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."