No one can tell which is the precise moment that divides day from night, sleeping from waking, youth from maturity, and innocence from knowledge. Who can fix the moment in which the child, passing into adolescence, observes in herself that undefinable something which may perhaps be called consciousness of sex, in which vague presentiment is changed into swift intuition, in which, without an exact notion of the realities of life, she divines all that experience will corroborate and accentuate later on, in which she understands the importance of a sign, the significance of an act, the character of a relationship, the value of a glance, and the meaning of a reticence. The moment in which her eyes, hitherto open only to external life, acquire power to scrutinize the inner life also, and losing their superficial brilliancy, the clear reflection of her ingenuous purity, acquire the concentrated and undefinable expression which constitutes the glance of a grown person.
This moment arrived for Victorina at the age of eleven, on the night we have mentioned, overhearing a dialogue between her father and mother. Motionless, with bated breath, her feet cold, her head burning, the child heard everything, and afterward, in the dim light of the bedroom, united broken links, remembering certain incidents, and at last understood without attaching much importance to what she understood, reasoning, however, with singular precocity, owing, perhaps, to the painful activity with which imagination works in the silence of night and the repose of the bed.
It is certain that the child slept badly, tossing about restlessly in her monastic little bed. Two ideas, especially, seemed to pierce her brain like nails. Her father was ill, very ill, and he was annoyed and displeased, besides, because Segundo had fallen in love with her mamma. With her mamma. Not with her! With her who preserved all the flowers he had given her like relics.
The sorrows of childhood know neither limit nor consolation. When we are older and more storms have passed over us, and we have seen with astonishment that man can survive griefs which we had thought unsurvivable, and that the heavens do not fall because we have lost what we love, it may almost be said that absolute despair, which is the heritage of childhood, does not exist. It was evident to Victorina that her father was dying and that her mother was wicked, and Segundo a villain, and that the world had come to an end—and that she too, she too, desired to die. If it were possible for the hair to turn white at eleven, Victorina would have become white on the night in which suffering changed her from a bashful, timid, blushing child to a moral being, capable of the greatest heroism.
Nor did Nieves enjoy the balmy sweets of slumber. Her husband's words had made her thoughtful. Was Don Victoriano's illness a fatal one? It might be so! He looked greatly altered, poor fellow. And Nieves felt a touch of grief and apprehension. Why, who could doubt that she loved her husband, or that she should regret his death? She did not feel for him any passionate love, such as is described in novels—but affection—yes. Heaven grant the malady might be a trifling one. And if it were not? And if she were to be left a wi—— She did not dare to complete the word even in her thoughts. To think of such a thing seemed like indulging in wicked desires. No, but the fact was that women, when their husbands die, were—Holy Virgin! It must be a terrible grief. Well, but if it happened? Segundo—Heavens, what folly! Most assuredly such an absurdity had never entered his head. The Garcías—nobodies. And here a vivid picture of all Segundo's relations and their manner of living presented itself to her mind.
She would willingly have absented herself from the rendezvous on the following day, because her husband had begun to suspect something and the situation was a compromising one, although in the place designated for the interview the meeting between them might always be attributed to chance. On the other hand if she failed to meet him, Segundo, who was so enamored, was fully capable of creating a scandal, of going to look for her in her room, of forcing an entrance into it through the window.
After all, thinking well over the matter, she judged it most prudent to comply with her promise and to entreat Segundo to—forget her—or at least not to compromise her. That was the best course to pursue.
Nieves passed the morning in a state of complete prostration; she scarcely tasted a morsel at breakfast and during the meal she kept her eyes turned away from Segundo, fearing lest her husband should surprise some furtive glance of intelligence between them. To make matters worse, Segundo, desirous of reminding her with his eyes of her promise, looked at her on this day oftener than usual. Fortunately Don Victoriano's attention seemed to be all given to satisfying his voracious appetite for eating and drinking. The meal being finished everyone retired as usual to take the siesta. Nieves went to her room. She found Victorina there, lying on the bed. For greater precaution she asked her:
"Are you going to sleep the siesta, my pet?"
"To sleep, no. But I am comfortable here."