Marianela 14

Marianela 14

"I cannot but think, dear Sofía, that you are unreasonably devoted to

the little dog. To be sure a dog that cost two hundred _duros_, is

indeed a dog among dogs. Still, I cannot but ask myself how it is that

you have spent time and money in making a great-coat for his highness

the terrier, while it has never occurred to you to buy a pair of shoes

for Nela."

 

"Shoes for Nela!" exclaimed Sofía laughing. "What for, I should like

to know. She would have worn them through in two days. You may laugh

at me as much as you please--well, I admit that my affection for Líli

amounts to an extravagance; still, you cannot accuse me of want of

charity.--Nor indeed, I must say, should I ever allow you to take

such a liberty," and as she spoke she drew herself up with a solemn

look of offended dignity. "As to knowing how to exercise charity

with due prudence and judgment, I believe I may hold my own with

any one, be it whom it may--for charity does not consist merely in

giving without rhyme or reason, not knowing whether your alms are well

or ill-bestowed. Do you suppose you can teach me anything? My dear

Teodoro, I am quite as experienced in such matters as you are in the

treatment of eyes."

 

"I know, I know, my dear.--You have done wonders. You need not tell me

for the fiftieth time of all the dramatic entertainments, balls and

bull-fights, you have got up for the benefit of the poor, nor of the

lotteries, which have brought in large sums; though, after providing

food for any number of idle vagabonds, there has been but a small

fraction left for the sick and suffering! All these facts only go to

prove to my mind the singular state of a society, which cannot be

charitable without dancing, bull-fights or lottery tickets.--No, we

need not discuss all that; I know and admire those heroic achievements;

they have their good side, and that not a small one. But you and your

gay friends very rarely put yourself in connection with any poor soul,

to learn from his own lips the cause and history of his misery, or to

discern what kind of wretchedness it is that oppresses him--for there

are, actually, some troubles so extraordinary that the gift of a few

coppers can do nothing to alleviate them, no, nor even a morsel of

bread."

 

"Here we have our philosopher well astride on his hobby," said Sofía

spitefully. "Pray how do you know what I have ever done, or what I

ought to do?"

 

"Nay, do not be vexed," said Golfin; "for all my discourse tends to a

single point, and that is that Nela should have shoes."

 

"Very well, then to-morrow morning I will buy her a pair."

 

"No--for I will buy them myself this evening. Do not poach on my

preserves, Señora."

 

"Here--Nela," cried the lady, seeing that she had gone some distance

ahead. "Do not go so fast; keep in sight that I may see what you are

about."

 

"Poor little creature!" said her husband. "Who could guess she was

sixteen years old!"

 

"She is dreadfully stunted, miserable little thing!" exclaimed

Sofía. "I cannot help asking, why God should permit such creatures to

live? And again I ask myself, what in the world can be done for her?

Nothing--nothing, but to feed and clothe her after a fashion--but you

see, she tears everything she puts on. She cannot labor because she

faints away--she has not strength enough to do any kind of work. She

skips from stone to stone, or climbs the trees, playing and chattering

the whole day long and singing like the birds; what clothes she has are

soon reduced to rags...."

 

"And yet," said Cárlos, "I have noticed that she is very intelligent.

There is a great deal of acuteness and cleverness under that simple

exterior and wild rusticity. No, no, Nela is no fool by a long way.

If any one had taken the trouble to teach her anything, she would

have learnt it better, perhaps, than most children. Would you believe

it? Nela has a great imagination; but lacking, as she does, the most

rudimentary knowledge, it has of course, made her sentimental and

superstitious."

 

"In point of fact she is in the condition of all primitive races," said

Teodoro. "She is at the pastoral stage of civilization."

 

"Only yesterday," Cárlos went on, "I was passing by La Trascava and I

saw her sitting exactly where we found her again just now. I called her

and made her come to me, and I asked her what she was doing there; and

with the most perfect simplicity she told me she was talking with her

mother.--You know, perhaps, that Nela's mother threw herself into that

chasm."

 

"That is to say that she killed herself," said Sofía. "She was a

woman of bad character and worse feeling, from all I have heard of

her. Cárlos was not living here then, but they say she drank like a

stoker. And I ask you: Do these vile creatures, who end a life of sin

by committing the greatest crime of all--Suicide--deserve any pity from

the human race? There are things too horrible to contemplate--wretches

that ought never to have been born. Teodoro may argue as much as he

likes, but I cannot help asking you...."

 

"Ask nothing, my dear sister," said Teodoro warmly. "For I could only

reply that the suicide deserves our deepest and fullest pity. So far as

abuse goes, heap it on her by all means, and as much as you please; but

at the same time it might be as well to enquire what were the causes

that brought her to such a fearful extremity of desperation--and I may

add that if society had not wholly abandoned her and left her no way

out but the yawning door of that hideous abyss which seemed to invite

her...."

 

"Abandoned by society! Well, some must be ..." said Sofía flippantly.

"Society cannot take care of every one. Look at the statistics of

population--only look, and you will see how many poor there are to

provide for. Besides, supposing society does overlook some--what is

religion for?"

 

"I am speaking of those poor wretches who add to all their other

miseries, ignorance, which is the greatest of all. An ignorant soul,

debased and superstitious, has none but the vaguest and absurdest

ideas of God. The sense of something Great and Unknown, instead of

withholding him, impels him to crime. It is rarely indeed that the

thought of religion is of any good to those who vegetate in stolid

ignorance. No intelligent friend ever goes near them, neither master

nor priest; the only superior they ever come into contact with, is the

judge who tries them.

 

"It is strange to see how inexorably you condemn what, after all, is

your own work!" he went on, twisting the stick on which his hat was

still mounted. "You stand looking straight before you, seeing at the

very threshold of your own comfortable homes a crowd of neglected

creatures, deprived of everything that childhood needs, from parents

to playthings--you see them, I say, without its ever occurring to you

to raise them an inch in the world, by telling them that they too are

human beings, and giving them some of the ideas they so deplorably

lack, without ever dreaming of ennobling them by lifting them out of

their brutalizing, mechanical toil, to some intelligent work; you see

them dwelling in filthy hovels, ill-fed, sinking lower day by day in

their savage squalor, and it never occurs to you to spare for them a

little of the comfort and luxury that surround you! You save all your

energies to declaim against murder, robbery and suicide, without ever

reflecting that you are, in fact, keeping open school for these three

crimes."

 

"You seem to forget that there are houses of refuge, hospitals,

asylums ..." said Sofía tartly. "Read statistics, Teodoro, and you will

see the number of miserable creatures.... Read statistics."

 

"I do not read statistics, my dear sister, and your statistics count

for nothing with me. Asylums are good--not that they can ever solve the

great problem of orphanage. A hapless orphan, dropped in the streets

or in the fields, bereft of all personal affection, and cared for only

by a town council--rarely, indeed, is the vacuum filled which yawns

in his soul for the love of a parent--not to speak of the vacuum where

self-respect, honor, and responsibility ought to be, and so rarely are

found. And on that point I have an idea of my own--but, perhaps, it

will appear to you absurd...."

 

"Tell us, at any rate."

 

"The problem of orphanhood, and the miseries of infancy, will never

be completely and finally solved, any more than the rest of our great

social problems; still, it will be lightened when custom, supported by

law--yes, by law, you see I am in earnest--when custom and law insist

that every orphan, whatever its birth--do not laugh--has a right to

claim adoption by some married couple in easy circumstances, and who

have no children. By this plan, there will be no childless parents, and

no fatherless children."

 

"Yes, by this plan," retorted Sofía, "we should be parents to Nela!"

 

"And why not?" said Teodoro. "At the same time you would not waste

two hundred _duros_ in buying a dog, nor the livelong blessed day in

talking nonsense to his highness, Master Líli."

 

"And why are rich bachelors to be exempt under this delightful law? Why

should not they also be burthened, each with his orphan?"

 

"I have no objection ..." said the doctor; he was looking at the

ground. "But what is this? Blood?"

 

They all looked down, and at regular intervals they saw small spots of

blood.

 

"Mercy!" cried Sofía, covering her eyes. "It is Nela--see, it is where

she has trodden; these are her footmarks."

 

"Oh yes! I see. It was when she went into the brambles to fetch your

precious dog. Nela, come here."

 

Nela, whose right foot was bleeding a good deal, came hobbling back

again.

 

"Give me my poor Líli," said the lady, taking the dog out of the ragged

child's arms. "Do not hurt him; does it hurt you much? Poor little

thing.--Oh! how it is bleeding.--I cannot bear to look at it." And

Sofía turned her back to spare her sensitive nerves, hugging Líli more

closely.

 

"Let us see what has happened," said Teodoro, lifting Nela up and

seating her on a high stone that was at hand. Then, putting on his

spectacles, he said: "It is quite a trifle, only a few scratches; there

is a thorn in here I rather think.--That hurts you? Yes, just so, here

is the villain.--Wait a minute. Now, Sofía if you cannot look on at a

surgical operation, you had better walk on."

 

While his sister went slowly forward to save her nervous system this

terrible shock, Golfin took a small case out of his pocket and a pair

of tweezers out of the case, and in less than a winking the thorn was

extracted.

 

"That is a brave little woman," he said to Nela, who had not even

winced. "Now we will tie this foot up." And he bound it round with his

handkerchief. Marianela jumped down to walk and Cárlos offered her his hand.