Benito Pérez Galdós

“ We are going to live together all our lives. Oh! Heavenly Father! If I am never to enjoy the blessing of which Thou didst deprive me at my birth, why hast Thou allowed me to hope? Hapless wretch that I am, if I am not born anew under the hands of Doctor Golfin. A new birth indeed—a new life! Oh! my darling, I swear to you by the image of God that exists in my soul, glorious, real and immutable, that you and I will never part by my will. I shall have eyes, Nela, eyes to delight in your presence, and then I will marry you. ”

“ But Nela did not answer, her mind was absorbed in self contemplation.
"What ails me?" she asked herself. "It cannot be anything evil, or wicked, for I do not feel the black ugly figure of a devil inside me, but something heavenly: a beautiful face, a smile and a look which—if I am in my right mind—are those of the Virgin Mary herself. Oh Lady Mother! Can it be true that thou wilt give me comfort to-day? And how?—By giving me what I prayed for last night?"
"Now then, brat!" screamed Señana in her harsh tones, like a cracked bell. "Go and wash your ugly little snout."
Nela went at once. ”

“ That large rock in the middle has a wide mouth—do you see, Nela?—and out of the mouth sticks a toothpick; it is a tree that has grown all alone there. It looks as if it were laughing at us, for it has eyes too; and there, farther on, is one with a hump, another smoking a pipe, and two pulling each other's hair; there is one yawning, another asleep and drunk, and another head downwards supporting a cathedral on his feet; then there is one playing the guitar, with a dog's head and coffee-pot on it like a cap. ”

“ I really cannot go through a tunnel ..." said Florentina, following them. "Cousin, do you and Nela walk about here often? Oh! but this is beautiful—I could live here all my life. Blessings on the man who is going to give you the power of enjoying this lovely world!"
"God grant it! And it will all look much more lovely to me who have never seen it, than to you who are tired of it all. But do not suppose, Florentina, that I do not understand what beauty is; I can feel it in my own fashion, and my fancy almost, almost makes up for my want of sight." ”

“ Nothing ever suggested to Nela that she was born of human beings, like the other inhabitants of the house. She was never punished; but she felt that this immunity arose from their contemptuous pity for her feeble frame, and certainly not from any special esteem or care for her person. No one had ever taught her that she had a soul ready to bring forth good fruit if she cultivated it with care, nor that she bore within herself, like other mortals, that spark of the divine fire which is called human intelligence, and that this spark might be fanned to beneficent light and flame. ”

“ A light breeze at this instant sprang up, and Golfin fancied he heard the sound of footsteps at the bottom of the unknown—or imaginary—abyss before him; he listened sharply, and in a minute felt quite certain that some one was walking below. He stood up and shouted:
"Girl, man, or whoever you are, can I get to the mines of Socartes by this road?"
He had not done speaking when he heard a dog barking wildly, and then a manly voice saying: "Choto, Choto! come here!"
"Hi there!" cried the traveller. "My good friend—man, boy, demon, or whatever you are, call back your dog, for I am a man of peace." ”

“ It is wonderful, dear little one, how perfectly our souls are one. United by our own wish and will, nothing is wanting but a bond of union. That bond shall be tied if I really gain the precious sense that I have never enjoyed. The idea of seeing would never have taken possession of my mind if I did not cherish above all things the idea that through it I should love you better. The acquisition of that power can be nothing to me but the faculty of admiring in a new kind of way what I already admire so truly by the way of love.—But I fancy you are sad to-day. ”

“ When Teodoro Golfin first removed the bandage for a few moments from Pablo Penáguilas' eyes, the boy uttered a cry of terror. Every impulse made him shrink from all he saw; he put out his hands as though by pushing away one object he could get away farther from the rest. Luminous space was to him like a vast void into which he felt as if he must fall; and the instinct of self-preservation made him close his eyes to feel himself safe. However, his father, the surgeon, and the rest of them, persuaded him to try once more, for all were equally anxious ”

“ How great a pleasure it would be to give sight to a young fellow who so richly deserves it, I need not tell you! Your son has a most superior intelligence, a brilliant imagination, and a most delightful nature. His total ignorance of the outer, visible world, only throws his beautiful qualities into relief; they stand out in conspicuous simplicity, with the naked charm and dignity of a work of Nature, untouched and unspoiled by the hand of man. He is full of idealism, it affects all his thoughts—a grand and beautiful idealism. ”

“ The fact is, there are a great many people who do not know how to see."
"Aye, a great many."
"If only I were dressed as other girls are!" exclaimed Nela, with a touch of pride.
"You shall be."
"And the book said I was beautiful?" asked Nela, appealing to every source of conviction.
"I say so, and I always speak the truth!" cried the boy, carried away by his eager imagination.
"Maybe it is so," said Nela, moving away from her not too flattering contemplation. "Maybe that men are very stupid, and do not see things as they really are."
"Human nature is liable to a thousand errors." ”

“ Nela wandered about alone all day, and at night she prowled round the house at Aldeacorba, creeping as near to it as she dared without running the risk of being discovered; whenever she heard footsteps she stole away like a thief. Then she went down into the crater of La Terrible, whose grewsome aspect somehow suited her gloomy mood; she lingered there some time looking up at the stone giants that stood round it, and then she climbed up one of them to see the lights of Aldeacorba. ”

“ To think that after seeing the vision realized which had so often appeared to her in dreams of thrilling beatitude, she must renounce it—to have heard herself called by a gentle voice, that offered her a sister's love, a happy home, position, a name, and a luxurious existence—and then be unable to obey the invitation with joy, alacrity and thankfulness—to reject the hand which would snatch her from a life of degradation and misery, and make a lady of the wretched vagabond, raising her from the rank of a domestic animal to that of a loved and respected woman!... ”

“ She had just passed a grove of trees and turned an angle of the road to go to a place where she knew of a bramble copse, the greenest, prettiest, and most fruitful in all the neighborhood. There were luxuriant ferns too, honeysuckle, wild vine, and other climbing plants, all clinging and tangled together in mutual dependence.
Nela heard a rustle in the brushwood close to her, and turning round she saw—Merciful Heaven! There, in a frame of greenery, stood the Immaculate Virgin herself—the face, the eyes, which in their gaze seemed to have all the calm beauty of the sky. ”

“ Nela went boldly to the rescue; setting her foot on the brambles and stout-stemmed creepers that grew over the rift, and holding on by one hand to the rock, she put out the other to take hold of Líli's tail, by which she pulled him out of the tangle in which he had been caught. Then, patting and coaxing him, she mounted in triumph to the top of the slope.
"It is your fault, all your fault," said Sofía crossly, and boxing the dog's ears very gently. "What on earth made you go down into that hole—you know he goes after you wherever he finds you—hussy that you are!" ”

“ It would be rash to assert that Nela had understood all this speech, which Golfin declaimed with such vehemence and fervor that he entirely forgot the person to whom he was speaking. But the little outcast felt a curious fascination, and the spirit of her friend's utterances sank gently into her soul, and soothed it, and compelled her to blind assent. His power over the untaught girl was that fateful and irresistible control which a superior mind exercises over an inferior one. Sad but unresisting, her head drooped against the surgeon's shoulder. ”

“ For me there is no wife in the world but you. When my eyes can see, they will care for no beauty but your heavenly face; all others will be but shades, too remote and dim to attract my gaze. Oh God! what is a human face like? How does the soul stand revealed in flesh? If light cannot avail to give another aspect to thought and fancy, of what use is it at all? ”

“ He is the only being to whom 'Nela' is anything more important than the cats and the birds. He loves me. Loves me as lovers love their sweet-hearts, as God intends human beings to love each other.—Oh Lady Mother! now that you are going to work a miracle and let him see, make me beautiful or strike me dead, for I shall not be wanted any more in this world. I am good for nothing and ever shall be, excepting to one person. ”

“ I cannot help thinking of him as a man like Teodoro Golfin, and of Europe as a blind man to whom America and its wonders were like a revelation of light. Well, and I have seen a New World.—You are my America, you are that first and lovely island where Columbus set foot on land. He never saw the continent, with its vast forests and immense rivers, and I too perhaps have not yet seen what is loveliest of all...." He broke off and sat sunk in thought; then presently he asked:
"Where is Nela?"
"I cannot think what has come over the poor child," said Florentina. ”

“ I will make your peace with Florentina; and even if you wish never to see her again, I will undertake to tell her and convince her that you were not ungrateful. Now, open your heart to me and tell me everything; what makes you so miserable and desperate? However wretched a human being may be—however great his misery and loneliness, he does not take his own life unless he has some overpowering reason for hating it. ”

“ Nela, who had never in her life had a room, nor clothes, nor shoes, nor food, nor sympathy, nor relations, nor any earthly thing of her own, not even a name—was buried in a style which caused no small amount of envy among the living in Socartes. This posthumous splendor was the bitterest irony ever known in these metalliferous regions. Señorita Florentina, acting on her generous impulses, consoled herself for the disappointment of not having been able to help Nela alive, by the satisfaction of doing honor to her hapless remains after death. ”

“ With him she at once became original, bright and intelligent; she had feeling, grace, refinement and fancy. When she left him, the dark doors of a prison seemed to close on her once more.
"But I tell you we will go wherever you like," remarked the blind youth. "I like to do what you like. If you wish we will go to the clump of trees beyond Saldeoro—but just as you like."
"Yes, yes, delightful!" exclaimed Nela, clapping her hands. "And as there is no hurry, we can sit down whenever we are tired." ”

“ Now and again, in her innocent bewilderment, she fancied it must be the Virgin Mary in her actual presence; in no other way could she conceive of the kind-heartedness which smiled upon her, like the realms of Paradise, from the open soul of Florentina, with its purity, tenderness, gentleness, and gracious consolations. Nela's honest instinct made her feel and understand at once that she could not hate her self-constituted sister. Hate her! How could she? She felt she must love her with all the strength of her soul. ”

“ Did no one ever tell you that when once our souls have left our bodies they never return to them again? Do you not know that a tomb, a grave, whatever it may be, never contains anything but dust and foul corruption? What do you think God is like? Like some grand and solemn man who sits above us with his arms folded, and who allows us to play with our lives, while, in His place, we see some sprite, hobgoblin or fetich of our fancy?—Your master, Nela, who is so wise and good, did he never talk to you about such things? ”

“ He admired the beauty of the sky and was disgusted at the sight of a frog. Everything that is beautiful excites him to an enthusiasm that is almost delirium; everything ugly fills him with horror, and makes him tremble as we do when we are frightened. My appearance must have pleased him, for he exclaimed as soon as he saw me: "Oh! cousin, how pretty you are! Thank God for having bestowed sight on me so that I can see you!"
Nela had gently withdrawn her hand from Florentina's grasp and fell on the ground as if suddenly stricken to death. ”

“ I have lost my way, beyond a doubt I have lost my way.—This, Teodoro Golfin, is the result of your 'on, straight on.' Bah! these blockheads do not know the meaning of words; either they meant to laugh at you or else they did not know the way to the mines of Socartes. A huge mining establishment must be evident to the senses, with its buildings and chimneys, its noise of hammers and snorting of furnaces, neighing of horses and clattering of machinery—and I neither see, nor hear, nor smell anything. I might be in a desert! How absolutely solitary! ”

“ Other persons had it before you, centuries ago; persons with an imagination like yours—living, as you have lived, in the midst of Nature, and lacking the light which your ignorance and loneliness have deprived you of, and which they had not, because it had not then dawned on the world.—But you must be cured of this delusion; you must reflect that you have your portion of gifts more precious than beauty—gifts of the mind, which neither fade with time, nor change with the caprices of taste. ”

“ I should like to divide my happiness, and fling it abroad on all sides, [Pg 185] as the sower casts the seed; I should like to go into every wretched dwelling and say: 'All your troubles are ended. I have a remedy for them all.'—But it is impossible; no one can do that but God. Still, as my powers are not equal to my will, let me at any rate do what I can—and these are not mere words, Nela. Come with me, away from this hovel; bid farewell to everything that has made part of your misery and your loneliness. For you may have an affection, even for your wretchedness, my child. ”

“ Nela, during the many years of her residence there, had inhabited various nooks and corners, going from one to another, according to the exigencies of the moment, to make way for the thousand objects which served only to curtail the last scanty accommodation left for human beings. On some occasion—the precise facts are unknown to history—Tanasio, whose feet were as crippled as his brain, and who devoted himself to the manufacture of large hampers made of hazel rods, had placed in the kitchen a pile of at least half a dozen of these bulky trophies of his art. ”

“ When, in a field there are many, many flowers, it is because—once upon a time, long ago, a great many people were buried there."
"No, no," said Pablo very seriously. "Do not believe such nonsense. Our holy religion teaches us that the spirit quits the flesh and that our mortal life comes to an end. What is buried, Nela, is a mere shell of useless clay which can neither think, nor feel, nor even see." ”