The black pall of winter has fallen over Vilamorta. It is raining, and in the wet and muddy main street and plaza no one is to be seen but occasionally some countryman, riding enveloped in his grass cloth cloak, his horse's hoofs clattering on the stone pavement, raising showers of mud. There are now no fruit-venders for the simple reason that there is no fruit; all is deserted, damp, muddy, and gloomy; Cansin, in listing slippers, a comforter around his neck, walks up and down unceasingly before his door, to prevent chilblains; the Alcalde avails himself of a very narrow arch in front of his house to pass away the afternoon, walking ten steps up and ten steps down, stamping energetically to keep his feet warm—an exercise which he affirms to be indispensable to his digestion.

Now indeed the little town seems lifeless! There are neither visitors to the springs nor strangers from the surrounding country, neither fairs nor vintages. Everywhere reigns the stillness and solitude of the tomb, and a moisture so persistent that it covers with a minute green vegetation the stones of the houses in course of construction. These little towns in winter are enough to make the most cheerful person low-spirited; they are the very acme of tedium, the quintessence of dullness—the disinclination to arrange one's hair, to change one's dress, the interminable evenings, the persistent rain, the gloomy cold, the ashen atmosphere, the leaden sky!

In the midst of this species of lethargy in which Vilamorta is plunged there are, however, some happy beings, beings who are now at the summit of felicity, although soon destined to end their existence in the most tragic manner; beings who, by their natural instinct alone, have divined the philosophy of Epicurus and practice it, and eat, drink, and make merry, and neither fear death nor think of the unexplored region which opens its gates to the dying, beings who receive the rain on their smooth skins with rejoicing, beings for whom the mud is a luxurious bath in which they roll and wallow with delight, abandoning the discomfort and narrowness of their lairs and sties. They are the indisputable lords and masters of Vilamorta at this season of the year; they who with their pomps and exploits supply the reunions at the apothecary's with food for conversation, and entertainment for familiar gatherings in which their respective sizes are discussed and they are studied from the point of view of their personal qualities, heated discussions taking place as to whether the short or the long ear, the curly tail, the hoof more or less curved upward, and the snout more or less pointed, augur the more succulent flesh and the more abundant fat. Comparisons are made. Pellejo's hog is superb as far as size is concerned, but its flesh, of an erysipelatous rosy hue, and its immense flabby belly, betray the hog of relaxed muscle, nourished on bakehouse refuse; a magnificent swine, that of the Alcalde, which has been fed on chestnuts, not so large as the other, but what hams it will make! What hams! And what bacon! And what a back, broad enough to ride upon! This will be the swine of the season. There are not wanting those who affirm, however, that the queen of the swine of Vilamorta is the pig of Aunt GÁspara, GarcÍa's pig. The haunches of this magnificent animal look like a highroad; it once came near being suffocated by its own fat; its teats touch its hoofs and kiss the mud of the road. Who can calculate how many pounds of lard it will yield, and the black puddings it will fill with its blood, and the sausages that its intestines will make?

It stops raining for a week; the cold grows more intense, frost falls, whitening the grass of the paths and hardening the ground. This is the signal for the hecatomb, for which the auspices are now favorable, for, in addition to the cold, the moon is in her last quarter; if she were on the wane the flesh would spoil. The hour has come for wielding the knife. And through the long nights of Vilamorta resound at the most unexpected moments desperate grunts—first grunts of fury, that express the impotent rage of the victim at finding himself bound to the bench, and reveal in the degenerate domestic pig the descendant of the wild mountain boar; then of pain, when the knife penetrates the flesh, an almost human cry when its blade pierces the heart, and at last a series of despairing groans which grow fainter and fainter as life and strength escape with the warm stream of blood.

This bloodcurdling drama was being enacted in the house of the lawyer GarcÍa at eleven o'clock on a clear frosty December night. The girls, wild with delight, and dying with curiosity, crowded around the expiring pig, in whose heart and throat the butcher, with rolled up sleeves and bare arms, was about to plunge the knife. Segundo, shut up in his bedroom, had before him some sheets of paper, more or less covered with scrawls. He was writing verses. But as the sounds of the tragedy reached him, he dropped his pen with dismay. He had inherited from his mother a profound horror of the spectacle of the killing; it usually cost his mother ten or twelve days of suffering, during which she was unable to eat food, sickened by the sight of the blood, the intestines and the viscera, so like human intestines and human viscera, the greasy flitches of bacon hanging from the roof, and the strong and stimulating odor of the black pudding and spices. Segundo abhorred even the name of pig, and in the morbid condition of his mind, in the nervous excitement which consumed him, it was an indescribable martyrdom to be unable to set his foot outside the door without stumbling against and entangling himself among the accursed and repulsive animals, or seeing, through the half-open doors, portions of their bodies hanging on hooks. All Vilamorta smelled of pig-killing, of warm entrails; Segundo did not know at last where to hide himself, and intrenched himself in his own room, closing the doors and windows tightly, secluding himself from the external world in order to live with his dreams and fancies in a realm where there were no hogs, and where only pine groves, blue flowers and precipices existed. Insufficient precaution to free himself from the torture of that brutal epoch of the year, since here in his own house he was besieged by the drama of gluttony and realism. The poet seized his hat and hurried out of the room. He must flee where these grunts could not penetrate, where those smells should not surround him. He walked along the hall, closing his eyes in order not to see, by the light of the candle which one of the children was holding, Aunt GÁspara with her skeleton-like arm, bare to the elbow, stirring a red and frothing liquid in a large earthern pan. When they saw Segundo leaving the house the sisters burst into shouts of laughter, and called to him, offering him grotesque delicacies, ignoble spoils of the dying.

Leocadia had not retired; she felt ill and she was dozing in a chair, wrapped in a shawl and shivering with cold; she opened the door quickly to Segundo, asking him in alarm if anything had happened. Nothing, indeed. They were killing the pig at home—a Toledan night; they would not let him sleep. Besides, the night was so cold—he felt somewhat indisposed—as if he had a chill. Would she make him a cup of coffee, or better still, a rum punch?

"Both, my heart, this very instant!"

Leocadia recovered her spirits and her energy as if by enchantment. Soon there rose from the punch-bowl the sapphire flame of the punch. In its glare the schoolmistress's face seemed very thin. It had lost its former healthy color, a warm brown like that of the crust of a well-baked loaf. The pangs of disappointed love were revealed in the pallor of her cheeks, in the feverish brightness of her eyes, the purplish hue of her lips. Grief had given her prosaic features an almost poetic stamp; as she had grown thinner her eyes looked larger; she was not now the robust woman, with firm flesh and fresh-colored lips, who, pitted though she was by the smallpox, could still draw a coarse compliment from the tavern-keeper; the fire of an imperious, uncontrollable, and exacting passion was consuming her inwardly—the love which comes late in life, that devouring love which reason cannot conquer, nor time uproot, nor circumstances change, which fixes its talons in the vitals and releases its prey only when it has destroyed it.

And this love was of so singular a nature that,—insatiable, volcanic, desperate, as it was,—far from dictating acts of violence to Leocadia and drawing from her furious reproaches, it inspired her with a self-abnegation and a generosity without limits, banishing from her mind every thought of self.

The summer, the vintage season, the whole period during which she had scarcely seen Segundo, when she knew he had not given her a passing thought, that he was devoting himself to another woman, had been horrible for her; and yet not a jealous word, not a complaint had crossed her lips, nor did she once regret having given Segundo the money; and when she saw the poet, her joy was so genuine, so profound, that it effaced, as if by magic, the remembrance of her sufferings and repaid her for them a hundredfold.

Now there was an additional reason why she should lavish her affection upon the poet. He too was suffering, he was ill. What was the matter with him? He himself did not know: hypochondria, the grief of separation, spleen, the impatient disgust produced by the contrast of his mean surroundings with the dreams that filled his imagination. A constant inappetency, depression of spirits, an uneasy sensation in the stomach, nerves on the stretch, like the strings of a guitar. And his love for Nieves was not like Leocadia's love, one of those passions that absorb the whole being, affect the heart, attenuate the flesh, and subjugate the soul. Nieves lived only in his imagination, in his vanity, in his lyrics, in his romantic reveries, those eternal inspirers of love. Nieves was the visible incarnation, in beautiful and alluring form, of his longings for fame, his literary ambition.

Leocadia had served the punch and was pouring out the coffee when, her hand trembling with pleasure and emotion, she spilled some of the hot liquid, scalding herself slightly; she took no notice of the burn, however, but went on, with the same solicitude as always, to minister to Segundo's comfort. Thinking to please and interest the poet she asked him for news of the volume of poems which he had in hand, and which was to spread his fame far beyond Vilamorta, so soon as it should be published in Orense. Segundo did not show much enthusiasm at this prospect.

"In Orense," he said, "in Orense——Do you know that I have changed my mind? Either I shall publish it in Madrid or I shall not publish it at all. The loss to Spanish literature would not be so very great."

"And why don't you want to publish it now in Orense?"

"I will tell you. Roberto Blanquez is right in the advice he gives me in a letter he has just written me from Madrid. You know that Roberto is in a situation there. He says that no one reads books published in the provinces; that he has noticed the contempt with which books that do not bear the imprint of some publishing house of the capital are looked upon there. And besides, that they delay a century here in printing a volume, and when it is printed it is full of errors, and unattractive in appearance—in short, that they do not take. And therefore——"

"Well, then, let the book be published in Madrid. How much would it cost?"

"Child, the prices Roberto tells me are enough to frighten one. It seems that the affair would cost a fortune. No publisher will buy verses or even share with the author the expense of publishing them."

Leocadia answered only by a smile. The little parlor had a look of homelike comfort. Although winter had despoiled the balcony of its charms, turning the sweet basil yellow and withering the carnations, within, the hissing of the coffee-pot, the alcoholic vapor of the punch, the quietude, the solicitous affection of the schoolmistress, all seemed to temper and soften the atmosphere. Segundo felt a pleasant drowsiness stealing over him.

"Will you give me a blanket from your bed?" he said to the schoolmistress. "There is not a spot at home where I could rest to-night. I might sleep a little on the sofa here."

"You will be cold."

"I shall be in heaven. Go."

Leocadia left the room, and returned dragging in with her an unwieldy bulk—a mattress; then she brought a blanket; then, pillows. Total, a complete bed. For all that was wanting—only the sheets—she brought them also.