At such moments Amalia experienced a diabolical sensation of mingled pleasure and pain similar to that which is felt in scratching a boil. Her boil was that violent passion—a mixture of love, licentiousness and arrogance. Not being able to vent upon her former lover the mortification which tore her heart, she wreaked her vengeance on the fruit of their love. When the child was bleeding and trembling at her feet, her looks of anguish, her gestures, and the tone of her voice seemed to her those of her lover, humiliated and supplicating, and then she experienced an awful pleasure which made her eyes shine and her nostrils dilate.
Josefina was a miniature likeness of Luis. When she had been happy, her face mobile and smiling, and her eyes shining with cheerfulness, it had not been so apparent; but now misery and pain had given to her look a profound melancholy, and to the lines of her face a certain expression of fatigue that were the two things which characterised her likeness to the Conde de Onis. When those beautiful blue eyes turned towards her in sweet resignation, when those red lips trembled in asking pardon, the Valencian felt a voluptuous feeling pervade her worn-out body, so that she was reminded of the pleasures she had experienced in the indulgence of her unlawful passion.
After all, she thought, she had not aged at all, in nothing but the fading of that face of hers and her head producing white hairs with such horrible rapidity. Her body, her breast, her arms, her neck retained the same alabaster hue, the same adorable brilliancy, the mark of a fine and beautiful race. She touched herself in search of consolation with feverish hands, and encountered the same softness and freshness. That body had not worn out. She still felt her own youth, the ardent circulation of her blood, the thirst for enjoyment, and the yearning for the rapture of love.
And yet all those delights were gone for ever; the novel of her life that had embellished her dark existence of latter years had come to the last chapter. She was an old woman! It was a settled fact. At this thought that branded itself on her brain as with a hot iron she felt overwhelmed by an animal necessity to cry, roar, or tear. It was at such times that the child underwent the cruellest punishments, and her fragile existence incurred real danger. Terror was another of the sufferings she frequently inflicted on her. In the late hours of the night she made her get up, and sent her to the most remote rooms of the house in search of something. The child returned pale, trembling, and overwhelmed with fear. Sometimes her terror was so great that she let the candlestick fall, and returned running and screaming with fright. Then Amalia, enraged, pinched her and struck her, and pretended she must go again to the place named. Then the little creature let herself be tortured rather than expose herself afresh to the same fright. On one of these occasions Amalia smiling fiercely, said:
"Ah! So the señorita is so cowardly? Very well, I must undertake to cure you of this weakness."
She recollected the extraordinary impressionability to nocturnal terrors that Luis had confessed with shame in moments of expansion. So she prepared dreadful alarms for her. Sometimes she hid behind a door, and when she was passing gave a loud cry as she seized her by the neck. At other times she took a knife and said her death had come, and told her to turn down her nightgown so that she could cut her throat easier. But this last did not produce as much effect as she expected. Josefina unconsciously longed for death which would release her from such a martyrdom. For a more efficacious cure of fear, Concha and she invented a fearful practical joke which would have been enough to terrify a brave man, much less a child six years old. They both dressed themselves up in sheets, left the room partially lighted whilst the child slept, put on masks like skulls, and at midnight they came in uttering fearful cries like souls from another world. When the little creature awoke and saw those apparitions, she was paralysed with terror, then she clapped her hands to her eyes and her whole body was bathed in a cold perspiration. Her heart beat so violently that it could be heard at a distance, she gave vent to a few hoarse, terrified cries, and finally, putting her hands to her breast, she fell senseless to the ground, a prey to fearful convulsions.
Her timidity was incurable; and, moreover, she was henceforth subject to faintings and to nocturnal frights. She would wake up with signs of great fear, look fixedly at one point in the room as if some apparition were there, her heart beat violently, and her brow was bathed in sweat. In such moments she completely lost consciousness. Amalia called her in vain. It was only when she put her hands upon her that she uttered a cry of fear and sunk her head in terror.
Serious disputes arose between Concha and Maria the ironer on account of these tortures. Maria was naturally compassionate, and she was sorry to see the martyrdom of the child, although she did not know all, for Amalia took care to keep it from the servants with the exception of Concha. Although Maria was not ill-tongued she could not abstain from blaming her mistress's conduct in the kitchen.
"My dear, it is worse than the Inquisition. It does not seem that we are Christians, but Jewish dogs. At one time so indulged that she was spoiled, and now suddenly the little angel is treated worse than an animal. I say the matter has gone beyond bounds! I cannot see such wickedness."
"Silence, little fool and meddler," interposed Concha, "who made you boss of the show? If the señora wishes to teach the child what is right, is she to consult you how to do it? Do you know what it is to bring up children? If she has to be punished it is right it should be done by a hardworking, honourable woman. Some day she will give her thanks for it."