Maximina Part 25

"How absurd!" exclaimed Miguel, laughing in sympathy, but not having a very clear idea of what a Trajan was, and still less its value compared with the triptich. The good humor into which this recollection put Vincente resulted in his being anxious to do everything to gratify his cousin.

"You want to speak with papa, do you? Now see here, he's engaged in going through his gymnastic exercises; but I'll take you to him, at all events."

"Gymnastic exercises?" exclaimed Miguel, in surprise.

"It was prescribed by the doctor because he had lost his appet.i.te; do you see? He did not eat a mouthful, and even now he takes very little.

He has been sallow and weak this two months, so that you would scarcely know him."

On entering his uncle's stern and gloomy room, Miguel was, indeed, surprised to see the change that had taken place in that excellent gentleman's physique; the strange garb that he wore contributed in no small degree to give him a sinister and terrible appearance: he wore nothing except a gauze shirt, through which could be seen his lean and bony frame; also full trousers of drilling, in which his shins could scarcely be made out. His face, always broad and lean, seemed more fleshless than ever; the yellowish complexion, the sad and gla.s.sy eyes, and, as his razor never ceased to perform its devastating work, his mustache had come to be only a slight speck beneath his nose.

His library had been turned into a gymnasium; there were parallel bars, a few pairs of dumb-bells on the floor, and a number of iron rings swinging from the ceiling.

When Miguel went in, his uncle was going through his evolutions on the parallels; he had the opportunity of watching him at his ease, and it pained him. Seeing the rapid and astonishing decline, he could not help saying to himself:--

"It must be that my uncle has some grievous sorrow."

And as the old gentleman, absorbed in his painful task of walking on his hands over the bars, did not perceive his presence, he said aloud:--

"Good afternoon, uncle."

Don Bernardo dropped to the floor, and gazing with bleared, vacant eyes, replied:--

"_Hola!_ What brings you here?"

"Go ahead, uncle; don't let me interrupt you. How do you find yourself?"

"So, so. And your wife?"

"She is very well; go on, go on!"

Don Bernardo gave a jump, and again perched on the parallels.

"You can tell me what you want; I am listening."

Miguel looked at him a moment, and perceiving that the best thing to do was to attack the business in hand directly, and without any beating about the bush, he began to say:--

"I have come to talk with you on a subject which probably will be irksome to you, ... but I got myself into it with over-haste, and I have no way of retreat, but must fulfil it as well as I can.... Enrique has told me of his desire...."

Don Bernardo dropped a second time.

"Not one word about Enrique," said he, stretching out his arm imperiously.

Miguel felt annoyed by such haughtiness, and said ironically:--

"What! have you decided to blot him out from the memory of men?"

Senor de Rivera gave him a cold and haughty stare, which Miguel returned with equal pride and coldness. The uncle mounted the parallels again, and feeling that he had acted rather discourteously, said with some difficulty, for his gymnastic effort took away his breath:--

"Enrique is a fool. After annoying me to death all his life with his follies he wants now to finish his career by bringing dishonor on his family."

"I have always understood that one who does some vile act dishonors his family.... But, however, since you do not wish to talk about Enrique, we will not. He is of age, and he will know what it becomes him to do."

He said these last words with the intention of preparing his uncle for what might take place.

Don Bernardo made no reply: he descended from the bars, and after getting his breath he mounted them again, and began to practise the "frog movement." As Miguel did not immediately take his departure, he renewed the conversation, saying:--

"It seems to me that you have grown rather thin since I saw you last, uncle."

"Yes!" replied Don Bernardo, pausing, and sitting astride of the wooden bars. "But you will see me much more so. There is a reason for it."

"Does your stomach trouble you?"

The _caballero_ was for a moment motionless, with eyes fixed, and then said in a tone of deep melancholy:--

"I suffer in my mind."

And he took up his exercise with more violence than ever.

Never had Miguel heard from his uncle's lips any reference to his innermost feelings; in his eyes he had always been in this respect a man of iron. Thus when he heard that tender confession, it seemed to him as though he were in a dream.

And imagining that Enrique was the cause of his uncle's griefs, although the man had no reason to be grieved on account of his son, Miguel still pitied him sincerely.

"I see that Enrique, of whom I am so fond, is the cause of your troubles.... But you have two other sons, who must be the source of unalloyed satisfaction."

"No, Miguel, it is not Enrique.... Enrique has caused me some sorrow, ... but what I feel now has its source far deeper."

Miguel began to puzzle over what he meant, and was inclined to imagine that it might be some loss or diminution of his property.

Don Bernardo dismounted, leaned against one of the bars to rest, and rubbed his sweaty forehead with his handkerchief, heaving a deep sigh; then he took some iron b.a.l.l.s and began to open and shut his arms with the solemnity that accompanied all his acts.

After a few moments' silence, which his nephew dared not interrupt in spite of the curiosity that piqued him, the old gentleman dropped the weights, and approaching him with his eyes fixed and open like those of a spectre, he said in a hoa.r.s.e tone:--

"Forty years ago I married.... Forty years have I been cherishing a viper in my bosom! At last its poison has made its way into my blood, and I shall perish of the wound!"

Miguel did not understand, nor did he wish to understand, those strange words. However, he said:--

"I have always supposed that you were happy in your marriage."

"I was, Miguel! I was because I had a bandage over my eyes. Would to G.o.d that it had never been taken off!... There is a day in my life, as you know well, when, in order to rescue the honor of our family, I descended to give my hand to a women of very different rank from mine. In return for this immense sacrifice, don't you think that this woman ought to kiss the very dust on which I walk?... Now then, this woman is a Messalina!"

"Uncle!"

"More correctly an Agrippina."

"But after forty years, when my aunt Martina is already old and venerable!"

"That makes her crime all the more odious."

"Aren't you blinded, uncle?"