Marianela 30

Marianela 30

And Pablo, who was now kneeling on both knees, clasped his arms across

his breast.

 

"Oh! I do not know what I feel!" he went on, stammering, and turning

pale with agitation. "Every day I discover some new world, Florentina.

First I discovered the world of light, to-day I have discovered

another. Is it possible that you, so lovely--so divine--are to be mine,

the wife of my heart?"

 

He seemed about to fall to the ground in a fainting-fit, and Florentina

leaned forward to support him. Pablo took her hand, then lifting her

wide loose sleeve, he kissed her wrist and arm with eager passion,

counting the kisses.

 

"One--two--three--four--ah! I am dying!"

 

"Be quiet, stop," cried Florentina, standing up, and making her cousin

rise too. "Doctor Golfin will you scold him."

 

"Your bandage on, at once!" cried Teodoro: "Go to your room and keep

quiet."

 

The young man, in the utmost confusion turned to that side of the room

and brought his eyes to bear on the surgeon, standing by the sofa that

was covered with blankets.

 

"Are you here, Don Teodoro?" he said going up to him.

 

"Yes, I am here," said Golfin very gravely. "You ought to go back to

your room and put the bandage on again. I will go with you."

 

"I am perfectly well--but, of course, I will obey--only, first let me

see what is here."

 

He was looking at the blankets and, between them, at a ghastly head,

anything but fair to look upon. In fact Nela's nose seemed to have

become sharper, her eyes smaller, her mouth less well-formed, her face

more freckled, her hair thinner, and her forehead lower. Her eyes were

closed, she breathed with difficulty, her livid lips were parted, and

the hapless child seemed to be at her last gasp, with the look of death

on her face already.

 

"Ah!" exclaimed Pablo: "My father told me that Florentina had given

shelter to some poor creature. How good of her! You--poor child, you

may be thankful, for you have fallen into the hands of an angel!--Are

you ill? In my house you shall want for nothing; my cousin is the very

image of God on earth.--This poor child is very ill; is she not doctor?"

 

"Yes ..." said Golfin, "she must be left alone and hear no more

talking."

 

"Then I am gone."

 

Pablo put out his hand and laid it on the head which seemed to his

unaccustomed eyes the most terrible symbol of all human misery and

wretchedness. Nela raised her eyes and fixed them on her master. Pablo

felt as if they gazed at him from the depths of a tomb, so profound was

their __EXPRESSION__ of sorrow and despair; then Nela freed one hand from

beneath the coverings--a feeble, burning, rough little hand--and took

that of the young man. At her touch Pablo shuddered from head to foot,

and uttered a cry that came from his very soul.

 

There was a terrible pause--one of those lulls which precede the

catastrophes of life as they do the convulsions of nature, as though to

add to their solemnity.

 

Then, in a quavering voice that thrilled the by-standers with its

tragical sadness, Nela spoke:

 

"Yes, _Señorito mio_," she said, "I am Nela."

 

Slowly, and as if she were lifting some too heavy weight, she raised

her master's hand to her dry lips and kissed it--kissed it again--and

then, with a third attempt, her lips remained motionless on the lad's

hand.

 

They were all silent--looking at her. The first to break the silence

was Pablo.

 

"Is this you ..." he said, "you...." And the thoughts that crowded on

his mind checked his utterance of any. He would have liked to discover

some new language in which to utter them, just as he had already

discovered the two new worlds--of light, and of the love of external

beauty. He could do nothing but look at her--look at Nela and remember

that darkened world in which he had lived, his passions and the dreams

and errors of his blindness all wandering and lost in its obscurity.

Florentina, wiping away her tears, leaned over Nela to look into her

face, and Golfin, watching her and knowing too well what he saw,

exclaimed in a voice like a knell:

 

"It has killed her. The sight of you has killed her!"--then turning to

Pablo he said sternly: "Go, at once, to your room."

 

"Dying! dying so, without any cause!" cried Florentina in despair, and

laying her hand lightly on Nela's brow.

 

"María!" she said, "Marianela!"

 

She called her by her name again and again, leaning over her and

looking at her, as we might look over the margin of a well at some one

who has fallen into it and who is drowning in the depth and blackness

of its waters.

 

"She does not answer!" said Pablo, horror-stricken.

 

Golfin, watching her ebbing vitality, perceived that her pulse still

throbbed under his touch. Pablo bent over her, and putting his lips

close to her ear, he called her once more:

 

"Nela, Nela my friend--my dear!"

 

She turned a little, opened her eyes, and moved her hands. She looked

as if her spirit had returned from some far away flight. Seeing Pablo's

gaze fixed upon her with anxious curiosity, she turned aside abashed

and alarmed, and tried to hide her face as if she were a guilty thing.

 

"What is the matter with her?" asked Florentina vehemently. "Don

Teodoro, save her if you are a man.--If you do not save her you are a

charlatan!..."

 

The young girl's charitable instincts were spurring her to positive

rage.

 

"Nela!" repeated the lad in the deepest distress, and not yet recovered

from the shock which the sight of his little comrade had given him:

"You seem to be afraid of me--what have I done to you?"

 

The dying girl put out her hand to clasp Florentina's, and pressed it

to her breast, and then she did the same with Pablo's; afterwards she

once more pressed them both with all the strength she could command.

Her sunken eyes looked from one to the other, but her gaze was vague

and remote; it seemed to come from some inner depth of darkness and

despair, as though she were indeed the drowning wretch in the well,

sinking lower every instant. Suddenly her breathing became difficult;

she sighed, and clutched the two hands she held with convulsive energy.

 

Teodoro had turned the house upside down; had sent for medicines and

powerful stimulants, and was doing all in his power to arrest the swift

extinction of this young life.

 

"It is hard," he said, "to stop a drop of water that is trickling,

falling away--down, down, and within an inch or two of the great

Sea.--But I will try."

 

He sent away every one but Florentina, whom he kept in the room. But

the stimulants and irritants with which he endeavored to bring back

ebbing life to the frail body, only served to restore some little

muscular action, and in spite of this she was sinking every minute.

 

"It is cruelty!" cried Golfin desperately, as he snatched away the

mustard and the irritants. "We are tormentors and torturers. It is like

setting dogs on a dying man that the pain may keep him alive to suffer.

Away with it all!"

 

"And is there nothing to be done?"

 

"Nothing--but what God will do."

 

"But what is the matter with her?"

 

"Death!" he shouted with a delirious rage of grief, ill-befitting a

medical man.

 

"But what illness is it that has brought her to death?"

 

"Death!" he repeated.

 

"You do not understand me; I want to know of what...?"

 

"Of death.--How can I tell you whether it is shame, or jealousy, or

wounded pride, or grief, or disappointed love, that has killed her? A

strange catalogue of symptoms! No, no--we know nothing--nothing but

useless details."

 

"What! Doctors!"

 

"I tell you we know nothing--a little on the surface that is all."

 

"And this, what is this?"

 

"A sudden attack of inflammation--meningitis perhaps."

 

"And what is that?"

 

"A name.... Death!"

 

"But is it possible that any one should die--like this--without any

known cause, without any sort of disease? Oh! Don Teodoro, what is the

matter with her?"

 

"How should I know?"

 

"But you are a doctor?"

 

"Of eyes--not of passions."

 

"Passions!" exclaimed Florentina, looking down at the senseless girl.

"You--poor child--what passions are you dying of?"

 

"Ask your future husband."

 

Florentina stood lost in utter amazement.

 

"Poor thing!" she cried with a choked sob. "Can mere grief kill in this way?"

Marianela 29

Marianela 29

"I do not dislike Aldeacorba."

 

"Ah! little puss. I see which way the wind blows. Do you know that at

this very moment my brother is talking seriously to his son? Family

affairs! Well, and something very good is to come of it all--look, Don

Teodoro, at my daughter's face; it is as red as roses in May. Now, I

am off to hear what my brother has to say--what my brother has to say."

And the worthy man departed.

 

Golfin went back to Nela.

 

"Did she sleep last night?" he asked.

 

"Very little. I heard her sobbing and crying all night. But to-night

she shall have a good bed, for which I have sent to Villamojada, and I

will put her in the little room next to mine."

 

"Poor little Nela!" said the doctor. "You cannot imagine what an

interest I feel in this hapless creature. Some people would laugh at

it, but we, at any rate, are not made of stone. What little we have

done to improve the condition of this poor child, ought to be done

for a large proportion of the human race. There are many thousands of

beings in the world in the same plight as Nela. Who knows them? where

are they? They are lost in the desert of society--for society has its

deserts--in the dark places of life, in the solitudes of field labor,

in mines, in factories. We pass them without even seeing them--we

give them alms, perhaps, but without knowing them.--How are we to be

cognizant of so base a class of humanity! At first Nela attracted

me because I thought that hers was an exceptional nature; but, as

I have thought more, I have felt that hers is after all only one of

the commonest cases. It is an instance of the condition to which a

highly-organized moral nature must be reduced, a nature apt for good,

apt for learning, apt for virtue, but which can never develop its

powers in the neglect and isolation to which it is condemned. They live

blind in spirit, just as Pablo Penáguilas lived blind in body, though

he possessed the latent faculty of sight."

 

Florentina was listening with eager sympathy and intelligence to the

surgeon's speech.

 

"Look at her," he went on: "There she lies; she has a beautiful fancy,

acute feelings, and can love with devotion and tenderness. She is

gifted with a remarkable aptitude for every grace of mind, while, at

the same time, she is full of the grossest superstitions; her religious

ideas are vague, monstrous, and heterodox, and her moral sense needs

guidance as much as her natural intelligence. She has had no education

but what she has been able to give herself; like a tree that gets no

nourishment but that of its own withered and fallen leaves, she owes

absolutely nothing to any one else. In all her life she has never been

taught a single lesson, never heard a word of loving counsel, nor a

precept of pious dogma; she is guided entirely by ill-understood

examples which she adapts to her own instincts and desires. Her

criticisms are all her own, and as she is full of imagination and

feeling, and the strongest native impulse of her soul is to worship

something, she has worshipped Nature, after the fashion of primitive

races. All her ideals are naturalistic--and if you do not quite

understand what I mean, dear Florentina, I must explain myself more

exactly another time.

 

"She has a really artistic passion for form and beauty. Her whole

nature and her affections all centre round this idea. The gifts

and graces of the mind are to her an unknown realm of beauty, a

hardly-discovered land, of which she knows only so much as some

traveller might of a new country on whose shores he had been

shipwrecked. The great news of the gospel--the greatest achievement

of the spirit of humanity--has hardly even sounded in her ears; she

has the same faint suspicion of it that Asiatic nations may have

of European culture--and if you do not quite understand me, dear

Florentina, I must explain myself more exactly another time.

 

"But she is very capable of making rapid progress in a short time, and

of rising to a higher level, nay to our own. Show her a little light

and she will fly across the centuries--she has wandered from the

track, and cannot see far, but give her light and she will find her

way again. No one yet has ever put the torch in her hand, for Pablo

Penáguilas, in his own ignorance of all external truth, contributed

largely but unconsciously to increase her errors. Such a fantastic

and extravagant idealist was not the best master for a nature like

hers. We must set truth before the poor child, who is like a being

raised from the dead of a remote past; we will teach her to know the

graces of the mind; we will bring her down to our own century; we will

give her soul a strength which as yet it has not, and put a noble

Christian conscience in the place of her savage naturalism and wild

superstitions. We have an admirable field to work in, a virgin soil

on which to sow the seed of centuries of growth. We may make time fly

fast over her head, showing her the truth it has revealed, and so

create a new being--for indeed, dear Florentina, it is the same thing

as creating a new being--and if you do not quite understand me, I must

explain myself more exactly another time."

 

Florentina, though she made no pretensions to learning, thought that

she did understand what Golfin had meant by his quaint and original

harangue. She herself was about to add some remarks on the subject; but

at that moment Nela woke. Her eyes timidly wandered round the room, and

then rested alternately on the two faces that looked down at her.

 

"You are not frightened?" said Florentina gently.

 

"Frightened--no Señora; you are very kind--and the Señor too."

 

"Are you not glad to be here? what are you afraid of?"

 

Golfin took her hand. "Speak frankly and truly," he said: "Which of us

do you like best--Florentina or me?"

 

Nela made no reply, and the others smiled; but the child remained

moodily grave.

 

"Now, listen to me, you silly little thing," the surgeon went on: "You

have to make up your mind to live with one of us. Florentina will stay

here; I shall go away. Decide for one or the other--which do you like

best."

 

Marianela looked from one to the other without finding any definite

answer; finally her eyes rested on those of Golfin.

 

"I believe I am the man of her choice.--But that is not fair to

Florentina, Nela; she will be vexed."

 

The poor child smiled and, putting out a feeble hand to Florentina, she

murmured:

 

"I do not want to vex her."

 

But even while she spoke she turned ashy pale; she strained her neck,

her eyes seemed starting out of her head--she was listening to a sound

that was full of terrors to her. She had heard footsteps.

 

"He is coming!" exclaimed Golfin, sympathizing in his patient's alarm.

 

"Yes, here he comes!" cried Florentina, and she flew to the door.

 

It was he. Pablo had opened the door and walked softly into the

room--straight in, from the habit he had acquired during years of

blindness. He came in smiling, and his eyes, freed from the bandage,

which he had himself removed, looked straight before him. They were as

yet unaccustomed to the muscular action which makes them turn, and were

hardly aware of objects lying out of the direct line of vision. It was

literally true of him--as it is of many who never were blind in their

lives--that he only saw what was directly under his eyes.

 

"Cousin!" said he going towards her: "Why have you not been to see me

to-day? I have had to come to look for you. Your father told me you

were doing some work for the poor--so I suppose I must forgive you."

 

Florentina did not know what to say; she was annoyed. Pablo had not

observed either Golfin or Nela, and Florentina, intending to keep him

from approaching the sofa, went towards the window; then, picking up

some pieces of stuff, she sat down as if she were going to sew. The

full light of the sun fell upon her, shedding a vivid glow on all

her left side and giving the most charming relief to her pretty head

with its russet brown hair. Her beauty seemed radiant; like the very

personification and incarnation of light. Her hair was somewhat in

disorder, and her thin morning dress followed the graceful lines of her

slender figure, while her simple and dignified pose was worthy of the

noblest ideals of art.

 

"Cousin," she said with a slight frown on her pretty brow, "Don Teodoro

has not yet given you leave to-day to take your bandage off. That is

not right."

 

"He will give me leave presently," said the young man laughing. "And

it cannot hurt me; I am really quite well. And if it did do me harm, I

should not care.--No, I should not care if I became blind again, after

having seen you."

 

"And what good would that be to you?" said Florentina reprovingly.

 

"I was alone in my room, my father is gone out--after speaking to me

about you. You know what he said."

 

"No, I know nothing about it," said the girl, with her eyes fixed on

her work.

 

"But I know.--My father is very kind and reasonable, and we are very

fond of each other.... Well, when my father had left me, I took off

the bandage and looked out at the fields; I saw the rainbow and I

felt quite overcome with admiration, and with religious feeling too,

Florentina--I do not know why that grand spectacle, which I had never

seen before, should have given me so intense a feeling of the harmony

of creation. I do not know why, looking at the perfect blending of

its colors, I could not help thinking of you. I do not know why, as

I saw the rainbow, I said to myself: 'I have felt this all before.'

I felt again exactly as I felt when I first saw you, Florentina, my

darling. My heart seemed ready to burst my bosom, and I could not help

crying. I cried a great deal and my tears blinded me again for a few

minutes--I called you and you did not answer--when I could see again,

the rainbow had vanished. I went to look for you, I thought you were

in the garden--I went down stairs, up stairs, and here I am. And now,

here, I find you so lovely that I feel as if I had never seen you

rightly till to-day--never till to-day, because now I have had time

to learn to compare you with others. I have seen several women, and

they are all horrible by your side. I find it hard to believe that

you have lived through the years of my blindness.--Nay, nay. What I

believe is that you came into being at the moment when light dawned

upon my comprehension; that my own mind created you at the moment when

I first was lord of the visible world. They had often told me that

there was not a living creature to compare with you, and I would not

believe it--but I believe it now, as surely as I believe in the light

of heaven!"

 

And as he spoke he fell on one knee.

 

Florentina, startled and abashed, looked up from her sewing.

 

"Cousin--for pity's sake!" she murmured.

 

"Cousin for pity's sake!" exclaimed Pablo, with frank enthusiasm.

"Why, why, are you so lovely? My father is most reasonable; I can say

nothing against his arguments or his kindness.--Florentina, do you

know I thought I could never love you; I thought I could love some

one--not you. But what can I do? Thank God my love and my reason are

one! My father, to whom I confessed my mistake; told me that I had

loved a hideous monster. But now I can say that I worship an angel. The

ignorant blind man can see, and at last pay due homage to real beauty.

And yet I cannot help trembling--do you not see me tremble?--Seeing you I have but one desire, and that is, to take you in my arms and clasp you to my heart, enfolding you, holding you tightly--very tightly."

Marianela 28

Marianela 28

"She seems out of her mind."

 

"Does she know that I can see now?"

 

"I myself told her. But really I am sure she has lost her wits. She

says that I am the Holy Virgin and kisses my dress."

 

"That shows that you have produced the same impression on her as on

every one else. Nela is so sweet. Poor little girl! We must take care

of her, Florentina, and be kind to her--do not you think so?"

 

"She is ungrateful I am afraid," said Florentina sadly.

 

"No, never think so. Nela could not be ungrateful. She is a good

child--I am very fond of her. She must be found and brought here to

me."

 

"I will go."

 

"No--not you," said Pablo positively, taking his cousin's hand. "Your

duty, most undutiful cousin, is to take care of me. If Golfin does not

come soon to take off my bandage and put on my glasses, I shall do it

myself. I have not seen you since yesterday, and I cannot bear it--I

cannot bear it. Is Don Teodoro come?"

 

"He is down stairs with your father and mine. He will come up quite

soon. Have patience; you are as bad as a school-boy."

 

Pablo writhed with irritation.

 

"Light, light!" he cried. "It is a crime to keep me in the dark so

long. I cannot live like this--I shall die. I want what is the bread

of life to me; I want the use of my eyes. I have not seen you to-day,

cousin, and I am wild to see you. I am hungry, thirsty to see you.

Oh! thank God for real knowledge! Thank God for having created you,

sweetest of women, a combination of every beauty.--And yet, if after

having created beauty, God had not given us hearts to feel it, how

imperfect his work would have been! Light! light!..."

 

Teodoro came up and opened the gates of the outer world to him, filling

his soul with joy, and he passed a quiet day talking of a variety of

subjects. Not till the evening did his thoughts revert to that point

in his past life, which seemed to be diminishing and fading in the

distance, like vessels which on a clear day are lost on the horizon. It

was in the tone of a man who recalls some long past circumstance, that

Pablo asked: "Has not Nela made her appearance?"

 

Florentina replied that she had not, and they talked of other things.

 

In the course of the night, at a very late hour, Pablo heard the noise

of voices in the house. He fancied he heard those of Teodoro Golfin, of

Florentina, and of his father. But after that he slept quietly, though

haunted in his dreams by the images of all he had seen and the phantoms

of all he imagined. His dreams, which began tranquilly and smilingly,

afterwards became agitated and painful, for in some deep recess of

his soul, as though it were a vast cavern suddenly lighted up, rose

a medley array of the beautiful and the hideous forms of the outside

world--of passions awakened and memories buried--convulsing his whole

soul. The following day, as Golfin had promised, he left his room to

move about the house.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXI.

 

EYES THAT KILL.

 

 

The room which had been assigned to Florentina at Aldeacorba was the

pleasantest in the house. No one had used it since the death of Pablo's

mother; but Don Francisco, deeming his niece worthy to be lodged

there, had the room neatly arranged and added some little elegancies

which had been quite unknown to it in his wife's lifetime. The balcony

looked southwards and over the garden, so that the room was always

flooded with light and perfume, and cheered by the happy song of birds.

Florentina herself, during her few days' stay, had given it the stamp,

so to speak, of her own individuality; all sorts of small properties

and trifles betrayed the nature of the woman who lived in it, as you

may know a bird by its nest. If there are some persons who would make a

hell of a palace, so there are others who have only to enter a hovel to

make it a Paradise.

 

It was that very stormy day--I say that day, for I cannot name the

date; I only know that it was a day. It had rained all the morning;

then the sky had cleared, and at last, high above the misty whiteness

of the lower atmosphere, a rainbow threw its glorious arch. One end

rested on the oaks of Ficóbriga, close to the sea, and the other on

the woods of Saldeoro. Supreme in its simplicity the rainbow can be

compared to nothing else, any more than an absolutely ideal and typical

form can be. A rainbow is the epitome, the alpha and omega, of visible

color.

 

Florentina was in her room, not threading beads, nor embroidering

satin with gold thread, but cutting out garments from patterns made

of newspaper. She was squatting on the floor, in the attitudes of a

fidgetty child at play; now sitting on her heels, now on all fours, and

plying the scissors without a moment's respite. By her side was a heap

of pieces of woollen stuff, calico, cotton print, and other materials

that she had been, that very morning, to buy at Villamojada, in spite

of wind and weather; and snipping here, and cutting there, she was fast

evolving sleeves, skirts, and bodies. They were not perhaps models of

dressmaking, nor was the exactitude of the patterns to be entirely

relied on, for they also were of her own devising; however, she would

have been the first to acknowledge their shortcomings, and she hoped

that good-will might conduce to a happy result. Her worthy father had

said to her, as he saw her sitting to work:

 

"Bless me, child! one would think there were no dressmakers in the

world. You cannot imagine how it annoys me to see a young lady of good

position crawling about on the floor with shears in her hands.--It

is not at all the right thing. I cannot bear that you should work to

clothe yourself even, and am I to submit to see you working for others?

What are dressmakers for--heh? What are dressmakers for?"

 

"A dressmaker would do it much better than I shall," replied Florentina

laughing. "But then you see it would not be my doing, Papa; and to do

it myself is the very thing I most want."

 

He left her to her own devices; but not alone, for in the middle of the

alcove, between the bed and the wardrobe, stood an old-fashioned sofa

and on the sofa lay two blankets, and at one end, on a pile of pillows,

lay a weary little head. The face was haggard and colorless--asleep.

Sunk rather, in an uneasy lethargy, broken now and again by violent

starting and terrors. However, a calmer state had supervened by

mid-day, when Florentina's father came into the room again, followed by

Golfin. The surgeon went up to the sofa and leaned over Nela, watching

her face.

 

"She seems to be sleeping more quietly now," he said: "We must have no

noise."

 

"What do you think of my daughter?" said Don Manuel, laughing. "Do you

see all the trouble she is taking. Now be quite impartial, Don Teodoro:

Is there any reason why she should vex me? Honestly, when there is

no necessity for taking so much trouble, why should she do so? What

pleasure can it be to me to see my daughter wasting all I give her

for pin-money; wasting it on others; and besides this mania for low

occupations--for low occupations...."

 

"Let her please herself," replied Golfin, looking down admiringly at

the girl. "Every young lady has her own way of wasting her pin-money."

 

"And I am not to object if her charity brings her to destitution, to

bankruptcy!" exclaimed Don Manuel, marching up and down the room in

pompous indignation, with his hands in his pockets. "Besides, is there

no better method of charity than this? She wished to show her gratitude

to God for my nephew's recovery--well and good--very proper, a very

Christian feeling. But we shall see, we shall see."

 

He stopped in front of Nela and looked at her kindly.

 

"Now, would it not have been better," he said, "if, instead of

bringing this poor girl into the house, my daughter had organized

one of those grand charitable affairs, which are the fashion even at

court, and which give all the best people in society an opportunity

of displaying their good feeling? Why did you not think of holding a

lottery? We could easily have sold any number of tickets among our

friends, and have collected a handsome sum of money to give away to

charitable asylums. Why, you might have got up an association among

the gentry of Villamojada and the neighborhood, or have invited all

our acquaintance at Santa Irene de Campó to join you, and have held

meetings and collected a great deal of money.--Nay, why not have got

up a bull-fight? I would have undertaken to provide the beasts and the

men.--Or amateur theatricals?--Last night Doña Sofía and I were talking

of that very thing. Learn from her, my dear, learn from her. The poor

owe more to her than I can tell you. There are all the families who

live by the employment they get in working the lotteries--there are all

the professionals and subordinates who make money by the theatrical

performances! Oh! my dear, the paupers in the workhouse are not the

only poor! Sofía told me that they made a little fortune out of the

masked balls they gave this winter. A good deal of it was spent, of

course, in gas, in renting the theatre, in service, and so forth--still

there was a morsel of bread left for the poor after all.--But, if you

do not believe me, read the statistics, child--read the statistics."

 

Florentina laughed, and found no better answer than to repeat the

surgeon's apology for her:

 

"Every young lady has her own way of wasting her pin-money."

 

"But Don Teodoro," remonstrated Don Manuel, in great disgust: "You must

admit that no one else does it as my daughter does."

 

"I quite admit it," said Golfin with meaning, and looking at the girl:

"No one is like Florentina."

 

"And yet--with all her faults," said the father, drawing her to him:

"With all her faults, I love her better than my life. This little hussy

is worth her weight in gold.--Come, tell me, which do you like best, Aldeacorba de Suso, or Santa Irene de Campó?"

Marianela 27

Marianela 27

Golfin once more relieved him of the bandage, and giving him a pair of

suitable spectacles, he left him free to look about him.

 

"Oh! is that Nela! Merciful Heaven!" exclaimed Pablo enchanted.

 

"This is your cousin Florentina."

 

"Ah!" said the lad, coloring with confusion.

 

"That is my cousin. I had no idea any person could be so

beautiful.--Oh! thank God for giving me the faculty which enables me to

see anything so lovely. Cousin Florentina, you are like the most lovely

music--like the most perfect embodiment of some delicious harmony.--And

Nela, where is she?"

 

"You will have time enough to see her," said Don Francisco delighted.

"Try now to be calm."

 

"Florentina, Florentina!" repeated Pablo excitedly. "What is it in your

face that makes me feel as if the spirit of God himself was shining

through it? You stand in the midst of a glory which must, to be sure,

be the sun. Beams, rays seem to shine from your face.--Ah! at last I

know what the angels are like--and your dress, your hands, your hair,

seem to fill me with some new and strange sensation. What is it?"

 

"He is beginning to see color," muttered Golfin to himself. "He perhaps

perceives every object surrounded by the colors of the spectrum. But he

cannot estimate degrees of distance."

 

"I seem to have you inside my eyes," Pablo went on. "You seem to have

become part of my thoughts, and the sight of you comes upon me like a

memory; but a memory of what? I never saw any thing or any body before.

Can I have lived before I came into this world? I know not--but I knew

your eyes. And you, father--where are you? I have seen you--yes I have

pictured you too--you are just what I have loved. And now my uncle? You

are very much alike.--And where, where is that dear good Golfin?--bless

him!"

 

"Here, minding my patient," said the surgeon coming forward. "Here I am

as ugly as sin.--As you have never seen a lion or a Newfoundland dog,

you can have no idea of my style of beauty. They say I am exactly like

those two noble beasts."

 

"All good kind souls!..." said Pablo.

 

"But my cousin is the prettiest--oh! infinitely the prettiest. But

Nela, for pity's sake, where is Nela?"

 

They told him that his _lazarillo_ never came to the house, and that

they had been too busy to go to look for her, and he was extremely

distressed at this intelligence. They succeeded in soothing him, and as

they feared he might become feverish, they persuaded him to go to bed

and try to sleep.

 

The next day he was in a state of great prostration, but his vigorous

nature triumphed over everything. He begged to have a glass of water

and when he saw it, he exclaimed: "I feel as I were drinking at the

mere sight of water."

 

His __EXPRESSION__s were equally vivid and picturesque about everything he

saw which struck his fancy strongly. After correcting the defective

sphericity of the eye by means of glasses, which he tried one after

another, Golfin began to direct his attention to the differences and

combinations of colors, and the young man's sound mind and taste never

failed in distinguishing the ugly from the beautiful. Indeed, he felt

these two attributes as two absolute and distinct ideas, without

connecting them in any way with any notion of utility or, on the other

hand, of goodness. A butterfly which flew by accident into his room

enchanted him, but an ink-bottle he thought simply horrible, though

his father explained to him that it could not be otherwise, since its

use was to hold ink to write with. When he was shown two prints, one

of the Crucifixion, and one of Galatea riding in a shell and escorted

by Tritons and Nymphs, he preferred the second--which was a great

scandal to Florentina, who promised herself that she would teach him

to hold sacred things far above everything profane. He watched their

faces with the keenest attention, and the wonderful coincidence of

facial __EXPRESSION__ with language astonished him excessively. When he

saw the maids and other women about the place, he was greatly annoyed

if they were ugly or commonplace; indeed, his cousin's beauty made

him indifferent to any other woman. In spite of this he wanted to see

them all; his curiosity was like a raging thirst which nothing could

satisfy. Every day he was disappointed at never seeing Nela; but he was

so fond of Florentina that he could not bear her to leave him for a

moment.

 

On the third day Golfin said to him: "You have now made acquaintance

with a great many things--the marvels of this visible world. Now--you

must see yourself."

 

He brought a mirror, and Pablo looked in it.

 

"That is I!" he exclaimed with simple admiration. "It is difficult to

believe it. How have I come inside that hard still sheet of water?

What a wonderful thing glass is! It seems as if it could not be true

that men made that stony atmosphere.--My word! but I am not an ugly

fellow!--What do you say cousin? And you, when you look in this, do you

see yourself as pretty as you are? No, impossible. Look up into the sky

and you will find your image there. You may believe you see an angel

when you only look at yourself!"

 

That evening, when he was alone with her and she was giving him some

little help he needed as an invalid, Pablo said to her:

 

"Cousin, my father read me, I remember, a passage in history about

Christopher Columbus who discovered a New World, which no European had

ever seen before. That navigator opened the eyes of the Old World, so

that they saw another and more beautiful one. I cannot help thinking

of him as a man like Teodoro Golfin, and of Europe as a blind man to

whom America and its wonders were like a revelation of light. Well,

and I have seen a New World.--You are my America, you are that first

and lovely island where Columbus set foot on land. He never saw the

continent, with its vast forests and immense rivers, and I too perhaps

have not yet seen what is loveliest of all...." He broke off and sat

sunk in thought; then presently he asked:

 

"Where is Nela?"

 

"I cannot think what has come over the poor child," said Florentina. "I

suppose she does not wish to see you."

 

"She is bashful and very shy," replied Pablo: "She is afraid of

troubling us in the house. Florentina, I must tell you--in confidence,

that I love her dearly; you will love her too. I have a most eager

wish to see my good little comrade and friend."

 

"I will go and look for her to-morrow morning myself."

 

"Yes, do--but do not be gone long. When I do not see you I feel very

lonely; I have become accustomed to see you, and these three days have

been centuries of happiness.--Do not rob me of a minute. Last night my

father told me that after having seen you I ought never to want to see

another woman."

 

"What nonsense!" exclaimed the girl blushing. "There are plenty much

prettier than I am...."

 

"No, no; they all say no." Pablo vehemently declared, turning his

blindfold eyes towards his cousin, as if he could see her even through

his bandages. "They used to tell me so before, and I could not believe

it; but now that I have seen the world and know what beauty is, I

believe it--yes indeed I do. You are perfectly lovely; there is no

one--there can be no one more lovely.--Give me your hand." And he

grasped it eagerly in both of his.

 

"I laugh now," he went on, "to think of my absurd blind man's vanity,

of my foolish attempts to realize the true aspect of things without

seeing them. I believe that as long as I live I shall never forget the

surprise that the reality was to me. Reality! Oh, the man who knows it

not is blind indeed, a perfect idiot!--Florentina I was an idiot."

 

"No, cousin, you were always very clever and so you are still. But do

not let your fancy work too vividly now. It will soon be time to go to

bed. Don Teodoro particularly said that I was not to let you talk so

late, because it keeps you from sleeping; if you do not keep quiet I

shall go away."

 

"Is it night already?"

 

"Yes, quite night."

 

"But day or night I love to talk to you," Pablo persisted, tossing over

on his bed, on which he was lying dressed and very restless. "I will be

silent on one condition, and that is that you do not go away from my

side, and that, from time to time, you pat the bed with your hand that

I may know that you are there."

 

"Very well, so I will, and this is the first sign of life," said

Florentina, laughing and patting the mattress.

 

"When I hear you laugh, I feel as if a breath of sweet fresh air blew

round me, and all my senses help in some way to remind me of you. Your

image lives in my memory so vividly, that even with my eyes bandaged I

can see you still the same."

 

"Will you have done chattering or must I fetch Don Teodoro?" said the

girl gaily.

 

"No, no--stay quiet. I cannot be silent--if I were to be silent all my

thoughts--all I can see in my brain--would only torment me twice as

much. And you want me to go to sleep! Sleep! But I have you in here,

Florentina, making a turmoil in my brain, and driving me crazy. I am so

full of joy and rapture that I have no words to express them. All last

night I fancied I was talking to you and to Nela.--Poor little Nela! I

am most curious to see her.--Desperately curious."

 

"Well, I will find her to-morrow. Now, have done with your talking; if

you do not cease I shall go."

 

"No, stop. I will only talk to myself. I will say all the things I say

to you at night when I fancy we are alone together--I will remember

what you say to me."

 

"I?"

 

"Well, the things I can fancy I hear said in your voice--Now, do you be

silent, Señorita. I am alone now with my own imaginings."

 

The next day when Florentina came up to her cousin's room, she said:

 

"I brought Maraquilla up here and she ran away. Ungrateful little

thing!"

 

"And you did not look for her?"

 

"Where was I to look? She ran away from me. This evening I will go out

again and hunt her till I find her."

 

"No, no; do not go out," said Pablo eagerly. "She will come back, she will come of her own accord."