Marianela 23
Florentina listened to the rustle of the branches, as the hunter
listens to the rush of the prey that has escaped him. Then all was
silent; not a sound was to be heard but the vague monotone that fills
the atmosphere at noon in the open country--a sound which seems to
be the whisper of our own thoughts as they go forth towards all that
surrounds us. Florentina stood amazed, powerless, speechless, deeply
distressed--as if she had just seen some fond illusion snatched from
her gaze. She did not know what to think of it all, and even her
unbounded kind-heartedness, which often crippled her judgment, could
supply no explanation.
She had been standing in the same spot for some little time, her head
drooping, her cheeks tingling, and her blue eyes full of tears, when
Teodoro Golfin happened to come upon her, making his way at an easy
pace from Aldeacorba homewards. The doctor was greatly astonished to
find the young lady alone and with an __EXPRESSION__ of vexation and regret
which, far from diminishing her beauty, added to it and made it more
interesting.
"What ails the girl?" he exclaimed with some anxiety. "Why, Florentina,
what is the matter?"
"A dreadful thing, Señor Golfin," said Florentina, wiping her eyes. "I
was thinking--considering how many terrible things there are in the
world."
"And what are these terrible things, Señorita? Where have you been?
Can anything have happened to you?"
"Provoking things--and of all things there is one which is more
provoking than all the rest."
"What is that?"
"Ingratitude, Señor." And pointing to the copse of bramble and fern,
she added: "It was in that direction."
She went up to the highest spot at hand to see farther into the
distance. "Quite out of sight!" she said with a sigh.
"Quite," said the surgeon laughing. "Don Manuel told me that you were
devoting yourself to collecting butterflies. They are ungrateful
creatures indeed not to wish to be caught by you."
"It is not that--I will tell you all about it if you are going to
Aldeacorba."
"I was not going, as I have just come away, fair damsel; but if you
will tell me all about it--be it what it may--I will go back again. I
am all ears for your story."
CHAPTER XVIII.
NELA DECIDES THAT SHE MUST GO.
Nela wandered about alone all day, and at night she prowled round
the house at Aldeacorba, creeping as near to it as she dared without
running the risk of being discovered; whenever she heard footsteps
she stole away like a thief. Then she went down into the crater of La
Terrible, whose grewsome aspect somehow suited her gloomy mood; she
lingered there some time looking up at the stone giants that stood
round it, and then she climbed up one of them to see the lights of
Aldeacorba. There they were, sparkling above the slopes of the mine
against the dark background of earth and sky. After gazing at them for
a while as if her hungry eyes had never seen lights before, she quitted
La Terrible and went towards La Trascava. But before she reached it she
heard footsteps, and turning round, she saw Master Celipin coming along
the path at a brisk determined pace. He had a small bundle hanging
from a stick over his shoulder, and his step, as well as his air and
attitude, announced a full determination never to stop till he should
have paced the whole circumference of the globe.
"Celipe!--Where are you going?" cried Nela, detaining him.
"Nela ... you out here! We thought you were with Señorita Florentina,
eating ham, and turkey, and partridges all day long, and drinking
lemonade and syrups. What are you doing here?"
"And you--where are you off to?"
"You ask me that, now? Why do you ask me since you know quite well,"
answered the boy, jerking the stick and bundle. "You know very well
that I am going to learn all I can and make money. Did I not tell you
it would be to-night?--And here I am, as glad as can be--a little
sorry, too, when I think that father and mother will cry. You see,
Nela, the Blessed Virgin favored us to-night, for father and mother
began to snore sooner than usual; and I had my bundle ready, and I
climbed up to the window and got out of it.--Now are you coming or not?"
"Yes, I am coming," said Nela with sudden decision, taking the arm of
the adventurous Celipin.
"We will take the train, and we will go in the train as far as we can,"
said Celipin with liberal enthusiasm. "And then we must beg till we get
to Madrid, where the King of Spain lives; and when once we have got
there, you can go as a servant in the house of some Marquis or Count,
and I will go into another, and at the same time I can study, and you
can have a heap of fine things. And I can teach you a little of all I
learn--only a little, not too much; for you women have no need to be as
learned as we doctors must be."
Before Celipin had ended his speech, they had set out on their road,
trotting on as fast as though they already saw in the distance the
turrets of the city "where the King of Spain lives."
"Let us get out of the regular path," said Celipin, his practical
talents rising to the occasion: "If they see us they will lay hands
upon us and give us a good thrashing."
But Nela drew her hand away from her fellow-adventurer's, and sitting
down on a stone, she said: "I am not going."
"Nela! what a little fool you are! You have not a brave heart like
mine; a heart as big as the rocks in La Terrible!" said Celipin, with a
braggart air. "What the devil are you afraid of? Why will you not come?"
"I--oh!--why should I?"
"Do not you know that Don Golfin said that the work here is turning us
all to stones? I do not want to be a stone--not I."
"I--why should I go?" repeated Nela with disconsolate bitterness. "You
have time enough--for me, it is too late."
And Nela's head sunk on her breast and she sat for some time insensible
to the persuasive eloquence of the Hippocrates of the future. The idea
that she was about to cross the boundary of the spot of earth where
she had lived so long, and where her mother slept the sleep of the
dead, made her feel as if she were being torn up by the roots. The
beauty of the place in all its variety seemed to claim her by a sort
of relationship; the rare and fleeting joys, nay, the very misery she
had known there; the memory of her friend and of the happy hours when
they had walked in the woods or sat by the spring at Saldeoro; all
the feelings of admiration or of sympathy, of love or of gratitude,
which had grown and blossomed in her soul among these scenes--these
flowers--these clouds--these rustling trees--these frowning
rocks--inseparable as it were from the loveliness or the grandeur,
the progress and the immutability of all these works of nature, were
so many roots from her heart, and dragging them up from the soil was
bitter anguish.
"No--I am not going," she repeated.
And Celipin argued and talked as if, having by some miracle reached the
goal of his career, he belonged to all the academies present and to
come.
"You are going home then?" he asked, seeing that his oratory was as
unavailing as that of the academies themselves commonly is.
"No."
"You are going to Aldeacorba?"
"No; not there either."
"Then you will go to where Señora Florentina lives."
"No, no--not there."
"The devil's in it--but where are you going then?"
Nela did not answer; she sat looking at the ground with an __EXPRESSION__
of dismay, as if she saw there the fragments of the most beautiful and
precious thing on earth--fallen and lying broken at her feet.
"Well then, Nela," said Celipin, exhausted with his long harangue, "I
must leave you and be off, for they might follow me, and find me. Would
you like me to give you a _peseta_ as a parting gift to-night?"
"No, Celipin, I want nothing.--Go, you will be a rich man yet. Take
care of yourself and do not forget Socartes and your father and mother."
The traveller had a sensation highly improper in a man of so much
importance and dignity--a strong disposition to cry; but swallowing
down this inopportune emotion, he said:
"How should I ever forget Socartes? You need not have said that--I
shall never forget my father and mother, nor you, for you helped me to
do this.--Good-bye, Nelilla--hark! I hear footsteps!"
Celipin shouldered his staff with a resolution that symbolized his
courage to defy all the dangers of the wide world; but his valorous
display was wasted, for a dog only came running up to them.
"It is Choto," said Nela, trembling all over.
"A bad sign!" muttered Celipin, setting forward; and he disappeared in the darkness.
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