Froth: A Novel

by Armando Palacio Valdés

A fearful childhood was that of Clementina.

If some details of it could but have been known in Madrid; if, only in some brief vision, the scenes through which this proudest and most arrogant of dames had passed could have been placed before the eyes of her fashionable acquaintance, who would have envied her? What tortures, what refinement of cruelty! At the age of four or five she was made the watchful nurse of two brothers younger than herself, and if she neglected the smallest particular of her duties the punishment followed at once, but not such punishment as was due—a slap, or her ears pulled. No, it was premeditated to hurt her as much and as long as possible; after flogging her with a strap the wounds were washed with vinegar, she was made to tread for hours on hard peas, to wear shoes that pinched her feet, to go without water, she was thrashed with nettles.

More than once, on hearing the hapless child's outcries, the neighbours had intervened and had remonstrated with the unnatural mother. But nothing ever came of it beyond a noisy discussion, in which the passionate Irishwoman, in sputtering Valencian, poured out her wrath on the gossips of the quarter, and afterwards vented her fury on the cause of the squabble. She was always declaring that she would send the child to the workhouse, but this was opposed by the carpenter, who prided himself on being a kind-hearted and merciful man, and who sometimes interfered to mitigate her punishment, though he generally left it to his wife "to correct her daughter," as he said to the neighbours who blamed him. His educational notions clashed with his more kindly instincts, and when they got the upper hand, alas, for the poor little girl!

Certain details of these horrible torments were sickening. On one occasion Clementina had been to the well and broken the pitcher. It was the third within a month. The child dared not go home, and sought refuge with a neighbour. The woman took her to her mother, but did not leave her till she had extorted a promise that she should not be punished. And in point of fact her mother did not punish her by any ordinary process of chastisement; her cries might have led to a disturbance. She formed the diabolical idea of holding the girl's head over a foul sink, till she was half asphyxiated and fainted away. The worst days for the wretched child were when she had dropped asleep at her prayers. The cruel Irishwoman was a bigot, and this offence she never forgave. On one occasion, she beat her so mercilessly for repeating her prayers half asleep before going to bed, that the carpenter, who was peacefully eating his supper in the kitchen, heard her cries, and went up to the bedroom, where he rescued her from her mother, who would otherwise perhaps have been the death of her.

This course of incredible cruelties ended at last in one which led to the interference of justice. The unnatural mother, at her wit's end how to torture the girl, burnt her legs with a candle. A neighbour happening to hear of it told others, and the scandal in the quarter produced a stir; they appealed to justice, informed against the Irishwoman, and the crime being proved, she was condemned to six months' imprisonment, while the girl was placed in an asylum.

About a year later Salabert came to Valencia, not yet a potentate, but with some money. On hearing what had occurred he went to see his daughter at the school for poor girls, whence he removed her to one where he paid for her education, and at long intervals went to see her. His generous deed was highly lauded, and he knew how to make it tell, setting himself up in the eyes of those who knew him as a living model of paternal devotion, in shining contrast to the brutality of his deserted mistress.

Not long after, he married, and settled in Madrid. His wife was the daughter of a dealer in iron bedsteads and spring mattresses, in the Calle Mayor. She was plain and sickly, but gentle and affectionate, with fifty thousand dollars for her portion. At the end of three or four years of married life, finding her health increasingly delicate, Doña Carmen lost all hope of having any children, and knowing that her husband had an illegitimate daughter in a Convent at Valencia, she proposed, with rare generosity, to have her at home and treat her as their child. Salabert accepted gladly; he went to fetch Clementina, and thenceforward a complete change came over the girl's fate.

She was at this time aged fourteen, and already a marvel of beauty, a happy combination of the refined and delicate northern type with the severer beauty of the Valencian women. Undeveloped as yet, in consequence of the cruel experiences of her childhood followed by the quiet routine of a convent, under this change of climate and mode of life she acquired in two or three years the commanding stature and majestic proportions we have seen. Her moral nature left much more to be desired. Her temper was irritable, obstinate, scornful, and gloomy. Whether she was born with these characteristics or they were the result of the misery and sufferings of her wretched infancy it would be hard to decide. In the convent, where she was never ill-treated, she was not much loved by her teachers or her companions; her character was suspicious, and her heart devoid of tenderness. Her companions' troubles not only did not touch her; but brought a cruel smile to her lips, which filled them with aversion. Then, from time to time, she had fits of fury, which made her both feared and hated. On one occasion, when a young girl had spoken to her in offensive terms, she had clutched her by the throat and nearly strangled her. And it was quite impossible afterwards to induce her to beg pardon, as the mother superior required her to do; she preferred a month of solitary confinement rather than humble herself.

The first months of her life in her father's house were a period of trial for kind Doña Carmen. Instead of a bright young creature, grateful for the immense favour she had done her, she found herself confronted with a little heartless savage, devoid of affection or docility, extravagant and capricious to the last degree, who never laughed heartily excepting when a servant had an accident, or a groom was kicked by a horse. But the good woman did not lose courage. With the unfailing instinct of a generous heart she understood that if no love could spring from the soil it was because nothing had been sown in it but the seeds of hate. The softer affections exist in every human soul, as electricity exists in every body; but to detect them, to rouse a response, they must be treated for a length of time with a strong current of kindness. This was what Doña Carmen did to her stepdaughter. For six months she kept her in a warm atmosphere of affection, a close net of delicate thoughtfulness, and unfailing proofs of lively and loving interest. At last Clementina, who had begun by being first disdainful and then indifferent, who would pass hours together locked in her own room and never go near her stepmother but when she was sent for, who never had made any advances, but lived in absolute reserve, suddenly succumbed, feeling the vital and mysterious throb which binds human beings to each other, as it does all the bodies of the created universe. The change was strange and violent, like everything else in that strangely compounded temperament. At the most unlooked-for moment she fell on her knees before Doña Carmen, professing such deep respect, such passionate affection, that the good woman was amazed, and had great difficulty in believing in her sincerity. The revelation of lovingkindness had burst at length on the girl's soul; her icy heart had melted under the motherly warmth of the large-hearted woman; the divine essence of love henceforth had a home where hitherto the essence of Satan alone had dwelt.

It was a perfect miracle. Instead of spending her life in her room, she would never leave her stepmother's; she now called her "Mamma" with a fervour, a joy, a determination, such as are only to be seen in the devout when they appeal to the Virgin. And Clementina's feeling for her father's wife was in truth devotion. Amazed to find that so gentle, so tender a being could exist in this world, she was never tired of gazing at her, as though she had dropped from heaven. She would read her thoughts in her eyes, anticipate her smallest wishes, let no one serve her but herself; and, like every lover, insisted on the exclusive possession of the object of her affection. The slightest sign of disapproval on Doña Carmen's part was enough to disconcert her and plunge her into the deepest grief. The haughty creature, who had made herself generally odious, would humble herself with intense satisfaction before her stepmother. It was the humiliation of the mystic prostrated by an irresistible spiritual impulse. When she felt the good woman's hand caress her face she fancied it was the touch of God Himself, and hardly dared to touch those thin, transparent fingers with her lips.