The Torrent Part 23

They must separate there; for she insisted on going home alone. And their parting was sweet, slow, endless.

"Good-bye, my love; one kiss. Until tomorrow ... no, later--today."

She walked a few steps up the bank, and then suddenly ran back to snuggle again in her lover's arms.

"Another, my prince ... the last."

Day was breaking, announced not by the song of the lark, as in the garden of Shakespere's lovers at Verona, but by the sound of carts, creaking over country roads in the distance, and by a languid, sleepy melody of an orchard boy.

"Good-bye, Rafael.... Now I must really go. They'll discover us."

Wrapping her coat about her she hurried away, waving a final farewell to him with her handkerchief.

Rafael rowed upstream toward the city. That part of the trip--he reflected--alone, tired, and struggling against the current, was the one bad part of the wonderful night. When he moored his boat near the bridge it was already broad day. The windows of the river houses were opening.

Over the bridge carts laden with produce for the market were rumbling, and orchard women were going by with huge baskets on their heads. All these people looked down with interest on their deputy. He must have spent the night fishing. And this news pa.s.sed from one to the other, though not a trace of fishing tackle was visible in the boat. How they envied rich folks, who could sleep all day and spend their time just as they pleased!

Rafael jumped ash.o.r.e. All that curiosity he was attracting annoyed him.

His mother would know everything by the time he got home!

As he climbed slowly and wearily, his arms numb from rowing, to the bridge, he heard his name called.

Don Andres was standing there, gazing at him out of those yellow eyes of his, scowling through his wrinkles with an expression of stern authority.

"You've given me a fine night, Rafael. I know where you've been. I saw you row off last night with that woman; and plenty of my friends were on hand to follow you and find out just where you went. You've been on the island all night; that woman was singing away like a lunatic.... G.o.d of G.o.ds, boy! Aren't there any houses in the world? Do you have to play the band when you're having an affair, so that everybody in the Kingdom can come and look?"

The old man was truly riled; all the more because he was himself the secretive, the dexterous, libertine, adopting every precaution not to be discovered in his "weaknesses." Was it anger or envy that he felt on seeing a couple enough in love with each other to be fearless of gossip and indifferent to danger, to throw prudence to the winds, and flaunt their pa.s.sion before the world with the reckless insolence of happiness?

"Besides, your mother knows everything. She's discovered what you've been up to, these nights past. She knows you haven't been in your room.

You're going to break that woman's heart!"

And with paternal severity he went on to speak of dona Bernarda's despair, of the danger to the future of the House, of the obligations they were under to don Matias, of the solemn promise given, of that poor girl waiting to be married!

Rafael walked along in silence and like an automaton. That old man's chatter brought down around his head, like a swarm of pestering mosquitoes, all the provoking, irritating obligations of his life. He felt like a man rudely awakened by a tactless servant in the middle of a sweet dream. His lips were still tingling with Leonora's kisses! His whole body was aglow with her gentle warmth! And here was this old curmudgeon coming along with a sermon on "duty," "family," "what they would say"--as if love amounted to nothing in this life! It was a plot against his happiness, and he felt stirred to the depths with a sense of outrage and revolt.

They had reached the entrance to the Brull mansion. Rafael was fumbling about for the key-hole with his key.

"Well," growled the old man. "What have you got to say to all this? What do you propose to do? Answer me! Haven't you got a tongue in your head?"

"I," replied the young man energetically--"will do as I please."

Don Andres jumped as though he had been stung. My, how this Rafael had changed!... Never before had he seen that gleam of aggressiveness, arrogance, belligerency in the eye of the boy!

"Rafael, is that the way you answer me,--a man who has known you since you were born? Is that the tone of voice you use toward one who loves you as your own father loved you?"

"I'm of age, if you don't mind my saying so!" Rafael replied. "I'm not going to put up any longer with this comedy of being a somebody on the street and a baby in my own house. Henceforth just keep your advice to yourself until I ask for it. Good day, sir!"

As he went up the stairs he saw his mother on the first landing, in the semi-darkness of the closed house, illumined only by the light that entered through the window gratings. She stood there, erect, frowning, tempestuous, like a statue of Avenging Justice.

But Rafael did not waver. He went straight on up the stairs, fearless and without a tremor, like a proprietor who had been away from home for some time and strides arrogantly back Into a house that is all his own.

VI

"You're right, don Andres. Rafael is not my son. He has changed. That wanton woman has made another man of him. Worse, a thousand times worse, than his father! Crazy over the huzzy! Capable of trampling on me if I should step between him and her. You complain of his lack of respect to you! Well, what about me?... You wouldn't have thought it possible! The other morning, when he came into the house, he treated me just as he treated you. Only a few words, but plain enough! He'll do just as he pleases, or--what amounts to the same thing--he'll keep up his affair with that woman until he wearies of her, or else blows up in one grand debauch, like his father.... My G.o.d! And that's what I've suffered for all these years. That's what I get for sacrificing myself, day in day out, trying to make somebody out of him!"

The austere dona Bernarda, dethroned by her son's resolute rebelliousness, wept as she said this. In her tears of a mother's grief there was something also of the chagrin of the authoritarian on finding in her own home a will rebellious to hers and stronger than hers.

Between sobs she told don Andres how her son had been carrying on since his declaration of independence. He was no longer cautious about spending the night away from home. He was coming in now in broad daylight; and, afternoons, with his meals "still in his mouth" as she said, he would take the road to the Blue House, on the run almost, as if he could not get to perdition soon enough. The dead hand of his father was upon him!

All you had to do was look at him. His face discolored, yellow, pale; his skin drawn tight over his cheekbones; and--the only sign of life--the fire that gleamed in his eyes like a spark of wild joy! Oh, a curse was on the family! They were all alike ...!

The mother did her best to conceal the truth from Remedios. Poor girl!

She was going about crestfallen and in deep dejection, unable to explain Rafael's sudden withdrawal.

The matter had to be kept secret; and that was what held dona Bernarda's rage within bounds during her rapid, heated exchanges with her son.

Perhaps everything would come out all right in the end--something unforeseen would turn up to undo the evil spell that had been cast over Rafael. And in this hope she used every effort to keep Remedios and her father from learning what had happened. She feigned contentment in their presence, and invented a thousand pretexts--studies, work, even illness--to justify her son's neglect of his "fiancee." At the same time, the disconsolate mother feared the people around her--the gossip of a small town, bored with itself, ever on the alert, hunting for something interesting to talk about and get scandalized about.

The news of Rafael's affair spread like wildfire meanwhile, considerably magnified as it pa.s.sed from mouth to mouth. People told hair-raising tales of that expedition down the river, of walks through the orange groves, of nights spent at dona Pepa's house, Rafael entering in the dark, in his stocking feet, like a thief; of silhouettes of the lovers outlined in suggestive poses against the bedroom curtain; of their appearing in windows their arms about each other's waists, looking at the stars--everything sworn to by voluntary spies, who could say "I saw it with my own eyes"--persons who had spent whole nights, on the river-bank, behind some fence, in some clump of bushes, to surprise the deputy on his way to or from his a.s.signations.

In the cafes or at the Casino, the men openly envied Rafael, commenting with eyes a-glitter on his good fortune. That fellow had been born under a lucky star! But later at home they would add their stern voices to the chorus of indignant women. What a scandal! A deputy, a public man, a "personage" who ought to set an example for others! That was a disgrace to the const.i.tuency! And when the murmur of general protest reached the ears of dona Bernarda, she lifted her hands to heaven in despair. Where would it all end! Where would it all end! That son of hers was bent on ruining himself!

Don Matias, the rustic millionaire, said nothing; and, in the presence of dona Bernarda, at least, pretended to know nothing. His interest in a marriage connection with the Brull family counselled prudence. He, too, hoped that it would all blow over, prove to be the blind infatuation of a young man. Feeling himself a father, more or less, to the boy, he thought of giving Rafael just a bit of advice when he came upon him in the street one day. But he desisted after a word or two. A proud glance of the youth completely floored him, making him feel like the poor orange-grower of former days, who had cringed before the majestic, grandiose don Ramon!

Rafael was intrenched in haughty silence. He needed no advice. But alas!

When at night he reached his beloved's house--it seemed to be redolent with the very perfume of her, as if the furniture, the curtains, the very walls about her had absorbed the essence of her spirit--he felt the strain of that insistent gossip, of the persecution of an entire city that had fixed its eyes upon his love.

Two against a mult.i.tude! With the serene immodesty of the ancient idylls, they had abandoned themselves to pa.s.sion in a stupid, narrow environment, where sprightly gossip was the most appreciated of the moral talents!

Leonora grew sad. She smiled as usual; she flattered him with the same worship, as if he were an idol; she was playful and gay; but in moments of distraction, when she did not notice that he was watching, Rafael would surprise a cast of bitterness about her lips--and a sinister light in her eyes, the reflection of painful thoughts.

She referred with acrid mirth one night to what people were saying about them. Everything was found out sooner or later in that city! The gossip had gotten even to the Blue House! Her kitchen woman had hinted that she had better not walk so much along the river front--she might catch malaria. On the market place the sole topic of conversation was that night trip down the Jucar ... the deputy, sweating his life out over the oars, and she waking half the country up with her strange songs!...

And she laughed, but with a hard, harsh laugh of affected gaiety that showed the nervousness underneath, though without a word of complaint.

Rafael remorsefully reflected that she had foreseen all that in first repelling his advances. He admired her resignation. She would have been justified in rebuking him for the harm he had done her. As it was, she was not even telling him all she knew! Ah, the wretches! To hara.s.s an innocent woman so! She had loved him, given herself to him, bestowed on him the royal gift of her person. And the deputy began to hate his city, for repaying in insult and scandal the wondrous happiness she had conferred on its "chief"!

On another night Leonora received him with a smile that frightened him.

She was affecting a mood of hectic cheerfulness, trying to drown her worries by sheer force, overwhelming her lover with a flood of light, frivolous chatter; but suddenly, at the limit of her endurance, she gave way, and in the middle of a caress, burst into tears and sank to a divan, sobbing as if her heart would break.

"Why what's the matter? What has happened ...?"

For a time she could not answer, her voice was too choked with weeping.

At last, however, between sobs, burying her tear-stained face on Rafael's shoulder, she began to speak, completely crushed, fainting from virtual prostration.

She could stand it no longer! The torture was becoming unbearable. It was useless for her to pretend. She knew as well as he what people were saying in the city. They were spied upon continuously. On the roads, in the orchard, along the river, there were people constantly on the watch for something new to report. That pa.s.sion of hers, so sweet, so youthful, so sincere, was a b.u.t.t of public laughter, a theme for idle tongues, who flayed her as if she were a common street-woman, because she had been good to him, because she had not been cruel enough to watch a young man writhe in the torment of pa.s.sion, indifferently.... But though this persecution from a scandalized public was bad enough, she did not mind it. Why should she care what those stupid people said? But, alas, there were others--the people around Rafael, his friends, his family, ... his mother!