawled and instinctively she turned her back to the light, coughing to hide her embarrassment. The truth is that Don Victoriano was feeling seriously ill, even somewhat gloomy and severe… He had not been very cheerful or expansive since the worsening of his illness; But over her dejected air there stood out something, I don’t know what, an even blacker veil, a stormy cloud… Nieves, observing that she was not approaching the girl’s bed, lowered her eyes. eyes and pretended to smooth her hair with the ivory whisk. “How are you feeling, daughter? Are you still feeling scared?” her husband asked. “Yes; I’m still a little scared… I asked for some linden tea. ” “Well done… Look, Nieves… ” “What… what!” “ Look, Nieves, we’re going to Madrid as soon as possible. ” “Whenever you say so… You know that I… ” “No; if it’s necessary, indispensable; it’s that I have to formally take up a cure, daughter, because I’ll be done for if I continue like this… I’ve fallen into the weakness of confiding in this beast Don Fermín, God forgive me… and I think…” he added with a bitter smile, “that he’s tricked me… We’ll see if Sánchez del Abrojo can get me out of this situation… I doubt it very much! ” “Jesus, what apprehension!” exclaimed Nieves, breathing and taking advantage of the resource of her illness. “It seems that you have incurable illnesses!” “If I set foot there and Sánchez takes you under his wing… in two months you won’t even remember that ailment. ” “Bravo, daughter, bravo! I wouldn’t want to hurt you or seem like a scold… but what you’re saying… what you’re saying proves that you don’t even look at me, you don’t care a fig for my health, you don’t pay any attention to me… which, frankly… excuses you… but doesn’t honor you! My illness is serious, very serious… it’s diabetes mellitus, which beautifully takes people to the other world … I’ve turned to sugar… my eyesight is failing… my head aches… I have no blood… and there you are, so serene, so happy, frolicking like a little girl… That’s not what a woman who loves her husband does… You haven’t been concerned about my physical condition, nor my moral state… You’re enjoying yourself, having a most amusing time… and as for the rest… it takes good care of you!” Nieves stood up trembling, almost crying… “What are you saying?… I… I…” “Don’t get upset, daughter; don’t cry… You are young and healthy, I am very worn and sickly… It’s worse for me… But listen… Although it may seem dry and serious to you… I loved you very much, Nieves… I still love you… as much as that little girl who is sleeping there… I swear before God… And you could… you could love me a little… like a daughter… and take an interest in me… You will not be bothered for long now: I feel so sick…” Nieves approached with an affectionate attitude, and her husband touched her forehead with his blackened lips, pressing her against him at the same time… And he added: “I still have to give you another warning… give you another lecture, daughter! ” “Which one?” murmured the wife, smiling, but embarrassed. —That boy García… Don’t be alarmed, my dear, he’s not that serious… That boy… sometimes he looks at you in a very strange way… as if he were making love to you… No, I don’t doubt you! You have been and are an impeccable lady… I don’t accuse you… nor do I give any importance to such foolishness… It’s just that… you’ll think it’s a lie… these boys from here are very daring; they have less ease in presenting themselves, but deep down they are more audacious than those at court… I spent my younger years here, and I know them… I’m only warning you so that you can keep that scamp in check… In the days we have left, stop taking those long walks and all that sentimentality that goes on here… A lady like you is, in this place, the queen; and it’s not right that people take the same jokes with you as they do with the young ladies of Molende or others like that… I’ve already told you that the thought doesn’t even cross my mind! It’s one thing for that local Swan to have fallen in love with you and to shake your hand on the cliffs; quite another for me to insult you… My child! A little later, Mademoiselle appeared with the steaming lime tea. Nieves needed the lime tea so much! Her nerves were sore… She was in turmoil. She even felt nauseous after drinking the first few spoonfuls. Mademoiselle offered her a little anti-hysterical potion. Nieves swallowed it, and with a few yawns and two or three tears, her crisis was relieved. She thought of going to bed and entered the bedroom. There she saw something that renewed her uneasiness. Victorine, instead of sleeping, had her eyes open. She had probably heard the conversation. Chapter 22. And indeed, she had heard it all, every word, from the first word to the end. The last one. And the phrases of the conjugal dialogue revolved in his mind, rolling, intertwining, standing out in red letters, imprinted on his virgin memory. He reviewed them, commented on them internally, weighed them, made deductions… No one will be able to say the critical moment that divides night from day, sleep from wakefulness, youth from maturity, and innocence from knowledge. Who is capable of pinpointing the instant when the child, becoming an adolescent, feels within himself that inexplicable something that might perhaps be called sexual consciousness; when the vague premonition transforms into a rapid intuition; when, without having a precise notion of the concrete realities of life, he guesses everything that experience will later confirm and clarify; when he understands the importance of a hint, the significance of an act, the character of a relationship, the value of a glance, or the meaning of a reticence? The minute when her eyes, open only to external life, acquire the ability to scrutinize the inner life as well, and, losing their superficial brightness, the clear reflection of their candid purity, take on the concentrated and indefinable expression that constitutes the gaze of an adult? That moment arrived for Victorina at the age of eleven, that night, when she overheard a conversation between her father and mother. Motionless, holding her breath, her little feet cold, her head burning and congested, the girl listened, and then, in the dubious twilight of the bedroom, she tied up some loose ends, recalled details, and finally understood, without being fully aware of what she understood, but reasoning with singular precocity, due perhaps to the painful vividness with which her imagination worked in the silence of the night and in the stillness of her bed… The truth is that the girl spent a bad night, tossing and turning in her small , monastic bed. Two ideas, above all, were penetrating her and drilling into her head like nails. Her father was very sick, very sick, and also very upset and complaining because Segundo had fallen in love with her mother… With his mother. Not with her! She, who kept all of Segundo’s flowers as relics! The sorrows of childhood know no limits or consolation. When you’re older and have weathered more storms and have seen with amazement that man can survive certain sorrows and that the vault of the firmament doesn’t collapse when we lose what we loved, then the absolute despair that is the heritage of early life hardly exists . For Victorina, it was obvious that her father was dying and that her mother was very wicked… and Segundo a scoundrel… and that the world was ending … and that she too, she too, wanted to die. If it were possible to turn one’s hair white at eleven years of age, Victorina would have turned gray during the night when suffering had transformed her from a girl into a woman, and from a creature that was indecisive, timid, blushing, a moral person, determined to achieve the greatest heroism. Nieves, too, did not enjoy the gentle favors of sleep for long. Her husband’s words left her pensive. Would Don Victoriano’s illness be fatal ? Perhaps it was! The poor man was in a very poor state… And Nieves felt the beginnings of sorrow and regret: sir, who doubts that she loved her husband and feared his death? She might not have felt for him a great love, like the ones described in novels… bah!… but affection, yes… If only the illness were mild! And if it weren’t? And if only he were to remain alive…? Not even mentally did she dare to finish the little word… Thinking about that seems to fuel bad desires… No, but the fact is that women, in fact, when their husbands die, are usually left vi… Holy Mary! It must have been a great misfortune… Well; what if it happened? Segundo… Jesus, what nonsense! Surely such an absurdity had never crossed his mind… The Garcías, nobodies … And here Nieves returned to reviewing the family, Segundo’s way of life … She would gladly play truant from the appointment the next day, because her husband was suspicious, and the situation was compromised, although in the place designated for the interview, the meeting could always be attributed to chance … And on the other hand, if he failed to show up, that passionate Segundo would be quite capable of causing a scandal, of going to look for her in her room, of entering through the window. After thinking it over, she thought it more prudent to attend, and to beg Segundo… to… to forget her… to at least not compromise her… It was for the best. Nieves spent the morning in such a state of dismay that she barely ate; and, during the meal, she did not look at Segundo even once, afraid that her husband would observe and surprise some furtive sign of intelligence between them. To make matters worse, Segundo, eager to remind her with his eyes of her promise, looked at her that day more than usual: fortunately, Don Victoriano seemed distracted by his disordered appetite for food and drink. After the meal, they all retired , as always, to take a nap. Nieves headed for her room. She found Victorina lying on the bed. As a precaution, she asked her questions. “Are you going to take a nap, darling?” “Sleep, no… But I’m comfortable like this…” Nieves looked at herself in the mirror and saw that she looked pale. She brushed her teeth, and after making sure with a quick glance that her husband was also resting in the next room, she slipped into the living room at a very light pace… She was trembling. That atmosphere of storms and danger, pleasant to the seabird, was deadly for the pretty pet bird. It wasn’t living, to be always like this, shivering with terror and with her blood curdled with fright. It wasn’t living, or breathing!… She would end up going mad: for didn’t she think she heard footsteps, as if someone were following her? Two or three times she stopped, leaning faintly against the walls of the corridor, promising herself that they wouldn’t catch her again. Upon entering the room, she stopped, startled. It was so silent and sleepy, half-dark, with the panels almost closed— allowing only a ray of sunlight in which golden particles of dust danced—with its drugged mirrors too lazy to reflect anything in their turbid panes, with the drowsiness of the asthmatic clock, whose face seemed like a human face spying on her and coughing disapprovingly! Suddenly, she heard swift, youthful footsteps; and Segundo, bold and crazed, fell at her feet, his arms wrapped around her body… She wanted to restrain him, warn him, explain… The poet didn’t allow it, uttering tender exclamations of gratitude and passion, and, once on his feet, he lifted her from the floor with the irresistible impulse of love that doesn’t calculate its actions. Don Victoriano, upon seeing the little girl enter his room, white as wax, almost livid, her eyes shooting fire, in one of those attitudes of horror that are neither feigned nor imitated, jumped out of bed where, awake, he was smoking a cigar… The little girl called to him in a stifled voice: “Come, Papa!… Come, Papa! ” What was going through her father’s mind? It was never known why he followed the little girl, without asking her so much as a slight question. At the threshold of the living room, the group stopped… Nieves let out a loud shriek, and Segundo, with a beautiful, manly and passionate burst, shielded her with his body… It was no longer a defense. The figure of the man stopped in the doorway did not threaten: what inspired fear was precisely her attitude of stupor and astonishment: she looked like a corpse, a specter overwhelmed by impotent despair. Her face was green rather than yellow; her eyes open, cloudy and fixed; His hands and knees were trembling… The man made vain efforts to speak; the paralysis began in his tongue: he tried in vain to move it around in his mouth, forming sounds… A horrible struggle! The sentence struggled to leave his lips, but it wouldn’t come out: his face, from livid, turned red, becoming congested, and the little girl, embracing her father’s waist, seeing this battle of intelligence with the organs, cried out: “Help! Help! Papa is dying!” Nieves, without daring to approach her husband, but understanding that in Something serious was happening to him, and he also screamed for help. And then Primo Genday appeared through the doors in his shirtsleeves, Méndez with a cotton handkerchief tied around his ears, and Tropiezo with his trousers half-buttoned… Segundo, silent, still in the middle of the room, didn’t know what to do with himself: to leave was a disdain; to stay… Tropiezo shook him: “Go on, kid, fly to Vilamorta… Tell Doroteo, the one in the car, to go to Orense and bring a doctor from there, the most famous one… I don’t want this little trip! he indicated, winking. “Run, get ready.” El Cisne approached Nieves, who was collapsed on the sofa, crying, with her fine handkerchief held to her mouth. “They’re sending me to get a doctor, Nieves. What do I do? ” “Go on!” “Shall I come back?” —No… leave me alone, for God’s sake… Bring him here, bring the doctor here!—And she sobbed even louder. As fast as she walked, the doctor didn’t arrive at Las Vides until dawn the next day . He thought the case wasn’t extraordinary: diabetes usually ends that way, with paralysis followed by serous effusion: one of the most frequent complications of such a dreaded disease… He added that it was advisable to transfer the patient to Orense, with precautions. The transfer was carried out without great difficulty, and Don Victoriano still lived for a few days. Twenty-four hours after his burial, Nieves and Victorina, rigorously dressed in mourning, left for court. Chapter 23. The black veil of winter has fallen over Vilamorta. It is raining, and the main street and the square, soaked and covered in dirty mud, are crossed, from time to time, by some peasant, invisible under his cape of rushes, riding a horse whose horseshoes beat the ground and raise a splash of mud. There are no more fruit bowls, for the plausible reason that there is no fruit either: everything is lonely, damp, muddy, and moldy. Tired, wearing slippers, a selvedge, and a scarf, he paces in front of his door to avoid chilblains; the Mayor takes advantage of a tiny porch in front of his house to while away the afternoon, taking ten steps up and ten down, stamping his feet very hard, and warming his feet; exercise without which he claims he can’t digest. Now, now, the poor little village is dead! No water-seekers, no strangers, no fairs, no grape harvests… A peace, a cemetery-like abandonment, and a dampness so stubborn it leaves green traces on the ashlars of the houses under construction. The little villages like this, in winter, are capable of producing misery to the most cheerful: they are the square root of boredom, the quintessence of spleen, the laziness to comb one’s hair, the laziness to dress, the interminable night, the stubborn downpour, the gloomy cold, the ash-colored air and the sky the color of a donkey’s belly… In the midst of that kind of lethargic sleep in which Vilamorta sleeps, there are, nevertheless, some happy beings, beings in the plenitude of their happiness, although close to ending their existence in the most tragic way: beings who, with only natural instinct, have guessed the morality of Epicurus and practice it, and eat and root and revel, and do not fear death nor think of the unexplored region whose doors open when one dies; beings who enjoy receiving the rainwater on their stretched skin; Beings for whom the mud is a delightful bath where they happily splash and wallow, abandoning the discomfort and confinement of their dens and pigpens. At this time of year, they are the undisputed lords and masters of Vilamorta: they, whose pomp and deeds provide fodder for conversation in the pharmacies and entertain family gatherings, where their respective corpulence is discussed and they are studied from the point of view of their own qualities, engaging in heated discussions about whether a short or long ear, a well-curled tail, a more or less tucked hoof , and a more or less pointed snout promise more succulent meat and more abundant fat. Comparisons are made: the _Pellejo_ pig is superb in size, but its flesh is an erysipelatous pink and its huge wad and flabby, betray the soft, fibrous pig, kept on scraps from the bakery: a superb pig, the Mayor’s, fattened on chestnuts: a little smaller , but what hams it must have! What hams! What bacon! What loins, they make you want to sit on them! That will be the pig of the season. However, some claim that the superior one, the sovereign piglet of Vilamorta, is Aunt Gaspara’s sow, García’s. The haunches of such a magnificent beast resemble a highway: it has already been on the point of suffocating under its own fat: its mammary glands touch and kiss the mud of the street with its hooves. Who can calculate the pounds of fat it will yield, nor the blood sausages that will fill with its blood and the sausage that will come from its entrails? It stops raining for a week; the cold worsens; The frost falls and the hoarfrost settles in smooth crystals on the grass at the borders and hardens the earth… It is the sign of the hecatomb, for which all the omens are favorable, since in addition to the cold, it is the first quarter of the moon; if it were waning, the dead flesh would diminish… The time has come to take up the knife. And during the long nights of Vilamorta, at the least expected hour, unbridled grunts are heard: first of fury, indicating the impotent rage of being tied to the bench, and revealing in the enervated domestic pig the offspring of the wild boar; then of pain, when the knife penetrates through the tissue; an almost human cry, of supreme agony, when the blade sinks into the heart; and, finally, a series of desperate moans, which weaken as strength and life escape, wrapped in the hot stream of blood… This gruesome drama was taking place in the home of lawyer García at eleven o’clock on a frigid, serene December night. The girls, mad with joy, dying of curiosity, crowded around the agonizing pig, into whose heart and throat the matachín, with his sleeves rolled up, was burying his knife . Segundo, locked in his bedroom, had in front of him sheets of more or less scribbled paper… He was writing verses! But when the noise of the tragedy reached him, he dropped his pen in dismay. He had inherited from his mother a profound horror of the spectacle of slaughter: it would often cost his mother ten or twelve days of suffering, during which she would not eat a thing, disgusted by the sight of blood, of intestines and viscera, so similar to human intestines and viscera, by the grossly appetizing and stimulating smell of tripe and spices, by the plump masses of bacon hanging from the ceiling… Segundo hated even the name of the pig, and in his sickly state of mind, in the nervous excitement that consumed him, it was an unimaginable torment for him not to be able to set foot outside the house without tripping, without getting entangled in the cursed and repugnant animals, or seeing, through the half-open doors, pieces of their carcasses suspended on hooks. All of Vilamorta transcended the death of a pig, the smell of tripe. Segundo didn’t know where to hide anymore, and he barricaded himself in his room with the doors and windows tightly closed, isolating himself from the outside world, to live with his dreams and fantasies in a country where there were no pigs and only pine forests, blue flowers, precipices… Not enough precaution to escape the torment of that brutal time of year, since the drama of gluttony and matter besieged him there, in his very house! The poet grabbed his hat and ran. He needed to flee where he wouldn’t hear those grunts, nor be enveloped by those smells. He passed through the hall, closing his eyes so as not to see, in the light of the lamp held by one of the girls, Aunt Gaspara with her skeletal arm bare to the elbow, stirring a red, foaming liquid in a basin. Seeing Segundo come out, the sisters let go of the rag, laughing aloud, and called him, offering him grotesque gifts, the ignoble remains of the dying man… Leocadia had not gone to bed: she felt unwell, and dozed wrapped in a large shawl, suffering from cold; she quickly opened the door. door to Segundo, asking him alarmed if anything was wrong. Nothing, in truth… They were slaughtering the pig at Segundo’s house: Toledo night; they wouldn’t let him sleep… It was also so cold that night… that he wasn’t feeling very well, as if stunned… That she should make him a cup of coffee, or better yet, a rum punch… “Both, my dear. Right away.” Leocadia recovered her activity and vigor as if by magic. Soon the sapphire-colored flame of the punch bowl rose; in its treacherous reflection, the teacher’s face seemed very haggard. She lacked that healthy appearance, that warm brown tone of hers, like bread crust. Feminine maturity, the fatal crisis of the last years of love, could be seen in her pallid countenance, in the feverish brightness of her gaze, in the purple hue of her lips. Pain imprinted an almost poetic stamp on the prose of her very ordinary features; as she had grown thinner, her eyes seemed larger; she was no longer the plump, well-bodied woman, clean and fresh-mouthed, who, pockmarked and all, would still wring a bestial flirtation from the innkeeper; she was burned by the inner fire of an imperious, demanding, uncontrollable passion; the ultimate passion, the most powerful, the one that neither reason conquers, nor the years erase, nor can change its purpose; the one that sinks its claws into the entrails and does not release its prey until it has already killed it. And this passion had such a strange character that, being insatiable, volcanic, desperate, far from dictating acts of violence from Leocadia and drawing the roars of a lioness from her, it inspired boundless self-denial and generosity , completely suppressing her selfishness. The summer days, the grape harvest, the whole time when she barely saw Segundo, when she knew he had forgotten her, that he was devoted to another woman, had been horrible for her ; and yet, not a word of jealousy, not a reproach, came from her mouth, nor did she regret having given Segundo the money; and when she saw the poet, her joy was so genuine, so great, that it magically erased all her suffering and more than compensated for it! Now there was one more reason for her to go all out for the poet. He wasn’t well either. What was hurting him? He himself didn’t know. Spiritual malaise , nostalgia, gloom, a suffocation in his dreamy lungs caused by the mean atmosphere he breathed… Constant loss of appetite, black melancholy, a weary stomach, nerves like guitar strings… And his passion for Nieves wasn’t like Leocadia’s, one of those that absorbs one’s entire being, interests the heart, grips the flesh, and subjugates the soul; Nieves lived only in his head, in his self-love, in his lyrical faculties, in his romantic ramblings, eternal generators of illusion. Nieves embodied in a visible, gentle, and flattering way his yearning for glory, his artistic ambition. Leocadia served the punch and coffee, and as her hand trembled with pleasure and emotion, she spilled the scalding liquid, burning herself slightly; but she ignored the burn and continued as solicitous, taking care, as always, that everything was perfect. In order to talk to the poet about something that would please and amuse him, he asked him about the volume of poetry he was working on, which he hoped would spread its fame far beyond Vilamorta as soon as it was printed in Orense… Segundo was not enthusiastic about the prospect. “In Orense, woman… in Orense… Do you know I’ve changed my mind? Either I print it in Madrid… or I don’t print it at all: the Spanish muses will lose little by that. ” “And why don’t you like printing it in Orense anymore?” “You see… Roberto Blánquez is quite right when he advises me from Madrid… You know that Roberto is there now, employed… He says that works printed in the provinces are not read by anyone; He has seen the disdain with which those who bring printings from outside the court are regarded there… Furthermore, here it takes them a century to print a volume, and they come out riddled with errors, and in such an ugly form… In short, they are not liked… And for that… —Well, to Madrid with the book; what does it matter? —Girl… Roberto scares me with the prices of the editions… It seems the joke costs an arm and a leg… There’s no publisher who buys poems, not even one who goes jointly with the author… Leocadia didn’t reply, limiting herself to smiling. The living room had an air of intimate comfort: although winter had robbed the balcony of its charms, turning the basils yellow and the carnations withered, inside the gurgling of the coffeepot, the alcoholic vapor of the punch, the stillness, the teacher’s solicitous affection, everything seemed to warm and soften the atmosphere. Segundo felt a pleasant drowsiness take over his body. —Would you give me a blanket from your bed? he said to the teacher. There’s no way to rest in my house today, woman… I’d rest a little here on this sofa. —You’ll be cold. —I’ll be in heaven. Come on. Leocadia left and came back, dragging with great effort a heavy, enormous object : a mattress. Then she brought the blanket; then, pillowcases. In short, a real bed. And what was missing, just the sheets… Bah! She brought those too. Chapter 24. Leocadia didn’t hesitate the next day. She already knew the way and went straight to the lawyer’s house. He received her with a frown. Did they think she made money? Leocadia no longer had any possessions to pawn; what she had was worth so little… If she decided to mortgage the house, he would speak to his brother-in-law Clodius, who had savings and wanted a property like that… Leocadia sighed with regret. She felt the opposite of the peasants: no attachment to the clods of earth; but the little house! So clean, so pretty, so comfortable, done just the way she wanted! “Psh… by paying the mortgage… you’ll get it back in no time. No sooner said than done.” Clodio loosened the fly, flattered by the hope of acquiring for half its value such a lovely nest, where he could end his spinster life. At night, Leocadia asked Segundo to show her his notebook of poems and read some of them to her. Much was said there, with reticence and transparent allusions, about certain blue flowers, the voices of a pine grove, a precipice, and various other things that Leocadia understood well were not invented, but had their key in past and, for her, mysterious events. The teacher guessed a love story, whose heroine could only be Nieves Méndez. But what she could not understand or explain was how, now that Mrs. Comba was a widow and free to reward Segundo’s love, she did not do so immediately… The verses revealed profound discouragement, ardent amorous delirium, and very deep bitterness… Now Leocadia understood Segundo’s sadness, his decline, his passion of soul! How much he must have suffered deep inside! Poets, as such, must suffer more and with more cruel tortures than the rest of humanity… There was no doubt: that absence, those memories were slowly killing Segundo … Leocadia didn’t know where to begin the conversation. “Look, listen… Those verses are beautiful and deserve to be printed in gold letters… By chance, kid, I picked up some centavos from Orense these days… Do you know what I thought the other night, while you were sleeping in the little bed I made for you? That it would be better for you to go and print them in person… There… to Madrid… ” With great surprise, she saw Segundo’s face cloud over. “He’s going to Madrid now!” Impossible: it was necessary to know something about Nieves first… The tragic final scene of their love affair, the outcome of her sudden widowhood, everything raised a barrier between the two of them that was difficult to overcome… Nieves was rich… and today Segundo, when he appeared at her house, when he fell at her feet, would not be the lover who demands passion, but the aspiring husband… who alleges prior rights, and based on them aspires to replace the deceased… And Segundo, who had accepted money from Leocadia, felt his pride rebelling at the idea that Nieves might take him for a speculator, or disdain him for being obscure and poor… But didn’t Nieves love him? Hadn’t she told him so? Then why didn’t she try to find out about him? It’s true that he didn’t try to communicate with the beautiful woman either. widow, nor refresh her memories… It’s that she feared doing it without art, without opportunity, and opening the wound caused by her husband’s death… The volume of verses… Excellent idea! The volume of verses was the only way to return to Nieves’s memory in beautiful form, carried on the wings of public applause… If that volume was read, praised, liked, gained its author a reputation, any social difference between him and Nieves that could make his pretensions absurd would disappear… Get married!… thought Segundo… The marriage seemed secondary to him… That Nieves loved him… Not weddings, love he asked for. At the same small table as Leocadia, he wrote to Roberto Blánquez, giving him instructions, and prepared the manuscript to be certified and affixed the index and the cover, with the impatient joy of someone who, smelling luck, buys a lottery ticket… As soon as he withdrew, Leocadia remained deeply worried. Segundo didn’t want to go _there_! Then… The flash of good fortune that crossed her eyes with the idea of Segundo putting down roots in Vilamorta was extinguished by two thoughts: one, that Segundo would dry up there from boredom; another, that she wouldn’t be able to provide him with anything he needed for much longer… Mortgaging the house was a waste of time… What would she mortgage next? Her own person? And she smiled sadly. In the corridor, the thick shoes of the forgotten little hunchback echoed, going in search of the bed, where Flores would soon be lulling him with his solecisms and barbaric litanies. The mother sighed. And that being, that being who had no support but her? How would he live? When his mother, completely ruined, could give him neither bed nor food, what silent and continual reproach would the presence of the unfortunate man be to her? And how did he make him work?… Work! This word reminded him of some plans, already matured during those nights of despair and sleeplessness when we review our entire lives and plot new combinations and mentally explore all possible paths… Of course, Minguitos wasn’t good at farming, or making shoes, or grinding chocolate like that handsome lad Ramón; but he knew how to read and write, and with a little help from Leocadia, he’d be a prodigy at accounting… Standing behind a counter doesn’t kill anyone: serving newcomers, answering them, collecting payments, recording sales, are more fun occupations that calm the mind than boring tasks… That way, the little hunchback would distract himself, and he’d lose a little of his horror of people, his fear of being laughed at! Two years earlier, Leocadia would have insulted anyone who suggested she leave her baby, stealing the warmth of her loving arms. Now, the solution of making him a little shop assistant seemed so simple and natural! Something, however, still throbbed in the depths of her mother’s heart; a few tiny fibers still very close to her soul, bleeding, aching… She had to tear them out quickly. It was all for the boy’s good, to make him a man, so that today or tomorrow… Leocadia held two or three conferences with Cansín, who had a cousin in Orense, owner of a clothier’s shop; and Cansín, emphasizing his great influence and the importance of the favor, gave the teacher a letter of effective recommendation. Leocadia went to the capital, saw the boss, and they stipulated the conditions for Minguitos’s admission . They would support him, wash his clothes, and make him a suit from the scraps of cloth left in the warehouse… They wouldn’t pay him anything until he knew the trade well, a couple of years from now … And was he very hunchbacked? Because the customers don’t like that very much … And was he honest? She’d never taken money from her mother’s drawers, had she? Leocadia returned with her soul soaked in bitterness. How could she tell Minguitos and Flores? Especially Flores! Impossible, impossible: it would cause a scandal that would upset the neighborhood… And she had promised to have Minguitos back in his office without fail next Monday… She devised a stratagem. She claimed that a relative of hers was in Orense, and that she was bringing the boy so he could meet him. She painted the expedition in cheerful colors, so that Minguitos would believe he was going to have fun… Didn’t she want to see Orense again? It’s a magnificent town: she would show him the Burgas, the Cathedral… The boy, with his instinctive horror of public places, of socializing with men, sadly shook his head; and as for the old servant, as if she were on the lookout for something, she was furious all week. When Sunday arrived and mother and son got into the carriage, as he climbed onto the running board, Flores threw herself at Minguitos’s neck and gave him the tremulous, senile hug of a doting grandmother, kissing his face with her wrinkled lips… Afterwards, she spent the day sitting on the threshold of the house, murmuring aloud words of muffled anger or affectionate pity, pressing her forehead with both hands in a desperate gesture. Leocadia, already in the carriage, tried to convince her son and described the good life that awaited him in that beautiful establishment, located in the most central part of Orense, so entertaining, where he would have little work and the hope of earning, today or tomorrow, some money of his own… At the first words, the boy fixed his astonished eyes on his mother , into which, little by little, intelligence opened the way… Minguitos usually understood at half a word. He lowered his head and, leaning against his mother, lay on her lap. When he remained silent, Leocadia asked him, “What’s wrong? Does your head hurt? ” “No… let me sleep like this… a little while… until Orense.” He remained, in fact, still and quiet, seemingly asleep, lulled by the rattling of the car and the deafening sound of the glass. When they reached the city, Leocadia touched him on the shoulder: “Here we are…” They jumped out of the carriage and only then did Leocadia notice that her lap was damp and that where the child’s forehead had rested, two or three iridescent drops of water were trickling down the black merino wool… But when he found himself among strangers, in the gloomy warehouse crammed with pieces of dark cloth, the hunchback’s attitude ceased to be resigned: he grabbed his mother with a desperate impulse, uttering a single cry, the summary of all his complaints and affections: “Maaamá… maaamá!” Leocadia still heard that cry in her heart when, on her way back to Vilamorta, she saw Flores stalking her at the door. Stalking is the exact word, because Flores launched himself at her like a hunting dog, like a wild beast claiming and demanding its young. And just as a furious man hurls whatever he can find at his adversary, so Flores showered Leocadia with every kind of abuse, barbaric and senseless insult, shouting at her in his voice, stammering with age and hatred: “Thief, thief, infamous woman! Where is your son, thief? Go on, drunkard, wicked woman, go drink liquor… and your son may be dying of hunger! Lost, she-wolf, false woman, and the boy? Where is he, angel of God? Where have you got him, you scoundrel, who was so desperate to get rid of him to keep that other cheap young man? She-wolf, she-wolf, even she-wolves love children! She-wolf, she-wolf… if I had a rifle, I would surely hunt you down with buckshot!” Pale, with red eyes, Leocadia stretched out her hands to cover the frantic old woman’s mouth. But the latter, with her toothless gums, clenched those hands, leaving the drool of her anger on them. And while the teacher went up the stairs, the old woman followed, ominous, murmuring in a muffled voice: “God will never love you well, she-wolf… God will punish you, and the Holy Virgin… Go on, go on, rejoice because you did what you wanted… Damn you, damn you… damned, damned… ” The curse shook Leocadia… The house, without Minguitos, seemed like a cemetery: Flores hadn’t prepared any food or turned on the light… Leocadia, without the spirit to do so, lay down on the bed fully clothed, and later undressed and went to bed without eating a thing. Chapter 25. With what interest Segundo read Roberto Blánquez’s letters during that time when he was giving him news of his book! Roberto was a few years older than the Swan: not so many that they hadn’t been close friends back then as students; but enough for Blánquez to see more of the world and be able to serve as the poet’s guide and mentor. Blánquez, too, had had his Swan days, rhyming Galician verses; now he was working in prose for a humble job and writing articles of an administrative nature; Madrid enlightened him; and with the natural and innate insight inherent in someone with Galician blood from the estuaries in his veins, he was getting to know practical life… He professed fanatical admiration and true affection for Segundo, the kind that is formed in the classroom and lasts forever. Segundo wrote to him with absolute confidence: some of Blánquez’s cousins were friends of Nieves Méndez’s mother , and through this channel the poet learned something about her lady. Blánquez was not unaware of the events of the summer. And he would often deliver very satisfactory news in the early days. “Nieves lives very secluded… My cousins told me… She hardly ever goes out except for Mass… The child isn’t well… The doctors say it’s her development… They’re going to take her to a convent of the Sacred Heart to be educated. Her mother, they say, looks beautiful, my boy! It seems they’ve turned out very well… The book won’t be long now… Yesterday I chose the paper for the print run, and the one hundred deluxe copies on brown paper… The type will be Elzeviresque, which is the latest fashion… The cover… they’re now doing beautiful six-color prints… Do you want it to represent something beautiful, something allegorical?”… Thus, in this style, were Roberto’s letters, a source of reveries, the sole nourishment of Segundo’s imagination during that long, gloomy, and dark winter, in that unknown corner, in the prose of his house, in the memories of his ill-fated love affair. It was March, an ambiguous month of water and sun, when spring already announces itself with an abundance of violets and primroses, and the cold begins to subside, and across the sky, a watercolor blue, white clouds float like shreds of linen, when Segundo received that ineffable thing, which makes a man’s heart beat with joy, anxiety, and inexplicable fear ; that thing comparable, in the sensations it produces, only to a newborn firstborn child: the first printed book! It seemed like a dream to him that the book was there, there, before his eyes, in his hands, with its white satin cover where the draftsman had gracefully intertwined, around a group of pines, a few flowering stems of forget-me-nots; with its chickpea-colored paper , which made the edition seem old and stale, and with the compositions headed by three mysterious asterisks! Seeing his verses there, free of blots, clear, and correct, their thought highlighted by the energetic blackness of the ink on the clear page, made one want to believe they had been born that way, so easy, with such appropriate consonants, and without emendations or blemishes. Leocadia was moved by the book, even more than the author. The teacher burst into copious tears of joy. It was the glory of her poet, in a sense her own work! For two or three days she was blissfully happy, forgetting the bad news that Flores de Orense brought her every Sunday. from Orense, where Leocadia did not dare to go for fear of yielding to the child’s entreaties and softening before his pleas, but where those fibrils of her heart still dripped with blood beat, and where Flores tortured her with stories of Minguitos’s sufferings, who was increasingly in decline, always complaining that at the store they mocked him and reproached him for his humpback. Enigmas of the human heart! Second, that he disdained the place of his birth; that he believed, and was not mistaken, that in Vilamorta there was no one capable of assessing the merit of a poem, he could not, nevertheless, resist going one night to the house of Saturnino Agonde, and carelessly taking the volume out of his pocket, throwing it on the counter saying with feigned indifference: “What do you think of this impression, boy?” He immediately regretted such weakness; so much nonsense and nonsense had the elegant tome inspired in the irreverent gathering. He would never have shown it! In short, he was to blame. If the public didn’t treat him better than his fellow citizens!… A man is never able to completely ignore the atmosphere he breathes: he must always be interested in the horizon he sees. However little importance Segundo attached to the opinion of the people of Vilamor, and although their approval certainly wouldn’t make him proud, their inept mockery ulcerated and embittered his soul… He retired to his house, hurt and in pain. He spent a feverish night, one of those nights when great projects are conceived and decisive resolutions are adopted. He condensed them into his letter to Blánquez… The latter did not reply by return mail: days and days passed, and Segundo went to the post office every morning, always receiving the same laconic reply… Finally, they handed him a voluminous, registered letter. Chapter 26. Upon opening it, several issues of newspapers fell out, where, marked with an ink cross, were the paragraphs that spoke of the recently printed book, the volume of poetry entitled _Cantos nostálgicos_, which Segundo gave that name at the font to its uneven lines. There also came a four-page letter from Roberto… Its content was so important to Segundo, so much so that whatever those letters contained would weigh on and influence his future, that he put them aside, afraid, without knowing why, to read them, wanting to delay what he so desired… He saw the open letter, and certain names, certain repeated words jumped out at him… Comba’s widow was mentioned many times… To overcome his purely nervous confusion, he gathered the newspapers, and determined to read first what bore the sign of the cross… He went over the Stations of the Cross, in every sense of the word. El Imparcial gave a resounding hype to the Galician country, and to prove that poets are born there as easily as exquisite pavias and beautiful flowers, he cited, without naming him, the author of Cantos nostálgicos, a beautiful little volume that had just gone on sale. And not one more line , not one critical appraisal, not the slightest hint that anyone in the editorial office of the popular newspaper had taken the trouble to cut the volume’s pages. El Liberal, better informed, asserted in three lines that the Cantos revealed in their author a great facility for versifying. La Época, in the most backward section of its New Books section, praised the book’s typographical elegance; it disapproved of the romantic flavor of the title and cover; and, in passing, lamented that the poet’s muse was fruitless nostalgia, when there were so many healthy, joyful, and fruitful things to sing about. El Día… Ah! In El Día, they gave Segundo a proper drubbing; but not one of those vicious, intentional, energetic blows, in which one takes the rod in both hands to break the back of a strong and fearsome adversary, but a lash of contempt, a swipe with the fingernail, like the one given to an insect when it bothers you; one of those summary criticisms, which the critic does not take the trouble to substantiate and reason because what he says is so evident that it requires no demonstration: a capital execution by means of two or three jokes, but one of those that finish off a new author, sink him, relegate him forever to the limbo of obscurity… The critic came to say that today, when masterful verses lack readers, it is a great pity to make the presses groan with rhymes of inferior quality; that today, when Becquer already belongs to the number of the demigods of poetry, having entered the pantheon of immortals, it is a sin to disrespect him by clumsily imitating him, and spoiling and counterfeiting his best thoughts; and finally, that it is felt that very estimable young people, perhaps endowed with very happy dispositions for commerce or for careers in notary and pharmacy, spend their parents’ money on luxurious editions of verses that no one will buy or read… Beneath this philippic, Roberto Blánquez had written in his own hand : “Pay no attention to this animal. Read my article.” Indeed, in an obscure and underground newspaper, one of those countless ones that see the light of day in Madrid without Madrid seeing them, Blánquez poured out and vented all the bile of his friendship and wounded patriotism, setting the critic at a price, praising Segundo’s book and declaring it a worthy equal to Becquer’s, only a little sweeter, a little more dreamy and melancholic still, by dint of being the son of a beautiful yet unfortunate country, a country more beautiful than Andalusia, than Switzerland and than all the beautiful countries in the world: concluding by saying that, if Becquer had been born in Galicia, he would feel, think and write like THE SWAN OF VILAMORTA. Segundo picked up the bundle of newspapers and, looking at it for a while with fixed eyes and a grim expression, finally tore them into pieces, first large, then small, then even smaller, which he threw out the window, where they fluttered down, like symbolic butterflies, or silver petals of the flower of illusion, into the nearest mud puddle… Segundo smiled bitterly. There goes glory… he thought. Now… I think I’m calmer now… Let’s read the letter!… The important thing here are certain fragments… added to the comments that the reader makes, not out loud, but mentally. “I was, as you requested, at the house of the widow Comba, to deliver the copy that you sent me so tightly sealed and so tightly sealed…” “Of course!” It had a dedication inside that I didn’t like her to see, because you could have read it… “She has a beautiful house, with lots of silk curtains and natural flowers.” “Everything, everything about her is like that, delicate and pretty…” “But I had to go two or three times before she would see me, because it was always a bad time…” “She won’t just see the first person who comes along…” “Finally, she received me with endless compliments and graces… She’s very pretty up close, even more so than from a distance; and it’s hard to believe, my boy, that she has a girl of twelve: she looks, at most, twenty-four or twenty-five…” “The things she tells me, Roberto!” “Well, as soon as I told her I was coming from you…” “Let’s see!” she became… what can I tell you? “Blushing!” “Disgusted and startled, my boy; and what’s more, so serious that I was left speechless and didn’t know what to do…” “Infamous! Infamous!” “I was afraid that I would… Let’s see, let’s conclude, let’s conclude…” “She wouldn’t take the book no matter how many times I urged her…” “But this is beyond belief! Ah, what a woman!… “Because she claims that it would remind her so much of this country, and of her husband’s death, God help her; and consequently, she begs you to excuse her…” “Wretch!” “From opening the package… and from reading your verses… And she thanks you…” “Ha, ha, ha!” “Bravo! Great actress! ” “In spite of everything, since you expressly asked me to give it to her, I resolved not to return home with it, and, greeting her and taking my hat, I left your little package on a piece of furniture; but the next morning I had it at home, closed, sealed, intact…” “And I didn’t throw it into the Avieiro that day when our mouths… Fool that I was!” “Well, let’s finish… ” “Given the widow’s behavior, I guess you must have invented all that stuff about the precipice and the balcony… you were telling me to joke with me… or since you’re so crazy, you dreamed it happened to you and confused the dream with reality…” “You’re right to mock.” “Anyway, lad, if the widow interested you, don’t think about her anymore… I know for a fact, from my cousins, who know it for certain from their father, that when the mourning is over she’s marrying a Marquis of Cameros, who had a district in Lugo…” “Yes, yes… understood.” “This is no joke: they’re already embroidering for her, according to my cousins, sheets with a marchioness’s crown …”
The letter was torn more slowly than the newspapers, into smaller pieces, almost to paper dust… With the remains Segundo made a little ball, and threw it vigorously so that it sank deep into the mud puddle… It’s love! he thought, laughing aloud. He began to pace around the room, at first with a certain monotonous regularity, then with restlessness and fury. Clara, his eldest sister, opened the door a crack. “Aunt Gas asks you to come. ” “What for? ” “To eat.” Segundo took his hat and rushed out into the street, heading for the riverbank, seized by the fury that the daily necessities of life cause in those who suffer some violent moral shock, a disillusionment. Chapter 27. What a walk he had along the damp and puddled banks of the Avieiro! Sometimes he went quickly, without any reason to speed up his pace, and at other times, also for no reason, he stopped, remaining with his eyes fixed on some object; But, in reality, seeing it neither a little nor a lot… A remorse, a gnawing sorrow, gnawed at his heart when he remembered the past: just as when a ship sinks, each castaway especially laments the loss of an object that they preferred to all, so Segundo, of the now vanished yesterday, only missed an instant; an instant that he would like to relive at all costs: that of the precipice; the moment in which he could have achieved a dignified and glorious death, dragging with him into the abyss the noble burden of his illusions, and the body of a woman who only in that unforgettable moment could have truly loved him… Coward then and coward today! thought the poet, calling for help desperate resolutions, and not finding the indispensable courage to embrace the cold, muddy water at once… What hours! Drunk with pain, he sat on the stones at the river’s edge, staring with idiotic fixity at how the raindrops, falling diagonally from the gray sky, made circles in the river that tried to extend themselves, and failed, because infinite other identical circles collided with them, and mingled, and dissolved, and were incessantly renewed, and were reborn, and mingled, leaving undulating patterns on the river’s surface, very similar to that silver work called guilloché… The poet did not even notice that those same drops that bounced thickly and frequently on the Avieiro also fell on his hat and shoulders, trickled down his forehead, entered his neck, and seeped between his clothes and his flesh. He observed that the excessive cold made him shudder, get up, and walk slowly toward his house, where everyone had already eaten and no one offered him a cup of broth. Two or three days later, he developed a slight fever, mild at first, then more serious. Tropiezo described it as gastric and catarrhal; to be honest, he must say that he administered remedies that were not entirely inaccurate: for practicing physicians, these gastric and catarrhal fevers are a blessing from God, a glorious field where they usually count their days as victories; a well-trodden path where they run no risk of losing their way. This way, one might not reach the unknown pole of science, but at least one isn’t going over any precipice either… Tropiezo was leaving one night to visit Segundo, and he was wrapped tightly in his scarf. At the lawyer’s very door, from the shadow cast by the adjoining wall, a woman stood out, hairless, dressed in an old gown. The light of the night enabled Don Fermín to see her features, and with difficulty he recognized Leocadia; the poor teacher looked so disfigured, changed, and aged. The most vivid anxiety was evident on her face when she asked the doctor: “And how are you, Don Fermín? How is Segundo doing? ” “Ah! Good night, Leocadia… You know that at first I wasn’t worried… Fine, woman, fine; don’t worry. Today I ordered them to give him some stew and some soup… It was no use: just a dousing… But the boy is somewhat brooding, and he became so sad and dejected that I thought his appetite would never return… In these weathers you have to keep warm: we have a fine day and then, before you know it, She carries the water and the cold again… And how are you doing? They told me you weren’t well either… You have to take care of yourself, woman. —I have no doubt, Don Fermín. —Well, it’s better this way… News of the boy? —Over in Orense… the poor thing… He can’t get used to it. —He’ll get used to it. You can see… he was used to pampering… Go on, Leocadia, you’re boring. Go home, woman, go home. Don Fermín walked away, pulling his scarf up over his nose. That woman was crazy: she hadn’t been a little fond of him! And how devastated, how exhausted in months! Old women still fall in love more than girls. He had been prudent, very prudent, in not telling her about Segundo’s new plans… He would have broken into the house if he knew! No, silence, silence. Flies don’t enter a closed mouth. Let him find out from somewhere else, not from him. And with such sound thoughts and honorable intentions, Tropiezo arrived at Agonde’s social gathering, and after a quarter of an hour of sitting, he spilled the beans. Segundo García was leaving for America to try his luck. As soon as he was completely cured, of course… He would go to Coruña to take the steamer. It was a propitious occasion for the entire gathering to lament once again the death of Don Victoriano Andrés de la Comba, protector and father of all the unemployed Vilamortans, useful deputy and tireless agent of the region… Had he been alive, a young man of such merit, a poet—that night the entire gathering agreed that Segundo had merit and was a poet— would surely not go off to cross the stormy seas in search of a decent position… But since Don Victoriano passed away, Vilamorta lacked echo in the regions of favor and influence, since Señorito de Romero, current owner of the district, belonged to the race of docile deputies who do not impose themselves on the Government, who go to vote when called, and are valued at a low price, barely trading at that of a few newspaper stands and half a dozen credentials per legislature… Agonde got his revenge that night, dispersing himself to the terrain of his favorite conversation, which It was necessary to deny the sinister Euphrasian influence, which had been responsible for Vilamorta’s decline and its youth emigrating to the New World… The apothecary expounded his theories: he liked the deputies to return to their district: what good were they if not? For him, the ideal deputy was that famous politician whom the barber of the town he represented had requested a posting, arguing that, due to the distribution of credentials among all the people of his position in the town, he no longer had any customers to shave, and was dying of hunger… At this point, the mayor intervened, saying that he knew for a fact that Señor de Romero was planning to take a very real interest in Vilamorta; this was confirmed by the confectioner and some of those present, and an altercation ensued which irrefutably demonstrated that a dead deputy has no friends, and that the new representative of the country already had his lackeys and devotees among the old radical Combistas . Chapter 28. The Swan has left his native lake, or rather, his pond: he has crossed the Atlantic on the wings of a steamer. Will he ever return? Will he return with a yellowish face, a ruined liver, and a few thousand duros in bills stashed in his wallet, to end his days where he began, just as the ship battered by storms comes to receive its final careening in the shipyard where it was built? Will he be surprised upon entering the young continent by that fearful Antillean disease, executioner of Iberians who try to emulate Columbus in conquering America, the black vomit? Will he remain in the tropical zones dragging a carriage, married to some Creole woman? Will he eventually preside over any of those minuscule republics where the doctors are generals and the generals are doctors? Will his melancholy be cured by the salty kiss of the sea breeze, by the touch of virgin lands, by the hard spur of necessity that, pushing him to fight, will tell him: work? Perhaps one day history will recount the metamorphoses of the Swan, his odyssey and his vicissitudes; only years must pass, for it was only yesterday, so to speak, that Segundo García left Vilamorta, leaving the schoolmistress in tears. And this matter of the schoolmistress is the only loose end of the Swan’s chronicle that we can currently gather. Leocadia was much talked about in Vilamorta. She was ill, according to some; according to others, ruined; and according to many, not very sound in her mind. She was seen hanging around Segundo’s house several nights during the poet’s illness; it was claimed that she had sold her possessions and that her little house was mortgaged to Clodio Genday. But the strangest thing of all, what was bitterly criticized, was the abandonment in which she left her son, after having cared for him and pampered him so much as a child, not going to see him even one day in Orense, while old woman Flores went incessantly and with each step gave worse news about the boy: that he was wasting away, that he was bleedin’ from his mouth, that he was dying of sadness… that he wouldn’t last a month… Leocadia, upon hearing this, would let her beard fall onto her chest, and sometimes her shoulders would move convulsively, as if she were sobbing… For the rest, she usually appeared calm, although very quiet, and without her usual activity. She helped Flores in the kitchen, looked after the school girls, swept, all like an automaton, and Flores, who cruelly spied on her to take note of her distractions, took pleasure in shouting at her: “Woman, you’ve left this side of the frying pan dirty… Woman, you haven’t sewn the hole in your skirt… Woman, what are you thinking about? Today I’m going to Orense; you have to take care of the pot…” At the end of the summer, Clodio called in the proceeds of his loan, and Leocadia was unable to pay them; so she was told that the creditor was within his rights to claim the property after completing the legal procedures. That was a terrible blow for Leocadia. It sometimes happens that a prisoner, a distinguished personage, perhaps a king, confined by reversals of fate in a cramped dungeon, stripped of his grandeur, deprived of everything that constituted his happiness, spends years resignedly enduring his ills, although dejected, serene… And if one day, through a refinement of cruelty on the part of the jailers, a charm, an object, a trinket that he had grown attached to is taken away from this resigned prisoner … the suppressed pain overflows and extremes of despair ensue. Something similar happened to Leocadia when she learned that it was necessary to abandon forever that beloved little house where she and Segundo had spent unique hours of her life; that little house she had run, rebuilt with her savings; that clean and exquisite little house of yesterday, all her pride… Flores heard her cry loudly many nights; But when , moved by involuntary compassion, the old woman came to ask her what was happening, or if she wanted anything, Leocadia, covering herself with her clothes, would reply in a muffled voice: “I have nothing… woman, let me sleep… You won’t even let me sleep!” She showed great versatility in those days and made a thousand plans; she talked about going to live in Orense, leaving school and starting to sew at home; she also talked about accepting the proposals of Clodio Genday, who, having dismissed his young servant, no one knows why, offered to take Leocadia on as his housekeeper, which would leave her in her own home, of course eliminating Flores. All these resolutions lasted only a short time, and were discarded in favor of others no less ephemeral; and with the series of projects and changes, time was passing and Leocadia would soon find herself without a refuge. One day at the fair, Leocadia went out to buy various things Flores urgently needed: among others, a sieve and a new chocolate pot, because her own was already useless. The swarming of the crowd, the jostling of the vendors, the bright light of the autumn sun made her head a little dizzy, weak from the vigils, from little to eat, and from much suffering. She stopped in front of the stand where the sieves were being sold. It was a kind of junk drawer, and there were displayed a thousand trinkets, indispensable gadgets, such as grinders, frying pans, saucepans, syringes, petroleum devices, and in one corner, two items much in demand by the public in that country, consisting of some light pink papers , soft as brown paper, and some whitish powders, of a suspicious white, resembling spoiled flour. Leocadia fixed her eyes on them, and at once the saleswoman, believing that she desired them, began to extol their qualities, explaining that the little pink pieces, moistened and placed in a dish, would not leave a fly that would not perish there, and that the white powder was a Seneca powder for killing mice, given to them in certain well-prepared little balls of cheese… When Leocadia demanded so much of the powder, asking her how much it cost, the woman boasted of her generosity, and taking a spatula with a handful of the powder, gave it to her wrapped in a paper, for I don’t know what trifling few centavos. The drug, in fact, was worth little, as it is common in the country, where native arsenic abounds in the calcareous spars that form one of the slopes of the Avieiro, and arsenious acid, the rat-killer, is sold freely, more than in the pharmacy, at the fairs. The teacher put away her powder, bought half a dozen pink slips of paper out of deference, and upon returning home, punctually delivered the requested items to Flores. Flores noticed that after eating, Leocadia shut herself in her bedroom, where he heard her speaking loudly, as if praying. Accustomed to her antics, this didn’t surprise her. After the prayer, the teacher went out onto the balcony and spent a long time looking at the flowerpots; she went into the living room and contemplated another fine piece: the sofa, the chairs, the small table, the places that recalled her history. Flores then saw her enter the kitchen… The old woman later asserted—but in such cases, who would renounce being a diviner?—that her manner of entering had already caught her attention … “Do you have fresh water there? ” “Yes, woman. ” “Give me a small glass.” Flores declared that when she took the glass, the teacher’s hand trembled as if she were suffering from a fever; And the most remarkable thing was that, not having the sugar in the glass, Leocadia took a boxwood spoon and put it inside… However, for another hour or an hour and a half, Flores did not hear Leocadia moan… He sneaked into the room and saw her on the bed, with a color that was frightening; violent nausea rose in her anguished chest, and after the nausea and the retching and the convulsive efforts to vomit, a cold sweat flooded the sick woman’s forehead and she was left without movement or voice… Flores, terrified, ran out to find Don Fermín. He told him to hurry, this was no joke … When Don Fermín came over, all out of breath and asked: “Let’s see, Leocadia, what is this? What’s wrong, woman? What’s wrong?” She, half-opening her dilated eyes, murmured: “Nothing, Don Fermín… Nothing.” At the head of the bed was the glass, without water anymore, but with a layer of white powder adhering to the bottom and scraped in places by the spoon, because the water had not been able to dissolve it and the teacher did not want to leave it there… It is appropriate that on this occasion we also declare that the illustrious _Tropiezo_ did not give any in the expeditious path of treatment of such a simple case. _Tropiezo_ had already fought some more battles with that vulgar toxic substance, and he knew its tricks: he resorted without hesitation to the vigorous emetics, the emetic, the oil… Only the poison, more clever than he, had already entered the circulation, and was running through the veins of the teacher, freezing them… When the nausea and vomiting ceased, on Leocadia’s mortal pallor some red spots appeared, an eruption similar to scarlet fever… This symptom lasted until death came to untie that sad spirit and emancipate him from his sufferings, which was at dawn. Shortly before expiring, in a moment of calm, Leocadia made a sign to Flores, and whispered in his ear: “Give me your word… the boy won’t find out, eh?… By the soul of Don’t tell your mother… don’t tell her the manner of my death! A few days later, _Tropiezo_ was defending himself at Agonde’s social gathering, where, just to make him angry, they blamed him for the teacher’s misfortune. —One, they called me late, very late, when the woman was already almost in agony… Another, gentlemen, is that he took a quantity of arsenic, neither so much that he could throw it up, nor so little that it would give him a little colic and he would be done for… If he had taken more, it would have been easier to govern him, gentlemen. What I wasn’t quite right about was not calling the priest first… I did it with good intentions, so as not to frighten her, and in case we were getting by… When they put the extreme to her, she was already beyond help… “So,” Agonde muttered malignantly, “with you, neither body nor soul is safe from a stumble! ” The social gathering celebrated the aforementioned, and there were funereal jokes and compassionate remarks. Clodio Genday, the deceased’s creditor, was fidgeting in his seat. What foolish conversation! Talking about happy things, Canary! Indeed, there was talk of happy and satisfying things: Señorito de Romero had offered to put a telegraph station in Vilamorta; and there was also much in the papers that the importance of the wine-growing area of the Borde called for a railway branch, and the engineers would soon come to study it. At the conclusion of The Swan of Vilamorta, we witness how the fight for justice and truth can transcend even the deepest barriers, such as social and familial ones. This work, full of emotions and unexpected twists, leaves us with a reflection on human nature and the search for redemption. Pardo Bazán masterfully captures the essence of her time and the complexity of her characters, inviting us to reflect on the lessons this powerful narrative teaches us.
Sumérgete en la fascinante historia de *El cisne de Vilamorta* de la renombrada condesa de Emilia Pardo Bazán. 🌹 Este cuento revela las emociones humanas más profundas, donde se entrelazan el amor, la tragedia y los secretos de una sociedad inmersa en conflictos. 💔✨
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