Her eyes remained open in the darkness. The hours chiming their quarters and their halves in a melancholy tone from the clock of the neighbouring cathedral did not close them. They were like two mysterious lamps, only giving light within as they illuminated a thousand sinister and tormenting ideas. Dark thoughts and fierce desires crowded and pressed under that low forehead. She considered the marriage of Luis an abominable treachery. Without recollecting her own want of honour towards the poor old paralysed man God had given her for a husband, nor thinking how her sin had spoilt the life of the count, threatened to die in solitude, without family ties to cheer his latter days, she made him entirely accountable for the wrong, and for all the bitterness she was now feeling in losing the only pleasure that had brightened her gloomy, monotonous existence. The only pleasure. Her love did not deserve any other name. In that ardent, despotic, restless spirit there had never been a question of tenderness. She was completely ignorant of the delicious, poetic thoughts that ennoble a passion and make it pardonable. Her life had been passed in insane excitement, tormented by the idea of being happy at all costs. She had lived for the last seven years under the sway of her licentious, insatiable passion. Never did a melancholy thought of remorse bear witness in that depravity to a single moral sentiment. Her thirst for pleasure drove her into a thousand extravagant and dangerous courses. She was not contented with gathering under her roof all the youth of Lancia and dancing occasionally as a condescension, but she required for her enjoyment company every day, picnics, masquerades, &c., and she liked to dance until she nearly fell with exhaustion, like a country lass of fifteen summers. She found it necessary to contrive secret interviews with her lover at most extraordinary hours, and on most unheard of occasions. Her ungovernable passion led her to defy public opinion, and delight in making light of precaution. If the count gave her a word of warning, she flew into a rage. She lost more than he did. Slander never hurts the man, but only the woman, who has to bear all the disgrace. But she went into fits of laughter at the thoughts of slander or disgrace. If she were at all put out, she was quite capable of proclaiming her sin in Altavilla when there was a gathering of people. The count got more and more alienated from this woman, who upset all his moral, theological, and social ideas, and finally inspired him with dread. This turned to terror and insufferable foreboding, that made him long for his liberty, especially after Amalia smilingly made a certain revelation to him.
"Do you know, dear," she said, "I nearly did such a mad thing this morning. Quiñones sent me to pour out his drops of arsenic that he has taken for some time. I took up the bottle quickly and, as if pushed by the elbow by an invisible hand, I poured half of the contents into the glass. Don't tremble, coward, for there was no motive in the matter. I never felt anything like it. I swear to you that my will was not party to it. I was controlled by a superior will which strove to overpower mine. I put the glass upon the table, looked at it for an instant, and held it up to the light. There was nothing, not the slightest sign to denote that it was an instrument of death. I put it on the tray and walked with it towards the library without considering what I was doing. But suddenly in the passage I came to myself like awakening from a nightmare. I suddenly saw the blunder I was going to make, and I let the glass fall on the ground."
"It was not a blunder, it was a horrible crime you were about to commit," said the count angrily, as a sweat of horror came over him.
"Very well, crime or blunder, or whatever it was, it was stupid in every way, you know, for one would see by the symptoms that it was a question of poison."
Those words, uttered in a tone of assumed levity, made more impression on the count than any former ones, and henceforth he could not go near her without experiencing a strange feeling of repugnance.
Her youth passed, but she paid no attention to the fact until the arrival of Fernanda. Having no rivals in Lancia, her carelessness of her personal appearance daily increased, and she completely lost the subtle coquetry by which women perpetuate the charm of their person. It was only the sight of the splendid beauty of the daughter of Estrada-Rosa that made her give a thought to herself. She then began to think about the adornment of herself. She procured all kinds of cosmetics, she sent for dresses to Madrid, and availed herself of all the arts of elegance. It was late. That miserable, neglected body, worn out by years and ill-health, could not regain its freshness and grace.
This idée fixe corroded her brain during her long, wretched vigil. No longer to inspire love! To be old, and an object of repugnance! Her mind was torn with a thousand fears. Luis was marrying. Why? Had she not sacrificed to him her youth, honour, and salvation, if there was anything after this life but the infernal regions?
What was the good of it? At the first sign of decay in her face all his promises had vanished like a dream; the seven years of love had disappeared in the abyss of time without leaving the most insignificant sign. But she had not wrinkles yet; she was not so old—five-and-thirty, not more. She suddenly put her hand on the table by her side, lighted the candle, and jumped out of bed. She went to the looking-glass and looked at herself for some time, passing her fingers over the surface of her face to ascertain that the much-feared wrinkles were not there.
A groan from behind made her turn her head. She raised the candle and fixed an angry glance upon the child, stretched upon the ground, trembling with fear. The child could not sleep. Her feverish eyes looked at her anxiously, her lips again murmured: "Pardon."
Without paying her any attention, the wife of Don Pedro went back to bed and put out the light. The rays of the morning sun, as they penetrated the room, fell upon the two sleepless beings. With God's daylight commenced the barbarous torture of an innocent creature.