I do not know whether the desire to get away from Tejo or to seek greater solitude, induced me to stroll toward the beach. Night had fallen. The moon had risen red and angry, but was resuming her serene appearance as she mounted into the sky. The murmuring waves broke against the rocks, when I seated myself with a dull sense of pain and an inclination to give myself up to all the dreams and chimeras of an imagination heated by the after effects of the champagne. The soft ripple of the placid estuary, the tremulous glimmer of the moon on the water, and the mysterious effusiveness inspired by nature, predisposed me to the following monologue: “If she and I had been married to-day, I would get rid of these troublesome people, and would lead her here on my arm; I would sit close to her on this very rock, which seems made on purpose for an experience like that, which one never could forget. Encircling her waist with my arm, resting her head against my breast, without startling her, without offending her delicacy, I would gently prepare her to share with me the full rapture of passion, to yield herself joyfully to the fated unfolding of human love. And these would be the most joyous, most delicious moments in our whole life. We would be wrapt in silent and profound bliss. How sweet our silence would be! Perhaps such joy would be too great for our hearts to bear. It might be so intense that we could not endure it. For that reason it lasts but a short time, and is rarely found. And,” I went on in my soliloquy, “the fact is, such happiness will never be yours, my boy. Auntie Carmen is like all women, and only possesses one innocency. She will lose it to-day. To-day another man will pluck the lily. To-day, what you respect more than anything else in the world, is given over to profanation. No matter how many years may pass, or how many favors you may obtain from that woman, you will never be able to bring her to this beach in the moonlight, through paths overgrown by honeysuckle, to taste emotions never felt before, to enter into life through the gateway of illusion.”

This was the substance of the wild fancies which floated through my brain during the paroxysm of my grief, while I struggled against the depression caused by my partial intoxication. A vague idea floated through my mind dominating all the rest: “If Carmen’s lord were not my uncle, I should not be so given over to misery and rage. My romantic fancy for her is only my everlasting prejudice against him, taking on another form.”

I went up to Tejo feeling more desperate than if I were suffering under some real and terrible affliction. I believe that on my way there I threw down and trampled on the spray of orange blossoms I had so eagerly begged her to give me that morning. I endeavored to control myself so as not to commit greater acts of folly, and when I entered the house I avoided meeting anybody and went directly to my room, longing to throw myself on my bed, to fall to cursing, or to toss around until I should fall asleep, overcome by fatigue.

As I ascended the stairs leading to the tower, I recollected that I had the key of SerafÍn’s room in my pocket, and that I ought to find out how he was getting on. He must be snoring by this time, I thought, as I opened the door. I shaded the candle with my hand, and peered in to see what the poor drunken creature was doing. As I looked at his bed, where I thought he was lying, the acolyte arose from the floor at my feet, where he was crouched, laughing and showing his ugly teeth like an ape.

“You little beast, what are you doing there?” I said. “A nice mess you’ve made of it to-day. You ought to be whipped. Were you praying on account of your sins? Come, get into bed at once, or I’ll—give you a good one!”

He rose up. His small eyes gleamed with a cat-like phosphorescence; his face was still distorted, and his stiff red hair put the finishing touch to his wild and impish appearance.

“I don’t want to go to sleep,” he cried, grating his teeth. “I am enjoying a free performance, and I have a private box to myself.”

“What do you mean, you toad?”

“It’s true. Look for yourself.”

His meaning flashed through my mind, and I kneeled down quickly to look in the direction in which the acolyte was pointing. The bridal chamber was directly underneath the tower. I knew it, and quickly recalled that fact before I looked. The ceiling was not plastered, but the beams were left bare, and through a crack in the floor of our story, as the room underneath was lighted, we could see perfectly all that was going on.

I shuddered as I became convinced that I was actually looking into the bridal chamber. It was true! I could see it! I could see it! What a dreadful discovery! I restrained myself so as not to cry out, and so that I might remain there motionless, instead of scraping the floor and rattling its boarding in my insane fury. Fortunately, by chance, by the will of God, there was nothing going on in the room. It was entirely empty. At either side of the toilet table a pink-colored candle was burning in a brass candlestick. There was another one, in a porcelain candlestick, on a stand behind the large bronze bed. Flowers, roses especially, were scattered around everywhere; on the tables, on the desk, on the toilet table, even in hanging-baskets. What a profanation of nature! Roses for such a nuptial night! The very solitude of the place, the strange silence, worked on my imagination to such an extent that I even fancied I could smell the roses which impregnated the atmosphere of the room below. I seemed to hear through the open window the notes of the nightingale, which usually sang in the orange tree at that hour of the night, and also its fluttering about in the climbing plants in the court. The whiteness of the half-opened bed, the quiet of the room, the graceful toilet table with its vaporous lace folds falling to the floor, all excited me, rendered me wild, and increased the tumult which raged in my heart. My temples throbbed, and I seemed to feel something like the singing of the sea in my ears, for as I stooped down the blood rushed to my head, and I felt like roaring.

The acolyte touched me on the shoulder.

“Look here, monsieur comrade, that is not fair,” he growled. “I also have eyes to see with.”

“If you don’t keep quiet, I’ll smash you to atoms,” I answered, fiercely.

“Well, at least tell me what you see.”

“I can’t see anything, you owl,” I replied. “Nothing at all, nothing!”

“Haven’t the actors arrived yet? Hasn’t the curtain risen? Isn’t the orchestra playing yet?” he inquired.

“I told you to keep still!” I shouted, angrily.

From that moment the persistent fellow kept quiet, although afterward I discovered that his silence was neither due to his discretion nor goodness.

I still kept on watching, without paying further attention to him. The bridal chamber remained deserted, suggestive, alluring.

I could see the smallest details with exasperating clearness. There were several hair-pins on a small glass tray, and pins stuck into a cushion; the pillow cases had a shield embroidered in the center, and a branch of southern wood was placed in the small font of holy water. I counted the moths which flew in through the window, singeing themselves in the lights; I counted the crystal prisms on the candlesticks.

I thought that my heart would burst when I heard voices in the doorway, a confused murmur of farewells; the latch was raised, and a person entered with a light and somewhat timid step, and alone. It was Carmen.

Oh, Heavens! I prayed for strength not to scream, not to faint. In her white bridal robe, somewhat crumpled by having been worn all day, she was bewitching. The first thing she did was to go up to the window, as though she felt the need of fresh air. She remained there a few moments, and I could perceive the beautiful curve of her neck, and fancied I could read her thoughts. Then she came away from the window and looked at herself an instant in the glass, as it seemed to me with more curiosity than vanity. Her object in consulting the mirror seemed to be: “Let me see how I look since the great event which took place this morning.”

Then, with a quickness which showed that she was accustomed to doing without a maid, she began to take off her ear-rings, bracelets, pins, and clasps, carefully placing them on the glass tray, with the deftness which always characterized her purely mechanical movements. Then, raising her arms, she began to take out her hair-pins, one by one. I gazed upon that splendid ornament of a woman, her loosened hair, in all its beauty. Uncoiled, it fell in heavy, black waves down to her knees. A painful restlessness took possession of me. That loosening of the hair seemed to me a prelude to other freedoms of the toilet, which I was about to witness; and the mere thought made my blood boil in distressing fury. Fortunately—and I could have given thanks on my bended knees for that—I perceived that she had loosened her hair only to make herself more comfortable, for she simply combed it out and gathered up the whole mass in a loose knot. After this, she leaned her elbow on the table, rested her cheek on the palm of her hand, compressing her lips and slightly moving her head up and down, like one struggling with perplexing thoughts. I noticed a painful contraction in her face; she had the appearance of one who when she finds herself alone, abandons herself to meditation, and allows the countenance to express the feelings of the heart. Her eyes partly closed; she bowed her head on her breast, let her hands fall into her lap, and—I clearly heard it—she sighed, a deep sigh, drawn from the depths of her heart. Then she raised her head, and remained for some moments with her eyes fixed on empty space. Suddenly she breathed heavily, and rose like one who adopts a firm and decided resolution. And just at that moment—

Oh, I will not look, I do not want to see! A man entered the room, stealthily, with a beaming face, but yet with somewhat irresolute and constrained bearing. If my eyes had had the power of a basilisk’s, the bridegroom would have dropped down dead, annihilated by my look. The silhouette of the deicide stood out against the window frame, and I saw the gleam of his white shirt-front. The light fell full on his face, more repulsive than ever; on his copper-colored beard; his hard eyes, which I could have torn from their sockets.

I heard a silly and mocking laugh behind me. I turned, arose, and saw the acolyte crouched down, looking through another crack in the floor. He still held in his hand the razor with which he had widened it.

A murderous impulse ran through my veins, and, trembling with rage, I clutched SerafÍn by the throat, choking him while I cried:

“I will cut you in bits, I will strangle you this minute, if you dare to look again. Do you hear, you toad? It will be the worse for you if you dare to peep through that crack again. I’ll kill you without a shadow of remorse!”

“But, you were peeping, too—nuts and old Nick!” squeaked the poor youth, still hiccoughing, after he had somewhat recovered his breath. “What a way you have! The old Nick! You have driven your fingers through my throat!”

“I shall not look any more—nor you, either. We were both brutes. If we had any decency, we should not have thought of looking. SerafÍn, we are not beasts—we are men! No, you shall not look again.”

“Now you are crying—you are half crazy, I declare!” exclaimed the theological apprentice.

“You are the one who is crazy and possessed with the devil,” I answered, making a heroic attempt to repress the senseless tears which were burning between my eye-lids. “I am not crying; but if I did, it would be out of shame for having kneeled down there. I am going to bed; but as I am not sure that you will not get down again on all fours, I shall tie you to the bed-post.”

“Don’t do it, Salustio, don’t,” cried the terrified rebel. “Don’t tie me! I give you my word of honor not to look.”

I fastened his hands with a handkerchief, and his body with a towel. He might have released himself by the slightest movement, but he was so terrified and subdued that he did not even stir. He only groaned from time to time.

I stretched myself on the bed. Who could have slept in such circumstances? The endless night passed on, and I kept twisting and turning, hiding my face in the pillows, covering my eyes and ears with my hands, as though to shut out the images and sounds which jealousy presented to my mind.

At daybreak I arose from my bed of torture, washed and dressed myself, and without releasing SerafÍn, or taking leave of anybody, or seeing a single soul, went off to San AndrÉs, and thence to Pontevedra and Ullosa, like one who flees from the spot where a terrible crime has been committed.