Ann S. Stephens

“ I am powerful—I am rich, and I love you. I struggle against it no longer—it is a duty now, I love you! Go with me to my own country—I cannot give you this sky or these fairy ruins, but you shall be surrounded with beautiful things nevertheless. You shall study, learn; forget that miserable ravine burrowed with human fox-holes, and swarming with murderers. Come, Aurora, look up, I long to see that cold, dead color swept away. Smile, smile my bird, we will not part again.”
When a nation has but one virtue, how powerful that one must be. ”

“ To-night it seems as if I had just been aroused from sleep—that all my life has been one dull stupor. I shudder at the remembrance of what I was. I pant for new scenes of beauty—new emotions, these are so full of joy. Tell me, Busne, my own, own Busne, does happiness like this never kill? I grow faint with it as one does when the orange trees are thick overhead, and burdened with blossoms. My breath comes heavily as if laden with their fragrance. I long to creep away into the shadows, yonder, and cry myself to sleep.”
“Why do you wish to weep, my bird? Tears are for the unhappy.” ”

“ Cora and my blessed old bonne had done this fairy work, and I was not to see myself till the toilet was complete. At last they led me up to the mirror. As I looked in, a faint pang seized me, for the whiteness of my dress struck inward, and drifts of snow seemed crowding against my heart. A vague dread of some unseen presence brought the old shudder upon me. I looked around in chill apprehension for my mother’s face. As I turned, a gush of sunshine come through the pink and white window-curtains, flooding me from head to foot with its rosy glow. I felt the brightness and the warmth. ”

“ I could not resist a pang of jealous envy, for it is much easier to make sacrifices to one that suffers, than to witness the joy which our self-bereavement gives. The contrast between the rich swell of happiness that broke in sighs from her lips, and the heavy sense of desolation that lay upon my poor heart, made me long to put her away.
But soon I felt her kisses wandering amid my hair and over my forehead, mingled with whispers of gratitude and smiles of hope. After all, Cora loved me, and I was making her happy. Most solemnly did I believe all that I had said of Irving. ”

“ He could not believe that a woman trained to deception, wild, unchecked, nay, taught to believe the right wrong, was in everything that related to her own womanly tenderness true as gold—honest as infancy.
He shrunk from this poor child then, as her own language gushed up and swept the cold Spanish from her lips. It seemed to him that she must have uttered those words before; perhaps to some traveller-dupe like himself; perhaps to Chaleco—Chaleco. He began to dwell upon that name with jealous eagerness, and coupled it with the words of Rommany that still trembled on Aurora’s lips. ”

“ She was a gipsy of Granada. You may search for her birthplace among the caves that perforate the hill-side to the right, as you gaze down upon Granada from the Alhambra. That hill, honeycombed with subterranean dwellings, and its bosom swarming with human beings, was my mother’s home. Beggars—yes, call them so—a people born to delude and prey upon all other races, these were her companions. She was a gipsy of the pure blood, not a drop, not a taint had ever mingled with the fiery life that glowed in her veins.
Men call me beautiful. ”

“ Papita led the way, holding my mother by the hand. A dim light fell amid the delicate pillars innumerable as the young trees in a forest, but guided by far-off memories, the Sibyl threaded them confidently as if she had been walking through her own barranca. She paused before that portion of the mosque formerly the seat occupied by the Moorish Kings in their worship. Here, by the gleam of azulejos, richer and far more brilliant than any to be found elsewhere in Spain, and which even the darkness could not subdue, she found the Mih-rab or recess in which the Alcoran had been kept. ”

“ Her mouth was soft, red, and smiling like ripe cherries in the sunshine, and that rosy smile, so innocent in its tenderness, so radiant with glee! Talk of women not feeling the glow of each other’s beauty; why, there is no feeling on earth so unselfish, so full of lofty, tender admiration as the love which one high-souled woman feels for the sister woman to whom her soul goes forth in sympathy. This appreciation, these attachments are not frequent in society, but when they do exist, the loves of the angels are almost realized. ”

“ The blossoms that live half in sunshine, half in snow, on the Sierra Nevada, are not more stainless than this child. The hot sun that ripens the orange on the Guadalquivir is not more fervent than her passionate nature—more burning than her pride. Be just to the child, or beware of the woman. She is in your hands; make of her what you will, a gazelle or a tiger, the thing you call an angel, or the thing you fear as a fiend. That which you make her she will be, a blessing or a curse, which will cling to you for ever and ever. ”

“ The words he had spoken seemed like sacrilege; for, to a heart that really loves, there is a sort of profanity in expressions of passion from other than the true lips.
“Zana—Zana, you are ice—you are marble—my words freeze you—this is no answer to love like mine.”
“You have said truly,” I answered. “Ice, marble, anything hard and cold is all the reply that I can give—and it is fitting, for you love me no more than I love you.”
The man turned white and stammered forth,
“You—you wrong me. Without love why should any man seek to make you his wife?” ”

“ When I arose, Chaleco stood beside me, but the power of his fierce eyes was gone. The unnatural influence that he had obtained over me was lost in the more sublime impressions left by that tranquil face.
“Go,” I said, gently; “I am not prepared to follow yet.”
“Wait till these gentiles spurn you away then!” he answered, in a fierce whisper; “they will do it. No fear, I can wait.”
“God only knows what they will do,” I said; “but I was not made for an avenger. Children do not turn and rend those who gave them life. Look there, how he smiles, and yet I killed him. ”

“ But the stillness of the cave—the slow, silent preparations which that old woman was making for her death—all had a power to chill even her burning excitement. The heart in her bosom seemed turning to stone. Her limbs began to shrink and quiver with physical dread. She was but a woman, poor thing, nay, a child almost, and death was terrible to her, for the Spanish Gipsy has no bright dream of an after life. They who suffer so much in this world have no hope in death, but that of black oblivion. Why should they wish to prolong misery so griping? ”

“ How dare you step in between me and my right? Think you Papita wants your knife to help her?” cried the fierce old witch, grinding her sharp teeth together at each pause of her speech.
“But the wrong is mine,” answered Chaleco fiercely. “Aurora was my betrothed: let her die—let her die; but he, I will send him before!”
68He struggled with the old woman who had clutched the knife with her tawny fingers and clung to him, hissing out her wrath in his face like a wild cat.
“Die! who says Aurora shall die? Is she not mine, the grand-daughter of a count? Who shall condemn her but myself? ”

“ I said, shuddering as his arms loosened and fell from around me.
“I like this best,” said Chaleco, rising to one elbow, and casting his glittering eyes around the room. “A Caloe count should not die in the sun’s light, while his people grovel in the dark earth. I am but a shadow now, Zana, fast melting away into dark nothingness; this place is fittest.”
“Not so, not so, my friend!” I cried, sobbing out the grief I most truly felt; “cast aside these terrible ideas of death—pray to God—let me pray for you. She will help us—Aurora, whom you loved, whom you shall surely see again.” ”

“ She gave me a wild glance.
“Be tranquil, and trust me, Cora,” I said, full of my project for her happiness; “it is for you this good fortune has come.”
“There is no good fortune for me on earth,” cried the poor girl, clasping her hands, “don’t, Zana, don’t smile so; it will set me to hoping impossible things.”
“Nothing is impossible,” I said, smothering the selfish regrets that would, spite of my efforts, rise against the sacrifice I meditated. “To the strong heart there can be no impossibility—here there shall be none.” ”

“ Some one dismounted, a horse stood panting beneath his empty saddle. The fiery glow of crimson mingled confusedly with those black garments on the grass—then my sight cleared, and there was my father holding that woman in his arms—pressing her frantically to his bosom—raining kisses upon her marble forehead and her white eyelids. He held her back with his arms, looked into her face, uttered wild, sweet words that made my heart burn. Tears flashed down his cheeks, and fell like great diamonds in the blackness of her dress. His grief made him more of a child than I was. ”

“ Her veins seemed withered up, or barely moistened by the gall that fed them with bitter vitality.
The ravine was choked up with darkness; the fires were all out, and the caves closed. Not a sparkle of the Darro could be seen through the black mist that lay below; and the soft winds that scattered fragrance from a wilderness of blossoms on the Sierra del Sol, whose palace was crowned by a few rays of light from the dusky moon, only served to stir the stifling dust, through which the fierce old Sibyl waded ankle deep. ”

“ But my mother sat upon the pallet wringing her hands, and utterly abandoned to her grief once more. That one gleam of joy had turned upon her heart sharper than a sword. She remembered why she had fled from the Alhambra that night.
“What is this?” said the old woman, sharply. “Tears again? Bah, I am tired of them—speak!”
“Grandame,” sobbed the wretched girl, gasping for breath, for she felt that her last hold on life was going, “the Busne cannot save me—he will not marry a gipsy girl.”
“He shall!” snarled the old woman. “By that he shall!” and she pointed toward her idol. ”

“ He always brought me some pretty gift, if it were only a branch of hawthorn in flower, an early crocus, or a hatful of violets. He was an old, kind-hearted bachelor, and the poor child who had crept to his feet from the wayside, became the very pet and darling of a heart that had but one other idol on earth, and that was Lord Clare, his master.
Maria and I were alone in the house. The language in which she addressed me was not that which I spoke with Turner, but her caresses, her eager love were even more demonstrative than his. ”

“ I questioned, thinking of poor Cora with painful self-abnegation, for never was a heart tortured like mine; “ah, if ten little minutes can redeem your obligations to her, why wait? make this other your wife to-day.”
“Can you counsel this, Zana? Even you desire me to wed a woman whom I neither love nor respect?”
The blood began to burn in my veins. How dare he speak thus of the poor girl whose sole fault was her fatal affection for himself? These indignant thoughts sprung to my lips, but as I was about to utter them, Chaleco came up. Irving saw him, and addressed me hurriedly once more. ”

“ Why should Turner dread this marriage so much—was it not right? It seemed to me a very easy thing when so much depended on it. I had never thought seriously of marriage in my whole life, and its very mysteriousness made me look upon Turner as the victim of some hidden evil. I was resolved that he should not be sacrificed. What was my bonne, friends, Jupiter, to the comfort of an old friend like him?
I went forth into the wilderness, and found him sitting at the root of a huge chestnut, with his clasped hands drooping idly down between his knees, and gazing steadfastly on the earth. ”