"Yes, boys! She"ll be disappointed. There"s a plenty of morality in this town, and much wholesome fear of scandal. We"re probably as bad as people in other places, but we don"t want anybody to find us out. I"m afraid this Leonora is going to spend most of her time with her aunt--a silly old thing, whatever her many virtues may be. They say she"s brought a French maid along.... But she"s beginning to cry "sour grapes"
already. Do you know what she said to Cupido yesterday? That she had come here with the idea of living all by herself, just to get away from people; and when the barber spoke to her of society in Alcira, she made a wry face, as much as to say the place was filled with no-accounts.
That"s what the women were talking most about last night. You can see why! She has always been the favorite of so many big guns!"
An idea seemed to flit across the wrinkled forehead of don Andres, tracing a wicked smile around his lips:
"You know what I think, Rafael? You"re young and you"re handsome, and you"ve been abroad. Why don"t you make a try for her, if only to p.r.i.c.k the bubble of her conceit and show her there are people here, too. They say she"s mighty good-looking, and, what the deuce! It wouldn"t be so hard. When she finds out who you are!..."
The old man said this with the idea of flattering Rafael, certain that the prestige of his "prince" was such that no woman could resist him.
But Rafael had lived through the previous afternoon, and the words seemed very bitter pills. Don Andres at once grew serious, as if a frightful vision had suddenly pa.s.sed before his eyes; and he added in a respectful tone:
"But no: that was only a jest. Don"t pay any attention to what I say.
Your mother would be terribly provoked."
The thought of dona Bernarda, the personification of austere, uncompromising virtue, chased the mirth from every face in the company.
"The strange thing about all this," said Rafael, who was anxious to turn the conversation in a different direction, "is that now everybody remembers the Doctor"s daughter. But years and years went by without her name being mentioned, in my hearing at least."
"Well, it"s a question of District matters, you see," the old man answered. "All I"ve been telling you boys, happened long before your day, and your parents, who knew the Doctor and his daughter, have always been careful not to bring this woman into their conversation; for, as Rafael"s mother says, she"s the disgrace of Alcira. From time to time we got a bit of news; something that Cupido fished out of the newspapers and spread all over town, or something that that silly dona Pepa would let drop, while telling inquisitive people about the glories her niece was winning abroad; anyhow, all a heap of lies that were invented I don"t know where or by whom. They kept all that quiet, banking the fire, so to speak. If it hadn"t got into the girl"s head to come back to Alcira, you would never have heard of her probably. But now she"s here, and they"re telling all they know, or think they know, about her life, digging up tales of things that happened years and years ago. You take my word for it, boys, I"ve always considered her a high-flyer myself, but, just the same, people here do tell awful whoppers ... and swear to them. She can"t be as bad as they say ... If one were to swallow everything one hears! Wasn"t poor don Ramon the greatest man the District ever produced? Well, what don"t they say about him?..."
And the conversation drifted away from Doctor Moreno"s daughter. Rafael had learned all he wished to know. That woman had been born within a few hundred yards of his own birthplace. They had pa.s.sed their childhood years almost side by side; and yet, on meeting for the first time in their lives, they had felt themselves complete strangers to each other.
This separation would increase with time. She made fun of the city, lived outside its circle of influence, in the open country; she would not meet the town halfway, and the town would not go to her.
How get to know her better, then?... Rafael was tempted as he walked aimlessly about the streets, to look up the barber Cupido in his shop that very afternoon. That merry rogue was the only person in all Alcira who entered her house. But Brull did not dare, for fear of gossip. His dignity as a party leader forbade his entering that barbershop where the walls were papered with copies of "Revolution" and where a picture of Pi y Margall reigned in place of the King"s. How could he justify his presence in a place he had never visited before? How explain to Cupido his interest in that woman, without having the whole city know about it before sundown?
Twice he walked up and down in front of the striped window-panes of the barbershop, without mustering the courage to raise the latch. Finally he sauntered off toward the orchards, following the riverbank slowly along, with his gaze fixed on that blue house, which had never before attracted his attention, but which now seemed the most beautiful detail in that ample paradise of orange-trees.
Through the groves he could see the balcony of the house, and on it a woman unfolding shining gowns of delicate colors. She was shaking the prima donna"s skirts to straighten out the wrinkles and the folds caused by the packing in the trunks.
It was the Italian maid--that Beppa of the reddish hair whom he had seen the previous afternoon with her mistress.
He thought the girl was looking at him, and that she even recognized him through the foliage, despite the distance. He felt a sudden timorousness, like a child caught redhanded doing something wrong. He turned in his tracks and strode rapidly off toward the city.
But later, he felt quite comforted. Merely to have approached the Blue House seemed like progress toward acquaintance with the beautiful Leonora.
V
All work had stopped on the rich lands of the _ribera_.
The first winter rains were falling over the entire District. Day after day the gray sky, heavy with clouds, seemed to reach down and touch the very tops of the trees. The reddish soil of the fields grew dark under the continuous downpour; the roads, winding deep between the mudwalls and the fences of the orchards, were changed to rushing streams. The weeping orange-trees seemed to shrink and cringe under the deluge, as if in aggrieved protest at the sudden anger of that kindly, friendly land of sunshine.
The Jucar was rising. The waters, turned to so much liquid clay, lashed red and slimy against the b.u.t.tresses of the bridges. People living along the banks followed the swelling of the river with anxious eyes, studying the markers placed along the sh.o.r.es to note how the water was coming up.
_"Munta?"_ ... asked the people from the interior, in their quaint dialect.
_"Munta!"_ answered the river dwellers.
And the water was indeed slowly rising, already threatening the city that had so audaciously taken root in the very middle of its bed.
But despite the danger, the townspeople seemed to be feeling nothing more than uneasy curiosity. No one thought of moving across the bridges to take refuge on the high land. Nonsense! The Jucar was always flooding. You had to expect something of the sort every once in a while.
Thank heaven there was something to break the monotony of life in that sleepy town! Why complain at a week"s vacation? It was hard to disturb the placid complacency of those descendants of the Moors. Floods had been coming since the days of their fathers, their grandfathers and their great-grandfathers, and never had the town been carried off. A few houses at the worst. Why suppose the catastrophe would be due now?...
The Jucar was a sort of husband to Alcira. As happens in any decent family, there would be a quarrel now and then--a thrashing followed by kisses and reconciliation. Just imagine--living seven or eight centuries together! Besides,--and this the lesser people thought--there was Father San Bernardo, as powerful as G.o.d Himself in all that concerned Alcira.
He was able, single-handed, to tame the writhing monster that wound its coiling way underneath the bridges.
It rained day and night; and yet the city, from its animation, seemed to be having a holiday. The young ones, sent home from school because of the bad weather, were all on the bridges throwing branches into the water to see how swift the current was, or playing along the lanes close to the river, planting sticks in the banks and waiting for the ever-broadening torrent to reach them.
Under the shelter of the projecting eaves, whence broken water-spouts were belching streams as thick as a man"s arm, loungers in the cafes would slip along the streets toward the river-front; and after glancing at the flood from the scant protection of their umbrellas, would make their way proudly back, stopping in every drinking place to offer their opinions on the rise that had taken place since their previous inspection.
The city from end to end was one seething storm of heated, typically "Southern" argument and prophecy. Friendships were being made and broken, over questions as to whether the river had risen four inches the past hour, or only one, and as to whether this freshet were more important than the one five years before.
Meantime the sky kept on weeping through its countless eyes; the river, roaring more wrathful every moment, was now licking at the ends of the low-lying streets near the bank, creeping up into the gardens on the sh.o.r.e, stealing in between the orange-trees, opening holes in the hedges and the mudwalls.
The main concern of the populace was whether it were raining also in the mountains of Cuenca. If much water came down from there, the flood would become serious. And experienced eyes studied the color of the waters carefully. If there was any black in them, it meant they came from the upper provinces.
The cloud-burst lasted for two whole days. The night of the second day closed, and the roar of the river sounded forebodingly in the darkness.
On its black surface lights could be seen reflected like restless flashes of flame--candles from the sh.o.r.e houses and lanterns of watchmen on guard along the banks.
In the lower streets the water was coming under the doors into the houses. Women and children were taking refuge in the garrets while the men, with their trousers rolled up to their knees, were splashing about in the liquid silt, carrying their farming tools to places of safety, or tugging at some donkey who would be balking at going too deep into the water.
All these people of the suburbs, on finding their houses flooded in the darkness of night, lost the jesting calm which they had so boastfully displayed during the daytime. Now fear of the supernatural came over them, and with childish anxiety they sought protection of some Higher Power to avert the danger. Perhaps this freshet was the final one!
Perhaps they were the victims destined to perish in the final downfall of the city!... Women began to shriek with terror on seeing their wretched lanes converted into deep ca.n.a.ls.
"_El pare San Bernat!... Que traguen al pare San Bernat_! Father Saint Bernard!... Let them fetch father Saint Bernard!"
The men looked at each other uneasily. n.o.body could handle a matter like this so well as the glorious patron. It was now high time to have recourse to him, as had so often been done before, and get him to perform his miracle.
They ought to go to the City Council, and compel the big guns there, in spite of their scepticism, to bring the saint out for the consolation of the poor.
In an hour a veritable army was formed. Mobs issued from the dark lanes, paddling in the water like frogs, and raising their war-cry: "_San Bernat! San Bernat_!"; the men, with their sleeves and trousers rolled up, or even entirely naked save for the sash that is never removed from the skin of a Valencian peasant; the women, with their skirts raised over their heads for protection, sinking their tanned, skinny, over-worked legs into the slime, and all drenched from head to foot, the wet clothes sticking to their bodies; and at the head, a number of strong young men with four-wicked tapers lighted, sputtering and crackling in the rain and casting a weird flickering radiance back over the clamoring mult.i.tude.
"_San Bernat! San Bernat!... Viva el pare San Bernat!_ Father Saint Bernard, _viva_!"
Under the drizzle pouring from the sky and the streams tumbling from the eavespouts, the mob rushed along through the streets in a wild riot.
Doors and windows flew open, and new voices were added to the delirious uproar, while at every crossing recruits would come to swell the on-rushing avalanche headed for the _Ayuntamiento_. Muskets, ancient blunderbusses, and horse-pistols as big as guns, could be seen in the menacing throng, as though those wild forms were to compel the granting of a pet.i.tion that might be denied, or to slay the river, perhaps.
The _alcalde_, with all the members of the council, was waiting at the door of the City Hall. They had come running to the place, marshalling the _alguacils_ and the patrols, to face and quell the mutiny.
"What do you want?" the Mayor asked the crowd.
What did they want! They wanted the one remedy, the one salvation, for the city: they wanted to take the omnipotent saint to the bank of the river that he might awe it with his presence, just as their ancestors had been doing for centuries and centuries, and thanks to which the city was still standing!
Some of the city people, whom the peasants regarded as atheists, began to smile at the strange request. Wouldn"t it be better to spend the time getting all the valuables out of the houses on the bank? A tempest of protests followed this proposal. "Out with the saint! Out with _San Bernat!_ We want the miracle! The miracle!" Those simple people were thinking of the wonders they had learned in their childhood at their mothers" knees; times in former centuries, when it had been enough for San Bernardo to appear on a river road, to start the flood down again, draining off from the orchard lands as water leaks from a broken pitcher.
The _alcalde_, a liegeman of the Brull dynasty, was in a quandary. He was afraid of that ugly mob and was anxious to yield, as usual; but it would be a serious breach of etiquette not to consult "the chief."