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CHAPTER XXV
THE world is composed of contrasts: nothing is more true than this eternal verity.
It was thus that, when the poor fisherman presented to his humble and pious friends the sublime spectacle of the death of a believer, his daughter rendered the public of Madrid enthusiastic even to frenzy. A prima donna without a drop of Italian blood in her veins, eclipsed the grand Tenorini herself. The impression produced by the singer was so great, so general, that the employés deserted their offices, and the students the benches of their classes.
This enthusiasm manifested itself one evening at the door of the theatre, in a group of young men, who sought to make two strangers, recently landed, share their admiration. They commented, they analyzed the quality of the voice, the suppleness of her throat, the superiority of her method of the Diva, without forgetting to eulogize her physical advantages. A young man, covered up to his eyes in a cloak, remained immovable and silent some paces from this group; but when they boasted of the physical advantages of the singer, he stamped his foot with anger.
“I will bet a hundred guineas, dear viscount,” said our friend Sir John Burnwood, who, not having obtained authority to carry off Alcazar, proposed to himself to ask leave to take Escurial – “I will bet that this woman will make more noise in France than Madame Lafarge; and in England, more than Tom Thumb; and in Italy, than Rossini.”
“I do not doubt it,” replied the viscount.
“What magnificent black eyes!” added a new admirer. “What an elegant and subtle form! As to her feet, one does not see them, and we can only guess: the Magdalen would envy her her hair.”
“I am impatient to hear this wonder,” said the viscount; “let us enter, gentlemen.”
The mysterious young man had disappeared.
Maria, in the costume of Semiramis, came on the stage. The man in the mantle, who was no other than Pepe Vera, entered at this moment, approached the actress, and without any person hearing him, said to her —
“I do not wish you to sing.”
And he went on his way, cold and indifferent.
Maria at first turned pale, then the blush of indignation mounted to her face.
“Come!” said she to her waiting-woman; “Marina, arrange the folds of this mantle. We are about to commence.” And she added in a loud voice, so that Pepe, who was far off, heard her, “We do not play for the public.”
The boy of the theatre came to her, and said —
“Señora, shall we raise the curtain?”
“I am ready.”
But she had scarcely pronounced these words when she uttered a sharp cry.
Pepe Vera had come and placed himself behind her; he laid hold of her arm violently, and said to her a second time —
“I do not wish you to sing.”
Vanquished by her grief, Maria seated herself on a chair, and wept.
Pepe had disappeared.
“What is it? what has happened?” asked those who were present.
“I feel ill,” answered Maria, who continued to weep.
“What is the matter, señora?” asked the director, who had been informed of what had occurred.
“It is nothing,” said Maria, rising, and drying her tears. “It is already passed. I am ready. Come!”
Pepe Vera, pale as a corpse, then came and interposed between the director and the artist.
“This is cruelty,” said he, with an imperturbable calmness, “to force on to the stage a woman who can hardly support herself.
“What!” cried the director; “are you ill, señora? Since when? it is but a moment since I saw you very joyous!”
Maria was about to reply, but she dropped her eyes, and could not open her lips. Pepe’s look fascinated her.
“Why not avow the truth?” he said, without losing any of his calmness. “Why not say it is impossible for you to sing? would it be a great crime? Are you a slave, that they can oblige you to do more than you can?”
The public was impatient, the director knew not what to do. The authorities sent to demand the cause of the delay, and while the director recounted the incident which had occurred, Pepe Vera, who had approached Maria as if to offer his attentions, seized her arm as if he would break it, and said to her in a firm voice —
“Caramba! is it not enough to tell you I do not wish it?”
Maria must decide. When she was in her room with Pepe her anger broke out.
“You are an insolent, an infamous fellow,” she cried, suffocated with fury. “What right have you to treat me thus?”
“I love you.”
“Cursed be your love!”
Pepe began to laugh.
“You curse my love, and you cannot live without it. We will see! we will see! I will never again appear before you until you summon me.”
“I would sooner call a demon.”
“You may call him, I am not jealous.”
“Go then! quit me.”
“Be it so,” said the toreador. “I depart, and go to Lucia del Salto.”
Marisalada was very jealous of this woman, a dancer, whom Pepe had courted before he knew Maria.
“Pepe! Pepe!” screamed Maria, “traitor! add perfidy to insolence.”
“That,” said Pepe, without moving, “that will not make me do but what I choose. You are too grand a lady for me. If then you wish that we get along well together, it must be that every thing is done as I wish. I will command, and you obey. You have enough of dukes, ambassadors, and serene excellencies at your feet.”
So saying, he made some steps towards the door.
“Pepe! Pepe!” called Maria, tearing in pieces a mantle richly garnished with lace.
“Call sooner the demon.”
“Pepe! remember this well: if you ever go near Lucia I will accept the love of the duke.”
“You dare do that?” said Pepe, starting with a gesture of menace.
“I dare every thing, for revenge.”
Pepe placed himself in front of the Gaviota, his arms crossed, and darting on her the most terrible looks. Maria sustained them without flinching. These brief moments sufficed for these two characters to study and know each other.
They comprehended that both were powerful in pride and in energy. This combat could no longer continue; it must be broken or suspended. With mutual and tacit accord each renounced the triumph.
“Come, Mariquita,” said Pepe, who was the culpable one, “let us be friends. I will not go near Lucia, but in exchange, and to have confidence in each other, conceal me this evening at your house, in such a manner that I can convince myself that you do not deceive me.”
“That cannot be,” replied Maria haughtily.
“’Tis well. I go where I go in leaving you.”
“Infamous! you put the knife to my throat,” cried Maria, doubling her fists with fury. “Depart!”
An hour after this scene Maria was half reclining on the sofa, and her husband was feeling her pulse. The duke was seated near her.
“It is nothing, Maria,” said Stein. “It is nothing, duke. A nervous attack, already dissipated. Her pulse is perfectly tranquil. You need only repose, Maria. Work is killing you. It is already some time that your nerves have been extraordinarily irritated. Your nervous system rebels against the zeal you devote to the study of your characters. I am in no way uneasy, and now I go to attend a patient, who is in a dangerous condition. Take the prescription which I will order for you, and some orgeat on retiring; and to-morrow when you rise some ass’s milk. Duke, I leave you with regret, but duty obliges me: á dios!”
After the departure of Don Frederico, the duke gazed on Maria for a long time; her face was altogether changed.
“Are you fatigued, Maria?” asked he, with that penetrating sweetness which love alone knows how to give to the voice.
“I will repose myself,” replied Maria coldly.
“Do you wish that I retire?”
“If it so pleases you.”
“That would pain me.”
“Remain then.”
“Maria,” said the duke, after a short silence, taking out of his pocket a paper, “when I cannot talk to you I sing your praises; here are some verses which I have written for you; to-night, Maria, I will have agitating dreams, without sleep. Sleep has fled from my eyelids since peace fled from my heart. Pardon me, Maria, if this avowal which escapes from my heart offends the purity of your sentiments, but I have suffered from your sufferings, and – ”
“You see,” said Maria, smiling, “that my sufferings are already ended.”
“Would you like, Maria, that I read these verses to you?”
“Be it so.”
The duke read his sonnet in honor of the Diva.
“Your verses are very beautiful, duke,” remarked Maria with more than animation. “Will you have them published in the Heraldo?”
“Do you wish it?”
“I think they merit it.”
The duke at this reply let his head fall on his hands. When he raised it again, he saw as it were a light pass in the look which Maria fixed on the glass door of her alcove. He turned his head to that side, but saw nothing.
He had, in his abstraction, rolled the paper on which the verses were written, and which the singer had not taken into her possession. She asked him if he intended to make a cigarette of her sonnet.
“Then, at least,” said the duke, “it would serve for something.”
“Give it to me; I will keep it.”
The duke passed the roll of paper to her in a magnificent ring.
“What! the ring also, my lord duke?”
Maria placed the ring on her finger, and let fall the paper on the carpet.
“Ah!” thought the duke, “there is no love in that heart, there is no poetry in that soul, no blood in these veins. And yet heaven is in her smile, hell in those eyes, and her voice chants all the harmonies of earth and heaven. Repose yourself, Maria,” he said, rising; “leave your soul in its happy quietude, and do not give entrance to the importunate idea that others grow old and suffer because of you.”
The duke departed.
CHAPTER XXVI
HARDLY had the duke closed the door of the saloon, when Pepe Vera came out of the alcove, laughing.
“Will you keep quiet?” said Maria, occupied in lighting the fire with the precious production of the duke.
“No, my dear, I cannot; I would stifle if I did not laugh. I am no longer jealous, my Mariquita, no more than the sultan in his seraglio. Poor woman! if you had not me to love you ardently, what could you do with a husband, who proves to you his love by his prescriptions – with a bashful lover, who courts you in reciting to you his verses? Now that one of them has gone to dream without sleeping, and the other wishes to sleep, we will go, you and I, and sup with the gay companions who wait for us.”
“No, Pepe, I am not well. The disorder you have caused me, the cold I felt on leaving the theatre, has injured me. I am chilly.”
“You do the princess! Come with me, a good supper will cure you sooner than ass’s milk. Come, let us go.”
“I will not go out. We have one of those north winds, which, while it would not extinguish a candle, kills a man.”
“It is well! if it pleases you, so let it be. Since you wish to pamper yourself, pamper thyself, and – good-evening!”
“How! you are going to supper? You leave me? You leave me alone, and ill, as you see, and ill because of your fault!”
“Well! what? Do you wish I put myself on diet? No, no, my beauty. They are waiting for me, and I go; you lose some hours of pleasure.”
Maria seemed to regain courage. She rose, went out, and slammed the door with anger. Pepe Vera laughed. An instant after she came back, dressed all in black, her face hidden under a thick mantle, and enveloped in a large shawl. Thus disguised she went out with Pepe Vera.
On entering his house, well advanced in the night, Stein received from his servant a billet, which he read as soon as he was in his chamber. It ran thus —
“Señor Doctor,
“Do not believe that this is an anonymous letter; I act frankly, and I tell you my name at the commencement —Lucia del Salto. It seems to me it is a name sufficiently known.
“Husband of the Santalo, one must be as simple as you are, not to have perceived that your wife is the mistress of Pepe Vera, who was my lover; I may say so, because I am not married, and deceive no one. If you wish that the scales fall from your eyes, go to-night to No. 13 – street, and there you will do as St. Thomas did.”
“Can one be guilty of such an infamy?” cried Stein, letting the letter fall from his hands. “My poor Maria has those who are envious of her, and without any doubt they are the women of the theatre. Poor Maria! she is ill! and now perhaps she is sleeping in a sweet slumber. But let us see if she is calm. Last evening she was not well. Her pulse was agitated and her voice was hoarse. Affections of the chest are common now in Madrid. Let us see!”
Stein took a light, went out, and walked on tiptoe through the rooms which led to his wife’s apartment. Arrived near to the chamber, he redoubled his precautions; he softly approached the bed, drew aside the curtains – the bed was empty!
A man as loyal, as confident as Stein, could not easily convince himself of the possibility of such treason.
“No,” said he, after some instants of reflection, “no, it is impossible! Her absence at such an hour is from some other cause, some unexpected circumstance. Still, I cannot remain in the dark, with a doubt in my heart. I must have the power to reply to that calumny, not only with contempt, but with irrefutable proofs, with a formal contradiction without reply.”
He went out.
Thanks to the night watchmen, he arrived easily at the place indicated in the letter.
The house designated had no porter. The street door was open, and Stein entered. He climbed the first flight of stairs, and, arriving at the first landing-place, he knew no longer how to direct his steps, nor where to go.
Recovered from his first movement, he commenced to feel ashamed of his action. “To spy,” said he to himself, “is a base action. If Maria knew what I am doing, she would be irritated, and she would be right to feel so. O my God! suspect her whom I love, is it not to call down the cloud which will obscure the heaven of our love? I a spy! This has happened from the contemptible letter of a woman more contemptible still. Yes, I will return home. To-morrow I will demand of Maria what I desire to know. It is the way the most simple, and the most natural. Come – no more suspicions, no more doubts!”
Stein sighed so deeply that it seemed to suffocate him, and he wiped the sweat from his forehead.
“Oh, suspicion!” he cried – “suspicion, which makes the most confident heart believe treason to be possible. Infamous suspicion, the fruit of bad instincts and wicked insinuations! For a moment this monster had vanquished my soul, and now I dare no more look at Maria without being ashamed of myself.”
Stein was at last about to depart when a door, which communicated with the landing-place where he was, opened. This door, when opened, let forth the sound of glasses clashing, joyous songs, and bursts of laughter.
A servant who came out from within, his hands full of empty bottles, moved to make room for Stein to pass, whose appearance and costume inspired him with a sort of respect.
“Enter,” he said to him, “although you come late, and they have already supped;” and he descended without saying any thing more.
Stein found himself in a little antechamber which communicated with the adjoining room: he approached. Hardly had his look penetrated into the interior of this room than he stopped motionless, struck with stupor – Maria was there!
What must he have suffered when he saw his wife, with naked shoulders, seated at table on a stool, and having at her feet Pepe Vera, who sang, accompanying himself on the guitar —
“Bravo! bravo! Pepe,” cried the company. “Now it is Mariquita’s turn to sing. Come, sing, Mariquita! We are not the gents of yellow gloves and varnished boots, but we have, as well as grand lords, ears to listen. Come, Mariquita, sing; sing, and so that your countrymen can understand you. The gold-laced, embroidered, and decorated world knows only how to sing in French.”
Mariquita took the guitar, which Pepe presented to her on his knees, and sang —
This couplet was received by a storm of vivas, bravos, and applause, which made a concussion among the glasses.
Shame, more than indignation, caused Stein to blush.
“This Pepe was born with a caul,” said one of his companions; “he has more happiness than he wants.”
“I would not change my condition for an empire,” said the toreador.
“But what will the husband say to all this?” asked a picador, the oldest in the band.
“The husband!” replied Pepe, “I only know him to render him my duty. Pepe Vera associates only with valiant bull-fighters.”
Stein had disappeared.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE day following these events, the duke was seated in his library, absorbed by his thoughts.
The door slowly opened, and near the window appeared the pretty ringleted head of a lovely child.
“Papa Carlos,” he said, “are you alone? may I enter?”
“Since when, my angel, have you had need of permission to enter here?”
“Since you have ceased to love me so much,” replied the lovely creature, seating himself on his father’s knees. “Do you know, papa, I am very wise. I study well with Don Frederico, and I already speak German.”
“Really!”
“I know already how to say, ‘God bless my good father and my good mother:’ I say, ‘Gott segne meinen guten Vater und meine liebe Mutter!’ Now kiss me. But,” said he suddenly, “I forgot to tell you that Don Frederico wishes to speak to you.”
“Don Frederico?” asked the duke in surprise.
“Yes, papa.”
“Go, and ask him to come in, my son; his time is precious, and he must not lose it.”
The duke folded the paper on which he had traced some lines, and Stein entered.
“My lord duke,” he said, “I will no doubt astonish you: I come to take your orders, to thank you for all your goodness, and to announce to you my immediate departure.”
“Your departure?” said the duke, overcome with astonishment.
“Yes, señor, to-day.”
“And Maria?”
“She does not go with me.”
“Come, Don Frederico, this must be a piece of fun; this cannot be.”
“That which cannot be, duke, is that I remain an instant longer in Madrid.”
“What motive?”
“Do not ask me, I cannot tell you.”
“I cannot imagine even the motive of such folly.”
“The motive must be very powerful to oblige me to adopt so extreme a course.”
“But, Stein, my friend, once more, what is the motive?”
“It cannot be spoken. And the silence which I impose on myself is very painful to me, for I deprive myself of the only consolation that remains: to open my heart to a noble and generous man, who has held out to me his powerful hand, and has deigned to call me his friend.”
“And where do you go?”
“To America.”
“It is impossible, Stein; I tell you again, it is impossible.” The duke rose in an agitated state. “There is nothing in the world,” he continued, “that can oblige you to abandon your wife, to separate yourself from your friends, and to quit your patients, of whom I am one. You have then ambition? Are you then promised great advantages in America?”
Stein smiled bitterly.
“Advantages, my lord duke! Has not fortune disappointed all these hopes of your poor fellow-traveller?”
“You confound me, Stein. Is it a caprice – a sudden thought – an act of folly?”
Stein was silent.
“In any case, Don Frederico, it is ungrateful.”
These bitter, and at the same time affectionate words, caused Stein the utmost emotion. He covered his face with both hands, and his long-repressed grief burst forth in sobs.
The duke approached him.
“Don Frederico,” said he to him, “there is no indiscretion in confiding one’s griefs to a friend. In the grave circumstances of life, every thing obliges those who suffer to receive the good counsel of those who are interested in their happiness. Speak to me, my friend, open your heart to me. You are too much agitated at this moment to act with coolness. Your reason is too much troubled to allow you to be directed wisely. Let us sit down. Listen to me: let me guide you in circumstances which appear to me grave, imperious, and receive my advice as I would receive yours under like circumstances.”
Stein was vanquished. He took a seat near to the duke, and both remained for a long time silent. Stein broke through it at last.
“My lord duke,” said he, “what would you do if the duchess preferred another man? – if she practised infidelity towards you?”
“Doctor! this question – ”
“Answer me!” supplicated Stein, a prey to the most intense anxiety.
“By heaven! both should die by my hand.”
Stein bowed his head.
“I,” said he, “I will not kill them. I will die.”
The duke began to suspect the truth, and an involuntary trembling shook his limbs.
“Maria?” cried he.
“Maria,” said Stein, without raising his head, as if the infamy of his wife pressed on him with all its weight.
“You surprised them?” asked the duke, scarcely able to articulate these words, his voice was so stifled with indignation.
“In a veritable orgie, as gross as licentious: in an atmosphere of wine and tobacco, and where Pepe Vera, the matador, boasted of being her lover. O Maria! Maria!” he continued, letting his head fall on his hands.
The duke, like all energetic men, had great command over himself; he was immediately calm, and replied with but one word to Stein —
“Go!”
Stein rose, pressed in his hands those of the duke. He desired to speak, but his sobs prevented.
The duke opened his arms.
“Courage, Stein,” he said to him, “and to a happier meeting.”
“Good-by, and – forever,” murmured Stein.
And he departed.
The duke, now quite alone, walked about for a long time. As he calmed down from the agitation which Stein’s revelation had caused him, a smile of contempt played on his lips, for he was not one of those men who, possessed of those gross desires for which the misconduct of women, far from being a motive of repulsion, serve on the contrary to stimulate their brutal appetites. His character, full of elevation and nobleness, could not admit of love joined to contempt. The woman, whom he had sang in verse, who had fascinated him in his dreams, had become completely indifferent to him.
“And I,” he said to himself, “I who adored her as one adores an ideal being which he has created; I who honored her as virtue is honored, and who respected her as one respects the wife of a friend! I, who blindly absorbed by her, estranged myself from the noble woman who was my first and my only love, the pure and chaste mother of my children – my Leonore, who has so much suffered, without ever a complaint escaping from her lips! – ”
By a sudden movement, yielding to the powerful influence of these last reflections, the duke left his library, and went to the apartment of his wife. On arriving near the saloon where the duchess was accustomed to remain during the day, he heard his name pronounced; he stopped.
“Then the duke has become invisible?” said a voice. “It is now fifteen days since I arrived in Madrid, and my dear nephew has not deigned to come and see me yet, and I have seen him nowhere.”
“My aunt,” replied the duchess, “he is no doubt ignorant of your arrival.”
“Ignorant of the arrival in Madrid of the Marchioness Gutibamba! It is impossible! He would be the only person of the court who knew not of it. I will tell you, besides, you have had time to inform him of it.”
“That is true, my aunt, I am culpable for having forgotten it.”
“But that is not astonishing,” said the voice. “What pleasure can he find in our society, and that of persons of his rank, he who only frequents actresses?”
“It is false!” replied the duchess.
“Are you blind, or consenting?” said the marchioness exasperated.
“What I would never consent to is this calumny, which is at once an insult to my husband, here, in his house, and to his wife.”
“It would be wiser,” continued the voice, angrily, “to prevent the duke, your husband, from giving credit by his conduct to the thousand scandals he has given birth to in Madrid, than to defend him, and driving away from your house your best friends with your ungracious answers – dictated, without doubt, by your confessor.”
“My aunt, it will be also wiser to consult your own as to the language you ought to hold to a married woman, who is your niece.”
“’Tis well,” said the Gutibamba; “your reserved character, austere and gloomy, has already lost you the love and the heart of your husband: it will finish by your losing the affection of your friends.”
And the Marchioness de Gutibamba departed, enchanted with her peroration.
Leonore remained seated on the sofa, her head bowed, and her face bathed in tears long suppressed.
Suddenly she uttered a cry – she was in the arms of her husband. She still wept, but these tears were sweet; she comprehended that this man, always frank and loyal, returned her love, a love which no one could henceforth dispute.
“My Leonore, can you, will you pardon me?” asked the duke on his knees before his wife, who put both her hands on the duke’s mouth, and said to him —
“Would you disturb the happiness of the present in calling back the memories of the past?”
“I wish that you know my faults, which the world has judged too severely; I wish to justify myself and repent.”
“And I, I wish to make a compact with you,” interrupted the duchess; “never speak to me of your faults, and I will never speak to you of my sufferings.”
Angel entered at that moment.
“Mamma weeps! mamma weeps!” he cried, sobbing.
“No, my child,” replied the duchess; “I weep for joy.”
“And why?” asked the child, whose smile had already succeeded to his tears.
“Because that, to-morrow, certainly,” said the duke, taking him in his arms, “we depart for our country-seat in Andalusia, which your mother desires to visit.”
Angel gave vent to a cry of pleasure, and, casting his arms around the necks of the duke and the duchess, he drew their heads together, and covered them with kisses.
The Marquis of Elda entered, and became a witness of this charming family tableau.
“Papa Marquis,” said the child, “to-morrow we all depart.”
“Truly?” asked the marquis of his daughter.
“Yes, my father, and our happiness will be complete if you come with us.”
“My father,” said the duke, “can you refuse any thing to your daughter, who would be a saint, if she were not an angel?”
The marquis looked at his daughter, whose face was radiant with happiness; then at the duke’s, whose ecstasy was visible. A sweet smile illuminated his countenance, naturally austere, and, taking the hand of the duke, he said to him —
“Since I am necessary to complete your happiness, count on me.”
