"But Florentina is very kind; she will love you dearly."
"Yes, and I love her—but not at Aldeacorba!" cried the girl in wild accents. "She came to rob me of what was mine—for he was mine—yes, Señor, he was indeed. Florentina is like the Blessed Virgin—I will pray to her, yes, Señor, and worship her; but I do not want her to take away what is my own—and she will take it away—she has taken it away already! And where am I to go to; what am I, what good am I in the world at all? I have lost everything and I want to go to my mother."
She walked away; but Golfin seized her as a wild beast clutches its prey, and held her tightly by the wrist. As he did so he felt her quick and fluttering pulse.
"Come here," he said. "From this moment, whether you like it or no, you are my slave. You are mine, and you are to do nothing but what I tell you. Poor little soul, full of eager feeling, of fervent fancy, frankness and superstition—you have a nature framed for all that is good; but it has been ruined by the wild life you have led, by neglect and want of training, and even the most elementary teaching! What a hideous state of society we live in, which forgets its duties so utterly, and leaves a precious creature like this perish!—Come here; I am not going to let you quit my side. I have hunted you down and caught you—caught you in a trap in the midst of the woods, in some sylvan wilderness, and now I shall try to teach you and train you. We will see if this rough diamond cannot be cut and polished. Ah! you do not even know how ignorant you are; and I shall open a new world to your mind, show you a thousand wonderful things that you have never understood, though you have a vague and dim idea of some of them. Tell me, cannot you feel in your soul a germ—how shall I explain myself? a bud, of that rarest and most beautiful grace: Humility? The mother of all the virtues; which, strange to say, makes us actually happy when we see ourselves subordinate to others? Have you never felt the impulse of self-denial, which makes us rejoice in sacrificing ourselves for others, in making ourselves small that some one else may become great?—But you will learn this, child; you will learn to lay your ugliness at the feet of beauty, to look on with calm satisfaction and joy at the triumphs of others, to fetter that great wild heart of yours and bring it into subjection, so that you shall never feel envy nor rage, but will love your neighbor as yourself, and rise superior to all who may have injured or hurt you. You shall be made all that Nature meant you to be when she endowed you at your birth. Hapless child! Born in a Christian country, and not even a Christian! Your soul dwells in a sort of poetic worship of nature.—You cannot understand me, little one, but so it is. You are in the state of those primitive peoples of whom the memory even hardly survives—governed by your instincts and passions, while beauty is your dearest idol. Eighteen centuries have been devoted in vain to spiritualizing humanity, so far as you are concerned. And as to the selfish world which has left you to such a fate!—What name does it deserve? You have lived in these mines, a solitary soul, not taught a single letter, not even sent to an infant school, though you would have learnt little enough there; not even given the most imperfect teaching in that religion of which your nation boasts. Why, you have never been inside a church except to stare at some ceremony which to you had no meaning; you cannot even mutter a prayer that you understand; you know nothing of the world, or of God, or your own soul....
"But you shall know all this; you shall be a different creature. You shall no longer be hapless little Nela, but a good, and honest, and useful woman."
It would be rash to assert that Nela had understood all this speech, which Golfin declaimed with such vehemence and fervor that he entirely forgot the person to whom he was speaking. But the little outcast felt a curious fascination, and the spirit of her friend's utterances sank gently into her soul, and soothed it, and compelled her to blind assent. His power over the untaught girl was that fateful and irresistible control which a superior mind exercises over an inferior one. Sad but unresisting, her head drooped against the surgeon's shoulder.
"Come along," Golfin said resolutely.
Nela trembled from head to foot; a cold sweat stood on her face, and Golfin felt that her hands were icy-cold, and her pulses beating violently; but he failed to attribute this physical condition to her mental anguish; he held her hand more firmly and repeated: "Come—it is cold here."
His power over her was so great that she rose as he did, and they went a little way together. But then Nela stopped, and fell on her knees.