Marianela 5

Marianela 5

"And who is Pablo?"

 

"That young blind gentleman, whom you met in La Terrible. I have been

his guide for the last year and a half. I take him everywhere; we go

for long walks in the fields."

 

"He seems a good fellow, this Pablo."

 

Nela again stood still and looked up at the doctor, and her face glowed

with enthusiasm as she exclaimed:

 

"Holy Virgin! He is the best and dearest creature in the whole world!

Poor fellow!--and he is cleverer without eyes than all those who can

see."

 

"Yes, I liked your master. Does he belong to the place?"

 

"Yes, Señor; he is the only son of Don Francisco Penáguilas, a very

kind and very rich gentleman who lives in the houses at Aldeacorba."

 

"Tell me, why are you called Nela? What does it mean?"

 

The child shrugged her shoulders, and after a pause, she said:

 

"My mother's name was María Canela, and so she was called Nela; they

say it is a dog's name. My name is María."

 

"Mariquita."

 

"María Nela they call me, or sometimes Canela's girl, and some say

Marianela, and some merely Nela."

 

"And your master, is he fond of you?"

 

"Yes, Señor; he is very good to me. He says he sees with my eyes, for I

take him everywhere, and tell him what everything is like."

 

"Everything that he cannot see?" The stranger seemed much interested in

this conversation.

 

"Yes--I tell him everything. He asks me what a star is like, and I

tell him all about it in such a way that it is the same to him as

if he could see it. I explain it all--what the planets are like,

and the clouds, and the sky, and the water, and the lightning, the

weather-cocks, the butterflies, the mists, the snails, and the shapes

and faces of men and animals. I tell him what is ugly and what is

pretty, and so he gets to understand everything."

 

"I see; your work is no trifle. What is ugly and what is pretty! There

is nothing.... You decide upon that question? Tell me, can you read?"

 

"No, Señor.--I tell you I am good for nothing."

 

She said this in a tone of perfect conviction, and the gesture that

emphasized her protestation seemed to add: "You must be a great

blockhead to fancy that I am good for anything."

 

"Would you not be glad if your friend, by the grace of God, should

recover his sight?"

 

The girl did not answer at once, but after a pause she said:

 

"It is impossible."

 

"No, not impossible, only difficult and doubtful."

 

"The engineer who manages the mines did give my master's father some

hope of it."

 

"Don Cárlos Golfin?"

 

"Yes, Señor. Don Cárlos has a brother who is an eye-doctor, and they

say he gives sight to the blind, and makes those who squint look

straight."

 

"What a clever man!"

 

"Yes; and when the eye-doctor wrote to Don Cárlos that he was coming to

see him, his brother wrote to him to bring his instruments with him to

try if he could make Pablo see."

 

"And has this good man been here yet?"

 

"No, sir; for he is always travelling about in England and America, and

it seems it will be some time yet before he comes. Pablo laughs at it

all, and says no man can give him what the Holy Virgin has denied him

from his birth."

 

"Well--perhaps he is right. But are we not nearly there? For I see some

chimneys which pour forth smoke darker than the bottomless pit, and a

light too, which looks like a forge."

 

"Yes--here we are. Those are the roasting furnaces, which burn day and

night. There, in front, are the machines for washing the ore; they only

work by day. To the right-hand is the chemical workshop, and down

there, last of all, the counting-house and offices."

 

The place seemed to lie in fact as Marianela indicated. In the absence

of any wind a mist hung over the spot, shrouding the buildings in

heavy, gaseous fog, and giving them a confused and fantastic outline

against the moonlit sky.

 

"This is a pleasanter place to see for once than to live in," said

Golfin, hastening onwards. "The cloud of vapor wraps round everything,

and the lights have dim circles round them, like the moon on a sultry

night. Which is the office?"

 

"Here, we are almost there."

 

After passing in front of the furnaces, where the heat made them hurry

on, the doctor perceived a house which was no less dingy and smoky than

the others, and at the same instant he heard a piano being played with

a vigor bordering on frenzy.

 

"We have music here. I recognize my sister-in-law's touch and

execution."

 

"It is Señorita Sofía who is playing," said María.

 

The lights of a busy household shone in the windows, and the balcony on

the ground-floor was wide open. A small spark was visible, the spark of

a cigar. Before the doctor could reach the spot, the spark flew off,

describing a parabola of fire, and breaking into a thousand twinkling

specks--the smoker had shaken the end off.

 

"There is that everlasting smoker!" cried the doctor, in a tone of

affectionate delight. "Cárlos, Cárlos!"

 

"Teodoro!" exclaimed a voice from the balcony. The piano ceased like a

singing-bird scared by a noise. Steps sounded through the house. The

doctor gave his guide a silver coin, and ran up to the door.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER IV.

 

STONY HEARTS.

 

 

Retracing her steps and jumping over the obstacles in her path, Nela

made her way to a house on the left of the machine-sheds, and close to

the stables where the sixty mules belonging to the establishment stood

in grave meditation. The residence of the overseer, though of modern

construction, was neither elegant nor even commodious. The roof was

low, and it was too small by far to give adequate shelter to the parent

couple of the Centenos--to their four children--to their cat--and to

Nela into the bargain; but it figured, nevertheless, on the parchment

plans of the settlement under the ostentatious name of "overseer's

residence."

 

Inside, the house seemed to afford a practical illustration of the

saying which we have already heard so emphatically stated by Marianela;

namely, that she, Marianela, was of no good to anyone, only in the way.

Somehow, in there, room was found for everything--for the father and

mother, for their sons and their sons' tools, for a heap of rubbish,

of the use of which no irrefragable proof has been found, for the cat,

for the dish off which the cat was fed, for Tanasio's guitar, for the

materials of which Tanasio made his _garrotes_--a kind of lidless

hamper--for half a dozen old mule-halters, for the blackbird's cage,

for two useless old boilers, for an altar--at which Dame Centeno

worshipped the Divinity with offerings of artificial flowers and some

patriarchal tapers, a perennial settlement for flies--in short, for

everything and everybody excepting little María Canela. Constantly some

one was heard to say: "You cannot take a step without falling over that

confounded child, Nela!" or else:

 

"Get into your corner, do.--What a plague the creature is; she does

nothing, and lets no one else do anything."

 

The house consisted of three rooms and a loft. The first of these

served not only as dining-room and drawing-room, but also as the

bedroom of the two elders; in the second slept the two young ladies,

already grown-up women, and named _La Mariuca_ and _La Pepina_.

Tanasio, the eldest of all, stored himself in the garret, and Celipin,

the youngest of the family and nearly twelve years old, had a bed

in the kitchen--the innermost room, the dingiest, dampest and least

habitable of the three rooms which composed the mansion of the Centenos.

 

Nela, during the many years of her residence there, had inhabited

various nooks and corners, going from one to another, according to

the exigencies of the moment, to make way for the thousand objects

which served only to curtail the last scanty accommodation left for

human beings. On some occasion--the precise facts are unknown to

history--Tanasio, whose feet were as crippled as his brain, and who

devoted himself to the manufacture of large hampers made of hazel

rods, had placed in the kitchen a pile of at least half a dozen of

these bulky trophies of his art. Marianela looked on, casting her eyes

sadly around, and finding no corner left into which to creep; but the

predicament itself inspired her with a happy idea, which she at once

acted upon. She simply got into one of the baskets, and there passed

the night in sound and blissful sleep. In fact, it was comfortable

enough, and when it was cold she pulled another basket on the top. From

that time, so long as there were _garrotes_ (a local name for these

coarse, open baskets) to be found, she never was at a loss for a crib,

and the others would say of the child: "She sleeps like a jewel."

 

During meals, in the midst of a noisy discussion on the morning's work,

a voice would suddenly say in rough tones: "Here!" and Nela would have

a plate given her by one of the family, big or small, and would seat

herself against the big chest to eat what she had got, in silence.

But towards the end of the meal sometimes the master's harsh bleating

voice would be lifted up saying, with a perfunctory air of benevolence:

"Mother, you have given poor Nela nothing." And then _Señana_, a

compound name abbreviated from Señora Ana, would move her head about as

if trying to see some minute and remote object between the bodies of

her own children, saying as she did so: "What, are you there? I thought

you had stayed at Aldeacorba."

 

At night, after supper, the family repeated the Paternoster over

their beads and then, staggering like bacchantes, and rubbing their

eyes with their fists, Mariuca and Pepina went to their beds, which

were snug and comfortable and covered with patchwork quilts. In a few

minutes a duet of contralto snoring was heard which lasted without

intermission till morning dawned. Tanasio went up to the higher regions

and Celipin curled himself round on a heap of rags, not far from the basket into which Nela disappeared from sight.