Mariano

“ The echoes of Mariano's triumphs at home had come to his ears, had determined him to move to Madrid. Life was the same everywhere. He had friends in Madrid, too. And here he had continued the life he had led in Rome, without any effort, feeling a kind of longing for glory in that [Pg 93] narrow personality which had made him a mere day-laborer in art, as if his relations with Renovales imposed on him the duty of seeking a place near his in the world of painting. ”

“ There was no mound or niche or coping of any kind behind which a man might conceal himself. The dead man’s head was the only object that broke the uniformity of the wall. In desperation, Mariano lay down with it between himself and the advancing sentinel, and crept close to it—so close that while he lay there he fancied that a drop of something cold fell from it and mingled with the perspiration that stood in large beads upon his brow! ”

“ Marianita still stood by the window, eagerly directing her glance over the plain, and endeavouring to penetrate the obscure gleam outside the circle lighted by the glare of the fires.
“No—no one,” replied she; and then her tone suddenly changing into one of terror, she shrieked out—“O mercy! I see two horsemen—yes; they are horsemen. Madre de Dios! they are flying like the wind! Alas! alas! they will be too late!”
As she spoke, loud shouts were heard from above—from the azotéa of the house—to which Don Mariano and a crowd of servants had ascended. ”

“ The little fellow felt attracted by the colors of the glowing iron, till with the thoughtlessness of childhood [Pg 23] he sometimes tried to pick up the fragments that glowed on the ground like fallen stars.
His father would push him out of the shop, and outside the door—black with soot—Mariano could see stretching out below him in the flood of sunlight the fields with their red soil cut into geometric figures by stone walls; at the bottom the valley with groups of poplars bordering the winding, crystal stream, and before him the mountains, covered to the very tops with dark pine woods. ”

“ The fourth, who was the guide already mentioned, had gone forward through the woods—partly to search for the crossing, but also to reconnoitre the path, and find out whether the road to San Carlos was clear of the guerilleros.
Through a break in the forest that surrounded the glade, the enchanted mountain was visible—its sombre silhouette outlined against the blue background of the sky.
In all countries, every object that appears to vary from the ordinary laws of nature, possesses, for the vulgar imagination, a powerful interest; and the servants of Don Mariano were no exception to the rule. ”

“ The fond father beheld with apprehension the extreme melancholy that had taken possession of his daughter; and, convinced of the inutility of the efforts he had already made to cure her of her passion for Don Rafael—by representing the latter as unworthy of her—he had altogether changed his tactics in that regard. He now endeavoured to extenuate the faults of the Colonel; and, in the place of an accuser, became his benevolent champion.
“The nobility and frankness of his character,” Don Mariano would say, “is enough to set aside all suspicion of his perfidy. ”

“ Take him back to town and jug him. The boys'll get something on him later. We'll ride back in Mariano's car."
The sergeant slipped into the driver's seat, with Bill alongside of him. I got in back with Mariano. Mariano cringed in the far left corner of the seat, which didn't make me mad, either. The more space between us, the better.
I looked at him and the gadget. Bill spoke up from the front seat. "What's eating him?" he said, to nobody in particular. "He started to complain about a sort of peanut whistle, and now he acts like he wants to crawl in a hole and pull the hole in after him." ”

“ Don Mariano said, utterly astounded; "but how did you learn these details? It was doubtlessly yourself who—"
"When the time arrives, I will answer you," Don Miguel said, in a peremptory tone. "Go on."
"What more shall I say? I started for the strange meeting promised me, nourishing in my heart I know not what mad hopes. Alas! man is so constituted that he clings to everything which can aid him in doubting a misfortune. This day, God, who has probably taken pity on me, made me meet the man who is my brother ”

“ In Mariana, expanded from a hint of the forsaken maid in Shakspere's Measure for Measure, "Mariana at the moated grange," the poet showed an art then peculiar, but since grown familiar, of heightening the central feeling by landscape accessories. The level waste, the stagnant sluices, the neglected garden, the wind in the single poplar, re-enforce, by their monotonous sympathy, the loneliness, the hopeless waiting and weariness of life in the one human figure of the poem. ”

“ He was suffused with joy, and Mariana, in one of those queer ways she had of thinking of inapposite things, remembered him as she saw him once when, at the age of fourteen, he sat before a plate of griddle-cakes and saw the syrup-pitcher coming.
"Thursday, then," she said. "I'll be along bright and early."
She rose and set her chair against the wall. That seemed as if they were to go.
"You'd better by half stay where you be in your own home," she called after Jake, shutting the door behind him. "You won't like settin' at other folks' tables. ”

“ Mariana was sitting as usual, her hair loose, her dress the same robe they had put on her at first, her eyes fixed vacantly upon the whited-wall. To the proffers and entreaties of her nurse, she made no reply.
‘The lady burst into tears, but Mariana did not seem even to observe it.
‘The lady then said, “O, my child, do not despair; do not think that one great fault can mar a whole life! Let me trust you; let me tell you the griefs of my sad life. I will tell you, Mariana, what I never expected to impart to any one.” ”

“ Mariana had heard him speak in meeting, and thus stertorously was he accustomed to announce his faith.
"Mariana," said he, "it's all yours, everything I got. It's your home. You stay here an' enjoy it."
"Oh, no, it ain't," cried Mariana, in a fright. "I've got my own place same 's you have. I'm contented enough, Eben. I just got kinder thinkin'; I often do, come spring o' the year."
"Well, I ain't contented, if you be," said the cap'n valiantly. "I never shall be till you an' me are man an' wife."
"O my soul!" Mariana cried out. "O my soul!"
"What's the matter?" said Jake Preble. ”

“ Marianna tried, but vainly, every simple cure she knew.
Then the doctor gave up hoping, and his long attendance ceased:
"I can do no more," he told her; "you had better call the priest.
To her husband I have written; he will have the news to-day:
If he cares again to see her, he had best be on his way!"
Now the priest has done his office; at the open door he stands,
And he says to Marianna: "I can leave her in your hands,—
I have other work that calls me; if to-night she chance to die,
You can say the prayers, good sister, for her soul as well as I." ”

“ You will think of Marianna, and her vision by the fire.
In a convent, old and quiet, near a little country town,
On a chestnut-shaded hillside, to the river sloping down,
Dwelt a few of those good sisters who go out among the poor,
Who must labour late and early, and much weariness endure;
And the one who did in patience and in all good works excel
Was the Sister Marianna, she whose story now I tell.
She was ever kind and willing, for each heavy task prepared:
No one ever thought to spare her, and herself she never spared. ”

“ Again, as Mariana sat in the lamplight, her swift fingers busy with some useless bit of millinery, he would regard her with a sudden tightening of his pulses, and a thrill of fear at the prospect of a coming separation. The droop of her head, the contour of her face where the bone of her chin was accentuated by thinness, the soft line of throat above the full collar, the nimbus of hair shining in the light, the fall of her skirt, the slender slippered feet, aroused in him a tumultuous sense of possession. ”

“ But while a score of writers cared more for accuracy than did Mariana, his work survives not as a chronicle, but as a brilliant exercise in literature. His learning is more than enough to save him from radical blunders; his impartiality and his patriotism go hand in hand; his character-drawing is firm and convincing; and his style, with its faint savour of archaism, is of unsurpassed dignity and clearness in his narrative. He cared more for the spirit than for the letter, and time has justified him. ”

“ As for Mariana, she was vividly alive. Beneath the warmth of emotion her nature expanded into fulfilment, and with fulfilment awoke the subtle charm of her personality.
"Have you seen Mariana?" inquired Nevins of Ardly one day. "If so, you have seen a woman in love." ”

“ The priest of the coming generation is the pariah of the present, and the dogma of to-morrow the heresy of to-day.
To Mariana's ignorant eyes Anthony seemed one in whom passion had been annihilated. In reality it was only smothered beneath the weight of a strenuous will. Let the pressure be removed, and it would burst forth the fiercer for its long confinement, ingulfing perhaps the whole organism in its destructive flame.
"Oh, hush!" Mariana had said, and turned from him. "You seem to delight in unpleasant things. I make it a point to believe that suffering and death do not exist. ”

“ The haze of idealism with which he had surrounded her was suffused with a roseate glow. He caught her hands. His face had grown dark and set, and the lines upon his forehead seemed ineffaceable.
Mariana was conscious of a sudden uplifting within her. It was as if her heart had broken into song. She stood motionless, her hands closing upon his detaining ones. Her face was vivid with animation, and there was a suggestion of frank surrender in her attitude. He caught his breath sharply. Then his accustomed composure fell upon him. ”

“ But Mariana shook her head.
“I heard from the Master you had gained strength from weakness; and I heard from Everard you had jewels of your own that you have worn to counteract the fatal charm of these.”
“Not of my own, Mariana; they were of God.” “Ah, God! I had forgotten Him. The dream has passed so long ago.”
“God is no dream, but a living reality, Mariana.”
“I was once bitten by a snake, and here they call the Serpent God. I love not such an image, but live in the never-ending twilight. I think it is the shadowed light the idol throws, placing itself betwixt the world and God.” ”

“ Now, Mariana never was and never could be a representative of the Society, for: first sixteen years before the objectionable book attracted notice in France, namely in 1584, Mariana had been solemnly condemned by the greatest assembly of the Society, the general congregation, as an unworthy son; a pestilential member who should be cut off from the body, and his expulsion was ordered. He was one of the leaders of the band of Spanish conspirators who [275] did all in their power to destroy the Society. ”

“ The duke replied: “Angelo, thy faults are manifest. We do condemn thee to the very block where Claudio stooped to death, and with like haste away with him; and for his possessions, Mariana, we do instate and widow you withal, to buy you a better husband.”
“O my dear lord,” said Mariana, “I crave no other, nor no better man!” And then on her knees, even as Isabel had begged the life of Claudio, did this kind wife of an ungrateful husband beg the life of Angelo; and she said: “Gentle my liege, O good my lord! Sweet Isabel, take my part! ”

“ The way in which Marianna received the old fellow when we took him home has quite reformed him. He is fully convinced that she no longer loves you, but that she has given him at least one half of her heart, and that all he has to do is to win the other half. And Marianna, since she imbibed the poison of your kisses, has advanced three years in shrewdness, artfulness, and experience. ”

“ Mother Eve—wide as the distance is between her who yielded to the Serpent and her who set her heel on his head; but the beauty of a lovely girl is enough to betray us into such unlucky blunders. To put a finishing touch to this imperfect description of the divine vision which had so utterly dismayed poor Marianela, it must be said that her complexion was of that faded rose color, or warm clear brown which gives an enchanting glow to the faces of those glorious pictures which successive generations, of believers and heretics alike, have worshipped in ecstasy. ”

“ MARIANA. Borne to mishap, my self am only she On whom the Sun of Fortune never shined: But Planets ruled by retrogard aspect Foretold mine ill in my nativity. LUBECK. Sweet Lady, cease, let my intreaty serve To pacify the passion of thy grief, Which, well I know, proceeds of ardent love. MARIANA. But Lubeck now regards not Mariana. LUBECK. Even as my life, so love I Mariana. MARIANA. Why do you post me to another then? LUBECK. He is my friend, and I do love the man. MARIANA. Then will Duke William rob me of my Love? LUBECK. No, as his life Mariana he doth love. ”

“ Slowly, reverently, they move up through the broad lane, flanked by eager faces; the choristers are followed by the brilliant party of ushers,—soldier and civilian,—the [Pg 434] gray-haired father and his handsome wife; then come the fair bridesmaids, two and two, all in fleecy silk, and bearing dainty bouquets of daisies tied with the cavalry colors, while between the last two, sister and cousin, and as though led by them, veiled, and with downcast eyes, a matchless picture of sweet womanly grace and beauty, is Marion. ”