Drops of perspiration stood upon his forehead. Mortal anguish filled him at the thought of separation, and to overcome the sense of it being definitely settled he said to himself: "We'll see, we'll see. It would be very difficult to go back now—almost impossible. The mother knows about it now. Don Rosendo too, and probably Cecilia also by this time."
The good angel loosened his hold and let go his hands as, spent and defeated, he gave up the struggle. If not with the eyes of the body, Gonzalo could see with those of the spirit, the white form of the good angel passing through the serene atmosphere, and vanishing on the glistening waters.
Then overwhelmed with a strange sadness, he wept. This kind of struggle can never take place in the human soul without upsetting it for some time. To win happiness he had to wound the heart of an innocent girl, break a promise, and be a traitor.
The words of his uncle still echoed in his ears: "God can not help the man who breaks his word."
And, in fact, he felt himself unworthy of help. A cruel indefinite presentiment of misery, death, and sadness overwhelmed him; and in one moment the awfulness of life without virtue or peace was revealed to him, as to the youth of the legend who embraced a beautiful young woman, and when the light oscillated with the wind, he saw that she was transformed into a hideous, hag-like, bony being.
The waves softly washed the wall at his feet, and with his eyes fixed upon them he abstractedly followed their undulating motion. The seaweed growing in the depths moved with the motion of the water like the hair of a dead person. How quietly he could sleep down there! What peace in those transparent depths! What magic light below! Gonzalo gave ear for the first time in his life to the eloquent voice of Nature inviting him to repose in her maternal bosom—the siren voice sweet with irresistible charm, audible to unhappy creatures, even in their dreams, and so often leading them to place the cold muzzle of a pistol to their temples. It was for one minute, not more. His cheerful and sanguine temperament rebelled against this depression; his vitality, exuberant in his healthy constitution, indignantly repudiated the passing thought of death. An insignificant incident, the appearance of a little green light in the distant horizon, sufficed to divert his attention from these gloomy ideas.
"A ship coming in," he said. "What time is it?" (He drew out his watch.) "Half past ten, already! If it were a little earlier I would stop. I'll go and see if there's anybody at the café, for I should like a game of chapo."
He then took out a fine Havana cigar from his case, and smoking it with gusto he repaired to the Café de la Marina.
Almost at the same time a sad scene was being enacted in the Belinchon household. Doña Paula had remained all that day in bed, a prey to a dreadful pain in the left side, which caused her great difficulty in breathing. With the plebeian's invincible antipathy, nay terror, of science, she did not like to have a doctor, but she prescribed for herself some of the numerous remedies recommended by the many medicine women who came daily to her house to extort money from her with their vile, exaggerated adulations. So there was no end of embrocations of meat fat, cups of herb concoctions, the inside of fowls, etc., etc.
At last, by dint of these formidable therapeutics, the good lady improved in the evening enough to wish to get up; but Cecilia and Pablito would not hear of it. Both of them had sat with her for some time at her bedside; Cecilia especially had only left her long enough to make the embrocations and tisanes. Pablito made frequent excursions into the corridors, where, curiously enough, he nearly always met Nieves, from whom he extorted toll tax. Sometimes their suppressed laughter reached the room of the invalid, and she would smile kindly, and say to Cecilia: