On the morning after the dinner party, Aunt Isabel and Maria Clara went to mass early: the former carefully carrying her glasses, so that she might be able to read “The Anchor of Salvation” during communion; the latter beautifully dressed, carrying her rosary of blue beads as a bracelet. The priest had scarcely left the altar when, to the disgust and surprise of her good aunt, who thought that her niece was as pious and as fond of prayer as a nun, the young girl desired to go home. After a great deal of grumbling, the old lady crossed herself several times, and the two arose to leave. “Never mind,” said Maria, to cut off the scolding, “the good God will pardon me. He ought to understand the heart of a girl better than you, Aunt Isabel.”
After breakfast, Maria Clara occupied herself with some embroidery while her aunt bustled about with a duster removing the traces of the social event of the preceding evening. Captain Tiago was busy examining some papers.
Every noise in the street and every passing carriage made the girl tremble with anxiety and wish that she were again back in the convent among her friends. There, she thought, she could see him without trembling and with perfect equanimity.
“I believe, Maria, that the doctor is right,” said Captain Tiago. “You ought to go to the provinces. You are looking very pale and need a change of air. How does Malabon strike you, or San Diego?”
At the mere mention of the latter name, Maria Clara blushed and was unable to speak.
“Now, you and Isabel go to the convent to get your [30]things and say good bye to your friends,” continued the Captain, without raising his head. “You will not return there. And in four or five days, when your clothes are ready we shall go to Malabon. —Your godfather, by the way, is not in San Diego at present. The priest whom you saw here last night, that young fellow, is now the priest in the town. He is a saint.”
“I think you will find San Diego better, cousin,” said Aunt Isabel. “Our house there is better than the one in Malabon, and besides, it is nearly time for the fiesta to take place.”
Maria Clara was about to embrace her aunt for these welcome words, but just then a carriage stopped in front of the house and the young girl suddenly turned pale.
“That’s so,” said the Captain, and then, in a changed tone, exclaimed, “Don Crisostomo!”
Maria Clara let fall the work which she was holding in her hands. A nervous trembling passed over her. Then steps were heard on the stairs and presently a young, manly voice. And, as if this voice had some magic power, the girl shook off her emotion, started to run, and hid herself in the oratory. Both father and aunt had to laugh at this, and even Ibarra heard the closing of the door behind her.
Pale and panting, the girl finally subdued her emotion and began to listen. She could hear his voice, that voice which for so long a time she had heard only in her dreams. Beside herself with joy, she kissed the nearest saint, which, by the way, happened to be San Antonio, the abbot. Happy saint! Whether alive or carved in wood, always tempted in the most charming manner! Becoming quite herself again, she looked about for some crack through which she might get a peep at the young man. Finally, when he came in range of the key-hole and she again saw his fine features, her face beamed with smiles. In fact, the sight filled her with such joy that when her aunt came to call her, Maria Clara fell on the old lady’s neck and kissed her repeatedly.
“You goose! What is the matter with you?” the old lady was finally able to ask, after wiping away her tears. [31]
Maria Clara, in her modesty, covered her face with her round arm.
“Come! Hurry up and get yourself ready!” said the old lady in an affectionate tone. “While he is talking with your father about you—— Come, do not waste time!”
The girl did not respond, but allowed herself to be picked up like a child and carried to her room.
Captain Tiago and Ibarra were talking earnestly when at last Aunt Isabel appeared, half dragging her niece by the hand. At first the girl looked in every direction but at the persons present. At last, however, her eyes met Ibarra’s.
The conversation of the young lovers was at first confined to the usual trifling remarks, those pleasant little things which, like the boasts of European nations, are enjoyable and interesting to those who are concerned and understand them, but ridiculous to outsiders.
Finally, she, like all sisters of Cain, was moved by jealously and asked: “Have you always thought of me? Have you never forgotten me in your many travels among so many great cities and among such beautiful women?”
And he, a true brother of Cain, dodged the issue, and, being something of a diplomat, answered: “Could I forget you?” And then, gazing into her deep, dark eyes, “Could I break a sacred vow? Do you remember that stormy night when you, seeing me in tears beside my dead mother, came to me and placed your hand—that hand which I have not touched for so long—upon my shoulder, and said: ‘You have lost your mother,—I never had one.’ And then you wept with me. You loved my mother, and she loved you as only a mother can love a daughter. It was raining then, you will remember, and the lightning flashed, but I seemed to hear music and to see a smile on the face of my dead mother.—O, if my parents were only living and could see you now!—That night I took your hand and, joining it with my mother’s, I swore always to love you and make you happy, no matter what fate Heaven might have in store for me. I have never regretted that vow, and now renew it.” [32]
“Since the day that I bade you good-bye and entered the convent,” she answered, smiling, “I have always remembered you, and have never forgotten you in spite of the commands of my confessor, who imposed severe penances on me. I remembered the little games we used to play together and our little quarrels. When we were children you used to find in the river the most beautiful shells for our games of siklot and the finest and most beautifully colored stones for our game of sinkat. You were always very slow and stupid and lost, but you always paid the forfeit, which I gave you with the palm of my hand. But I always tried to strike lightly, for I was sorry for you. You always cheated, even more than I, in the game of chouka and we generally quarrelled over it. Do you remember that time when you really became angry? Then you made me suffer, but when I found that I had no one to quarrel with, we made peace immediately. We were still children when we went with your mother one day to bathe in the stream under the shade of the reeds. Many flowers and plants grew on the bank of the river, and you used to tell me their strange Latin and Spanish names, for you were then studying at the Athen?um. I paid little attention, but amused myself by chasing butterflies and in trying to catch the little fish which slipped away from me so easily among the rocks and weeds of the shore. You suddenly disappeared from sight, but when you returned you brought a wreath of orange flowers and placed it on my head. On our way home, as the sun was hot, I collected some sage leaves from the side of the road for you to put into your hat and thus prevent headache. Then you laughed, we made up, and came the remainder of the way home hand in hand.”
Ibarra smiled as he listened attentively to every detail of the story. Opening his pocket book, he took out a paper in which he had wrapped some withered but fragrant sage leaves. “Your sage leaves,” said he in answer to her questioning glance. “The only thing you have ever given me.”
She, in turn, drew a little, white satin bag from the bosom of her dress. “Stop!” she said, tapping his hand [33]with her own. “You must not touch it; it is a letter of farewell.”
“The one that I wrote you before leaving?”
“My dear sir, have you ever written any other?”
“And what did I say then?”
“Many falsehoods; excuses of a bad debtor,” replied she, smiling and showing how agreeable these falsehoods had been to her. “But be quiet! I will read it to you, but I will omit your polite speeches out of consideration for your feelings.”
Raising the paper to the height of her eyes, in order to conceal her face, she began. “‘My——,’ I shall not read you what follows that, for it is not true.” She ran her eyes over some lines and began to read again: “‘My father wishes me to go away, in spite of my entreaties. He says that I am a man and must think of my future and my duty; that I must learn how to live, which I cannot do in my own country, so that in the future I may be of some use. He says that if I remain at his side, in his shadow, in this atmosphere of business, I will never learn how to look ahead, and that when he is gone, I shall be like the plant of which our poet Baltazar speaks—as it always lives in the water, it never learns how to endure a moment’s heat.—He reproached me because I wept, and his reproach hurt me so that I confessed that I loved you. My father stopped, thought a moment and, placing his hand on my shoulder, said in a trembling voice: “Do you think that you alone know how to love, that your father does not love you, and that his heart is not pained at being separated from you? It is a short time since your mother died, and I am already reaching that age when the help and counsel of youth are needed. And yet I consent to your going, not even knowing that I shall ever see you again. The future is opening to you, but closing to me. Your loves are being born; mine are dying. Fire blazes in your blood, but cold is gradually finding its way into mine. And yet you weep, and are not willing to sacrifice the present for a future useful to yourself and your country.” The eyes of my father filled with tears and I fell upon my [34]knees at his feet and embraced him. I asked his pardon and said that I was willing to go.’”
The emotion which Ibarra manifested put an end to the reading. As pale as death, he arose and began to walk nervously from one side to the other.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
“You have made me forget that I have duties to perform, and that I ought to leave immediately for my town. To-morrow is the fiesta in memory of the dead.”
Maria Clara stopped and silently fixed her large and dreamy eyes upon him for some minutes. Then taking some flowers from a vase near by, she said with emotion: “Go! I do not wish to detain you. We shall see each other again in a few days. Place these flowers on the graves of your father and mother.”
A few moments later, Ibarra descended the stairs, accompanied by Captain Tiago and Do?a Isabel, while Maria Clara locked herself up in the oratory.
“Do me the favor to tell Andeng to get the house ready, and that Maria and Isabel are coming. A pleasant journey!” While the Captain was saying this, Ibarra got into the carriage and drove off in the direction of the Plaza of San Gabriel.
A few minutes later the Captain shouted to Maria Clara, who was weeping by the side of the image of the Virgin: “Hurry up and light two peseta candles in honor of San Roque and another in honor of San Rafael, the patron saint of travellers. And light the lamp of Our Lady of Peace and Protector of Travellers, for there are many bandits about. It is better to spend four reales for wax and six cuartos for oil than to have to pay a big ransom later on.” [35]
1 Roof of the first story used as a veranda.