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CHAPTER XXIII

THE arrival in Madrid of the celebrated singer Tenorini raised the glory of Maria to its height, not only because of the admiration this colossal lyric displayed, but because of the earnestness she showed in wishing to unite her voice to a voice so worthy of hers. Tononi Tenorini —alias the great – came from nobody knew where. Some affirmed that, like Castor and Pollux, she was couched in an egg – not the egg of a swan, but the egg of a nightingale. Her splendid and brilliant career commenced at Naples, where she had eclipsed Vesuvius. Then she passed to Milan, to Florence, St. Petersburg, and Constantinople. She had now arrived from New York, passing through Havana, with the purpose of appearing in Paris, where the inhabitants, furious in not having yet consecrated this gigantic reputation, had gotten up a resolution to assuage their anger. From thence Tenorini designed to go to London, where the dilettanti were dying of longing and of spleen, and where the season promised to be dull, if that celebrated notability and artiste should not take pity on them.

Strange thing, and which surprised all the Polos and all the Eloisitas, this sublime artiste did not arrive in Madrid borne on the wings of genii. The dolphins of the ocean were too badly educated and too little melodramatic to carry her on their back, as they had before done for Amphyon, in happier times, those of the Mediterranean. Tenorini came by the diligence. Horror! And that which was more horrible still, she brought a carpet-bag with her. They formed a plan to celebrate her arrival by ringing all the bells at the same moment, to illuminate the houses, and to raise an arch of triumph for her, with music from all the instruments of the circus orchestra. The alcalde would consent to nothing of the kind.

While Marisalada shared with the grand singer the unbridled ovation of a discerning public, who fell on their knees in all humility, a scene of a character altogether different passed in the poor cabin which she had quitted scarcely a year ago.

Pedro Santalo was dying on his pallet. Since the departure of his daughter he had not raised his head. He kept his eyes constantly closed, and opened them only to look at the chamber of Mariquita, which was separated from his by a narrow passage which led to the garret. Every thing remained in the state his daughter had left it: the guitar was hung on the wall, by a ribbon once rose-colored, and which now hung without form like a forgotten promise, and faded like a recollection extinguished. A handkerchief of India was thrown on the bed, and there could yet be seen on the chair a pair of her little shoes. Old Maria was seated at the bedside of the invalid.

“Come! come! Pedro,” said the good old woman, “forget that you are a Catalan, and be not so stubborn. Let yourself be governed for once in your life, and come to the convent. You know you will want for nothing there. There at least you can be better cared for, and you will not be abandoned in a corner like an old broom.”

The fisherman made no reply.

“Pedro, Don Modesto has already written two letters, and has sent them by the post. They say it is the most sure and prompt way to insure their arrival.”

“She will not come!” murmured the invalid.

“But her husband will come; and, for the moment, that is of the greater importance.”

“She! she!” cried the poor father.

An hour after this conversation Maria set off for the convent, without having been able to decide the obstinate Catalan to let her conduct him to her home. The old woman rode upon Golondrina, the peaceful Dean of the chapter of asses of the country.

Momo, now become a man, without having lost any of his native ugliness, conducted the ass.

“Listen, grandma,” said he; “these visits to the old sea-wolf, will they continue for a long time yet? These daily walks fatigue me.”

“Certainly they will still continue, since Pedro will not come to the convent. I fear for the death of this brave man if he does not see his daughter.”

“I will never die of that disease,” said Momo, with a sardonic laugh.

“Listen, my son,” pursued the old woman; “I have not much confidence in the post, although they say it is sure. Don Modesto has not much faith in it either. Then, that Don Frederico and Marisalada learn of the danger Pedro is now in, there is but one means to employ, and that is that you go to Madrid, and tell them; for indeed we must not remain here with our arms folded, and see the father die calling on his daughter with all his soul, and do nothing to bring her to him.”

“I go to Madrid, and to seek the Gaviota again!” exclaimed Momo horrified. “Are you in your right senses, grandmother?”

“I am so much in my sound senses, that if you will not go, I will go myself. I have been to Cadiz without losing myself, and without any thing happening to me; it will be the same if I go to Madrid. My heart breaks when I hear this poor father calling on his child. But you, Momo, you have a bad heart, I say so to you with pain. And I do not know truly from whence you get this wickedness; it is neither from your father nor from your mother; but so it is: in every family there is a Judas.”

“The devil himself could not better torment a Christian to damn him,” murmured Momo. “And that is not the worst; you get this extravagance into your head, you push it just to its end, and as the only good result, I will be deprived of my arms and legs for an entire month.”

And Momo, to vent his anger, struck a heavy blow with his stick on the side of the poor Golondrina.

“Barbarian!” cried his grandmother, “why do you beat the poor animal?”

“Animals are made to be beaten,” replied Momo.

“Who has preached to you such a heresy?”

“Your misfortune, grandma, is, that you resemble the celestial vault, you protect everybody.”

“Yes, son, yes. And may it please God that I never witness a grief without sympathizing with it – that I may never be one of those people who listen to a complaint as if they were listening to the dropping of rain!”

“That which you tell me applies only to our neighbor, grandmother; but the animals, the devil!”

“The animals, and do they not suffer? Are they not creatures of the good God? Here below we suffer the punishment due to the sin of the first man. The Adam and Eve of asses, what sin have they committed?”

“They have, at least, eaten the parings of the apple,” said Momo, with a laugh which sounded like a detonation.

They then met Manuel and José, who returned with them to the convent.

“Mother,” asked Manuel, “how is Pedro?”

“Ill, my son, ill. My heart bleeds to see him so low, so sad, and so lonely. I asked him to come to the convent, but it would be easier to remove the fort of San Cristobal than this obstinate man. A twenty-four-pounder would not move him. Brother Gabriel must go, and stay with him, and Momo go to Madrid and bring here Don Frederico and the daughter of this poor father.”

“Let Momo go,” said Manuel; “he will thus see the world.”

“I!” cried Momo anew; “how can I go to Madrid?”

“In putting one foot before the other,” answered his father. “Are you afraid of being lost? or do you fear being eaten up on the way?”

“It is this, that I have no desire to go,” replied Momo exasperated.

“Well! I have here a branch of olive which will give you that desire, scapegrace.”

Momo was quiet, inwardly cursing old Pedro and his family. He commenced his journey in the company of the muleteers of the mountain of Aracena, who came to lay in a stock of fish at Villamar. He arrived at Valverde, and from there passed by Aracena, Oliva, and Barcarota to Badajoz, where he took the diligence for Madrid from Seville, and arrived at Madrid without stopping.

Don Modesto had written in big letters the address of Stein, which he had sent when he arrived in Madrid with the duke. Momo commenced to walk through the city with this paper in his hand, reciting for the benefit of the Gaviota a litany of imprecations always new.

We will leave him in search of his enemy, and come back to Villamar.

It was afternoon; old Maria, more grieved than ever, came from visiting Santalo.

“Dolores,” said she to her daughter-in-law, “Pedro is going. This morning he rolled up his sheet; that is to say, he made up his parcel for the journey from which he will never return, and our dog Palomo has howled the death. And yet these people do not arrive! I am on hot coals. Momo ought already to be returned. He has been ten days gone.”

“The road is long to measure from here to Madrid, mother,” replied Dolores. “Manuel assures me that Momo cannot be here before four or five days yet.”

What was the astonishment of the two women when they saw, all of a sudden, the frightened face of Momo himself, Momo dismayed, fatigued, and harassed.

“Momo!” both cried out at the same moment.

“Himself, in body and soul,” replied Momo.

“And Marisalada?” asked the old woman with anxiety.

“And Don Frederico?” asked Dolores.

“You may wait for them until the Last Judgment,” said Momo. “Thanks to you, grandmother, I can boast of having made a famous journey.”

“What is it? what has happened?” asked at the same time both grandmother and mother.

“That which you will soon hear, so that you will admire the judgments of God, and who blesses you, inasmuch as He has permitted me to return safe and sound, thanks to the excellent legs he has given me.”

The old Maria and Dolores remained silent on hearing these words, symptoms of grave events.

“Speak, for the love of heaven; what has happened?” cried again both the women. “Do you not see that our souls are drawn out to a thread?”

“When I arrived in Madrid,” commenced Momo, “when I saw myself alone in the midst of this world, I was seized with vertigo. Each street appeared to me a soldier, every place a patrol. I entered into a public house with the paper of the commandant, and which was a paper that spoke. There I encountered a species of drunkard, who conducted me to the house indicated on the paper. The servants told me that their master and mistress were absent, and they were about to shut the door in my face; but they knew not, these imbeciles, whom they were dealing with. ‘Ha!’ said I to them, ‘pay attention to whom you are speaking, if you please. Do you know that it was at our house we rescued Don Frederico when he was dying, and that without us he would have been altogether dead?’ ”

“You said that, Momo!” exclaimed the grandmother, “one never speaks of these things. What mortification! what will they think of us? Remind one of a favor! who has ever seen the like?”

“Well! what? I ought not to have said it? Let’s see then! I spoke much stronger: I said it was my grandmother who had brought their mistress to our house when she was ill, running and crying herself hoarse on the rocks like a gull as she was. These profligates looked at each other, and mocked me; they told me I was mistaken, that their mistress was the daughter of a general of the army of Don Carlos. Daughter of a general! do you understand? Is there in the world a lie more shameful? to say that the good old Pedro is a general! old Pedro, who has never served the king! At last I told them that my commission was very pressing, and that what I wished was, to depart immediately, and lose sight of them, their masters, and Madrid. ‘Nicholas,’ then said a girl, who seemed to wish to be as shameless as her mistress, ‘conduct this peasant to the theatre, he may see the señora there.’ Remark well that she spoke of me, this viper’s tongue, as a peasant; and that she said señora, in speaking of this bad Gaviota. Can you believe that? It is what can only be seen in Madrid! It is confounding. Then the servant took his hat, and conducted me to a grand building, high, and constructed like a species of church. In lieu of tapers and candles, one only sees lamps which light up like suns. This large room was furnished all around with seats, upon which I have seen more than a thousand women seated all in fête dresses, stiff as sticks, and ranged like vials on an apothecary’s shelves. The men were so numerous that one might believe he saw an ant-hill. Jesus! from whence can so many Christians have come! ‘That is nothing,’ said I to myself, ‘it is the quantity of bread they must consume in this city of Madrid!’ But prepare yourself for the saddest. All this world was there – why? to hear the Gaviota sing!”

“I see nothing in all this to oblige you to come back so promptly and so amazed,” said the grandmother.

“Wait! wait! I cannot go faster than the music. I relate things as they happened. Then listen well to this. Then suddenly, without anybody giving command, more than a thousand instruments commenced playing at once. There were flutes, trumpets, and violins big as Golondrina. What an uproar! It was enough to assemble together all the blind in Spain. There is something more wonderful still: without knowing how or why, a kind of garden which was in front of us disappeared suddenly; and, the devil mixing in it without doubt, replaced the garden by the stairs of a palace covered with a magnificent carpet. Then I saw a woman admirably dressed; she was covered with more velvet, silk, gold, and jewels than the Virgin of Rosaire. ‘It is Isabella the Second,’ said I to myself. No, my people, it was not the queen. Do you know who it was? Neither more nor less than the Gaviota, the wicked Gaviota, who went about among us with naked legs and feet. Yes, the devil had thus taken her, and made her a princess. I was stunned, when, at a moment when no one thought of it, a gentleman, very well dressed, came forward. He was in a frightful rage! What fury! He rolled his eyes! ‘Caramba!’ thought I, ‘I would not be in this Gaviota’s skin.’ That which astonished me the most was that both recited their anger in singing. ‘Good!’ said I, ‘it is perhaps the usage among people of high rank.’ Nevertheless, I did not understand a word of what they were saying. All that I could discover was, that the gentleman was a general of Don Carlos, that the Gaviota said he was her father, and that he would not recognize her as his daughter, although she supplicated him on her knees. ‘That’s well done!’ I cried at this impudence.”

“Why did you mix yourself up with it?” asked the old woman.

“Because that I knew her, and that I could prove it. Do you not know that he who is silent approves? But it appears that where I was it is forbidden to speak the truth, because my neighbor, an employé of the police, said to me, ‘Will you hold your tongue, my friend!’ ‘I have no desire to do so,’ I replied, and I made my cry ring to the roof, ‘This man is not her father.’ ‘Are you mad, or do you come from another world?’ said the policeman to me. ‘I am not the one, nor do I come from the other, insolent,’ I replied. ‘I know better than you, and I come from Villamar, where her legitimate father resides, her true father, the old Pedro Santalo.’ ‘You are an imbecile,’ replied the policeman. I kicked, and was about to inflict on him a blow, when Nicholas caught my arm in time, and led me away to take a drink. ‘I have understood it all,’ I said to Nicholas; ‘this general is he whom this cursed Gaviota wishes to have for her father. I have heard talk of many villanous things, of murders, thefts, piracies, but I have never yet heard spoken of one who would deny her father.’ Nicholas held his sides in laughing: at Madrid such indignities affright no one. When we re-entered, it is believed that the general had ordered the Gaviota to take off that beautiful attire, for she was entirely dressed in white, and appeared overwhelmed with sadness. She began to sing, and accompanied herself on an immense guitar which she had placed immediately before her on the floor, and which she pinched with her two hands. (Of what is she not capable, this Gaviota?) But here comes the interesting part. Suddenly there appeared a Moor.”

“A Moor?”

“But what a Moor! blacker and more cruel than Mohammed himself. He held in his hand a poniard, large as a sabre.”

“Jesus, Maria!” cried Maria and Dolores.

“I demanded of Nicholas who was this proud Moor, and he told me that he is called Telo. To make a finish of my story, the Moor said to the Gaviota that he was about to kill her.”

“Holy Virgin!” exclaimed the old woman, “it was the public executioner!”

“I do not know if it was the executioner or a paid assassin,” replied Momo; “but of this I am sure, that he seized her by her hair, and stabbed her several times with the poniard. I saw it with my own eyes, those eyes which will one day be in the land of death, and I can affirm it.”

Momo placed his two fingers on his two eyes with such rigorous force, that it seemed as if they would start from their sockets.

The two good women raised a frightful cry. Old Maria sobbed and rung her hands with grief.

“But what did the spectators do?” asked Dolores, shedding abundance of tears; “was there no one to arrest this scoundrel?”

“That is what I do not know,” answered Momo. “For on seeing this, I took to my legs, and in the fear that they would call upon me to depose, I did not cease running until I had put some leagues between the city of Madrid and the son of my father.”

“We must,” said the poor old Maria, amidst her sobs, “conceal this misfortune from Pedro. What griefs! what griefs!”

“And who could have courage enough to tell him?” replied Dolores. “Poor Marisalada! she was well, and would be better. See what has happened to her!”

“Each one gets what they merit,” said Momo. “This bad daughter should end badly – it could not be otherwise. If I were not so fatigued, I would go on the instant, and relate it all to Ramon Perez.”

CHAPTER XXIV

THE news spread quickly through the village that the daughter of the fisherman had been assassinated. Thus this egotist, this rustic, this stupid Momo, thanks to his evil spirit, and his bad instincts, took what he saw at the theatre for reality, and he not only made a useless journey, because he had not accomplished his mission, but his folly led all the good people into an error.

The face of Don Modesto lengthened amazingly. The cura said a mass for the soul of Marisalada. Ramon Perez put a black ribbon on his guitar.

Rosa Mistica said to Don Modesto —

“God pardon her! I predicted that she would end badly. Do you remember that the more pains I took to make her go the right way, the more obstinate she was in going the wrong?”

Old Maria, calculating that this catastrophe prevented the arrival of Don Frederico, decided to confide the cure of Pedro to a young physician who had taken the place of Stein at Villamar.

“I do not know much of his science,” she said to Don Modesto, who recommended this Esculapius to her; “he knows only how to order medicinal drinks, and there is nothing which more weakens the stomach. For nourishment he prescribes chicken broth. Will you tell me what strength such a beverage can give? All is topsy-turvy, my commandant. But all this will come right in the future, and experience will always be experience.”

The doctor found Pedro very ill; he declared he was anxious to prepare for his death.

Maria could not hear this news without weeping bitterly; she called Manuel, and charged him with the painful mission to announce his approaching death to Pedro, with every possible precaution.

“Believe me,” she said, “I would never have the courage to do it.”

Manuel set off to visit the patient.

“Hallo! Pedro,” he said to him, “how are you?”

“I am sinking, Manuel,” replied the invalid: “if you have any commands for the other world, tell me immediately: I am about to weigh anchor, my son.”

“Come! Pedro, this is not so. You will live longer than I; and, as the proverb says – ”

“Do not finish, Manuel,” replied Pedro without moving. “Say to your mother that I am ready. It is now a long time since I have felt my last moment approaching. I think only of that – and of her!” he added, in a broken voice.

Manuel went away with his eyes filled with tears, although he had seen, during his military life, much bloodshed, and painful agonies.

The following day there was one of those terrible storms which the equinox usually brings. The wind whistled in every variety of tone. One could believe he heard the seven heads of the hydra breathing all at once. It beat against the cabin, which seemed to complain and moan. The invisible element sent its doleful sounds through the resounding vaults of the ruins of the fort; it struck furiously across the forest, became softer in the orchards, and vanished in a long murmur in the deserted plain, as gradually disappears the shadow of a landscape on the horizon.

The sea dashed its waves angrily, as fury agitates serpents among the leaves. The clouds piled themselves up without pause, and their black flanks opened to emit their torrents on the earth. All was shivering, all trembling, all complaining. The sun had fled, and the color of day was dark as the pall of death.

Although the cabin was protected by the rock, the tempest had swept away a part of the roof during the night. To prevent its complete destruction, Manuel, aided by Momo, had stayed it with some wood and some stones of the ruins.

“You do not wish to shelter your host?” said Manuel. “Wait at least for it to fall down, and then there will be no more need of you.”

If any other look than that of God could through the tempest penetrate the desert, he would have seen some men following along the margin of the sea, braving the fury of the storm, enveloped in their mantles, wrapt and silent, their bodies bent towards the earth, and their heads bowed down. He would have seen an old man, grave, and wrapt in meditation, like those who followed him, his arms crossed on his breast, in the manner of Orientals, and preceded by a child ringing a bell. There could be heard at intervals, despite the roaring of the tempest, the tranquil and sonorous voice of this old man, saying, “De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine,” and of the men who responded, “Domine, exaudi vocem meam.”

The rain fell in torrents, the wind blew furiously, and the men continued their onward, impassible march, their step at once grave and slow.

They were the cura and some pious parishioners, who, conducted by Manuel, went to carry to the dying fisherman the last consolations of a Christian.

The priest approached the invalid, whose poor dwelling had been metamorphosed, thanks to the attentions of old Maria and of brother Gabriel. They had placed on the table a crucifix, surrounded with lights and flowers.

“Light and perfume,” said the good old woman, “are the exterior homage which we ought to offer to the Lord.”

After the ceremony, the priest, Maria, and brother Gabriel alone remained near the dying man. Pedro was calm. After a few moments he opened his eyes —

“Is she not come?” he asked.

“My good Pedro,” replied Maria, while streams of tears prevented her from seeing the invalid, “it is far from this to Madrid. She wrote she would set out, and we will see her arrive very soon.”

Santalo again fell into a lethargy. An hour passed, and then he came to himself. He fixed his look for a long time on Maria, and said to her —

“Maria, I have implored of my Divine Saviour that he will deign to come and visit me; that he will pardon me, that he will make you happy, and recompense you for all you have done for us.”

Then he swooned. He again revived, opened his eyes, in which already one could read death, and he murmured —

“She has not come!”

His head fell on the pillow, and he exclaimed —

“Pity, Lord!”

“Let us repeat the Credo,” said the priest, taking in his hands those of the dying man, and approaching his mouth to his ears, to make him understand the last words of faith, hope, and charity. A majestic and imposing silence reigned in this humble retreat, which death had come to penetrate.

Without, the tempest raged in all its terrible power; within, all was peace and repose: because God takes from death all its fears, and all its horror, when the soul springs to heaven at the cry of pity!