Dona Perfecta

  CHAPTER XXXI

  DONA PERFECTA

  See with what tranquillity Senora Dona Perfecta pursues her occupationof writing. Enter her room, and, notwithstanding the lateness of thehour, you will surprise her busily engaged, her mind divided betweenmeditation and the writing of several long and carefully worded epistlestraced with a firm hand, every hair-stroke of every letter in which iscorrectly formed. The light of the lamp falls full upon her face andbust and hands, its shade leaving the rest of her person and almost thewhole of the room in a soft shadow. She seems like a luminous figureevoked by the imagination from amid the vague shadows of fear.

  It is strange that we should not have made before this a very importantstatement, which is that Dona Perfecta was handsome, or rather that shewas still handsome, her face preserving the remains of former beauty.The life of the country, her total lack of vanity, her disregard fordress and personal adornment, her hatred of fashion, her contempt forthe vanities of the capital, were all causes why her native beautydid not shine or shone very little. The intense shallowness of hercomplexion, indicating a very bilious constitution, still furtherimpaired her beauty.

  Her eyes black and well-opened, her nose finely and delicately shaped,her forehead broad and smooth, she was considered by all who saw her asa finished type of the human figure; but there rested on thosefeatures a certain hard and proud expression which excited a feelingof antipathy. As some persons, although ugly, attract; Dona Perfectarepelled. Her glance, even when accompanied by amiable words, placedbetween herself and those who were strangers to her the impassabledistance of a mistrustful respect; but for those of her house--thatis to say, for her relations, admirers, and allies--she possessed asingular attraction. She was a mistress in governing, and no one couldequal her in the art of adapting her language to the person whom she wasaddressing.

  Her bilious temperament and an excessive association with devout personsand things, which excited her imagination without object or result, hadaged her prematurely, and although she was still young she did not seemso. It might be said of her that with her habits and manner of life shehad wrought a sort of rind, a stony, insensible covering within whichshe shut herself, like the snail within his portable house. DonaPerfecta rarely came out of her shell.

  Her irreproachable habits, and that outward amiability which we haveobserved in her from the moment of her appearance in our story, were thecauses of the great prestige which she enjoyed in Orbajosa. She keptup relations, besides, with some excellent ladies in Madrid, and it wasthrough their means that she obtained the dismissal of her nephew. Atthe moment which we have now arrived in our story, we find her seated ather desk, which is the sole confidant of her plans and the depository ofher numerical accounts with the peasants, and of her moral accountswith God and with society. There she wrote the letters which her brotherreceived every three months; there she composed the notes that incitedthe judge and the notary to embroil Pepe Rey in lawsuits; there sheprepared the plot through which the latter lost the confidence of theGovernment; there she held long conferences with Don Inocencio. Tobecome acquainted with the scene of others of her actions whose effectswe have observed, it would be necessary to follow her to the episcopalpalace and to the houses of various of her friends.

  We do not know what Dona Perfecta would have been, loving. Hating, shehad the fiery vehemence of an angel of hatred and discord among men.Such is the effect produced on a character naturally hard, and withoutinborn goodness, by religious exaltation, when this, instead of drawingits nourishment from conscience and from truth revealed in principles assimple as they are beautiful, seeks its sap in narrow formulas dictatedsolely by ecclesiastical interests. In order that religious fanaticismshould be inoffensive, the heart in which it exists must be very pure.It is true that even in that case it is unproductive of good. But thehearts that have been born without the seraphic purity which establishesa premature Limbo on the earth, are careful not to become greatlyinflamed with what they see in retables, in choirs, in locutories andsacristies, unless they have first erected in their own consciences analtar, a pulpit, and a confessional.

  Dona Perfecta left her writing from time to time, to go into theadjoining room where her daughter was. Rosarito had been ordered tosleep, but, already precipitated down the precipice of disobedience, shewas awake.

  "Why don't you sleep?" her mother asked her. "I don't intend to go tobed to-night. You know already that Caballuco has taken away with himthe men we had here. Something might happen, and I will keep watch. If Idid not watch what would become of us both?"

  "What time is it?" asked the girl.

  "It will soon be midnight. Perhaps you are not afraid, but I am."

  Rosarito was trembling, and every thing about her denoted the keenestanxiety. She lifted her eyes to heaven supplicatingly, and then turnedthem on her mother with a look of the utmost terror.

  "Why, what is the matter with you?"

  "Did you not say it was midnight?"

  "Yes."

  "Then----But is it already midnight?"

  Rosario made an effort to speak, then shook her head, on which theweight of a world was pressing.

  "Something is the matter with you; you have something on your mind,"said her mother, fixing on her daughter her penetrating eyes.

  "Yes--I wanted to tell you," stammered the girl, "I wanted tosay----Nothing, nothing, I will go to sleep."

  "Rosario, Rosario! your mother can read your heart like an open book,"exclaimed Dona Perfecta with severity. "You are agitated. I have toldyou already that I am willing to pardon you if you will repent; if youare a good and sensible girl."

  "Why, am I not good? Ah, mamma, mamma! I am dying!"

  Rosario burst into a flood of bitter and disconsolate tears.

  "What are these tears about?" said her mother, embracing her. "If theyare tears of repentance, blessed be they."

  "I don't repent, I can't repent!" cried the girl, in a burst of sublimedespair.

  She lifted her head and in her face was depicted a sudden inspiredstrength. Her hair fell in disorder over her shoulders. Never was thereseen a more beautiful image of a rebellious angel.

  "What is this? Have you lost your senses?" said Dona Perfecta, layingboth her hands on her daughter's shoulders.

  "I am going away, I am going away!" said the girl, with the exaltationof delirium.

  And she sprang out of bed.

  "Rosario, Rosario----My daughter! For God's sake, what is this?"

  "Ah, mamma, senora!" exclaimed the girl, embracing her mother; "bind mefast!"

  "In truth you would deserve it. What madness is this?"

  "Bind me fast! I am going away--I am going away with him!"

  Dona Perfecta felt a flood of fire surging from her heart up to herlips. She controlled herself, however, and answered her daughter onlywith her eyes, blacker than the night.

  "Mamma, mamma, I hate all that is not he!" exclaimed Rosario. "Hear myconfession, for I wish to confess it to every one, and to you first ofall."

  "You are going to kill me; you are killing me!"

  "I want to confess it, so that you may pardon me. This weight, thisweight that is pressing me down, will not let me live."

  "The weight of a sin! Add to it the malediction of God, and see if youcan carry that burden about with you, wretched girl! Only I can take itfrom you."

  "No, not you, not you!" cried Rosario, with desperation. "But hear me; Iwant to confess it all, all! Afterward, turn me out of this house whereI was born."

  "I turn you out!"

  "I will go away, then."

  "Still less. I will teach you a daughter's duty, which you haveforgotten."

  "I will fly, then; he will take me with him!"

  "Has he told you to do so? has he counselled you to do that? has hecommanded you to do that?" asked the mother, launching these words likethunderbolts against her daughter.

  "He has counselled me to do it. We have agreed to be married. We must bemarried, mamma, dear mamma. I will love
you--I know that I ought to loveyou--I shall be forever lost if I do not love you."

  She wrung her hands, and falling on her knees kissed her mother's feet.

  "Rosario, Rosario!" cried Dona Perfecta, in a terrible voice, "rise!"

  There was a short pause.

  "This man--has he written to you?"

  "Yes."

  "And have you seen him again since that night?"

  "Yes."

  "And you have written to him!"

  "I have written to him also. Oh, senora! why do you look at me in thatway? You are not my mother.

  "Would to God that I were not! Rejoice in the harm you are doing me. Youare killing me; you have given me my death-blow!" cried Dona Perfecta,with indescribable agitation. "You say that this man--"

  "Is my husband--I will be his wife, protected by the law. You are not awoman! Why do you look at me in that way? You make me tremble. Mother,mother, do not condemn me!"

  "You have already condemned yourself--that is enough. Obey me, and Iwill forgive you. Answer me--when did you receive letters from thatman?"

  "To-day."

  "What treachery! What infamy!" cried her mother, roaring rather thanspeaking. "Had you appointed a meeting?"

  "Yes."

  "When?"

  "To-night."

  "Where?"

  "Here, here! I will confess every thing, every thing! I know it is acrime. I am a wretch; but you who are my mother will take me out of thishell. Give your consent. Say one word to me, only one word!"

  "That man here in my house!" cried Dona Perfecta, springing back severalpaces from her daughter.

  Rosario followed her on her knees. At the same instant three blows wereheard, three crashes, three reports. It was the heart of Maria Remediosknocking at the door through the knocker. The house trembled with awfuldread. Mother and daughter stood motionless as statues.

  A servant went down stairs to open the door, and shortly afterward MariaRemedios, who was not now a woman but a basilisk enveloped in a mantle,entered Dona Perfecta's room. Her face, flushed with anxiety, exhaledfire.

  "He is there, he is there!" she said, as she entered. "He got into thegarden through the condemned door."

  She paused for breath at every syllable.

  "I know already," returned Dona Perfecta, with a sort of bellow.

  Rosario fell senseless on the floor.

  "Let us go down stairs," said Dona Perfecta, without paying anyattention to her daughter's swoon.

  The two women glided down stairs like two snakes. The maids and theman-servant were in the hall, not knowing what to do. Dona Perfectapassed through the dining-room into the garden, followed by MariaRemedios.

  "Fortunately we have Ca-Ca-Ca-balluco there," said the canon's niece.

  "Where?"

  "In the garden, also. He cli-cli-climbed over the wall."

  Dona Perfecta explored the darkness with her wrathful eyes. Rage gavethem the singular power of seeing in the dark peculiar to the felinerace.

  "I see a figure there," she said. "It is going toward the oleanders."

  "It is he!" cried Remedios. "But there comes Ramos--Ramos!"

  The colossal figure of the Centaur was plainly distinguishable.

  "Toward the oleanders, Ramos! Toward the oleanders!"

  Dona Perfecta took a few steps forward. Her hoarse voice, vibrating witha terrible accent, hissed forth these words:

  "Cristobal, Cristobal--kill him!"

  A shot was heard. Then another.