Benito PErez Galdos

THE MARQUESA GOES TO A CONCERT.

Leon’s house was to the north-east of Madrid, on one side overlooking the town with its pretty, bright houses and verdurous gardens, and on the other, miles of dusty waste. The capital of Spain lies within strict limits, as laid down by its builders; it does not straggle and melt away into the country and is not enclosed in that half agricultural, half urban zone which surrounds many cities and through which the bustle of the streets imperceptibly dies away into the silence of the fields. The medley of dwellings ends abruptly; not a house has dared to part company and step forth, for fear of heat, of cold, and of thieves. It reminds us of a vast caravan settled down for a night’s rest and which will be raised in the morning to pursue its march without ever looking back at the place of its encampment.

On the eastern side of the house lay the melancholy landscape of parti-coloured downs—in winter showing a prevailing, dingy green tint, in summer yellow, grey and brown; fields that are never tilled, that are swept by the winds that dance in the hollows of the hills and fling clouds of dust in each other’s teeth. Here and there the dreary monotony is broken by a smoking brick-kiln, or a lonely and forlorn house which, if it has any expression, it is that of astonishment at finding itself there. The brick factory is surrounded by hovels constructed of straw and mud—architectural efforts which the house-martin, the mole, and the beaver would laugh to scorn; and round these huts, that a good kick would demolish, those eager speculators in nastiness, the scavengers, busily analyse the morning’s dust-heap, raking in the mounds of rags, sweepings, paper and other nameless trash which form the daily refuse of a great town. A little way off, groups of half-naked brats are at play, their dirty brown skins scarcely distinguishable from the soil. They look as if they had just sprung from a crack in the earth and must vanish there again—graceful, blaspheming, mischievous creatures, engagingly and innocently impudent, a combination of angel and gipsy. Here too, routing away the heaps of refuse, sneak numbers of mangy dogs—not above biting your calf if you give them the chance—and here, in April and May, starveling hens bring out their broods of chicks and teach them the rudiments of gaining a living. Here and there is a pool of stagnant water into which the sky looks down, astonished to see itself so dingy; black caravans of ants cross the land in every direction, loaded with tares stolen from some carelessly sown field. In the mornings the silence of these barren solitudes is broken by a delightful pastoral concert—the bleating of the flocks that wander from Vallehermoso to their pasture at AbroÑigal to return in the evening, when the sweet stillness of the twilight is disturbed by their low, melancholy tones. Goats too go by, jumping and butting, and meditative asses for milking, whose shrill bells are heard at break of day at the door of the consumptive sufferer, pass calmly by.

This dismal, drouthy, thankless, stubborn landscape, with its gloomy suggestion of robbery and assassination and its look as of an abandoned graveyard—this landscape, which does not invite and yet detains the traveller, whose yellow stony stare stays his steps and makes his heart quake with Dantesque terrors—is a very different scene when night has fallen on it, when the winds are at peace and a mysterious calm broods over it all, under the immensity of the starry sky. The purple arch looks so high and remote that the eye and mind throb as they gaze upward. The wanderer holds his breath as he contemplates the glorious firmament that covers the wide plain of Castile, like a spiritual life bending above the barrenness of asceticism. In some lands the beauty of the landscape lies in smiling meadows, woods and streams, tenderly overshadowed by fleecy clouds. The views from Madrid must be sought overhead in the vast space sprinkled with suns and worlds. From Leon’s house, as evening fell, might be seen the fiery glow on the horizon reflected from the setting sun and the pleasing regularity of the landscape which seems to set no bar to the east—where the most vital events in the world’s history have taken place; then the successive lighting up of infinitely distant suns, as though each one dropped into its place and burst into flame; the vast vault of the sky, where some stars seem to be eager to rise while others, wearied out, sink to rest; the rapid scintillation of some, which wax and wane; the wondrous fixity of others which pierce, as it seems, with a single shaft of light, the immensity of space; the twinkling hesitancy of some, the solemn, almost stern, steadiness of others, the grand haze of the milky way—and beneath the sky the wide unbroken levels of the earth, noiseless, treeless, streamless, a present image of humanity which lies dreaming—in sleep or in death—with darkened senses under the splendours of the midnight heavens.

“MarÍa, give me your arm; I want to go into the garden and look at the sky,” said Luis Gonzaga to his sister. It was the end of July and the heat was suffocating. Leon had had a cane seat placed in the garden so that the invalid might enjoy the evening till the breeze from the Guadarrama should begin to blow. The four went out together. The sick man walked a very little way in front of Leon, and as he went he dilated with eager eloquence on the beauty of the scene, on his joy in the approach of death and on the mercies of God.

During the past month his illness had varied greatly; there had been days when he was thought to be dying, and then came days, or even weeks, of such visible amendment that the marquesa began to entertain some hopes. The doctors however encouraged no illusions, but said to Leon, “short of a miracle, he cannot survive the fall of the leaf.” On this particular evening he was feeling better, remarkably happy and alert, and unusually eager and quick of speech, except when Leon approached him.

As they were all sitting in the garden, they heard carriage-wheels and immediately after the voices of the Marquesa de Rioponce and her daughter, who had come to persuade the Marquesa de TellerÍa to go with them to a public concert in the garden of the “Retiro.” The invitation had already been often repeated, but the lady had always excused herself on the score of her son’s serious illness. “Really she could find no enjoyment in anything; how could she take any pleasure when her household was in such anxiety? Her friends she was sure would excuse her, they would not insist on carrying her off to entertainments and would understand that she could not—in fact ought not.... She had sacrificed herself to stay in this furnace to be with her son, she had submitted to make the move to Leon’s house, though it was exile—complete exile.... But her feelings as a mother ... she could not hesitate. And how could she be seen in public at the gardens when every one knew that her poor Luis was suffering so constantly.... He was better no doubt, much better; you could see it in his face; but in spite of the improvement she—the miserable, anxious mother—could not think of amusements and music. To be sure, her spirits sadly needed cheering, that she knew very well ... and what more innocent or soothing pleasure could she have than a little good music?... But she really could not make up her mind to leave him—not for a single evening. She was so absorbed and fettered by her sorrow that she could not escape from its clutches. Suffering as she was, her very anguish bound her to the side of her dear invalid.”

Her friend found arguments to combat all this declamation, for human logic and a woman’s tongue can find arguments for every circumstance of life.

“It was as clear as day that Luis Gonzaga was better ... better? Why, out of danger. It was visible in his brighter looks, his eager gaze, the way he walked about the garden, and the gay tone of his voice when he spoke—the marquesa might go out without the faintest shadow of a doubt and come to the concert. Why not? Was it not her duty to take care of her own health? Was she wise to allow herself to be crushed by groundless anxieties; that high sense of duty which had kept her by her son’s side demanded some care of her own health to enable her to continue to bear her burthen of affectionate solicitude. She could not be required to make such extravagant sacrifices to the injury of her own health, and the thorny crown of abnegation might surely be varied from time to time by the introduction of some little innocent flowers.”

This skilful reasoning, seconded by the love of festivity that seethes in the veins of every native of Madrid, was too much for the constancy of poor Milagros. Still she made difficulties: “she did not wish to go, and besides she must dress, and to get a dress she must go home.”

“What nonsense. You look very nicely, quite well dressed as you are, you want nothing more. You have the art of always looking well whatever you wear, and this evening you really are charmingly dressed as if you had guessed that you were going out.”

At last her son’s entreaties persuaded her, really in spite of herself.

“I will go then, if it is only to please you,” she said tenderly. Luis pulled two roses from a bush by which he was standing and gave them to his mother to pin to her dress.

“I know you like the simplest kind of adornment,” she said to him with a smile, “and I am only going to oblige Rosa and to please you. I am of your school, dear boy; obedience sometimes is doing the thing we like. Good night.”

“Good night, mother.”

And the carriage rolled away, carrying the marquesa towards the blaze of gas that lighted up the haze of city dust and the exhalations of the dog-days.