She rose to retire. It still rained.
“You have a carriage at your disposal,” said the duchess, saluting her.
Marisalada, on arriving in the court, remarked that they had taken away the horses from the duchess’s carriage. A lackey respectfully let down the steps of a hired hack, and Maria was driven off, swelling with rage. Next day she declared to the duke that she had ceased giving lessons to the young duchess. She took great care to hide the true motive for this decision. The duke, as blind by his enthusiasm for Maria as by the dangerous means he had adopted to make her celebrated, supposed that his wife was the cause of this resolution, and he appeared before her colder than ever.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE arrival in Madrid of the celebrated singer Tenorini raised the glory of Maria to its height, not only because of the admiration this colossal lyric displayed, but because of the earnestness she showed in wishing to unite her voice to a voice so worthy of hers. Tononi Tenorini—alias the great—came from nobody knew where. Some affirmed that, like Castor and Pollux, she was couched in an egg—not the egg of a swan, but the egg of a nightingale. Her splendid and brilliant career commenced at Naples, where she had eclipsed Vesuvius. Then she passed to Milan, to Florence, St. Petersburg, and Constantinople. She had now arrived from New York, passing through Havana, with the purpose of appearing in Paris, where the inhabitants, furious in not having yet consecrated this gigantic reputation, had gotten up a resolution to assuage their anger. From thence Tenorini designed to go to London, where the dilettanti were dying of longing and of spleen, and where the season promised to be dull, if that celebrated notability and artiste should not take pity on them.
Strange thing, and which surprised all the Polos and all the Eloisitas, this sublime artiste did not arrive in Madrid borne on the wings of genii. The dolphins of the ocean were too badly educated and too little melodramatic to carry her on their back, as they had before done for Amphyon, in happier times, those of the Mediterranean. Tenorini came by the diligence. Horror! And that which was more horrible still, she brought a carpet-bag with her. They formed a plan to celebrate her arrival by ringing all the bells at the same moment, to illuminate the houses, and to raise an arch of triumph for her, with music from all the instruments of the circus orchestra. The alcalde would consent to nothing of the kind.
While Marisalada shared with the grand singer the unbridled ovation of a discerning public, who fell on their knees in all humility, a scene of a character altogether different passed in the poor cabin which she had quitted scarcely a year ago.
Pedro Santalo was dying on his pallet. Since the departure of his daughter he had not raised his head. He kept his eyes constantly closed, and opened them only to look at the chamber of Mariquita, which was separated from his by a narrow passage which led to the garret. Every thing remained in the state his daughter had left it: the guitar was hung on the wall, by a ribbon once rose-colored, and which now hung without form like a forgotten promise, and faded like a recollection extinguished. A handkerchief of India was thrown on the bed, and there could yet be seen on the chair a pair of her little shoes. Old Maria was seated at the bedside of the invalid.
“Come! come! Pedro,” said the good old woman, “forget that you are a Catalan, and be not so stubborn. Let yourself be governed for once in your life, and come to the convent. You know you will want for nothing there. There at least you can be better cared for, and you will not be abandoned in a corner like an old broom.”
The fisherman made no reply.