Armando Palacio Valdés

“ It was ten o'clock when they both mounted the stone steps, which were as damp as ever, of the large seignorial stairway of the Quiñones. On arriving at the top, Emilita would not let the servant announce them, but opened the door herself, and pushed Fernanda in. She was an apparition calculated to throw all the guests into ecstasies. The daughter of Estrada-Rosa was resplendent in a most elegant dress from one of the first modistes of Paris. Her beauty, which her compatriots had only known in the bud, had blossomed during the five years of refined and elegant life into a magnificent rose. ”

“ The charm was gone, because Luis hated her, especially through having had to submit through coercion. With the ardent passion full of love and mystery there had also mingled an attachment to the little creature. But the tortures that her mad anger inflicted on the little girl had made a gulf between them. The poor child, clad in rich clothes, wandered alone about the palace of the Quiñones without inspiring any one with tenderness. Amalia avoided her. The servants, ashamed of their unkind treatment, and sulky at the sudden change which put the foundling again above them, did not speak to her. ”

“ Amalia had hold of the count's arm with an air that was half imperious, half careless, with her eyes on the ground, whilst he, smiling and subservient, bent towards her as he whispered words into her ear. Fernanda watched them through the foliage from a distance. Emotion glued her to the ground for some instants. The awakening of her pride as a woman seemed to outweigh her sense of misery and anger. ”

“ The pompous old Grandee paid no attention, and looked at the cards he held in his hand, whilst wrapped in his grey cloak with the red cross, he seemed to grow bigger and bigger before the frightened eyes of poor Josefina. She thought that there was nobody in the world more immense, more imposing, and more worthy of respect than that noble señor; and Don Pedro shared the same opinion, so that all other beings with whom he came in contact seemed a chaotic mass, in which only two or three were possessed of any individual character. ”

“ The count wept with joy and admiration at the happy solution of the difficulty. But when Jacoba told him that he was to take the child to the Quiñones' door, he was quite overwhelmed. However, although his lover's plan quite took him aback, he did what he was told, and the crowning audacity of the lady turned out as she had foreseen. So now that the child was safe for ever, their love not only seemed strengthened and purified, but they felt the delightful flush of victory over unheard-of dangers before finally arriving in the port of safety. ”

“ The lady did not arrive until nine o'clock. He saw her coming with her mantilla veiling her eyes, her missal in her hand, and her rosary hanging on her wrist, with a firm, self-assured step, as if she were coming to give orders to her old protégée. When he heard her voice in the kitchen his heart beat quickly, he began to tremble, and in his agitation he forgot all that he was going to say.
"How are you, count?" she said, with perfect naturalness as she came in and gave him her hand. ”

“ There would be no possible revenge for the traitor. He would go to Madrid; he would marry; he would perhaps have news there of his daughter's death, but the caresses of his adored bride would soon put it out of his mind. Of that long, ardent love affair there would be nothing left but a man parading his bliss through Europe, and a poor old sad woman in Lancia, a laughing-stock for the Lancian circles. Her flaccid flesh trembled. The revengeful instincts of her race cried out in futile rage. ”

“ In spite of all this Garnet would not give in. He was like a mastiff under the caresses and turbulent treatment of children, for he only cast angry looks at his tormentors, and every now and then gave vent to ominous growls.
Manuel Antonio repeated the list of his subtle arguments, enforcing them with sundry embraces, pats, and pinches, for he was eloquent and plausible to a degree. Paco let Manuel go on, taking care to give him many a sly corroborative wink, for he was certain that Garnet had no confidence in his remarks. But he came in with the final stroke. ”

“ The baron took hardly any notice. He went on winking at the glass he had before him, and after swallowing the contents very leisurely, and licking his lips three or four times, he said:
"Gently, gently, Fray Diego! You don't know what the Popes are."
"Long live the Pope, the head of all the kings of the earth!" repeated the cleric, giving a still louder thump upon the table.
"Take care, Fray Diego! The Popes have always been very ambitious."
"Señor baron!" exclaimed the priest in a voice so emphatic as to be comic; "you have a soul as ugly as your face!" ”

“ When Fernanda first appeared in society, and earlier still, when she was a little maiden going to school with a servant, her figure, her elegance, and, above all, the six millions she was to inherit, created quite a sensation. There was not a youth with any pretensions to manners or money, who did not determine, either of his own accord, or at the instigation of his family, to walk down the street with her, send her little notes, and whisper pleasant nothings in her ear. ”

“ Nuncita, quite upset, puckered up her face and began to cry.
The young men and women tried to calm the infuriated Carmelita. The captain and the cadet took all the blame. It was in vain. The anger was not appeased until it had vented itself in many violent and offensive remarks. The poor "child," seated sobbing on the ground with her face hid in her hands, excited the compassion of all present, who interceded for her incessantly.
It was then a question as to who was to get up into the swing next? Nobody wished to, which was very natural. How could one be swung by such bold, shameless men? ”

“ What with all this, and the remorse continually preying on him, the count was in a perpetual state of agitation. How far he was from being happy! But it was a way strewn with flowers, compared to what was coming. Five months after entering into this liaison, Amalia informed him that she believed she was enceinte. She told him this with a smile on her lips, as if she were mentioning that she had drawn a good ticket in the lottery. Luis felt giddy with terror, turned pale, and looked as if he were about to fall. ”

“ Neither the affectionate, eloquent conversation of the priest, nor the incessant jokes of Manuel Antonio during the breakfast, nor the caresses of Jovita, nor the assumed rough sort of cheerfulness of her father, could draw her from her strange absence of mind. The day broke, a sad, foggy day that filtered through the windows in a melancholy fashion. They all did their best to seem cheerful; they talked in a loud voice, they made fun of the servant's dullness, and Manuel Antonio's fear of some contretemps. Nevertheless, a deep sadness pervaded the atmosphere. ”

“ One afternoon, as they were returning from the drive on the Prado, Fernanda suddenly began sobbing violently. Don Juan was astonished and taken aback, for she had been laughing all the afternoon, and making fun of a certain youth who persisted in following the carriage.
"What has come to you? Fernanda, my daughter!"
The girl did not reply. With her handkerchief to her eyes, and her body shaken by her sobs, she only wept more bitterly.
"Fernanda! por Dios! people are looking at you!"
The crying then changed to an attack of nerves, and Don Juan told the coachman to drive home at once. ”

“ She was not contented with gathering under her roof all the youth of Lancia and dancing occasionally as a condescension, but she required for her enjoyment company every day, picnics, masquerades, &c., and she liked to dance until she nearly fell with exhaustion, like a country lass of fifteen summers. She found it necessary to contrive secret interviews with her lover at most extraordinary hours, and on most unheard of occasions. Her ungovernable passion led her to defy public opinion, and delight in making light of precaution. If the count gave her a word of warning, she flew into a rage. ”

“ The day that Don Juan should see him come forward with his ten millions and an offer of marriage, he would spare no means to make his daughter consent, and she herself would not be averse. For as they could not have the Conde de Onis, who could she marry better than a man so rich, so proper, so robust, so illustrious? This last epithet, gravely suggested by Paco, nearly spoilt the whole thing, as he was splitting with suppressed laughter. Garnet noticing this fact cast an angry glance at him, and as his confidence was again shaken, a delay of some days ensued. ”

“ There is not one who does not feel at the sight of a bride the echo of certain distant music in her heart, the taste of the honey of the remote moon comes to her lips; but it comes, alas! with the bitter taste of several years of matrimonial prose. In every married woman there is a poet disillusioned of his muse. Hence the Byronic smile on her face at the sight of the happiness shining in the eyes of a bride.
Emilita had changed her character in a quarter of an hour. ”

“ She looked at him now with a certain quizzical curiosity.
When he had finished, she said, with a sarcastic smile:
"From the night you saw Fernanda in her splendid recherché dress, this feeling of conscience must have been insupportable."
The count smiled too, somewhat shamefacedly.
"Don't believe it, Amalia. I have always felt remorse. Certainly, on getting old, one sees things more clearly. My beard is white in many places, as you can see. That which is excusable in a youth as wildness, as an irrepressible ebullition of vitality, becomes crime in an older person. ”

“ When the excitement of the greetings had somewhat abated, Amalia took her smilingly by both hands and exclaimed as her eyes swept over her costume:
"Do you know mourning is very elegant in Paris?"
Fernanda made a moue of disdain.
"Dress is of little importance if mourning is in the heart," said Maria Josefa, whose tongue had grown considerably sharper in the five years that had passed. ”

“ The offended heiress of Estrada-Rosa never thought she could have felt so much pleasure in returning to her native place. In the ardour of their affection, her friends almost carried her off to her house. There they all left her with the exception of Emilita Mateo, to whom Fernanda signed to remain. Then the two friends, with their arms round each other's waists, went slowly up that wide polished staircase which Fernanda had so often trod as a child with bare feet. They soon shut themselves in the old library of Estrada-Rosa to enjoy an hour of sweet confidences. ”

“ The highest nobility of Lancia despised all the refinements of decoration so usual nowadays. They scorned every innovation both within and without their dwellings; and this not from feelings of avarice, but from the inborn conviction that their superiority consisted less in the richness and splendour of their houses, than in the seal of ancient respectability.
The furniture was old and shabby, and the carpets and curtains were faded; but the master paid little heed to such matters. Indeed, Don Pedro Quiñones showed an indifference, bordering upon eccentricity, on the point. ”

“ I have nobody in the world but my mother, who may soon leave me alone. You ought not to mind my wishing to make a home, and have an heir to my name and estates. Besides, my conscience rebukes me."
The count, delighted at the improvement of the child, was more expansive and loquacious than usual, being unable to hide his happiness, and thinking everything was arranged according to his wishes. Josefina was happy with her mother, he happy with Fernanda, and Amalia, being resigned, would grant him a sweet affection that would get purer every day. ”

“ When she entered the drawing-room in the evening like that, the count could not repress a gesture of anger, and cast an interrogative glance at Amalia, who replied to the gesture and look with a provoking smile. And in a loud voice she said that the child's hair had been cut by her orders, for she had noticed that she was beginning to be vain. It is so! and people flatter her so much that she has become unmanageable. ”

“ In the meanwhile, Amalia ate and slept with composure, and her constant cheerfulness astonished the count, whilst it excited his admiration. Time went by, the seven months passed, and then the eighth. And hide as he would the fact from himself, there was no denying that the figure of his beloved was no longer slight; but when he made the remark to her in a great state of anxiety, she burst out laughing:
"Be silent, you foolish creature! You notice it because you know about it. Who is going to suspect anything because I am a little stouter? Sometimes one likes a loose corsage." ”

“ Emilita, confused and ashamed, with her cheeks like two fires, advanced with a hesitating step to the brave captain of Pontevedra, who was sharp enough to bring his lips to play upon the brilliant colouring of her face.
But lo and behold! hardly was this effected than up jumps a basilisk of a Micaela, who was indeed the most irascible of the four nereids who inhabited the depths of the dwelling of the Pensioner.
"How shameless! These are not decent games, but low tricks. I am not astonished at Nuñez, for men are what they are. But I am astonished at you, Emilita. ”

“ In La Espuma, his best-known novel, Valdés reverted from those country scenes and those streets of provincial cities which he had hitherto loved best to paint, and gave us a sternly satiric picture of the frothy surface of fashionable life in Madrid. From the illusions of the poor, pathetic and often beautiful, he turned to the ugly cynicism of the wealthy. With his passion for honesty and simplicity, his heart burned within him at the parade and hollowness which he detected in aristocratic and bureaucratic Madrid. ”

“ Fernanda chatted in all the joy of her heart without minding the timidity of her adorer, and with the enjoyment of seeing the puerile pains he took to avoid his confession of love, knowing that she could have him at her feet directly she gave the sign. The moment came at last. One day the beautiful widow determined to declare herself. They were talking of marriage and second marriages. Luis began to get excited, and to give his opinion in a trembling voice, trying to change the conversation. ”