“No,” replied an old man, whom I recognised as the town-crier, “he is dead; he fell gloriously in the battle-field, fighting for his country’s liberty!”
“What!” I exclaimed, “did he not join the French army with his father?”
“With his father!” cried half a dozen voices in concert. “What! did that miscreant add to his crimes by joining the ranks of the vile enemies of our country? No: Fernando died like a true-born Andaluz; he fell, covered with the blood of our oppressors, in the fatal field of Tudela. But how know you, Tio, that his father joined the French?”
I stated that I had been so informed on very good authority, and had indeed come expressly to M—— to make a communication concerning Blas to his father-in-law, Don Benito.
“Go not near the old man if you have aught to say of that miscreant Blas,” replied the town-crier, “unless it be to inform him that the devil has carried him off in a hurricane.”
I rose, and left the house choking with rage. “What!” I ejaculated, “does the old villain attempt to clear his own conscience by accusing me, who have been the innocent victim of his crimes? Did he not blast my earliest hopes, drive me to desperation, bring my wife to the grave, rob me of my son, and, finally, send that son to fall by my hand!—miscreant in his teeth.”
With these excited feelings, I proceeded straight to Don Benito’s house, and rang the bell. The door flew open; and, in answer to my inquiry if Don Benito was within, a female servant from the gallery informed me that I should find him in one of the apartments on the ground-floor, opening into the patio.[210]
It was well I had been told that it was Don Benito I should find there, otherwise I never could have supposed that the wretched, withered being whom I beheld, enveloped in a grey flannel dressing-gown, with slipshod feet, and a black montera cap on his head, was the once personable father of Alitéa. He did not attempt to rise from the silla poltrona[211] in which he was seated; but, removing the spectacles from his eyes, and wiping them with his pocket-handkerchief, desired me to approach and state my business.
For a moment I felt inclined to turn away and leave the house; a feeling of pity crept into my heart, and bade me spare him. Though I owed him little mercy for myself, he had intended to be kind to my boy; he had never entirely cast off my Alitéa; and he seemed so thoroughly wretched, that it appeared impossible to add more to his misery. I wish I had followed this first impulse, but a second thought determined me to try if his unforgiving nature remained unchanged. I began by simply asking if I was addressing Don Benito Quisquilla.
“What! can it be!” he exclaimed, starting upon his legs, as if newly invigorated with the breath of life; “is it my Fernando? Approach. No, no! I see—he was in the bloom of youth, but you, like myself, have, it appears, bent to the gusts of many a tempest. Still, that voice—that figure! Say, I beseech you, stranger, who are you?”