The Fourth Estate Volume Ii Part 30

Gonzalo left the club without taking leave of the good Feliciano, who was still speaking.

At home he told Don Rosendo of Ventura's flight, and, contrary to everybody's expectation, he did not seem to feel it much. On the contrary, from that day he showed signs of cheering up, and of going a little into society, which caused some surprise in the place.

He began paying visits to his friends, going out to coffee, walking in the streets, joking and discussing. There was no more talk of going away. To the astonishment of the town, at one of the b.a.l.l.s of the Lyceum, he danced all night like a young fellow at his first dance.

Nevertheless, Cecilia was very anxious. The animation of her brother-in-law was so strange, that it seemed more like an attack of nerves. Above all, this strange smile seemed like a grimace that had not left his lips since reading the paragraph in "The Youth of Sarrio," and it sometimes made her shudder.

The natural reaction came: after the days of insane excitement, he became a prey to a profound and gloomy depression. He remained three days in his room, hardly touching anything that Cecilia brought him, and, what was worse still, without being able to sleep. With open, vacant eyes, he pa.s.sed hours and hours stretched on his bed gazing into the dark.

On the third night he struck a light, dressed himself, wrote a long letter to his uncle, and one to Cecilia. When they were sealed, and laid on the table so as to be easily seen, he took out a Havana and, after lighting it at the candle, began walking up and down the room.

Before finis.h.i.+ng the cigar he threw it away, opened the table-drawer and drew out the revolver which he kept there. On taking it to the light, he saw it was unloaded, which fact surprised him, because he was certain he had loaded it about a month before. What a strange thing! Then he recollected that Cecilia had seen it in his hand, and a smile wreathed his lips. He then took up the cartridge box, and found it empty; the cartridges were all gone!

He stood pensive and motionless for some time. Then, as if awakening from a sleep, he shook his head and gave a sigh. After this, he put on his hat, opened the door, and very cautiously descended the staircase.

On pa.s.sing the door of the first floor he put his ear to it, and stood listening for a moment with his face convulsed and his hair on end. He thought he heard the voice of his wife calling him from within.

The hallucination having pa.s.sed, he descended the stairs, opened the outside door with the key hanging in the pa.s.sage, and pa.s.sed into the street.

It was not yet dawn, but in the east there was a little line of light that heralded the day. The morning was fresh, a sea-mist of fine rain was falling. He walked to the harbor without any hesitation, mounted the upper wall and looked out to sea, the horizon not being very extensive just then owing to the fog.

A northeast wind had been blowing for the past few days, which had made the sea very rough. Great, grand waves came rolling in from a distance, and dashed their gigantic forms against the end of the mole, and the foam flew straight up.

The eyes of the young man were soon directed to a launch about to enter the harbor, as it danced like a walnut sh.e.l.l upon the waves. Its entrance interested him, and he followed all its peripatetics with as much attention as if he were concerned in it.

At the end of a quarter of an hour, when the entrance to the harbor was effected, his thoughts resumed their course, and sighing and murmuring "Come," he went forward and leaned against the wall. As the tide rose higher, a larger wave than the rest drenched him with its foam. The unexpected bath was agreeable to him, as it refreshed him physically. He stood waiting for some time to see if another would come with equal force, but none came, so he continued his walk.

Arriving at the end of the mole he threw himself down on the mole and fixed his melancholy gaze on the waves coming in.

It was the same spot where, a few years previously, he had had the conversation with his uncle about breaking off his engagement with Cecilia and marrying Ventura.

The stern, severe words of the old man seemed now to reecho in his ears:

"G.o.d can not help the man who breaks his word. The journey is long, the sea wide and powerful, and what is merely pretty is soon submerged in the swell."

"How right my uncle was!" thought the young man, without turning his eyes from the sea.

"Bah!" he muttered at the end of a few minutes, "if I had been a hundred times in the same position I should have done the same. There are fatalities. That woman has inoculated my blood with poison which can only be ejected with its last drop."

He stood some time again lost in thought. The sea water, which had immersed him, and the rain, which still incessantly fell, chilled him to the bone. The morning dawned damp and foggy. It was not like that beautiful night when, after talking with his uncle, he had then also been plunged in thought. Then the magnificent splendor of the heavens spangled with stars, the crystal clearness of the water, in which the light of the moon was reflected, and the soft breeze whispered to him of death--yea, but it was in sweet, harmonious, friendly strains, like the voice of a friend calling him to rest. But now it was as if he heard a cry of desolation, a threat: "Come, come, death is very sad, but life is the saddest of all!"

"We must make an end of this," he said, raising his head. He moved forward and stretched out his arms.

But at the moment, fearing that the instinct of self-preservation would certainly make him swim, he stopped.

He looked all round in search of some weight, and his eyes fell upon the anchor of a smack, which lay below on the lower wall. He jumped down, seized it, cut a piece of rope from a launch with his knife, lashed it to the anchor, and, like a gymnast anxious to exhibit to the public the prodigious power of his muscles, he scaled the steps with his burden.

Once there he tied the cord to his neck, put his foot upon the wall, and, with the anchor in his arms, he precipitated himself into the deep.

His colossal form made a great vacuum in the waters, which closed immediately over him. The deep sea extinguished that spark of life with the same indifference as it had so many others.

A sailor, seeing him from a distance, ran crying:

"A man in the water!"

Three or four others from boats at hand followed, and in a few minutes there was a crowd of twenty or thirty at the end of the landing-stage.

"Who was it? Do you know him?" was asked of him who had seen him.

"I think it was Don Gonzalo."

"The mayor?"

"Yes."

"Very likely, very likely--Oh, these women!"

The news spread rapidly through the town, and a crowd of people hastened to the port. Two men in a boat prodded with a pole in the water's depths, without encountering the body of the unhappy young man. At last they came across it, and with the help of a hook they brought it to light, just as Melchor, upset, excited, and hatless, arrived at the port to receive the terrible blow.

"Son of my heart!" cried the poor old man when he saw his nephew's body in the water; then utterly collapsing, he fell unconscious into the arms of the people about him.

The corpse of the suicide was laid in the town hall awaiting the arrival of the justice of the peace, and the spectacle made a profound impression upon the bystanders, who numbered among them persons from the rival parties.

After the arrival of the justice of the peace, due instructions were given and the body was placed on a truck and carried to its home, as Don Rosendo claimed it on hearing the news. It was a very sad procession that pa.s.sed through the town; the people crowded the windows with pale and sad faces, for Gonzalo was a universal favorite.

Don Rosendo was overwhelmed with grief, and, not wis.h.i.+ng to see the corpse of his son-in-law, he shut himself in his room, but he gave orders to have the body placed in the best drawing-room on a table covered with velvet, and flowers and wreaths to be sent from all parts, and preparations for a grand funeral to be made.

Cecilia, with one of those heroic efforts over body and mind which characterized her, managed to bury her grief in the depths of her own heart. She was seen looking livid, but tranquil, going about the house, doing what was necessary for the reception of her brother-in-law's body.

When it arrived she herself helped to arrange it after it had been shrouded in its winding sheet. She covered it with flowers, she lighted the candles, and she draped the room with black. Then she arranged for a Sister of Charity to share the watch by the corpse with herself.

At last they were left alone. They prayed for a long time on their knees; and when the orisons were over, Cecilia asked the Sister to go to the kitchen to order tea, as she was quite faint.

As soon as the Sister left the room, Cecilia rose quickly, drew out a pair of scissors, cut a lock of her brother-in-law's hair and hid it in her bosom; then she cut a tress from her own head, and, trembling with agitation, she placed it between the crossed hands of the dead man.

Then, after gazing at him for an instant, she lowered her head and covered the inanimate face with kisses--the first and the last that she ever gave him.

Then the wife, the man's true and only wife, powerless to cope with such a sorrow, fell senseless to the ground.

THE END

MARIQUITA THE BALD

A Tale After The Style of an Old Chronicle

BY JUAN EUGENIO HARTZENBUSCH