When Maria lighted her lamp, her eyes met the eyes of an image of the Saviour which stood on the centre of the table where the light burned. It was on wood, beautifully carved and painted, with a decidedly sad and meek expression of the face, and it was this which had led the young woman to buy it. When she caught sight of the sweet but icy face of the image, the happy smile which still hovered over her lips died away, leaving her motionless and deeply thoughtful. Little by little, doubtless under the influence of the ideas which came into her mind, her face lost its usual expression and assumed one as melancholy and humble as that of a Magdalene. At that moment the sound of the piano came vibrating through the dark stairway, telling of the first movement of a fascinating rigadoon. She fell on her knees and bent her head. Every now and then she sobbed. Her lips were pressed convulsively against the naked feet of the Saviour, and muttered unintelligible words.
After a long time she raised her face bathed in tears, and exclaimed in a tone of woe:—
"My Jesus! what treachery! what treachery! How illy do I repay the love which thou hast bestowed on me. Punish me, Lord, so that I may again have peace of mind!"
Arising from the floor, she took the lamp in her hand and went into her bed-room. It was tiny and warm as a nest, and it was ornamented with a profusion of engravings of Jesus and the Virgin. The bed, covered with satin curtains, was white and delightful as a baptismal altar. She placed the lamp on her dressing-table and with more tranquil face quickly undressed.
Then she took a travelling-mantle from the wardrobe, wrapped herself in it, blew out the lamp, made the sign of the cross time and again on her forehead, her mouth, and her breast, and lay down on the floor. The white bed, covered with satin and lawn, warm and perfumed, and full of sensuous delights, awaited her in vain all night. Thus she remained stretched on the floor till daylight dawned.
CHAPTER III.
THE NINE DAYS' FESTIVAL OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS.
DAY had hardly dawned, when our maiden arose suddenly from the floor. She stood motionless a moment with ear attent, but she did not catch the sound of the bells of San Felipe, which she thought she had heard in her dreams. She was mistaken; it was not yet six o'clock. She lighted her lamp, and going to her boudoir prostrated herself in humiliation before the image of Jesus and began to pray. As she wore nothing but a thin cambric night-dress, she naturally felt the cold through it, and began to shiver, but she would not yield, and she kept on with her prayers until her teeth chattered. Only then she decided to quit the position which she had taken and dress herself. Thereupon, she opened the four windows of her boudoir and blew out the lamp.
A peevish light, cold and chill, made its way into the Señorita de Elorza's room, giving the articles of furniture a lugubrious aspect quite different from what they usually bore. The morning chill also penetrated them as well as their mistress, and they stood silent and melancholy, doubtless hoping for the rays of the sun to show forth their beauty and splendor. Only in one spot or another, as the light fell on the varnish, there was a pale reflection which looked like the glassy, filmy eye of a dying person. The room was situated in a sort of square turret which was built in one of the rear angles of the mansion; it rose some yards above it, and was open to the light on all its four sides. The tower held only two apartments,—Maria's, composed of boudoir and bedroom, and her maid Genoveva's chamber, which was single. They were the coldest but at the same time the most cheerful rooms in the house. The few times that the sun deigned to visit Nieva he went straight to lodge in them, entered without as much as asking leave, in the way of sovereign guests, and spent the day, shining in the mirrors, brightening up the satin of the chairs, dulling the varnish of the clothes-presses, and in a word disporting himself in a thousand different ways,—all this, it may be said, would have been, had not Genoveva taken the precaution to draw the curtains in time. They were likewise the quietest; the noises of the house did not reach them, and those from outside had no possibility of disturbing them, owing to their situation. Only the wind, which almost never ceased to blow heavily around the tower, made strange noises, especially at night, sometimes moaning, sometimes screaming, and constantly complaining because the windows were kept hermetically sealed. During the daytime it was neither melancholy nor petulant, but contented itself with a perpetual but very dignified murmur like sea-shells held to the ear.
Maria, still shivering though she was wrapped up in her shawl, went to one of the windows which looked down into the garden whose earthwall was contiguous to the quay. From that window the whole length of the Nieva River could be seen down to El Moral, which was the place where it emptied into the sea. It would not measure more than a league in length, but its breadth varied wonderfully, according as it was seen at high or low water, at spring tide or neap tide. When there were full tides, it spread out half a league, lapping up against the foot of the pine-covered hills which shut in the valley on both sides. At low tide the water drew out almost completely, leaving barely a narrow, sinuous thread in the centre. Between the conterminous line of hills there lay on both sides of the channel wide flats of soft gray mud, dotted with pools of water where the ragamuffins of the quay took delight in splashing and wallowing until they had besmeared themselves thickly enough to go straight and wash it off by diving head first into the channel. Above the garden wall rose the masts of a few vessels, not a dozen in all, anchored by the quay, the majority of them smacks and schooners[5] of insignificant draught.
The young girl looked for an instant at the sky, which was still profoundly dark towards the west, hiding and confusing the outline of the distant mountains. In the zenith she noticed that it was completely overcast, of an ashen color, which grew lighter as she turned her face toward the east. There the clouds were not as yet compacted into a solid mass as in the opposite quarter; they stood out against the sweep of the sky in monstrous black piles, and opened sufficiently to let the few feeble, melancholy, ruddy rays pass through, which the sun, like a dying fire, was beginning to shed upon the earth. The tide was rising. The surface of the river absorbed the slender light of the sky, and gave forth nothing more than a tremulous metallic reflection in the far distance.