The Catholic World Volume Iii Part 83

Be like them, and you will live happily and die in peace!"

Anna, his widow, was a woman distinguished among her cla.s.s, and she would have been so in a more elevated one. Carefully brought up by her brother the priest, her understanding was cultivated, her character grave, her manners dignified, and her virtue instinctive. These merits, united with {501} her easy circ.u.mstances, gave her a real superiority over those who surrounded her, which she accepted without misusing. Her son Perico, submissive, modest, and industrious, had been her consolation, his love for his cousin Rita being the only disquietude he had ever caused her.

Her daughter Elvira, who was three years younger than Perico, was a malva in gentleness, a violet in modesty and a lily in purity.

Ill-health in childhood had given to her features, which closely resembled those of her brother, a delicacy, and an expression of calm resignation, which lent to her a singular attraction. From her infancy she had clung to Ventura, the proud and handsome son of Uncle Pedro, who had been the friend and gossip of the late Alvareda.

The wife of Pedro died in giving birth to a daughter, who from her infancy had been confided to the care of her mother's sister, a religious of Alcala. Separated thus from his daughter, Pedro had concentrated all his affection upon his son, and with pride and satisfaction had seen him become the handsomest, the bravest, and the most gallant, of all the youths of the place.

Directly in front of the house of the Alvaredas stood the small cottage of Maria, the mother of Rita. Maria was the widow of Anna's brother, who had been superintendent of the neighboring _hacienda_ of Quintos.

This woman was so good, so without gall, so candid and simple, that she had never possessed enough force and energy to subdue the decided, haughty, and imperious character which her daughter had manifested from her childhood, and these evil dispositions had therefore developed themselves without restraint. She was violent-tempered, fickle, and cold-hearted. Her face, extraordinarily beautiful, seductively expressive, piquant, lively, smiling, and mischievous, formed a perfect contrast to that of her cousin Elvira.

The one might have been compared to a fresh rose armed with its thorns; the other to one of those roses of pa.s.sion, which lift above their pale leaves a crown of thorns in token of endurance, while they hide in the depths of their calix the sweetest honey.

In the delineation and cla.s.sification of the members which composed this family and those connected with them, we must not omit Melampo, the dog we have already seen, lazily following Perico on his return home. We must give him his place, for not all dogs are equal, even in the eye of the law. Melampo was a grave and honorable dog, without pretension, even to being a Hercules or an Alcides among his race, notwithstanding his enormous strength. He seldom barked, and never without good cause. He was sober and in nothing gluttonous. He never caressed his masters, but never, upon any pretext, separated himself from them. He had never, in all his life, bitten any person, and he despised above all things the attacks of those curs that with stupid hostility barked at his heels. But Melampo had killed six foxes and three wolves; and one day had thrown himself upon a bull which was pursuing his master, and obliged him to stop by seizing him by the ear, as one might treat a bad child. With such certificates of service, Melampo slept in the sun upon his laurels.

CHAPTER III.

When the two youths arrived, they found Elvira and Rita leaning each against a side of the doorway, wrapped in their mantles of yellow cloth, bordered with black velvet ribbon, such as were worn then by the women of the country in place of the large shawls which they use nowadays. They covered the lower part of the face, allowing only the forehead and eyes to be seen. Having wished them good evening, Perico said to his sister:

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"Elvira, I warn you that this bird wants to fly; fasten the cage well ... He is beside himself to go and fight these _gabachos_ [Footnote 86] who are trying to pa.s.s through here like Pedro through his house."

[Footnote 86: _Gabachos_, a term of contempt for Frenchmen.]

"For they say," added Ventura, "that they are approaching Seville; and must we stand looking on with our arms crossed, without so much as saying this mouth is my own?"

"Ah goodness!" exclaimed Elvira, "I hope in G.o.d that this may not happen! Do not even speak of it! O my protectress Saint Anna! I offer thee what I prize so much, my hair, which I will tie up in a tress with an azure ribbon and hang upon thy altar, if thou wilt save us from this."

"And I," said Rita, "will offer the Saint two pots of pinks to adorn her chapel, if it falls out so that you take yourselves off in haste and do not come back soon."

"Don't say that, even in jest," exclaimed Elvira, distressed.

"Never mind, let her say it; the Saint is sure to prefer the beautiful tress of your hair to her pinks," observed Ventura.

At this moment the good widow, Maria, approached. She was older than her sister-in-law, and although hardly sixty years old, was so small and thin that she appeared much older.

"Children," she cried, "the night is falling, what are you doing out here, freezing yourselves?"

"How freezing ourselves?" answered Ventura, unb.u.t.toning his collar, "I'm too warm, the cold is in your bones, Aunt Maria."

"Do not play with your health, my son, nor trust in your youth, for Death does not look at the record of baptism. This north wind cuts like a knife, and you are more likely to get a consumption by waiting here than an inheritance from the Indies."

So saying she pa.s.sed into the house, all following her, except Ventura, who went to discharge his commissions.

They found Anna seated before the brasier, the point of reunion round which families gather m winter. The great copper frying-pan shone like gold upon its low wooden bench. The floor of the s.p.a.cious room was covered with mattings of straw and hemp, around it were arranged rude wooden chairs, high-backed and low-seated, a low pine table upon which burned a large metal lamp, and a leathern arm-chair, like those seen in the barbers' shops of the region, completed the simple furniture of the room. In the alcove were seen a very high bed, over which was spread a white counterpane with well starched ruffles; a very large cedar chest, with supports underneath to preserve it from the dampness of the floor; a small table of the same wood, upon which, in its case of mahogany and gla.s.s, was a beautiful image of "Our Lady of Sorrows,"

some pious offerings, and the "Mystic Garland; or, Lives of the Saints," by Father Baltasar Bosch Centellas.

As soon as they were all reunited, including Pedro, the neighbor and friend of Anna, the latter began to recite the rosary. When the prayers were finished Anna took up her distaff to spin, Elvira applied herself to her knitting, and Pedro, who occupied the great chair, employed himself in the preparation of a cigarette; Perico in roasting chestnuts and acorns, which, when they were done, he gave to Rita, who ate them.

"Did you ever!" said Perico, "how the rain holds off! The earth has turned to stone and the sky to bra.s.s. Last year at this time it had rained so much that the ground could not be seen for the gra.s.s that covered it."

"It is true," said Uncle Pedro, "and now the flocks are perishing with hunger, notwithstanding that last year their table was so well spread."

"It appears to me," added Elvira, in her sweet voice, "that it is going to rain soon. The river wore its black frown to-day, and the old people say that these frowns are sleeping tempests, which, when the winds awaken them, drench the world.'"

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"Of course it is going to rain," said Rita; "I saw to-night the star of the waters which the storm brings for a lantern."

"It is a-going to rain," confirmed Maria, aroused from her dose by the abrupt and clear voice of her daughter; "my rheumatic pains announce it to me. Indeed, wind and rain are the fruits of the season, and they are needed. But I am sorry for the poor herdsmen who pa.s.s such nights in the inn of the stars."

"Don't trouble yourself about them, Maria," said the jovial Uncle Pedro, who had always a saying, a proverb, a story, or a something, to bring in support of whatever he a.s.serted. "In this world habit is everything, and that which seems disagreeable to one, another finds quite to his liking; custom makes all level as the sea, and gilds all like the sun. There was once a shepherd that got married to a girl as lovely as a rose, and as chance would have it, on the very night of the wedding there arose such a tempest as if all the imps from beneath had been abroad with thunder and lightning, hurricane and flood. It was too much for the shepherd; he abandoned his bride and rushed to the window exclaiming as he dashed it open, 'O blessed night I why am I not out to enjoy thee!'"

"The bride might well be jealous of such a rival," said Rita, bursting into a loud laugh.

The clock struck nine, they recited the "animas," and soon afterward separated.

When the mother and her children were left alone Elvira spread a clean cloth upon the table and placed upon it a dish of salad. Anna and her daughter began to sup, but Perico remained seated with his head inclined over the brasier, absently stirring with the shovel the few coals which still glowed among the ashes.

"Are you not going to eat your supper, Perico?" said his sister, extending toward him the fine white bread which she herself had kneaded.

"I am not hungry," he answered, without lifting his head.

"Are you sick, my son?" asked Anna.

"No, mother," he replied.

The supper was finished in silence, and when Elvira had gone out, carrying the plates, Perico abruptly said to his mother:

"Mother, I am going to Utrera tomorrow to enlist with the loyal Spanish who are preparing to defend the country."

Anna was thunderstruck. Accustomed to the docile obedience of her son, who had never failed to keep his word, she said to him:

"To the war? That is to say that you are going to abandon us. But it cannot be! You must not do it! You ought not to leave your mother and sister, and I will not give my consent."

"Mother," said the young man, exasperated, "it is seen that you always have something to oppose to my desires; you have subjected my will, and now you wish to fetter my arm; but mother," he proceeded, growing excited, and impelled by the two greatest motives which can rule a man--patriotism in all its purity, and love in all its ardor, "mother, I am twenty-two years old, and I have besides strength enough and will enough, to break away if you force me to it."

Anna, as much astonished as terrified, clapped her cold and trembling hands in agony, exclaiming:

"What! is there no alternative between a marriage which will make you wretched and the war which will cost you your life?"

"None, mother," said Perico, drawn out of his natural character, and hardened by the dread that he should yield in the contest now fairly entered upon. "Either I remain to marry, or I go to fulfil the duty of every young Spaniard."

"Marry, then," said the mother in a grave voice. "Between two misfortunes I choose the least bitter; but remember, Perico, what your mother tells you to-day; Rita is vain and light {504} an indifferent Christian, and an ungrateful daughter. A bad daughter makes a bad wife--your blood and hers will repel each other. You will remember what your mother now says, but it will be too late."