Stories by Foreign Authors: Spanish Part 8

Now, was this a fantastic creation of their troubled senses? Was it a phantom of the brain, or a reality? Did all three suffer at the same time the same hallucination? The fixed thought of all three was Adrian Baker-- and the senses often counterfeit the reality of our vain imaginings. The state of their minds, the place, the hour--and then, the air produces sounds that deceive; the light and the darkness mingling together in the mysterious hour of twilight people the solitude with strange visions. And in the midst of those ruins, which began to a.s.sume fantastic forms, and which seemed to move, in the gathering shades of twilight, Berta, her father, and the nurse might well believe themselves in the presence of a spectre evoked there by their presence.

But the fact was, that the shadow, instead of vanishing, instead of changing its shape, as happens with chimeras of the brain, a.s.sumed before their eyes a more distinct form, more definite outlines, according as he approached the group.

Reaching them, he took gently in his the hands Berta held out to him. His eyes shone with the light of a supreme triumph.

"It is I," he said, in a moved voice. "I, Adrian Baker. I am not a spectre risen from the tomb."

Berta felt herself growing faint and was obliged to sit down; and Adrian Baker continued thus:

"Forgive me. I have put your heart to a terrible proof, but the doubts of my soul were still more terrible. The world had filled my spirit with horrible distrust and I desired to sound the uttermost depths of your love. It has resisted absence, and it has resisted death. Your love for me was not a pa.s.sing fancy; you did not deceive yourself when you vowed me an eternal love. I left you in order to watch you and I died to comprehend you. I have followed you everywhere; I have not separated from you a single moment. My sweet Berta! You waited for me living, and you have waited for me dead. 'If you wait for me,' I said, 'your own heart will announce my return to you,' and you see I have returned. I felt for you an immense tenderness, but a terrible doubt consumed my heart. Had my riches dazzled you? Forgive me, Berta. A fatal learning had frozen faith in my soul; I doubted everything, and I doubted your heart also--I doubted you."

Berta clasped her hands, and raising her eyes to heaven, exclaimed mournfully:

"My G.o.d! what cruel injustice!"

"Yes!" burst out Adrian Baker; "cruel injustice! but you have resuscitated my heart; you have brought my soul back to life."

"Ah," said Berta, laying her hands on his breast, "what if it were too late!"

Then, turning to her father and the nurse, she said:

"I feel very cold; let us return to the villa;" and leaning on Adrian Baker's arm, she led the way.

Her father and the nurse followed her in silence. The good man had comprehended everything, but the poor woman comprehended nothing.

What pa.s.sed that night in the villa it is not necessary to relate; it was a night of pain, of agitation, and of anguish. It was necessary to go to the city for a physician; why? Because Berta was dying. Adrian Baker was the image of despair; the unhappy father wept as if his heart would break, and the nurse stole away from time to time to cry, unable to restrain her tears.

At dawn it was necessary to go again to the city, for the physician of the body had exhausted the resources of science, and they were obliged to have recourse to the physician of the soul.

Dawn was just breaking when a priest alighted at the door of the villa.

The sick girl received him, if we may be allowed the expression, with melancholy gladness, and a little later all was over.

In the middle of the room, on a funeral bier, lighted by six large wax tapers, which cast a melancholy light around, lay the body of the dead girl. The window admitted the morning light; and the autumn wind, tearing the dead leaves from the trees in the garden, scattered them over the inanimate form of Berta, as if death thus rendered homage to death.

Attracted by the light of the torches, a white b.u.t.terfly flew silently in and circled around and around the head of the dead girl.

Watching the body were the father, leaning over the bier, bowed down under the weight of an immeasurable grief; the nurse dissolved in tears; Adrian, with dry and glittering eyes, pale, motionless, mute, terrible in his anguish; and the priest with folded arms and head bent over his breast, murmuring pious prayers.

Such was the scene which the morning sun lighted in Berta's room. The birds of the garden alighted on the rail of the window, but did not venture to enter; they looked in apprehensively and flew away terrified; they twittered on the branches of the trees, and their melancholy chirpings seemed like sighs.

Breathing a sigh torn from the inmost depths of his soul, Adrian Baker exclaimed in a hollow voice:

"Miserable man that I am! I have killed her!"

"Ah, yes," said the priest, slowly shaking his head. "Divine Justice-- Doubt kills."

MAESE PEREZ, THE ORGANIST By Gustavo Adolfo Becquer From "Modern Ghosts." Translated by Rollo Ogden.

MAESE PEREZ, THE ORGANIST

I.

"Do you see that man with the scarlet cloak, and the white plume in his hat, and the gold-embroidered vest? I mean the one just getting out of his litter and going to greet that lady--the one coming along after those four pages who are carrying torches? Well, that is the Marquis of Mascoso, lover of the widow, the Countess of Villapineda. They say that before he began paying court to her he had sought the hand of a very wealthy man's daughter, but the girl's father, who they say is a trifle close-fisted-- but hush! Speaking of the devil--do you see that man closely wrapped in his cloak coming on foot under the arch of San Felipe? Well, he is the father in question. Everybody in Seville knows him on account of his immense fortune.

"Look--look at that group of stately men! They are the twenty-four knights. Aha! there's that Heming, too. They say that the gentlemen of the green cross have not challenged him yet, thanks to his influence with the great ones at Madrid. All he comes to church for is to hear the music.

"Alas! neighbor, that looks bad. I fear there's going to be a scuffle.

I shall take refuge in the church, for, according to my guess, there will be more blows than Paternosters. Look, look! the Duke of Alcala's people are coming round the corner of Saint Peter's Square, and I think I see the Duke of Medinasidonia's men in Duenas Alley. Didn't I tell you?

There--there! The blows are beginning. Neighbor, neighbor, this way before they close the doors!

"But what's that? They've left off. What's that light? Torches! a litter!

It's the bishop himself! G.o.d preserve him in his office as many centuries as I desire to live myself! If it were not for him, half Seville would have been burned up by this time with these quarrels of the dukes. Look at them, look at them, the hypocrites, how they both press forward to kiss the bishop's ring!

"But come, neighbor--come into the church before it is packed full. Some nights like this it is so crowded that you could not get in if you were no larger than a grain of wheat. The nuns have a prize in their organist.

Other sisterhoods have made Maese Perez magnificent offers; nothing strange about that, though, for the very archbishop has offered him mountains of gold if he would go to the cathedral. But he would not listen to them. He would sooner die than give up his beloved organ. You don't know Maese Perez? Oh, I forgot you had just come to the neighborhood.

Well, he is a holy man; poor, to be sure, but as charitable as any man that ever lived. With no relative but a daughter, and no friend but his organ, he spends all his time in caring for the one and repairing the other. The organ is an old affair, you must know; but that makes no difference to him. He handles it so that its tone is a wonder. How he does know it! and all by touch, too, for did I tell you that the poor man was born blind?

"Humble, too, as the very stones. He always says that he is only a poor convent organist, when the fact is he could give lessons in sol fa to the very chapel master of the primate. You see, he began before he had teeth.

His father had the same position before him, and as the boy showed such talent, it was very natural that he should succeed his father when the latter died. And what a touch he has, G.o.d bless him! He always plays well, always; but on a night like this he is wonderful. He has the greatest devotion to this Christmas Eve ma.s.s, and when the host is elevated, precisely at twelve o'clock, which is the time that Our Lord came into the world, his organ sounds like the voices of angels.

"But why need I try to tell you about what you are going to hear to-night?

It is enough for you to see that all the elegance of Seville, the very archbishop included, comes to a humble convent to listen to him. And it is not only the learned people who can understand his skill that come; the common people, too, swarm to the church, and are still as the dead when Maese Perez puts his hand to the organ. And when the host is elevated-- when the host is elevated, then you can't hear a fly. Great tears fall from every eye, and when the music is over a long-drawn sigh is heard, showing how the people have been holding their breath all through.

"But come, come, the bells have stopped ringing, and the ma.s.s is going to begin. Hurry in. This is Christmas Eve for everybody, but for no one is it a greater occasion than for us."

So saying, the good woman who had been acting as cicerone for her neighbor pressed through the portico of the Convent of Santa Ines, and elbowing this one and pushing the other, succeeded in getting inside the church, forcing her way through the mult.i.tude that was crowding about the door.

II.

The church was profusely lighted. The flood of light which fell from the altars glanced from the rich jewels of the great ladies, who, kneeling upon velvet cushions placed before them by pages, and taking their prayer-books from the hands of female attendants, formed a brilliant circle around the chancel lattice. Standing next that lattice, wrapped in their richly colored and embroidered cloaks, letting their green and red orders be seen with studied carelessness, holding in one hand their hats, the plumes sweeping the floor, and letting the other rest upon the polished hilts of rapiers or the jewelled handles of daggers, the twenty-four knights, and a large part of the highest n.o.bility of Seville, seemed to be forming a wall for the purpose of keeping their wives and daughters from contact with the populace. The latter, swaying back and forth at the rear of the nave, with a noise like that of a rising surf, broke out into joyous acclamations as the archbishop was seen to come in.

That dignitary seated himself near the high altar under a scarlet canopy, surrounded by his attendants, and three times blessed the people.

It was time for the ma.s.s to begin.

Nevertheless, several minutes pa.s.sed before the celebrant appeared. The mult.i.tude commenced to murmur impatiently; the knights exchanged words with each other in a low tone; and the archbishop sent one of his attendants to the sacristan to inquire why the ceremony did not begin.

"Maese Perez has fallen sick, very sick, and it will be impossible for him to come to the midnight ma.s.s."

This was the word brought back by the attendant.

The news ran instantly through the crowd. The disturbance caused by it was so great that the chief judge rose to his feet, and the officers came into the church, to enforce silence.