The Marquis of Peñalta (Marta y María): A Realistic Social Novel

by Armando Palacio Valdés

He killed him without heeding the voices of his comrades, who said, "Leave him for me! Leave him for me!"

As they reached him with pale cheeks and bloodshot eyes, they all discharged their guns at the lifeless body of the terrible ringleader, quickly destroying it in the most horrible manner. When that act of barbarism, inspired by wrath, was accomplished, the soldiers remained silent. Their irritation being calmed, they began to realize how they had been fighting with one single man, and they were dissatisfied with themselves. In spite of themselves they felt stirred to admiration.

"The old man had gall," said one, as he wiped off a few drops of blood which had spattered into his face.

"He was well quit of his life," declared a second.

"The truth is, that taking them one at a time, that old man would have swallowed this whole division, uniform and all," said a third, finally; and no one uttered a protest.

In the company there were one killed and five wounded, as the result of the skirmish. They placed them all, as well as they could, on improvised stretchers, and again took up the line of march. Not only the soldiers, but the prisoners, plodded on in silence and melancholy, profoundly impressed by the tragic event which had just occurred.

The night was still as calm and bright as before, and in the zenith the moon, which had just been lighting that unequal combat with her soft poetic beams, still shed them upon the company slowly ascending the highway, and upon the livid, dismembered corpse which they had left behind on the crag. The struggles, the joys, the griefs of us poor devils who creep on the earth, what worth have they? what do they signify before the august serenity of the heavens? For them the fall of an empire and the fall of a leaf are of equal consequence; for them the sigh of a maiden in love and the groan of a dying man are alike in sound. "Nature is deaf," said the great Leopardi, "and cannot pity."

But Maria walked along with her eyes fixed on the sky, regarding it with far different thoughts. There where the poet found nothing but a blind will, incapable of good, the pious girl saw a foreseeing and merciful God, as merciful as terrible, who received the good into his bosom, and sent the wicked to eternal torment—a God, who, like ourselves, was appeased by prayers and tears. She felt stirred as she thought of the fate which the soul of him who had just died would meet in presence of divine justice, and by a quick, spontaneous movement of her heart, she said in a loud, clear voice:—

"For the soul of the departed Don César Pardo: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." The prisoners began to pray with fervor. Some of the soldiers did the same. Then they relapsed into silence as they marched along, and nothing was heard but the sound of labored breathing, and occasionally the complaints of the wounded, not very well accommodated in their litters. At last they crossed the highest point of the watershed, and began to descend toward the wide valley of * * *. The dawn was already appearing in the confines of the east. The dull blue of the sky in that quarter was fading into a pale, melancholy light, which at the same time blotted out the sparkling stars. The travellers felt a chill, unpleasant breath of wind which turned their noses and hands purple. Very soon a great golden fringe spread over the eastern hills, and the band could regard at their pleasure the valley stretching out at their feet, where the green of the meadows and the yellow of the plowed lands shone in multitudinous tones, coarse or soft, like a rich mantle of brocade. A few tufts of cloud were slowly rising from the depths of the streamlets which furrowed it; and yonder, in the west, a great curtain of black mountains, on whose summits the snow still gleamed white, shut it in abruptly, casting across it a great mantle of shadow. In spite of this shadow, the eyes of the travellers who knew the region could distinguish in the very edge of the black curtain the spire of the proud tower of the cathedral of * * *. The prisoners and their guards reached the plain, and crossed the valley from one end to the other, expending much time in the transit, principally because of the care required by the wounded. Finally, at eight o'clock in the morning, they reached the first houses of the suburb of * * *.

The inhabitants of the capital had heard of the sudden blow struck by the military governor against the Carlists of Nieva, and a great throng, collected in the streets, was impatiently waiting to see the prisoners pass by. It was composed almost entirely of what, during the revolutionary period, was called the sovereign people; that is, of all the ragamuffins and rough-scuff of the city, together with quite a number of respectable people, though loungers, and almost all the ladies of the suburbs.