Chapter IX: Part TWO: I (4)

"My love is an ancient thing," she murmured. "Do you suppose, I have been loving you only since the other night? No, I have loved you for a long, long time.... But don't you go and get conceited on that account, _su señoria_! I don't know how it began: It must have been when you were away in Madrid. When I saw you again I knew that I was lost. If I still resisted, it was because I was a wise woman; because I saw things clearly. Now I'm mad and I've thrown my better judgment to the winds. God knows what will become of us.... But come what may, love me, Rafael, love me. Swear that you'll love me always. It would be cruel to desert me after awakening a passion like this."

And, in an impulse of dread, she nestled closer against his breast, sank her hands into his hair, lifted her head back to kiss him avidly on the face, the forehead, the eyes, the lips, nibbling playfully, tenderly at his nose and chin, yet with an affectionate vehemence that drew cries of mock protest from Rafael.

"Madcap!" he muttered, smiling. "You're hurting me."

Leonora looked steadily at him out of her two great eyes that were a-gleam with love.

"I could eat you up," she murmured. "I feel like devouring you, my heaven, my king, my god.... What have you given me, tell me, little boy? How have you been able to fascinate me, make me feel a passion that I never, never felt before?"

And again they fell asleep.

Rafael stirred in his lover's arms, and suddenly sat up.

"It must be late. How many hours have we been here, do you suppose?"

"Many, many hours," Leonora answered sadly. "Hours of happiness always go so fast."

It was still dark. The moon had set. They arose and, hand in hand, groping their way along, they reached the boat. The splash of the oars began again to sound along the dark stream.

Suddenly the nightingale again piped gloomily in the willow wood, as if in farewell to a departing dream.

"Listen, my darling," said Leonora. "The poor little fellow is bidding us good-bye. Just hear how plaintively he says farewell."

And in the strange exhiliration that comes from fatigue, Leonora felt the flames of art flaring up within her, seething through her organism from head to foot.

A melody from _Die Meistersinger_ came to her mind, the hymn that the good people of Nuremberg sing when Hans Sachs, their favorite singer, as bounteous and gentle as the Eternal Father, steps out on the platform for the contest in poetry. It was the song that the poet-minstrel, the friend of Albrecht Dürer, wrote in honor of Luther when the great Reformation broke; and the prima donna, rising to her feet in the stern, and returning the greeting of the nightingale began:

"_Sorgiam, che spunta il dolce albor,
cantar ascolto in mezzo ai fior
voluttuoso un usignol
spiegando a noi l'amante vol_!..."

Her ardent, powerful voice seemed to make the dark surface of the river tremble; it rolled in harmonious waves across the fields, and died away in the foliage of the distant island, whence the nightingale trilled an answer that was like a fainting sigh. Leonora tried to reproduce with her lips the majestic sonorousness of the Wagnerian chorus, mimicking the rumbling accompaniment of the orchestra, while Rafael beat the water with his oars in time with the pious, exalted melody with which the great Master had turned to popular poetry adequately to greet the outbreak of Reform.

They went on and on up the river against the current, Leonora singing, Rafael bending over the oars, moving his sinewy arms like steel springs. He kept the boat inshore, where the current was not so strong. At times low branches brushed the heads of the lovers, and drops of dew fell on their faces. Many a time the boat glided through one of the verdant archways of foliage, making its way slowly through the lily-pads; and the green overhead would tremble with the harmonious violence of that wonderful voice, as vibrant and as resonant as a great silver bell.

Day had not yet dawned--the _dolce albor_ of Hans Sachs' song--but at any moment the rosy rim of sunrise would begin to climb the sky.

Rafael was hurrying to get back as soon as possible. Her sonorous voice of such tremendous range seemed to be awakening the whole countryside. In one cottage a window lighted up. Several times along the river-bank, as they rowed past the reeds, Rafael thought he heard the noise of snapping branches, the cautious footsteps of spies who were following them.

"Hush, my darling. You had better stop singing; they'll recognize you. They'll guess who you are."

They reached the bank where they had embarked. Leonora leaped ashore. They must separate there; for she insisted on going home alone. And their parting was sweet, slow, endless.

"Good-bye, my love; one kiss. Until tomorrow ... no, later--today."

She walked a few steps up the bank, and then suddenly ran back to snuggle again in her lover's arms.

"Another, my prince ... the last."

Day was breaking, announced not by the song of the lark, as in the garden of Shakespere's lovers at Verona, but by the sound of carts, creaking over country roads in the distance, and by a languid, sleepy melody of an orchard boy.

"Good-bye, Rafael.... Now I must really go. They'll discover us."

Wrapping her coat about her she hurried away, waving a final farewell to him with her handkerchief.

Rafael rowed upstream toward the city. That part of the trip--he reflected--alone, tired, and struggling against the current, was the one bad part of the wonderful night. When he moored his boat near the bridge it was already broad day. The windows of the river houses were opening. Over the bridge carts laden with produce for the market were rumbling, and orchard women were going by with huge baskets on their heads. All these people looked down with interest on their deputy. He must have spent the night fishing. And this news passed from one to the other, though not a trace of fishing tackle was visible in the boat. How they envied rich folks, who could sleep all day and spend their time just as they pleased!

Rafael jumped ashore. All that curiosity he was attracting annoyed him. His mother would know everything by the time he got home!

As he climbed slowly and wearily, his arms numb from rowing, to the bridge, he heard his name called.

Don Andrés was standing there, gazing at him out of those yellow eyes of his, scowling through his wrinkles with an expression of stern authority.

"You've given me a fine night, Rafael. I know where you've been. I saw you row off last night with that woman; and plenty of my friends were on hand to follow you and find out just where you went. You've been on the island all night; that woman was singing away like a lunatic.... God of Gods, boy! Aren't there any houses in the world? Do you have to play the band when you're having an affair, so that everybody in the Kingdom can come and look?"

The old man was truly riled; all the more because he was himself the secretive, the dexterous, libertine, adopting every precaution not to be discovered in his "weaknesses." Was it anger or envy that he felt on seeing a couple enough in love with each other to be fearless of gossip and indifferent to danger, to throw prudence to the winds, and flaunt their passion before the world with the reckless insolence of happiness?

"Besides, your mother knows everything. She's discovered what you've been up to, these nights past. She knows you haven't been in your room. You're going to break that woman's heart!"

And with paternal severity he went on to speak of doña Bernarda's despair, of the danger to the future of the House, of the obligations they were under to don Matías, of the solemn promise given, of that poor girl waiting to be married!

Rafael walked along in silence and like an automaton. That old man's chatter brought down around his head, like a swarm of pestering mosquitoes, all the provoking, irritating obligations of his life. He felt like a man rudely awakened by a tactless servant in the middle of a sweet dream. His lips were still tingling with Leonora's kisses! His whole body was aglow with her gentle warmth! And here was this old curmudgeon coming along with a sermon on "duty," "family," "what they would say"--as if love amounted to nothing in this life! It was a plot against his happiness, and he felt stirred to the depths with a sense of outrage and revolt.

They had reached the entrance to the Brull mansion. Rafael was fumbling about for the key-hole with his key.

"Well," growled the old man. "What have you got to say to all this? What do you propose to do? Answer me! Haven't you got a tongue in your head?"

"I," replied the young man energetically--"will do as I please."

Don Andrés jumped as though he had been stung. My, how this Rafael had changed!... Never before had he seen that gleam of aggressiveness, arrogance, belligerency in the eye of the boy!

"Rafael, is that the way you answer me,--a man who has known you since you were born? Is that the tone of voice you use toward one who loves you as your own father loved you?"

"I'm of age, if you don't mind my saying so!" Rafael replied. "I'm not going to put up any longer with this comedy of being a somebody on the street and a baby in my own house. Henceforth just keep your advice to yourself until I ask for it. Good day, sir!"

As he went up the stairs he saw his mother on the first landing, in the semi-darkness of the closed house, illumined only by the light that entered through the window gratings. She stood there, erect, frowning, tempestuous, like a statue of Avenging Justice.

But Rafael did not waver. He went straight on up the stairs, fearless and without a tremor, like a proprietor who had been away from home for some time and strides arrogantly back Into a house that is all his own.

VI

"You're right, don Andrés. Rafael is not my son. He has changed. That wanton woman has made another man of him. Worse, a thousand times worse, than his father! Crazy over the huzzy! Capable of trampling on me if I should step between him and her. You complain of his lack of respect to you! Well, what about me?... You wouldn't have thought it possible! The other morning, when he came into the house, he treated me just as he treated you. Only a few words, but plain enough! He'll do just as he pleases, or--what amounts to the same thing--he'll keep up his affair with that woman until he wearies of her, or else blows up in one grand debauch, like his father.... My God! And that's what I've suffered for all these years. That's what I get for sacrificing myself, day in day out, trying to make somebody out of him!"

The austere doña Bernarda, dethroned by her son's resolute rebelliousness, wept as she said this. In her tears of a mother's grief there was something also of the chagrin of the authoritarian on finding in her own home a will rebellious to hers and stronger than hers.

Between sobs she told don Andrés how her son had been carrying on since his declaration of independence. He was no longer cautious about spending the night away from home. He was coming in now in broad daylight; and, afternoons, with his meals "still in his mouth" as she said, he would take the road to the Blue House, on the run almost, as if he could not get to perdition soon enough. The dead hand of his father was upon him!

All you had to do was look at him. His face discolored, yellow, pale; his skin drawn tight over his cheekbones; and--the only sign of life--the fire that gleamed in his eyes like a spark of wild joy! Oh, a curse was on the family! They were all alike ...!

The mother did her best to conceal the truth from Remedios. Poor girl! She was going about crestfallen and in deep dejection, unable to explain Rafael's sudden withdrawal.

The matter had to be kept secret; and that was what held doña Bernarda's rage within bounds during her rapid, heated exchanges with her son.

Perhaps everything would come out all right in the end--something unforeseen would turn up to undo the evil spell that had been cast over Rafael. And in this hope she used every effort to keep Remedios and her father from learning what had happened. She feigned contentment in their presence, and invented a thousand pretexts--studies, work, even illness--to justify her son's neglect of his "fiancee." At the same time, the disconsolate mother feared the people around her--the gossip of a small town, bored with itself, ever on the alert, hunting for something interesting to talk about and get scandalized about.

The news of Rafael's affair spread like wildfire meanwhile, considerably magnified as it passed from mouth to mouth. People told hair-raising tales of that expedition down the river, of walks through the orange groves, of nights spent at doña Pepa's house, Rafael entering in the dark, in his stocking feet, like a thief; of silhouettes of the lovers outlined in suggestive poses against the bedroom curtain; of their appearing in windows their arms about each other's waists, looking at the stars--everything sworn to by voluntary spies, who could say "I saw it with my own eyes"--persons who had spent whole nights, on the river-bank, behind some fence, in some clump of bushes, to surprise the deputy on his way to or from his assignations.

In the cafés or at the Casino, the men openly envied Rafael, commenting with eyes a-glitter on his good fortune. That fellow had been born under a lucky star! But later at home they would add their stern voices to the chorus of indignant women. What a scandal! A deputy, a public man, a "personage" who ought to set an example for others! That was a disgrace to the constituency! And when the murmur of general protest reached the ears of doña Bernarda, she lifted her hands to heaven in despair. Where would it all end! Where would it all end! That son of hers was bent on ruining himself!

Don Matías, the rustic millionaire, said nothing; and, in the presence of doña Bernarda, at least, pretended to know nothing. His interest in a marriage connection with the Brull family counselled prudence. He, too, hoped that it would all blow over, prove to be the blind infatuation of a young man. Feeling himself a father, more or less, to the boy, he thought of giving Rafael just a bit of advice when he came upon him in the street one day. But he desisted after a word or two. A proud glance of the youth completely floored him, making him feel like the poor orange-grower of former days, who had cringed before the majestic, grandiose don Ramón!

Rafael was intrenched in haughty silence. He needed no advice. But alas! When at night he reached his beloved's house--it seemed to be redolent with the very perfume of her, as if the furniture, the curtains, the very walls about her had absorbed the essence of her spirit--he felt the strain of that insistent gossip, of the persecution of an entire city that had fixed its eyes upon his love.

Two against a multitude! With the serene immodesty of the ancient idylls, they had abandoned themselves to passion in a stupid, narrow environment, where sprightly gossip was the most appreciated of the moral talents!

Leonora grew sad. She smiled as usual; she flattered him with the same worship, as if he were an idol; she was playful and gay; but in moments of distraction, when she did not notice that he was watching, Rafael would surprise a cast of bitterness about her lips--and a sinister light in her eyes, the reflection of painful thoughts.

She referred with acrid mirth one night to what people were saying about them. Everything was found out sooner or later in that city! The gossip had gotten even to the Blue House! Her kitchen woman had hinted that she had better not walk so much along the river front--she might catch malaria. On the market place the sole topic of conversation was that night trip down the Júcar ... the deputy, sweating his life out over the oars, and she waking half the country up with her strange songs!... And she laughed, but with a hard, harsh laugh of affected gaiety that showed the nervousness underneath, though without a word of complaint.

Rafael remorsefully reflected that she had foreseen all that in first repelling his advances. He admired her resignation. She would have been justified in rebuking him for the harm he had done her. As it was, she was not even telling him all she knew! Ah, the wretches! To harass an innocent woman so! She had loved him, given herself to him, bestowed on him the royal gift of her person. And the deputy began to hate his city, for repaying in insult and scandal the wondrous happiness she had conferred on its "chief"!

On another night Leonora received him with a smile that frightened him. She was affecting a mood of hectic cheerfulness, trying to drown her worries by sheer force, overwhelming her lover with a flood of light, frivolous chatter; but suddenly, at the limit of her endurance, she gave way, and in the middle of a caress, burst into tears and sank to a divan, sobbing as if her heart would break.

"Why what's the matter? What has happened ...?"

For a time she could not answer, her voice was too choked with weeping. At last, however, between sobs, burying her tear-stained face on Rafael's shoulder, she began to speak, completely crushed, fainting from virtual prostration.

She could stand it no longer! The torture was becoming unbearable. It was useless for her to pretend. She knew as well as he what people were saying in the city. They were spied upon continuously. On the roads, in the orchard, along the river, there were people constantly on the watch for something new to report. That passion of hers, so sweet, so youthful, so sincere, was a butt of public laughter, a theme for idle tongues, who flayed her as if she were a common street-woman, because she had been good to him, because she had not been cruel enough to watch a young man writhe in the torment of passion, indifferently.... But though this persecution from a scandalized public was bad enough, she did not mind it. Why should she care what those stupid people said? But, alas, there were others--the people around Rafael, his friends, his family, ... his mother!

Leonora sat silent for a moment, as if waiting to see the effect of that last word; unless, indeed, she were hesitating, out of delicacy, to include her lover's family in her complaint. The young man shrank with a terrible presentiment. Doña Bernarda was not the woman to stand by idle and resigned in the face of opposition, even from him!

"I see ... mother!" he said in a stifled voice. "She has been up to something. Tell me what it is. Don't be afraid. To me you are dearer than anything else in the world."

"Well ... there is auntie ..." Leonora resumed; and Rafael remembered that doña Pepa, remarking his assiduous visits to the Blue House, had thought her niece might be contemplating marriage. In the afternoon, Leonora explained, she had had a _scene_ with her aunt. Doña Pepa had gone into town to confession, and on coming out of church had met doña Bernarda. Poor old woman! Her abject terror on returning home betrayed the intense emotion Rafael's mother had succeeded in wakening in her. Leonora, her niece, her idol, lay in the dust, stripped of that blind, enthusiastic, affectionate trust her aunt had always had for her. All the gossip, all the echoes of Leonora's adventurous life, that had--heretofore but feebly--come to her ears, the old lady had never believed, regarding them as the work of envy. But now they had been repeated to her by doña Bernarda, by a lady "in good standing," a good Christian, a person incapable of falsehood. And then after rehearsing that scandalous biography, Rafael's mother had come to the shocking effrontery with which her niece and Rafael were rousing the whole city; flaunting their wrong-doing in the face of the public; and turning her home, the respectable, irreproachable home of doña Pepa, into a den of vice, a brothel!

And the poor woman had wept like a child in her niece's presence, adjuring her to "abandon the wicked path of transgression," shuddering with horror at the great responsibility she, doña Pepa, had unwittingly assumed before God. All her life she had labored and prayed and fasted to keep her soul clean. She had thought herself almost in a state of grace, only to awaken suddenly and find herself in the very midst of sin through no fault of her own--all on account of her niece, who had converted her holy, her pure, her pious home into an ante-chamber of hell! And it was the poor woman's superstitious terror, the conviction of damnation that had seized on doña Pepa's simple soul, that wounded Leonora most deeply.

"They've robbed me of all I had in the world," she murmured desperately, "of the affection of the only dear one left after my father died. I am not the child of former days to auntie; that is apparent from the way she looks at me, the way she shuns me, avoiding all contact with me.... And just because of you, because I love you, because I was not cruel to you! Oh, that night! How I shall suffer for it!... How clearly I foresaw how it would all end!"

Rafael was humiliated, crushed, filled with shame and remorse at the suffering that had fallen upon this woman, because she had given herself to him. What was he to do? The time had come to prove himself the strong, the resourceful man, able to protect the beloved woman in her moment of danger. But where should he strike first to defend her?...

Leonora lifted her head from her lover's shoulder, and withdrew from his embrace. She wiped away her tears and rose to her feet with the determination of irrevocable resolution.

"I have made up my mind. It hurts me very much to say what I am going to say; but I can't help it. It will do you no good to say 'no'--I cannot stay under this roof another day. Everything is over between my aunt and me. Poor old woman! The dream I cherished was to care for her lovingly, tenderly till she died in my arms, be to her what I failed to be to father.... But they have opened her eyes. To her I am nothing but a sinner now and my presence upsets everything for her.... I must go away. I've already told Beppa to pack my things.... Rafael, my love, this is our last night together.... To-morrow ... and you will never see me again."

The youth recoiled as if someone had struck him in the breast.

"Going? Going ...? And you can say that coolly, simply, just like that? You are leaving me ... this way ... just when we are happiest ...?"

But soon he had himself in hand again. This surely could be nothing more than a passing impulse, a notion arrived at in a flash of anger. Of course she did not really mean to go! She must think things over, see things clearly. That was a crazy idea! Desert her Rafaelito? Absurd! Impossible!

Leonora smiled sadly. She had expected him to talk that way. She, too, had suffered much, ever so much, before deciding to do it! It made her shudder to think that within two days she would be off again, alone, wandering through Europe, caught up again in that wild, tumultuous life of art and love, after tasting the full sweetness of the most powerful passion she had ever known--of what she believed was her "first love." It was like putting to sea in a tempest with destination unknown. She loved him, adored him, worshipped him, more than ever now that she was about to lose him.

"Well, why are you going?" the young man asked. "If you love me, why are you forsaking me?"

"Just because I love you, Rafael.... Because I want you to be happy."

For her to remain would mean ruin for him: a long battle with his mother, who was an implacable, a merciless foe. Doña Bernarda might be killed, but never conquered! Oh, no! How horrible! Leonora knew what filial cruelty was! How had she treated her father? She must not now come between a son and a mother! Was she, perhaps, a creature accursed, born forever to corrupt with her very name the sacredest, purest relations on earth?

"No, you must be good, my heart. I must go away. We can't go on loving each other here. I'll write to you, I'll let you know all I'm doing.... You'll hear from me every day, if I have to write from the North Pole! But you must stay! Don't drive your mother to despair! Shut your eyes to the poor woman's injustice! For after all, she is doing it all out of her immense love for you.... Do you imagine I am glad to be leaving you--the greatest happiness I have ever known?"

And she threw her arms about Rafael, kissing him over and over again, caressing his bowed, pensive head, within which a tempest of conflicting ideas and resolutions was boiling.

So those bonds which he had come to believe eternal were to be broken? So he was to lose so easily that beauty which the world had admired, the possession of which had made him feel himself the first among men? She talked of a love from a distance, of a love persisting through years of separation, travel, all the hazards of a wandering life; she promised to write to him every day!... Write to him ... from the arms of another man, perhaps! No! He would never give up such a treasure; never!

"You shall not go," he answered at last decisively. "A love like ours is not ended so easily. Your flight would be a disgrace to me--it would look as if I had affronted you in some way, as if you were tired of me."

Deep in his soul he felt eager to make some chivalrous gesture. She was going away because she had loved him! He should stay behind, sad and resigned like a maid abandoned by a lover, and with the sense of having harmed her on his conscience! _Ira de diós_! He, as a man, could not stand by with folded arms accepting the abnegation of a woman, to stick tied to his mother's apron-strings in boobified contentment. Even girls ran away from home and parents sometimes, in the grip of a powerful love; and he, a man, a man "in the public eye" also--was he to let a beautiful girl like Leonora go away sorrowful and in tears, so that he could keep the respect of a city that bored him and the affection of a mother who had never really loved him? Besides, what sort of a love was it that stepped aside in a cowardly, listless way like that, when a woman was at stake, a woman for whom far richer, far more powerful men than he, men bound to life by attractions that he had never dreamed of in his countrified existence, had died or gone to ruin?...

"You shall not go," he repeated, with sullen obstinacy. "I won't give up my happiness so easily. And if you insist on going, we will go together."

Leonora rose to her feet all quivering. She had been expecting that; her heart had told her it was coming. Flee together! Have her appear like an adventuress, drawing Rafael on, tearing him from his mother's arms after crazing him with love? Oh, no! Thanks! She had a conscience! She did not care to burden it with the execration of a whole city. Rafael must consider the matter calmly, face the situation bravely. She must go away alone. Afterwards, later on, she would see. They might chance to meet again; perhaps in Madrid, when the Cortes reassembled! He would be there, and alone; she could find a place at the _Real_, singing for nothing if that should prove necessary.

But Rafael writhed angrily at her resistance. He could not live without her! A single night without seeing her would mean despair. He would end as Macchia ended! He would shoot himself!

And he seemed to mean it. His eyes were fixed on the floor as if he were staring at his own corpse, lying there on the pavement, motionless, covered with blood, a revolver in its stiffened hand.

"Oh, no! How horrible! Rafael, my Rafael!" Leonora groaned, clasping him around the neck, hanging upon him in terror.

Her lover continued to protest. He was free. Had he been a married man; if, in his flight, he were leaving a wife behind to cry betrayal, or children calling for his help in vain, it would all be a different matter. She could properly feel the repugnance of a kind heart unwilling that love should mean a shattered home! But whom was he abandoning? A mother, who, in a short time, would find consolation in the thought that he was well and happy, a mother jealous of any rivalry in her son's affection, and to that jealousy willing to sacrifice his very happiness! Any harm an elopement would bring would by no means be irreparable. No, they must go away together, parade their love through the whole world!

But Leonora, lowering her head again, repeated feebly:

"No, my mind is made up. I must go alone. I haven't the strength to face a mother's hatred."

Rafael flushed indignantly:

"Why not say outright that you don't love me. You're tired of me, and of this environment. The hankering for your old life has come over you again; your old world is calling!"

The actress fixed her great, luminous, tear-stained eyes upon him. And they were filled with tenderness and pity.

"Tired of you!... When I have never felt such desperation as tonight! You say I want my old life back. You don't realize that to leave here seems like entering a den of torture.... Oh, dear heart, you'll never know how much I love you."

"Well, then ...?"

And to tell everything, to spare no detail of the danger he would face after separation, Rafael spoke of the life he would lead alone with his mother in that dull, unspeakable city. Leonora was assuming that affection played some part in his mother's indignant opposition. Well, doña Bernarda did love him--agreed: he was her only son; but ambition was the decisive thing in her schemes, her passion for the aggrandizement of the House--the controlling motive of her whole life. She was openly, frankly, using him as security in an alliance she was planning with a great fortune. She wanted to marry him to money: and if Leonora were to go, if he were left alone, forsaken, then despair--and time, which can do all things--would break his will; and eventually he would succumb, like a victim at the altar, who, in his terror and abasement, does not sense the real significance of the sacrifice forced upon him.

The words reached a jealous spot in Leonora's heart. All the scattered rumors that had come to her ears in former days now echoed in her memory. She knew that Rafael was telling the truth. The man she loved, given away by his mother--to another woman!... Lost forever if she lost him now!... And her eyes opened wide with horror and revulsion.

"And I refuse, Leonora, do you understand? I refuse!" continued her lover with unaffected resolution. "I belong to you, you are the only woman I love. I shall follow you all over the world, even against your wishes, to be your servant, see you, speak to you, and there are not millions enough in the world to stop me!"

"Oh, my darling! My darling! You love me, you love me--as I love you!"

And in a frenzy of passion she fell impetuously, madly upon him, clutching him in her arms like a fury. In her caresses Rafael felt an intensity that almost frightened him. The room seemed to be whirling about him. Trembling, limp and weak, he sank to the divan, overwhelmed, pounded to pieces, it seemed, by that vehement adoration, that caught him up and carried him away like a tumultuous avalanche. His senses left him in that trembling confusion, and he closed his eyes.

When he opened them, the room was dark. Around his neck he could feel a gentle arm that was tenderly sustaining him, and Leonora was whispering in his ear.

Agreed! They would go together: to continue their love duct in some charming place, where nobody knew them, where envy and vulgarity would not disturb. Leonora knew every nook in the world. She would have none of Nice and the other cities of the Blue Coast, pretty places, coquettish, bepowdered and rouged like women fresh from their dressing tables! Besides there would be too many people there. Venice was better. They would thread the narrow, solitary silent canals there, stretched out in a gondola, kissing each other between smiles, pitying the poor unfortunate mortals crossing the bridges over them, unaware of how great a love was gliding beneath their feet!

But no, Venice is a sad place after all: when it rains, it rains and rains! Naples rather; Naples! _Viva Napoli_! And Leonora clapped her hands in glee! Live in perpetual sunshine, freedom, freedom, freedom to love openly, as nakedly as the _lazzaroni_ walk about the streets! She owned a house in Naples,--at Posilipo, that is--a _villino_, in pink stucco, a dainty little place with fig trees, nopals and parasol pines, that ran in a grove down a steep promontory to the sea I They would fish in the bay there--it was as smooth and blue as a looking-glass! And afternoons he would row her out to sea, and she would sing, looking at the waters ablaze with the sunset, at the plume of smoke curling up from Vesuvius, at the immense white city with its endless rows of windows flaming like plaques of gold in the afterglow. Like gipsies they would wander through the countless towns dotting the shores of the miraculous Bay; kissing on the open sea among the fisherboats, to the accompaniment of passionate Neapolitan boat-songs; spending whole nights in the open air, lying in each other's arms on the sands, hearing the pearly laughter of mandolins in the distance, just as that night on the island, they had heard the nightingale! "Oh, Rafael, my god, my king! How wonderful!"

When day dawned, they were still sitting there weaving fanciful plans for the future, arranging all the details of their elopement. She would leave Alcira as soon as possible. He would join her two days later, when all suspicion had been quieted, when everybody would imagine she was far, far away. Where would they meet? At first they thought of Marseilles, but that was a long way off! Then they thought of Barcelona. But that, too, meant hours of travel, when hours, minutes, counted for so much. It seemed utterly incredible that they could live two days without each other! No, the sooner they met again the better! And, bargaining with time like peasants in a market, at last they chose the nearest city possible, Valencia.

For love--true love--is fond of brazenness!

VII

They had just finished lunch among the trunks and boxes that occupied a great part of Leonora's room in the _Hôtel de Roma_ in Valencia.

For the first time they were at a table in familiar intimacy, with no other witness than Beppa, who was quite accustomed to every sort of surprise in her mistress's adventurous career. The faithful maid was examining Rafael with a respectful kindliness, as if he were a new idol that must share the unswerving devotion she showed for Leonora.

This was the first moment of tranquillity and happiness the young man had tasted for some days. The old hotel, with its spacious rooms, its high ceilings, its darkened corridors, its monastic silence, seemed to him a veritable abode of delight, a grateful place of refuge where for once he would be free of the gossip and the strife that had been oppressing him like a belt of steel. Besides, he could already feel the exotic charm that lingers around harbors and great railroad terminals. Everything about the place, from the macaroni of the lunch, and the Chianti in its straw-covered, heavy-paunched bottle, to the musical, incorrect Spanish of the hotel-proprietors--fleshy, massive men with huge mustaches in Victor Emmanuel style--spoke of flight, of delightful seclusion in that land so glowingly described by Leonora.

She had made an appointment with him in that hotel, a favorite haunt of artists. Somewhat off the main thoroughfares, the "Roma" occupies one whole side of a sleepy, peaceful, aristocratic square with no noise save the shouting of cab-drivers and the beating of horses' hoofs.

Rafael had arrived on the first morning train--and with no baggage; like a schoolboy playing truant, running off with just the clothes he had on his back. The two days since Leonora left Alcira had been days of torture to him. The singer's flight was the talk of the town. People were scandalized at the amount of luggage she had. Counted over in the imagination of that imaginative city, it eventually came to fill all the carts in the province.

The man who knew the business to the bottom was Cupido, the barber, who had dispatched the trunks and cases for her. He knew where the dangerous woman was bound, and he kept it so secret that everybody found it out before the train started. She was going back to Italy! He himself had checked and labelled the baggage to the Customs' House at the frontier--cases as big as a house, man! Trunks he could have lain down comfortable in, with his two "Chinamen" to boot! And the women, as they listened to his tale, applauded the departure with undissimulated pleasure. They had been liberated from a great danger. Joy go with her!

Rafael kept quite to himself. He was vexed at the curiosity of people, at the scoffing sympathy of his friends who condoled with him that his happiness was ending. For two days he remained indoors, followed by his mother's inquiring glances. Doña Bernarda felt more at ease now that the evil influence of the "chorus girl" promised to be over; but none the less she did not lose her frown. With a woman's instinct, she still scented the presence of danger.

The young man could hardly wait for the time to come. It seemed unbearable for him to be there at home while "she" was away off somewhere, alone, shut up in a hotel, waiting just as impatiently as he was for the moment of reunion.

What a sunrise it had been that day when he set out! Rafael burned with shame as he crept like a burglar in his stockings and on tip-toe, through the room where his mother received the orchard-folk and adjusted all accounts pertaining to the tilling of the land. He groped his way along guided by the light that came in through the chinks in the closed windows. His mother was sleeping in a room close by; he could hear her breathe--the labored respiration of a deep sleep that spelled recovery from the insomnia of the days of his love trysts. He could still feel the criminal shudder that rippled through him at a slight rattle of the keys, which had been left with the confidence of unlimited authority in the lock of an old chest where doña Bernarda kept her savings. With tremulous hands he had collected all the money she had put away in the small boxes there. A thief, a thief! But, after all, he was taking only what belonged to him. He had never asked for his share of his father's estate. Leonora was rich. With admirable delicacy she had refused to talk of money during their preparations for the journey; but he would refuse to live on her! He did not care to be like Salvatti, who had exploited the singer in her youth! That thought it had been which gave him strength to take the money finally and steal out of the house. But even on the train he felt uneasy; and _su señoria_, the deputy, shivered with an instinctive thrill of fear, every time a tricorne of the Civil Guard appeared at a railroad station. What would his mother say when she got up and found the money gone?

As he entered the hotel his self-confidence returned and his spirits revived. He felt as if he were entering port after a storm. He found Leonora in bed, her hair spread over the pillow in waves of gold, her eyes closed, and a smile on her lips, as if he had surprised her in the middle of a dream, where she had been tasting her memories of love. They ordered lunch in the room early, intending to set out on their journey at once. Circumspection, prudence, until they should be once beyond the Spanish border! They would leave that evening on the Barcelona mail for the frontier. And calmly, tranquilly, like a married couple discussing details of house-keeping in the calm of a quiet home, they ran over the list of things they would need on the train.

Rafael had nothing. He had fled like a fugitive from a fire, with the first clothes he laid hands on as he bounded out of bed. He needed many indispensable articles, and he thought of going out to buy them--a matter of a moment.

"But are you really going out?" asked Leonora with a certain anguish, as if her feminine instinct sensed a danger. "Are you going to leave me alone?..."

"Only a moment. I won't keep you waiting long."

They took leave of each other in the corridor with the noisy, nonchalant joy of passion, indifferent to the chamber-maids who were walking to and fro at the other end of the passageway.

"Good-bye, Rafael.... Another hug; just one more."

And as, with the taste of the last kiss still fresh on his lips, he reached the square, he saw a bejewelled hand still waving to him from a balcony.

Anxious to get back as soon as possible, the young man walked hurriedly along, elbowing his way among the cab-drivers swarming in front of the great _Palacio de Dos Aguas_, closed, silent, slumbering, like the two giants that guarded its portals, displaying in the golden downpour of sunlight the overdecorated yet graceful sumptuousness of its roccocò facade.

"Rafael! Rafael!..."

The deputy turned around at the sound of his name, and blanched as if he had seen a ghost. It was don Andrés, calling to him.

"Rafael! Rafael!"

"You?... Here?"

"I came by the Madrid express. For two hours I've been hunting for you in all the hotels of Valencia. I knew you were here.... But come, we have a great deal to talk over. This is not just the place to do it."

And the old Mentor glowered hatefully at the _Hôtel de Roma_, as if he wanted to annihilate the huge edifice with everybody in it.

They walked off, slowly, without knowing just where they were going, turning corners, passing several times through the same streets, their nerves tense and quivering, ready to shout at the top of their lungs, yet using every effort to speak softly, so as not to attract attention from the passers-by who were rubbing against them on the narrow side-walks.

Don Andrés, naturally, was the first to speak:

"You approve of what you've done?"

And seeing that Rafael, like a coward, was trying to pretend innocent astonishment, asking "what" he had done, observing that he had come to Valencia on a matter of business, the old man broke into a rage.

"Now, see here, don't you go lying to me: either we're men or we're not men. If you think you've acted properly, you ought to stand up for it and say so. Don't imagine you're going to pull the wool over my eyes and then run off with that woman to God knows where. I've found you and I'm not going to let you go. I want you to know the truth. Your mother is sick abed; she tipped me off and I caught the first train to get here. The whole house is upside down! At first it was thought a robbery had been committed. By this time the whole city must be agog about you. Come now!... What do you say to that? Do you want to kill your mother? Well, you're going about it right! Good God! And this is what they call a 'boy of talent,' a 'young man of promise'! How much better it would have been if you were a dunce like me or your father--but a dunce at least who knows how to get a woman if he has to, without making a public ass of himself!"

Then he went into detail. Rafael's mother had gone to the old chest to get some money for one of her laborers. Her cry of horror and alarm had thrown the whole house into an uproar. Don Andrés had been hastily summoned. Suspicions against the servants, a "third degree" for the whole lot, all of them protesting and weeping, in outrage! Until finally doña Bernarda sank to a chair in a swoon, whispering into her adviser's ear:

"Rafael is not in the house. He has gone ... perhaps never to return. I am sure of it--he took the money!"

While the others were getting the sobbing mother to bed, and sending for the doctor, don Andrés had made for the station to catch the express. He could tell from the way people looked at him that everybody knew what had been going on. Gossip had already connected the excitement in the Brull mansion with Rafael's taking the early train! He had been seen by several persons, in spite of his precautions.

"Well, is the Hon. don Rafael Brull, member from Alcira, satisfied with his morning's work? Don't you think the laugh your enemies have raised deserves an _encore_!"

For all his bitter sarcasm the old man spoke in a faltering voice, and seemed on the verge of tears. The labor of his entire life, the great victories won with don Ramón, that political power which had been so carefully built up and sustained over decades, was about to crumble to ruins; all because of a light-headed, erratic boy who had handed to the first skirt who came along everything that belonged to him and everything that belonged to his friends as well.

Rafael had gone into the interview in an aggressive mood, ready to answer with plain talk if that sodden idiot should go too far in his recriminations. But the sincere grief of the old man touched him deeply. Don Andrés, who resembled Rafael's father as the cat resembles the tiger, could think of nothing but Brull politics; and he was almost sobbing as he saw the danger which the prestige of the Brull House was running.

With bowed head, crushed by the realization of the scene that had followed his flight, Rafael did not notice where they were going. But soon he became conscious of the perfume of flowers. They were crossing a garden; and as he looked up he saw the figure of Valencia's conqueror on his sinewy charger glistening in the sun.

They walked on. The old man began in wailing accents to describe the situation which the Brull House was facing. That money, which perhaps Rafael still had in his pocket--more than thirty thousand _pesetas_--represented the final desperate efforts of his mother to rescue the family fortune, which had been endangered by don Ramón's prodigal habits. The money was his, and don Andrés had nothing to say in that regard. Rafael was at liberty to squander it, scatter it to the four winds of heaven; but don Andrés wasn't talking to a child, he was talking to a man with a heart: so he begged him, as his childhood preceptor, as his oldest friend, to consider the sacrifices his mother had been making--the privations she had imposed upon herself, going without new clothes, quarreling with her help over a _céntimo_, despite all her airs as a grand lady, depriving herself of all the dainties and comforts that are so pleasant to old age--all that her son, her _señor hijo_, might waste it in gay living on a woman! Thirty thousand! And don Andrés mentioned the sum with bated breath! It had taken so much trouble to hoard it! Come, man! The sight of such things was enough to make a fellow cry like a baby!...

And suppose his father, don Ramón, were to rise from the grave? Suppose he could see how his Rafael were destroying at a single stroke what it had cost him so many years to build up, just because of a woman!...

They were now crossing a bridge. Below, against the background of white gravel in the river-bed the red and blue uniforms of a group of soldiers could be seen; and the drums were beating, sounding in the distance like the humming of a huge bee-hive--worthy accompaniment, Rafael reflected, to the old man's evocation of the youth's father. Rafael thought he could almost see in front of him the massive body, the flourishing mustache, the proud, arrogant brow of don Ramón, a born fighter, an adventurer destined from the cradle to lead men and impose his will upon inferiors.

What would that heroic master of men have said of this? Don Ramón would give a lot of money to a woman--granted--but he wouldn't have swapped all the beauties on earth put together for a single vote!

But his son, the boy on whom he had grounded his fondest hopes--the redeemer destined to raise the House of Brull to its loftiest glory--the future "personage" in Madrid, the fondled heir-apparent, who had found his pathway already cleared for him at birth--was throwing all his father's labors through the window, the way you toss overboard something it has cost you nothing to earn! It was easy to see that Rafael had never known what hard times were--those days of the Revolution, when the Brulls were out of power and held their own just because don Ramón was a bad man with a gun--desperate election campaigns, when you marched to victory over somebody's dead body, bold cross-country rides on election night, never knowing when you would meet the _roder_ in ambush--the outlaw sharpshooter who had vowed to kill don Ramón; then endless prosecutions for intimidation and violence, which had given doña Bernarda and her husband months and months of anxiety, lest a catastrophe from one moment to the next bring prison and forfeiture of all their property! All that his father had gone through, for his boy's sake; to carve out a pedestal for Rafael, pass on to him a District that would be his own, blazing a path over which he might go to no visible limit of glory! And he was just throwing it all away, relinquishing forever a position that had been built up at the cost of years and years of labor and peril! That is what he would be doing, unless that very night he returned home, refuting by his presence there the rumors his scandalized adherents were circulating.

Rafael shook his head. The mention of his father had touched him, and he was convinced by the old man's arguments; but none the less he was determined to resist. No, and again no; his die was cast: he would continue on his way.

They were now under the trees of the Alameda. The carriages were rolling by, forming an immense wheel in the center of the avenue. The harnesses of the horses and the lamps of the drivers' boxes gleamed in the sunlight. Women's hats and the white lace shawls of children could be seen through the coach windows as they passed.

Don Andrés became impatient with the youth's stubbornness. He pointed to all those happy, peaceful-looking families out for their afternoon drive--wealth, comfort, public esteem, abundance, freedom from struggle and toil! _Cristo_, boy! Was that so bad, after all? Well, that was just the life he could have if he would be good and not turn his back on his plain duty--rich, influential, respected, growing old with a circle of nice children about him. What more could a decent person ask for in this world?