Juana

“ As for the quartermaster, though he had no grace in Juana’s eyes, we may well absolve him. He loved her distractedly. The Marana, so keen to know the signs of love, had recognized in that man the accents of passion and the brusque nature, the generous impulses, that are common to Southerners. In the paroxysm of her anger and her distress she had thought such qualities enough for her daughter’s happiness. ”

“ Juana knew that life; fate spared her nought. She was wholly a wife, but a sorrowful and suffering wife; a wife incessantly wounded, yet forgiving always; a wife pure as a flawless diamond,—she who had the beauty and the glow of the diamond, and in that beauty, that glow, a vengeance in her hand; for she was certainly not a woman to fear the dagger added to her “dot.”
At first, inspired by a real love, by one of those passions which for the time being change even odious characters and bring to light all that may be noble in a soul, Diard behaved like a man of honor. ”

“ A second time the Marana came to the church where Juana made her first communion. Simply dressed, concealing herself behind a column, the exiled mother recognized herself in her daughter such as she once had been, pure as the snow fresh-fallen on the Alps. A courtesan even in maternity, the Marana felt in the depths of her soul a jealous sentiment, stronger for the moment than that of love, and she left the church, incapable of resisting any longer the desire to kill Dona Lagounia, as she sat there, with radiant face, too much the mother of her child. ”

“ They lived in a whirl of pleasure, and Juana felt that now there was nothing more to ask for in life. To be the chosen bride of such a man, and to take her fill of amusement, to dress and dance and sing the days and nights away—was ever cup of happiness so strangely full as hers? ”

“ Dona Juana condescended to smile at the child’s simplicity.
“My name is Juana Fernandez,” she said. “Thou canst call me Dame Joan.”
At this point the hangings were suddenly lifted, and something which seemed to Maude the very Queen of the Fairies crept out and stood before them. Juana stopped and courtesied, an act which Maude was too fascinated to imitate.
“Whither go you, Doña Juana?” asked the vision. “In good sooth, this is the very little maid I saw a-washing the pans. Art come to sit under the cloth of estate in my stead?” ”

“ Juana’s maternal love may have been the strongest because, deprived of all other affections, she put the joys she lacked into the one joy of her children; and there are noble passions that resemble vice; the more they are satisfied the more they increase. Mothers and gamblers are alike insatiable.
When Juana saw the generous pardon laid silently on the head of Juan by Diard’s fatherly affection, she was much moved, and from the day when the husband and wife changed parts she felt for him the true and deep interest she had hitherto shown to him as a matter of duty only. ”

“ And what if I have brought you hither to your death?"
"We must all die once," answered Juana, her eyes full of love and courage; "and I would sooner die with you, mistress, than live without you. If I had stayed behind, and had heard this story of you, I should have killed myself, or died for grief and shame that I was not with you."
Then Inez put her arms about the faithful girl's neck, and kissed her thrice upon the lips.
"We will do battle for our lives, Juana; and then, if needs be, we will die together," she said. ”

“ Hell Mary Juana, full of recalcitrance, the Lordess, Santa Gabriela, be with thee. Blessed art thou in the salubrious realm of illegal substances and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, beer and chewing tobacco. Hell Mary Juana, servant of the Gabriele goddess and her partner, the sun god, give us something sweet to hallucinate now and at the hour of our death. ”

“ Juana was amusing herself by cutting up his missive. But virtue and innocence sometimes imitate the clever proceedings inspired by jealousy to the Bartholos of comedy. Juana, without pens, ink, or paper, was replying by snip of scissors. Presently she refastened the note to the string; the officer drew it up, opened it, and read by the light of his lamp one word, carefully cut out of the paper: COME.
“Come!” he said to himself; “but what of poison? or the dagger or carbine of Perez? And that apprentice not yet asleep, perhaps, in the shop? ”

“ But the brave resistance of the girls seemed rather to stimulate than to baffle the assailants. The air was rent with frightful threats and curses; and Inez, looking rather white, though there was no fear in her heart, said quietly:
"There is no hope of mercy, Juana. If we are not relieved; if help comes not, we must sell our lives as dearly as we can; and plunge our daggers into our own hearts sooner than fall alive into their hands."
"We will, Mistress," said Juana firmly. ”

“ When alone, I talk to my flowers, to my tapestry; they can understand me better, I think, than my father and mother, who are so grave.”
“Juana,” said Montefiore, taking her hands and kissing them with the passion that gushed in his eyes, in his gestures, in the tones of his voice, “speak to me as your husband, as yourself. I have suffered all that you have suffered. Between us two few words are needed to make us comprehend our past, but there will never be enough to express our coming happiness. Lay your hand upon my heart. Feel how it beats. ”

“ The eloquent face and vivid words, with pretty foreign accent, as she described her despair and her joy, stirred the hearts of those women to their depths. What a fair field for work was Mexico if gems such as this young stranger were hidden away there.
The fire thus kindled rapidly spread. Juana went from church to church, and the tide of enthusiasm rose high, gifts flowed in, and many hearts turned warmly to the "land of the sun," as this young wife, a miracle of God's grace, told the tale of his redeeming love, and in broken, eager words, pleaded with tears for "my dear Mexico." ”

“ Behind her the lights of Los Santos twinkled within the guarding water, and ahead the lonely light from the mines shone across the curve of the world. But as she went down the desert road her face was to the stars. Before her the clear dusk parted as in welcome, it closed behind her like a tender barrier to be passed no more. Above her was the infinite heaven and the hosts of it. Under her feet the sand that took all things, youth and strength and the works of all men’s hands, but might not wholly take love.
Old Juana was going at last to join the Rainmaker in a good place. ”

“ Innocent enough flowers they were at first; the delight in each other's society in rambling, riding, boating, and resting under the shadows of broad spreading trees, or, from a lofty balcony enjoying the panorama the summer evening spread before them; the fair city at their feet, its spires and minarets gleaming in the moonlight, and distant mountains piled in soft masses against the crystal sky.
When Juana added to the witchery of the scene by singing sweet Spanish airs to the music of the guitar, the young husband half believed he had attained heaven and the society of the angels. ”

“ Should I not have died before harm could have come to Juana?”
At that answer, the Marana seized the calloused hand of the old man, and kissed it, wetting it with the tears that flowed from her eyes—she who never wept! those tears were all she had most precious under heaven.
“My good Perez!” she said at last. “But have you had no soldiers quartered in your house?”
“Only one,” replied the Spaniard. “Fortunately for us the most loyal of men; a Spaniard by birth, but now an Italian who hates Bonaparte; a married man. ”

“ Cuthbertson leaned his head back in the shadow. Westward a mirage danced in the heat, and the crumbling dry hills seemed to lift from blue water and green reeds. He said, “I don’t like the sand, Juana.”
Old Juana laid her hand on her breast. “It takes youth and strength, wit and the memory of many gods. ”

“ No man can tell whether this unhappy woman would have developed a strong, self-reliant character if the course of her life had been other than it was, but, accepting the facts as they stand, there is no more pathetic figure in all the history of Spain than this poor, mistreated Juana la Loca, "the mad Juana," and to every diligent student of Spanish history this instance of woman's inhumanity to woman will ever be a blot on the scutcheon of the celebrated Isabella of Castile. ”

“ Particularly pathetic and distressing is the story of the poor Princess Juana, whose prospects were most brilliant and whose destiny was most cruel. Juana was married in 1496 to the Archduke Philip of Austria, Governor of the Netherlands and heir to the great domain of his father, the Emperor Maximilian, and the wedding had been celebrated in a most gorgeous fashion. It was in the month of August that a splendid Spanish fleet set out from Laredo, a little port between Bilbao and Santander, to carry the Spanish maiden to her waiting bridegroom. ”

“ Thus the lovers lived only in the night-time, when the rest of the household were asleep. If Montefiore had not been one of those libertines whom the habit of gallantry enables to retain their self-possession under all circumstances, he might have been lost a dozen times during those ten days. A young lover, in the simplicity of a first love, would have committed the enchanting imprudences which are so difficult to resist. But he did resist even Juana herself, Juana pouting, Juana making her long hair a chain which she wound about his neck when caution told him he must go. ”

“ I ascertained where the circus was, and I had an interview with Miss Juana one night after the performance. Miss Juana was in her circus-dress, a curiously showy riding-habit, and she had paint on her dear face. The interview was inexpressibly painful to me. I cannot narrate it in full.
‘I said: “Miss Juana, marry me. I implore you! Never mind your father’s consent. Anything to save you from this. I implore you to marry me! I love you more than ever.” ”

“ If that man had been more consistent in his life; if he had not destroyed by fitful inconstancy and restlessness the forces of a true though excitable sensibility, Juana would doubtless have loved him in the end. Unfortunately, he was a type of those southern natures which are keen in perceptions they cannot follow out; capable of great things over-night, and incapable the next morning; often the victim of their own virtues, and often lucky through their worst passions; admirable men in some respects, when their good qualities are kept to a steady energy by some outward bond. ”

“ The features are without doubt those of Juana, but immobile and cold. The portrait shows only a melancholy woman, without charm, sickly, and lacking in thought.y
Isabella and Ferdinand wanted their son-in-law, Philip, to become acquainted with the country over which he would some time rule. But the measure of family misfortune which balanced the weighty political success of the Catholic kings was not yet full. The first months of the stay of Juana and Philip in Spain brought indeed only rejoicing and splendour. In Toledo the Castilian cortes proclaimed allegiance, in Barcelona the Aragonese. ”

“ Religion triumphed. Dona Lagounia stayed beside her child and prayed and watched as she would have prayed and watched beside the dying.
“God wills it,” she said to Juana.
Nature gives to woman alternately a strength which enables her to suffer and a weakness which leads her to resignation. Juana resigned herself; and without restriction. She determined to obey her mother’s prayer, and cross the desert of life to reach God’s heaven, knowing well that no flowers grew for her along the way of that painful journey.
She married Diard. ”

“ But then and there the fate of the much-abused princess was definitely decided. Juana, self-willed as she had shown herself to be, was not a woman of strong character or any great ability, and her husband had so regularly controlled her and bent her to his will that he found little trouble in the present instance in deposing her entirely, that he might rule Castile in her stead. When Philip died suddenly two months after he had assumed the reigns of government, Juana was stricken with a great grief, which, it is said, did not at first find the ordinary solace afforded by tears. ”

“ I believe there never was so much dirt and beauty combined. She was the sweetest mite imaginable, and of a style to have destroyed Murillo's slumbers. Then pretty Juana suffered from calenturas—fever and ague,—and I at times carried a little phial of quinine, and felt Juana's pulse and temples, but the jolly patrona would shake her head roguishly, and exclaim, jestingly,—No es possible, Señor Chato, sin matrimonio—you can't make love without marriage. Ah! pico largo, I would reply, con razon, pero llama vd el padre Molino—certainly, so send for Father Windmill. ”

“ Her husband made it gaily. Obliged to occupy the same carriage, he showed himself day by day more attentive to the children and more amiable to their mother. Nevertheless, each day brought Juana dark presentiments, the presentiments of mothers who tremble without apparent reason, but who are seldom mistaken when they tremble thus. For them the veil of the future seems thinner than for others.
At Bordeaux, Diard hired in a quiet street a quiet little house, neatly furnished, and in it he established his wife. ”

“ Well for us we know not what the morrow may bring forth! Nothing disturbed Juana’s happiness that night, and she fell asleep with a sigh of content, and a heart lightened of all fear and anxiety. The next morning Diego went to work in the garden not far from the house, leaving Juana busy with her domestic duties. The day after Diego’s return from one of his long absences was always a holiday for Juana, one of the mission women taking her place as teacher. ”