LUCAS GARCIA.
FROM THE SPANISH OF FERNAN CABALLERO.
III.
Lucas, who could neither do nor remedy anything, suffered fearfully from the presence of his sister so near him. Happily, in two days the general left for Sevilla.
But from the hour when she met her brother and he refused to recognize her, Lucia’s existence was changed. To her, in the flowery butterfly life into which, at seventeen, she had been almost forced by circumstances, the encounter with Lucas had been like the striking of a bark indolently voyaging, without patron and without compass, to the breath of light and laughing breezes, against the first rock of firm land: the shock had been terrible. In perplexity she asked herself, “Where am I? Whither am I going? Who is this that flatters and shelters me? Who he that rejects me?” In terror she gazed around her: all seemed new and strange, all odious and reprehensible. In her memory—oh! that she had consulted it before!—she found the words her brother had said to her at parting: “Never turn from the right path, though it be steep and sown with thorns. Always look straight before you, for he that does not do this never knows where he will stop.” Lucia’s wretchedness was augmented by the seeming impossibility of escape from the position in which she found herself. Could she turn back without either encouragement and support, while, by continuing in sin, she would have both? Her natural want of energy made it the more difficult for her to return to the right path, with no help but his who never fails those who seek him with faith and without fear or faltering. The tears she shed tarnished her beauty, and the sorrow that preyed on her heart robbed her manners—hitherto so gay and caressing—of their charm. All this at first annoyed Gallardo, then offended, and finished by exasperating him. Violent scenes took place between the lovers; these introduced discord; and discord, when once it has burst its primitive embankments, filters through whatever others may be raised to contain it.
When the general was recalled to Madrid, expecting to be employed, and thinking that his stay would not be long, he resolved to leave Lucia in Sevilla. She allowed him to go without opposition, for so weary was she of the life she led that any change seemed preferable. She was, besides, very far from possessing the brazen and insolent courage that women of her condition are wont to acquire, and that causes so many of them, when they have ceased to be objects of passion, to be dreaded by the men around whom they have coiled themselves like horrible snakes; making miserable Laocoons of the victims, who often marry them through fear, where before they would not do it for love, and thus render the latter part of their career as ridiculous as the beginning was scandalous.
A worthy manner, truly, in which to fill up a man’s existence!
The stay at court, however, of the young general, as the papers styled Gallardo, was prolonged. He alternated
in various combinations of second-class political intrigues, and allowed himself to be made the conceited tool of one of them, under the full persuasion that he had become the imposing leader of a party.
The general now began to think, with excellent reason, very sound judgment, and profound calculation, that it was time for him to be more considerate. The reader will pardon us the expression, which, in his case, meant to enter upon a life of usefulness and devotion to the interests of the country—without sacrificing his own, it will be understood. Influenced by these grave considerations, our young leader subscribed to newspapers, bought books and read some of them, though he soon forgot precisely which he had read and which not; wrote a memorial on river navigation, and another upon the Renta del Excusado;[56] made short speeches as a preparation for longer ones, which succeeded very well and met with the entire approbation of his hearers; and, in the time it takes to say a devout amen, exchanged the rakish air of the young blood for the pompous tone of the prominent and influential citizen.
Our friend, as may be seen, had reached his apogee: in confirmation of which—among other sacrifices made to seriousness—he had procured a good cook, and loosened the lacings of his stays.
Nevertheless—since there is a difference between a serious man and a moral one—our hero maintained a sort of toned-down dissoluteness behind the scenes, where he and his intimates entertained themselves in conversations tissued with a variety of subjects, such as the discourse A and the scandal B; the concordat
and the theatre royal; the ministry and the danseuse; the bishop and the prima donna; the crown and cards; erected a throne to Tauromaquia; proposed an apotheosis of industry; and passed a vote of censure upon the luxury of novenas.
“Look here, little one!” said to him just such another “little one” at a breakfast party—where champagne was made to represent the tone of good society that the greater part of the guests lacked—“what has become of La Lucia?”
“She was not very well, and I left her in Sevilla,” responded the hero.
“Doesn’t it strike you that she is losing her varnish?”
“At twenty-one, man?”
“It is not singular,” remarked the elegant son of a capitalist (the youth had been educated in France). “At that age, one who lives fast is sur le retour.”[57]
“The existence of camellias is like that of roses,” quickly added another, whose Christian name of Bonifacio they were in the habit of contracting into Boni.
Having constituted himself an inseparable copy of the engrafted Parisian, and not wishing to fall behind his model in anything, Boni never allowed the capitalist to express an idea without instantly reproducing it in different words, always endeavoring to surpass the original in elegant Gallicisms; in scepticism of the most material, and cynicism of the most approved kind, and in extreme affectation of the fashionable foreign mannerism.
“You ought to place this Lucia dis-lucent among the number of the thousand-and-one Didos,” said the would-be Gaul.
“Lay her aside with last year’s modes fanées,”[58] the copy hastened to add.
“I cannot do that,” said the general.
“Stale Spanish morality!’” exclaimed the capitalist, bursting into a laugh. “Does the fair creature expect to find an Amadeus of Gaul in a general of the age of enlightenment?”
“Or a Pastor Fido in one who aspires to become a father to his country?” put in Boni.
“The fact is,” replied our friend, “that in my connection with Lucia there have been exceptional circumstances.”
“Tell them to us, little one,” said his intimate. “The romantic tale will flavor the coffee.”
The general related all the preliminaries and particulars of his relations with Lucia.
“Don’t you see, general,” said the imitator of the tone Parisian, “that it was all a farce, very well got up, by those fourbes rustics to set you on; alarm you; interest you in the girl, and oblige you to take her?”
“That it was all an intrigue of las étage?” added the copy of the copy.
“Apropos of impositions,” said the capitalist, “I must tell you what happened to me yesterday. A fellow came into my office—”
“Don’t omit,” said Boni, “that you were counting an immense sum of money at the time, for that is what heightens the joke.”
“He asked me,” continued Creseus, “if I would lend him two doubloons. I told him that it cost me the greatest pain to be obliged to refuse, but that I had not sixpence by me.”
“If I had not wished to give, I would have sought another reply,” said an old general—uncle to ours—who had lost a leg in the battle of Bailen.
“General,” replied the narrator, “among us, I have not is synonymous
with I will not; even sucking-babes understand it.”
“A synonym which Huertas has omitted, but which is known in these days, even in the Batuecas,” chimed the repeater.
“It could not have existed when he composed his work,” said the general.
“The fellow,” proceeded the narrator, “begged and implored, lowering his demand to the most insignificant sum. I was as inexorable as destiny.” And the millionaire cast around him a look worthy of Cato.
“He was, then, in real need, and not an impostor?” questioned the old general.
“O sir!—general rule—every one that asks is an impostor.”
“Unless he is an intimate friend,” said Boni, speaking this time with unaccustomed personality.
“Ma foi,”[59] answered the Gaulish Spaniard, “I except no one. Seeing that he was not going to desist, and always with the amiability and delicacy that must be used in such cases—”
“Sans doute, the same as in affairs of honor,” said the bad copy of a worse original.
“I told him that, since his necessity was so extreme, I would venture to lend him—not money, for I had none—but something that would be of more use to him in his circumstances. The imbecile thought, perhaps, that it was going to be my signature.”
“Your signature! What one might call the only and unique sanctum sanctorum of the disciples of Mercury. A thing so sacred!”
“My dear Boni,” said his friend, “veuillez ne pas m’interrompre?[60] The fellow’s countenance lighted up. I believe, upon my word, that he had not eaten in three days. Laughing
within myself, although my face denoted the gravest sympathy for his situation, I led him to a closet, took out a case of pistols, which I opened, and, handing him a weapon, said, as I bowed his dismissal, ‘Here is a remedy for all your troubles.’ My mendicant turned upon his heel and left; and you may be sure that I have rid myself of him, une bonne fois pour toutes.”[61]
Boni’s mirth was overpowering.
Gallardo and the rest of the Spaniards were silent.
“You must positively put this joke into some paper,” said the capitalist’s admirer, between his paroxysms of laughter.
“Mon cher, à quoi bon?”[62] responded the hero of the anecdote, with an air of modesty.
“To show people how to get rid of impostors,” answered Boni; “to furnish a specimen of your humor—to let it be seen that you are as richly endowed by nature as by fortune—to give circulation to an entertaining item—and to—”
“And could a paper be found that would print such an iniquity as an entertaining item!” shouted the old general, no longer able to contain his wrath. “Is it the mission of the press to propagate such ideas and sentiments? God help us, sirs, if there is no one left in Spain capable of a blush! Can the press parade infamy shamelessly, and no one be found to repudiate the impudence that relates such a scandal in terms of laudation; or appeal from it to the noble and generous instincts, and sense of public decorum, of good and true Spaniards? Have we become as positive as the written law? In former times, gentlemen, not all gave, but the few that denied did not boast of their refusal. Charity made men
sorry to say no, even to impostors, and, having said it, they would have been silent about it for shame. Avarice was looked upon as one of the disgraceful vices which respect for public opinion required to be kept out of sight.”
“Uncle, for God’s sake!” entreated Gallardo.
“For God’s sake what, nephew?”
“Speak with more moderation.”
“When I do, look towards Antequera for sunrise.”
“Don’t feel apprehensive, general,” said the capitalist, “Je sais vivre.[63] I respect your family, and know how to make allowance for gray hairs and the ill-humor of advanced age.”
“Yes,” instantly added the speaking shadow, “carte blanche belongs to ladies, children, and—”
He was going to add old men, but a look from the general silenced him.
“No, nephew, don’t be apprehensive,” said the latter. “The weapons of a gentleman are for nobler uses than the punishment of insults.”
“Come, let us talk of something else,” said Gallardo’s intimate, anxious to change the subject, but glad in his heart, as were all the other guests, of the lesson the braggart had received from so worthy and authorized an antagonist.
“It is not possible, Gallardo, that you will allow Lucia to be an irredeemable lien upon you. Let me tell you, my boy, that it would be a pretty piece of folly on your part to create an obstacle to your future establishment.”
“I don’t see that—in order to be a deputy, senator, or—”
“Oh! you’re on the wrong tack. Your political ideas absorb all your thoughts; but I have been told—by one of her friends—that the daughter of Don Juan de Moneda,[64] the
banker, is quite smitten with your person.”
Gallardo straightened himself, and caressed his curled locks.
“Her mother is completely taken with the title of Marquis de Monte Gallardo, which they say you are about to receive, and her father with your capacity.”
“We are even there,” said the general, “for I am as much impressed with his. To buy—”
“But,” proceeded the friend, “he is equally so with your sash and rent-roll. Here, boy, is an opportunity to settle in life.”
“Really, I hardly know the kind and amiable young lady who has been so condescending as to think of me!” drawled the extremely flattered Gallardo, privately resolving to tighten his stays again.
“She is very beautiful,” affirmed his friend, “and you must know that she rides like a Cossack.”
“Oh! Athenaïs la Moneda has the most elegant figure and complexion—so pale!—and the fiercest glances” (he meant haughtiest) “of all the belles of Madrid. She is delicious!” exclaimed the Parisian.
“She has the neck of a swan, with such serpentine undulating,” said Bonifacio, quite at a loss for another comparison.
“The most desirable parte, ma foi! Her father is worth forty millions, and she is the only daughter,” continued the capitalist, who did not allow his appreciation of beauty to interfere with his devotion to dollars.
“You ought to improve your opportunity, and marry at once,” advised the friend. “These girls with forty millions are more capricious than the wind. They change oftener than weather-cocks, and do just as they please; for millionaire fathers who know only the Castilian have the highest consideration for daughters
who have learned French from Sue’s novels, and Italian at the opera.”
“An heiress’s whim is like a flash of lightning. In losing time, you expose yourself to a—”
“To a deception,” said the capitalist, concluding the sentence.
“To a disabusement,” said the copy, thinking, with profound satisfaction, that he had, for once, surpassed the original.
“What is your opinion of all this?” asked Gallardo of his uncle, with a laugh, intended to appear jesting, but which betrayed his interior satisfaction.
“Yes, give us the benefit of your wisdom,” said the capitalist, covering his ill-humor with a tone of light irony. “In matrimonial as well as martial councils, the Nestors should be heard.
‘La face des vieillards est pleine de majesti:
Leur voix sur l’existence a des secrets intimes.’”[65]
“Une vieux de la vieille,”[66] confirmed Boni, “is a California of experience; a barometrical and chronometrical counsellor; a universal grammar bound in gold; a—”
“Hush, Boni!” whispered the capitalist in the ear of his friend, who, less accustomed to champagne than the others, began to feel its emancipating influence.
Meantime, the old officer stroked his gray moustache in silence.
“Well, what do you think, general!” questioned Gallardo.
“I think that you ought to marry.”
“C’est clair,” said the Parisian.
“It is clear,” repeated Boni—“as clear as detestable water; and they think of bringing it into Madrid! Will spend millions to do it!”
“Taisez vous, mon cher,” entreated the model, in a low tone.
“I am not in the humor,” replied the copy, in excellent Spanish.
“Of course he ought to marry,” said all the rest.
“Let us understand each other, gentlemen,” said the old general. “I think, Gallardo, that you ought to marry, not the mushroom of the millions, but Lucia.”
These words were received with clamorous disapprobation.
“You take advantage of your rôle of Nestor, general,” exclaimed the capitalist.
“The hero of former times dotes—I would say radote. I propose a vote of censure!” hiccoughed the copy.
“S-s-s, Boni. Le vous en prie![67] Do you want to get another broadside from the disabled old pontoon? Don’t provoke him, for the next time neither prudence nor contempt will enable me to keep my temper,” murmured his patron.
“The general is jesting. A gentleman of his fine delicacy cannot mean to counsel one, in Gallardo’s position, to marry a woman of light reputation,” said Gallardo’s friend.
“I do it because I have delicacy—a plant that strikes so deep when once it has taken root, that neither the silver plough nor the golden spade which cultivates the field of ideas of the present day can turn it out. I counsel a man who has done a wrong to repair it. I advise one who has been the ruin of an honest girl to become her defender. And the more public he has made her position, the more he is bound to set her right in the eyes of others. If the future looks smiling, I counsel it all the more earnestly, that the past may not reproach him. In my days, gentlemen, marriages were not discussed
in semi-public meetings. The only counsellors were, according to the circumstances, the heart, the honor, and the conscience. But,” added the old man, rising, “my sentiments are as much out of harmony with yours, as my person is out of place in a reunion of gay young men. Gentlemen, I salute you. Nephew, good-by. Do not ask me to your brilliant wedding if you marry with the million-heiress of the caprices. If with Lucia, I will be your groomsman.”
With these words the noble veteran took his leave.
“Style of an epic poem,” said the pseudo-Parisian.
“Tone of an elegiac lyric,” stammered the copy. “One would think the governor had been drinking some kind of palate-skinning Catalan wine, instead of the excellent, exquisite, delectable, delicious—”
“Enough, Boni,” interrupted his friend, indicating to him with his foot the urgent necessity of more discretion.
“The general has, so to speak, one foot in the grave, and, naturally, all looks to him de profundis color,” observed Gallardo’s intimate. “But we live in a positive age, and must conform to the step of its march; to do otherwise would be to make ourselves antiquated and ridiculous.”
Days followed days, each one bringing to our hero its business, novelty, interest, and forgetfulness of those that had preceded it. Lucia, in the meantime, saw her means of subsistence failing without informing him; for, with the reawakened sentiments of duty and shame, came the comprehension of her guilty dependence, and sense of the double humiliation of soliciting and receiving. She had lived for some time by the sale of her valuables, but this resource was almost exhausted.
“What is to become of me?” she questioned, with more of weakness than inquietude, more inertia than anguish, as she sat one day alone, her head drooping upon her breast. “In forgetting how to work, I have been like the sailor that forgets in a calm how to handle the ropes. What shall I do when all is gone? What can he who has brought me to this be thinking of?”
Her questionings were interrupted by the entrance of the woman of the house with a letter.
“It is from Madrid,” she said, with a fawning smile. “I’ll bet that the general tells when he is coming, and confirms the report of his appointment as captain-general of this province.”
Lucia opened and read the following epistle:
“Dear Lucia: Nothing can last for ever. Mature age brings serious ideas; the life of a man, obligations, circumstances, compromises, and position, duties, which force us to make, in favor of reason and morality, sacrifices that are not the less painful because they are necessary.
“My family has undertaken to negotiate a marriage for me, which will assure me a certain and brilliant future; and matters have proceeded so far that I cannot oppose myself to the arrangement without offending a powerful and respectable family, compromising my own, and causing grave inconveniences, inconveniences which you would be the first to deplore.
“I believe that you will understand the necessity of my establishing myself in life, and will feel neither surprised nor pained. I am equally persuaded, having noticed for a long time how unhappy you seemed at my side, and how little pleasure my presence gave you, that you will not miss me. It may be that another already occupies in your heart the
place that once was mine. If you will be happier with him than you have been with me, I trust that I have enough philanthropy to rejoice in your good fortune.
“Adieu. It is likely that we may not meet again; but, believe me, I shall never forget you; and, if I can serve you in any way, command me.”
“Well,” asked the woman, eagerly, “does he say anything about coming?”
“No,” answered Lucia, with the tears raining down her cheeks, “he says that he is not coming.”
Lucia did not feel for Gallardo that which can properly be called love; but, during four years, her naturally affectionate heart had attached itself to him, and could not but be wounded by the cold insensibility with which he had abandoned her.
The harpy’s face, manner, and tone changed at once; for this grief confirmed her suspicions. Lucia’s lover had cast her off.
“Madam,” she said, “certain exigencies, in which I unfortunately find myself, have obliged me to introduce a rule into my house, requiring my boarders to pay in advance. All the rest have agreed to it, and I trust that you will do the same.”
“No, madam,” replied Lucia, “for I am going away to-morrow, and so shall have to give you only what is already due.”
The poor forsaken girl went out that night and sold her wardrobe to a pawnbroker. After satisfying her creditor, she had enough left to pay some wine-carriers for a ride upon one of their mules as far as Jerez, and from there she meant to go to Arcos on foot. At dawn, on the following morning, she passed through the Carmona gate, casting a long, sad look upon the sleeping city—the city that the Bitis serves as a page;
La Giralda for insignia, and the verdure of its orange groves for adornment; the city that is at once gay as a village maiden and imposing as a queen; beautiful as a young girl, and full of wisdom and memories as a matron; graceful as the Andalusian of to-day, and chaste and noble as the Castilian dame of olden time.
Lucia found herself in Jerez alone and without resource, but, by favor of her good angel, met Uncle Bartolo at the inn where she alighted. The visible presence of the former would not have rejoiced her more than did the sight of this old friend of her family, to whom she told the whole of her sad story, adding that now she knew not what to do, since she dared not seek even a servant’s place.
“My daughter,” said the old guerilla, “you grew vain in the fiend’s own house of Leona, and forgot that wings were given to the ant for its destruction. If you had shown that wretch a repulsive face, he would not have ventured to do what he did. What motive, will you tell me, could a You Sir have for playing clucking fox to a little country girl, but to make of her a mark for shame?
“However,” he continued, seeing that Lucia’s tears began to flow, “far be it from me to hack at the fallen tree, or double the burden of the ass that is down. The baptism of repentance opens the fold, and your repentance is sincere, because you return to poverty, when, if you had chosen otherwise, profligates would not have been wanting, in the great city, to complete your ruin. Come with me, and I will talk to Lucas. It is his duty to take care of you.”
“He will never forgive me, Uncle Bartolo!” exclaimed Lucia sadly. “He has said that he had no sister, and no one can make him say the contrary.”
“True,” replied the guerilla, “the Garcia heads are harder than anvils. I learned that by experience when your father—Heaven rest him!—married La Leona. But this is another thing, for, notwithstanding that your father did so badly, Lucas has turned out well. And it is a great deal easier to yoke two that are united by blood than to unyoke two that the devil has united. We will see, God helping us, and, in the meantime, you shall come to my house; there is no great abundance, but good-will is not wanting.”
The next day saw Uncle Bartolo and Lucia travelling along the road which we described at the commencement of our story; Lucia mounted upon a little ass, and the agile good old man following on foot. At nightfall they reached Arcos.
Alas! for the one who, returning to his native place, instead of experiencing pure happiness, feels his heart torn by grief and shame; finds his parents dead, the house where he was born the property of strangers, and sees, in the looks of neighbors, cold disdain instead of the joyful smile of recognition and welcome!
Uncle Bartolo took Lucia to his own house, and, while they were preparing supper, went himself to that of Lucas, who, on receiving his discharge, had returned to Arcos and to his post among the day-laborers, and had, by his aptness and diligence, won so much credit that several profitable jobs and positions had already been offered him. As will be supposed, he had found his father’s house sold. But as his kinswoman still lived in it, he hired his former habitation, and she assisted him.
Uncle Bartolo entered, just as Lucas had finished his supper.
“Sit by, Uncle Bartolo,” said the young man.
“No, thank you. May what you have taken profit you! Will you have a cigar?”
“It wouldn’t come amiss.”
Uncle Bartolo handed Lucas a paper cigar, lighted his own, and, with characteristic bluntness, plunged into his subject.
“Lucas, man, will you tell me why you never speak of your sister? Does it appear to you that a sister is a patch sewed on to be ripped at pleasure?”
Lucas, disagreeably surprised, contracted his brows as he answered:
“I have no sister, Uncle Bartolo.”
“What! what do you say?”
“I have already said it. ‘In my manse they bestow but one loaf.’”
“Go a-walking with your grand talk! I’d like to know what right you have to deny your sister, even though her life has not been what it ought to be?”
Lucas had turned pale, and his beard trembled with repressed indignation.
“Uncle Bartolo,” he replied, affecting an air of indifference, “the saying is, ‘He that goes away is not counted.’ Let us drop this conversation.”
“I don’t feel disposed to; you may as well understand that. And now, let me tell you that this face of a judge, though it may be the correct one to show to a sinner, is not by any means the one to show to a penitent. Do you comprehend? Your poor little sister is penitent; and you know that
‘He who sins and mends,
Himself to God commends.’”
“I have said that I had no sister.”
“Don’t be stubborn, for God’s sake! Look here now, soul of an ape! How can you say you have no sister, if he has given you one? Lucas, I have come, and I shall not go away until you forgive Lucia.”
“Uncle Bartolo, don’t pledge yourself to what you cannot accomplish.”
“You are your father’s own son—the one and the other harder-headed than oxen. Juan Garcia and Lucas Garcia: there’s a pair fit for a cart!”
“Why fall upon me, sir, in such a shower of sarcasms? Is it necessary to give so many punches to say that the bull is coming?”
“Because he comes with a purpose, and, ‘when things come with a purpose, more than the ass may fall to the ground.’ I tell you only the pure truth, and you, with your devil’s motto of ‘few words and bad ones,’ what you say has neither form nor sense! But to come back to the subject, for I don’t let go the handle this way when I am defending the right. As I was going to say, your stubbornness is worse than your father’s; because it is not so bad to be determined upon marrying one’s girl as to be determined not to forgive one’s sister. It’s better to do more than your duty than to do less. If your father lacked puncto, you have half a share too much. Your mother committed your sister to you; and you are disobeying the last will of her that bore you!”
“She committed my sister to me, but not the kept miss of a villain.”
“You are soaring as the eagle, which is a royal bird; you pronounce your sentences like a judge of the Audiencia, and make yourself believe that you are wiser than the Regency. But you are greatly out of the way, my son. It ill becomes you to go before God in casting out your sister; your own mother’s daughter, when her misfortune was partly your fault.”
“Mine, sir?”
“Yes, yours; for you threw off the burden like an untamed colt; cast
behind you the trust you received from your mother, and, without commending yourself either to God or the devil, shouldered your gun and made off; knowing that for six years, walled up in a uniform, you must lose sight of your charge; knowing, besides, that you were leaving her in a house where wickedness was well established. And so what happened, happened. The past is past, and can’t be mended now; but after this, do you think it is right, Christian, that your sister should have no one to turn to when she leaves her sinful life?”
“She ought to have remembered in time that every uphill has its down.”
“But, my son, is not this to
‘See the ulcer, see the woe:
Shut the purse, and naught bestow’?
This is to have bowels of a pagan toward a poor creature that they pushed and pushed—a child that did not know what they were doing.”
“Uncle Bartolo, ignorance does not take away sin.”
“Do you think, if you had had your evil hour—suppose it for instance, only—and had robbed or done something that had dishonored you, and had gone to your sister, that she would refuse to own you? I’ll be bound she wouldn’t!”
“Well, I should have acted badly. But the case is impossible, for it would have been my care not to put myself in her way. ‘He that touches his own with his leprosy, gives it to them, and does not cure himself.’”
“Lucas, my son, the sentence says, ‘Act with good intention, and not with passion!’”
“And the proverb says that ‘blood boils without fire,’ Uncle Bartolo.”
“Lucas, for the love of the Blessed Virgin! How can he who shows no mercy hope for the mercy of
God? Do a good deed, and, when you lie down, though it be upon a mattress of rushes, you will sleep without bad dreams, and as sweetly as if it were a bed of feathers!”
“You are wasting words, Uncle Bartolo. Even if I am condemned for it, I will not hear that vile thing spoken of, and so—stop!”
“Go to, then, Cain!” exclaimed the good old man as he rose to leave, “and God set a mark on you as he did on the cruel brother that he cursed! I’d rather have her, with her sin and her repentance, than you, with your virtue and your pride.”
To paint the grief of the wretched Lucia when Uncle Bartolo informed her of the no-result of his mission, would be impossible.
“Holy God!” she exclaimed between her sobs, “only with thee shall I find mercy! Ah! how I loved this brother in the days of my happy childhood, when I was innocent, and he was all my consolation! Then he could not do enough to please me, and used to swear never to abandon me!”
“Come, come, dry your tears, my daughter,” said Uncle Bartolo. “‘The frightened partridge is the first to get skewered.’ What do you want of an unnatural, without bowels of compassion? You have me, and the roof of my house is not so small that it cannot shelter you. What I have you shall share, and you can help my poor Josefa. She has become a potsherd, and don’t get much rest, for ‘woman’s work is done and to be done again.’”
When the other inmates of the house slept, Lucia kept lonely vigil, and wept the things that had formerly made her happiness—her poverty, her innocence, and her brother’s affection. Wandering in the vast field of her recollections, she found both affliction and consolation in recalling
all the particulars of her simple life; every proof of tenderness that she had received from her brother; every hope, withered or dead. With the deepening silence and shadows of the night, her anguish increased. “What shall I do? What shall I do?” she cried, wringing her hands. “I cannot be a burden to this good old man! I cannot stay in this neighborhood, for my own brother’s rejection of me will encourage others to outrage me! What shall I do? I must beg if I cannot find work! Where shall I go? Wherever God may lead me!”
Without waiting for daylight, and silently, in order that her departure might not be perceived by her protector, Lucia opened the door, and stepped into the street.
But she could not leave, for ever, a place so dear to her, without lingering for a moment before the adjacent house. It was the one in which her mother died; its roof had sheltered her tranquil infancy: in it she was leaving the brother that she still loved, in spite of her guilt and his inhumanity.
Lucas was not asleep. Exasperation, a disquieted conscience, and heavy heart had driven repose from him.
All at once, he was startled by the tones of a sweet and tremulous voice near to the street door, singing the romance that he had taught his sister
when she was a child. He sprang from the bed, moved by an irresistible impulse, but instantly covered his ears with his hands as if to shut out the sound.
The voice sang:
“Praying in God’s name, sister,
And for his sweet mother’s sake,
Give my little children bread,
And his word in payment take.”
Struggling with mingled emotions of rage and grief, Lucas seated himself upon his couch, and beat upon the ground with his feet.
The voice, becoming all the while more low and quivering, proceeded:
“He takes a loaf, and breaks it,
But throws it down again,
For blood run out of the bread.”
The brother’s heart was choking him, yet, still resisting, he covered his now tear-stained face with both hands. But when the voice, broken by sobs, continued,
“And she that, without pity,
To a sister refuses bread,
To God’s Mother doth refuse it”—
he rushed to the door, and, dashing it open, ran out; and Lucia, with a cry of joy, threw herself into his extended arms.
The next day, Uncle Bartolo remarked to his wife:
“When the devil enters into one, he locks all the doors behind him. But until the last hour, his divine Majesty keeps a postern open in the sinner’s heart.”
[56] Name given to the subsidy formerly levied by the King of Spain for carrying on wars against the infidels.
[57] On the wane.
[58] Faded fashions.
[59] In faith.
[60] “Will you please not interrupt me?”
[61] Once for all.
[62] What for, my dear?
[63] I know how to behave.
[64] Don John made of Money.
“The aspect of the old is full of majesty:
Their words are laden with the secrets of existence.”
[66] An old soldier of the olden time.
[67] “Hush, I beg of you.”