STEIN had inhabited his peaceful retreat during three years. He had adopted the customs of the country in which he had found himself; he lived, day after day, or, in other terms, according to the counsels of his good hostess Maria, who said that the morrow should not so disquiet us as to lose the present day, and that we should occupy us with but one thing, viz., that to-day should not make us lose to-morrow.

During those three years, the young doctor had been in correspondence with his family. His parents had died while he was with the army of Navarre; his sister Charlotte was married to a farmer in easy circumstances, who had made of his wife’s two brothers cultivators—not much instructed, but handy and assiduous at their work. Stein, therefore, believed himself free and sole arbiter of his fate.

He devoted himself to the education of the young invalid, who owed her life to him, and although he cultivated a soil ungrateful and sterile, he succeeded, by patience, to ingraft on her mind the elements of a preliminary education. But what surpassed his expectations was the development of the musical faculties, really extraordinary, with which nature had endowed the fisherman’s daughter. Her voice was incomparable, and Stein, who was a good musician, could easily and surely direct her, as one trains the branches of the vine, which are at once flexible and vigorous, strong and elastic.

But the master had a heart soft and tender, and a craving for confidence which turned to blindness. He was devoted to his scholar, stimulated by the exalted love of the fisherman for his daughter, and by the admiration of the good Maria for Marisalada. Stein and his scholar possessed a certain powerful communicative sympathy, which could exercise its influence upon a soul frank and open, candid and good-humored as that of the young German. He then persuaded Pedro Santalo that his daughter was an angel, and Maria, that she was a prodigy. Stein was one of those men who could assist at a masked ball without convincing himself that under these absurd masks, under these caricatures of painted cardboard, there were other physiognomies and other faces—the work of nature, in one word. And if impassioned affection blinded Santalo, if extreme goodness of soul blinded Maria, both succeeded in putting a bandage over the eyes of the good doctor.

But that which bewitched, above all, our hero, was the pure, sweet, expressive, and eloquent voice of his scholar.

“It must be,” he said to himself, “that she who expresses in a manner so admirable, sentiments the most sublime, must be gifted with a soul full of elevation and tenderness.”

Like as the grain of corn, in the fruitful soil, germinates and takes root before the stem sprouts above the ground, so this love, so calm and true, took root in the heart of Stein: love which he felt without having yet defined it.

Marisalada, on her part, was equally attached to Stein, not because she was grateful to him for his attentions, but that she appreciated his excellent qualities, and because she comprehended his great superiority of soul and intelligence: nor yet even because she obeyed an attractive charm which imparted love to the person who inspired it; but because that the musician, the master who had initiated her in the art, felt, himself, all these sentiments of gratitude and admiration. The isolation in which she lived tended to put far away any other object that could excite her preference.

Don Modesto was not of an age to figure in this tournament of love. Momo was not only disqualified by his extreme ugliness, but he preserved all his hatred for Marisalada, never ceasing to call her Gaviota, and she had for him the greatest contempt. Certainly gallants were not wanting in the village; to commence with the barber, who was obstinate in his sighs after Marisalada; but no one would oppose Stein.

This tranquil state of things had continued three springs and three winters, which had glided by like three days and three nights, when that came to pass which we will now relate.

An intrigue (who could have predicted it?) dawned on the peaceful village of Villamar.

The promoter and the chief (who would have thought it?) was the good Maria. The confidant (who will not be astonished?) was Don Modesto!

Although it was an indiscretion, or, the better to express it, a baseness to watch, listening to the conspirators hidden behind that orange-tree, whose trunk is still solid, while the flowers are withering and the leaves falling—image of the resignation which rests in the heart when joy is fled, when hopes are vanished; listening to a conversation, which, in reconcilable secrecy, held the two accomplices, while brother Gabriel, who is a thousand miles off and all near to the speakers, was busy in binding up the lettuces to make them white and tender.

“It is not an idea that I have, Don Modesto,” said the instigatress, “it is a reality. Not to see it, is to have no eyes. Don Frederico loves Marisalada, who regards the doctor no more than a bundle of straw.”

“Good Maria, who thinks of love?” replied Don Modesto, who, all his life, calm and tranquil, had not seemed to realize the eternal, classic, and invariable axiom of the inseparable alliance of Mars and Cupid. “Who thinks of love?” repeated Don Modesto, in the same tone as if he had said—

“Who thinks of shearing a tambourine?”

“The young people, Don Modesto, the young people; and if it were not so, the world would come to an end. But the case is thus: we must give a spur to these young folks; they get on too slowly. For two years our man has loved his nightingale, as he calls her; that is evident in his looks, and as for me, I see it clearly. You who are a considerable personage, and whom Don Frederico loves so much, you ought to brisk up a little this affair, giving him good advice for their good and ours.”

“Dispense with me, Maria,” replied Don Modesto. “Ramon Perez is an obstacle; we are friends, and I would not counteract his projects. He shaves me for my good appearances, and to thwart his interests, Maria, would be, on my part, a bad action. He sees with much pain that Marisalada does not love him, and he has become so thin and yellow that he is frightful. The other day he said that if he cannot marry Marisalada he will break his guitar, and that, no longer able to become a monk, he will become a rebel. You see, good Maria, that in every way I will compromise myself if I mix in this affair.”

“SeÑor,” said Maria, “do you take for cash in hand what lovers sing? Ramon Perez, the poor little thing! is not capable of killing a sparrow, and you believe he will attack Christians? But take this into consideration: if Don Frederico marries he will remain with us always. What a happy chance will it not be for everybody? I assure you that when he talks of leaving us I feel all over goose-flesh. And the young girl, what a magnificent position for her! For you must know that Don Frederico gains a great deal of money. When he attended the son of the alcalde, Don Perfecto, he gave him a hundred reals, which shone like a hundred stars. What a beautiful couple they will make, my commandant!”

“I do not say nay, Maria,” replied Don Modesto; “but do not force me to play a part in this affair, and leave me to preserve a strict neutrality. I have not two faces, I have only that one over which the barber passes his razor—it is my only one.”

At this moment Marisalada entered the garden. She was certainly no longer the young girl we had known, dishevelled and badly clothed. She came every morning to the convent, coiffured with great care, and neatly dressed. Neither affection for those who inhabited it, nor the gratitude she owed, attracted her to this place. It was but the desire to hear music, and to receive her lessons from Stein. Beyond this, ennui drove her from her cabin, where she had for society only her father who did not much divert her.

“And Don Frederico?” she said on entering.

“He has not yet returned from visiting his patients,” answered Maria. “To-day he has a dozen children to vaccinate. What an extraordinary thing, Don Modesto! He draws the pus, as you call it, from the teat of a cow: the cows have a counter-poison to oppose the small-pox! and it must be so, since Don Frederico has said it.”

“Nothing is more true,” continued Don Modesto, “than that it was a Swiss who discovered it. When I was at GaËte I have seen the Swiss who constituted the Pope’s guard, but neither of them could tell me who was the author of the discovery.”

“If I were his Holiness,” pursued Maria, “I would reward the inventor by a plenary indulgence. Seat yourself, my dear, I am dying with desire to see you.”

“No! I am going.”

“Where do you wish to go?—no one loves you better than we do here.”

“What am I to do when people love me? What can I do since Don Frederico is not here?”

“What is that? You only come here then for Don Frederico, little ingrate?”

“Why not? why should I come? to find myself with Momo?”

“Then you love Don Frederico much?” hazarded the good old woman.

“I love him; and if it were not for him I would never put foot inside these doors, for fear of encountering that demon Momo, whose tongue resembles the sting of a wasp.”

“And Ramon Perez?” mischievously demanded Maria, as if she would convince Don Modesto that his protÉgÉ might give up his hopes.

Marisalada burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter.

“If this Raton (he-mouse) Perez—Momo had given the young barber this sobriquet—happens to fall into the porridge-pot, I will not be the ant who will sing or weep over him: less still will I be she who will listen to his singing; for his singing attacks my nervous system, as Don Frederico expresses it, which he assures me is now more stretched than the strings of a guitar. You shall see how this Raton Perez sings.”

Marisalada rapidly took a leaf of aloe, which lay on the ground among those which served brother Gabriel as screens to protect, in their first growth, the tomato plants against the attacks of the north wind. She placed this leaf between her arms in the manner of a guitar, and began to imitate with a grotesque air the gestures of Ramon Perez, with a talent most perfect for imitation; then she sang this couplet with strong trills:

“Yes,” said Modesto, who remembered the serenades at the door of Rosita, “this Ramon has always had grand pretensions.”

The events could not persuade Modesto that these serenades were not designed for Rosita. From thence but one idea entered the head of this man; it was, that if she fell into a love snare, he himself could not extricate her. The calibre of his intelligence was so straitened, and so invariably fixed, that as soon as an idea penetrated his brain it became set, and remained there for life.

“I go,” said Marisalada, throwing the leaf of aloe in such way that it fell with force against brother Gabriel, who, on his knees, and with his back turned, attached his hundred and twenty-fifth knot.

“Jesus!” cried out brother Gabriel, turning around frightened. Then, without uttering another word, he again set to work to tie up his lettuces.

“What aiming!” said Marisalada, laughing. “Don Modesto, take me for artilleryman when you obtain cannon for your fort.”

“Such things are not gracious; they are in bad taste, which, you must know, please me in no way,” replied Maria a little coldly. “Say to me what you like, but as to brother Gabriel, trouble not his peace, it is the only good left to him.”

“Do not get angry,” replied the Gaviota, “you well know that brother Gabriel is not made of glass.” Then, said she, making a courteous reverence, “My commandant, say to Rosa Mistica that she transfer her school to your fort, when it has some 24-pounders, that she may be well defended against the snares of the demon. I must go, because Don Frederico does not come; I am disposed to believe that he is vaccinating all the village, including Rosa Mistica, the schoolmaster, and the alcalde.”

But the good old woman, who was accustomed to the rather free manners of Marisalada,—which, however, did not wound,—called the young girl and told her to sit down near her.

Don Modesto, warned by this that Maria was about to open her batteries,—faithful to the neutrality he had promised,—took leave of the old woman, made a turn to the right and beat a retreat, not, however, without having received from the monk a couple of lettuces and a bunch of turnips.

“My daughter,” said Maria, when they were alone, “what will you not be if Don Frederico marries you? You will be with this man, who is a St. Louis de Gonzague, who knows every thing, who is a good musician, and who gains plenty of money; you will be the doctor’s wife, the happiest of women. You will be dressed like a dove, nurtured like a duchess; and you could then, above all, help your poor father, who is growing old; and it pains our hearts that he is obliged to be on the sea despite rain and wind, so that his child may want for nothing. Thus would Don Frederico remain among us, like an angel of the good God, consoling and taking care of all who suffer.”

Marisalada listened attentively to the old woman, affecting great distraction. When Maria had ceased to speak, the young girl was silent for an instant, and then, with an air of indifference, said—

“I do not wish to marry.”

“Listen then!” exclaimed the good woman. “It is, perchance, you wish to be a nun?”

“Not at all,” replied the Gaviota.

“What then?” demanded Maria, really angry. “You do not wish to be either flesh or fish! One thing only I know—woman belongs to God or to man; if not, she does not accomplish her mission, either towards God or towards society.”

“What would you, Maria?” replied Marisalada; “I feel that neither marriage nor the convent is my vocation.”

“Then, little girl,” replied the old woman, “thy vocation is that of the mule. Nothing pleases me which is out of the regular order; above all, in that which we other women regard.

“She who does not do what we all do, I would flee from, if I were a man, as one flees from an infuriated bull. In a word—my hand on my heart—you act wrong. But you are yet but a child,” she added, with her habitual goodness, “there is much for you yet to learn. Time is a great teacher.”

Marisalada arose and departed.

“Yes,” thought she, covering her head with her handkerchief, “he loves me, I have known it for a long time—but—I love him as old Maria loves brother Gabriel, as the aged love. He would receive a shower under my window without fearing to take cold. Now—if he marries me, he will render my life happy I am sure; he will let me do as I like: he will give me music whenever I ask him, and purchase for me every thing I may desire. If I were his wife, I would have a neckerchief of crape, like Quela, the daughter of old Juan Lopez; and a mantle, blonde of Almagro, like that of the Alcaldesa.

“They would both die with rage; but it seems to me that Don Frederico, agitated as he is when he listens to my singing, thinks as much of marrying me as Don Modesto thinks of taking for his wife his dear Rosa—chief of all the devils.”

During the whole of this beautiful mental dialogue, Marisalada had not one thought, not one recollection of her father, whose well-being and whose solace had been the chief motives adduced by Maria.