The Torrent (Entre Naranjos)

I

Hidden in the tall, thick rose-bushes that bounded the plazoleta in front of the Blue House, and under four old dead palms that drooped their branches dry and melancholy under the vigorous tufts of younger trees, were two rubblework benches, white-washed, the backs and armrests of ancient Valencian tiles, the glazed surfaces flecked with arabesques and varicolored fancies inherited from days of Saracen rule—sturdy, but comfortable seats, with the graceful lines of the sofas of the Eighteenth Century; and in them Leonora liked to spend her time in late afternoons especially, when the palm trees covered the little square with a cool, delightful shade.

On that warm March day, doña Pepa was sitting in one of them, her silver-rimmed spectacles on her nose, reading the "Life" of the day's saint. At her side was the maid. A true daughter of the campagna of Rome, Beppa had been trained to piety from her earliest years; and she was listening attentively so as not to miss a word.

On the other bench were Leonora and Rafael. The actress, with lowered head, was following the movements of her hands, busily engaged on some embroidery.

Rafael found Leonora much changed after his months of absence.

She was dressed simply, like any young lady of the city; her face and hands, so white and marble-like before, had taken on the golden transparency of ripened grain under the continued caress of the Valencian sun. Her slender fingers were bare of all rings, and her pink ears were not, as formerly, a-gleam with thick clusters of diamonds.

"I've become a regular peasant, haven't I?" she said, as if she could read in Rafael's eyes his astonishment at the transformation she had undergone. "It's life in the open that works such miracles: today one frill, tomorrow another, and a woman eventually gets rid of everything that was once a part of her body almost. I feel better this way.... Would you believe it? I've actually deserted my dressing-table, and the perfume I used lies all forsaken and forlorn. Fresh water, plenty of fresh water … that's what I like. I'm a long way from the Leonora who had to paint herself every night like a clown before she could appear before an audience. Take a good look at me! Well … what do you think? You might mistake me for one of your vassals almost, eh? I'll bet that if I had gone out this morning to join your demonstration at the station you wouldn't have recognized me in the crowd."

Rafael was going to say—and quite seriously, too—that he thought her more beautiful than ever. Leonora seemed to have descended from her height and drawn closer to him. But she guessed what was coming, and to forestall any compliments, hastened to resume control of the conversation.

"Now don't say you like me better this way. What nonsense! Remember, you come from Madrid, from real elegance, a world you did not know before!… But, to tell the truth, I like this simplicity; and the important thing in life is to please yourself, isn't it? It was a slow transformation, but an irresistible one; this country life gradually filled me with its peace and calm; it went to my head like a bland delicious wine. I just sleep and sleep, living the life of a human animal, free from every emotion, and quite willing never to wake up again. Why, Rafaelito! If nothing extraordinary happens and the devil doesn't give an unexpected tug at my sleeve, I can conceive of staying on here forever. I think of the outer world as a sailor must of the sea, when he finds himself all cosy at home after a voyage of continuous tempest."

"That's right, do stay," said Rafael. "You can't imagine how I worried up in Madrid wondering whether or not I'd find you here on my return."

"Don't go telling any fibs," said Leonora, gently, smiling with just a suggestion of gratification. "Do you think we haven't been following your doings in Madrid? Though you never were a friend, exactly, of good old Cupido, you've been writing him frequently—and all sorts of nonsense; just as a pretext for the really important thing—the postscript, with your regards to the 'illustrious artist,' sure to provoke the consoling reply that the 'illustrious artist' was still here. How those letters made me laugh!"

"Anyway, that will prove I wasn't lying that day when I assured you I would not forget, in Madrid. Well, Leonora; I didn't! The separation has made me worse, much worse, in fact."

"Thanks, Rafael," Leonora answered, quite seriously, as if she had lost mastery over the irony of former days. "I know you're telling the truth. And it saddens me, because it really is too bad. You understand, of course, that I can't love you.... So—if you don't mind—let's talk of something else."

And hastily, to shift the conversation from such dangerous ground, she began to chat about her rustic pleasures.

"I have a hen-coop that's too charming for anything. If you could only see me mornings, in a circle of cackling feathers, throwing fusillades of corn about to keep the roosters away. You see they get under my skirts and peck at my feet. It's hard to realize I can be the same woman who, just a few months ago, was brandishing a stage lance and interpreting Wagner's dreams, no less, as finely as you please! You'll soon see my vassals. I have the most astonishing layers you ever saw; and every morning I rummage around in the straw like a thief to get the eggs, and when I find them, they are still warm.... I've forgotten the piano. I hadn't opened it for more than a week, but this afternoon—I don't know why—I just felt like spending a little while in the society of the geniuses. I was thirsty for music … one of those moody whims of the olden days. Perhaps the presentiment that you were coming: the thought of those afternoons when you were upstairs, sitting like a booby in the corner, listening to me.... But don't jump to the conclusion, my dear deputy, that everything here is mere play—just chickens and the simple life. No, sir! I have turned my leisure to serious account. I have done big things to the house. You would never guess! A bathroom, if you please! And it just scandalizes poor auntie; while Beppa says it's a sin to give so much thought to matters of the body. I could give up many of my old habits, but not my bath; it's the one luxury I have kept, and I sent to Valencia for the plumbers, the marble, and the wood and… well … it's a gem. I'll show it to you, by and by. If some fine day I should suddenly take it into my head to fly away, that bath will remain here, for my poor aunt to preach about and show how her madcap niece squandered a mint of money on sinful folly, as she calls it."

And she laughed, with a glance at the innocent doña Pepa, who, there on the other bench, was for the hundredth time explaining to the Italian maid the prodigious miracles wrought by the patron of Alcira, and trying to persuade the "foreigner" to transfer her faith to that saint, and waste no more time on the second or third raters of Italy.

"Don't imagine," the actress continued, "that I forgot you during all this time. I am a real friend, you see, and take an interest! I learned through Cupido, who ferrets out everything, just what you were doing in Madrid. I, too, figured among your admirers. That proves what friendship can do! … I don't know why, but when señor Brull is concerned, I swallow the biggest whoppers, though I know they're lies. When you made your speech in the Chambers on that matter of flood protection, I sent to Alcira for the paper and read the story through I don't know how many times, believing blindly everything said in praise of you. I once met Gladstone at a concert given by the Queen at Windsor Castle; I have known men who got to be presidents of their countries on sheer eloquence—not to mention the politicians of Spain. The majority of them I've had, one time or another, as hangers-on in my dressing-room—once I had sung at the 'Real.' Well, despite all that, I took the exaggerations your party friends printed about you quite seriously for some days, putting you on a level with all the solemn top-notchers I have known. And why, do you suppose? Perhaps from my isolation and tranquillity here, which do make you lose perspective; or perhaps it was the influence of environment! It is impossible to live in this region without being a subject of the Brulls!… Can I be falling in love with you unawares?"

And once more she laughed the gleeful, candid, mocking laugh of other days. At first she had received him seriously, simply, under the influence still of solitude, country life and the longing for rest and quiet. But once in actual contact with him again, the sight, again, of that lovesick expression in eyes which now, however, showed a trace of self-possession, the old teaser had reappeared in her; and her irony cut into the youth's flesh like a steel blade.

"Stranger things than that have happened," Rafael snapped boldly, and imitating her sarcastic smile. "It's humanly conceivable that even you should wind up by falling in love with even me—out of pity, of course!"

"No," answered Leonora bluntly. "It's not even humanly conceivable. I'll never fall in love with you … And even if I should," she continued in a gentle, almost mothering tone, "you would never know about it. I should keep it jolly well to myself—so as to prevent your going crazy on finding your affections returned. All afternoon I have been trying to evade this explanation. I have brought up a thousand subjects, I have inquired about your life in Madrid—even going into details that haven't the slightest interest for me—all to keep the talk off love. But with you, that's impossible; you always come back to that sooner or later. Very well, so be it … But I'll never love you—I must not love you. If I had made your acquaintance somewhere else, but under the same romantic circumstances, I don't say it mightn't have happened. But here!… My scruples may make you laugh, but I feel as though I'd be committing a crime to love you. It would be like entering a home and repaying the hospitality by purloining the silverware."

"That's a new kind of nonsense you are talking," Rafael exclaimed. "Just what do you mean? I don't think I understand, exactly."

"Well, you live here, you see, and you hardly realize what it's all like. Love for love's sake alone! That may happen in the world where I come from. There folks aren't scandalized at things. Virtue is broad-minded and tolerant; and people, through a selfish desire to have their own weaknesses condoned, are careful not to censure others too harshly. But here!… Here love is the straight and narrow path that leads to marriage. Now let's see how good a liar you are! Would you be capable of saying that you would marry me?…"

She gazed straight at the youth out of her green, luminous, mocking eyes, and with such frankness that Rafael bowed his head, stuttering as he started to speak.

"Exactly," she went on. "You wouldn't, and you are right. For that would be a piece of solemn, deliberate barbarity. I'm not one of the women who are made for such things. Many men have proposed marriage to me in my time, to prove what fools they were, I suppose. More than once they've offered me their ducal crowns or the prestige of their marquisates, with the idea that title and social position would hold me back when I got bored and tried to fly away. But imagine me married! Could anything be more absurd?"

She laughed hysterically, almost, but with an undertone that hurt Rafael deeply. There was a ring of sarcasm, of unspeakable scorn in it, which reminded the young man of Mephisto's mirth during his infernal serenade to Marguerite.

"Moreover," continued Leonora, recovering her composure, "you don't seem to realize just how I stand in this community. Don't imagine what's said about me in town escapes me … I just have to notice the way the women look at me the few times I go in there. And I know also what happened to you before you left for Madrid. We find out everything here, Rafaelito. The gossip of these people carries—it reaches even this solitary spot. I know perfectly well how your mother hates me, and I've even heard about the squabbles you've had at home over coming here. Well, we must put a stop to all that! I am going to ask you not to visit me any more. I will always be your friend; but if we stop seeing each other it will be to the advantage of us both."

That was a painful thrust for Rafael. So she knew! But to escape from what he felt to be a ridiculous position, he affected an air of independence.

"Don't you believe such bosh! It's just election gossip spread by my enemies. I am of age, and I daresay I can go where I please, without asking mamma."

"Very well; keep on coming, if you really want to; but all the same, it shows how people feel toward me—a declaration of war, virtually. And if I should ever fall in love with you … heavens! What would they say then? They'd be sure I had come here for the sole purpose of capturing their don Rafael! You can see how far such a thing is from my mind. It would be the end of the peace and quiet I came here to find. If they talk that way now, when I'm as innocent as a lamb, imagine how their tongues would wag then!… No, I'm not looking for excitement! Let them snap at me as much as they please; but I mustn't be to blame. It must be out of pure envy on their part. I wouldn't stoop to provoking them!"

And with a turn of her head in the direction of the city that was hidden from view behind the rows of orange-trees, she laughed disdainfully.

Then her gleeful frankness returned once more—a candor of which she was always ready to make herself the first victim—and in a low, confidential, affectionate tone she continued:

"Besides, Rafaelito, you haven't had a good look at me. Why, I'm almost an old woman!… Oh, I know it, I know it. You don't have to tell me. You and I are of the same age; but you are a man; and I'm a woman. And the way I've lived has added considerably to my years. You are still on the very threshold of life. I've been knocking about the world since I was sixteen, from one theatre to another. And my accursed disposition, my mania for concealing nothing, for refusing to lie, has helped make me worse than I really am. I have many enemies in this world who are just gloating, I am sure, because I have suddenly disappeared. You can't advance a step on the stage without rousing the jealousy of someone; and that kind of jealousy is the most bloodthirsty of human passions. Can you imagine what my kind colleagues say about me? That I've gotten along as a woman of the demimonde rather than as an artist—that I'm a cocotte, using my voice and the stage for soliciting, as it were."

"Damn the liars!" cried Rafael hotly. "I'd like to have someone say that in my hearing."

"Bah! Don't be a child. Liars, yes, but what they say has a grain of truth in it. I have been something of the sort, really; though the blame had not been wholly mine … I've done crazy foolish things—giving a loose rein to my whims, for the fun of the thing. Sometimes it would be wealth, magnificence, luxury; then again bravery; then again just plain, ordinary, good looks! And I would be off the moment the excitement, the novelty, was gone, without a thought for the desperation of my lovers at finding their dreams shattered. And from all this wild career of mine—it has taken in a good part of Europe—I have come to one conclusion: either that what the poets call love is a lie, a pleasant lie, if you wish; or else that I was not born to love, that I am immune; for as I go back over my exciting and variegated past, I have to recognize that in my life love has not amounted to this!"

And she gave a sharp snap with her pink fingers.

"I am telling you everything, you see," she continued. "During your long absence I thought of you often. Somehow I want you to know me thoroughly, once and for all. In that way perhaps we can get along together better. I can understand now why it is a peasant woman will walk miles and miles, under a scorching sun or a pouring rain, to have a priest listen to her confession. I am in that mood this afternoon. I feel as though I must tell everything. Even if I tried not to, I should not succeed. There's a little demon inside me here urging me, compelling me, to unveil all my past."

"Please feel quite free to do so. To be a confessor even, to deserve your confidence, is some progress for me, at any rate."

"Progress? But why should you care to progress … into my heart! My heart is only an empty shell! Do you think you'd be getting much if you got me? I'm absolutely, absolutely worthless! Don't laugh, please! I mean it! Absolutely worthless. Here in this solitude I have been able to study myself at leisure, see myself as I really am. I recognize it plain as day: I am nothing, nothing. Good looking?… Well, yes; I confess I am not what you'd call ugly. Even if, with a ridiculous false modesty, I were to say I was, there's my past history to prove that plenty of men have found me beautiful. But, alas, Rafaelito! That's only the outside, my facade, so to speak. A few winter rains will wash the paint off and show the mould that's underneath. Inside, believe me, Rafael, I am a ruin. The walls are crumbling, the floors are giving way. I have burned my life out in gaiety. I have singed my wings in a headlong rush into the candle-flame of life. Do you know what I am? I am one of those old hulks drawn up on the beach. From a distance their paint seems to have all the color of their first voyages; but when you get closer you see that all they ask for is to be let alone to grow old and crumble away on the sand in peace. And you, who are setting out on your life voyage, come gaily asking for a berth on a wreck that will go to the bottom as soon as it strikes deep water, and carry you down with it!… Rafael, my dear boy, don't be foolish. I am all right to have as a friend; but it's too late for me to be anything more … even if I were to love you. We are of a different breed. I have been studying you, and I see that you are a sensible, honest, plodding sort of fellow. Whereas I—I belong to the butterflies, to the opposite of all you are. I am a conscript under the banner of Bohemia, and I cannot desert the colors. Each of us on his own road then. You'll easily find a woman to make you happy.... The sillier she is, the better.... You were born to be a family man."

It occurred to Rafael that she might be poking fun at him, as she so often did. But no; there was a ring of sincerity in her voice. The forced smile had vanished from her face. She was speaking tenderly, affectionately, as if in motherly counsel to a son in danger of going wrong.

"And don't make yourself over, Rafael. If the world were made up of people like me, life would be impossible. I too have moments when I should like to become a different person entirely—a fowl, a cow, or something, like the folks around me, thinking of money all the time, and of what I'll eat tomorrow; buying land, haggling with farmers on the market, studying fertilizers, having children who'd keep me busy with their colds and the shoes they'd tear, my widest vision limited to getting a good price for the fall crop. There are times when I envy a hen. How good it must be, to be a hen! A fence around me to mark the boundaries of my world, my meals for the trouble of pecking at them, my life-work to sit hour after hour in the sun, balanced on a roost.... You laugh? Well, I've made a good start already toward becoming a hen, and the career suits me to a 't.' Every Wednesday I go to market, to buy a pullet and some eggs; and I haggle with the vendors just for the fun of it, finally giving them the price they ask for; I invite the peasant women to have a cup of chocolate with me, and come home escorted by a whole crowd of them; and they listen in astonishment when I talk to Beppa in Italian! If you could only see how fond they are of me!… They can hardly believe their eyes when they see the siñorita isn't half so black as the city people paint her. You remember that poor woman we saw up at the Hermitage that afternoon? Well, she's a frequent visitor, and I always give her something. She, too, is fond of me.... Now all that is agreeable, isn't it? Peace; the affection of the humble; an innocent old woman, my poor aunt, who seems to have grown younger since I came here! Nevertheless, some fine day, this shell, this rustic bark that has formed around me in the sun and the air of the orchards, will burst, and the woman of old—the Valkyrie—will step out of it again. And then, to horse, to horse! Off on another gallop around the world, in a tempest of pleasure, acclaimed by a chorus of brutal libertines!… I am sure that is bound to happen. I swore to remain here until Spring. Well, Spring is almost here! Look at those rose-bushes! Look at those orange-trees! Bursting with life! Oh, Rafael, I'm afraid of Springtime. Spring has always been a season of disaster for me."

And she was lost in thought for a moment. Doña Pepa and the Italian maid had gone into the house. The good old woman could never keep away from the kitchen long.

Leonora had dropped her embroidery upon the bench and was looking upward, her head thrown back, the muscles of her arching neck tense and drawn. She seemed wrapt in ecstacy, as if visions of the past were filing by in front of her. Suddenly she shuddered and sat up.

"I'm afraid I'm ill, Rafael. I don't know what's the matter with me today. Perhaps it's the surprise of seeing you; this talk of ours that has called me back to the past, after so many months of tranquillity.... Please don't speak! No, not a word, please. You have the rare skill, though you don't know it, of making me talk, of reminding me of things I was determined to forget.... Come, give me your arm; let's walk out through the garden; it will do me good."

They arose, and began to saunter along over the broad avenue that led from the gate to the little square. The house was soon behind them, lost in the thick crests of the orange-trees. Leonora smiled mischievously and lifted a forefinger in warning.

"I took it for granted you had returned from your trip a more serious, a more well-behaved person. No nonsense, no familiarities, eh? Besides, you know already that I'm strong, and can fight—if I have to."

II

Rafael spent a sleepless night tossing about in his bed.

Party admirers had honored him with a serenade that had lasted beyond midnight. The "prominents" among them had shown some pique at having cooled their heels all afternoon at the Club waiting for the deputy in vain. He put in an appearance well on towards evening, and after shaking hands once more all around and responding to speeches of congratulation, as he had done that morning, he went straight home.

He had not dared raise his head in Doña Bernarda's presence. He was afraid of those glowering eyes, where he could read, unmistakably, the detailed story of everything he had done that afternoon. At the same time he was nursing a resolve to disobey his mother, meet her domineering, over-bearing aggressiveness with glacial disregard.

The serenade over, he had hurried to his room, to avoid any chance of an accounting.

Snug in his bed, with the light out, he gave way to an intense, a rapturous recollection of all that had taken place that afternoon. For all the fatigue of the journey and the bad night spent in a sleeping-car, he lay there with his eyes open in the dark, going over and over again in his feverish mind all that Leonora told him during that final hour of their walk through the garden. Her whole, her real life's story it had been, recorded in a disordered, a disconnected way—as if she must unburden herself of the whole thing all at once—with gaps and leaps that Rafael now filled in from his own lurid imagination.

Italy, the Italy of his trip abroad, came back to him now, vivid, palpitant, vitalized, glorified by Leonora's revelations.

The shadowy majestic Gallery of Victor Emmanuel at Milan! The immense triumphal arch, a gigantic mouth protended to swallow up the Cathedral! The double arcade, cross-shaped, its walls covered with columns, set with a double row of windows under a vast crystal roof. Hardly a trace of masonry on the lower stories; nothing but plate glass—the windows of book-shops, music shops, cafés, restaurants, jewelry stores, haberdasheries, expensive tailoring establishments.

At one end, the Duomo, bristling with a forest of statues and perforated spires; at the other, the monument to Leonardo da Vinci, and the famous Teatro de la Scala! Within the four arms of the Gallery, a continuous bustle of people, an incessant going and coming of merging, dissolving crowds: a quadruple avalanche flowing toward the grand square at the center of the cross, where the Café Biffi, known to actors and singers the world over, spreads its rows of marble tables! A hubbub of cries, greetings, conversations, footsteps, echoing in the galleries as in an immense cloister, the lofty skylight quivering with the hum of busy human ants, forever, day and night, crawling, darting this way and that, underneath it!