Maximina Part 70

He immediately arose and ran to her room. His wife, after the struggle that she had undergone with the worthy senora, was in a very agitated state, her face extremely flushed and her eyes wildly rolling. She did not know her husband. He, seeing her in that state, lost all his courage and began to weep. Then Maximina looked straight at him; her eyes soon lost that terrible look of delirium, and she sat up in bed, and leaning over toward the young man asked him:--

"Why are you weeping, light of my life? why are you weeping?"

"Because you have refused to take your medicine, and if you don't, you won't get well."

"I will take it, I will take it; don't cry, for Heaven's sake! Give it to me!"

And she eagerly drank the spoonful that he put to her lips.

"You will not weep any more, will you?" she asked him, anxiously, and on hearing him say "no," she kissed his hand again and again.

In the morning the consultation of physicians was held. One at a time they went in to see the sick woman.

"How tired I am of showing my tongue!" she exclaimed, with a comic gesture which made him laugh in spite of his tribulations.

The doctors could not come to a definite decision as to the seat of the fever; they all were inclined, however, to the opinion that it was in the nervous centre. They were perfectly agreed that at all hazards the temperature must be in some way reduced. For this they prescribed an antipyretic remedy.

Miguel himself went in search of it. Its effect was very quick. Within a few hours after taking it the fever had subsided two degrees; in the morning the thermometer indicated only thirty-nine and a few decimals; her restlessness and delirium had entirely disappeared. She felt so much better that Miguel had no doubt that in four or five days she would be up and about.

He was so excited by his excess of joy, that, being unable to stay in the house, he went out to enjoy the coolness of the morning, although he had been watching the night before. He took a turn through the Retiro; the weather was cool and beautiful; the joy that filled his soul to overflowing made him see in the bright sun, in the songs of the birds, in the foliage of the trees, mysterious beauties which he had never before realized. It was as much as he could do not to throw his arms around the solitary pedestrians whom he met.

But alas! he did not know that the remedy that the doctors had prescribed fulfilled its work merely in cooling the blood, and had not the power of overcoming the malady. Toward the end of the afternoon her temperature began to rise again. So deceived was he that he attributed it to the natural increase that all diseases tend to show at that time of day, and did not regard it with apprehension.

The doctor likewise said nothing that was calculated to alarm him. At eleven o'clock he went to bed, leaving Juana to watch.

Her voice aroused him from the deep sleep in which he was plunged.

"Senorito! senorito! the senorita is worse."

The voice with which a man condemned to death is wakened never sounded more terrible than this summons did to Miguel. He was on his feet in a flash; he ran to her room. Maximina had her eyes shut. When he came in, she opened them, tried to smile, and closed them again--never to open them more!

It was four o'clock in the morning. Juana ran to summon the doctor, first stopping at the opposite apartment. The colonel's widow insisted that it was only a fainting fit; she and Miguel put on a mustard poultice. The priest was sent for. In a few moments he arrived, at the same time with the doctor.

What was the use?

Miguel walked ceaselessly up and down the corridor, pale as a ghost.

Soon he paused and wanted to enter his wife's room. The widow, the cure, and the doctor, tried to keep him back.

"No; don't go in, Rivera!"

"I know all; let me pa.s.s!"

By his face and manner they knew that it was useless to oppose him.

He threw himself on his wife's form, from which as yet not all the warmth and life had departed, and kissed her wildly for several minutes.

"Enough! enough! you are only killing yourself," they said to him.

Finally they drew him away.

"Better than thou," he cried, as he gave her one last kiss, "there never has been; there never will be on earth."

"Happy are they, my son, who, on dying, can hear such words," murmured the aged priest.

They led him away. He went straight to his study, and leaned against the window. The day had not as yet completely dawned. The suddenness of the shock had checked his tears. Motionless, with gleaming eyes, and leaning his brow against the pane, he stood a long time listening to that voice of revelation in his soul which alone has a right to speak at this supreme hour. At last he could hear himself murmur in a hoa.r.s.e voice:--

"Who knows? who knows?"

x.x.xI.

What more do you wish to know?

Miguel staggered like an athlete who receives a blow in the midst of his forehead; but he did not succ.u.mb. In the unavoidable obligation upon him of protecting his baby boy, who had lost his mother just as he was beginning to stammer her name, he found strength to live.

His story, far from romantic, becomes even less interesting from this time forward. It is reduced almost entirely to meditations, doubts, hopes, discouragements,--storms such as only rage in the secret depths of the spirit. The story of it can be interesting only to the psychologist. Therefore we will condense this long and wearisome narration.

He devoted his whole life to his son. Work and study, if they did not a.s.suage his grief, sometimes made him forget it, lifting him at the same time to a loftier plane; as years went on, he maintained a deep and serious sadness which left him calm enough for thought. Day nor night did he leave his son. As often as he could, he took him with him to his office; he used to set him down opposite him, so that when he looked up, his eyes might fall upon that little face, in which he sought anxiously to discover lines and features of another that was graven as with a chisel on his very heart. If his friends wanted to make him happy for a moment, they had only to a.s.sure him that the little one would in time come to look exactly like his mother. On the other hand, if any one told him that he was going to resemble him, he would stand sad and thoughtful for a long time.

Sometimes, catching from his lips or in his eyes some expression peculiar to Maximina, he would burst out sobbing.

The little innocent creature would then look at him in surprise and dismay, until his father would gather him up into his arms, and kissing him again and again, would say:--

"Blessed child, you know not what you have lost!"

Likewise, many days he would take him to the cemetery and make him kiss after him the stone under which his mother was lying. Oh! if those kisses did not make their way through the marble, and cause the dust of the little maiden of Pasajes to tremble, you may be certain that nothing in this world could ever stir it.

Nor was it only in his boy that he saw his wife's living image. Any great spectacle, any heroic action, any touch of kindness, any work of art, above all, music, brought her suddenly to his imagination, and made the tears spring to his eyes; as though that dear woman, even if she no longer existed, were still united to all that is n.o.ble, beautiful, and lofty in this earth. Consequently, he tried to stimulate these emotions as frequently as he could. He cultivated and kindled the religious sentiment, which had often seemed fainting, though never had it died out in his soul; he loved the arts; he clung to the friendship of the good.

As time went on, that same Mendoza, with whom he had not exchanged a word since he had been ruined and gone to live at Chamberi, became minister.

This will certainly surprise no one. Certain premises being granted, the results are sure to follow. As soon as he became minister, he sent Miguel a message, whether through generosity or egotism, we cannot say, asking him to be his private secretary, and at the same time retain his place in the Council of State.

The weak flesh felt like revolting at such a proposition. However, he was able finally to bring it into subjection. Long since, by force of prayer and meditation, he had emanc.i.p.ated himself from the dominion of pride. By means of terrible struggles, his soul had succeeded in breaking the chains that bound him to earthly objects. He had learned and would never forget the sublime truth which will eternally rise above human science, and will be the compendium of all truths,--SELF-NEGATION.

As soon as he set foot on this sacred ground of liberty, his life began to glide away in perfect serenity, in sweet and tranquil repose. In the sea of human pa.s.sions, in the whirlwind of his own emotions, he had at last the good fortune to _find himself_, and understand what he was. His only thought thenceforward was to advance further and further along the road of liberty, until the hour of supreme emanc.i.p.ation should come for him. The only and most ardent desire of his life was to be able _to love death_. Consequently, he employed the healthy and divine power of his imagination in creating another world, new and free, where he lived with his wife in the same sweet communion as of yore, sharing with her his love and his sorrows. When he completed any action of his life, he never failed to ask himself:--

"Would Maximina approve of it?"

Every day he confessed to her and told her the inmost secrets of his soul. And when he had the misfortune to fall into sin, profound grief would take possession of him, and he would think how, on that day, he had departed a little from his wife. In this way, sharing like a divine being in the august privilege of G.o.d, he succeeded in attaining a new life, or rather a foretaste of eternal life.

But, as a human being, his soul was many times shaken by the storm of doubt. He suffered the cruel a.s.saults of temptation, and; like the Son of G.o.d in the Garden of Gethsemane, endured hours of agony which left deep scars upon his soul and diminished, if they did not entirely destroy, his strength. Let us witness one of them.

After he came out of the Ministerio, or from Congress, Mendoza was in the habit of riding in an open carriage through the Retiro. Miguel accompanied him. After whirling for a while among the throng of carriages the minister would begin to feel drowsy and would drop off to sleep, lulled by the gentle motion of the carriage. Miguel, almost always neglectful of the curious and gay sights of the promenade, would meditate, with his eyes fixed on the sky or on the landscape.