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CHAPTER VI

WHEN Stein returned to the convent, all the family were assembled in the court. Momo and Manuel arrived at the same time, each from his direction. The last had been going his rounds of the farm in the exercise of his functions as gamekeeper; he held his gun in one hand, and in the other three partridges and two hares.

The children ran to Momo, who at once emptied his wallet, from which escaped, as from a horn of abundance, a multitude of winter fruits, which, according to Spanish custom, served to celebrate All Saints’ Eve; viz., nuts, chestnuts, and pomegranates.

“If Marisalada brings us the fish,” said the eldest of the little girls, “to-morrow we will have a famous feast.”

“To-morrow,” said Maria, “is All Saints; father Pedro will certainly not go out to fish.”

“Then,” said the little one, “it will be for the next day.”

“They no longer fish on the ‘Dia de los Difuntos.’ ”

“And why?” demanded the child.

“Because it would be to profane a day which the church consecrates to sanctified souls. The proof is, that the fishermen having once cast their lines on such a day, and delighted with the weight they were drawing in, were doomed to find only snakes instead of fish. Is it not true, brother Gabriel?”

“I did not see it, but I am sure of it,” replied the brother.

“And is it for that you make us pray so much on the ‘day of the dead?’ ” asked the little girl.

“For that same,” said the grandma; “it is a holy custom, and God is not willing that we should ever neglect it.”

“Certainly,” added Manuel, “nothing is more just than to pray to the Lord for the dead; and I remember a fellow of the Congregation of Souls who begged for them in these terms, at the door of the chapel: ‘He who places a small piece of money in this place, withdraws a soul from purgatory.’ There came along a wag who, after having deposited his piece: ‘Tell me, brother,’ asked he, ‘do you believe the soul is yet clear of purgatory?’ ‘Do you doubt it?’ replied the brother. ‘In that case,’ replied the other, ‘I take back my piece; I know this soul; she is not such a fool as to go back when she is once out.’ ”

“You may be assured, Don Frederico,” said Maria, “that with every thing, good or bad, my son finds always something appropriate to a story, a witticism, or a bon-mot.”

At this moment Don Modesto entered by the court; he was as stiff and grave as when he was presented to Stein at the end of the village. The only change was, that he carried suspended to his stick a large stock of fish covered over with cabbage leaves.

“The commandant! The commandant!” was the general cry.

“Do you come from your citadel, San Cristobal?” asked Manuel of Don Modesto, after exchanging the preliminary compliments, and an invitation to be seated on the same stone bench where Stein was seated.

“You might join my mother, who is so good a Christian, to pray to the saints to build again the walls of the fort, contrary to that which, by report, Joshua did at the walls of Jericho.”

“I have to ask of the Lord things more important than that,” replied the grandma.

“Certainly,” said brother Gabriel, “Maria has more important things than the reconstruction of the walls of a fort to ask of the Lord. It would be better of her to implore Him to reconstruct the convent.”

Don Modesto, on hearing these words, turned with a severe gesture towards the monk, who, at this moment, went and placed himself behind the old mother, and dissimulated so well, that he disappeared almost entirely to the eyes of the others present.

“After what I see,” continued the old commandant, “brother Gabriel does not belong to the church militant. Do you not remember that the Jews, before building their Temple, had conquered the promised land, sword in hand? Would there have been churches and priests in the Holy Land if the crosses had not conquered it, lance in hand?”

“But,” then said Stein, with the laudable intention to divert from this discussion the commandant, whose bile commenced to be stirred, “why does Maria ask for what is impossible?”

“That signifies little,” replied Manuel; “all old women act the same, except she who asked God to tell her a good number in the drawing of a lottery.”

“Was it sent her?” they asked.

“It had been well kept, if I had gained the prize. He who could do all things, where the miracle?”

“That which is certain,” declared Don Modesto, “is, that I will be very grateful to the Lord, if he will inspire the government with the happy idea of re-establishing the fort of San Cristobal.”

“To rebuild, would you say?” observed Manuel; “take care and repent at once, as it happened to a woman consecrated to the Lord, and who had a daughter so ugly, so stupid, and so awkward, that she could not find even a despairing man to espouse her. The poor woman, much embarrassed, passed all her days on her knees at prayer, asking a husband for her daughter. At last one presented himself: the joy of the mother was extreme, but of short duration. The son-in-law was so bad, he so maltreated his wife and his mother-in-law, that the latter went to the church, and there posted before the saint this inscription:

 
‘Saint Christopher! with hands and feet,
Whose measure could a giant’s meet!
(And with a head of bony horns),
Is’t thou among the saints I saw?
Thou – Jewish as my son-in-law.’ ”
 

While the conversation was going on, Morrongo, the house cat, awoke from a long sleep, bent his croup like the back of a camel, uttered a sharp mew, opened out his mustaches, and approached, little by little, towards Don Modesto, just so as to place himself behind the perfumed pocket suspended to the baton. He immediately received on his velvet paws a little stone thrown by Momo, with that singular address which children of his age so well know how to cast. The cat skipped off in a gallop, but lost no time in returning to his post of observation, and made believe to sleep. Don Modesto saw him, and lost his tranquillity of mind.

“You have not said, Señor Commandant, how Marisalada is?”

“Ill, very ill, she grows weaker every day. I am much afflicted to see her poor father, who has had so much to suffer. This morning his daughter had a high fever; her cough did not quit her for an instant.”

“What do you say, Señor Commandant?” cried Maria.

“Don Frederico, you who have made such wonderful cures, you who have extracted a stone from brother Gabriel and restored the sight of Momo, can you not do something for this poor creature?”

“With great pleasure,” replied Stein; “I will do all in my power to relieve her.”

“And God will repay you. To-morrow morning we will go and see her. To-day you are too much fatigued from your walk.”

“I am not jealous of his kind,” said Momo, grumbling. “The proudest girl – ”

“That is not so,” exclaimed the old woman; “she is a little wild, a little ferocious; one can see she has been educated alone, and allowed to have her own way by a father more gentle than a dove, although a little rough in manner, like all good sailors. But Momo cannot bear Marisalada, since one day when she called him Romo (flat-nosed), as indeed he is.”

At this moment a noise was heard; it was the commandant pursuing at a quick pace the thief Morrongo, who had deceived the vigilance of his master and ran off with the stock fish.

“My commandant,” cried out Manuel to him, laughing, “the sardine which the cat carries will not come to the dish except late or never, but I have here a partridge in exchange.”

Don Modesto seized the partridge, thanked him, took leave of the company, and went away, inveighing against cats.

During all this scene, Dolores had given the breast to her nursing infant; she tried to hush him to sleep, cradling him in her arms and singing to him:

 
“There high on Calvary, in their fresh retreats,
Woods of olives, wood of perfume meets;
A nightingale – four larks – whose breath,
Would warble forth a Saviour’s death.”
 

For those who suppress the circulation of poetry of the people, as the child crushes with its hand the feeblest butterfly, it would be difficult to say why larks and nightingales warble the death of Christ; why the swallow plucked out the thorns of his crown; why the rosemary is an object of veneration, in the belief that the Virgin dried the swaddling-clothes of the infant Jesus on a bush of this plant? Why, or rather how do they know that the willow is a tree of bad augury, since Judas hung himself on a branch of this tree? Why does no misfortune ever happen in a house if it has been perfumed with rosemary during Christmas eve? Why in the flower which is called the passion-flower are found all the instruments of the passion of Christ? In truth, there are no answers to these questions. The people do not possess them, nor demand them. These beliefs have accumulated like the vague sounds of distant music, without research into their origin, without analyzing their authenticity.

“But, Don Frederico,” said Maria, while Stein was occupied with reflections on the proceedings, “you have not told us how you find our village.”

“I have seen nothing,” replied Stein, “save only the chapel of our Lord of Good-Help.”

“Miraculous chapel, Don Frederico. Hold,” pursued the old woman, after some instants of silence, “the only motive why I am not as much pleased here as in the village is, that I cannot follow out my devotions. Yes, Manuel, thy father, who had not been a soldier, thought like me. My poor husband! – he is in heaven – my poor husband was brother of Rosaire of the dawn; Rosaire who went out after midnight to pray for souls. Fatigued with a long day’s work he slept profoundly; and precisely at midnight a brother rang a bell, came to the door, and chanted:

 
‘Here is then the faithful bell!
It is not she the warnings tell;
Of thy parents ’tis the voice!
The cross’s foot then make thy choice;
Raise thee, my son, so full of zeal,
And prayerful in the chapel kneel.
On thy knees in the holy place,
For parents supplicate God’s grace.’
 

When thy father heard this chant, he felt no longer fatigue nor need of sleep. In the twinkling of an eye he got up and followed the other brother. It seems to me I yet hear him singing in the distance:

 
‘The Virgin raised the Sovereign crown,
And meekly laid the sceptre down;
Presenting them to Christ was seen,
Exclaiming – I no more am Queen.
If not held back thy wrath from o’er the human race,
Then is thy crown divine with too just rigor placed.’
 

Jesus answered her:

 
‘My mother!
Without thy grace so pure, and thy sweet hallowed prayer,
The thunderbolt had hurled the sinner to despair.’ ”
 

The children, who love so much to imitate what they see as at all great or remarkable, undertook to sing in a beautiful tone the couplets of the aurora:

 
“Hark! how the trumpet’s shrill-blast clarion sounds!
The voice of the Angel through Heaven resounds:
Jerusalem! within thy walls,
An infant’s foot triumphant falls;
What was the people’s homage in that hour?
What grand equipments decked the kingly bower?
The all-powerful whom Heaven had sent,
Rode on an ass which men had lent.”
 

“Don Frederico,” said Maria, after a moment’s silence, “in the world which God has made, is it true that there have been men without faith?”

Stein was mute.

“Can you not cure the blindness of their intelligence, as you have cured the eyes of Momo?” replied, with sadness, the good old woman, who remained altogether pensive.

CHAPTER VII

THE following day Maria set off for the house of the invalid, in company with Stein and Momo, foot-equerry to his grandmother, who travelled mounted on the philosophic Golondrina. The animal, always good, gentle, and docile, trotted on the road, the head lowered, ears depressed, without making a single rough movement, except when he encountered a thistle in proximity with his nostrils.

When they were arrived, Stein was astonished to find, in the middle of this arid country, of a nature so dry and so sterile, a village so leafy and so coquettish.

The sea had formed, between two great rocks, a little circular creek, and surrounded by a coast of the finest sand, which appeared like a plateau of crystal placed on a table of gold. Several rocks showed themselves timidly, as if they wished to repose themselves, and be seated on the tranquil shore. At one of them was made fast a fisherman’s bark; balancing herself at the will of the waves, she seemed as impatient as a horse reined in.

On one side of the rocks was elevated the fort of San Cristobal, crowned by the peaks of wild figs, like the head of an old Druid adorned with green oak-leaves.

The fisherman had constructed his cabin with the wrecked remains of his vessel, which the sea had thrown on the coast; he had based all against the rocks, which formed, in some sort, three stories of the habitation. The roof was horizontal, and covered with aquatica, the first layer of which, rotted by the rains, had given growth to a great quantity of herbs and of flowers; so that in the autumn, when the dryness disappeared with the heat of summer, the cabin appeared covered as with a delicious garden.

When the persons just arrived entered the cabin, they found the fisherman sad and cast down, seated near the fire, opposite to his daughter; who, her hair in disorder, and falling down on both sides of her pale face, bent up and shivering, her emaciated limbs enveloped in a rag of brown flannel. She seemed to be not more than thirteen years of age. The invalid turned, with an expression of but little kindliness, her large, black, and sullen eyes upon the persons who entered, and instantly sank down anew in the corner of the chimney.

“Pedro,” said Maria, “you forget your friends, but they do not forget you. Will you tell me why the good God has given you a mouth? Could you not have let me known of the illness of the little girl? If you had let me known of it sooner, I had sooner come with this gentleman, who is such a doctor as is seldom seen, and who in no time will cure your daughter.”

Pedro Santalo rose brusquely, and advanced to Stein; he would speak to him, but he was so overcome with emotion that he could not articulate a single word, and he covered his face with his hands. He was a man already advanced in life, his aspect sufficiently rude, and his form colossal. His countenance, bronzed by the sun, was crowned by a gray head of hair, thick and uncombed; his breast, red as that of an Ohio Indian, was also covered with hair.

“Come, Pedro!” said Maria, from whose eyes the tears began to flow at the sight of the poor father’s despair; “a man like you, big as a church, a man they believe ready to devour infants uncooked, to be discouraged thus without reason! Come! I see here nothing but what appears solid.”

“Good mother Maria,” replied the fisherman, in a feeble voice, “I count, with this one, five children in their tombs.”

“My God! and why thus lose courage? Remember the saint whose name you bear, and who threw himself into the sea when he had lost the faith which sustained him. I tell you that, with the grace of God, Don Frederico will cure the child in as little time as you could call on Jesus.”

Pedro sadly shook his head.

“How obstinate are these Catalans!” said Maria, with a little anger; and passing before the fisherman, she approached the invalid: “Come, Marisalada, come; rise up, daughter, that this gentleman may examine you.”

Marisalada did not stir.

“Come, my daughter,” repeated the good woman; “you will see that he will cure you as by enchantment.” At these words, she took the girl by the arm, and wished to raise her up.

“I have no desire,” said the invalid, rudely disengaging herself from the hand which held her.

“The daughter is as sweet as the father; ‘he who inherits steals not,’ ” murmured Momo, who appeared at the door.

“It is her illness that renders her impatient,” added the father, to exculpate his child.

Marisalada had an access of coughing. The fisherman wrung his hands with grief.

“A fresh cold,” said Maria; “come, come, it is not a very extraordinary thing. But then he will consent to what this child does; the cold she takes, running, with naked feet and legs, on the rocks and on the ice.”

“She would do it,” replied Pedro.

“And why not give her healthy food – good soups, milk, eggs? But no, she eats only fish.”

“She does not wish them,” replied the father, with dejection.

“She dies from negligence,” suggested Momo, who, with arms crossed, was posted against the door-post.

“Will you put your tongue in your pocket!” said his grandma to him. She returned towards Stein:

“Don Frederico, try and examine our invalid, as she will not move, for she will let herself die rather than make a movement.”

Stein commenced by asking of the father some details of the illness of his daughter. He then approached the young girl who was drowsy, he remarked that the lungs were too compressed in their right cavity, and were irritated by the oppression. The case was grave, the invalid was feeble, from want of proper food; the cough was hard and dry, the fever constant; the consumption indeed would not allow it to pause.

“Has she always had a taste for singing?” demanded the old woman during the examination.

“She would sing crucified, like the bald mice,” said Momo, turning away his head, that the wind would carry his hard speech, and that his grandma could not hear him.

“The first thing to do,” said Stein, “is to forbid this girl to expose herself to the rigors of the season.”

“Do you hear, my child?” said the father with anxiety.

“She must,” continued Stein, “wear shoes and dress warm.”

“If she will not?” cried the fisherman, rising suddenly, and opening a box of cedar, from whence he took numerous objects of toilet.

“Nothing is wanting: all that I have and all that I can amass are hers. Maria! my daughter! you will put on this clothing! Do this for the love of heaven! – Mariquita, you see it is what the doctor orders.”

Marisalada, who was aroused by the noise made by her father, cast an irritated look on Stein, and said to him in a sharp voice:

“Who governs me?”

“And say that they do not give this government to me, by means of a good branch of wild olive!” murmured Momo.

“She must have,” continued Stein, “good nourishment, and substantial soups.”

Maria made an expressive gesture of approbation at the same time.

“She should be nourished with milk diet, and chickens, and fresh eggs.”

“Did I not tell you so!” interrupted the old woman, exchanging a look with Pedro: “Don Frederico is the best doctor in the world.”

“Take care that she does not sing,” remarked Stein.

“Am I never to listen to her again?” cried poor Pedro with grief.

“See, then, what a misfortune!” replied Maria. “Let her be cured, and then she can sing night and day, like the ticking of a watch. But I think it will be best to have her taken to me, for there is no one to nurse her, nor any one who knows like me how to make good soup for her.”

“I can prove that,” said Stein, smiling, “and I assure you one might set before a king a soup prepared by my good nurse.”

Maria never felt more happy.

“Thus, Pedro, it is useless talking of it; I will take her home.”

“Remain without her! no, no, it is impossible.”

“Pedro, Pedro, it is not thus we should love our children,” replied Maria. “To love them is to do above all that which will benefit them.”

“So let it be!” replied the fisherman, rising with resolution; “I place her in your hands, I confide her to this doctor’s care, and commend her to the divine goodness.”

With difficulty could he pronounce these last words, which flowed rapidly, as if he feared to recall his determination; and he went to harness his ass.

“Don Frederico,” asked Maria, when they were alone with the invalid, who remained drowsy, “is it not true, that, with God’s help, we will cure her?”

“I hope so,” replied Stein; “I cannot tell you how much this poor father interests me.”

Maria made a package of the linen which the fisherman had taken out of the box, and Pedro came back leading the ass by the bridle. They placed the invalid on the saddle: the young girl, enfeebled by the fever, opposed no resistance. Before Maria had mounted Golondrina, who appeared quite content to return in company with Urca (name given to a great sea-fish, and which was that of Pedro’s ass), the fisherman took Maria aside, and said to her, in trying to slip some pieces of gold in her hand:

“This is all I could save from my shipwreck, take it, and give it to the doctor, for all I have is for him who can give me back my daughter.”

“Keep your gold,” replied Maria, “and know, in the first place, it is God who has conducted the doctor hither; in the second place – it is I.”

Maria pronounced these last words with a light tinge of vanity.

They commenced their journey.

“Do not stop, grandma,” said Momo, who walked behind; “however large may be the convent, it must be filled with people. Eh! what? the cabin was not good enough for the Princess Gaviota?”

“Momo,” replied the grandma, “mind your own affairs.”

“But what do you see in her? And what touches you in this wild Gaviota, to take her thus under your care?”

“Momo, a proverb says, ‘Who is thy sister? thy nearest neighbor;’ another adds, ‘Wipe the nose of thy neighbor’s child, and take her to thee.’ And here is the moral: ‘Treat thy neighbor as thyself.’ ”

“There is yet another proverb,” added Momo, “which says, ‘He is mad who occupies himself about others.’ But it is of no use. You were obstinate about raising the palm to San Juan de Dios.”

“You will not be the angel to aid me,” said Maria with sadness.

Dolores received the invalid with open arms, as approving the resolution of her mother-in-law.

Pedro Santalo, who had accompanied his daughter, called the charitable nurse before he returned, and, putting the pieces of gold in her hand, said —

“This is to defray the expenses, and that she may want for nothing. As to your care, God will recompense you.”

The good old woman hesitated an instant, took the gold, and said —

“It is well, she shall want for nothing. Depart without uneasiness, Pedro, your daughter is in good hands.”

The poor father went away hurriedly, and did not stop till he reached the coast. Then he returned to the side of the convent, and wept with bitterness.

Maria said to Momo: “Bestir yourself. Go to the village, and bring me a ham from Serrano’s, who will please send me a good one, when he knows it is for a poor sick girl. Bring me at the same time a pound of sugar and a quart of almonds.”

“Just so, always sent about! Throw away every thing you possess,” cried Momo. “Think you they will give me all this on credit, and for my handsome face?”

“Here is to pay for them,” replied the grandma, and she placed in his hand a piece of gold of four duros (about 4 dollars).

“Gold!” cried Momo, stupefied: for the first time in his life he saw this metal in the form of money. “From what demons have you snatched this?”

“What is it to you?” replied Maria; “don’t worry yourself.”

“It needs no more than this,” replied Momo, “that I serve as domestic to this magpie, this accursed Gaviota! I will not go.”

“Go, boy, at once, and nimbly too.”

“Ha! Well – no, I will not go; I will not annoy myself,” repeated Momo.

“José,” said Maria, on seeing the shepherd go out, “do you go to the village?”

“Yes, Señora; what orders have you for me?”

The good woman gave him the commission, and added —

“This Momo has a bad heart, and will not go. And I have not the strength to complain to his father, who would make him march quickly, and caress him in a manner to break his bones.”

“Yes, yes, do every thing to take care of this crow who will tear out your eyes,” said Momo. “You will receive payment in the trouble she will give you; if it is not so now, it will be in time.”