La Gaviota

CHAPTER XXII

IT was at the close of summer, in the month of September. The weather was still warm, but the evenings were already long and cool. Nine o’clock had struck, and there remained at the countess’s only the family and intimate friends, when Eloise entered.

“Sit down here near me on the sofa,” said the mistress of the house to her.

“I am very much obliged to you. Notwithstanding, you will agree with me, Gracia, that our sofas in Spain are stuffed only with tow and horsehair. Nothing is harder or less comfortable.”

“But also nothing is more fresh,” said Rita, near whom Eloise had seated herself, in a studied attitude.

“Do you know what they say?” asked this last of the poet Polo, playing with his yellow gloves, and stretching out his leg, to exhibit his beautiful patent-leather shoes; “they say that Arias is named town-major, but I believe it is a splendid puff.”

“Village gossip, for Seville resembles, a village,” replied Eloise, smirking. “Raphael merits better than that. He is a man who is very spiritual, very fashionable, and a brave officer.”

“What do you say, señorita?” demanded the general, who had vaguely understood something of the conversation.

“I say, sir, what everybody repeats who knows it.”

“Town-major! one should have patience,” cried the general, striking his cards.

“What can excite so violently the bile of our uncle?” asked Raphael, on entering, of his cousin Rita.

“The report which is circulated.”

“What report?”

“That which names you town-major. Our uncle believes it is a joke.”

“He is right, I would not aspire to that honor. But I bring some news which has a thousand claims to be placed in the first circle.”

“News! news belonging to us all? Then relate it to us quickly.”

“Know then,” said Raphael, raising his voice, “that the Grisi of Villamar is ready to be heard on the stage of Seville.”

“Oh! what joy!” cried Eloise. “Here, then, is a veritable event, which will break up monotonous Seville from its ordinary routine, in which it has vegetated since San Fernando founded it.”

“The Conquest,” her friend Polo whispered.

But Eloise continued without listening: “In what piece will she first appear?”

“In a piece written expressly for her, and for Stein, her husband,” replied Raphael.

“Has any one ever seen the like!” exclaimed the marchioness.

“Do you not see, mother,” said the countess, “that Raphael is jesting, according to his very laudable and very ordinary habit?”

“Since Lucretia, Angelo, Antony y Carlos, el Hechizado, have been played, there is nothing in the world I do not believe possible.”

“The theatre is the School of Manners,” remarked the general, ironically, “where they raise to their level those whom they would adopt.”

“How right the French are in saying that Africa commences beyond the Pyrenees!” murmured, during this time, Eloise in the ears of Polo.

“Since they occupy a part belonging to the sea-shore,” he replied, “they speak of it no more; that would be too great a pleasure to us.”

Eloise restrained a fit of laughter by biting her little handkerchief trimmed with lace.

“Here are two who conspire,” announced Rita to Raphael. “Polo has an infernal machine between his eyes and his eye-glass, and Eloise hides in her handkerchief, which she conveys to her mouth, a whole world of engines destined to fight against a cursed and stationary Spain.”

“Why, these are not conspirators,” replied Raphael.

“What are they then, eternal contradictor?”

“They are – I will tell you, so that you can judge them in all their sublimity.”

“Finish! tiresome fellow.”

“They are,” said Raphael, solemnly, “incomprehensible regenerators.”

Several evenings after what we have just related, the vast galleries of the hotel the countess inhabited were deserted. There was seen only the playing of tresillo.

“How late they are!” said the marchioness. “It is already half-past eleven, and they do not come.”

“Time does not seem long at the theatre,” added her brother; “when they are at the opera, they are amused like so many fools.”

“Who would have believed,” continued the marchioness, “that this woman could have been so studious, and so determined, as to walk the boards so soon?”

“As to the study,” said the general, “when one knows how to sing, it does not require so much study as you think. As to her determination, I would be satisfied with a regiment of grenadiers like her to besiege Numance or Saragossa.”

“I will tell you what occurred,” then remarked one of the players. “When three months ago the Italian company arrived, our future prima donna became a subscriber, and chose a box the nearest to the stage. She did not miss a single recitation, and she even obtained permission to assist at the rehearsals. The duke directed the Italian prima donna to give lessons to his protégé which made her accepted afterwards by the director; but he would engage her only as second, which Maria refused haughtily. By one of those chances which always favor the audacious, the prima donna fell dangerously ill, and the protégé of the duke offered herself to replace her. We well know how she has acquitted herself of the task.”

At this moment the countess, animated and brilliant as the light, entered, accompanied by several invited guests.

“Mother, what a delightful evening we have had! What a triumph! What a beautiful and magnificent thing!”

“Will you tell me, my niece,” replied the general, “what importance it could have, and what effect produced by this new arrival having a fine voice and singing well on the stage, that she has excited in you the same elevation, and even the same enthusiasm, which the recital of a great fact or of a sublime action would inspire in you.”

“Think then, uncle, what a triumph for us! What glory for Seville, to be the cradle of an artist whose renown will fill the whole world!”

“Like the Marquis de la Romana!” replied the general. “Like Wellington, or like Napoleon! Is it not true, my niece?”

“What, sir,” replied the countess; “the renowned, is she not a war-trumpet? How divinely this woman, without a rival, sings! With what ease and good taste she walks the stage! She is a prodigy! And what enthusiasm and admiration seized all the audience! My own pleasure was redoubled when I saw the duke so satisfied, and Stein dumb with emotion.”

“The duke,” interrupted the general, “should find his joy in things of a different nature.”

“General,” remarked one of the guests, “these are human weaknesses. The duke is young – ”

“Ah!” cried the countess, “there is nothing more frightful than suspicion, and to suspect evil where it does not exist. The world dishonors him who would be culpable of such infamy. Do you not all know that the duke does not only give himself up to the study of the fine arts, but that he patronizes the artists, the learned, and all whom he can happily influence in the progress of intelligence? And besides, Maria, has she not for her husband a man to whom the duke owes much?”

“My niece,” replied the general, “all this is very beautiful and very Christianlike; but do not destroy the appearances which permit the suspicion. In this world it is not sufficient to be at the shelter of the critic; we must still be careful of propriety. For this same reason, as you are young and handsome, you will do well not to take in hand the defence in certain causes.”

“I have not the ambitious pretension to pass myself off as perfect,” replied the countess, “nor to establish in my house a tribunal of justice; but what I desire, is to be a loyal and sincere friend, when I defend and make respected those who honor me with their friendship.”

Raphael and Arias entered at this moment.

“Ah, Raphael,” she said to him, “do you still mock this fair enchantress?”

“My cousin, to please you, I am brilliant with enthusiasm, in imitation of the public. I have been a witness to the imperial ovation awarded to this eighth wonder.”

“Relate it to us,” said the countess; “relate it to us.”

“When the curtain fell, I thought for an instant that we were going to witness a second edition of the Tower of Babel. Ten times they encored the diva; and they would have encored it twenty times, if the insolent and irreverent lustres of the opera house, fatigued by the length of their services, had not begun to sparkle and go out. The friends of the duke were eager to go and congratulate the heroine; we all precipitated ourselves at her feet – and we prostrated ourselves, our faces to the earth.”

“You also, Raphael?” asked the general. “I thought you had more sense under your apparent giddiness.”

“If I had not been where all the others went, I would not now have had the pleasure to paint to you the reception which we gave to this Queen of Molucca, this Empress of Bernol. (A flat, in music.) To begin: she arranged all her answers in a species of chromatic scale, according to her usage, and which again close the following demi-tones: to begin, the calm, which is called also indifference; then the supineness; and, to finish, the disdain. I was the first to offer her the tribute of my homage. I showed to her my hands, bruised with applauding, and swore to her that the slight sacrifice of the surface of the skin was well due to her incomparable talent – happy rival of that of the illustrious Madureira. She replied only by a superb inclination of the head worthy of the goddess Juno. The baron entreated her to come to Paris, the only city where bravos are of any value, because the Paris success resounds throughout the universe. And Maria replied coldly: ‘You see that it is not necessary that I go to Paris to be applauded: bravos for bravos, I like better those of my country than those of France.’ ”

“She said that?” demanded the general. “There is much good sense in this woman.”

“The major, ‘Grande Mosca,’ ” continued Raphael, “said to her, with his usual awkwardness, that of all the singers he had ever heard, one only, Grisi, sang better than she.

“ ‘Since Grisi sings better than I,’ coldly replied the artiste, ‘you were wrong to listen to me in lieu of going to hear her.’

“Then came Sir John, shaking hands with and treading on everybody’s feet.

“ ‘Señora Maria,’ he said to the Gaviota, ‘your voice is wonderful: if you wish to sell it, I will pay you fifty thousand pounds for it.’

“ ‘I do not sell my voice,’ said Maria, disdainfully.”

“All this is beautiful and good, dear cousin; but what think you of the mystery which surrounds this affair?”

“Of what mystery do you speak?” demanded the baron, who just appeared.

“Of this brilliant début,” replied Arias; “of this début, bursting among us like a bombshell, at a moment when no one thought of it. I understand certain things now: the interviews of the duke with the impressario; the assiduity of this Norma at the theatre.”

“Ah, here comes Señorita Rita,” exclaimed the baron. “Señorita, I believe that I had the honor to see you this morning, in the street Catalans.”

“I did not see you,” replied Rita.

“It is a misfortune,” observed Raphael, “which never happens to our cathedral, nor to Major ‘Grande Mosca.’ ”

“I saw you,” continued the baron, “near to a large cross placed against the wall. I asked what this cross meant, and was informed that it is called the cross of the negro. Can you tell me, señorita, from whence comes this strange denomination?”

“I do not know. Probably some black person was crucified on it.”

“It is probable. But can you also tell me,” added the baron, with that insupportable irony which approaches so near to the familiar insolence of the incredulous, when they speak to those whom they know to be credulous, “why there is a crocodile suspended from the vault of this gallery of the cathedral, which surrounds the court of orange-trees, on entering by the right of the Giralda? The cathedral with you, does it serve also as a museum of natural history?”

“This large crocodile,” said Rita, on walking away, “is there, because it was taken on the roof of the church.”

“Ah,” cried the baron, laughing, “all is wonderful in your cathedral – every thing, including the crocodile.”

“This is a popular belief,” said the countess; “here is the truth: this crocodile was presented to King Alphonse, the wise, by the famous ambassador sent by the Sultan of Egypt. At the side of this crocodile there is still the tooth of an elephant, a stick, and a bridle – symbols of strength and of moderation. For six hundred years have these symbols been placed at the entrance to the church, as an inscription which the people comprehend without knowing how to read.”

The baron seemed much to regret he could not adopt Rita’s version. The cruel countess had deprived him of the pleasure of writing an article critical, burlesque, satirical, and humorous. Who knows if the crocodile has not been called to fill the part of a holy spirit of a new species in the pleasant recital of this Frenchman, endowed with the advantage of having been born malicious?

During this time the marchioness scolded Rita for the sham she had passed off on the baron, respecting the crucified negro.

“You had better have told him the truth,” said the marchioness.

“I do not know that – and then the baron bores me.”

“You must avow your ignorance. Do you not know that this man is capable of publishing your answer in his ‘Travels in Spain?’ ”

“What does it matter to us?”

“It matters, my niece, that I do not like that they speak evil of my country.”

“Yes,” interposed the general, with bitterness, “arrest the stream that overflows. It is not astonishing that foreigners calumniate our country, when we are the first to slander it, without remembering the proverb: ‘It is vile to believe one’s self vile.’ Marchioness, my sister, you ought also to reprimand this fool of a Raphael, for having replied to the baron – who put to him a question of the same kind, relative to the cross of the robbers, near to the Cartago – that this cross bore that name because it was there the robbers came to pray to God to bless their enterprises.”

“And the baron believed it?”

“As firmly as I believe that he is not a baron.”

“It was poor wit. This cross was raised in memory of a miracle which led to the conversion of a troop of bandits. I will severely reprimand this crackbrain.” And she called Raphael, to whom his cousin Gracia said:

“I am full of joy. What delightful moments we are to pass with this Mariquita!”

“It will not be for long, countess,” said the colonel. “They assure me that the duke is to take the new Malibran to Madrid.”

“And what nomme de théâtre has she taken?” asked the countess. “It will not do to call her Marisalada, I suppose. The name is pretty, but it is not sufficiently imposing for an artiste.”

“She will perform, without doubt, under that of Gaviota,” said Raphael: “one of the duke’s servants told mine that it was the name given her in the village. She might take the name of her husband.”

“What horror!” said the countess; “she must have a euphonious name.”

“She might take that of her father – Santalo.”

“No, señor; it must be a name ending in i; better still if it were d’i.”

“In that case,” said Raphael, “name her Mississippi.”

“We will consult Polo,” said the countess. “Eh, but where then is he hid, our poet?”

“I would willingly bet,” said Raphael, “that at this instant he is confiding to paper the poetic inspirations which the divinity of the day has born in his soul. To-morrow, without any doubt, we will read in ‘Il Sevillano’ one of those compositions, which, according to my uncle, if they do not raise up easily to Parnassus, they will infallibly precipitate into Lethe.”

The marchioness again called to Raphael.

“I am sure,” he said to his cousin, “that my aunt does me the honor to call me now to have the pleasure of scolding me. I see a sermon trembling on her lips: her knit eyebrows announce a terrible admonition, and the quivering nostril already sends to my ears the sound of harsh reprimand. But what lucky chance! – here is a shield,” and he glided his arm within that of the baron, and led him along with him near to the card-table. The marchioness, although furious, deferred her rebuke to a more favorable occasion. Rita felt a great desire to laugh, and the general struck the floor with the heel of his boot, which gave indication of his impatience.

“Is the general indisposed?” asked the baron.

“He is afflicted with a nervous movement,” replied Raphael, in an under-tone.

“What a misfortune!” cried the baron. “It is tic-douloureux. Whence this evil? Some tendon injured in the wars, perhaps, dear Raphael?”

“No; a strong moral impression – ”

“It must be very terrible. And what was the cause?”

“A word of your king Louis XIV.”

“What word?” asked the alarmed baron.

“The celebrated word: ‘There is no longer the Pyrenees.’ ”

They talked much of the new singer at all the reunions; but they were ignorant, above all, of a significant fact which passed with her on the same evening. Pepe Vera had not ceased to follow Marisalada. In his quality of a favorite with the public, it was not difficult for him to cross the threshold of the temple consecrated to the muses, despite the animosity they had sworn to the bull-fights. Maria left the stage amid a torrent of applause, when she met Pepe Vera and some other young men face to face.

“How blessed is she!” said the celebrated bull-fighter, spreading his mantle as a carpet for the artiste; “how blessed is this voice, capable to make all the nightingales of May to die with envy!”

“What blessed eyes!” added another, “which wound more Christians than all the poniards of Albacete.”

The Gaviota passed on, as always, impassible and disdainful.

“She does not even deign to look at us,” said Pepe Vera. “Listen then, my beautiful: a king is a king, and yet he can look at a cat. See, caballeros, she is, nevertheless, a very beautiful girl, although – ”

“Although what?”

“Although she squints.”

Marisalada, on hearing these words, could not repress an involuntary movement. She fixed on the group her large, astonished eyes. The young men set up a loud laugh, and Pepe Vera sent her a kiss at the ends of his fingers.

Marisalada understood at once that this word squint was addressed to her merely to make her turn her head: she could not resist smiling, and then went on her way, having let her handkerchief drop. Pepe picked it up, and approached her as if to hand it to her.

“I will deliver it to you to-night, at the grating of your window,” he said to her hurriedly, in a low voice.

At midnight Mariquita left her bed with precaution, after being convinced that her husband slept profoundly. Stein indeed slept, a smile on his lips, intoxicated with the praises lavished that evening on his wife – his scholar, the beloved of his heart. During this sweet sleep a blackness had rested against one of the gratings of the window. It was impossible to distinguish any feature, for an officious hand had previously extinguished all the lights on the street.

Seville had become already a theatre too confined for the ambition and the thirst for ovations which devoured the heart of Marisalada. Besides, the duke, obliged to return to the capital, desired himself to present this phenomenon, whose reputation had preceded her to Madrid. Pepe Vera, on the other hand, engaged to appear at the Corrida in Madrid, urged Maria to make the journey: she made it. The triumph which she obtained at her début on this new stage, surpassed what she had achieved in Seville. The happy times of Orpheus and Amphion, the wonders of the mythological times, seemed to be brought back again. Stein was confused, the duke was in a state of complete intoxication. Pepe Vera said one day to the cantora: “Caramba! (hah!) Mariquita, they applaud you neither more nor less than if you had killed a bull seven years old.”

Marisalada was surrounded with a numerous court, at which strangers of distinction, present in Madrid, made part. Among them were those of high rank, either from personal merit or from birth. What were the powerful motives which moved them? Some visited the singer to give her a ton according to modern custom. And what is this ton? It is a servile imitation of what others do. Some were guided by the same sentiment which prompts children to examine closely the secret springs of a plaything which amuses them.

Marisalada required to make no effort to feel at ease in the midst of this brilliant circle. She had in nothing reformed her cold and haughty indolence; but her person was more elegant, a better taste presided at her toilet; – material conquests, all exterior, which, in the eyes of certain persons, could supply the want of intelligence, tact, and distinction. At evening, on the stage, when the reflection of the lights rendered her paleness more transparent, and her large black eyes more brilliant, the Gaviota was really beautiful.

The duke was so fascinated with this woman, whose triumphs touched him some little, for they had confirmed his prophecies; and such was also the enthusiasm which her singing excited in him, that he thought it not improper to beg her to give lessons to his daughter. Notwithstanding he remembered very well the prediction of his amiable friend in Seville, and he trembled in thinking over the delay fixed by the lovely countess.

Then he formed the decision to respect the innocent woman, whom he had himself led into the brilliant and dangerous career she was now embarked in, and he thought of the duchess. The duchess was a virtuous and beautiful woman. Although she had passed her thirtieth year, the freshness of her complexion and the candid expression of her face made her appear much younger. She belonged to a family as illustrious as that of her husband. Leonore and Carlos had loved each other almost from their infancy, with that truly Spanish affection, affection profound, constant, which never leaves the heart, which never grows cold. They were married very young, and at eighteen years of age Leonore gave a daughter to her husband, who was himself then just twenty-two years of age.