Nela

“ 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. ”

“ There is a great deal of acuteness and cleverness under that simple exterior and wild rusticity. No, no, Nela is no fool by a long way. If any one had taken the trouble to teach her anything, she would have learnt it better, perhaps, than most children. Would you believe it? Nela has a great imagination; but lacking, as she does, the most rudimentary knowledge, it has of course, made her sentimental and superstitious."
"In point of fact she is in the condition of all primitive races," said Teodoro. "She is at the pastoral stage of civilization." ”

“ Golfin watched her closely, so as not to miss the slightest change of expression which might guide him to a comprehension of the girl's feelings, as he went on:
"Your master told me that he loved you dearly, when he was blind; and now that he can see, he constantly asks for Nela. He knows very well that for him the whole outer world was filled by one person—Nela; and the sight which has been mercifully bestowed on him is of no value to him, unless he can use it to see Nela."
"To see Nela—but he never shall see Nela— [Pg 210] Nela will never let him see her!" she exclaimed excitedly. ”

“ Why, petticoats for mother and the girls, and a tall hat for father—and you—I will send you a pair of ear-rings."
"You are in a hurry with your presents," said Nela, smothering a laugh. "Ear-rings for me!"
"Stop; I have just got another idea. Shall I tell you? It is that you should come with me; two of us together we should help each other to earn money and to learn. For you are clever too, I am too sharp not to see that; and you can learn to be a lady as I can to be a gentleman. Oh Lord! how I should laugh to see you playing the piano like Doña Sofía." ”

“ Teodoro Golfin's comparison of Nela's mind with the early stage of a primitive race was a particularly happy one. In her, as in them, the fascination of the marvellous was the predominant sense; she believed in supernatural agencies, apart from the one and supreme God, and saw in all natural objects an abstract personality, by no means cut off from all communication with men. In spite of all this, however, Nela had some knowledge of the Gospel. ”

“ Florentina, wiping away her tears, leaned over Nela to look into her face, and Golfin, watching her and knowing too well what he saw, exclaimed in a voice like a knell:
"It has killed her. The sight of you has killed her!"—then turning to Pablo he said sternly: "Go, at once, to your room."
"Dying! dying so, without any cause!" cried [Pg 253] Florentina in despair, and laying her hand lightly on Nela's brow. ”

“ But to-night she shall have a good bed, for which I have sent to Villamojada, and I will put her in the little room next to mine."
"Poor little Nela!" said the doctor. "You cannot imagine what an interest I feel in this hapless creature. Some people would laugh at it, but we, at any rate, are not made of stone. What little we have done to improve the condition of this poor child, ought to be done for a large proportion of the human race. There are many thousands of beings in the world in the same plight as Nela. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Golfin went on, warming to his subject, and giving it, in spite of himself, the character of a psychological lecture—"there is one important question, and that is...."
But Nela had guessed it, and covered her face with her hands.
"There is nothing strange in it—on the contrary, it is the most natural thing that could happen to you. You have a sensitive temperament and an excitable imagination. You and your master had led a life together of free and poetic communion with nature, and of most perfect and innocent intimacy. He is as wise and clever as a man can be, and as handsome as a statue. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have described the manners and customs which prevailed in the Centeno's house in order that the reader may understand the life to which Nela was doomed, a helpless, forsaken creature, alone, useless, incapable of earning a day's wages; alike without a past and without a future, with no right to anything on earth beyond a bare subsistence. Señana gave her this, and firmly believed that her generosity was nothing short of heroic. ”

“ 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. ”

“ With all her ignorance she understood that the struggle in her soul arose from her incapacity to hate any one; on the contrary, she was constrained to love her friend and her enemy alike, and just as thistles turned into flowers under the miraculous touch of some Christian martyr, Nela perceived that her jealousy and aversion were graciously blossoming into admiration and gratitude. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is to make myself a rich man, Nela, a clever man like some I know. On Sunday, if they will let me go to Villamojada, I must buy a spelling-book to learn to read, although they will not teach me here. Who cares! I will learn by myself. Do you know, Nela, they say that Don Cárlos is the son of a man who swept the streets in Madrid, and he, all by himself, learnt everything he knows. ”

“ And it is your eye that burlesques so simple a fact."
"You are right, cousin; and for that very reason I say it is our imagination that sees, and not our eyes. Nevertheless our sight is useful—to inform us, for instance, of certain things which poor people have not got and which we who are rich can give them." And as she spoke she touched Nela's dress. ”

“ But Nela drew her hand away from her fellow-adventurer's, and sitting down on a stone, she said: "I am not going."
"Nela! what a little fool you are! You have not a brave heart like mine; a heart as big as the rocks in La Terrible!" said Celipin, with a braggart air. "What the devil are you afraid of? Why will you not come?"
"I—oh!—why should I?"
"Do not you know that Don Golfin said that [Pg 195] the work here is turning us all to stones? I do not want to be a stone—not I."
"I—why should I go?" repeated Nela with disconsolate bitterness. "You have time enough—for me, it is too late." ”

“ Among other things, Nela's prayer said:
"Thou didst appear to me in my dreams last night, oh Lady! and promise to comfort me to-day. Now I am awake, and still I feel as if I saw thy face just before me, and far lovelier than all the grand and lovely things in the world." And [Pg 152] as she spoke she turned and gazed round her. Noticing in herself the utter vagueness with which she did so, she thought to herself: "Something has come over me."
"What is the matter, Nela?" asked Señana, seeing the girl stand with her eyes wide open and fixed on a spot in space. "Do you see a vision, simpleton?" ”

“ If I were like other girls, even like Mariuca—how soon I would find a way of getting taught and being made a lady of. Oh Mother Mary, Queen of the world! The only creature that loves me, I am going to lose: he will leave me. Why did you ever let him love me, and let me love him? It ought not—never—to have been."
The tears poured down her cheeks; she folded her arms and turned over, and even when half asleep she still was speaking to herself:
"Oh, how much I love you, child of my soul! Love me too, love me very much. It is Nela who is no good to any one.—Love me very much. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every one says there is nothing in the world so beautiful as the sea, because it is so grandly simple.—Listen, Nela, to what I am going to say—but what are you doing?" Nela had grasped a bough of the [Pg 75] tree with both hands, and was swinging by it lightly and gracefully.
"Here I am, Señorito mio. I was wondering why God should not give us human creatures wings to fly like birds. How delightful it would be just to give a flap and a whisk, and up we should go, and in one flight we should be at the top of that peak between Ficóbriga and the sea." ”

“ For the more I look at myself, the uglier I seem to grow. Oh! why am I in this world at all? Of what good can I be? Who can care for me? One single soul, Lady Mother, only one, and he only because he cannot see me. What is to become of me when he sees me and casts me off? for it is impossible that he should ever love me when he sees my miserable little body, my freckled face, my ugly mouth, my sharp nose, my dirty brown skin—all my hideous little self—of no good to any one but to kick perhaps. What is that? Only Nela—nothing at all. She is of no use to any one but the blind boy. ”

“ This was Nela as her life in Socartes had made her, and such she remained till she was fifteen. After that, her comradeship with Pablo and her frequent talk with the lad, whose ideas were so broad and so sound, had somewhat modified her tone of thought. But she still al [Pg 148] lowed supreme sovereignty to physical beauty; she still superstitiously adored the Virgin as the embodiment of all the loveliness of Nature, and, in a way, of all moral law; crowning her system with the most extraordinary ideas as to death and the life to come. ”