CHAPTER XVII
LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS
The hall was long and broad. At one end of it was the door of the roomoccupied by the engineer, in the centre that of the dining-room, and atthe other end were the staircase and a large closed door reached by astep. This door opened into a chapel in which the Polentinos performedtheir domestic devotions. Occasionally the holy sacrifice of the masswas celebrated in it.
Rosario led her cousin to the door of the chapel and then sank down onthe doorstep.
"Here?" murmured Pepe Rey.
From the movements of Rosarito's right hand he comprehended that she wasblessing herself.
"Rosario, dear cousin, thanks for allowing me to see you!" he exclaimed,embracing her ardently.
He felt the girl's cold fingers on his lips, imposing silence. He kissedthem rapturously.
"You are frozen. Rosario, why do you tremble so?"
Her teeth were chattering, and her whole frame trembled convulsively.Rey felt the burning heat of his cousin's face against his own, and hecried in alarm:
"Your forehead is burning! You are feverish."
"Very."
"Are you really ill?"
"Yes."
"And you have left your room----"
"To see you."
The engineer wrapped his arms around her to protect her from the cold,but it was not enough.
"Wait," he said quickly, rising. "I am going to my room to bring mytravelling rug."
"Put out the light, Pepe."
Rey had left the lamp burning in his room, through the door of whichissued a faint streak of light, illuminating the hall. He returned in aninstant. The darkness was now profound. Groping his way along the wallhe reached the spot where his cousin was sitting, and wrapped the rugcarefully around her.
"You are comfortable now, my child."
"Yes, so comfortable! With you!"
"With me--and forever!" exclaimed the young man, with exaltation.
But he observed that she was releasing herself from his arms and wasrising.
"What are you doing?"
A metallic sound was heard. Rosario had put the key into the invisiblelock and was cautiously opening the door on the threshold of which theyhad been sitting. The faint odor of dampness, peculiar to rooms thathave been long shut up, issued from the place, which was as dark as atomb. Pepe Rey felt himself being guided by the hand, and his cousin'svoice said faintly:
"Enter!"
They took a few steps forward. He imagined himself being led to anunknown Elysium by the angel of night. Rosario groped her way. At lasther sweet voice sounded again, murmuring:
"Sit down."
They were beside a wooden bench. Both sat down. Pepe Rey embracedRosario again. As he did so, his head struck against a hard body.
"What is this?" he asked.
"The feet."
"Rosario--what are you saying?"
"The feet of the Divine Jesus, of the image of Christ crucified, that weadore in my house."
Pepe Rey felt a cold chill strike through him.
"Kiss them," said the young girl imperiously.
The mathematician kissed the cold feet of the holy image.
"Pepe," then cried the young girl, pressing her cousin's hand ardentlybetween her own, "do you believe in God?"
"Rosario! What are you saying? What absurdities are you imagining?"responded her cousin, perplexed.
"Answer me."
Pepe Rey felt drops of moisture on his hands.
"Why are you crying?" he said, greatly disturbed. "Rosario, you arekilling me with your absurd doubts. Do I believe in God? Do you doubtit?"
"I do not doubt it; but they all say that you are an atheist."
"You would suffer in my estimation, you would lose your aureole ofpurity--your charm--if you gave credit to such nonsense."
"When I heard them accuse you of being an atheist, although I couldbring no proof to the contrary, I protested from the depths of my soulagainst such a calumny. You cannot be an atheist. I have within me asstrong and deep a conviction of your faith as of my own."
"How wisely you speak! Why, then, do you ask me if I believe in God?"
"Because I wanted to hear it from your own lips, and rejoice in hearingyou say it. It is so long since I have heard the sound of your voice!What greater happiness than to hear it again, saying: 'I believe inGod?'"
"Rosario, even the wicked believe in him. If there be atheists, which Idoubt, they are the calumniators, the intriguers with whom the world isinfested. For my part, intrigues and calumnies matter little to me; andif you rise superior to them and close your heart against the discordwhich a perfidious hand would sow in it, nothing shall interfere withour happiness."
"But what is going on around us? Pepe, dear Pepe, do you believe in thedevil?"
The engineer was silent. The darkness of the chapel prevented Rosariofrom seeing the smile with which her cousin received this strangequestion.
"We must believe in him," he said at last.
"What is going on? Mamma forbids me to see you; but, except in regardto the atheism, she does not say any thing against you. She tells me towait, that you will decide; that you are going away, that you are comingback----Speak to me with frankness--have you formed a bad opinion of mymother?"
"Not at all," replied Rey, urged by a feeling of delicacy.
"Do you not believe, as I do, that she loves us both, that she desiresonly our good, and that we shall in the end obtain her consent to ourwishes?"
"If you believe it, I do too. Your mama adores us both. But, dearRosario, it must be confessed that the devil has entered this house."
"Don't jest!" she said affectionately. "Ah! Mamma is very good. She hasnot once said to me that you were unworthy to be my husband. All sheinsists upon is the atheism. They say, besides, that I have manias, andthat I have the mania now of loving you with all my soul. In our familyit is a rule not to oppose directly the manias that are hereditary init, because to oppose them aggravates them."
"Well, I believe that there are skilful physicians at your side whohave determined to cure you, and who will, in the end, my adored girl,succeed in doing so."
"No, no; a thousand times no!" exclaimed Rosario, leaning her foreheadon her lover's breast. "I am willing to be mad if I am with you. Foryou I am suffering, for you I am ill; for you I despise life and I riskdeath. I know it now--to-morrow I shall be worse, I shall be dangerouslyill, I shall die. What does it matter to me?"
"You are not ill," he responded, with energy; "there is nothing thematter with you but an agitation of mind which naturally brings with itsome slight nervous disturbances; there is nothing the matter with youbut the suffering occasioned by the horrible coercion which they areusing with you. Your simple and generous soul does not comprehend it.You yield; you forgive those who injure you; you torment yourself,attributing your suffering to baleful, supernatural influences; yousuffer in silence; you give your innocent neck to the executioner, youallow yourself to be slain, and the very knife which is plunged intoyour breast seems to you the thorn of a flower that has pierced you inpassing. Rosario, cast those ideas from your mind; consider our realsituation, which is serious; seek its cause where it really is, anddo not give way to your fears; do not yield to the tortures which areinflicted upon you, making yourself mentally and physically ill. Thecourage which you lack would restore you to health, because you are notreally ill, my dear girl, you are--do you wish me to say it?--you arefrightened, terrified. You are under what the ancients, not knowing howto express it, called an evil spell. Courage, Rosario, trust in me! Riseand follow me. That is all I will say."
"Ah, Pepe--cousin! I believe that you are right," exclaimed Rosario,drowned in tears. "Your words resound within my heart, arousing in itnew energy, new life. Here in this darkness, where we cannot see eachother's faces, an ineffable light emanates from you and inundates mysoul. What power have you to transform me in this way? The moment Isaw you I became another being. In the days when I did not see
you Ireturned to my former insignificance, my natural cowardice. Without you,my Pepe, I live in Limbo. I will do as you tell me, I will arise andfollow you. We will go together wherever you wish. Do you know that Ifeel well? Do you know that I have no fever: that I have recovered mystrength; that I want to run about and cry out; that my whole being isrenewed and enlarged, and multiplied a hundred-fold in order to adoreyou? Pepe, you are right. I am not sick, I am only afraid; or rather,bewitched."
"That is it, bewitched."
"Bewitched! Terrible eyes look at me, and I remain mute and trembling.I am afraid, but of what? You alone have the strange power of calling meback to life. Hearing you, I live again. I believe if I were to die andyou were to pass by my grave, that deep under the ground I should feelyour footsteps. Oh, if I could see you now! But you are here beside me,and I cannot doubt that it is you. So many days without seeing you! Iwas mad. Each day of solitude appeared to me a century. They said tome, to-morrow and to-morrow, and always to-morrow. I looked out ofthe window at night, and the light of the lamp in your room servedto console me. At times your shadow on the window was for me a divineapparition. I stretched out my arms to you, I shed tears and cried outinwardly, without daring to do so with my voice. When I received themessage you sent me with the maid, when I received your letter tellingme that you were going away, I grew very sad, I thought my soul wasleaving my body and that I was dying slowly. I fell, like the birdwounded as it flies, that falls and, falling, dies. To-night, when Isaw that you were awake so late, I could not resist the longing I had tospeak to you; and I came down stairs. I believe that all the courage ofmy life has been used up in this single act, and that now I can neverbe any thing again but a coward. But you will give me courage; you willgive me strength; you will help me, will you not? Pepe, my dear cousin,tell me that you will; tell me that I am strong, and I will be strong;tell me that I am not ill, and I will not be ill. I am not ill now. Ifeel so well that I could laugh at my ridiculous maladies."
As she said this she felt herself clasped rapturously in her cousin'sarms. An "Oh!" was heard, but it came, not from her lips, but from his,for in bending his head, he had struck it violently against the feet ofthe crucifix. In the darkness it is that the stars are seen.
In the exalted state of his mind, by a species of hallucination naturalin the darkness, it seemed to Pepe Rey not that his head had struckagainst the sacred foot, but that this had moved, warning him in thebriefest and most eloquent manner. Raising his head he said, halfseriously, half gayly:
"Lord, do not strike me; I will do nothing wrong."
At the same moment Rosario took the young man's hand and pressed itagainst her heart. A voice was heard, a pure, grave, angelic voice, fullof feeling, saying:
"Lord whom I adore, Lord God of the world, and guardian of my house andof my family; Lord whom Pepe also adores; holy and blessed Christ whodied on the cross for our sins; before thee, before thy wounded body,before thy forehead crowned with thorns, I say that this man is myhusband, and that, after thee, he is the being whom my heart loves most;I say that I declare him to be my husband, and that I will die beforeI belong to another. My heart and my soul are his. Let not the worldoppose our happiness, and grant me the favor of this union, which Iswear to be true and good before the world, as it is in my conscience."
"Rosario, you are mine!" exclaimed Pepe Rey, with exaltation. "Neitheryour mother nor any one else shall prevent it."
Rosario sank powerless into her cousin's arms. She trembled in his manlyembrace, as the dove trembles in the talons of the eagle.
Through the engineer's mind the thought flashed that the devil existed;but the devil then was he. Rosario made a slight movement of fear; shefelt the thrill of surprise, so to say, that gives warning that dangeris near.
"Swear to me that you will not yield to them," said Pepe Rey, withconfusion, observing the movement.
"I swear it to you by my father's ashes that are--"
"Where?"
"Under our feet."
The mathematician felt the stone rise under his feet--but no, it was notrising; he only fancied, mathematician though he was, that he felt itrise.
"I swear it to you," repeated Rosario, "by my father's ashes, and by theGod who is looking at us----May our bodies, united as they are, reposeunder those stones when God wills to take us out of this world."
"Yes," repeated the Pepe Rey, with profound emotion, feeling his soulfilled with an inexplicable trouble.
Both remained silent for a short time. Rosario had risen.
"Already?" he said.
She sat down again.
"You are trembling again," said Pepe. "Rosario, you are ill; yourforehead is burning."
"I think I am dying," murmured the young girl faintly. "I don't knowwhat is the matter with me."
She fell senseless into her cousin's arms. Caressing her, he noticedthat her face was covered with a cold perspiration.
"She is really ill," he said to himself. "It was a piece of greatimprudence to have come down stairs."
He lifted her up in his arms, endeavoring to restore her toconsciousness, but neither the trembling that had seized her nor herinsensibility passed away; and he resolved to carry her out of thechapel, in the hope that the fresh air would revive her. And so it was.When she recovered consciousness Rosario manifested great disquietudeat finding herself at such an hour out of her own room. The clock of thecathedral struck four.
"How late it is!" exclaimed the young girl. "Release me, cousin. I thinkI can walk. I am really very ill."
"I will go upstairs with you."
"Oh, no; on no account! I would rather drag myself to my room on myhands and feet. Don't you hear a noise?"
Both were silent. The anxiety with which they listened made the silenceintense.
"Don't you hear any thing, Pepe?"
"Absolutely nothing."
"Pay attention. There, there it is again. It is a noise that sounds asif it might be either very, very distant, or very near. It might eitherbe my mother's breathing or the creaking of the vane on the tower of thecathedral. Ah! I have a very fine ear."
"Too fine! Well, dear cousin, I will carry you upstairs in my arms."
"Very well; carry me to the head of the stairs. Afterward I can goalone. As soon as I rest a little I shall be as well as ever. But don'tyou hear?"
They stopped on the first step.
"It is a metallic sound."
"Your mother's breathing?"
"No, it is not that. The noise comes from a great distance. Perhaps itis the crowing of a cock?"
"Perhaps so."
"It sounds like the words, 'I am going there, I am going there!'"
"Now, now I hear," murmured Pepe Rey.
"It is a cry."
"It is a cornet."
"A cornet!"
"Yes. Let us hurry. Orbajosa is going to wake up. Now I hear it clearly.It is not a trumpet but a clarionet. The soldiers are coming."
"Soldiers!"
"I don't know why I imagine that this military invasion is going to beadvantageous to me. I feel glad. Up, quickly, Rosario!"
"I feel glad, too. Up, up!"
In an instant he had carried her upstairs, and the lovers took awhispered leave of each other.
"I will stand at the window overlooking the garden, so that you may knowI have reached my room safely. Good-by."
"Good-by, Rosario. Take care not to stumble against the furniture."
"I can find my way here perfectly, cousin. We shall soon see eachother again. Stand at your window if you wish to receive my telegraphicdespatch."
Pepe Rey did as he was bade; but he waited a long time, and Rosario didnot appear at the window. The engineer fancied he heard agitated voiceson the floor above him.