Five days had pa.s.sed since the entrance of Caballuco into the Penitentiary's house. It was evening. Remedios entered her uncle's room with the lighted lamp, which she placed on the table. She then seated herself in front of the old man, who, for a great part of the afternoon, had been sitting motionless and thoughtful in his easy chair. His fingers supported his chin, wrinkling up the brown skin, unshaven for the past three days.

"Did Caballuco say he would come here to supper to-night?" he asked his niece.

"Yes, senor, he will come. It is in a respectable house like this that the poor fellow is most secure."

"Well, I am not altogether easy in my mind, in spite of the respectability of the house," answered the Penitentiary. "How the brave Ramos exposes himself! And I am told that in Villahorrenda and the surrounding country there are a great many men. I don't know how many men----What have you heard?"

"That the soldiers are committing atrocities."

"It is a miracle that those Hottentots have not searched the house! I declare that if I see one of the red-trousered gentry enter the house, I shall fall down speechless."

"This is a nice condition of things!" said Remedios, exhaling half her soul in a sigh. "I cannot get out of my head the idea of the tribulation in which Senora Dona Perfecta finds herself. Uncle, you ought to go there."

"Go there to-night? The military are parading the streets! Imagine that some insolent soldier should take it into his head to----The senora is well protected. The other day they searched the house and they carried off the six armed men she had there; but afterward they sent them back to her. We have no one to protect us in case of an attack."

"I sent Jacinto to the senora's, to keep her company for a while. If Caballuco comes, we will tell him to stop in there, too. No one can put it out of my head but that those rascals are plotting some piece of villany against our friend. Poor senora, poor Rosarito! When one thinks that this might have been avoided by what I proposed to Dona Perfecta two days ago----"

"My dear niece," said the Penitentiary phlegmatically, "we have done all that it was in human power to do to carry out our virtuous purpose.

More we cannot do. Convince yourself of this, and do not be obstinate.

Rosarito cannot be the wife of our idolized Jacintillo. Your golden dream, your ideal of happiness, that at one time seemed attainable, and to which like a good uncle, I devoted all the powers of my understanding, has become chimerical, has vanished into smoke. Serious obstructions, the wickedness of a man, the indubitable love of the girl, and other things, regarding which I am silent, have altered altogether the condition of affairs. We were in a fair way to conquer, and suddenly we are conquered. Ah, niece! convince yourself of one thing. As matters are now, Jacinto deserves something a great deal better than that crazy girl."

"Caprices and obstinate notions!" responded Maria, with an ill-humor that was far from respectful. "That's a pretty thing to say now, uncle!

The great minds are outshining themselves, now. Dona Perfecta with her lofty ideas, and you with your doubts and fears--of much use either of you is. It is a pity that G.o.d made me such a fool and gave me an understanding of brick and mortar, as the senora says, for if that wasn't the case I would soon settle the question."

"You?"

"If she and you had allowed me, it would be settled already."

"By the beating?"

"There's no occasion for you to be frightened or to open your eyes like that. There is no question of killing any body. What an idea!"

"Beating," said the canon, smiling, "is like scratching--when one begins one doesn't know when to leave off."

"Bah! say too that I am cruel and blood-thirsty. I wouldn't have the courage to kill a fly; it's not very likely that I should desire the death of a man."

"In fine, child, no matter what objections you may make, Senor Don Pepe Rey will carry off the girl. It is not possible now to prevent it. He is ready to employ every means, including dishonor. If Rosarito--how she deceived us with that demure little face and those heavenly eyes, eh!--if Rosarito, I say, did not herself wish it, then all might be arranged, but alas! she loves him as the sinner loves Satan; she is consumed with a criminal pa.s.sion; she has fallen, niece, into the snares of the Evil One. Let us be virtuous and upright; let us turn our eyes away from the ign.o.ble pair, and think no more about either of them."

"You know nothing about women, uncle," said Remedios, with flattering hypocrisy; "you are a holy man; you do not understand that Rosario's feeling is only a pa.s.sing caprice, one of those caprices that are cured by a sound whipping."

"Niece," said Don Inocencio gravely and sententiously, "when serious things have taken place, caprices are not called caprices, but by another name."

"Uncle, you don't know what you are talking about," responded Maria Remedios, her face flushing suddenly. "What! would you be capable of supposing that Rosarito--what an atrocity! I will defend her; yes, I will defend her. She is as pure as an angel. Why, uncle, those things bring a blush to my cheek, and make me indignant with you."

As she spoke the good priest's face was darkened by a cloud of sadness that made him look ten years older.

"My dear Remedios," he said, "we have done all that is humanly possible, and all that in conscience we can or ought to do. Nothing could be more natural than our desire to see Jacintillo connected with that great family, the first in Orbajosa; nothing more natural than our desire to see him master of the seven houses in the town, the meadow of Mundogrande, the three gardens of the upper farm, La Encomienda, and the other lands and houses which that girl owns. Your son has great merit, every one knows it well. Rosarito liked him, and he liked Rosarito.

The matter seemed settled. Dona Perfecta herself, without being very enthusiastic, doubtless on account of our origin, seemed favorably disposed toward it, because of her great esteem and veneration for me, as her confessor and friend. But suddenly this unlucky young man presents himself. The senora tells me that she has given her word to her brother, and that she cannot reject the proposal made by him. A difficult situation! But what do I do in view of all this? Ah, you don't know every thing! I will be frank with you. If I had found Senor de Rey to be a man of good principles, calculated to make Rosario happy, I would not have interfered in the matter; but the young man appeared to me to be a wretch, and, as the spiritual director of the house, it was my duty to take a hand in the business, and I took it. You know already that I determined to unmask him. I exposed his vices; I made manifest his atheism; I laid bare to the view of all the rottenness of that materialistic heart, and the senora was convinced that in giving her daughter to him, she would be delivering her up to vice. Ah, what anxieties I endured! The senora vacillated; I strengthened her wavering mind; I advised her concerning the means she might lawfully employ to send her nephew away without scandal. I suggested ingenious ideas to her; and as she often spoke to me of the scruples that troubled her tender conscience, I tranquillized her, pointing out to her how far it was allowable for us to go in our fight against that lawless enemy.

Never did I counsel violent or sanguinary measures or base outrages, but always subtle artifices, in which there was no sin. My mind is tranquil, my dear niece. But you know that I struggled hard, that I worked like a negro. Ah! when I used to come home every night and say, 'Mariquilla, we are getting on well, we are getting on very well,' you used to be wild with delight, and you would kiss my hands again and again, and say I was the best man on earth. Why do you fly into a pa.s.sion now, disfiguring your n.o.ble character and peaceable disposition? Why do you scold me? Why do you say that you are indignant, and tell me in plain terms that I am nothing better than an idiot?"

"Because," said the woman, without any diminution of her rage, "because you have grown faint-hearted all of a sudden."

"The thing is that every thing is going against us, woman. That confounded engineer, protected as he is by the army, is resolved to dare every thing. The girl loves him, the girl--I will say no more. It cannot be; I tell you that it cannot be."

"The army! But do you believe, like Dona Perfecta, that there is going to be a war, and that to drive Don Pepe from the town it will be necessary for one half of the nation to rise up against the other half? The senora has lost her senses, and you are in a fair way to lose yours."

"I believe as she does. In view of the intimate connection of Rey with the soldiers the personal question a.s.sumes larger proportions. But, ah, niece! if two days ago I entertained the hope that our valiant townsmen would kick the soldiers out of the town, since I have seen the turn things have taken, since I have seen that most of them have been surprised before fighting, and that Caballuco is in hiding and that the insurrection is going to the devil, I have lost confidence in every thing. The good doctrines have not yet acquired sufficient material force to tear in pieces the ministers and the emissaries of error. Ah, niece! resignation, resignation!"

And Don Inocencio, employing the method of expression which characterized his niece, heaved two or three profound sighs. Maria, contrary to what might have been expected, maintained absolute silence.

She showed now neither anger nor the superficial sentimentality of her ordinary life; but only a profound and humble grief. Shortly after the good canon had ended his peroration two tears rolled down his niece's rosy cheeks; before long were heard a few half-suppressed sighs, and gradually, as the swell and tumult of a sea that is beginning to be stormy rise higher and higher and become louder and louder, so the surge of Maria Remedios' grief rose and swelled, until it at last broke forth in a flood of tears.

CHAPTER XXVII

A CANON'S TORTURE

"Resignation, resignation!" repeated Don Inocencio.

"Resignation, resignation!" repeated his niece, drying her tears. "If my dear son is doomed to be always a beggar, well, then, be it so. Lawsuits are becoming scarce; the day will soon come when the practice of the law will be the same as nothing. What is the use of all his talent? What is the use of his tiring his brain with so much study? Ah! We are poor.

A day will come, Senor Don Inocencio, when my poor boy will not have a pillow on which to lay his head."

"Woman!"

"Man! can you deny it? Tell me, then, what inheritance are you going to leave him when you close your eyes on this world? A couple of rooms, half a dozen big books, poverty, and nothing more. What times are before us, uncle; what times! My poor boy is growing very delicate in his health, and he won't be able to work--it makes him dizzy now to read a book; he gets a headache and nausea whenever he works at night! He will have to beg a paltry situation; I shall have to take in sewing, and who knows, who knows but we may have to beg our bread!"

"Woman!"

"Oh, I know very well what I am talking about! Fine times before us!"

added the excellent woman, forcing still more the lachrymose note in her diatribe. "My G.o.d! What is going to become of us? Ah, it is only a mother's heart that can feel these things! Only a mother is capable of suffering so much anxiety about a son's welfare. How should you understand it? No; it is one thing to have children and to suffer anxiety on their account and another to sing the _gori gori_ in the cathedral and to teach Latin in the inst.i.tute. Of great use is it for my son to be your nephew and to have taken so many honors and to be the pride and ornament of Orbajosa. He will die of starvation, for we already know what law brings; or else he will have to ask the deputies for a situation in Havana, where the yellow fever will kill him."

"But, niece--"

"No, I am not grieving, I am silent now; I won't annoy you any more.

I am very troublesome, always crying and sighing; and I am not to be endured because I am a fond mother and I will look out for the good of my beloved son. I will die, yes, I will die in silence, and stifle my grief. I will swallow my tears, in order not to annoy his reverence the canon. But my idolized son will comprehend me and he won't put his hands to his ears as you are doing now. Woe is me! Poor Jacinto knows that I would die for him, and that I would purchase his happiness at the sacrifice of my life. Darling child of my soul! To be so deserving and to be forever doomed to mediocrity, to a humble station, for--don't get indignant, uncle--no matter what airs we put on, you will always be the son of Uncle Tinieblas, the sacristan of San Bernardo, and I shall never be any thing more than the daughter of Ildefonso Tinieblas, your brother, who used to sell crockery, and my son will be the grandson of the Tinieblas--for obscure we were born, and we shall never emerge from our obscurity, nor own a piece of land of which we can say, 'This is mine'; nor shall I ever plunge my arms up to the elbows in a sack of wheat threshed and winnowed on our own threshing-floor--all because of your cowardice, your folly, your soft-heartedness."

"But--but, niece!"

The canon's voice rose higher every time he repeated this phrase, and, with his hands to his ears, he shook his head from side to side with a look of mingled grief and desperation. The shrill complaint of Maria Remedios grew constantly shriller, and pierced the brain of the unhappy and now dazed priest like an arrow. But all at once the woman's face became transformed; her plaintive wail was changed to a hard, shrill scream; she turned pale, her lips trembled, she clenched her hands, a few locks of her disordered hair fell over her forehead, her eyes glittered, dried by the heat of the anger that glowed in her breast; she rose from her seat and, not like a woman, but like a harpy, cried:

"I am going away from here! I am going away from here with my son! We will go to Madrid; I don't want my son to fret himself to death in this miserable town! I am tired now of seeing that my son, under the protection of the ca.s.sock, neither is nor ever will be any thing. Do you hear, my reverend uncle? My son and I are going away! You will never see us again--never!"

Don Inocencio had clasped his hands and was receiving the thunderbolts of his niece's wrath with the consternation of a criminal whom the presence of the executioner has deprived of his last hope.

"In Heaven's name, Remedios," he murmured, in a pained voice; "in the name of the Holy Virgin----"

These fits of range of his niece, who was usually so meek, were as violent as they were rare, and five or six years would sometimes pa.s.s without Don Inocencio seeing Remedios transformed into a fury.