Marianela 12

Marianela 12

"Where is our seat?" asked the young man. "Let us go there; we shall be

sheltered from the wind."

 

Out of the bottom of the great cutting they went up by a rough

foot-path, that had been made between broken stones and earth overgrown

with rank fennel, and at the top they sat down under the shelter of

an enormous crag, rent across the middle. The two halves of the rock,

standing opposite each other, with their jagged faces, looked for all

the world like two yawning jaws trying to meet and close.

 

"How pleasant it is here!" Pablo said. "Sometimes there is a

disagreeable draught through this chasm, but I do not feel it to-day.

What we hear is the trickling water down inside the bowels of La

Trascava."

 

"It is very quiet to-day," observed Nela. "Would you like to lie down?"

 

"That is a good idea! Last night I could not sleep, for thinking of

all my father had said to me, of the doctor, of my eyes.--All night I

felt as if a hand went into my eyes and opened a closed and moss-grown

door." As he spoke he stretched himself at full length and laid his

head on Nela's knees.

 

"A door," he went on, "which was quite in my inmost feeling, opened,

as I tell you, showing a way into a room where the idea that haunts me

was shut up. Oh! Nela of my heart, best beloved, idolized darling, if

only God would grant me the sense I lack. Then I should think myself

the happiest of men--for I am almost that already, merely from having

you to be the friend and companion of my life. Very little is needed

to make us two one--nothing but to see you and rejoice in your beauty,

with that joy in seeing which I cannot even comprehend, since I have

only a vague conception of it. I have a questioning spirit only because

I have no power to see for myself. I fancy it will be like a new way

of loving you. I think of nothing but your beauty, still, there is

something in it which I cannot realize as my own."

 

"Hark!" said Nela suddenly, with evident interest in something quite

distinct from what her friend was saying. "Do not you hear?"

 

"What?"

 

"Down in there--La Trascava--it is talking."

 

"Superstitious child! water cannot talk, my Nela. What language could a

driblet of water speak? There are but two things which speak, my sweet:

the tongue and the conscience."

 

"And La Trascava," said Nela, turning paler. "It is a whisper only:

'Yes, yes, yes,' it says. And sometimes I can hear my mother's voice,

saying quite plainly. 'My little girl, it is very pleasant down here.'"

 

"It is all your fancy. Well, fancy talks too; I forgot that. My

imagination sometimes chatters so fast, that I have to tell it to be

silent. Its voice is loud, persistent, intolerable; that of conscience

is deep, calm, convincing; there is no answering or refuting it."

 

"Now it sounds as if it were crying," said Nela, still listening to the

bubbling water. "It is dying away little by little."

 

Suddenly a light gust came up from the chasm.

 

"There, it sighed deeply--did not you hear? Now I hear the voice again;

it is speaking low, and it says to me in a whisper, a tiny whisper in

my ear...."

 

"Well, what does it say?"

 

"Nothing," said María shortly, after a pause. "You say it is all

nonsense--you may be right."

 

"I will get all these absurd ideas out of your head," said the blind

youth taking her hand. "We are going to live together all our lives.

Oh! Heavenly Father! If I am never to enjoy the blessing of which

Thou didst deprive me at my birth, why hast Thou allowed me to hope?

Hapless wretch that I am, if I am not born anew under the hands of

Doctor Golfin. A new birth indeed--a new life! Oh! my darling, I swear

to you by the image of God that exists in my soul, glorious, real and

immutable, that you and I will never part by my will. I shall have

eyes, Nela, eyes to delight in your presence, and then I will marry

you. You will be my beloved wife--life of my life, and the joy and

pride of my soul.--And do you say nothing to this even?"

 

Nela bent her head down over the lad's handsome face; she wished to

speak, but could not for emotion.

 

"And if God will not after all vouchsafe me this mercy," added Pablo,

"still you will not leave me, still you will be my wife--unless it

horrifies you to think of marrying a blind man. Indeed, my dearest, I

ought not to inflict such a burden on you. You will meet some good

man who will love you, and who will make you happy. Your wonderful

kindness, your noble feelings, your sweet face, must win many hearts

and inspire the purest love in all who have to do with you--your future

cannot fail to be bright and happy. I swear to you that I shall love

you as long as I live; seeing or blind, I devote myself to you before

God in the fullest, most perfect, and most unbounded love.--Will you

not speak to me, Nela?"

 

"Yes--I love you dearly--very, very dearly ..." said Nela, putting her

face close to his. "But do not be anxious to see me. Perhaps I am not

so nice as you fancy."

 

As she spoke, Nela felt in her pocket and brought out a piece of

silvered glass, a dull and useless fragment of a cheap mirror, which

had been broken a week since in the Centeno household. In this she

looked at herself. The image was all awry, and in consequence of the

small size of the looking-glass she was obliged to study it a bit at

a time, first one eye and then her forehead, till, holding it farther

off, she could command a view of half her face at once. But alas! the

result of her investigations was sad enough--as she looked in the

glass, the tears started from her eyes.

 

"Nela, I felt a drop on my forehead--it is raining."

 

"Yes, my child, it seems to be raining," said Nela with a gulping sob.

 

"No--you are crying.--Something in my heart tells me so. You are

goodness itself; your soul and mine are united by some divine and

mysterious bond; they can never be parted--is it not true? they are two

halves of one whole.--Are they not?"

 

"Quite true."

 

"Your tears give me a plainer answer than words could. You love me do

you not, and will always love me, just the same whether I recover my

sight or remain blind?"

 

"The same, just the same!" cried Nela vehemently.

 

"And will always stay with me?"

 

"Always."

 

"Then listen," cried the blind lad in passionate rapture. "If I had to

choose between remaining blind and losing you, I would choose...."

 

"You would choose to remain blind! Oh! merciful Mother of Heaven! how

happy--how happy I am!"

 

"I would choose not to see your sweet face with these eyes, for I can

see it in my soul as clearly as truth. You live here, in my heart, and

to me you are more lovely and enchanting than anything on earth."

 

"Oh! yes, yes," cried Nela half-crazed. "I must be beautiful--I must be

lovely!"

 

"Listen," said Pablo, "I have a presentiment, a sure anticipation. It

is as though the voice of God within me promised me that I should have

my sight, that I shall see you, that we shall be happy. Do you not feel

it yourself?"

 

"I--yes, I feel sure you will see...."

 

"I shall see your face--what happiness!" cried the blind boy in the

high-pitched ecstatic tone, which was peculiar to him in moments of

excitement.--"But I see it already, I see it now in my heart as plainly

as the truth in my soul."

 

"Yes, yes, oh! yes," Nela repeated wildly, with wide-open eyes and

quivering lips. "It is true, I am, I must be, beautiful!"

 

"Bless you, sweet one!"

 

"And you," she said gravely, kissing his forehead. "Now, are you not

sleepy?"

 

"Yes, I am beginning to be sleepy. I did not sleep all night. And I am

so comfortable here."

 

"Then sleep, my child...."

 

And she began to sing a lullaby. In a few minutes he was asleep; but

Nela sat listening to the voice of La Trascava, which said: "Daughter

come ... daughter come."

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER IX.

 

THE BROTHERS GOLFIN.

 

 

Teodoro Golfin did not waste his time at Socartes. The first day

after his arrival he spent several hours in his brother's laboratory,

and during the following days he went from one part of the mines to

another, examining and admiring all he saw--here the awful might of

natural forces, and there the power and enterprise of human skill. At

night, when all was still in the busy village, and nothing was awake

but the snorting furnaces, the worthy doctor, who was an enthusiastic

musician, listened with delight to his sister-in-law's piano; Señora

Sofía, was Don Cárlos' wife, but their children were all dead.

 

The two brothers were devotedly attached to each other. Born in the

humblest rank of life, they had struggled hard in early youth to rise

above ignorance and poverty, often on the point of giving way to the

difficulties that beset them; but the impetus of manly determination

was so strong in them, that at length, gasping for breath, they

reached the longed-for land, rising superior to the beating waves

in which vulgar souls splash and struggle in a perpetual state of shipwreck.