“What time is it?” asked the girl.
“It will soon be midnight. Perhaps you are not afraid, but I am.”
Rosarito was trembling, and every thing about her denoted the keenest anxiety. She lifted her eyes to heaven supplicatingly, and then turned them on her mother with a look of the utmost terror.
“Why, what is the matter with you?”
“Did you not say it was midnight?”
“Yes.”
“Then–But is it already midnight?”
Rosario made an effort to speak, then shook her head, on which the weight of a world was pressing.
“Something is the matter with you; you have something on your mind,” said her mother, fixing on her daughter her penetrating eyes.
“Yes—I wanted to tell you,” stammered the girl, “I wanted to say–Nothing, nothing, I will go to sleep.”
“Rosario, Rosario! your mother can read your heart like an open book,” exclaimed Dona Perfecta with severity. “You are agitated. I have told you already that I am willing to pardon you if you will repent; if you are a good and sensible girl.”
“Why, am I not good? Ah, mamma, mamma! I am dying!”
Rosario burst into a flood of bitter and disconsolate tears.
“What are these tears about?” said her mother, embracing her. “If they are tears of repentance, blessed be they.”
“I don’t repent, I can’t repent!” cried the girl, in a burst of sublime despair.
She lifted her head and in her face was depicted a sudden inspired strength. Her hair fell in disorder over her shoulders. Never was there seen a more beautiful image of a rebellious angel.
“What is this? Have you lost your senses?” said Dona Perfecta, laying both her hands on her daughter’s shoulders.
“I am going away, I am going away!” said the girl, with the exaltation of delirium.
And she sprang out of bed.
“Rosario, Rosario–My daughter! For God’s sake, what is this?”
“Ah, mamma, senora!” exclaimed the girl, embracing her mother; “bind me fast!”
“In truth you would deserve it. What madness is this?”
“Bind me fast! I am going away—I am going away with him!”
Dona Perfecta felt a flood of fire surging from her heart up to her lips. She controlled herself, however, and answered her daughter only with her eyes, blacker than the night.
“Mamma, mamma, I hate all that is not he!” exclaimed Rosario. “Hear my confession, for I wish to confess it to every one, and to you first of all.”
“You are going to kill me; you are killing me!”
“I want to confess it, so that you may pardon me. This weight, this weight that is pressing me down, will not let me live.”
“The weight of a sin! Add to it the malediction of God, and see if you can carry that burden about with you, wretched girl! Only I can take it from you.”
“No, not you, not you!” cried Rosario, with desperation. “But hear me; I want to confess it all, all! Afterward, turn me out of this house where I was born.”
“I turn you out!”
“I will go away, then.”
“Still less. I will teach you a daughter’s duty, which you have forgotten.”
“I will fly, then; he will take me with him!”
“Has he told you to do so? has he counselled you to do that? has he commanded you to do that?” asked the mother, launching these words like thunderbolts against her daughter.
“He has counselled me to do it. We have agreed to be married. We must be married, mamma, dear mamma. I will love you—I know that I ought to love you—I shall be forever lost if I do not love you.”
She wrung her hands, and falling on her knees kissed her mother’s feet.
“Rosario, Rosario!” cried Dona Perfecta, in a terrible voice, “rise!”
There was a short pause.
“This man—has he written to you?”
“Yes.”
“And have you seen him again since that night?”
“Yes.”
“And you have written to him!”
“I have written to him also. Oh, senora! why do you look at me in that way? You are not my mother.
“Would to God that I were not! Rejoice in the harm you are doing me. You are killing me; you have given me my death-blow!” cried Dona Perfecta, with indescribable agitation. “You say that this man—”
“Is my husband—I will be his wife, protected by the law. You are not a woman! Why do you look at me in that way? You make me tremble. Mother, mother, do not condemn me!”
“You have already condemned yourself—that is enough. Obey me, and I will forgive you. Answer me—when did you receive letters from that man?”
“To-day.”
“What treachery! What infamy!” cried her mother, roaring rather than speaking. “Had you appointed a meeting?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“To-night.”
“Where?”
“Here, here! I will confess every thing, every thing! I know it is a crime. I am a wretch; but you who are my mother will take me out of this hell. Give your consent. Say one word to me, only one word!”
“That man here in my house!” cried Dona Perfecta, springing back several paces from her daughter.
Rosario followed her on her knees. At the same instant three blows were heard, three crashes, three reports. It was the heart of Maria Remedios knocking at the door through the knocker. The house trembled with awful dread. Mother and daughter stood motionless as statues.
A servant went down stairs to open the door, and shortly afterward Maria Remedios, who was not now a woman but a basilisk enveloped in a mantle, entered Dona Perfecta’s room. Her face, flushed with anxiety, exhaled fire.
“He is there, he is there!” she said, as she entered. “He got into the garden through the condemned door.”
She paused for breath at every syllable.
“I know already,” returned Dona Perfecta, with a sort of bellow.
Rosario fell senseless on the floor.
“Let us go down stairs,” said Dona Perfecta, without paying any attention to her daughter’s swoon.
The two women glided down stairs like two snakes. The maids and the man-servant were in the hall, not knowing what to do. Dona Perfecta passed through the dining-room into the garden, followed by Maria Remedios.
“Fortunately we have Ca-Ca-Ca-balluco there,” said the canon’s niece.
“Where?”
“In the garden, also. He cli-cli-climbed over the wall.”
Dona Perfecta explored the darkness with her wrathful eyes. Rage gave them the singular power of seeing in the dark peculiar to the feline race.
“I see a figure there,” she said. “It is going toward the oleanders.”
“It is he!” cried Remedios. “But there comes Ramos—Ramos!”
The colossal figure of the Centaur was plainly distinguishable.
“Toward the oleanders, Ramos! Toward the oleanders!”
Dona Perfecta took a few steps forward. Her hoarse voice, vibrating with a terrible accent, hissed forth these words:
“Cristobal, Cristobal—kill him!”
A shot was heard. Then another.
CHAPTER XXXII
CONCLUSION
“ORBAJOSA, April 21.
“MY DEAR FRIEND:
“Send me without delay the edition of 1562 that you say you have picked up at the executor’s sale of the books of Corchuelo. I will pay any price for that copy. I have been long searching for it in vain, and I shall esteem myself the most enviable of virtuosos in possessing it. You ought to find in the colophon a helmet with a motto over the word ‘Tractado,’ and the tail of the X of the date MDLXII ought to be crooked. If your copy agrees with these signs send me a telegraphic despatch at once, for I shall be very anxious until I receive it. But now I remember that, on account of these vexatious and troublesome wars, the telegraph is not working. I shall await your answer by return of mail.
“I shall soon go to Madrid for the purpose of having my long delayed work, the ‘Genealogies of Orbajosa,’ printed. I appreciate your kindness, my dear friend, but I cannot accept your too flattering expressions. My work does not indeed deserve the high encomiums you bestow upon it; it is a work of patience and study, a rude but solid and massive monument which I shall have erected to the past glories of my beloved country. Plain and humble in its form, it is noble in the idea that inspired it, which was solely to direct the eyes of this proud and unbelieving generation to the marvellous deeds and the pure virtues of our forefathers. Would that the studious youth of our country might take the step to which with all my strength I incite them! Would that the abominable studies and methods of reasoning introduced by philosophic license and erroneous doctrines might be forever cast into oblivion! Would that our learned men might occupy themselves exclusively in the contemplation of those glorious ages, in order that, this generation being penetrated with their essence and their beneficent sap, its insane eagerness for change, and its ridiculous mania for appropriating to itself foreign ideas which conflict with our beautiful national constitution, might disappear. I fear greatly that among the crowd of mad youth who pursue vain Utopias and heathenish novelties, my desires are not destined to be fulfilled, and that the contemplation of the illustrious virtues of the past will remain confined within the same narrow circle as to-day. What is to be done, my friend? I am afraid that very soon our poor Spain is doomed to be so disfigured that she will not be able to recognize herself, even beholding herself in the bright mirror of her stainless history.