Love did not wholly stifle my powers of observation. I mean to say that I loved the wife of Martí and studied her at the same time. I soon came to see and understand that beneath her rare and gracious mingling of timidity and ease of manner, of insistent happiness and supercilious seriousness, there existed in her a depth of exquisite sensibility, carefully and even ferociously guarded. The modesty of sentiment was so strong in her that any manifestation of tenderness caused it to retreat. She preferred to pass for hard and cold rather than that anyone should read her soul.
Unlike her mamma, who was delighted to receive endearments, and who kissed everybody, she never gave a caress to any member of her family, and avoided receiving one whenever possible. Her husband himself, when he found himself a little rebuffed, took it with his jolly shout, accepting everything with a laugh. In spite of this they all loved her dearly, and looked upon her coldness as a graceful oddity, with which it pleased her at times to snub them a little.
Because of her character, the least expression of affection from her lips had an inestimable value. But it was necessary to turn it off and pretend that it was not noticed. If it was observed and she knew it, all was lost. She returned at once to her brusqueness, cutting off gratitude with some ironical or disdainful speech. She also had the spirit of contradiction well developed; that is to say, she was wont to antagonize other people, not from pride or ill-humor, as I was soon convinced, but rather because of her great reserve, which made it repugnant to her to show the real strength of her feelings.
And with all this—an extraordinary thing!—there was never a creature whose features expressed more fully the movements and emotions of her spirit, even to the faintest shades of thought. Whatever dominated her for the moment, whatever stirred her, in spite of barred fortress that she sought to guard, was revealed in her eyes, in the changeful lights on her face, in all her gestures and movement.
Martí showed himself every day franker and more cordial towards me. This, it may be divined, made it possible for none but a villain to breathe in an enterprise against him. And I, who did not hold myself that, was embarrassed and saddened. We were inseparable from the first. Not only did we dine and take our coffee together, but he often insisted that I should accompany him while he was attending to his business; he soon made me his confidant and even asked me to give him advice. At last, after I had been five or six days in Valencia, he joyously proposed that we should thee-and-thou each other, and without waiting for my response began to do so with a cordiality that touched me. I experienced a mingled pride and humiliation, pleasure and pain; thinking how the confidence of this man brought me nearer his wife, yet held me all the more removed from her morally. I had occasion to prove this only a few hours afterwards. When we were again at the house, I, out of shyness, did everything possible to conceal that we had so soon adopted a new method of addressing each other. Martí made it plain directly. Cristina lifted her head surprised, looked at us both an instant, and dropped her eyes again, but not before I had, I believed, surprised in them an expression of annoyance. I guessed what passed in her soul.
Martí invited me the next day to visit his estate at Cabañal, where he had certain orders to give about the house and garden. The family was usually installed there by May, the present month; but this year, on account of the happy event that was expected, the moving out had been postponed.
We made the trip on foot, by the road and across the fields, in order to see the farms and gardens that lie between the city and the sea. I consented with good will, and at the hour for the promenade we started out upon our way, walking slowly until we reached the place.
My companion never closed his mouth after we came out of the house. The discussion of his affairs engrossed him to such an extent that he paid no attention to the delicious country, carpeted with flowers, whose white cottages seemed like doves alighted near us. Round about every one of the little houses with their sharp-pointed roofs grew a grove of orange-trees, pomegranates, and algarrobos. Beyond were cultivated fields with flowers and vegetables, some set with roses, lilies, carnations, gillyflowers; and others with strawberries, alfalfa, and artichokes. Running about among them on the well-beaten paths were beautiful brunette children, who stopped to gaze at us with their deep, dark eyes. The father of the family, bending to his task, would always lift his head as we passed and salute us gravely and silently, lifting his hand to his hat of coarse straw.
Martí did not see this, and scarcely the road we were walking on.
"One of two things! Either this business of the artesian wells will turn out well, in which case I not only hope soon to get a return on the capital employed, but I shall also make a good income for myself and my heirs; or it will turn out badly, and then it will look as if the capital were lost, but it will not really be so, because of my disposition and personal knowledge, trained and skilful in this class of work, which I think I should immediately use in making canals from a river in the province of Almeria, where there are great tracts of land that might prove very productive if watered, and which need only irrigation and ways of communication. It is a project that I have been turning over in my head for several years. You know well how much time and money it takes in Spain to get people together for this sort of business. Not only are directors, capitalists, and superintendents lacking, but even workmen who know how to carry out a certain class of works that I undertake. Well, whether the artesian wells turn out well or ill, I still have this knowledge ready at my command."