The Strange Friend of Tito Gil

by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón

The still, soft air, the last flowers of the year, the birds, immovable in the branches of the trees, all nature in fact assisted, mute and fearful, at the death of that day. It seemed as if it might be the last that humanity would see. As if the Astral King might not return the following day as generous, happy, and as full of life and youth, as he had presented himself for so many mornings during so many thousands of centuries.

One would have said that at that point, Time had stopped; that the hours, overcome by their continual dance, had seated themselves on the grass to rest, and were telling each other pathetic stories of love and death, like young school girls, who, fatigued with play, draw aside in the garden of a convent to relate to one another their childish adventures and youthful joys.

One would have said that a period in the history of the world was drawing to a close; that all creation was bidding an eternal farewell. The bird to his nest, the zephyr to the flowers, the trees to the river, the sun to the mountain; that the intimate union in which all had lived, lending mutual color or fragrance, and losing themselves in the same palpitation of universal existence, had been broken and interrupted forever, and that in the future each one of those elements would be governed by new laws and influences.

One would have said, in fact, that on that evening the mysterious association constituting the unity and harmony of the spheres was about to dissolve; an association which makes impossible the loss of the most insignificant of created things; which transforms and continually resuscitates matter, and which from nothing, identifies, renews and embellishes all.

More than any one or anything, possessed of this supreme intuition, this strange hallucination, Tito and Elena with clasped hands, immovable and silent, watched the majestic tragedy of the death of that day, the last of their misfortunes. They looked at each other with deep anxiety, and blind idolatry, not knowing of what they thought, forgetful of the entire universe, ecstatic and entranced. They might have believed themselves alone upon the earth, abandoned.

After the departure of the wedding guests, and the sound of the last footsteps had ceased in the distance, it seemed as though the world had entirely left them.

Nothing had been said—nothing!—so absorbed were they in beholding each other.

There they were, seated on a bank of turf, surrounded with flowers and verdure, an infinite sky before their eyes, as free and alone as two sea birds resting in mid ocean on a wreck rocked by the waves; and with the cup of happiness in his hand, Tito dared not press it to his lips, fearful that all might be a dream, and not coveting greater felicity, through fear of losing that which they already possessed.

There they were, as innocent, beautiful and immortal as Adam and Eve in Paradise before the Fall. The maiden of nineteen years was in all the splendor of her wonderful beauty; in that transitory moment of youthful womanhood, when, possessed of all her fascinations, judge of her own nature, full of blessings, and promises of happiness from Heaven, she is capable of feeling all, yet has felt nothing; woman and child in one. As a rose, half-opened to the generous influence of the sun, that has already displayed all its leaves, shown all its charms, and received the caresses of the zephyr, still preserves that form, color and perfume that alone adorn the modest bud.

Elena was tall and statuesque, artistic and seductive—her lovely head, crowned with auburn hair, of a golden hue at the temples, and changing by degrees to chestnut shades, was poised upon a white throat moulded like that of Juno. Her blue eyes seemed to reflect the infinity of uncreated thought. There was something of heaven in them besides their color and purity. There was in their glance a light as of eternity, of pure spirituality, of immortal passion, that did not belong to earth. Her complexion, white and pallid as water at twilight, was transparent as mother of pearl. It did not reflect the warmth of the blood; some delicate vein of heavenly blue alone broke that still, serene whiteness. One would have said she was of marble. Her angelic countenance had, however, a woman’s mouth, vermilion as the blossom of the pomegranate, moist and brilliant as a bed of pearls. It was, if one might so say, submerged in the warm and voluptuous vapor of the sigh which held it half apart.