Marianela 21

Marianela 21

Nela began to cry again.

 

"She is like an angel!" she said with a flood of tears. "She looks as

if she had just come straight from Heaven. Body and soul she is exactly

like the Holy Virgin Mary."

 

"Oh! do not exaggerate," said Pablo uneasily. "She cannot be so lovely

as you say. Do not imagine that because I have no eyes I cannot feel

who is beautiful and who is not."

 

"No, no, you cannot feel it, you do not understand.--Oh! you are

mistaken, quite mistaken."

 

"No, no. She cannot be so beautiful," the blind lad insisted, turning

very pale as he spoke. "Nela, darling of my heart, do you know what my

father told me? That if I recover my sight I am to marry Florentina."

 

Nela could not answer; her tears continued to flow in silence, pouring

down her burning cheeks and dropping on her hands. But not even the

bitterest tears could give __EXPRESSION__ or relief to her intense grief.

It was immeasurable, infinite, that was all she knew.

 

"I know why you are crying so much," the blind youth said holding

her hands very tightly in his own. "But my father will not insist on

making me marry against my will. For me there is no wife in the world

but you. When my eyes can see, they will care for no beauty but your

heavenly face; all others will be but shades, too remote and dim to

attract my gaze. Oh God! what is a human face like? How does the soul

stand revealed in flesh? If light cannot avail to give another aspect

to thought and fancy, of what use is it at all? That which we conceive

of and that which is--are they not one and the same thing? Are not the

idea and the form the same to each other as fire and heat? Can they be

separated? And can you cease to be the fairest in the world to me, the

sweetest and best beloved, when I am lord of the vast domain of the

visible?"

 

Florentina now rejoined them, and they talked as they went home; but

nothing more was said of sufficient interest to be set down here.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XVI.

 

THE VOW.

 

 

Nothing of importance occurred on the two following days, but then

there came one on which the deed was done, the wonderful, crowning,

fateful deed. Teodoro Golfin, in whose hands the surgeon's knife was

as the chisel of a Genius, had attempted to amend one of Nature's most

delicate works. Unflinching and calm he took possession, as it were, in

virtue of his science and experience, of the marvellous speck in which

the glorious scheme of the Universe is epitomized and concentrated. The

task before him was nothing less than to stand face to face with the

mystery of Life; to investigate and discover the causes which hindered

a living eye from taking cognizance of things visible. For this a firm

soul was needed and a tender hand. The delicate tissue of the cornea

must be divided, the crystalline lens removed, carefully avoiding the

hyaloid membrane and the vitreous humor; the dimensions of the pupil

must be increased by an incision, and the condition of the inner

chamber of the eye ascertained by induction or by examination.

 

Few words were spoken after this daring expedition into a microcosm--an

enterprise not less bold than the attempt to measure the distance

between the stars, or to gauge the infinite realms of space. Those

who were present sat in silent suspense, as they might await the

resurrection of a dead man or the creation of a new world. Golfin said

nothing definite either:

 

"Iris contractile," he muttered. "Retina sensitive.... Nerves living

and sound...." And yet the function, the fact, the act of seeing--where

was that?

 

"Time will show," said Don Teodoro, as he carefully adjusted the

bandages. "Patience."

 

And his leonine face expressed neither disappointment nor triumph,

neither hope nor doubt. Science had done all she could; it was almost

like an act of creation, like many others she has enabled us to

perform in this nineteenth century. Nature, thus boldly defied and

resenting such an intrusion on her secrets, held her peace.

 

The patient was strictly forbidden to see any one but his father,

who waited on him; no one else was admitted. Nela went several times

to enquire for the invalid; but she never crossed the threshold, she

waited outside till Don Manuel should come out, or his daughter, or

some member of the household. The young lady, after giving her the

fullest information and painting in lively colors the anxiety they all

felt, would go out to walk with her. One day Florentina insisted that

Nela should show her where she lived, and they went down to Centeno's

hovel; the squalid interior horrified and disgusted Florentina; above

all, the baskets which served as the orphan's bed.

 

"Well, Nela will very soon come to live with me," said Florentina,

getting out of the stuffy hole as fast as she could, "and then she will

have a bedroom just like mine, and will dress and feed as I do."

 

Dame Centeno and her two girls stood open-mouthed with astonishment at

this speech. They began to think that the hapless and neglected orphan

must have found her father in some Prince or King, as the orphans do in

the tales.

 

When they had left the house behind them Florentina said to her

companion: "Pray to God day and night that He may grant my dear cousin

the blessing which we all enjoy and which He has denied to him. What an

anxious state we live in! If he gains his sight a thousand delightful

things will follow and many difficulties will be removed. I have made a

solemn vow to the Virgin; I have promised that if she grants my cousin

his sight I will take under my care the very poorest creature I can

find, and give her all that can make her entirely forget her poverty,

making her my own equal in every respect, as happy and as comfortable

as I am. And it is not enough merely to give her clothes, or set her

down to a table with plenty of soup and meat. No, there is another

charity which is worth more than all the broken food and frippery in

the world--kindness, respect, consideration, and a name. I will give

her these too, and teach her to respect herself. I have found the

person I want, María--it is you. I have promised the Holy Virgin from

the bottom of my soul that if she will bestow the gift of sight on my

cousin, you shall be my sister. You shall be the same as myself, in my

house, exactly like my sister." As she spoke Nela's Virgin clasped the

girl in her arms and kissed her on the forehead.

 

It is impossible to give any idea of the poor little vagabond's

feelings in this crowning hour of her life. An instinctive dread kept

her away from the house at Aldeacorba, a dread that was dimly mixed up

with the personality of her young benefactress, like the figures we see

in a nightmare; while, at the same time, she felt tender admiration and

reverence for her. Now and again, in her innocent bewilderment, she

fancied it must be the Virgin Mary in her actual presence; in no other

way could she conceive of the kind-heartedness which smiled upon her,

like the realms of Paradise, from the open soul of Florentina, with

its purity, tenderness, gentleness, and gracious consolations. Nela's

honest instinct made her feel and understand at once that she could not

hate her self-constituted sister. Hate her! How could she? She felt

she must love her with all the strength of her soul. Her aversion and

repulsion sank to the bottom like a sediment after fermentation, and

there decomposed and vanished, their elements recombining to intensify

the admiration and respect she felt for her benefactress. Still, though

the feeling had disappeared, the cause remained--the sentiment which,

as it could no longer flourish singly in her soul, with that masterful

exclusiveness which is characteristic of such passions, revenged

itself by producing that utter dejection which is the very demon of

melancholy.

 

At Centeno's they remarked that Nela did not eat, that she seemed

wearier than usual, that for long intervals she sat as silent and

motionless as a statue, and that she sang no longer, day or night. Her

incapacity for exertion had become absolute helplessness, and Tanasio,

having sent her to buy him some tobacco, she sat down in the road and

remained there for the rest of the day.

 

One morning, just a week after the operation had been performed, she

went up to the engineer's house, and Sofía said to her: "A gift for

good news Nela! Have you heard? They have taken off the bandages

to-day, and they say he can see, that he will see quite well. Ulysses,

the foreman of the works, has just been to tell us. Teodoro has not

been here, but my husband has gone to Aldeacorba--we shall know the

truth very soon."

 

Nela, as she heard it, felt more dead than alive, and crossing her

hands she exclaimed: "Blessed be the Holy Virgin who has worked this

wonder!--She, she alone has done it."

 

"You are glad little one?--No wonder, for now Señorita Florentina

will keep her promise," said Sofía in a bantering tone. "Allow me to

congratulate you, Señorita Doña Nela.--Why it is like a lottery! What

a big prize, Nelilla! And yet you may not be grateful--no, you will

not. I never yet knew any poor who were grateful. They are all proud,

and the more you give them the more they ask.--Well, it is a settled

thing that Pablo is to marry his cousin, and it is a very good match;

they are a handsome pair and she seems no fool--and she has a sweet

pretty face; what a pity to spoil such a face and figure by dressing so

villanously! No, no, if I want to dress well I will not apply to the

dressmaker at Santa Irene de Campó."

 

As she spoke Don Cárlos came in; he was radiant with satisfaction and

delight.

 

"A complete success!" he shouted as he reached the door. "Next to God

stands my brother Teodoro!"

 

"It is quite certain?"

 

"As sure as daylight--I never believed it could be.--And what a

triumph, Sofía! What a triumph! It is my greatest pride and happiness

to be my brother's brother. He is the king of men.--Yes, as I say:

First God, and then Teodoro!"

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XVII.

 

A FUGITIVE.

 

 

The wonderful good news flew through Socartes. Nothing else was talked

of in the smelting-houses, in the workshops, in the washing-mills, on

the tram-way, in the deepest diggings, and on the top of the hill,

in the bowels of the earth or the open light of heaven. Various

interesting commentaries were added: that in Aldeacorba it was thought

for a moment that Don Francisco was out of his wits with joy; that Don

Manuel meant to celebrate the happy event by giving a grand banquet to

all the hands employed in the mines; and, finally, that Don Teodoro

was a great man, whom all blind men, present or to come, might indeed

esteem, "as the apple of their eye."

 

Nela could not venture to go to the house at Aldeacorba. A mysterious

force seemed to hold her back. She wandered all day round and about the

mines, gazing from afar at the Penáguilas' house, which in her eyes,

looked transformed. Her spirit was full of a strange compound of the

sincerest joy and an overwhelming shamefacedness, of noble devotion and

with it the unendurable aching, so to speak, of an intensely sensitive

self-consciousness.

 

She found some surcease from the turmoil of her brain in that motherly

solitude which had contributed so largely to the formation of her

character, and in dreaming over the beauty of Nature, which always

lifted her soul to closer communion with the Divinity. The clouds in

the sky and the flowers of the field affected her mind as others are

affected by the pomp of altars, the eloquence of preachers and the

study of the meditations of the mystics. In the solitude of the open

country she thought and said a thousand things that she never dreamed

were aspirations and prayers. She looked towards Aldeacorba, and said to herself: