Woman and Puppet 4
“I will be honest with you. I didn’t enter at all for fear of sinning.
Give me a coin, and I will sing you something while the superintendent
is away from here.”
Then she told me she lived with her mother, and came to the factory
when in the mood. I gave her a napoléon, and then left.
In the youth of happy men there is a moment, an instant, that chance
decides. My moment came when I dropped that golden coin before that
girl. It was as if I had thrown a fatal die. I date from then and there
my actual life, “the life I have lived the most.” My moral ruin was
then begun.
You shall know all; the actual story is simple enough, truly.
I left the State Factory, and walked slowly into the shadowless street.
There she rejoined me, and said--
“I thank you; sir.”
I noted that her voice had changed. The golden gift had evoked in her
the emotion that comes with the desire for wealth. She asked me to
conduct her home to the Calle Manteros, quite near.
She told me she had no sweetheart, and I then replied--
“Surely, not through piety?”
“I am pious, but I haven’t taken any vows.”
Finally she said that she was virginal, and had kept herself pure.
CHAPTER VI
She admitted this with such a directness, such an air, that I
quite flushed and felt ill at ease. Whatever was passing in that
childish-looking head, behind that face so provoking, so rebellious?
What signified her decided moral attitude, her frank and, possibly,
honest eye, her sensuous mouth that seemed to tempt and yet defy. All
that I really knew was that she pleased me vastly, that I was enchanted
to have found her again, and looked forward to finding other chances
of being with her. We reached her home. Down-stairs at the doorway I
bought her some mandarines. At the top floor she gave three little
knocks at a door and I stood before her mother, a dark woman, who had
once been beautiful.
Then began confidences; they seemed endless. The mother said she was
the widow of an engineer, and told me a story I had heard elsewhere
twenty times.
“Ah, Caballero, we should have been rich, we two, had we but followed
evil ways. But sin has never passed the evening here!”
Conchita during this discourse was putting powder on her cheeks. She
turned to me with a smile transfiguring her mouth.
Finally I laid down four banknotes and arranged that Conchita was not
to return to the factory. I called again the next day. She was alone.
That day she came and sat upon my knees and kissed me with her burning
mouth. I left but to return, alas! not once, but twenty times more. I
was in love like the youngest, the most foolish of men. You must have
known such madness yourself and will understand me. Each time I left
her rooms I counted the hours until the next meeting, and those hours
never seemed to go. Little by little I got to pass the whole day with
them, paying all the expenses and the debts too. This cost me a good
deal of money. How Conchita and I talked!
But she was impenetrable, mysterious. She seemed to love me; possibly
I really loved her. To-day I do not know what to think. To all my
pleadings she answered merely, “Later.” That resolution I could not
break. I swore to leave her and she told me to go. I threatened her,
even with my violence: it left her unconcerned. When loaded with
presents she accepted them upon her own terms. Nevertheless, when I
entered her place, I saw a light in her eyes that was not, I believe, a
feigned one.
She slept nine hours at night and had a siesta of three hours. She did
nothing else. The work of the place was her mother’s affair. During
one whole week she refused to get up at all. Her conception of the
duties of the day was very Spanish. But I do not know from what country
came her conception of love. After twelve weeks of wooing I saw in her
maddening smile the same promises and certainly the same resistance.
At last, one day, I took her mother into my confidence, and confessing
my love invoked her aid. After a night and a morning that were
insupportable through suspense, I received a four-line letter--
“_If you had loved me you would have waited. I wished to give myself
to you. You have asked that I shall be sold to you. Never again shall
you see me._
“CONCHITA.”
When I reached their rooms in Seville they had left with all their
belongings.
CHAPTER VII
Autumn and winter passed. Memory was pitiless to me, and I felt
shattered. The months were empty. Oh, how I loved her, God of Heaven! I
thought sometimes that she was trying me, testing me, to be sure of me.
So be it. We met again. I was returning from the theatre, and in the
Calle Trajano I heard her voice call my name. She was at a window about
shoulder high from the ground, in night attire and shawled.
I gazed at her as one entranced. She held her hand to me, and I covered
hand and arm with kisses. I was half insane with love. I craved for her
lips only to get for answer, “Later.”
I pressed her with questions. They had been to Madrid then to
Carabanchel. By economy with my money they had now rented her present
place. There was enough money left to live honestly for a month.
“And after that do you seriously think I shall feel embarrassed?”
Then she paused.
“You do not understand me. I can still work at the factory, sell
bananas, make bouquets, dance the Sevillana, can I not, Don Mateo?”
Then with a sigh she leant forward, and said--
“Mateo, I will be your mistress the day after to-morrow.”
“Are you sincere?”
“I have said it. Leave me, Mateo. Be not impatient or jealous.” Then
she left me.
CHAPTER VIII
Two interminable days and nights followed. I was happy and yet
suffering. A kind of troubled joy seemed to dominate every other
feeling. The hour of the assignation came, and I heard her softly
call, “Mateo.” We kissed passionately and a long love scene followed.
Questions, protestations, appeals. To hasten over what was to me a
time of great stress and strain, mental and physical, let me at once
say that Concha would in reality consent to nothing but this. I might
live with her, worship her, love her as fervently, truly, tenderly as
I liked, _but_ she was to be left wholly pure, utterly virginal. I
endured this state of things for two weeks. Concha then borrowed from
me a large sum to pay more debts, and the next day I found that mother
and daughter had fled again!
CHAPTER IX
It was too much to bear. I left for Madrid, and tried to get fond of an
Italian dancer. I returned to Seville, then went to Granada, Cordova,
Jérez. I sought for Concha Perez. At Cadiz we met again. One evening
I entered a drinking saloon. She was there dancing before sailors and
fishermen. At the moment I saw her I trembled and throbbed. I must have
become pale, and I felt as though I had no breath, no force, no will. I
dropped down upon the seat nearest the door, and head in hands watched
her. Her dance finished she came towards me. All knew her. From all
sides came cries of “Conchita” that made me shudder. On all sides she
cast glances. Here a smile, there a laugh, a shrug, a flower accepted,
a drink sipped. She sat at my table facing me, and desired coffee.
I said in a low voice that I tried to steady--
“Then you fear nothing, Concha, not even death.”
“You would not kill me.”
“Do you dare me to.”
“Yes, here or where you will. I know you, Don Mateo, as though you were
borne in my bosom nine months.”
Bitter reproaches followed, and I taunted her. She rose, furious, and,
vowing by her father’s tomb that she was virtuous, left me.
CHAPTER X
After all that had happened I had three paths open before me--
To leave her for ever;
To force her to stay with me;
To take her life.
I took a fourth path. I submitted to her own way of treating me. Each
evening I returned to my cozenage, looking at her, and waiting, waiting.
Little by little, I think, she was more softened towards me. It even
seemed sometimes that she had not really intended me the harm that had
in fact been done. But the tavern life she now made me lead did not
suit me. It never has or can. The Señora Perez was there too.
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