Trafalgar & Saragossa. Benito Pérez Galdós

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Trafalgar & Saragossa - Benito Pérez Galdós

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you too?” she cried, battering me unmercifully. “You see,” she added, turning on her husband with flashing eyes, “you have taught him to feel no respect for you!—You thought you were still in the Caleta did you, you little ne’er do weel?”

      The commotion ended by my running off to the kitchen crying and disgraced, after striking my colors in an ignominious manner, before the superior force of the enemy; Doña Francisca giving chase and belaboring my neck and shoulders with heavy slaps. In the kitchen I cast anchor and sat down to cry over the fatal termination of my sea-fight.

      CHAPTER V.

       Table of Contents

      In opposing her husband’s insane determination to join the fleet, Doña Francisca did not rely solely on the reasons given in the last chapter; she had another and more weighty one which she did not mention in the course of that conversation, perhaps because it was wiser not. But the reader does not know it, and must be told.

      I have mentioned that my master had a daughter; this daughter’s name was Rosita; she was a little older than I was, that is to say scarcely fifteen, and a marriage had been arranged for her with a young officer of artillery named Malespina, belonging to a family of Medinasidonia and distantly related to my master. The wedding had been fixed for the end of October and, as may be supposed, the absence of the bride’s father on so solemn an occasion would have been highly improper.

      I must here give some account of my young lady, of her bridegroom, her love-affairs and her projected marriage; and alas! my recollections take a tinge of melancholy, recalling to my fancy many troublesome and far-away scenes, figures from another world—and stirring my weary old heart with feelings of which I should find it hard to say whether they were more pleasurable or sad. Those ardent memories which now lie withered in my brain, like tropical flowers exposed to a chill northern blast, sometimes make me laugh—but sometimes make me grave. However, to my tale, or the reader will be tired of these wearisome reflections which, after all, interest no one but myself.

      Rosita was uncommonly pretty. I remember vividly how pretty she was, though I should find it difficult to describe her features. I fancy I see her now, smiling in my face; the curious expression of her countenance, unlike any other I ever saw, dwells in my mind—from the perfect distinctness with which it rises before me—like one of those innate ideas which seem to have come into the world with us from a former existence, or to have been impressed on our minds by some mysterious power while we were still in the cradle. And yet I cannot describe it, for what then was real and tangible remains now in my brain as a vague ideal; and while nothing is so fascinating as a beloved ideal, nothing so completely eludes all categorical description.

      When I first went into the house I thought that Rosita belonged to some superior order of beings; I will explain my feelings more fully that you may form an idea of my utter simpleness. When we are little and a child comes into the world within our family the grown-up folks are apt to tell us that it has come from France, Paris, or England. I, like other children, having no notions as to the multiplication of the human race, firmly believed that babies were imported packed up in boxes like a cargo of hardware. Thus, gazing for the first time at my master’s daughter, I argued that so lovely a being could not have come from the same factory as the rest of us, that is to say from Paris or from England, and I remained convinced that there must be some enchanted region where heaven-sent workmen were employed in making these choicer and lovelier specimens of humanity. Both of us being children, though in different ranks of life, we were soon on those terms of mutual confidence which were natural to our years, and my greatest joy was in playing with her, submitting to all her vagaries and insolence, which is not saying a little, for our relative position was never lost sight of in our games; she was always the young lady and I always the servant, so that I got the worst of it when slaps were going, and I need not say who was the sufferer.

      My highest dream of happiness was to be allowed to fetch her from school, and when, by some unforeseen accident, some one else was entrusted with this delightful duty I was so deeply distressed that I honestly thought there could be no greater grief in life, and would say to myself: “It is impossible that I should ever be more miserable when I am a man grown.” My greatest delight was to climb the orange-tree in the court-yard to pick the topmost sprays of blossom; I felt myself at a height far above the greatest king on earth when seated on his throne, and I can remember no pleasure to be compared to that of being obliged to capture her in that divinely rapturous game known as hide and seek. If she ran like a gazelle I flew like a bird to catch her as soon as possible, seizing her by the first part of her dress or person that I could lay my hand on. When we changed parts, when she was the pursuer and I was to be caught, the innocent delight of the blissful game was doubled, and the darkest and dingiest hole in which I might hide, breathlessly awaiting the grasp of her imprisoning hands, was to me a perfect paradise. And I may honestly say that during these happy games I never had a thought or a feeling that did not emanate from the purest and most loyal idealism.

      Then her singing! From the time when she was quite little she used to sing the popular airs of Andalusia with the ease of a nightingale, which knows all the secrets of song without having been taught. All the neighbors admired her wonderful facility and would come to listen to her, but to me their applause and admiration were an offence; I could have wished her to sing to no one but me. Her singing was a sort of melancholy warbling, qualified by her fresh childlike voice. The air, which repeated itself with complicated little turns and trills like a thread of sound, seemed to be lost in distant heights and then to come back to earth again on the low notes. It was like the song of the lark as it rises towards heaven and suddenly comes down to sing close in our ears; the spirit of the hearer seemed to expand as it followed the voice, and then to contract again, but always following the swing of the melody and feeling the music to be inseparable from the sweet little singer. The effect was so singular that to me it was almost painful to hear her, particularly in the presence of others.

      We were, as I have said, of about the same age, she being eight or nine months older than I was. But I was stunted and puny while she was well grown and vigorous, and at the end of my three years’ residence in the house she looked much the elder of the two. These three years slipped by without our either of us suspecting that we were growing up; our games went on without interruption, for she was much livelier by nature than I, though her mother would scold her, trying to keep her in order and make her study—in which, however, she did not always succeed. At the end of these three years, however, my adored young mistress was a woman grown; her figure was round and well formed, giving the finishing touch to her beauty; her face had a tenderer blush, a softer form, a gentler look; her large eyes were brighter but their glance was less restless and eager; her gait was more sober; her movements were, I cannot say lighter nor less light, but certainly different, though I could not, either then or now, define in what the difference lay. But no change struck me so much as that in her voice, which acquired a gravity and depth very unlike the shrill gay tones in which she had been wont to call me, bewildering my common-sense and making me leave my various duties to join in her games. The bud, in short, had become a rose, the chrysalis was transformed into a butterfly.

      Then, one day—one dreadful, dismal day—my young mistress appeared before me in a long dress. This alteration made such an impression on me that I could not speak a word the whole day. I felt like a man who has been cruelly imposed upon, and I was so vexed with her that in my secret soul I found fifty reasons for seriously resenting her rapid development. A perfect fever of argumentativeness was fired in my brain, and I debated the matter with myself in the most fervent manner during my sleepless nights. The thing that utterly confounded me was that the addition of a few yards of stuff to her skirts seemed altogether to have altered her character. That day—a thousand times unblessed—she spoke to me with the greatest formality, ordering me coldly and even repellently to do all the things I least liked doing—and she,

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