Nacha

“ If Nacha stopped a moment in the patio to exchange a few words with a boarder, her sister would eye her suspiciously and take up a position somewhere near at hand, so as to observe her. Nacha could not discuss the most trifling matter with her sister without hearing allusions to her past life. If they happened to be commenting on some one of the boarders, such as, for instance, the desirability of giving the preference to one student instead of another, in the question of terms, Cata would grow impatient.
"Of course, you must be right. You have known so many men...." ”

“ You will be sold like a thing, at auction. 'How much is this woman worth? So much—take her! She is yours!' And then you will fall so low that only the dens of the underworld, only the gutters of the slums, will be open to you; for you will be old, your beauty eaten away.... Then finally you will die and no one will know that you have gone. Then Nacha, you, you whom I am speaking to now, will be tossed into the potter's field like a dead dog. ”

“ Monsalvat was not then thinking, nor did he wish to think, of what had so profoundly absorbed him during the afternoon and the preceding evening. Nacha's final attitude towards him, the manner of his dismissal, had deeply humiliated him, and made him long for the seclusion of his customary mode of living. What a fool to have believed it possible to regenerate such a woman! ”

“ Monsalvat sat at her side, caressing her hands; but he saw facing him the two men he had been in his lifetime, and he demanded an account of them for what his life had been, looking into their very souls, cursing them; and before Nacha passed the different women who had dwelt in her body, the bad woman, and the good, the victim and the weakling.
And in that dim light, they understood one another, these two suffering human beings. The light in the heart of each shone out to the other. ”

“ She replied that she did not; but a week or so later she announced to him with a smile that she had just met the girl he had asked her about.
"You called her Nacha, didn't you? A slender girl who lived awhile with Pampa Arnedo? Well, go to this address. The house belongs to a woman who is paralyzed and pushes herself about in a wheel chair. I go there quite often; and Nacha and I are getting to be good friends."
But Monsalvat was no longer listening. He could hear nothing now in the whole wide universe but the words ringing in his heart.... Nacha found! Nacha at this address! ”

“ With the help of his patota, and Mauli, he had brought Nacha to her house where she was kept locked up like a prisoner. She would not allow any man to come near her, however, screaming, scratching and biting like a fury. Finally Arnedo, revolver in hand, made her write to Monsalvat, thinking to tame her in that way and show her how useless any resistance was. ”

“ But people make it so hard for us! They don't want us to be good, Nacha!"
Both girls knew how true that was, and remained silent a long time, saddened, hurt, looking at one another like little children who have lost their mother.
Nevertheless Nacha determined to make one more attempt to save herself. She would find Monsalvat. She would seek him to the ends of the earth! So she began questioning the two students who lived in the house, a pair of lazy rascals, who took small interest in anything beyond their immediate horizon. ”

“ Yet that was what her return to Arnedo meant. What unfathomable depths, what mysteries there are in human hearts! He could not believe that Nacha had ceased to love him. She loved him, not only, as she supposed, as a daughter loves her father, or as a sister her brother, or a believer God: she loved [Pg 251] him with her whole being. But Nacha must have had her moments of doubt too, and it was then that the memory of her life with Pampa, its violences and its caresses, must have pursued her as Pampa himself was doing ”

“ She had known life, and found that melancholy had a bad effect on the liver! So she chatted with the girls, merrily, as was her custom whenever she felt a touch of sadness.
But someone came in, and asked for Nacha. The cripple rolled her chair into the bedroom where the girl was still weeping, her head almost hidden by the pillow.
"Nacha child! Don't cry that way! Why let yourself suffer so? No man is worth it. You know that. You are worth more than the best of them, you have a good heart ... ”

“ All the energy of his spirit rushed to Monsalvat's lips in words frantically shaped to arouse in Nacha the decisive will to free herself from evil, to find [Pg 65] good at last. He seized both her hands. Feebly she tried to pull away from him.
"Nacha, you must change your way of living. You must be yourself! You must cease being someone else! You must learn to live! To live, do you hear? So as to be able to dream, to love—to remember! Your soul wants to be free, and together we are going to free it. ”

“ Nacha raised her hands to her face. In his own trouble, and in the compassion Nacha aroused in him, Monsalvat began to feel a kind of satisfaction. If she could still feel so deeply, there was hope.
"No, no!" she broke out suddenly. "We haven't the right to suffer!"
"Human beings have no greater and more sacred right."
"But don't you see that we girls must always be gay, dance, laugh: our profession is joy, not suffering. If we're glum, we lose our jobs. If we are not ready for gaiety and caresses, we're accused of not earning our pay." ”

“ Nacha began to think that a woman of intelligence and skill might civilize this rough fellow without encountering very much discouragement. On the morning when she met Monsalvat, the rancher, really in love with her, and delighted with Nacha's sweetness of disposition, had promised to marry her there in Buenos Aires, before going to the ranch, sparing her the humiliation of the trying-out process to which he had intended to subject her. ”

“ Nacha went on to say that she did not love the man she had intended marrying, nor could she ever love him. Why should she sacrifice herself?"
"You are right," Monsalvat exclaimed. "A sacrifice without a purpose, of no real utility, is absurd—more than that, is immoral! We ought only to sacrifice ourselves when we love our sacrifice. I believe, Nacha, that sacrifice ought to give us our highest spiritual enjoyment!" ”

“ Together they had endured the most frightful poverty in the Argentine bohemia. Nacha had left him finally, driven away by sheer hunger—and the thought that perhaps her being always with him was an unjust burden on her penniless lover. In these circumstances she'd concluded that it was no use trying to be a "decent" girl; and she had gone off "on her own," taking up with a man—who was soon followed by another—better able to support her. One day the idea came into her head that exclusive devotion to any one protector meant a sort of unfaithfulness to Riga, whom she really adored. ”

“ How much longer could a self-respecting man hold out against the challenge of that brutality?
The rapier-thrust of a violin bow gave the death stab to a dying tango. The patoteros and their women returned to their table. The fellow who had wept vociferously before broke out again into mock lamentations at sight of Nacha's tears. He stood up, rubbing his fists into his eyes, and bawling grotesquely, like the dunce in school. His mirth caught the mood of the entire cabaret. Every atom of it quivered in titters of laughter. ”

“ Monsalvat was unruffled. He looked into Arnedo's eyes with so quiet and peaceable an expression that the latter could not but restrain his violence.
"Why do you take things that way?" said Monsalvat. "I wish you would listen to me with a little patience. I did come to see Nacha, not with the intentions you may have supposed, but for her good. I know that she wants to lead a decent life. Don't you think it is only just and human to encourage her? If you have ever cared for her, don't stand in her way now! At least let her save herself, if she can!" ”

“ It was that of a house of good appearance between Lezama Park and la Boca; and it cost him a considerable sum to get into it. At his request the proprietress introduced all the girls who were there at the moment. But Nacha was not among them. One girl, however, turned out to have been a member of the group who had been with Nacha in the cabaret on the night he came to her defence. Monsalvat took her aside. She was a fat, stupid-looking creature, sniffling constantly. ”

“ I want to redeem the past—I want to deserve forgiveness...."
"Who is there to forgive you, Nacha?" he exclaimed, drawing her toward him.
"I don't know—God, perhaps, if he exists. Life, against which I have sinned—Love, that I have wronged—myself—myself especially: I need to earn forgiveness from myself!"
And slowly, wonderingly, but inevitably, Monsalvat found her lips. She was answered!
"Your life is mine, Fernando," she said gently, and Monsalvat knew from her voice that she was smiling. "Your suffering is my suffering, your joy my joy! Only death can part us." ”

“ Nacha exclaimed, with a laugh of affected irony, calculated to put an end to the conversation with this man who had forced his way into her house, whose presence there was compromising to her, and who now, into the bargain, was allowing himself to express pity for her.
"Yes, real pity!" he repeated, evidently not understanding that her laugh was aimed at him.
"How kind of you! You must be an unusual sort of person!" Nacha said again, laughing scornfully.
"Your life is nothing but suffering," he continued, rather as though he were talking to himself and had not heard what Nacha said. ”

“ Monsalvat, sitting with one elbow on his knee, and his chin resting on his hand, was looking at her as though trying to drink in her very soul.
"We have to make ourselves over," Nacha continued, "change our natures as well as our names. [Pg 60] Do you think it is only out of shame, or because of our families, that we hide our identities? No, it isn't wholly that. Taking another name makes us seem different somehow. It's like the Carnival. Under a disguise, you can do and say all the crazy things that come into your head. ”

“ In truth, they contained too much human sympathy: but it may well be that justice, or even simple honesty, is a serious menace to society!
One Sunday afternoon Julieta came to call on Nacha. She was no longer the smiling Julieta of old. Bad luck had been haunting her footsteps of late; and for the last few weeks she had known what it was to go hungry. While she was telling Nacha her troubles Monsalvat came in. Julieta did not know him, and stopped short.
"It is my friend," said Nacha. "He can help you. Go on!" ”

“ And where would such a love lead him? If he found Eugenia, he would take her to live with him. Why should not Nacha live with them also, in fraternal companionship? Eugenia, Nacha! The [Pg 98] two seemed only one now. Their souls, their lives, even their forms, seemed to blend into one haunting symbol of human sorrow. Selfishness, ignorance and evil were their relentless enemies, and worse than any of these was the smug indifference of the prosperous.
The doctor's arrival roused him from his ponderings. Torres sent him at once for some oxygen, and he took Moreno with him. ”

“ To go away with Arnedo, after all her struggles to be decent! To make Monsalvat suffer so, when he was so good to her, and had given up everything for her sake! To go down again into that evil world from which he had rescued her!
"But Nacha, you must not lose courage! I thought you were quite safe. It was you who saved me! Why must you go back again, if you don't want to?"
"I have to! It's Fate! I always said I was destined to be a bad woman! Every time I tried to be good something happened to break up all my plans. Now it seems impossible for me to be decent. Everything is against me! ”

“ During the ten days when Nacha lay ill in bed her story reached the ears of everyone in the boarding house and aroused general interest. The girls of this calling, who are not yet hardened by cynicism and despair, are for the most part sentimental, even romantic, and invariably sympathize with the hero or the heroine, as the case may be, of a moving love story. Nacha was reported to be suffering from a passion for a man who had spoken to her only once ”

“ Monsalvat went out only to go to the Ministry, and to offer relief to those in great need. When he came back [Pg 213] from the office he gathered the children in the house together and taught them to read; and his evenings were for Nacha, for long waking dreams—a book in his hands, and silence keeping watch over them like a faithful dog. His evenings were for that idealized love which Nacha too now understood.
But one evening Nacha told him of the doubts that troubled her. Why sacrifice one's life, and tranquillity, and happiness, for others? ”

“ They talked a long time of the poet, whom Monsalvat had met through Edward Iturbide. The two men had never become intimate friends; for Monsalvat did not frequent the literary Bohemia that had known Riga best. Nacha eagerly sang the praises of her dead friend. Never had there lived so fine a soul, so generous a heart, so kind a spirit! ”

“ But for Nacha's sake he went even into those ghastly caverns where lie the unhappy beings who have lost not only their bodies, but their minds and their souls too. And as he wandered among the shades there—they could not be called living beings—Monsalvat wondered how this last of all crimes could be allowed in a world that also contains beauty and kindness; for these women had been degraded from the human estate to that of beasts. ”

“ Nacha's face alone stood out, catching the light. The doctor was thinking of the frightful pranks Destiny can play.
But this emotion passed, and the man of the world, laden with prejudices, falsehood, cruelties—and good, withal, replaced the plain and honest man of feeling.
"You couldn't know what I've been through," Nacha repeated. "Since that afternoon I have earned my living by work. First there were days of discouragement, when I went hungry. Then I found employment in a shop. Eleven hours a day and thirty dollars a month! I get a bonus too. But there are fines for the slightest thing. ”