The aspect of Vichy, in truth, in those last days of October, was well calculated to inspire sadness. Dead leaves lay everywhere. The park, formerly so full of animation, was deserted; only a few visitors, who had come late in the season to drink the waters—and who were really ill—were to be seen promenading the asphalt pavement lately thronged with richly-dressed people and enlivened by the buzz of cheerful conversation. No one hastened now to sweep up and carry away the yellow leaves that covered the ground like a carpet, for Vichy, so clean and attractive in the season, becomes neglected-looking and filthy as soon as its fashionable summer guests have turned their backs upon it. The whole town looked as if a general removal were taking place; the adornments of the balconies of the chÂlets, deserted now by their tenants, had been removed, so that they might not be injured by the rains; in the streets were heaps of brick and mortar to be used in building, which no one had ventured to undertake in the summer, not wishing to mar the beauty of the place during the season. The shops for the sale of articles of luxury had, one after another, closed their shutters, and their owners, taking with them their wares, had departed for Nice, Cannes, or some other wintering place of the kind. A few shops still remained open, and their show-cases served to divert LucÍa and Pilar when they went out for their leisurely walks. The chief of these was a shop for the sale of curiosities, antiques, and objects of art, situated almost in front of the famous “Nymph,” and consequently at the back of the Casino. The shop being too small to conveniently hold the mare magnum of objects which it contained, they overflowed its limits and invaded the sidewalk. It was a delightful occupation to rummage among its recesses, and to pry into its corners, making at every instant some new and curious discovery. The proprietors of the shop, having little business at this season, made no objection to their doing so. They were a married couple: the husband a Bohemian from the Rastro, with sleepy eyes, a well worn coat and a torn necktie worthy of a place among the antiques of his shop; the wife fair, thin, willowy, and agile as a garret cat, gliding among the precious objects heaped up to the ceiling. LucÍa and Pilar found great amusement in examining the heterogeneous assemblage. In the center of the shop, a superb table of SÈvres porcelain and gilt-bronze proudly displayed its splendor. On the central medallion was represented in enamel, on a blue background of the shade peculiar to pÂte tendre, the broad, good-natured, but rather sad countenance of Louis XVI; around this was a circle of smaller medallions, representing the graceful heads of the ladies of the court of the guillotined king—some with powdered hair, piled high on the head, and surmounted by a large basket of flowers; others with hoods of black lace fastened under the chin; all with immodestly dÉcolletÉ gowns, all smiling and richly dressed, with the freshest of complexions and the rosiest of lips. If LucÍa and Pilar had been learned in history, how many reflections would have been suggested to them by the sight of all these ivory necks adorned with diamond necklaces or tight velvet bands, destined, doubtless, like that of the king who presided with melancholy air over the beautiful bevy, to bow to the executioner’s knife.

The pride of the collection was the ceramics. There were a number of Dresden figures, pure, soft, and delicate in coloring as the clouds painted by the dawn; rosy cupids garlanded with wreaths of sky-blue flowers; shepherdesses with a complexion of milk and roses guarding sheep adorned with crimson bows; nymphs and swans who exchanged amorous compliments in groves of a pale green, planted with roses; violinists holding the bow with affected grace, advancing the right foot, ready to take part in a minuet; flower-girls who simperingly pointed to the basket of flowers which they carried on their left arms. Side by side with these pastoral fancies, rare products of Asiatic art displayed their strange and deformed shapes, like idols of a barbarous faith; across rotund vases, adorned with yellow leaves and purple or flame-colored flowers, flew bands of unnatural-looking birds or glided monstrous reptiles; on the dark background of flat-sided vases stood out boldly fantastic scenes—green rivers flowing over ochre beds; kiosks of crimson lake, hung with golden bells; mandarins with gorgeous trains falling in straight lines, sleek, drooping mustaches, oblique eyes, and heads like pumpkins. The Majolica and Palissy plates seemed fragments taken from the bed of the sea, pieces of some sunken reef or of some oozy river-bed. There, among sea-weed and algae, glided the gleaming, slimy eel, the mussel opened its fluted shell, the silver bream flapped its tail, the snail lifted up its agate horn, the frog stared with stony eyes, and the many-clawed crab, looking like an enormous black spider, moved along with a sidewise motion. There was a dish on which Galatea reclined among the waves, her coursers, blue as the sea, pawing the air with their webbed hoofs, while Tritons, with puffed-out cheeks, blew their winding trumpets. In addition to the porcelain there were pieces of silver, antique and heavy, such as are handed down from father to son in honest provincial families; enormous salvers, broad trays, huge soup-tureens with massive artichokes for handles; there were wooden coffers inlaid with pearl and ivory; iron chests carved with the delicacy of filagree-work; china tankards of antique shape, with metal bands that recalled the beer-drinkers immortalized by Flemish art.

Pilar was enchanted especially with the agate cup-shaped jewel-cases, with the jewelry of different epochs, from the amulet of the Roman lady to the necklace of false stones and fine enamels of the time of Marie Antoinette; but what most delighted LucÍa were the church ornaments, which awoke in her the religious sentiment, so well calculated to move her sincere and ardent soul. The figures of two of the apostles, solemnly pointing heavenward, stood outlined in brass on two stained glass windows, doubtless torn from the ogive of some dismantled monastery. On a triptych of brownish yellow ivory were represented Eve, with meager nude figure, offering Adam the fatal apple, and the Virgin in the mysteries of the Annunciation and of the Ascension; all incorrectly done, with that divine candor of early sacred art, in the ages of faith. Notwithstanding the rudeness of the design, the face of the Virgin, the modesty of her downcast look, the mystic ideality of her attitude charmed LucÍa. If she had had money enough, she would certainly have bought a crucifix which lay unnoticed among the other curiosities of the shop. It was of ivory also, and was made in a single piece, with the exception of the arms. The expression of the dying Christ, nailed to a rich pearl cross, was painfully realistic, the nerves and muscles showing the contraction of the death agony. Three diamond nails pierced the hands and feet. LucÍa said a paternoster every day before it and even kissed the knees when she thought herself unobserved.

She enjoyed looking at paintings; all the more as she could understand them, which was not the case with all of the objects of art, some of which she thought ugly and extravagant enough. It was plain that that fierce swaggerer, rushing, sword in hand, on his adversary, was going to cleave his heart in twain at a blow. What a lovely sunrise in that Daubigny! With what naturalness those sheep of Jacque—valued at a thousand francs apiece (there were twelve in the picture) were browsing! How white the feet which that Favorite Sultana of Cala y Mora was dipping in the marble basin! The head of the young girl, after Greuze, was a marvel of innocent grace. And that Quarrel in a Flemish Inn—it was enough to make one laugh to see how the earthenware flew around in fragments, and the copper saucepans rolled about, and the two plowmen of St. Oustade, misshapen and clownish-looking, distributed blows and cuffs on all sides, their ape-like ugliness heightened by the grotesqueness of their attitudes.

But even more than the bazar of objects of art, where so great a diversity of forms and colors, styles and artistic ideals, after all confused her, did one among the many stalls at the edge of the sidewalk near the Casino, interest LucÍa. These stalls represented the modest and unpretending branches of trade. Here an old German cried his wares—glasses to drink the waters—engraving on them with an emery wheel the initials of the purchasers’ names in their presence; there a Swiss offered for sale toys, dolls, little boxes, and book folders carved in beech-wood by the shepherds; here lenses were sold, there combs and writing-materials. LucÍa’s favorite stall was one presided over by a peddler of curiosities from Jerusalem and the Holy Land. Mother-of-pearl calvaries with simple carvings in relief, pen handles of olive-wood terminating in a cross, heads of the Virgin cut on shell, brooches and trinkets of enamel adorned with arabesques, cups of black bitumen, aromatic lozenges—such were the contents of the peddler’s box. All this was sold by an Israelite of not unpleasing appearance, with black eyes and yellow skin, wearing a dark red Arab fez and wide trousers, gentle, insinuating, a Levantine in everything, with a smattering of many languages and a good knowledge of Spanish, which, but for the use of an occasional archaism, he spoke like a native. In this man’s conversation LucÍa found entertainment in the absence of other sources of interest. She would question him about the holy village of Bethlehem, the sacred house of Nazareth, Mount Olivet, and all the other holy places which she had pictured to herself as situated rather in some mysterious and remote paradise than on the earth. Between LucÍa and the peddler there was thus established the habit of having a ten minutes chat every afternoon in the open air, which she enjoyed all the more when he told her that he was a Christian and a Catholic, catechized and instructed by the Franciscans of Bethlehem. LucÍa bought specimens of all his wares, even to a rosary of those opaque greenish beads, called, not without some analogical similitude, Job’s tears.

“I don’t know how you can like that ugly rosary,” said Pilar.

“But just see,” exclaimed LucÍa, “they look like real tears.”

But the swallow of the Levant, too, flew away in his turn, in search of milder climes. One day they did not find Ibrahan Antonio in his accustomed place; discouraged, perhaps, by a day without a sale, he had packed up his wares and departed, no one knew whither. LucÍa missed him; but the retreat was a general one; on all sides, closed up and empty shops were to be seen. On the pavements were mountains of straw, piles of wrapping paper, packing cases and boxes bearing in large letters the word “fragile.” The gloom, the disorder, the ever-increasing bareness of a removal reigned. Pilar thought Vichy in this condition so unattractive that she planned excursions which should take her away from the principal streets. One morning she took a fancy to go to the pastry-cook’s shop and witnessed the manufacture of two or three thousand cakes and bonbons. On another morning she visited the subterranean galleries which contain the immense reservoirs of water and the enormous pipes that supply the baths of the thermal establishment. They descended a narrow staircase whose lowest steps were lost in the obscurity of the gallery. The keeper preceded them, carrying in her hand a miner’s flat-shaped lamp, which emitted a disagreeable odor. Miranda carried another lamp, and a little street urchin, who made his appearance among them as suddenly as if he had fallen down from the clouds, took charge of a third. The vaulted roof was so low that Miranda was obliged to stoop down in order to avoid striking his head against it. The narrow passage made an abrupt turn and they suddenly found themselves in another gallery, which received, as in a yawning mouth, the pipes that, owing to the perpetual dampness, were here covered with rust. From the roof exuded a fine white moisture that sparkled in the light; on either hand flowed a stream of water over a bed of residuum and alkaline phosphates, white and floury, like newly fallen snow. As they advanced further into the long subterranean gallery, a suffocating heat announced the passage of the overflow of the Grande Grille, the temperature of whose waters was still higher in this confined atmosphere than it was at its source. From the walls, covered with patches of mildew and limy scales, hung monstrous fungi, cryptogamous plants full of venom, whose noxious whiteness gleamed on the wall like a pale and sinister eye gleaming in a livid countenance. Dusty cobwebs shrouded the elbows of the pipes like gray winding-sheets shrouding forgotten corpses. Through the loose stones of the pavement could be caught glimpses of the black water below. They could hear plainly the steps of the people passing overhead, and the hard sound of the horses’ hoofs. At intervals there was an airhole, through the iron grating of which came the daylight, livid and sepulchral, imparting a yellow tinge to the red flame of the lamps. The pipes wound like intestines through the damp passage, now dragging themselves along the ground like gigantic serpents, now reaching upward to the roof, like the black tentacles of some enormous polypus. At one time they emerged from the corridors into a brighter spot—a species of circular cave with a skylight, in whose far end yawned the open mouth of the Lucas well, disclosing the still, somber, and unfathomable water within. The urchin held his lamp over the brink and looked down. The keeper seized him by the arm.

“Eh, my friend,” she said, “take care that you don’t fall in there. It would not be easy to go down a hundred yards, which is the depth of that hole, to look for you.”

LucÍa, fascinated, approached the mouth of the well. The mephitic gases it exhaled made the smoky flames of the lamps flicker. Here the temperature was not warm, but cold—a dense, airless cold, which made breathing difficult. An iron door opened into another gallery, on entering which they all drew back in alarm, with the exception of the keeper, at finding themselves surrounded by a vast expanse of water, a sort of subterranean lake. They were standing on a narrow plank, thrown like a bridge across the reservoir. The water, lying in its stone tomb, had a stillness and limpidity that had something lugubrious in them. The flame of one of the lamps, that had been left on the opposite bank to show the extent of the deposit, threw long lines of wavering light over the gloomy transparence of the lake, and looked, in the distance, like the torch of a hired assassin in some Venetian prison. So fantastic was the aspect of this lake, overhung by a granite sky, that one might fancy it peopled with floating corpses. LucÍa and Pilar experienced a vague terror, and like children, or rather, like women, they were especially horrified at the idea that in some one of the narrow and confused passages, they might stumble over a rat. They knew that the deposits of water communicated with the sewers, and two or three times already they had turned pale, fancying they had seen a black shadow pass by, which was only the wavering shadow of some parasites cast by the light of the lamps upon the wall. Suddenly both women uttered a cry; this time there was no room for doubt, they heard the sharp, shrill squeal of a rat. LucÍa stood for an instant motionless, with dilated eyes; it was impossible here to run away. But the street urchin and the keeper burst out laughing; they were both familiar with the sound, which was produced by the corking of the bottles of mineral water on the other side of the wall. The two women breathed more freely, however, when they emerged from the gloomy labyrinth, and saw once more the light of day and felt the fresh air blowing across their perspiring brows.

One place only did LucÍa visit unaccompanied—the church of St. Louis. At first the Leonese, accustomed to the grandeur of the superb basilica of her native place, was not greatly pleased with the edifice. St. Louis is a poor mediÆval rhapsody conceived by a modern architect; the interior is disfigured by being painted in tawdry colors; in a word, it resembles an actress masquerading as a saint. But LucÍa found in the temple a Virgin of Lourdes, which charmed her exceedingly. It stood in a grotto of blooming roses and chrysanthemums, and above its head was the legend: I am the Immaculate Conception. LucÍa knew very little about the apparitions of Bernadette, the shepherdess, or the miracles of the sacred mountain; but notwithstanding this, the image exercised a singular fascination over her, seeming to call to her with mysterious voice that floated among the grateful perfumes of the flowers, and the flickering of the tall white tapers. The image, gay, smiling, and simple, with floating robes and blue mantle, touched LucÍa’s soul more than the stiff images of the cathedral of Leon, clad in their pompous garments, had ever done. One afternoon, as she was going to the church, she saw a funeral procession pass along and she followed it. It was the funeral of a young girl, a Child of Mary. The beadle, dressed in black, a silver chain around his neck, walked with official gravity at the head of the procession; four young girls, dressed in white, followed him, their teeth chattering with cold, their cheeks violet, but proud of their important rÔle of carrying the ribbons. Then came the priests, grave and composed, their rich voices swelling at intervals on the still air. Inside the hearse, adorned with black and white plumes, was the coffin covered with a snow-white cloth starred with orange-blossoms, white roses, and heaps of lilacs that swayed with every movement of the car. The Children of Mary, the companions of the deceased, walked along almost gayly, lifting up their muslin skirts to keep them from touching the muddy ground. The civil commissary, in his robes, headed the mourners; behind him came a crowd of women dressed in black, in the midst of whom walked the family of the dead girl, their faces red and their eyes swollen with weeping. The church bells tolled with melancholy sound while the coffin was being taken out of the hearse and placed on the catafalque. LucÍa entered the nave and piously knelt down among those who were mourning for one whom she had never seen. She listened with a melancholy pleasure to the office for the dead, the prayers intoned in full and mellow voices by the priests. Those unknown Latin phrases had for her a clear signification; she did not understand the words, but she could comprehend without difficulty that they were laments, menaces, complaints, and at times ardent and tender sighs of love. And then, as had happened in the park, there came to her mind the secret thought, the desire to die, and she said to herself that the dead girl lying there in her coffin, covered with flowers, calm and peaceful,—seeing nothing, hearing nothing of the miseries of this wretched world, that goes round and round, and yet in all its countless revolutions never brings a good day nor an hour of happiness,—was more to be envied than she who was alive and obliged to feel, to think, and to act.

“Yes, but—the soul!” LucÍa said to herself.

Thus curiously did a simple and ignorant girl repeat the thought expressed in the philosophical soliloquy of the Danish dreamer!

“Ah, and how good it must be to be dead,” thought LucÍa. “Don Ignacio was right in saying that—that—well, that there is no such thing as happiness. If one only knew what fate awaited one in the other world! Where now is the soul of that body that lies there! And what would be the use of dying if after all one does not cease to exist, and to be conscious of what is going on around one.”

Certain it is that these wild imaginings, aided by the sleepless hours passed at the sick girl’s bedside, and perhaps by another cause, also, dimmed the freshness of LucÍa’s complexion, and tinged with gloom her once happy and tranquil disposition. Miranda, who, cut off from all other society, now sought that of his wife, was struck by the melancholy expression of her countenance, and thoughts, never fully set at rest since the unfortunate mishap of the wedding journey, sprung up again in his mind. This thorn, which pierced his vanity, the keenest of his feelings, to the quick, could never cease to rankle. Had Miranda’s nature been more amiable, he might have won by love the open and generous heart of the young Leonese, but it would seem as if some demon inspired him always to do exactly the opposite of what he ought to have done. He acquired the habit of speaking harshly to LucÍa, and of treating her with a certain scorn, as if he never forgot her inferiority of station. He reminded her by covert allusions of her social position. He spied upon her every action, reproached her with the time spent in taking care of Perico’s sister, and, in short, adopted a system of opposition and tyranny, admirably adapted to succeed with weak or perverse women, whom it subjugates and charms. LucÍa it brought to the verge of desperation.

A few days before the one fixed for Perico’s return, Pilar received from him a letter which she handed to LucÍa to read. He announced in it his near return and gave at the same time some details of the fashionable life he was leading at the Castle of Ceyssat, and, among other pieces of news, mentioned the death of the mother of Ignacio Artegui, which Anatole had communicated to him, thinking it would interest him as concerning a compatriot. He added that the son had taken the body to Brittany, to the same old castle of Houdan, at which his childhood had been passed, for interment. Miranda was present when this paragraph was read, and noticed the rapid glance of intelligence that passed between Pilar and LucÍa and the sudden pallor that overspread the face of his wife. LucÍa left the house that afternoon and went to the church of St. Louis, in which she spent half an hour or so. She went back to the chÂlet, entered her room, where there were writing materials, wrote a letter, which she hid in her bosom, ran down-stairs and walked rapidly in the direction of the main street. Night was falling, the first lamps were being lighted, and the street urchins, the choirboys of civilization, were standing about on the pavement, crying out the names of the Paris papers which had just arrived. LucÍa went straight toward the red lamp of the shop and dropped her letter into the wooden letter-box. At the same instant she felt her arm seized in a vise-like grip and turned around. Miranda was beside her.

“What is the meaning of this,” he cried, in a voice of suppressed anger. “You here, and alone,—what are you doing?”

“Nothing,” she stammered.

“Nothing! why, have you not just dropped a letter into the letter-box?”

“Yes, a letter,” she answered.

“Why did you lie, then?” exclaimed the husband, in furious accents, his mouth and chin trembling with jealous rage.

“I don’t know what I may have said when you hurt my arm,” answered LucÍa, recovering her self-possession. “What is true is that I dropped a letter there just now.”

“And why did you not give it to me to post? Why did you come here yourself—alone?”

“I wished to post it myself.”

Some passers-by turned around to listen to the dialogue carried on in angry tones and in a foreign tongue.

“We are making a scene,” said Miranda. “Come.”

They turned into a solitary street and for the space of a few minutes both maintained an eloquent silence.

“For whom was that letter?” the husband at last asked abruptly.

“For Don Ignacio Artegui,” answered LucÍa, in a firm and composed voice.

“I knew it!” said Miranda under his breath, suppressing a malediction.

“He has lost his mother. You yourself heard so to-day.”

“It is highly indecorous, highly ridiculous,” said Miranda, whose voice sounded harsh and broken like the crackling of burning brambles, “for a lady to write in this unceremonious fashion to a man.”

“I am indebted to SeÑor de Artegui for services and favors,” said LucÍa, “which compel me to take a part in his griefs.”

“Those services, if there be such, it is my duty to acknowledge. I would have written to him.”

“Your letter,” objected LucÍa simply, “would not have served to console him, while mine would; and as it was not a question of etiquette but of——”

“Hold your tongue,” cried Miranda rudely; “hold your tongue and don’t talk nonsense,” he continued, with that roughness which even men of culture do not hesitate to display when speaking to their wives. “Before marrying you should have learned how to conduct yourself in society, so as not to bring ridicule upon me by committing silly actions, which are in bad taste. But I have no right to complain; what better could I have expected when I married the daughter of a retailer of oil and vinegar!”

Miranda walked with long strides, dragging rather than supporting his wife, and they had now almost reached the chÂlet. At this offensive speech LucÍa, with pale cheeks and flashing eyes, freed herself violently from his clasp, and stood still in the middle of the road.

“My father,” she cried, in a loud voice, making an effort to keep back her sobs, “is an honest man, and he has taught me to be honest, too.”

“Well, one would never have known it,” replied Miranda, with a bitter and ironical laugh. “To judge by appearances he has taught you to palm off the spurious article for the genuine as he himself probably did with his provisions.”

At this last stab LucÍa rushed forward, passed through the gate, hurried up the stairs as quickly as she had a short time before descended them, and shutting herself in her room gave free vent to her anguish. Of the thoughts that passed through her mind during this long night, which she spent extended on a sofa, the following letter, assuredly not intended by its author for publication and still less intended to awaken the applause of future generations, will give some idea:

To those familiar with the conversational style of Father Urtazu, and who desire to have some knowledge of the epistolary style employed by so learned a man, the following letter will afford satisfaction:

When these counsels reached her, LucÍa had already done by instinct what Father Urtazu advised her to do. Mild and gentle now as a lamb, her every glance was a mute petition for pardon. Miranda persistently avoided looking at her, treating her with icy contempt. From the constant strain on her feelings, and her continued attendance on Pilar, the roses in LucÍa’s cheeks had turned to lilies, and she had grown noticeably thinner, although her appetite continued good. One morning Duhamel called her aside, and said to her in his Portuguese-French.

“You must take care of your health, menina. Conservar-se. Vae cair doente. Less watching, less fatigue, regular sleep. So much nursing altera-the a saude.”

“Do you think I shall take Pilar’s disease?” asked LucÍa, in so tranquil a voice that Duhamel stared at her.

“No, it is not that.” And the physician, lowering his voice still more, entered into a long and serious conversation with her.

That night LucÍa answered Father Urtazu’s letter in these words: