DRAGON’S TEETH

DRAGON’S TEETH

A Novel

FROM THE PORTUGUESE

BY

MARY J. SERRANO

AUTHOR OF “DESTINY AND OTHER POEMS,” ETC.
TRANSLATOR OF “PEPITA JIMENEZ,” ETC.

BOSTON
TICKNOR AND COMPANY
211 Fremont Street
1889

Copyright, 1889,
BY TICKNOR AND COMPANY.
All rights reserved.
University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.

PREFACE.

IN presenting this graphic picture of Lisbon life to the American public, the translator has assumed the responsibility of softening here and there, and even of at times effacing, a line too sharply drawn, a light or a shadow too strongly marked to please a taste that has been largely formed on Puritanic models, convinced (without entering into the question of how far a want of literary reticence may be carried without violating the canons of true art) that while the interest of the story itself remains undiminished, the ethical purpose of the work will thereby be given wider scope.

M. J. S.

MARCH, 1889.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE.

THE name of Eça de Queiros stands at the head of the list of Portuguese novelists. Born in Oporto early in the latter half of the present century, he was intended for the profession of the law by his father, who belonged to a family distinguished in the annals of Portuguese jurisprudence; but he soon abandoned his legal studies for literature, toward which his inclinations impelled him, and which he cultivated with immediate and marked success, the articles from his pen that appeared from time to time in the various periodicals of the day attracting wide-spread and favorable notice.

His characteristics as a writer are,—to quote from the Preface of the Spanish version of the present work,—

“A vigorous, flexible, and picturesque style, daring and unexpected flights of the imagination, extraordinary judgment, and a marvellous perception of the realities of things, as well as of their comic and sentimental aspects.” “His most marked characteristic, however, is the wonderful power with which he treats the humorous and the pathetic alike, moving his readers to tears or laughter at his will, with a magic art possessed only by the great masters in literature.”

In conclusion, it may be said that the publication of the present work, under the title of “O Primo Bazilio,” produced a profound sensation in Portuguese literary circles, as did the publication, by which it was soon followed, of a Spanish version in those of Madrid, and of a French version, by Madame Ratazzi, in those of Paris.

CONTENTS

DRAGON’S TEETH.

CHAPTER I.
HUSBAND AND WIFE.

THE cuckoo-clock in the dining-room had just struck eleven. Jorge, reclining in an antique easy-chair covered with dark leather, closed the volume of Louis Figuier that he had been listlessly turning over, stretched himself, yawned, and said,—

“Are you not going to dress, Luiza?”

“Directly.”

The person who thus answered was still seated at the breakfast-table reading the “Diario de Noticias.” She was clad in a dark-colored morning-gown adorned with large pearl buttons. Her blond hair was in some disorder; her head was small, her profile charming. Her elbow rested on the table, while her fingers with a slow and graceful movement mechanically caressed the tip of her rosy ear. Her nails were long and polished, and in addition to her wedding ring she wore another, set with small rubies, that shot forth crimson rays when they caught the light.

The floor of the dining-room was covered with matting; the ceiling was in imitation of wood, and the walls were adorned with a light-colored paper with a green vine running through it. It was July. The heat was intense. The windows were closed, but the fervor of the sun’s rays striking against the panes and falling on the stone floor of the balcony without penetrated into the apartment with a sultry glow. That mysterious and solemn silence reigned which characterizes the hour of the early Mass. The whole being was pervaded by a vague lassitude producing a desire for the siesta, or for pleasant reveries under leafy trees by the water-side. The canaries were asleep in their cages, which were suspended in the windows between the curtains of blue cretonne. The monotonous buzz of the flies, attracted to the table by the half-melted sugar at the bottom of the cups, filled the room with a drowsy murmur.

Jorge rolled a cigarette, and, with his eyes fixed on the ceiling, he began to think, as he sat here at his ease, comfortably attired in his blue flannel jacket and his colored shirt without a collar, of his journey to Alemtejo, and to ruminate on the discomforts attending it. He was a mining engineer, and business obliged him to leave Lisbon on the following day for Beja, thence to proceed to Evora, perhaps even still farther south to St. Domingo; and this journey in the month of July, this interruption in the course of his tranquil existence, annoyed him as if it were an injustice of fate that he should be compelled to take it.

Since the time of his graduation from college he had held a position under the Government. This was his first separation from Luiza, and he felt his heart contract within him at the thought of leaving this little room that he himself had helped to paper in the days preceding his marriage, and in which, after rising from happy dreams, the morning meal was prolonged in delightful abandon.

As he stroked his soft and curly beard, which he wore very short, his eyes lingered with tenderness on each separate article of the furniture which had been his mother’s, and which was dear to his heart: on the antique cupboard with glass doors, which contained the costly Indian porcelain, and the service of silver, bright with constant rubbing, and glittering now in all its decorative splendor; on the old varnished table, familiar to his eyes from his earliest recollection, and on which the few stains left by cup or pitcher were almost concealed by the ornaments that covered it. Before him, on the opposite wall, hung the portrait of his father attired in the fashion of 1830, the face round, the glance animated, the mouth sensual, the medal of Commander of the Order of the Conception decorating his closely-buttoned coat. He had been for many years an employee in the Treasury Department; he was of a sanguine temperament, and was a fine performer on the flute. Jorge did not remember him, but his mother had often assured him that nothing was wanting to make the likeness a perfect one but the power to speak. Jorge had always lived with his mother in the house he now occupied. Her name was Isaura; she was tall of stature, had a long nose, and was apprehensive by nature; she would drink nothing but tepid water at her meals. One day, on returning from the service of the Holy Sacrament, she expired suddenly, without breathing a sigh.

Jorge had never resembled her. He had always been robust and healthy, physically as well as mentally. He had inherited from his father an admirable set of teeth and an excellent digestion. At seven years of age he was turbulent and unruly; later on he became studious and a good boy. When he was a student at the Polytechnic School, on returning home at eight o’clock in the evening he would light his lamp and open his books to study. He did not frequent cafés, and never spent the night away from home.

Jorge was not at all sentimental. His companions, who read Alfred de Musset with responsive sighs, and indulged in dreams of being loved by a Marguerite Gautier, called him prosaic, bourgeois; he only laughed. A button was never wanting on his shirts; he was very methodical. He admired Louis Figuier, Bastiat, and Castilho. He had a horror of disputes; and he was happy.

When his mother died, however, Jorge remained for a long time inconsolable. He felt lonely. It was winter, and the weather was bad; his room, situated in the interior of the house, was not a pleasant one, and the wind sighed through it at times with a melancholy sound. At night, especially, bending over his books, his feet resting on a rug, he felt his being invaded by the languor of solitude. He began to experience in his imagination strange desires; he longed to encircle with his arm a lithe and graceful figure, to hear near him the silken rustle of a woman’s dress. He resolved to marry. He had met Luiza one night during the previous summer on the promenade. He fell in love with her blond tresses, her charming profile, and her large hazel eyes. He obtained his degree the following winter, and they were married. Sebastião, his intimate friend, the good Sebastião, had said, rubbing his hands together, and gravely shaking his head, “He has been hasty in his marriage,—a little hasty!”

But Luiza, Luizinha, soon showed herself to be a good housekeeper. She was an early riser, and had a delightful knack of doing well everything she did. Moreover, she was neat, gay as a lark, and resembled a little bird in its fondness for its nest and for the endearments of its companion. Her presence diffused through the house a sweet and serene gayety.

“She is a little angel,” said Sebastião, later on, in his deep bass voice.

Three years had passed since Jorge’s marriage. What happy years! He, especially, had improved during that time. He felt that his intelligence had become broader, his disposition livelier, his health sounder. Both were happy. Even those who did not know them said, “They are a charming couple; it is a pleasure only to look at them!” And Jorge, now going over in his mind all the little details of his pleasant and easy existence, sent the smoke curling up from his cigarette, with his legs stretched out before him, his soul expanding, and feeling himself as comfortably sheltered in life as he was in his flannel jacket.

“Ah!” suddenly exclaimed Luiza in accents of joyful surprise.

“What is it?” said Jorge.

“Cousin Bazilio is coming home!”

And she read aloud from the newspaper:—

“Sr. Bazilio de Brito, a distinguished member of our highest society, is soon to arrive at Lisbon, from Bordeaux. As may be remembered, he went, some years since, to Brazil, where it is said that by his indefatigable efforts he has retrieved his ruined fortunes. He has been travelling through Europe since the beginning of last year. His return to our capital will be a real cause of rejoicing to his friends, who are numerous.”

“Very numerous, indeed,” said Luiza, in an accent of conviction.

“So much the better,” replied Jorge, sending out a fresh puff of smoke from his cigarette, and stroking his beard with the palm of his hand. “It would seem, then, that he has made a fortune.”

Luiza cast a glance over the advertisements in the paper, took a sip of tea, and then rose and opened one of the windows.

“Oh, Jorge!” she exclaimed, “how hot it is outside!” The glare of the white and garish light dazzled her eyes.

The dining-room was situated in the back part of the house; it looked out upon a plot of ground enclosed by a low fence and overgrown with weeds. Here and there among the weeds, browned by the excessive heat, were a few large stones. A wild fig-tree, isolated in the midst of the plot, spread out its thick motionless foliage, that in the glare of the sunlight looked like burnished bronze. Other houses looked out on the same plot, with their balconies, their clothes spread out on a line to dry, the white walls of their little gardens, and their consumptive trees. An impalpable dust begrimed, so to speak, the luminous air.

“It is hot enough to suffocate the birds,” said Luiza, closing the window. “Can you not fancy yourself already in Alemtejo?”

She came and seated herself on the arm of the easy-chair in which Jorge was reclining, and ran her fingers through his dark and curling locks, which he wore, in obedience to a caprice of his wife, parted down the middle. Jorge passed his arm around her waist.

“Have you given orders to get my white waistcoats ready?” he asked.

“They should be ready now,” said Luiza. “Juliana!” she called, rising, “Juliana!”

A sound of petticoats stiff with starch was heard approaching. Juliana entered. She was a woman of about forty years of age, and was extraordinarily thin. Her neck, long and withered, rose from out the frills of a shirt-waist, bordered with imitation lace. Her features, livid and contracted, were of a pale yellow tint. Her eyes, large and prominent, were crossed by minute red veins, and moved within their reddened lids with an expression of restless curiosity. She wore a head-dress in imitation of braids of hair, that gave to her head an appearance of enormous size. Her nose twitched continually with a nervous movement; and her dress, flat over the chest, short, and puffed out below by her stiffened petticoats, allowed a small and well-shaped foot to be seen, clad in a cloth boot tipped with patent leather.

The waistcoats were not ready, she said, because she had not had time to starch them. She spoke in a sing-song voice, after the manner of the natives of Lisbon, through half-closed lips, and with her head bent down.

“But I told you to be sure to have them ready,” said Luiza; “go get them ready now, in the best way you can. They must be packed up to-night in the valise.”

Juliana had hardly left the room when Luiza exclaimed: “That woman inspires me with horror, Jorge.”

She had been two years in the house, and Luiza could not yet accustom herself to the sight of her, to her gestures, to the piping manner in which she pronounced certain words, drawling the r’s, to the noise made by the heels of her shoes, which were furnished with little metal plates, to her pretensions to possessing a small foot, and to her black kid gloves on Sunday.

“She sets my nerves quivering,” continued Luiza.

Jorge laughed. In his opinion she was an inoffensive woman, a good creature, an admirable laundress; and in the Department her shirt-fronts awakened universal enthusiasm. His friend Julião said of them that they were not ironed, but enamelled. She was not an agreeable woman, it was true, but she was neat, silent, discreet. And rising, with his hands in the pockets of his loose flannel trousers,—

“And in any case, child,” he added, “we must not forget the way she behaved during Aunt Virginia’s sickness, never taking a moment’s rest. She behaved like an angel towards her, yes, an angel,” he repeated gravely; “we are forever indebted to her, my dear.” And with a serious countenance he began to roll another cigarette.

Luiza, in silence, pushed out with the point of her slipper the edge of her morning-gown. Then, with bent head, her eyes fixed on her nails, she said poutingly, “But that would be no reason for not dismissing her, if she should at last become too disagreeable to me.”

“Not with my consent, my dear,” returned Jorge. “It is with me a question of gratitude.”

A few moments’ silence ensued. The cuckoo-clock struck twelve.

“I must get ready to make my calls, now,” he added. And leaning towards her, he caught between his hands the graceful blond head of Luiza. “Little serpent!” he murmured, fixing on her his tenderest glance.

Luiza smiled, and raised to his her magnificent hazel eyes, which she had a habit of moving around in their orbits in a slow and luminous manner, and which were so pure and limpid that one could penetrate into their profoundest depths. Jorge bent towards her, and pressed on her eyelids two sonorous kisses which could be heard at a distance; this was a caress which had the virtue of always pacifying her. Then laying his finger on her lip with a playful gesture,—

“Have you any commissions for me?” he asked. “Do you want anything, Luizinha?”

She said that all she wanted was that he should come back quickly. He replied that he was only going to leave cards; he would go like a flash; it was a question of a moment. And he went out with a radiant countenance, singing in his full baritone voice:—

“Dio del oro,

Del mundo signor,

La la ra, lara.”

Luiza yawned. Heavens! how tiresome to be obliged to dress! The heat was suffocating. She would like to recline in a bath of rose-colored marble, filled with tepid perfumed water clear as crystal, and afterwards, robed in primitive garments, to cradle herself softly in a silken hammock, and be lulled to sleep by the strains of melodious music. She threw off her slipper, and fixed her glance tenderly on her little foot, white as milk and marbled by delicate blue veins, while her thoughts flitted from one idea to another.

It was truly provoking that silk stockings should be so dear! For if that were not the case she would use no others. True that laundresses have the art of washing them all to pieces. But then a blue silk stocking with a little patent leather shoe is so charming, so pretty! And she yawned again. Then she went to the table, took from it a book that bore traces of use, and throwing herself into the easy-chair, gave herself up voluptuously to her reading, caressing her little ear with the tips of her fingers, as was her habit.

The book was the “Dame aux Camelias.” Luiza read a great many novels, and subscribed by the month to a circulating library. In her younger days, when she was about eighteen, she had cherished an enthusiastic admiration for Walter Scott and Scotland. She would have liked to live in one of those Scotch castles bearing the coat of arms of the clan over their vaulted doors, with their oaken chests and their trophies, their tapestries embroidered with historic legends that the breeze from the lakes sets in motion and seems to endow with factitious life. She had fallen in love successively with Evan dale, Morton, and Ivanhoe, those heroes at once grave and tender, with the eagle’s feather in their caps, fastened at the side by the Scotch thistle in diamonds and emeralds. But now her fancy was captivated by the modern,—Paris with its elegance and its sentimentality. She ridiculed the Troubadours, and placed above every other hero M. de Camors; and her ideal man presented himself to her imagination in a white cravat, in the midst of spacious saloons, endowed with a magnetic glance, consumed by passion, his lips overflowing with sublime words. For some days past the object of her enthusiasm had been Marguerite Gautier, whose ill-starred love had invested her in Luiza’s mind with a vague melancholy. She pictured her to herself tall, slender, enveloped in a cashmere shawl, her dark eyes lit up by passion and by the fever of consumption; she found even in the names of the characters—Julie Duprot, Armand, Prudence—the poetic savor of an existence dedicated to love; and she contemplated, steeped in an inexpressible melancholy, this life exhaling itself in sighs, passed in nights of delirium and days of sadness, enduring privations, or rolling in a coupé along the avenues of the Bois under a gray sky, while the first snows of winter were falling silently.

“Good-by for a while, Luiza,” cried Jorge from the dining-room, as he was about to go out.

“Listen,” said Luiza.

Jorge re-entered the apartment, putting on his gloves.

“Try to come back soon, will you not?” she said. “Ah, and don’t forget to bring me some tarts. Buy them at Bastreleque’s; do you hear? And if you pass by the shop of Madame François, tell her to send me my hat. Ah, listen, listen!”

“Good heavens! what more do you want?”

“I want you to go to the circulating library and ask them to send me some novels. But I forgot—the library is closed. Above all, don’t stay away long.”

With two tears trembling on her lids Luiza finished the last page of the “Dame aux Camelias.” She breathed a sigh, and leaning back in her easy-chair, with the book resting on her knees, she began to sing softly, and with profound emotion, the final aria of “Traviata”:—

“Addio del passato

Igli rosi pallenti.”

The death of Marguerite Gautier, her letters, had produced in her nerves a kind of sentimental vibration.

Suddenly the news she had read in the paper of the return of her Cousin Bazilio recurred to her mind. A vague smile parted her rosy lips. Cousin Bazilio! He was her first love. She was just eighteen at the time. No one was acquainted with this fragment of the past, not even Jorge or Sebastião. It is true, indeed, that it had lasted only eight months.

Besides, she was then but a child. When she recalled the tender emotions, the tears of those happy days, she laughed at herself for her folly. How changed must her Cousin Bazilio be! She remembered him perfectly. He was tall, somewhat slender, of a distinguished appearance, with a mustache curling up at the ends, a bold glance, and a peculiar habit of putting his hands in his pockets and jingling his keys and his money. This episode in Luiza’s life had had its beginning at Cintra, at the villa of her uncle João de Brito, while the others were engaged in playing billiards. Bazilio had just returned from England; and had come home somewhat of an Anglo-maniac, awakening the admiration of the colony at Cintra by his red neckties, which he wore passed through a gold ring, and his white flannel suits. The billiard-room was a corner room, whose yellow-painted walls gave it an air of grandeur, as if it belonged to a family of illustrious lineage. A large door at the foot of the avenue opened into a garden to which one descended by three stone steps. The fountain was surrounded by pomegranate-trees, whose red blossoms Bazilio would pluck for her. The dark green foliage of the tall camelias formed shady walks. The water of the fountain sparkled in the sunlight; two turtle-doves cooed monotonously in their wicker cage; and in the midst of the sylvan silence of the villa the noise made by the billiard-balls had a quite aristocratic sound. Then followed all the well-remembered episodes in Lisbon of this love-affair begun at Cintra,—the moonlight rambles over the dark grass to Sitiaes, with long and silent pauses at Penedo da Saudade, before them the valley, and the distant sandy plains, illuminated by a light, dim, ideal, and dreamy; the midday hours passed under the shades of Penha Verde, listening to the cool murmur of the waters that fell, drop by drop, upon the rock; the evenings spent in a boat on the water darkened by the shadow of the trees at Collares, and those bursts of laughter when their boat ran into the tall grass, or her little straw hat caught, in passing, on the overhanging branches of the elms. She had always liked Cintra. A soft and pleasing melancholy stole over her whenever she penetrated into the cool and shady depths of Ramalhão.

She and her Cousin Bazilio had enjoyed complete liberty together. Her mother, poor lady, always engrossed in herself and her rheumatism, would send them away smiling, and then fall asleep. Bazilio called her Aunt Jójó, brought her boxes of bonbons, and she was happy. When the winter arrived, their love took refuge in the old red-tapestried parlor in the street of the Magdalena. What happy nights!—her mother, snoring peacefully, her feet enveloped in a rug, and a volume of the Ladies’ Library resting on her knees. They sat, to their supreme content, side by side, upon the sofa. The sofa! what memories it called up before her! It was low and small, covered with light cashmere, with a strip down the middle which she herself had embroidered,—a marvellous compound of red and yellow on a black ground. One day the catastrophe came. João de Brito, who was a partner in the house of Bastos and Brito, suspended payment and declared himself insolvent. The house at Almada and the villa at Collares were sold.

Bazilio, left penniless, went to Brazil. Luiza passed the first days after his departure seated on the beloved sofa, sobbing quietly over her cousin’s likeness. Then came the surprises of letters long looked for, and the persistent calls at the consignatorial agency when the steamers were behind their time.

A year passed. One morning, after a long silence on the part of Bazilio, she received a letter dated in Bahia, which began thus: “After much reflection, I have come to the conclusion that we should regard our feeling for each other as a piece of childish folly.” On reading these words she fainted. Bazilio breathed profound distress through two pages full of explanations. He was still poor, he said, and would have many struggles to pass through before he would be able to earn enough for them both. The climate was execrable, and he did not wish to sacrifice the health of his dear angel. He called her “My dove,” and ended by signing his name in full in the midst of complicated flourishes.

For many months afterwards Luiza was very sad. It was winter; and seated at the window, working at her embroidery, she told herself continually that her illusions were forever dead. She thought of entering a convent, as her melancholy gaze followed the dripping umbrellas of the passers-by, or as she sang at night, accompanying herself on the piano, “Soares de Passos,”—

“Gone forever are the days

Blest that by thy side I passed,”

or the final aria of “Traviata,” or a sorrowful fado of Vimioso that she had just learned. Meantime her mother’s cold had grown worse, and this brought with it fears and nightly vigils beside the patient’s couch. During the convalescence they went to Bellas.

When they returned home in the winter she had gained flesh, her cheeks were rosy, and she ate with a good appetite. One day she chanced to come across a likeness of Bazilio, in a writing-desk,—a likeness which her cousin had sent her shortly after his arrival in Brazil, and which represented him with white trousers and a Panama hat. She looked at it and shrugged her shoulders. “To think that I should ever have allowed my peace to be disturbed by that good-for-nothing!” she said. “What a fool I was!”

Three years from this time she became acquainted with Jorge. At first she did not find him attractive; she did not like men with beards. Afterwards she noticed that Jorge’s beard was fine and silky; and she began to find a certain charm and sweetness in his glance. Without being in love with him, she felt when with him a languor and abandonment, as if she could be content to rest forever on his bosom, careless of what the future might bring. What joy when he said to her, “Let us get married”! He had caught her hand in his; that warm pressure penetrated to her inmost soul and pervaded her whole being. She answered yes, and then remained silent, unable to add another word, but with her heart beating violently under the bodice of her merino gown.

She was now engaged. What tranquil happiness for her mother!

They were married at eight o’clock in the morning one foggy day. It was necessary to light candles in order to put on her wreath and veil. That day remained in her memory, vague and indistinct, like some half-forgotten dream, in which stood out in clearly-defined outlines the discolored and swollen face of the priest and the horrible visage of a wretched-looking old woman trembling with the palsy, who held out her hand with mingled greed and hatred, fastened herself on each of the guests in turn, and pouring forth a volley of coarse speeches, when Jorge, much moved, distributed at the door of the church some pieces of money among the beggars. Her satin slippers were too tight for her; she felt a void in her stomach, and they were obliged to make her a cup of very strong tea on her return home. And afterwards, what fatigue when she unpacked her trunks in the evening in her new home!

But Jorge was now her husband, and a husband young, affectionate, and always cheerful. She told herself, therefore, that she would adore him. She was possessed by an insatiable curiosity in regard to everything pertaining to him,—to his business, his weapons, his papers. She observed other husbands attentively, and she grew proud of her own. Jorge surrounded her with all the delicate attentions of a lover; but in all that related to his honor or to his profession he was exacting to a degree that bordered on excess. At times he would make use of expressions that caused her to turn pale; he was jealous in the extreme, and one of her friends once observed to her, “That man is capable of striking you.” She had but little doubt of it, and this increased her love for him. He was her all,—her strength, her fortune, her religion; her maw, in a word. She thought of what she would have been, married to her Cousin Bazilio. What misery! What would have been her fate? She grew bewildered in the contemplation of the hypothetic modes of existence that unfolded themselves before her mind like scenes in a drama. She pictured herself in Brazil, reclining under the shade of the cocoanut-trees, in a hammock, attended by little negroes, and watching idly the flight of the paroquets, and those large spiders and horrible cockroaches that so greatly terrified her when she chanced to see one near her.

“The Senhorita Leopoldina,” Juliana announced in a low voice, half opening the door.

Luiza sat up erect, startled. “What! Leopoldina!” she said. “Why have you admitted her?” She asked herself, while she was arranging the folds of her morning-gown, what Jorge would say if he knew of this visit. Heavens! he who had charged her so often not to receive this woman. But she was now in the parlor, and what was to be done?

“Very well,” she said aloud; “say I will be with her directly.”

Leopoldina was her most intimate friend. As children they had been neighbors in the street of the Magdalena, and school-girls together in the Patriarchal. Leopoldina was the daughter of the Viscount of Quebraes, who had been one of the pages of Don Miguel, and a man of bad reputation. She had contracted an unhappy marriage with a certain João Noronha, a clerk in the Custom House. It was known that she had lovers; it was whispered that she was an unfaithful wife. Jorge detested her. He had often said to Luiza, “Anything you like, but Leopoldina.”

Leopoldina was twenty-seven years old. She was not very tall, but she had the reputation of having the best figure of any woman in Lisbon. Her gowns were always becoming, and so close-fitting that they followed every line of her figure, encasing her form like a second skin. Her face was not pretty; it was, on the contrary, of a somewhat vulgar cast; the nostrils were too wide to be beautiful; and her complexion, of a rosy though not very clear brunette, retained almost imperceptible traces of the small-pox. But she possessed an incontestable attraction in her eyes, which were of an intense black, liquid, languishing, and shaded by long lashes. As she entered, Luiza ran towards her with open arms; they embraced each other warmly, and Leopoldina, as soon as she was seated, began a series of lamentations, folding and unfolding her light silk parasol. She had been indisposed, she said, ennuyée, and overwhelmed with annoyances; the heat was killing her. And Luiza, what had she been doing? Leopoldina thought her looking stouter. She observed Luiza attentively, wrinkling her brows as she did so, for she was somewhat near-sighted. Her lips, which were slightly parted, were of a beautiful red, though perhaps too full, and her teeth were small, white, and even.

“Happiness gives everything, even a good complexion,” she sighed, after her inspection was completed. She had come, she added, to learn the address of the French milliner who made Luiza’s bonnets. Besides, she was distressed at not having seen her friend for so long a time.

Luiza gave her the address of the milliner; her prices were moderate, she added, and she had taste. As the room was somewhat dark, she opened the blinds slightly. The covering of the furniture was of a dark green, with stripes; the paper and the carpet, of a foliage pattern, were of the same disagreeable color. On the dark background of the wall the gilded frames of two engravings, the “Medea” of Delacroix, and the “Martyr” of Delaroche, stood out in bold relief. There were also on the walls some illustrations of Dante by Doré. Between the windows was an oval mirror in which was reflected a porcelain Neapolitan dancing the tarantella.

Over the tête-à-tête was the portrait in oil of Jorge’s mother. She was represented sitting bolt upright in her black gown. One of her hands, of a deathlike pallor, rested under the weight of its rings on her knee; the other was lost to view amid the voluminous folds of lace, painted with much minuteness, that adorned her black satin mantilla. Her long and cadaverous countenance stood out in bold relief against the background of a crimson curtain, whose folds, drawn back with studied care, allowed a perspective of blue horizon, and trees with symmetrically rounded foliage, to be seen between them.

“And your husband, how is he?” said Luiza, seating herself beside Leopoldina.

“As little amusing as ever,” responded the other, laughing. Leaning towards Luiza, and slightly elevating her eyebrows, “Do you know that I have broken off with Mendonça?” she added, with a serious air.

“Yes?” asked Luiza, blushing faintly.

Leopoldina gave her all the details. She was by nature extremely indiscreet. From Luiza she had never had secrets. She consulted her alike in regard to her admirers, her opinions, her manner of life, her nervous attacks, and her gowns.

“So your cousin Bazilio is coming home again?” asked Leopoldina presently.

“So I have just read in the ‘Diario de Noticias,’” returned Luiza. “The news surprised me very much.”

“Ah, before I forget,” said Leopoldina, abruptly, “I should like to know how you have trimmed your blue check gown. I want to make one like it.”

“I have trimmed it with the same color, but of a darker shade. Come and look at it.”

They went into the bedroom. Luiza opened the window and then the wardrobe. The apartment was small and fresh-looking, and was furnished in pale-blue cretonne; a cheap carpet of a blue pattern on a white ground covered the floor. The high toilet-table stood between the windows under a canopy of coarse lace, and was furnished with, bottles of various sizes, and adorned with a cover embroidered by Luiza’s own hands. On stands in front of the windows were plants of luxuriant foliage, such as begonias and mahonias, whose leaves fell gracefully over the earthen flower-pots in which they were planted.

All these details, which breathed of peace and comfort, brought before Leopoldina’s mind images of tranquil joys. She looked around her, and said slowly:

“You are still very much in love with your husband, are you not? Ah, you are right,” she added, sighing; “you have cause to be so.”

She proceeded to powder her face and neck before the looking-glass. “Yes, you have cause to be so,” she repeated. “But show me the woman who could love a husband like mine.”

She threw herself on a tête-à-tête, and broke out into complaints against her husband. He was so coarse, so selfish, she said. “Would you believe that if I do not return at four he sits down to table without waiting for me, dines, and leaves me the remnants?”

She then enlarged on his other defects. He took care of nothing, he spat on the carpet, and so on, and so on. “His room—for you know we have separate rooms—is like a pigsty.”

“How dreadful!” exclaimed Luiza, gravely. “But for that you too are a little to blame.”

“I?” responded Leopoldina, with flashing eyes, starting to her feet in amazement. “Well, nothing but that was wanting,—that I should concern myself about my husband’s room!”

There was a pause. At last she repeated that she was the most unfortunate woman in the world. Then with a quick and expressive gesture of the hand,—

“The stupid fellow is not even jealous,” she said. Juliana here entered and said, coughing and lowering her eyes,—

“Does the senhora still wish me to iron the white waistcoats?”

“Yes, all of them; I have already told you so,” answered Luiza. “They must be in the valise before we go to bed to-night.”

“What valise? Who is going away?” asked Leopoldina.

“Jorge. He is going to the mines in Alemtejo.” “Then you will be alone. I can come and see you. Bravo!”

The clock struck four. Leopoldina, as if suddenly awakened from sleep, rose.

“I must go,” she said; “it is getting late, and if I am not there he will sit down to dinner without me. We have baked fish to-day, and there is nothing so detestable as cold fish. Good-by—for a little while, is it not so? While Jorge is away I will come to see you very often. Good-by. The French milliner’s address is Ouro Street, over the tobacconist’s, eh!”

Luiza accompanied her to the landing. She had almost reached the front door, when, raising her voice, she said,—

“You think it best to trim the dress with blue, do you not?”

“I have done so with mine,” answered Luiza, leaning over the banister; “it seems to me the most suitable.”

“Good-by,” repeated Leopoldina. “Ouro Street, over the tobacconist’s, you say?”

“Yes, Ouro Street. Good-by.”

And Luiza added in a louder voice,—

“The door to the right,—Madame François.”

Jorge returned at five, and putting his umbrella in a corner, said, from the threshold of Luiza’s room,—

“So you have had a visitor.”

Luiza colored faintly. She was at her toilet; her hair was already arranged, and she was attired in a gown of light fabric, trimmed with lace.

“Leopoldina was here,” she said; “Juliana admitted her, though she was evidently not very much pleased with the visit. She came to inquire the address of the French milliner, and she remained but a short time. Who told you of it?” she ended.

“Juliana. Leopoldina was here the whole afternoon.”

“The whole afternoon!” repeated Luiza. “What nonsense! She was here scarcely ten minutes at the utmost.”

Jorge took off his gloves without answering a word. He approached one of the windows and began to finger the leaves of a pale rose-colored begonia. He whistled softly, and seemed to be intently occupied in detaching a bud of the amaryllis, hidden among the brilliant foliage, and resembling in color the yellowish stalk of the plant itself.

Luiza was engaged in fastening around her neck a gold locket with a black velvet ribbon. Her hands trembled slightly, and her face was flushed.

“Has the heat given you a headache?” she asked her husband.

Jorge did not answer. He whistled louder than before, and went over to the other window. There he busied himself in fingering the flexible leaves of a mahonias, of variegated red and green. Then, suddenly putting his hand to his throat as if he felt himself suffocating,—

“Listen,” he said to Luiza. “You must give up the acquaintance of that creature. This must end at once and forever.”

Luiza turned scarlet.

“I neither can nor will bear it longer,” he continued. Then, prefixing the words with a short and somewhat violent expletive, he added, “And this for your own sake, for the sake of the neighbors, for the very commonest decency.”

“But—it was Juliana—” stammered Luiza, unable to add another word.

“Next time, put her outside the door,” returned Jorge, walking with long strides up and down the room. “Say you are not at home, that you have gone to China, that you are sick—”

Then he paused, and in a voice full of emotion,—

“Only consider, my dear child,” he said, “that every one is but too well acquainted with her reputation. The Quebraes! A byword! A shameless creature! As if the odor in the room were not enough for me to know that she has been here! That hateful odor of new-mown hay!” he continued. “You were school-fellows, it is true; but that will not prevent me from giving her a fright some day, if I should catch her here,—yes, a fright,” he repeated.

He was silent for a moment; then, turning to his wife with open arms, “Come, am I right, or not?” he said.

“Yes, you are right,” returned Luiza, confused and blushing, while she went on arranging her ornaments before the looking-glass.

“Very well, then,” he said, and left the room, furious.

Luiza remained standing before her glass, and a pearly tear rolled silently down her cheek.

“That tattling Juliana!” she cried; “and all for the pleasure of sowing discord!”

She was seized with a sudden fit of anger, and went into the laundry, slamming the door behind her as she entered.

“Who has given you orders to say whether any one comes to my house or not?” she said abruptly to Juliana.

“I did not think it was a secret,” responded the latter, laying down in surprise the iron she was using.

“Of course it is no secret, stupid! Why did you admit her? Have I not told you a thousand times that I do not wish to receive her?”

“The senhora has never told me so,” answered the woman, with a look of amazement, and beginning to grow angry in her turn.

“That is not the truth! Be silent!”

She turned her back on Juliana, and went to her own room with her nerves all unstrung. Presently she crossed over to the window, and leaning against it looked out.

The sun was just setting, darkness was gradually falling over the ill-paved street without, and not a breath of air was stirring. The houses of the neighborhood were old and shabby, with mean entrances; one could guess that they were inhabited by poorly-paid clerks. On their balconies, in pots, were some common plants,—sweet basil and carnations. In the upper stories, where the services of the laundress were but seldom called into requisition, clothes were hanging out to dry. The appealing notes of the “Virgin’s Prayer,” which some young girl of the neighborhood was playing on the piano with all the sentimental abandon peculiar to the day, fell upon her ears. Crowded together in the narrow balcony of the house opposite were the four daughters of Senhor Teixeira Azevedo, thin as tenterhooks, their hair in disorder, their faces unwashed, devoting the afternoon to the inspection of the neighboring windows, to making sport of the passers-by, and to watching, with the seriousness of idiots, their saliva fall in large drops on the pavement beneath.

“Jorge is right,” thought Luiza. But what more could she do, she asked herself. She never put her foot in Leopoldina’s house; she had taken her likeness out of the album in the parlor; and she had felt herself obliged to confess to her the fact of her husband’s antipathy towards her. What tears had they not shed together! Poor Leopoldina! she came to see her so seldom, and remained so short a time! But if he found her in the parlor would he really put her out of the house?

At this point in her reflections a man, short and stout, with bow legs, and bending over a Barbary organ, made his appearance at the entrance of the street; his black beard gave him a savage aspect. He stopped, and began to play, directing, as he did so, an uneasy glance up at the windows, and smiling sorrowfully. The aria of “Casta Diva,” accompanied with an incessant tremolo, filled the air with its harsh and metallic sound.

Some of the neighbors looked out from between the muslin curtains of their windows. Gertrudes, the servant of the professor of mathematics, showed in the narrow frame of her window her broad and swarthy face, on which were plainly discernible the traces of her forty springs. Farther on, leaning over the balcony of the second story, was seen the dark figure of Senhor Cunha Rosado, tall and thin, his cap on his head, his transparent hands clasping his dressing-gown over his stomach with an air indicative of pain.

The shopkeepers of the street came idly to their doors. The woman who kept the tobacco-shop stood at her threshold, dressed in mourning, and revealing in her whole appearance her state of widowhood, her arms folded over her dyed shawl, her figure squeezed into a jacket too small for her, that made her look still thinner than she was, an expression of languor and fatigue in her eyes. From the ground-floor of the house in which Senhor Azevedo lived, the coal-vender emerged,—a person of massive proportions, who affected a grotesque gravity, her hair in tangles, her face black and shining from the coal-dust with which she was covered from head to foot, accompanied by her three little boys, who looked like three little crying blacks, half-naked, and hanging on to her skirts. Senhor Paula, the furniture-dealer, in his cloth cap with its peak of patent leather, which he never removed from his head, advanced as far as the gutter. His soiled stockings hung down over the heels of his slippers, which were embroidered with glass beads. He suffered from a chronic hoarseness, and he had a disagreeable trick of making a clicking noise with his tongue. His long gray mustache drooped over the corners of his mouth. He hated kings and priests. The state of public affairs was a source of unceasing sorrow to him. He was always whistling the air of “Maria da Fonte;” and his every word and gesture revealed the discontented patriot.

The organ-grinder took off his hat, and without ceasing to play held it up to the balconies with the supplicating glance of one who asks an alms, leaving uncovered his forehead, to which the hair clung, wet with perspiration. The Senhoritas Azevedo quickly shut their window. The coal-vender gave him a copper coin, not, however, without first putting some questions to him; she wanted to know where he came from, what streets he had passed through, and how many airs his organ played.

A bell tolled in the distance, announcing the conclusion of some religious service, and the Sunday was approaching its close with a calm and melancholy tranquillity.

“Luiza!” said Jorge, entering the room suddenly.

She turned around, answering mechanically,—

“What is it?”

“Let us go to supper, child; it is seven o’clock,” he returned. And putting his arm around her waist, he continued, in a voice low and full of tenderness, as they stood together in the middle of the room, “You were angry with me a little while ago, were you not?”

“No,” responded Luiza, in humble accents; “you were right; I confess it.”

“Ah!” he said, in the tone of one who has conquered, and is proud of his victory. And rubbing his hands together, he declaimed gayly, “‘The husband whom the heart accepts is always the best counsellor and the truest friend.’ To supper!” he ended joyously.

CHAPTER II.
A PORTUGUESE “TEA.”

ON Sunday evenings a number of intimate friends—a sort of conversazione—gathered in Jorge’s parlor around the antique lamp of rose-colored porcelain. They drank tea and chatted together in a somewhat bourgeois fashion. Luiza crocheted; Jorge smoked his pipe.

The first to arrive on the present occasion was Julião Zuzarte, a distant relative of Jorge, who had been his school-fellow in the old days of the Polytechnic. He was a thin and nervous-looking man, with blue spectacles, and long hair falling over the collar of his coat. He had studied medicine at the School. He was very intelligent, and an indefatigable worker; but, as he himself said, he worked without any definite purpose. At thirty years of age, poor, in debt, without patients, he began to be discontented with his fourth floor in an unfashionable neighborhood, his two-shilling dinners, and his overcoat bound with braid. While he was restricted to this narrow way of living, he saw others of far less ability succeed in all they undertook and obtain the object of their ambition. He was in the habit of saying that he was unlucky. He might have had the position of titular doctor in one of the provinces, with his own house and garden; but his pride rebelled against this, and as he had confidence in his ability and his knowledge, he did not wish to bury them in an insignificant and gloomy village, with its three streets overrun by pigs. Everything that smacked of provincialism inspired him with horror. He beheld himself in imagination leading this obscure existence, playing manilha at evening parties, and dying of tedium; therefore he made no effort to change his way of living. He still hoped, with the audacity of the ambitious plebeian, for a large practice, a chair in the School of Medicine, a carriage in which to visit his patients, and a handsome wife with a good dowry. He believed firmly in his right to all these good things, and as they delayed in coming to him, his temper became soured. He hated this existence in which he had no pleasures. The periods of long and bitter meditation, during which he gnawed his nails in silence, grew every day more frequent; or if he opened his lips at all it was only to give harsh answers and utter unjust complaints in accents that had the steely sharpness of a sword.

Luiza could see nothing attractive in him; on the contrary, she thought him extremely tiresome. She detested his magisterial tone, the glitter of his blue spectacles, and the cut of his trousers, which he wore so short as to allow the worn elastics of his boots to be seen below them. But she concealed her antipathy, and always treated him with amiability because Jorge admired him, and thought him, as he said, a man of genius, a great man.

As Julião arrived early, he went to the dining-room to take his after-dinner cup of coffee with Jorge and Luiza. He glanced askance and with bitterness at the silver on the table and at the fresh toilet of Luiza. All these evidences of prosperity irritated him. Jorge was, in his opinion, a man of mediocre abilities, who did not deserve his good fortune; and the thought of this relative of his who lived comfortably, who was happily married, good-looking, well thought of in the Department, and who, in addition to all this, possessed some hundreds of dollars in bonds, imbittered his mind, like an injustice of fate, and weighed upon him like a humiliation. But he professed affection for him, and never failed to visit him on Sunday evenings. On these occasions he endeavored to hide his envy, chatting gayly, and passing his hand from time to time over his dry and disordered hair.

Towards nine o’clock Donna Felicidade de Noronha made her appearance. She entered the room with open arms and a smiling countenance. She was a lady of about fifty years of age, and was very stout. As she suffered from a flatulent dyspepsia, she was unable to lace herself, and her figure, as a consequence, was devoid of symmetry or shape. A few silver threads glittered here and there in her wavy hair; but her face, round and full, had all the soft and delicate fairness of a nun’s. The dark and humid pupils of her prominent and restless eyes shone beneath their wrinkled lids; her mobile nostrils were somewhat wide; the corners of her mouth were shaded by a slight down that resembled a circumflex accent lightly traced by a fine pen. She had been the intimate friend of Luiza’s mother, and she had kept up the habit of going to see the little one every Sunday. She was, according to her own account, of a noble family,—the Noronhas of Redondella. For the rest, she was highly esteemed in Lisbon. She was somewhat of a devotee, and was a constant attendant at the Chapel of the Encarnação. The moment she entered she gave Luiza a noisy kiss, and asked her in a low and anxious voice,—

“Is he coming?”

“The counsellor?” said Luiza. “Yes, he is coming.”

She spoke with knowledge, for he, the Counsellor Accacio, never came to take a cup of tea with Donna Luiza, as he called her, without going the evening before to the Department of Public Works to see Jorge, and say to him with a solemn inclination of his tall figure,—

“My dear Jorge, I shall go to-morrow to ask a cup of tea from your charming wife.” He almost always added, “Do our beautiful works progress?—Yes? I am delighted to hear it. If you should see the Minister, present my respects to him.” And he would then take his leave, threading with measured step the dirty passage-ways.

Five years ago Donna Felicidade had become enamoured of him. They bantered her occasionally, on account of this sentiment, at Jorge’s. Luiza thought it very amusing. They saw her fresh color, her rounded cheeks, and they did not suspect that this concentrated passion that burned in secrecy and silence in her bosom, fed anew from week to week, was destroying her bodily health like an illness, and demoralizing her nature like a vice. She had once been in love with an officer of the Lancers, whose likeness she still kept. Later, she conceived a sudden attachment for a young baker of the neighborhood, whom she had the pain of seeing marry before her very eyes. She then devoted herself entirely to a little dog, Bilró. A servant whom she had discharged revenged herself by giving the little animal black pudding to eat. Bilró had an attack of indigestion, of which he died; but he still reigned, stuffed with straw, in his mistress’s dining-room. Donna Felicidade, at fifty years, was still unmarried. One day the counsellor made his appearance, and kindled anew her dormant affections. Senhor Accacio became her craze; she admired his countenance, the gravity of his manner; she opened her eyes wide with admiration at his eloquence; nor was she blind to the fact that he would be a good parti. The counsellor came to be the object of her hopes, her desires, her ambition. The indifference of the counsellor irritated her,—not a glance, not a sigh, not the least indication that her love was requited. He was for her solemn, glacial, courteous; but at the least demonstration of her affection for him he would rise and withdraw with severe and modest demeanor. One day she fancied that the counsellor cast an admiring glance from behind his dark spectacles at the superabundance of her charms. Suddenly she felt herself endowed with a greater facility of expression; she felt her voice capable of more tender accents, and she said to him softly,—

“Accacio!”

But he extinguished her ardor by a gesture, and then said gravely,—

“Senhora, the snows that have accumulated upon the head end at last by settling on the heart. It is useless, Senhora.”

The martyrdom of Donna Felicidade, then, was a secret one. That her affection was unrequited was known, but not so the pangs she suffered.

They were speaking of Alemtejo, of Evora, and its sources of wealth, of the chapel of relics, when the counsellor entered, carrying on his arm his overcoat, which he placed on a chair in a corner of the room, first carefully folding it. Then with measured and dignified step he approached Luiza and pressed her hands in his.

“I see you are in the enjoyment of your usual perfect health, Senhora,” he said, in sonorous accents. “Jorge told me yesterday. That is well, very well!”

The counsellor was tall and thin; he was dressed in black, his neck imprisoned in a high stiff collar. The lower part of his face was narrow; his head, which was bald and polished, was slightly flattened on the crown. He dyed the little hair he still possessed, which formed a fringe above his neck, and this hand, black and shining, heightened by contrast the lustrousness of the bald cranium above. But he left in its natural color his gray mustache, which drooped over the corners of his mouth. His beard was full, his complexion pale. He always wore dark-colored spectacles. His enormous ears projected from either side of his head like the fans of a windmill. He had been Director-in-Chief of the Department of Home Government, and whenever he spoke of the king he mechanically took off his hat and bent his head. His every gesture, even to the taking of snuff, was measured. He made use of none but the choicest words, and uttered the simplest phrases with a certain air of dignity. In speaking of public persons he had a habit of saying “Our Garrett,” or “Our Herculano,” as the case might be. He had been something of an author, too, and was never without some apt quotation at his command. He had no family, and lived on a third floor in Ferregial Street, with a housekeeper who was at the same time a companion; and he devoted his time to the study of political economy. He had written a work on “The Reproductive Principles of the Science of Wealth and its Distribution, according to the best Authorities,” with the supplementary title, “Reading for Wakeful Hours.” It was only a few months since he had published the “History of all the Ministers of State, from the illustrious Marquis of Pombal to those of our own Times, with the Dates of their Deaths and Births carefully verified.”

“Were you ever in Alemtejo, Counsellor?” Luiza asked him.

“Never, Senhora,” he answered, bowing, “never. And, believe me, to my great regret; for I have been told that there are curiosities there of the first order.”

He delicately took between his thumb and finger a small pinch of the golden snuff he was in the habit of using, and added, with a majestic air, “It possesses, besides, a great source of wealth in its hogs.”

“Jorge,” said Julião, from the corner where he sat, “find out how much the titular doctor of Evora makes a year.”

The counsellor, always well informed, approached Julião, still holding his pinch of snuff between his thumb and finger. “He must make six hundred thousand reis,[1] Senhor Zuzarte,” he said; “I have it so stated in my notes. But why this question?” he added, straightening himself. “Do you desire to abandon Lisbon?”

Every one present joined in expressing disapproval of such an intention.

“Ah, Lisbon is always Lisbon,” sighed Donna Felicidade.

“A city of marble and of granite, as our immortal historian has said,” added the counsellor with emphasis.

He inhaled his pinch of snuff, spreading out his fingers in the form of a fan. His hand, thin and pale, but well cared for, was adorned with a seal ring.

“The counsellor would no more abandon Lisbon than would the hand of God the Father,” said Donna Felicidade, blushing as she spoke.

“I was born in Lisbon, Senhora, and I am a son of Lisbon to the bottom of my soul,” answered the counsellor, turning slowly towards her, and bowing, with eyes bent on the floor.

“I remember,” said Jorge, “that you were born in the street of S. José.”

“No. 75, my friend, in the house next to that in which my poor Geraldo lived up to the time of his marriage.”

This “poor Geraldo” was Jorge’s father, and Accacio had been his most intimate friend. They were neighbors, and as Geraldo performed on the flute and Accacio on the violin, they played duets together; both were members of the Philharmonic Society of the street of S. José. Afterwards, when Accacio became a member of the Cabinet, he abandoned the violin, as well from conscientious scruples as through considerations regarding his dignity, and with it all the joyful and tender emotions of the evenings at the Philharmonic. He dedicated himself to statistics, but he always remained faithful to Geraldo, and continued to extend to Jorge the same vigilant friendship. He had been Jorge’s witness on the occasion of his marriage; he went to see him every Sunday; and he never failed to send him, on his saint’s day, his card, and a confection of almond paste in the form of an eel.

“Here I was born,” he repeated, unfolding his India silk handkerchief, “and here I intend to die;” and he blew his nose discreetly.

“It is not yet time to think of that,” said every one.

“The thought of death does not terrify me, my dear Jorge,” he responded in a melancholy accent. “I have even caused my last resting-place, modest but convenient, to be constructed in the Cemetery of the Heights of São João. It is situated on the right of the entrance, in a sheltered situation, beside the tomb, constructed in the form of a mausoleum, of some good friends of mine.”

“Has the Senhor Counsellor already composed his epitaph?” asked Zuzarte, in his incisive and ironical accents.

“No, Senhor Zuzarte, no; I desire no eulogies written on my tomb. If my friends or my fellow-citizens consider that I have done anything worthy of remembrance, they have other means of recording it; such as the press, a necrological article, poetry itself. For my own part, the utmost I desire on the marble that covers me is my name in black letters, with my title of counsellor, the date of my birth and that of my death. I do not object, however,” he added, after a moment of reflection, “to having engraved underneath, in small letters, the words, ‘Pray for him.’”

There was a moment’s silence, interrupted by the opening of the door.

“May I come in?” said a thin treble voice.

“Ah,” said Jorge, “it is Ernesto.”

Ernesto advanced with hasty steps towards Jorge, and threw his arms around his neck. “I have heard that you are going away, Cousin,” he said. “How do you do, Cousin Luiza?”

The new-comer was a cousin of Jorge, thin and fragile in appearance. He looked more like a school-boy than a man. His scanty mustache, anointed with pomade, curled up at the ends in points like needles, and in his hollow countenance his eyes glittered with an unhealthy brightness. He wore patent-leather shoes, with broad laces. A watch-chain, which supported an enormous locket, with a complicated pattern of flowers and fruits enamelled in relief upon it, hung from his waistcoat. He wrote for the theatre. He had in his portfolio several plays he had translated,—two original ones, in one act each, and a farce. He had just written for the “Variety” a spectacular drama in five acts, called “Love and Honor.” This was the only one of his pieces which had been accepted. Since then he was always seen apparently overwhelmed with business, his pockets filled with manuscripts, surrounded by actors, and paying without a murmur for unlimited cups of coffee and glasses of cognac, an expression of fatigue upon his pallid countenance, his hat pushed back from his forehead, and repeating to every one he met, “This life is killing me.” It is to be observed that he had been led into literature solely by his love for it, as he was employed in the Custom House at a good salary, and possessed, besides, a rent-roll of five hundred thousand reis.[2] He confessed that this passion for art had cost him a good deal of money; he had caused to be made at his own expense the patent leather boots used by the lover, as well as those used by the noble father, in his drama, “Love and Honor.”

He was at once surrounded; and Luiza, laying down her work, remarked to him that he was pale, and looked depressed. He began thereupon to complain of his troubles,—the rehearsals gave him nausea, he had constant disputes with the director. Yesterday he had had to alter, from beginning to end, the finale of an act; yes, he repeated, from beginning to end. “And all,” he added with irritation, “because that stupid fellow wants the scene laid in a salon, when I have placed it on the edge of a precipice.”

“Of a what!” exclaimed Donna Felicidade, in astonishment.

“Of a precipice, Donna Felicidade,” said the counsellor, with his customary suave urbanity. “It might also be called with propriety an abyss.” And he quoted,—

“And straight he plunges into the abyss.”

“But why on the edge of a precipice?” inquired the guests.

The counsellor asked for the argument of the piece.

Ernesto, delighted, sketched in broad strokes the plot of his work.

“The heroine,” he said, “is a married woman, who meets in Cintra a man who is destined to prove fatal to her peace,—the Count of Monte Redondo. Her husband has lost at play a hundred contos de reis,[3] which he is unable to pay. His name is dishonored, and he himself in danger of being thrown into prison. The heroine, rendered desperate, hurries to the ruined castle inhabited by the count, and there reveals to him the misfortune that has befallen her husband. The count wraps himself in his cloak and departs; at the moment in which the police are about to lay hands upon the husband, he arrives upon the scene. Then follows an affecting scene by moonlight. The count discovers himself, and throws a purse, full of gold, at the feet of the officers, exclaiming, ‘Satiate yourselves, vultures!’”

“A fine situation!” said the counsellor.

“Towards the end,” continued Ernesto, “the plot thickens. The Count of Monte Redondo and the heroine fall in love with each other; the husband discovers it, throws at the feet of the count the gold he had received from him, and kills his wife.”

“How?” they all ask.

“He throws her over a precipice, at the end of the fifth act. The count sees him, rushes to her assistance, and falls over with her. The husband folds his arms, and gives way to a burst of demoniac laughter. That is how I have arranged it.”

He paused, breathless, and glanced around him with eyes languid and colorless as those of a fish.

“It is a well-planned work, in which the grand passions elbow each other,” said the counsellor, stroking his bald cranium with his hand. “I offer my congratulations to Senhor Ledesma.”

“But what the deuce does that director want?” said Julião, who had been listening to the conversation, silent and attentive. “Does he perchance wish to place a precipice on a first floor furnished by Garde?”

Ernesto turned towards him. “No, Senhor Zuzarte,” he said, in mellifluous accents; “he wishes the catastrophe to take place in a salon. So that,” he added with resignation, “I have been obliged to rewrite the whole of the fifth act. In order to be obliging, I had to spend the night in vigil, and to drink three cups of coffee.”

“Take care, Senhor Ledesma!” said the counsellor, stretching out his hand with a warning gesture. “Take care! one should be prudent in the use of stimulants.”

“They don’t hurt me, Senhor Counsellor,” responded Ernesto, smiling. “I altered the dénouement,” he continued, “in three hours; and I have just read it over to the director. I have it with me.”

“Read it to us, Senhor Ernesto,” said Donna Felicidade; “read it to us.”

“Yes, read it,” repeated every one.

“It is only the first sketch; I am afraid of boring you,” said Ernesto, who could not conceal his delight. “But, since you desire it—”

And, in the midst of profound silence, he unfolded a roll of blue-ruled paper. “I must claim your indulgence before beginning,” he said, looking around him, “in view of the fact that this is only a sketch. I have not crossed the t’s nor dotted the i’s yet.” And he began to read in a theatrical manner:—

“Agatha—that is the name of the wife, and we are now in the scene in which the husband has discovered everything,—”

“AGATHA (falling on her knees at the feet of Julio). Kill me! kill me! for pity’s sake. Rather death than to feel my heart slowly breaking under the weight of your contempt!”

“JULIO. Have you not torn my heart out of my bosom? Have you had compassion upon me? My God! I who in happier days believed her stainless!”

One of the portières of the parlor was here seen to move slightly; the noise of cups gently striking against one another was heard, and Juliana, in a white apron, entered, bringing in the tea.

“How annoying!” exclaimed Luiza. “After tea we will continue, eh?”

“It is not worth while, Cousin,” said Ernesto, folding up the paper and casting a furious glance at Juliana.

“What do you mean? Why, it is charming!” said Donna Felicidade.

Juliana placed on the table the plate of biscuits, the oeiras cakes, and the cocoanut bonbons.

“Senhor Counsellor,” said Luiza, “here is your tea,—a little weak, as you like it. Julião, help yourself. Hand the biscuits to Julião,” she said to Juliana.

And with her sleeve slightly turned up, her white arm exposed to view, she inquired, taking the sugar-spoon in her hand, “Who wants more sugar? Senhor Counsellor, a biscuit?”

“A thousand thanks, dear Senhora,” he responded, bowing. “I have already helped myself.” And turning to Ernesto, he declared that he found the style of his work admirable.

“But what more does the director want, now that he has his salon?” they demanded on all sides.

Ernesto, standing up, a bonbon between his fingers, said with animation,—

“He wants the husband to pardon his wife.”

There was a movement of astonishment.

“What an idea!” “What nonsense!” “But why?” “What a curious notion!” resounded on all sides.

“What would you have?” said Ernesto, shrugging his shoulders with a melancholy air. “He says the public do not like that kind of dénouement; that it does not suit the people of Lisbon.”

“In truth, Senhor Ledesma,” said the counsellor, “our public is not accustomed to these scenes of bloodshed.”

“That is true,” assented Donna Felicidade.

“But, Senhor Counsellor,” responded Ernesto, balancing himself on the points of his toes, “in my play there is no blood shed, not a drop; a push of the shoulder, merely.”

Luiza, here calling the attention of Donna Felicidade, said to her aside, with a smile,—

“Try these egg bonbons; they are fresh.”

“Impossible, child, impossible,” she responded, in plaintive accents, placing her hand at the same time upon her stomach.

Meantime the counsellor, his hands on Ernesto’s shoulders, was recommending clemency to the latter, saying in persuasive accents,—

“That gives more gayety to the piece, Senhor Ledesma. The spectator leaves the theatre in a more agreeable frame of mind.”

“A tart, Senhor Counsellor?” interrupted Luiza.

“I have finished, dear lady. Come, Jorge, are you not of my opinion?”

“I, Senhor Counsellor?” responded Jorge, putting his hands in his pockets. “By no means. I am for her death,—most decidedly!”

“Ah, then—”

“I am for her death,” repeated Jorge, with animation; “and I demand that you kill her,” he added, turning to Ernesto.

“Let him talk, Senhor Ledesma,” interposed Donna Felicidade, quickly; “he is jesting,—he, who has the disposition of an angel!” she added, appealing with a smile to the others.

“You deceive yourself, Donna Felicidade,” said Jorge, standing before her. “I speak in all seriousness. I am a very tiger!”

Every one laughed.

“If she has deceived her husband,” he continued in severe accents, “I am of the opinion that she should be put to death. Could I consent, in a case like this, that a member of my family, a cousin of mine, one of my own blood, should allow himself to be carried away by pity, like a fool? No!” And turning to Ernesto, “Kill her! It is a tradition of the family. Kill her at once!”

“Here is a pencil,” said Julião, offering one to Ernesto.

“No,” said the counsellor, gravely, “I cannot believe that our Jorge speaks seriously. He is too intelligent to hold opinions so—so—” He could not find the adjective he wished. Julião handed him a toothpick-holder—a monkey sheltering himself under an umbrella—bristling with toothpicks. He took one, and continued, “So—so—barbarous.”

“But you deceive yourself, Senhor Counsellor,” protested Jorge. “Those are my real sentiments; in the full understanding that if the question, instead of being of a play, were one of real life, and Ernesto were to come to me and say, ‘I have found my wife—’”

“Oh, Jorge!” interrupted those nearest him, in accents of reproach.

“Well, if he were to come and say this to me, I should answer in the same way. I give you my word of honor,” he added, with an energetic gesture, “that I should say to him, ‘Kill her!’”

Every one protested against this. They called him a tiger, an Othello, a Bluebeard. Jorge said nothing; he only smiled tranquilly.

Luiza worked on at her embroidery in silence. The light of the lamp, softened by the shade, gave her hair a pale-yellow tint, and glanced off her skin, white as polished marble.

“And you,” Donna Felicidade asked her,—“what do you think of all this?”

Luiza raised her beautiful countenance, smiled, and shrugged her shoulders.

“The Senhora Donna Luiza,” said the counsellor, “will say proudly what all true matrons would say: ‘The impurities of the world do not touch even the hem of my garment.’”

“Good-evening to every one,” said a deep bass voice in the doorway.

“Sebastião!” they all cried, looking towards the door; “Senhor Sebastião! the great Sebastião!”

Sebastião had been the bosom friend, the comrade, the inseparable companion of Jorge, ever since the time when they studied Latin together in the class of Brother Liborio the Paulist. He was a man of colossal proportions, and was dressed entirely in black. He carried in his hand a soft broad-brimmed hat. His temples began to show signs of baldness; his chestnut hair was fine and silky, and he wore a short blond beard. He sat down by Luiza, and in answer to the question where he came from, responded that he had just come from Price’s Circus; that he had laughed a great deal at the clown; and that they had given the pantomime of the “Cask.”

His countenance, seen in the full light, was round, plump, and rosy; his eyes, somewhat small, and of a light blue, had a very sweet expression, especially when he laughed; his lips were red and fresh-colored; his teeth, white and brilliant, gave indication of a tranquil life cheered by chaste affections. Speaking of Price’s Circus brought to his mind, he said, the old-time pantomimes of Salitre, and the traditional bladders that burst with a loud noise when the clown let himself fall upon them. His manner of speaking was slow, and somewhat timid, either as if he feared to put forward an opinion of his own, or did not wish to fatigue himself. Tea was handed to him, and with eyes still smiling he stirred the sugar gently in the cup with his spoon.

“Yes, the pantomime of the ‘Cask’ is really very pretty and amusing,” he said. “So you are going away to-morrow, Jorge?” he added, after a moment’s silence.

“Without fail.”

“Have you no desire to accompany him?” he asked Luiza.

Certainly she would like to do so, she said, but the roads were so bad. Besides, she could not leave the house alone, in the care of servants.

“True, true,” answered Sebastião, looking down, and stroking his beard.

“Sebastião,” said Jorge, “do me the favor to come here a moment.”

He entered the study, followed by Sebastião, with his heavy step, his broad shoulders somewhat stooped, and the skirts of his coat flapping against his legs,—a coat that seemed to have been cut out of the cloak of a priest.

“So you are going away at seven in the morning,” said Sebastião, when they were alone.

“There is no help for it.”

The study where they now were was a small apartment, furnished with a tall bookcase with glass doors, on the top of which was a Bacchante covered with dust. The table, on which was an antique inkstand, a legacy from Jorge’s grandfather, was placed near the window; a collection of the “Diario do Governo” was piled on the floor in a corner; above the morocco-covered easy-chair hung a drawing in crayon, a likeness of Jorge, and on the wall, over the picture, were two swords placed crosswise. At the further end of the apartment, a door, concealed by a portière of crimson reps, gave exit to the stairs.

“Who do you suppose was here this morning?” said Jorge, refilling his pipe. “That shameless creature, Leopoldina! What do you think of that, eh?”

“But—was she admitted?” asked Sebastião, in a low voice, drawing the portière.

“She was admitted, she sat down, and she stayed,” said Jorge; “she did whatever it pleased her to do. Leopoldina!” he added, in a tone of exasperation,—“the Quebraes!”

He lighted his pipe, throwing away the match with an angry gesture.

“When I think,” he continued, “that that impudent creature comes to my house,—a creature who has more lovers than she has dresses, who goes alone with them on excursions to Dá-Funde, and who danced last winter in a domino at a public masquerade with an opera-singer! The wife of a nobody who has passed through the insolvent court. And she comes here,” he continued, extending his arms, “she seats herself in my chair, she embraces my wife, she breathes the air which belongs to me. On my word of honor,”—raising his clenched fist, as if to put his threat into execution,—“if I catch her here, I will leave the mark of a whip upon her!”

“The worst of the matter is—the neighbors,” said Sebastião, slowly.

“There is no disguising the matter,” continued Jorge, with irritation. “The people of the street, the shopkeepers, all know who she is,—the Quebraes! Every one knows the Quebraes!”

“The neighborhood is a bad one,” Sebastião ventured to remark.

“It makes me tremble to think of it; but what is to be done?” said Jorge. “I am accustomed to the house, and it is my own; I have arranged it according to my taste; it is an economy to live here. If it were not for all this, I should not remain here a day longer.”

“The neighborhood is in truth a detestable one,” repeated Sebastião.

“Luiza, poor girl,” continued Jorge, “is an angel; but she is like a child, she knows nothing of the world, and owing to her amiable disposition she allows herself to be imposed upon. This is what happens in Leopoldina’s case. They were school-fellows, and continued to be friends, and now Luiza has not the courage to break with her. It is all the result of her timidity of character, of her amiability; I can understand it very well. But society has its exactions. Therefore, Sebastião,” he added, after a pause, “if you should have cause to suspect, during my absence, that Leopoldina comes here, give some good advice to my wife. She does not think; she allows herself to be influenced without stopping to consider. It would be well, therefore, that some one should speak a word of warning to her occasionally, so that she may not transgress the bounds of propriety without knowing it. This is what I wanted to ask of you, Sebastião,—come to accompany her occasionally, to play the piano with her; and if you should chance to see Leopoldina sailing in these waters, say to Luiza, ‘Be careful, Senhora; it is better to avoid an annoyance.’ If she feels she has some one else to support her she will be firm; otherwise, through her weakness of character she will tolerate Leopoldina’s visits. I am sure these things make her suffer; but she has not the courage to say to that creature, ‘I do not wish to see you; go!’ Can you understand this? She has courage for nothing; her hands tremble on the least occasion, and a lump rises in her throat; she is a woman, a true woman. Do not forget my recommendation, Sebastião.”

“You may go away with a tranquil mind. Don’t forget anything.”

They could hear the sound of the piano from the parlor, and the pure fresh voice of Luiza singing a mandolinata:—

“Amici la notte è bella,

La luna va spautari.”

“Come to accompany her once in a while,” repeated Jorge; “she will be so lonely, poor child!”

He took a few turns up and down the room, smoking, and then, with bent head, said, laying his hand on Sebastião’s shoulder,—

“In every well-ordered household, Sebastião, there ought to be a child or two.”

Sebastião stroked his beard in silence, while Luiza’s voice, gradually rising, sang,—

“Di ça, di la, per la cità

An diamo a trasnottari.”

This was Jorge’s secret trouble,—he had no children. He desired them ardently. As a bachelor, long before his marriage, he had already dreamed of this happiness,—to have a child. He saw this child, in fancy, balancing himself on his little rosy, dimpled legs, his hair, soft as silk, clustering in curls around his face; or as a robust boy, returning gayly with his books from school, his eyes sparkling as he showed him his good marks; or, better still, as a grown-up girl, with rosy cheeks, dressed in white, her hair hanging in braids over her shoulders, caressing his locks, now grown gray. He thought of the love which he would lavish on this son or daughter, and dreamed of stories he would tell them. And all in vain! He had now been married three years, and he often feared that he would die without tasting of this supreme happiness.

They could hear from the parlor bursts of laughter mingled with the shrill accents of Ernesto, and the notes of the mandolinata which Luiza was repeating, with gay brio, at the piano.

The door of the study opened, and the dark spectacles of Julião appeared in the doorway.

“Good-by,” he said. “It is late, and I must go.” He passed his arm around Jorge’s shoulder, and patting him on the back, added, “Good-by, till we see you again, old fellow. I should like to go with you to breathe the fresh air,—to see the country; but alas!”

And he smiled bitterly.

Jorge accompanied him as far as the head of the stairs; there he embraced him once more, and asked him if he could do anything for him.

“Give me another cigar,” answered Julião, putting on his hat; “or stay—give me two, rather.”

“Take the box; when I travel alone, I smoke a pipe. Take it.”

He wrapped the box in a “Diario de Noticias,” and gave it to Julião, who put it under his arm.

“Take care not to catch the fever, and be sure you discover a gold mine before you come back,” he said in a low voice as he went downstairs. “Good-night!”

Jorge and Sebastião re-entered the parlor together. Ernesto was leaning against the piano, twisting the ends of his mustache, and Luiza was playing the prelude to a waltz of Strauss,—“The Blue Danube.”

“Do you want to waltz, Donna Felicidade?” said Jorge to that lady, laughing, as he approached her with extended arms.

She smilingly shook her head. Yet why should she not waltz? She was not an old woman, and she had the reputation of having been a good dancer. She still remembered the waltz she had danced with the king, Dom Fernando, in the time of the Regency, in the palace of the Necessidades; it was a lovely waltz of that epoch called the “Pearl of Ophir.” Seated on the sofa, the counsellor at her side, she was conversing with him in a voice low and full of emotion on a subject that apparently interested her deeply.

“Yes, believe me,” she said, “I think you are looking very well indeed.”

“My health is always better in summer,” responded the counsellor, who was slowly folding and unfolding his handkerchief of India silk. “And you, Donna Felicidade, how are you?”

“Ah, I too am very much better, Counsellor. My digestion is excellent; no more flatulency. I am a different person.”

“God grant it may continue, Senhora; God grant it may continue,” said the counsellor, rubbing his hands together.

Then he coughed, and made an effort to rise; but Donna Felicidade detained him, saying,—

“I hope the interest you manifest in me is a genuine one.”

Her face turned crimson, and the beatings of her heart might be counted in the rising and falling of her ample silk bodice.

“You know well that I am your sincere friend, Donna Felicidade,” replied the counsellor, seating himself again on the sofa, and resting his hands upon his knees.

“As I am yours, Counsellor,” said Donna Felicidade, raising her eyes to his and fixing a glance upon him that betrayed the depths of her secret passion. Then, breathing a profound sigh, she hid her face behind her fan.

The counsellor rose abruptly, and with crimson countenance, erect head, and hands clasped behind his back, went over to the piano where Luiza was seated; bending towards her, he said,—

“Is that a Tyrolese air you are playing?”

“No,” murmured Ernesto, “it is a waltz of Strauss.”

“Ah, Strauss,” he said; “a famous musician, a great composer!”

Then, looking at his watch, he said it was time for him to go and put his notes in order; and approaching Jorge,—

“Good-by, my dear Jorge, good-by,” he said. “Take care of your health in Alemtejo; the climate is an insalubrious one.” And he embraced him with emotion.

Donna Felicidade put on her black serge shawl.

“Are you going already, Donna Felicidade?” said Luiza to her.

“Yes, my dear,” she whispered in her ear; “I do not feel well. I have an attack of indigestion; I have eaten too much. And that man,—he is an iceberg!”

“Ernesto,” she said aloud, “you are going my way, are you not?”

“Straight as an arrow, Senhora.”

Ernesto had put on his gray alpaca overcoat. With cheeks drawn in he was inhaling the smoke from an enormous pipe on which was carved a Venus reclining on the back of a tame lion.

“Good-by, Cousin Jorge,” he said; “I wish you good health and plenty of money. I will send Cousin Luiza a box for the first night of ‘Love and Honor.’ Good-by.”

Just as they were leaving, the counsellor, already at the threshold of the door, turned back, and resting his hand majestically on the silver knob of his cane, which represented a Moor’s head, said gravely,—

“I had forgotten to say something to you, Jorge. You must not neglect to pay a visit to the civil authorities, either in Evora or in Beja; it is an attention you owe them, as the highest functionaries of the province, and they may be of great service to you in your scientific excursions. Al rivedere, as the Italians say,” he ended, bowing to the ground.

Sebastião remained behind. Luiza opened the windows to dispel the odor of the tobacco-smoke. The night was cool and serene. The moon cast a pallid light on the fronts of the houses opposite. Sebastião seated himself at the piano, and with bent head allowed his fingers to run over the keys. He played admirably, and with a great deal of musical skill. He had composed a Revery, two waltzes, and a ballad; but they were all the products of much research, full of reminiscences, and without the least originality of style. Thus it was that he himself often said, with much good-humor, that he had never written anything original. But with his hands on the piano it was a different matter.

He began to play a nocturne of Chopin. Jorge sat down on the sofa beside Luiza.

“Will you not take a lunch-basket with you for the journey?” she asked.

“No; a few biscuits will be enough. What I will take, however, is a little bottle of Cognac.”

“Will you send me a telegram as soon as you arrive?”

“Of course.”

“You will be back in a couple of weeks, will you not?”

“Perhaps.”

“Ah,” she said, with a gesture of annoyance, “if you stay away longer, I shall go in search of you. How lonely I shall be!” she continued, glancing around. Suddenly she exclaimed,—

“Sebastião, will you play a malaguenha?”

Sebastião began the prelude to a malaguenha. The sweet and languid melody of this Arabian music enchanted her, giving birth in her soul to romantic dreams of an ideal life under an Andalusian sky. Where? In Malaga or Granada, which, she did not know. All she knew was that those dreams were of a warm and perfumed night in which she sat under the orange-trees, a night illumined by brilliant stars, a lamp shining from among the branches of a tree near by, while a cantador, seated on a Moorish bench, softly hummed a malaguenha to the accompaniment of a guitar, and around her women dressed in red velveteen bodices kept time to the music, clapping their hands together. In that illusion of the senses she fancied she beheld an Andalusian girl, such as one reads of in novels and romances, tender and voluptuous; cavaliers, whose long cloaks, falling in picturesque folds around them, brushed against the walls of dark and narrow streets, faintly illuminated by the tremulous light that burned in the niche of some saint; watchmen, invoking, as they sang out the hours, the name of the Holy Virgin.

“Bravo, Sebastião,” she exclaimed, when he had finished; “bravo! That is ravishing!” And she clapped her hands, demanding a repetition of the piece.

Sebastião rose, smiling, carefully closed the piano, and taking his broad-brimmed hat, stood turning it around between his hands.

“Well, good-night,” he said. “To-morrow, at seven in the morning, I will be here.”

It had been agreed upon that he was to come and waken Jorge, and accompany him in the steamer as far as Barreiro. The good Sebastião! Jorge and Luiza went out into the balcony to see him off. The silence of the night diffused around a gentle melancholy. The gas-lights below had a moribund aspect; the shadow that fell across the street in a straight and abrupt line had in it a tone of softness. The moon covered the white fronts of the houses with a silvery veil, and the paving-stones of the street with a brilliant enamel. The glass panes of a skylight shone in the distance like a sheet of silver; everything was motionless, and instinctively the gaze turned heavenward, toward the silver moon, the dark spots on which stood out in bold relief.

“What a beautiful night!” they both exclaimed at once.

“It makes one long to take a walk, does it not?” said Sebastião from the shadow in the street below.

“The night is enchanting,” responded Jorge and Luiza.

They remained on the balcony, after Sebastião had gone, conversing together in low tones, and gazing absently before them, entranced by the brightness and tranquillity around.

Where would Jorge be to-morrow at this hour? Already in Evora, pacing, sad and lonely, up and down the brick floor of a room in some inn.

“But you will come back as soon as possible?” asked Luiza.

“Assuredly.”

Jorge had hopes of doing a profitable stroke of business with Paco the Spaniard, who worked the mines of Portel, and of bringing back with him to Lisbon some thousands of reis. He could then take a vacation in September. He might take a trip to the North, to Porto, pass by Bussaco, ascend the mountains, drink the water of the fountains springing fresh from the rock under the cool shade of the trees; visit the beach of Espinho, and sit upon the sands, breathing in the pure atmosphere impregnated with ozone, contemplating the sea, of that metallic and brilliant blue peculiar to the ocean in summer, and seeing in the distance, in diminished size, some great steamer sailing southward. And thus they both continued to form plans, enveloped in an atmosphere of supreme content.

“If there were a little one in the house,” said Jorge at last to Luiza, “you would not be so lonely.”

Luiza responded by a sigh. She, too, ardently desired to have a child. She would have named him Carlos Eduardo; she pictured him to herself, now asleep in his cradle, now lying on her lap, his little hand playing with his bare toes, now nursing with his rosy mouth at her breast. A thrill of pleasure passed through her frame at the thought, and she stole her arm around Jorge’s waist. Why should not Heaven grant her this happiness? But she never pictured this child to herself as already grown up, and Jorge as an old man; she saw them both always of the same age: the one always enamoured, young, and vigorous; the other always hanging at her breast, or creeping about, prattling, with fair hair and rosy cheeks. And this existence, full of unalterable sweetness, guarded by an undying tenderness, tranquil and serene as the night around them, she pictured to herself as eternal.

“At what hour does the senhora wish me to call her?” said the harsh voice of Juliana, behind them.

“At seven,” responded Luiza, turning around; “I have told you so already.”

She went in and closed the window. A white butterfly was circling around the room in the light of the tapers. It was a happy omen.

“So you are going to remain without your husband,” said Jorge sadly, holding out his arms.

Luiza threw herself on his breast with all the sorrowful abandon of the hour; she fixed her gaze tenderly on him through her half-closed lids, her arms encircled his neck with languid grace, and pressing her lips to his,—

“Jorge, dearest Jorge!” she murmured, while her bosom heaved with a gentle sigh.

CHAPTER III.
COUSIN BAZILIO.

TWELVE days had passed since Jorge’s departure; and Luiza, notwithstanding the heat and the dust, resolved to dress herself and pay a visit to Leopoldina, although she was well aware that Jorge would be displeased if he should come to know that she had done so. But she was so weary of her solitude! The time hung so heavy on her hands! In the morning, indeed, she had her household cares, her work, her toilet to occupy her,—books to read. But in the evening! At the hour in which Jorge was accustomed to return from the office, it seemed to her as if solitude hemmed her in on all sides. His loud ring at the bell, his step in the hall,—she missed them both. When night closed in she became sad without knowing why, and yielded herself, an unresisting prey, to the vague melancholy that oppressed her. When she seated herself at the piano, sorrowful airs seemed to flow from it at her touch,—cavatinas full of tears, with which the keys seemed of their own accord to moan. A thousand foolish fancies would then occur to her mind. And later in the night, unable to close her eyes, and suffocating with the heat, she was equally a prey to the terrors and agitations of her widowed state.

Unaccustomed to solitude, she rebelled against it. She thought for a moment of inviting her aunt Patrocinio, an aged relative who lived in Belem, to stay with her; she would thus at least have some companionship in her loneliness. But she dreaded, on the other hand, to have always before her the sorrowful and depressed countenance of the widow, as she sat at her knitting, her large spectacles, framed in tortoiseshell, resting on her aquiline nose.

This morning the image of Leopoldina had suddenly presented itself to her mind, and it pleased her to think that she was free to come and go, to chat with her friend, and to spend in agreeable companionship the hottest hours of the day. Then her thoughts reverted to Jorge, and she said to herself that she would write to him to return home at the earliest possible moment. What a good idea it would be to go herself to Evora, she thought, to arrive there at about three in the afternoon when he would have returned from his work, in his blue spectacles, covered with dust and exhausted by the heat, and give him a joyful surprise, embracing him before the astonished landlady. And in the evening to put on a light dress, and go out to see the town, leaning, somewhat fatigued by her journey, on his arm. Every one would gaze at her with surprise as she passed through the narrow and solitary streets. The men would come out of the shops at the sound of her footsteps. “Who can it be?” they would ask one another. “She is a lady from Lisbon,” some one would say,—“the wife of the engineer.”

Luiza, absorbed in these fancies, and smiling to herself, was tying the ribbons of her gown before the looking-glass, when the door opened softly.

“Who is there?” she asked, turning round.

“Senhora, may I go and see the doctor?” asked Juliana in suffering accents.

“You may go, but do not stay long,” answered Luiza. And looking at her gown sidewise in the glass, in order to add a few artistic touches to its folds, she continued, “Pull down my skirt—a little more—so. What is the matter with you?”

“Palpitations, Senhora, and an oppression on the chest. I passed a bad night.”

Her countenance was, in truth, livid; the expression of her eyes was deathlike, and her body was bent with pain. She was attired in a well-worn black merino dress.

“Very well, go,” said Luiza; “but first, put everything in order. And do not stay long, do you hear?” Juliana went back to the kitchen. This was a spacious apartment, situated at the back of the house, on the second story, and lighted by two bay-windows. The floor before the fireplace was paved with brick.

“She says that I may go, Senhora Joanna,” said Juliana to the cook. “I am going to dress. The senhora is just finishing her toilet to go out.”

The cook, rejoiced at this news, began to sing; then she applied herself to the task of shaking a well-worn carpet out of the window, during which operation she did not remove her eyes from a little yellow house opposite, with a large door. This was the workshop of Uncle João Galho, in which her sweetheart, Pedro, worked. Poor Joanna was in love with him. He was a tall, pale young man, of a sickly appearance. Joanna was a native of Avintes, in Minho, and the daughter of peasants, and this thin and anæmic type, peculiar to Lisbon, had captivated her fancy and kindled a devouring flame in her heart. As she could not go out during the week, she would let him into the house by the back door, when she was alone; to which end she hung out on the balcony, as a signal, the old carpet, in whose threadbare texture could still be distinguished the shape of the stag’s horns that had formed part of its original pattern.

Joanna was a robust girl, broad of chest and large of hip. Her hair, soaked in oil of sweet almonds, shone like jet. She was not very intelligent, but to make up for this she was obstinate, and that to an extreme degree. Her thick eyebrows made her eyes, that at this moment glowed with eagerness, appear still blacker than they really were.

“Ah,” said Juliana, looking askance at her, and giving a little dry cough, “the Senhora Joanna has hung out the signal.”

The cook turned red.

“What harm is there in that?” Juliana went on. “I wish I were in your place. You are perfectly right.”

Juliana was well aware of the cook’s love-affair; but she had need of Joanna, for the latter gave her broths to strengthen her in her attacks of debility, or cooked her a beefsteak unknown to the senhora, if she chanced to feel herself worse than usual. Juliana had a horrible dread of becoming debilitated, and required something to strengthen her at every hour of the day. Her prudery as an old maid made her disapprove of this love-affair; but seeing that such a course provided an unlimited supply of dainties for her epicurean appetite, she forced herself to tolerate it.

“If I were in your place,” she continued, in order to conciliate Joanna, “I should give him the best part of the stew. A fine thing to have scruples of conscience on account of one’s masters! They would see one die with as little pity as they would a dog.” And with a bitter smile which disclosed to view her yellow teeth, she added,—

“She told me not to be long at the doctor’s, which is as much as to say, ‘Get well soon, or go to the devil!’”

She sighed profoundly, and took up a broom from a corner of the kitchen.

“Ah, Senhora Joanna, the lot of the poor is a hard one! They are beasts of burden,—nothing more!”

She went downstairs and began to sweep the corridor, brushing the dust noisily towards the landing. She had passed a bad night. In her room just under the roof she had felt as if she were suffocating; and the smell of the bricks heated by the sun had given her palpitations of the heart ever since the beginning of the summer. She drew her breath with difficulty. Yesterday she had been unable to keep anything on her stomach during the day 5 and to-day she had risen at six, and had not had a moment’s rest since then, dusting and putting things in order, notwithstanding the pain in her side, and a nauseated stomach. She had opened the door leading from the stairs, and continued to sweep, grumbling, and striking the broom against the banisters.

“Is the senhora at home?” asked a voice behind her.

She turned around quickly, and saw before her on the landing a gentleman with a dark complexion, and a mustache curling up at the ends, his hat pulled slightly over his brows, and a flower in his buttonhole.

“The senhora is going out,” said Juliana. “If the gentleman wishes to give me his name—”

“Say I wish to see her on business,” he replied,—“on business relating to mines.”

One of his hands was concealed in the pocket of his light striped trousers, and with the other, in which he held a cane, he was absently striking the plaster of the wall.

Luiza, standing pensively before the glass, with her hat on, was placing two tea-rose buds between the buttons of her jacket, when Juliana announced the visitor.

“On business!” she repeated with surprise. “It most be something concerning Jorge. Let him come up. What kind of a person is he?”

“A well-dressed gentleman.”

Luiza pulled down her veil, slowly drew on her light Suède gloves, gave a final touch to her lace necktie, and then opened the door of the parlor. But the moment she did so she drew back in surprise, blushing deeply. She had recognized the stranger at once; it was her cousin Bazilio.

They shook hands with dubious cordiality, and without a word. Both remained silent for a moment, she with her face suffused with blushes, he taking in every detail of her appearance with a glance of admiration.

But words soon came, and questions followed one another in quick succession. When did he arrive? Had she recognized him? How did he find out where she lived?

He had arrived the day before in the steamer from Bordeaux, he said, and had sought information concerning her at the Ministry. There they had told him that Jorge was in Alemtejo, and had given him her address.

“Good Heavens! how you have changed!” he added.

“Grown older?”

“No, indeed; grown more beautiful.”

They continued conversing in a natural tone and with animation. Luiza asked Bazilio what he had been doing in all these years, and if he intended to remain in Lisbon. Then she opened the blinds to let more light into the room. They sat down, he on the sofa, in a languid attitude; she near him, on the edge of an arm-chair, her hands trembling, her nerves unstrung.

He had abandoned, he said, the forced labor of exile, and had come to breathe awhile the air of old Europe. He had been in Constantinople, in the Holy Land, in Rome. The last year he had devoted to Paris. He had just come from there,—from delightful Paris!

He spoke tranquilly, leaning towards Luiza with a certain air of familiarity; his feet, encased in patent-leather shoes, were stretched out comfortably before him on the carpet.

Luiza observed him attentively, and thought him more bronzed than before, and more manly looking. A few threads of silver shone here and there among his black locks, but his mustache still preserved its former proud and intrepid air, his eyes their liquid softness. She glanced at the pin—a horseshoe set with pearls—in his black silk cravat, and at the little stars embroidered on his silk stockings. Decidedly, Brazil had not caused him to deteriorate; he had come back looking more interesting than ever.

“But you—” he said, smiling and leaning towards her; “tell me of yourself. Are you happy? You have a little one—”

“I!” answered Luiza, laughing. “No; who has told you that?”

“I was told so. Is your husband to be long away?”

“Three or four weeks.”

“Four weeks! Almost widowhood!”

He asked permission to come and see her often of a morning, to have a chat with her.

“Why not?” she answered. “You are the only relative I have left in the world.”

And this was the case. The conversation then took a tinge of sadness, turning on more familiar themes. They spoke of Luiza’s mother, Aunt Jójó, as Bazilio used to call her. Luiza told him how she had expired, tranquilly and without a sigh, in her easy-chair. These recollections caused her to shed a few tears.

“Where is she buried?” asked Bazilio. “In our vault, I suppose,” he added gravely, pulling down with a solemn air the cuffs of his colored shirt.

“Yes,” responded Luiza.

“I must go there—poor Aunt Jójó! But you were going out,” he said, after a few moments’ silence, half rising from the sofa.

“No,” she answered, “no. I was only going to the house of a friend to pass away an hour or so.” And she took off her hat. As she did so, Bazilio noticed the undulating grace of her figure.

“In other times I was the one intrusted with the task of putting on and taking off your gloves,” he said, caressing the ends of his mustache. “I think,” he added, “that I should still continue to enjoy the exclusive privilege of doing so.”

“I think not,” interrupted Luiza, laughing.

“Ah, true; times have changed,” said Bazilio, slowly, with eyes fixed on the carpet.

Then they spoke of Collares; his first thought on arriving in Lisbon had been of going to see the villa. Was the swing under the chestnut-tree still there? And the white rose-bush beside the plaster Cupid with the broken wing,—was it still in existence?

Luiza had heard that the place was now owned by a Brazilian, who had made many improvements in it. He had built an observatory commanding a view of the road, with a Chinese roof adorned with large glass balls; and the old family dwelling-house had been torn down, and replaced by a new one furnished by Garde.

“Our poor billiard-room, with its yellow walls,” said Bazilio, with a melancholy accent, “and its garlands of roses! Do you remember our games at billiards?”

“We were a pair of children, then,” responded Luiza, smiling in confusion, as she twisted her gloves between her fingers.

Bazilio crossed his feet, and with eyes fixed on the flowers of the carpet appeared to give himself up to remembrances of a happy past. “Those were my happiest days,” he said at last, in a voice full of emotion.

Luiza could contemplate, unobserved, the delicate head of Bazilio bent down by the melancholy weight of these recollections of past happiness, and his black hair, in which a silver thread shone here and there. She felt herself possessed by a vague emotion, and rising, she opened the window, as if she would dispel her agitation by letting in a flood of light. Then Bazilio spoke of his travels, of Paris, of Constantinople. Luiza said that she had always longed to travel in the East, with the caravans, seated on the back of a camel, fearless alike of the desert and of the wild beasts.

“How courageous you have become!” said Bazilio. “Formerly you were afraid of everything. Do you remember the wine-cellar in papa’s house at Almada?”

Luiza colored. She remembered the wine-cellar very well, with its slippery floor, and its damp coldness that made one shiver; its oil-lamp hanging from the wall, that illuminated with a red and smoky light the large dark beams covered with cobwebs, and its row of casks dimly visible in the shadow. He had often given her a stolen kiss there under cover of the darkness.

She asked Bazilio how he had spent his time in Jerusalem, and if it were a pretty place.

“It is worth seeing,” he responded. In the morning, after breakfast, he would go for a moment to the Holy Sepulchre; then he generally rode out on horseback. The hotel, too, was not altogether a bad one, and one met there occasionally charming Englishwomen; he had formed the acquaintance of several illustrious personages. He spoke of these with deliberation, swinging his foot to and fro,—his friend the Patriarch of Jerusalem; his old friend the Princess de la Tour d’Auvergne. But the time he most enjoyed, he said, was the evening, in the Garden of Olives, before him the walls of Solomon’s Temple, below the obscure village of Bethany, where Martha spun at the feet of Jesus, and in the distance the water, shining motionless under the rays of the setting sun. He had passed some delightful moments there, seated on a bench, tranquilly smoking his pipe.

“And were you never in any danger?” Luiza asked him.

“Ah, yes, indeed,” he answered. “I was once in a frightful storm of sand in the desert of Arabia Petrea. But what a delightful trip, travelling with the caravans in the daytime, and sleeping in a tent at night!” And he described his dress, consisting of a cloak of camel’s hair with red and black stripes, a dagger of Damascus hanging from a Bagdad belt, and the long lance of the Bedouins.

“That must have been very becoming to you.”

“Very; I have some photographs of myself taken in that dress. I will give you one. Do you know that I have brought you some presents?” he ended.

“Indeed!” she said, her eyes brightening.

“The best one first,—a rosary.”

“A rosary?”

“Yes; a relic blessed first by the Patriarch of Jerusalem on the tomb of Christ, and afterwards by the Pope.” For he had seen the Pope, he said,—a little old man dressed in white.

“Formerly you were not very devout,” said Luiza.

“No; but I don’t like to show a want of respect for those things,” he answered, laughing. “Do you remember the chapel in our house at Almada?”

In this chapel they had spent many a delightful hour. In front of it was a court, full of tall flowering plants, and the poppies, at the least breath of wind, trembled like red-winged butterflies balancing themselves on a stem.

“And the branches of the lime-tree, on which I used to practise my gymnastic exercises, do you remember?”

“Let us not speak of the past,” said Luiza.

“What would you have me speak of, then? The past is my youth, the happiest time of my life!”

“And in Brazil, what did you do?” she asked, smiling.

“What a country!” he exclaimed. “I made love there to a mulatto girl.”

“And why did you not marry her?”

“You are jesting. Marry a mulatto! Besides,” he continued, in an accent that was meant to disclose the presence in his soul of painful memories, “since I did not marry when I ought to have done so, since I lost the best opportunity I shall ever have, I shall always remain a bachelor.”

“And what other present have you brought me besides the rosary?” said Luiza, after a silence during which her cheeks had become suffused with crimson.

“Ah, Suède gloves for the summer,” he replied, “with eight buttons. Here they wear short gloves of two buttons, leaving the wrist exposed, which is horrible! From what I see, the women of Lisbon are the worst-dressed women in the world. It is something atrocious! Of course I do not include you among them, for you are dressed with simplicity, with chic, like every other woman of taste; but in general it is frightful! What fresh and delightful toilets I saw in Paris this summer! But in Paris everything is better than anywhere else. Since I have been here, I have been able to eat nothing,—absolutely nothing. There is no place like Paris for eating.”

Luiza, meantime, kept turning round and round between her fingers a gold locket attached to her neck by a black velvet ribbon.

So then he had been a whole year in Paris, she said.

“A delightful year,” he answered.

He had a charming apartment that had been occupied by Lord Falmouth, in the Rue St. Florentin. He had kept three horses—

“In a word,” he continued, bending forward, with his hands in his pockets, “trying to pass through this vale of tears as comfortably as possible. Is there any likeness in that locket?” he asked, after a pause.

“My husband’s.”

“Ah, let me see it”

And he opened the locket. Luiza’s face, as she bent forward to allow him to do so, was close to Bazilio’s breast, who breathed in the delicate perfume exhaled by her hair.

“He is a good-looking fellow,” said Bazilio.

There was a moment’s silence.

“How warm it is!” said Luiza. “It is suffocating, is it not?”

She rose and opened the window slightly. The sunlight no longer fell upon it, and a breath of air agitated the heavy folds of the curtain.

“It is as warm here as it is in Brazil,” said Bazilio. “Do you know that you have grown taller?” he added, abruptly.

Luiza was standing by the window. Bazilio’s glance, calm and cold, followed every line of her figure. In more familiar tones, his elbows resting on his knees, and his face turned towards her, he said,—

“Come, tell me frankly, did you think I would come to see you?”

“What a question! If you had not come I should have been very angry. Are you not the only relative I have left in the world? I am only sorry that my husband is not here.”

“It is precisely because I knew he was not here—”

Luiza turned crimson with confusion and emotion. Bazilio, himself somewhat confused, continued, repressing a smile,—

“I mean—perhaps he may know something of what passed between us.”

“Nonsense!” she interrupted; “we were only children then. All that took place so long ago.”

“Children! I was twenty-seven years old,” observed Bazilio, smiling and leaning towards her.

There was a moment of embarrassing silence. Bazilio twisted his mustache and looked around him.

“You are comfortably situated here,” he said at last.

She acknowledged that it was so. The house, although small, was commodious, and belonged to them.

“I find it all very comfortable,” said Bazilio. “Who is that lady with the gold spectacles?” he asked, yawning slightly, and pointing to a portrait on the wall, opposite the sofa.

“That is my husband’s mother.”

“Ah! Is she still alive?”

“No; she died some time ago.”

“That is the best thing a mother-in-law can do.”

He again yawned discreetly, glanced down at the pointed toes of his shoes, and with an abrupt movement took up his hat and rose.

“Are you going already?” said Luiza. “Where are you staying?”

“At the Central Hotel. When shall we see each other again?”

“Whenever you wish.”

“Is it permitted to kiss the hand of an old—friend and cousin?” he asked, smiling, and taking Luiza’s hand in his.

“Why not?”

Bazilio imprinted a long kiss, accompanied by a gentle pressure, on Luiza’s hand.

“Good-by,” he said.

In the doorway, holding back the portière, he again turned towards her.

“Will you believe that a little while ago, as I came upstairs, I asked myself how all this was going to turn out?”

“All this? What? Of course we had to meet again; of course! Why, what did you think?”

“I did not think that you were so good,” he said, after a moment’s hesitation. “Good-by,” he added, “until to-morrow.”

At the foot of the stairs he lighted a cigar.

“The deuce! how lovely she is!” he thought; “and I—what a fool I was,” he added, throwing the match on the floor with violence, “to have almost resolved not to come! She is desirable—the cousin, much more so than formerly; and alone in the house, face to face with ennui, perhaps. It is well worth while.”

On reaching the Patriarchal he hailed a passing cab, entered it, and, his legs stretched out before him, his hat between his knees, gave himself up to reflection, while the hacks trotted on.

“And besides, it would seem that she takes care of her person, which is a rare thing here. Her hands are well cared for, her feet beautiful. To the attack, then!” he exclaimed, after some further thought. “To the attack, like Santiago on the Moors!”

When Luiza had heard the door close behind Bazilio she entered her room, laid her hat on the table, and went to take a look at herself in the glass. How fortunate to have been dressed! If he had chanced to find her in her morning-gown, or with her hair in disorder! She saw that her face was flushed, powdered it with rice-powder, and went over to the window, where she stood with folded arms, looking out at the street below, where the sunshine still fell on the wall opposite. The clock struck four, and Leopoldina would doubtless be dining. What should she do till five? Write to Jorge? But she felt lazy, it was so warm; and besides she had so little to say to him. She began to take off her gown, yawning, from time to time, with a feeling of pleasant languor. It was seven years since she had last seen her cousin Bazilio. He was darker than formerly, more bronzed by the sun; but this was becoming to him.

After dinner she seated herself in a long, low easy-chair beside the window, with an open book upon her knees. The wind had ceased; the atmosphere, still warm, of a deep blue in the more elevated regions of the sky, was motionless; the birds twittered among the branches of the wild fig-tree; and the regular and sonorous blows of a hammer could be heard from a neighboring forge. Little by little the blue of the heavens faded into a uniform whiteness; behind the roofs of the houses opposite stretched bands of a pale orange-color, like careless strokes of a painter’s brush. Then darkness, still, diffused, and warm, covered everything, one bright little star shining tremulously through it. Luiza leaned back in her chair, silent, absorbed, forgetting to call for a light.

“What an interesting life is that of Cousin Bazilio!” she thought. “How much he has seen!” If she too could only pack her trunks and set out in search of new and unknown sights,—the snow upon the mountains, foaming waterfalls! How ardently she longed to visit the countries she had read of in novels,—Scotland with its melancholy lakes; Venice with its tragic palaces; to cast anchor in bays where a silvery and luminous sea dies away upon the limpid sands, and from some fisherman’s hut to behold in the blue distance islands with sonorous names. To go to Paris,—Paris, above all. But no! she would never travel; they were poor. Jorge was very domestic, she an obscure Lisboeta.

What did the Patriarch of Jerusalem look like? Was he an old man with a long white beard, his garments weighed down with gold embroidery, only to be seen amid clouds of incense that ascended to heaven mingling with the strains of solemn music? And the Princess de la Tour d’Auvergne? She was doubtless beautiful, of regal stature, always attended by pages. Perhaps she was enamoured of Bazilio. The night grew darker; other stars appeared in the heavens. But what was the good of travelling, she asked herself,—to have the trouble of packing one’s trunks, to be forced to pass the night uncomfortably at inns, and to nod with sleep in the cold dawn, in jolting diligences? Was it not better to live comfortably in a cosey little house, to permit one’s self a night at the theatre occasionally, to have a tender husband, and to enjoy a good breakfast, listening to the canaries singing on sunny mornings? This was the lot that fate had assigned to her. She was very happy. Then she thought sadly of Jorge. She longed to embrace him, to have him here beside her, to see him in his velvet jacket, smoking his pipe in the study. She had everything she could wish for,—a husband of whom she was proud, and with whom she was happy, who was handsome, had magnificent eyes, was loving and faithful. She would not like a husband who led a sedentary and domestic life, but Jorge’s profession was an interesting one. It required him to descend into the dark recesses of mines; it might even call upon him some day to go armed with his pistols and face a brigade of workmen in insurrection. He was brave; he had ability. Nevertheless, involuntarily she allowed her thoughts to revert to Bazilio, with his white burnoose floating on the breeze in the plains of the Holy Land, or seated in his phaeton in Paris, quietly controlling the fiery horses. And this suggested to her mind the idea of a life different from her present one,—more poetic, more adapted to sentimental episodes.

“Does the senhora desire a light?” asked the tired voice of Juliana at the door.

“You may bring one,” responded Luiza.

“She is turning something over in her mind,” said Juliana to herself, as she went away.

Luiza went to the parlor, seated herself at the piano, played over by ear some fragments of “Lucia,” of “Somnambula,” of the “Fado;” then, letting her fingers rest on the keys, she began to think of Bazilio’s visit on the morrow. Should she wear her new dress of brown foulard? Her eyes began to close with sleep. She went to her bedroom. Juliana brought the lamp. She came in shuffling her feet along the floor, a shawl thrown around her shoulders, her countenance drawn and lugubrious. The sight of her face, with its air of chronic suffering, irritated Luiza.

“I declare, you remind me of a death’s-head!” she said to her.

Juliana did not answer; she set down the light, and counted out on the bureau, coin by coin, without once raising her eyes, the change from the marketing.

“Does the senhora want anything else?” she asked.

“Nothing; you may go.”

Juliana procured her kerosene lamp and went to her bedroom; she slept in a room under the roof, adjoining that of the cook.

“I remind you of a death’s-head, do I?” she muttered to herself, furious, as she went.

The room was low and small, with a wooden ceiling and slanting walls; the sun, falling all day on the tiles overhead, heated it like an oven. Juliana slept in an iron cot, on a straw mattress. On the rails at the head of the bed hung several scapularies and the braids of false hair she wore during the day. At the foot of the bed stood a large wooden chest painted blue, with a stout lock. On the pine table stood the little looking-glass belonging to her scanty toilet appurtenances, a hair-brush almost without hairs, a bone comb, and several little bottles of medicine. The only adornment of the dirty walls, disfigured by the traces of the numerous matches that had been lighted upon them, was a lithograph of Our Lady of Sorrows, and a daguerreotype, in which could be faintly discerned, amidst the changing lights of the plate, the badge, and the mustache stiff with pomade, of a sergeant.

“Is the senhora in bed?” asked the cook from the next room.

“Yes, Senhora Joanna, she is in bed,” returned Juliana. “She is in a bad humor to-day,” she continued with a bitter laugh; “she misses her husband.”

Joanna, turning over in her bed, made the worm-eaten boards creak under her weight.

“It is impossible to sleep,” she exclaimed; “it is suffocating.”

“Ah, how comfortable one is here!” cried Juliana, ironically. She opened the skylight in the roof, cast off her cloth slippers, and went out to Joanna’s room; but she remained standing in the doorway without entering: she was the parlor-maid, and avoided familiarities with the cook. With her long neck, and her head tightly bound with a yellow and black handkerchief, her face appeared more wrinkled than ever, and her ears stood out with greater prominence from her head. Her unhealthy leanness gave her a skeleton-like appearance. She folded her arms and began to scratch her elbows softly.

“Tell me, Senhora Joanna,” she said in discreet tones, “did you notice if that individual stayed long to-day?”

“He went away just as you returned,” replied Joanna.

At the foot of the bed a kerosene lamp, placed on a wooden chair, exhaled its suffocating odor.

“Oh, this is a hell!” exclaimed Juliana, in a tone of exasperation. “I shall not fall asleep till daylight. Ah, you have a Saint Peter at the head of your bed,” she added abruptly; “is that for devotion?”

“It is the patron saint of my sweetheart,” said the other, turning her large black eyes towards the picture. Then she sat up in bed. She could not endure the heat, she said, and all the evening she had been suffering frightfully from thirst. She got out of bed, and with footsteps that made the floor tremble, went over to a jug of water, and putting it to her lips took a long draught.

“I have been to see the doctor,” said Juliana. “Ah,” she continued with a sigh, “God alone knows what is the matter with me!”

But if that were so, her companion asked, why did she not make up her mind to go see the mulher de virtude, as she had advised her? There was not a doubt but she could cure her. She lived near the Poço dos Negros; she had prayers and ointments for every kind of sickness, and she sold them for a trifling sum.

“What is wrong with you is the humors—yes, it is the humors,” she ended.

Juliana had advanced a couple of steps into the room. When the question was one of sickness or of medicines, she grew more familiar.

“Yes, I have thought it might be well to go see that woman,” she answered; “but it would cost me half a pound, which is the sum I have set aside for a pair of boots.”

Boots were her vice; they kept her always poor. She had cloth boots with varnished toes, leather boots with laces, kid boots stitched in colors. She kept them locked up in her trunk, carefully wrapped in tissue-paper, and wore them only on Sundays.

“Ah,” Joanna would say to her in tones of disapproval, “I would rather take care of my stomach than be thinking of adornments.”

Joanna, too, now began to utter complaints. She had asked a month’s wages in advance from her mistress, she said. She had only two gowns left, and those were in ribbons.

“But what could I do?” she ended; “my sweetheart needed money.”

“You allow yourself to be eaten up by that man,” said Juliana, in accents of mingled disdain and reproach.

Joanna looked at her, and bringing down her hand with violence on the straw mattress, exclaimed,—

“Even if I had to gnaw my own bones, my last crust of bread should still be for him.”

“He is well worth it,” said Juliana, slowly, with a cold smile. But one could see that she was jealous of this sentiment of the cook’s, and of the pleasure it gave her.

“Yes, he is worth it!” Joanna repeated, with some violence.

“A handsome young man,—the one who came to-day to see the mistress,” said Juliana. “Better looking than the husband! And you say he stayed here more than two hours?”

“He went away, as I already told you, just as you came in.”

At this moment the light of the kerosene lamp went out, diffusing through the room a disagreeable odor and a blackish smoke.

“Good-night, Senhora Joanna; I am going to say my prayers,” said Juliana.

The cook lay down with so hasty a movement that all the joints of her bed creaked.

“Good-night, Senhora Juliana; I am going to say the rosary. Oh, Senhora Juliana,” she added, “if you would say three aves for the health of my sweetheart, who has been sick, I would say as many for you that you might get better of your ailments.”

“Agreed, Senhora Joanna!” said Juliana. But after a moment’s reflection she added, “My chest is better now, but I have severe pains in the head. Pray to Saint Engracia that I may get rid of the pains in the head.”

“As you wish, Senhora Juliana.”

“Yes; do me that favor. Good-night.”

Juliana returned to her room, said her prayers, and put out the light. An insupportable heat descended from the roof. She opened the windows again, but the hot air from the tiles made vain the hope of being able to draw an easy breath. And thus it was every night. Besides, the old wood was full of vermin. Never in any house where she had served before had she had a worse room.

The cook began to snore on the other side of the wall, and to Juliana, who felt herself alone in this misery, life seemed a bitter thing.

Juliana was a native of Lisbon. Her full name was Juliana Conceiro Tavira. Her mother had been a laundress, and had died a short time after she herself first went out to service. She had now been in service twenty years. As she herself said, she changed her masters, but not her lot. For twenty years she had been sleeping in filthy cots, rising with the dawn, eating the remnants that others left, wearing shabby clothes, bearing the rude answers and the hard words of her masters, going to the hospital when she was sick, enduring the pangs of hunger when she got well again.

This was too much. There were days now in which only to see the darning-needle or the smoothing-iron gave her nausea. She could never become accustomed to live out at service. From a child her ambition had been to keep a little shop, to order, to rule, to be mistress; but notwithstanding the strictest economy, the crudest privations, the utmost she had been able to save was a few coins at the end of every year. Her horror of the hospital was so great that when she had any slight illness she went to stay with a relative, so that the money so painfully saved was soon spent. She had never completely recovered from an illness she had had, and had now lost all hope of ever doing so. She must live at service till she was an old woman, and pass her life going from the house of one mistress to that of another. This certainty made her continually unhappy. Her disposition began to grow sour.

And then, she had no tact; she did not know how to take advantage of circumstances; she saw her fellow-servants amuse themselves, visit one another, stand at the windows, go out well-dressed on Sundays for a walk, rise with the sun singing, and when the master and mistress went to the theatre, open the door to their sweethearts, and enjoy the rest and the freedom from restraint. She could not do this; she had always been of a serious disposition. She performed her tasks, ate her dinner, and went to bed. On Sundays, when the streets were deserted, she would stand at the window, with an old towel thrown over the iron railing so as not to soil her sleeves, and there she would remain motionless, watching the infrequent passers-by. Others of her fellow-servants were liked by their mistresses, towards whom they conducted themselves with humility, whom they flattered, to whom they carried the gossip of the neighborhood, notes, and confidential messages to be delivered in secret. She could not reconcile herself to these meannesses.

Ever since she had lived at service, no sooner did she enter a house than she experienced a feeling of hostility, a dislike to her master and mistress; her mistresses seldom addressed her, and then with asperity; her fellow-servants conceived an antipathy towards her; while they were chatting and jesting, the severe and unbending countenance of Juliana annoyed them; they called her nicknames,—“the bean-pod,” “the witch,” and other unflattering names, imitating the nervous twitching of her nose; they made mocking verses about her. The only persons from whom she occasionally met with some sympathy were the taciturn Gallician servants,—exiles from beautiful Gallicia,—who cherished sad recollections of their native land, and who performed the humblest offices in the houses of their masters. Gradually she became suspicious and aggressive. She had continual disputes with her fellow-servants; she was not going to let any one tread on her neck, she said.

To the antipathy that met her on all sides she responded by isolating herself more completely, and her disposition grew constantly more sour and aggressive. She was unable to keep a place for any length of time. In a single year she had been in three houses. She had left each, causing a scandal in the neighborhood, bringing the people to their doors by her cries, and leaving her mistress pale and nervous. Her old friend Aunt Victoria, the inculcadeira, had said to her,—

“You will end by not having a roof to shelter you or a crust of bread to eat.”

“Bread!” This word, which is the terror, the hope, and the problem of the poor, frightened her. She endeavored to control herself. She began to play the part of an inoffensive creature, to perform her tasks with affected zeal, to put on an air of patient suffering, casting her eyes up to heaven; but her spirit writhed in secret within her. By the nervous restlessness of the muscles of her face, and the tic of her nose, it could be divined that this meekness was only superficial The necessity for controlling herself induced in her a habit of hatred; hatred, above all, towards her mistresses,—a hatred irrational and puerile. She had had mistresses,—rich, with luxuriously furnished houses, poor, the wives of clerks, old and young, ill-tempered and amiable; she hated all alike, without difference or distinction.

It was the mistress, and that was enough. She hated them for their simplest words, for their most trivial acts; if she saw them sitting down, “Yes, rest,” she would say in her own mind; “let the slave do the work!” If she saw them go out, “Go, go; let the slave stay behind to do what you ought to be doing!” Every action of theirs was an offence to her sadness and her sufferings; every new gown an affront to her gown of dyed merino.

She detested the gayety of children, and the prosperity of the houses in which she served filled her with bitterness. The day on which her master or mistress had any annoyance or showed a sad countenance she would sing from morning till night, in a falsetto voice, the Carta adorada. With what pleasure did she bring the bill the day on which the impatient creditor returned with it, divining that it would cause embarrassment in the household!

“Here is this paper,” she would cry with a harsh voice; “he says he will not go away this time without an answer.” Every occasion for putting on mourning delighted her; and under the black shawl provided for her she had palpitations of the heart through joy. She had seen young children die in some of the houses in which she had been, and not even the grief of the mother had moved her; she would shrug her shoulders, in its presence, with derisive bitterness.

As years passed, these sentiments became stronger. She began to grow old, and with age her conduct grew more odious. That her master and mistress should give a soirée or go to the theatre exasperated her. When some party of pleasure had been arranged, if it began to rain unexpectedly, what happiness for her! The sight of the ladies dressed and with their hats on, gazing through the windows with tedium depicted on their countenances, made her eloquent.

“Ah, Senhora,” she would say, “this is a flood let loose; it is pouring in torrents; it will not stop raining all day! See! see!”

In addition to all this she was very inquisitive; it was nothing unusual to surprise her leaning against a closed door, with attentive ear and eager glance. Every letter that came was minutely examined. She peeped slyly into open drawers; she read over the papers thrown into the trash-basket. She walked with catlike Step, and had a trick of appearing before one when least expected. She scrutinized every visitor. She was always on the watch for a secret, a good secret, which she could use to her advantage.

She was very fond of good eating. She cherished a desire—thus far ungratified—to dine well, with tarts and entrées. In the houses where she waited at table her reddened eyes followed eagerly each plate as it was handed round; and to serve any one twice from a favorite dish exasperated her, as if it were a diminution of her share. Her health had suffered from eating only what was left from her master’s table, and of that not always enough. She liked wine, and on certain days would buy a bottle at eighty reis,[4] which she would drink alone, lying in bed, and enjoying it drop by drop.

She had never had a lover. She had been always ugly, and had never attracted a glance of admiration from any one. The only man who had ever looked at her with anything resembling admiration was a servant in the Casino, of a filthy and villainous aspect. Her thinness, her air of being always dressed in her Sunday finery, had attracted him. He looked at her with the expression of a bull-dog. He inspired her with horror, but at the same time his admiration flattered her vanity. And the only man for whom she herself had ever felt any tender feeling was a servant, perfumed and handsome, who had laughed at her, calling her isca secca. Her interest in the other sex had never gone any farther than this, owing to a sentiment of pique and a lack of self-confidence. An outlet to human feeling was denied her, and from the want of this supreme consolation, both morally and physically considered, had sprung the misery of her life.

She had once entertained for a time strong hopes of bettering her condition. She had entered the service of Donna Virginia Lemos, a rich widow, and an aunt of Jorge, who was very ill with a catarrhal trouble. Aunt Victoria, the inculcadeira, had cautioned her beforehand.

“Treat the old woman with kindness,” she had said; “be a patient nurse to her. She is rich, and not miserly; it is not impossible that she may leave you a good round sum when she dies.”

For a whole year Juliana, devoured by ambition, served the old woman as her nurse. What zeal in her service! What attentions she bestowed upon her!

Donna Virginia had a strong love of life; the thought of dying made her furious. But when she scolded Juliana, in her harsh and guttural voice, the latter only grew more attentive, more affectionate than before. The old woman was at last touched by her devotion. She called her her providence; and when visitors came she praised her without stint. She had spoken very highly of her to Jorge.

“There is not another woman like her!” she exclaimed; “not another!”

“Ah, you have made your fortune,” Aunt Victoria would say to her. “At the very least she will leave you three contos de reis.”

A conto de reis! At night, when the old woman lay groaning on her antique bedstead of lignum-vitæ, Juliana would behold in fancy a conto de reis lying in refulgent brightness before her, in heaps of gold prodigious and inexhaustible. What should she do with the money? And seated at the bedside of the invalid, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, her eyes fixed and dilated, she would spend the hours forming plans,—she would open a millinery shop; and then she would dream of other joys, hitherto unthought of; a conto de reis was a dowry; she might marry and have a husband of her own. All her misery would be at an end. She would eat well, and only of what she liked,—of her own provisions. She would order; she would have a servant, her servant She was seized with nervous twitching in the stomach, from joy. She would be a good mistress; but let the servants take care to conduct themselves properly; she would tolerate no answering back, no angry glances. And dominated by these fancies she would walk softly up and down the room, shuffling her feet and talking to herself. No, she would countenance nothing that was not perfectly right and proper; she would be a model mistress.

Here perhaps the old woman would exhale a sigh.

“This one is going to die,” Juliana would say to herself; “she will certainly die to-day.”

And with eagerness in her eyes she would go presently to the drawers of the bureau where the money and the papers were kept. Then perhaps the old woman would want a drink, and Juliana would return to her bedside.

“How do you feel?” she would ask in lachrymose accents.

“Better, Juliana, better.”

“She always thinks herself better,” she would say to herself. “But the senhora has been restless,” she would say aloud, vexed at the improvement.

“No,” the patient would sigh; “I have slept well.”

“That is not sleeping; I heard you groaning; you have been moaning all night.”

She wished to persuade herself that the patient was worse,—that the improvement in her condition was only temporary, and that the old woman would soon die. Every morning she followed Dr. Pinto to the door, with her arms folded, and a long face.

“Is there no hope, Doctor?”

“It is a matter of days.”

She wanted to know how many days,—two days? five days?

“We cannot say, Juliana,” the old man would answer, settling his spectacles on his nose; “a few days,—seven or eight.”

Eight days! And as her good fortune drew near, she already began to fix her eyes on three pairs of boots in the window of Manoel Lourenço.

The old woman died at last: Juliana was not mentioned in her will!

Jorge, grateful for the care she had taken of his Aunt Virginia, paid the rent of a room for her, where she might remain for a few months, promising to take her at the end of that time into his house as chambermaid, as he was soon to be married. She fell ill shortly afterwards, and Jorge paid a bed for her in the hospital; when she left it for Jorge’s house she had already begun to complain of her heart. She had lost all her illusions; at times she wished to die. Luiza thought her, from the beginning, of sinister aspect. She would have dismissed her at the end of the fortnight, but Jorge would not consent to it; he did not regard her as Luiza did. Luiza respected his opinions, but she could not disguise her antipathy, and as a consequence Juliana soon began to detest her.

Soon afterwards Luiza began the arrangement of her house. The upholsterers came and renovated the furniture of the parlor. Aunt Virginia had left Jorge three contos de reis, and she, who for a year had been her nurse, treated by her with as much contempt as if she were a dog, and bound to her as if she were her shadow, enduring every species of discomfort, and deprived, night after night, of sleep, had been repaid with such ingratitude! She began to hate the house. For this she had many reasons, as she herself said: she slept in a noisome garret; at her dinner she had neither wine nor dessert; the ironing was heavy; both Jorge and Luiza took a bath every day, and it was a toilsome labor to fill and empty the bath-tub. She had served under twenty mistresses, and she had never before met with such folly. “The only advantage the place has,” she would say to Aunt Victoria, “is that there are no children.” She had a horror of children. Besides this, she found that quarter of the city healthy; and as she had the cook on her side, the latter gave her from time to time a bowl of broth or some dainty. Therefore she remained; if it were not for her—

Meantime she performed her duties, and no one had any fault to find with her. And as she had lost the hope of becoming independent, she no longer subjected herself to the restraints of saving. She thus took care of herself, indulging in some culinary fancy from time to time. She bought elegant boots, gratifying in this manner her puerile vanity.

“I go out to walk,” she would say, “with feet such as few can show.”

Her delight was to go on Sundays to the Passeio Publico, and sit there on a bench in the most frequented situation, with the edge of her gown slightly raised, in order to display to the passers-by with secret pleasure the point of her pretty little foot.

CHAPTER IV.
THE PUBLIC GARDENS.

AT about three in the afternoon Juliana entered the kitchen and threw herself down on one of the wooden chairs. She was so exhausted, she said, that she could scarcely stand. It had taken her two hours to arrange the parlor, which was like a pigsty. The visitor had left the ashes of his cigar on the table, for her, the poor slave, to clean away. And how warm it was I The heat was melting! Her yellow skin shone as if it had been anointed with oil.

“Is the soup not ready yet?” she asked, softening her voice. “Give me a little, Senhora Joanna.”

“You are not looking so well to-day,” said the cook.

“There are so many things the matter with me! I did not fall asleep this morning till the sun was up. This gives one an appetite,” she added, stirring with a greedy air the soup Joanna had placed before her.

The cook, standing before her with folded arms, contemplated Juliana with an expression of satisfaction on her countenance.

“The only thing wanting is that it should be to your taste,” she said.

“It is just right.”

Both smiled, pleased at the friendly feeling existing between them, to which they had just given expression. At this moment the door-bell, that had already sounded faintly, was heard for the second time with more distinctness.

Juliana did not move. Puffs of warm air came in through the window, in the silence could be heard the simmering of the pot on the fire, and the incessant sound of hammering from the forge near by; from time to time the melancholy and monotonous cooing of a pair of turtle-doves from their cage in the balcony mingled with the brightness of the afternoon a note of gentle sadness.

The bell sounded again, this time rung by an impatient hand.

“Now call with your tongue, imbecile!” said Juliana.

Both women laughed. Joanna went and seated herself in a low chair by the window, her large feet, encased in listing slippers, stretched out before her, and began to scratch her arms softly, enjoying to the full these few moments’ rest.

The bell sounded violently.

“Stay there, idiot!” growled Juliana, without moving.

But the angry accents of Luiza ascended from the floor below,—

“Juliana!”

“One cannot even eat in peace. Detestable house, plague take it!” exclaimed Juliana, striking the table violently with the bowl of her spoon.

“Juliana!” called Luiza a second time.

“The mistress is getting angry,” said the cook in a low voice, turning towards Juliana.

“The deuce take her!” said the latter.

She wiped her lips, greasy with the soup, on her apron, and went downstairs, furious.

“Did you not hear?” exclaimed Luiza. “The bell has been ringing for an hour.”

Juliana opened her eyes in amazement as she looked at her mistress; Luiza was dressed in her new morning-gown of brown foulard with little yellow dots.

“There is something up,” she thought to herself as she crossed the hall.

The bell rang again, and Juliana saw on the doorstep the gentleman who had come on business connected with the mines, dressed in a light suit, with a rose in his buttonhole and a package under his arm. She took in his appearance with a keen and rapid glance.

“It is the gentleman who was here yesterday,” she said in a low voice to her mistress.

“Admit him.”

“Come, this is progressing!” said Juliana to herself. Her eyes glittered, and going upstairs she said to Joanna with an accent of malicious joy, as she opened the kitchen door,—

“The gentleman who came yesterday is here again, and he has brought a package with him.”

Joanna turned her round black eyes slowly toward Juliana.

“What do you think of it, Senhora Joanna?” said the latter, standing in the middle of the floor with folded arms and lips tightly shut.

“He is some visitor,” returned the cook with indifference.

Juliana laughed dryly, sat down, and greedily finished her soup.

Joanna went about the kitchen, singing. In the pauses of her song could be heard the soft and tender cooing of the doves.

“Come, come; this is going on very well,” said Juliana.

She cleaned her teeth slowly with her tongue as she sat, her gaze fixed and dilated, plunged in thought; then she rose, took off her apron, and went down to Luiza’s room. Her searching glance descried in a moment the keys of the pantry, which Luiza had forgotten, lying on the bureau. She might have gone upstairs, drunk a glass of good wine and eaten a few spoonfuls of preserve; but she was devoured by an insatiable curiosity, and, walking on tiptoe, she went softly to the parlor door and put her eye to the keyhole. The portière was drawn on the inside, and she could hear nothing but the gay and animated accents of the visitor; she crossed the hall and went to the door beside the staircase. The key was in the lock, and she put her ear to the keyhole. The portière within was also drawn.

“Those cunning devils have taken care to secure everything,” she said to herself. Then she thought she heard a chair move, and afterwards the closing of a window. Her eyes glittered. She heard again the continuous murmur of a conversation carried on in low tones. All at once the gentleman raised his voice, and among the phrases which he pronounced, evidently walking up and down the room, Juliana heard clearly these words,—“You; it was you!”[5]

“What shamelessness!” she thought.

A timid tin tin of the bell startled her, and she went, running, to open the door. It was Sebastião, his face flushed with the heat, his boots covered with dust.

“Is your mistress at home?” he asked, wiping the perspiration from his forehead.

“The mistress is with a visitor, Senhor Sebastião,” said Juliana,—“a young gentleman who was here yesterday,” she added, in a lower voice, closing the door. “Shall I tell her you are here?”

“No, no, thank you. Good-day.” And he went down the steps slowly and thoughtfully.

Juliana took up her station again beside the door, her ear close to the keyhole and her hands behind her back; but she could hear nothing of the conversation, which was carried on in a low voice, but a soft and confused murmur. She went upstairs to the kitchen.

“They call each other thou, Senhora Joanna,” she exclaimed. “That looks strange,” she continued in shrill accents, and very much excited.

The gentleman went away at five. When Juliana heard the door open, she went out to the landing and saw Luiza leaning over the banisters and saying in low and friendly accents to some one below,—

“Very well; I will be there. Good-by.”

Juliana was seized with an attack of curiosity that resembled an attack of fever. During the evening she devoured Luiza with eager glances that flashed like lightning. In her desire to surprise her mistress in an intrigue, the perfectly natural demeanor of the latter filled her with impatience, as might a chest securely fastened with lock and key, which she desired to open but could not.

“Go on!” she said in her own mind to Luiza; “I will catch you yet, you shameless creature!”

She fancied that Luiza’s eyes had a fatigued expression. She studied her attitudes, the tones of her voice. When she saw her help herself twice to the roast meat, she said to herself,—

“This has given her an appetite.”

And when she saw her lean back in her easy-chair, after dinner, with an air of fatigue, she said to herself that this was the exhaustion of excitement.

Luiza asked for coffee.

“Half a cup, but strong, very strong,” she said.

Juliana went to give her order to the cook. “She wants coffee, and it must be strong, she says. The devil’s in the whole lot of them! They are all the same,—one as bad as another.”

The following day was Sunday. As Juliana was getting ready to go to Mass, Luiza called her, and standing at the door of her room, half-dressed, gave her a letter for Donna Felicidade. As a general rule she sent her messages to her friend verbally; the curiosity of Juliana was therefore aroused by this closed and sealed envelope, bearing Luiza’s initial,—a Gothic L, surrounded by a garland of roses.

“Is there any answer?” she asked.

“No.”

When Juliana returned at ten o’clock, Luiza asked her if it was warm out, and if there was much dust. A dark-colored straw hat adorned with musk-roses was lying on the table.

Juliana, answered that there was some wind, but that it would probably cease before the afternoon.

“She has some excursion planned; she is going to meet that young man,” thought Juliana.

But Luiza, attired in her morning-gown, passed the whole day between her bedroom and the parlor; now reclining on a sofa reading, now absently playing fragments of a waltz on the piano. At four she dined, and shortly afterwards the cook went out. Juliana passed the afternoon at the window of the dining-room. Dressed in her new gown, her stiffly starched petticoats, and her best collar, she leaned her elbows, unsmiling, on the railing of the balcony, over which she had carefully laid her handkerchief.

At eight, Juliana entered Luiza’s room, and was struck with amazement to see her dressed in black, and with her hat on. She had already lighted the lamp, and the candles on her dressing-table, and seated on the edge of the sofa, was drawing on her gloves with a serious air. Her countenance revealed a feverish impatience.

“Has the wind ceased?” she asked.

“Yes, Senhora; it is a beautiful night,” responded Juliana.

A little before nine a carriage stopped at the door. It was Donna Felicidade. She came in very much excited, saying that the horses had been frightened by a fire-engine that had passed them on their way.

And how warm it was! she said. She had been suffocating all day. And now that there was not a breath of air stirring! She had preferred an open carriage to a coupé, where to a certainty they would have suffocated. Juliana came and went, closing doors, and putting things in order, devoured by curiosity, and with eyes and ears wide open. But Donna Felicidade, immovable in her chair, continued to talk without ceasing; she related in all its details the episode of the fire-engine, told of the attack of indigestion she had had on the previous day from eating pea-shells; afterwards how the cook had wanted to cheat her, and of a visit the Countess of Arruella had made her.

She rose and went to the dressing-table to powder her neck, which, as she said, was bathed in perspiration.

“Let us go, my dear,” said Luiza; “it is growing late.”

Juliana lighted them out. She was furious. Where could they be going? Not a single word on that point! How unseemly for two women to go out alone at night in a hired carriage! If a servant should remain out half an hour later than usual, what a scolding she would receive!

She went up to the kitchen. She wanted to gossip a little with Joanna,—to laugh a little. But Joanna said, yawning, that she was so tired that her knees were bending under her. She had been out all day.

“I must go to bed to get over my fatigue,” she added.

“That’s right,” returned Juliana, in a mocking voice. “Go play the sluggard! How little it takes to tire you!”

She went down to Luiza’s room, put out the lights, and opened the window. The air was heavy, dark, hot, and motionless. She drew out a low chair to the balcony, and disposed herself to spend the evening there with her arms folded, digesting an abundant dinner.

Footsteps were heard coming slowly down the street, followed by a gentle ring at the bell. Juliana leaned over the balcony and asked in tones expressive of annoyance,—

“Who is there?”

“Is your mistress at home?” asked the deep voice of Sebastião.

“She went out in a carriage with Donna Felicidade a little while ago,” replied Juliana.

“Ah! Good-night, then.”

Meantime Donna Felicidade and Luiza had arrived at the Passeio.

It was the evening of a benefit; a slow and monotonous murmur could be heard inside, and the air was filled with clouds of dust. They entered, and a little beyond the fountain they suddenly came face to face with Bazilio.

“What a happy chance!” he exclaimed in accents of surprise.

Luiza colored as she presented him to Donna Felicidade.

The excellent lady saluted him with a bow of marked politeness and smiles without number. She remembered him very well, she said; but if Luiza had not mentioned his name she would not have recognized him; she found him very much altered.

“The troubles of life, Senhora,” he said, bowing, “and old age; above all, old age,” he continued, laughing, and striking his cane against the stones of the fountain.

The gas-lights were reflected in wavering brightness in the dark water. The foliage of the trees, of a faded green, that looked artificial, was motionless. Between the two long parallel lines of stunted trees, interspersed with gas-lamps, a compact multitude of dark forms moved along, enveloped in clouds of dust; above the noise made by the crowd the animated strains of the orchestra rose through the heavy air in the lively measures of a waltz. They remained standing by the fountain chatting, and looking at the people as they entered: two young men with curly hair and lavender trousers, smoking with due deliberation their holiday cigars; an officer with breast swelled out and waist tightened in, as if he wore a corset, accompanied by two young ladies with their hair in curls, who showed through the thin fabric of their tasteless gowns, as they walked, every movement of their shoulder-blades; an ecclesiastic with a sallow complexion, and a cigar in his mouth, whose blue spectacles gleamed in the light; two young collegians walking along with a swinging gait, that they might be thought rakes; the melancholy Xavier the poet; a young man in a jacket, a heavy cane in his hand, his hat on the back of his head, and his eyes glittering with the brilliancy of the wine-cup. Bazilio laughed as two little boys, dressed in light blue, with scarlet sashes, lancer’s shakos, Hungarian hoots, and a sleepy air, entered hand in hand with their father, on whose countenance was depicted satisfaction and delight.

Luiza expressed a desire to sit down. A little ragamuffin in a dirty blouse of coarse fabric ran to bring chairs, and they seated themselves beside a family group composed of the mother, the father, and three daughters, who, sitting motionless in their chairs, looked around them with silent melancholy.

“What have you been doing to-day?” Luiza asked Bazilio.

He answered that he had been to see the bull-fight.

“What! do you like that kind of thing?” she said.

Bazilio confessed that he had found it tiresome. If it had not been for the gymnastic feats of Peixinho he should have died of weariness. The bulls were tame, the horsemen unskilful. Ah, the bull-fights in Spain,—they were worth looking at!

Donna Felicidade protested. He should not say such a thing; they were horrible; she had seen one in Badajoz when she was visiting her aunt Francisca de Noronha, who resided in Elvas, and she had fainted. The blood, the intestines of the horses,—pah!

“What would you say, Senhora,” said Bazilio, laughing, “if you saw the cock-fights?”

Donna Felicidade had heard of them, but those diversions seemed to her barbarous and unchristian; and here calling to mind a pleasure the recollection of which brought a smile to her broad countenance, she continued,—

“For me there is nothing like a night at the theatre,—nothing!”

“But the actors here are so poor!” responded Bazilio, with a disconsolate air.

Donna Felicidade did not answer; half risen from her chair, her eyes bright and humid, she was making persistent gestures of salutation to some one with her hand.

“They have not seen me,” she exclaimed at last, with an air of desperation.

“Is it the counsellor?” asked Luiza.

“No, it is the Countess of Alviella; she did not see me; she often goes to the Chapel of the Encarnação; she is a friend of mine; she is an angel; her father-in-law is with her; see!”

Bazilio did not take his eyes from Luiza’s face. Seen through her white veil, and in that dusty atmosphere, its features were defined in soft and uncertain outlines. Her blond, wavy hair, of a darker shade at night, followed the contour of her small head, giving her an expression of infantile and tender grace; her pearl-colored gloves displayed the elegant shape of her hands—the delicate wrists surrounded by a frill of lace—as they rested, holding her fan, on the dark background of her lap.

“And you,—what have you been doing?” asked Bazilio in his turn.

She had spent a very tiresome day, she said, alone from morning till night.

He, too, had spent the morning alone, lying on the sofa reading the “Femme de Feu,” of Belot. “Have you read it?” he asked her.

“No; what is it?”

“A new book; but one of a somewhat daring character. I advise you not to read it.”

Donna Felicidade confessed that she was reading “Rocambole,” because she had heard it praised very highly. But it was so confused that she could not understand it, and she forgot to-day what she had read yesterday. She was going to leave off reading it, she declared, for she noticed that it increased her indigestion.

“Are you in bad health?” asked Bazilio, with the interest of a well-bred man.

Donna Felicidade availed herself of the opportunity to describe the different phases of her dyspepsia. Bazilio recommended her to use ice, congratulating her because just now, as he said, disorders of the stomach were very chic, and asking her for details with interest.

Donna Felicidade was profuse in giving them, endeavoring to show by her words, by the animation of her glance, and by her friendly accent, the lively sympathy she felt for Bazilio.

“So then you recommend me to try ice,—with a little wine, of course.”

“Yes, with wine.”

“That ought to be very good,” said Donna Felicidade to Luiza, touching her on the arm with her fan, her countenance animated and hopeful.

Luiza smiled, and was about to answer, when she observed standing beside her a man with a pallid countenance, whose languid glance was fixed upon her with an annoying persistence. She turned her back to him, and he withdrew, twisting the ends of his imperial.

Bazilio observed her silence. Was she sleepy? he asked.

“Ever since her husband went away,” said Donna Felicidade, smiling, “she has worn this sorrowful countenance.”

“What folly!” responded Luiza, instinctively observing Bazilio. “All these days past I have been very gay.”

“We know, of course,” insisted Donna Felicidade, “that that little heart is in Alemtejo.”

“You wouldn’t want me, I suppose, to begin to dance and shout in a public place,” responded Luiza, in impatient accents, with an abrupt movement of her fan.

“Well, well, don’t get angry,” said Donna Felicidade. “What a temper!” she continued, turning towards Bazilio.

“Cousin Luiza had a terrible temper formerly,” responded Bazilio, laughing. “I don’t know how it may be now.”

“She is a dove, a little dove; is it not so? A dove,” insisted Donna Felicidade, regarding Luiza with a maternal glance.

Meantime the taciturn group at their side had risen silently, and with the air of somnambulists, the daughters in front, the father and mother bringing up the rear, now slowly and sadly withdrew.

Bazilio immediately took the vacant chair beside Luiza, and observing Donna Felicidade glancing around her with abstracted gaze,—

“I was on the point of going to see you this morning,” he said in a low and confidential tone.

“And why did you not come?” responded Luiza, speaking in her natural voice; “we might have had some music.”

Bazilio did not answer, and began to twist his mustache. Donna Felicidade wanted to know what time it was. She began to grow impatient. She had expected to meet the counsellor, and, in order to appear to advantage in his eyes, she had laced herself, which was for her a very great sacrifice. Accacio did not make his appearance, the gas began to incommode her, and the annoyance she felt at not seeing him increased the tortures of her dyspepsia.

The orchestra, in full force, began to play the first bars of the March from Faust. This reanimated her. It was a pot-pourri of the opera, and there was no music she preferred to it.

She asked Bazilio if he would be in Madrid for the opening of the S. Carlos.

“I don’t know, Senhora,” he responded with a meaning glance at Luiza; “that depends—”

Luiza remained silent and motionless. The crowd increased. In the lateral walks, freer, cooler, and without gas-lights, those who were shy, who were in mourning, or who were shabbily attired, were walking, while the bourgeoisie, dressed in their Sunday finery, crowded together in the central walk, and grouping themselves in the passages between the compact files of chairs, moving along with the slowness of a half-melted mass of metal, impeded at every step, their throats parched, and in almost unbroken silence, went back and forth incessantly, in that passive confusion in which indolent races delight. Notwithstanding the countless lights and the noise of the gay music, a melancholy weariness, penetrating as a mist, seemed to hover in the air; the impalpable dust rested on every countenance, bestowing on it uncertain and ill-defined tones; and on every countenance, as it came within the light of the gas-lamps, could be read an indefinable expression of dreariness and fatigue, such as is to be seen only on a holiday.

Donna Felicidade proposed to take a turn. They rose, and crossed slowly through the crowd. As they found it difficult to advance, Bazilio proposed to his companions that they should make their escape from this confusion.

They assented. While Bazilio was buying the tickets, Donna Felicidade sat down on a bench under a weeping willow, exclaiming in doleful accents,—

“Ah, child, I think I am going to burst!”

She passed her hand over her stomach.

“And the counsellor! What do you say to that? Truly, I have no luck! To-night when I came here—”

She sighed, and continued with a smile,—

“Your cousin is indeed interesting. And what good manners! A true gentleman! That may be seen at the first glance!”

They had scarcely left the Passeio when she declared she could stand no longer, and that they must take a carriage.

Bazilio thought it would be better to go on foot to the Praça do Loreto. The night was so pleasant! To walk would do Donna Felicidade good.

As they passed Martinho’s, Bazilio proposed that they should go in and take an ice; but Donna Felicidade was afraid of iced drinks, and Luiza had not the courage to consent. Through the open doors of the café could be seen the deserted tables, and the newspapers scattered about the floor. In the street the little ragamuffins were gathering up ends of cigars. In the Praça do Rocio people were strolling about under the trees; on the benches were to be seen a few motionless figures, apparently asleep; here and there through the darkness shone the burning end of a cigar; men were walking up and down, hat in hand, fanning themselves; women with silk handkerchiefs around their shoulders, and trailing after them long white petticoats very stiffly starched, to judge from the noise they made, were crying out on the street corners as they passed, “Water fresh from the Arsenal!” Open carriages were driving slowly around the praza. The heat was suffocating; and in the midst of the surrounding darkness the column that supported the statue of Dom Pedro wore the pallid aspect of a colossal taper.

Bazilio walked silently by Luiza’s side. “What a horrible city!” he thought. “What gloom! what tedium!” He recalled the summer he had spent in Paris: at night, he drove slowly in his phaeton through the Champs Elysées, and hundreds of victorias drove rapidly past him; the lamps of the carriages formed along the whole avenue a moving line of luminous points. Fair and lovely faces of women rested against the cushions, swayed by the movement of their luxurious carriages. The air had a warm and velvet softness; the chestnut-trees diffused around a penetrating odor; and on either side, from among the trees, streamed torrents of light from the concert cafés, filled with the noise of the gay crowd within, and the lively strains of the orchestra; laughter resounded from the restaurants; love and happiness, under their most seductive aspects, reigned everywhere; and farther on, through the windows of palaces and hotels, could be seen the soft and shaded lights that illuminated the treasures within. Ah, if he were only there!

But as they passed under the gas-lamps he glanced at Luiza’s countenance through her white veil; her profile was full of grace; her dress followed perfectly the curves of her figure, and there was an undulating languor in her gait. The thought occurred to him, and he gave utterance to it aloud, that it was a pity there was not in Lisbon a restaurant where they might go and eat the wing of a partridge, moistened with a bottle of champagne frappé.

Luiza did not answer, but she said to herself that that must be delightful.

“A partridge at this hour!” exclaimed Donna Felicidade.

“A partridge or anything else,” said Bazilio.

“Whatever it might be, it would give us an indigestion,” she replied.

In the Chiado a youth in a blue blouse followed them with tickets for the lottery; his shrill and doleful accents promising them good fortune in the form of many contos de reis. Donna Felicidade stopped. She felt a momentary temptation; but a group of drunken men came towards them, their hats pushed back from the forehead, gesticulating rudely and stumbling against the passers-by with the evident intention of provoking a quarrel. Luiza took refuge close beside Bazilio, whose arm Donna Felicidade, much frightened, had taken. The group passed on, shouting. Donna Felicidade insisted on taking a carriage immediately, and did nothing, till they reached the Praça do Loreto, but recount, with a voice still trembling from the terror with which the drunken men had inspired her, accidents and affrays with knives, all without loosening for a moment her hold on Bazilio’s arm.

They stopped; and a hackman who was opportunely in the Praça de Camões directed his carriage towards them. The two ladies entered. Luiza turned round to give a parting glance to Bazilio as he stood there motionless, his hat in his hand. Then she settled herself back in the carriage, stretched out her feet on the cushions before her, and, rocked by the trot of the horses, gazed silently from her corner, as they passed them in turn, at the dark houses of the street of S. Roque, the trees of S. Pedro de Alcantara, the narrow façades of the street of the Moinho de Vento, and the sleeping gardens of the Patriarchal.

They passed a group of musicians playing the fado of Vimioso on the guitar, in front of the Polytechnic School. The music penetrated her soul, awakening gently in her heart echoes of past emotions. A sigh escaped her half-closed lips.

“There is a sigh that goes to Alemtejo,” said Donna Felicidade, touching her on the arm.

Luiza felt the blood mount to her face.

When she reached home it was striking eleven. Juliana came to light her in.

“Tea is ready, when the senhora wishes it,” she said.

Luiza went upstairs, and putting on a loose white dressing-gown, threw herself, weary and depressed by the heat, into an easy-chair. She felt herself growing drowsy; her head began to nod, her eyelids were closing, and Juliana had not yet brought the tea. Luiza called to her. Where could she be?

She had descended to Luiza’s room, and was examining the pocket of the gown her mistress had worn; hearing her name called impatiently, she went into the parlor quickly.

Was it her tea the senhora wanted? If so it was ready.

“Senhor Sebastião was here,” she added as she handed her mistress the toast; “it was about nine when he came.”

“What did you tell him?” asked Luiza.

“That the senhora had gone out with Donna Felicidade. I could not tell him where, as I did not know. Don Sebastião,” she continued, “stayed talking with me more than half an hour.”

CHAPTER V.
PREPARING THE GROUND.

ON the following morning Luiza received a bouquet of magnificent red roses from Sebastião, which she placed in the vases in the parlor.

At three o’clock Bazilio came. Luiza was seated at the piano.

“The gentleman who was here the other day is outside,” Juliana came to announce in grave, almost reproachful accents.

“Ah, my cousin Bazilio,” said Luiza, blushing. “Show him in. And, by the way, if Senhor Sebastião, or any other visitor, should call, admit him.”

The gentleman, then, was a cousin. These visits had lost all their interest for Juliana. Her malicious curiosity, swelled out to its fullest proportions, suffered a momentary collapse, like a sail when the wind has fallen. He was her cousin!

She went slowly upstairs to the kitchen.

“I have news to tell you, Senhora Joanna,” she said. “The petit-maître is a cousin,—Cousin Bazilio, it seems. Bazilio! It turns out that we have a cousin at last; how nice!”

“Why, who should the man be but a relative?” said Joanna, with indifference.

Juliana did not answer. She looked to see if the irons were hot, as she had a quantity of clothes to iron, and while waiting for them she sat down at the window. The sky was gray, and the atmosphere charged with moisture and electricity; from time to time a slight breeze agitated the foliage without. “He is her cousin!” she thought, “and he comes only when the husband has gone away. How likely that is! When he goes she remains preoccupied; she sighs; she looks disconsolate. All that is the result of family affection!”

Her eyes glittered with malignant joy. And the irons, were they hot? she asked Joanna.

The bell rang softly.

“There it goes again! This is a dog’s life! To-day is a reception-day, it seems.”

She went down and opened the door. When she saw Julião standing before her, a book under his arm, she gave a little cry of surprise.

“Come in, Senhor Julião,” she said; “the mistress is with her cousin, but she has given orders to admit any one who may call.”

Delighted at being able to interrupt the conversation, she opened the door of the parlor.

“Senhor Julião,” she announced in a shrill voice.

Luiza presented the two gentlemen to each other. Bazilio hardly rose from the sofa, and with a glance expressive of something akin to terror examined Julião, from his disordered hair to his badly-polished boots.

“What a savage!” he said to himself.

Luiza, divining his thoughts, colored with shame. What idea would Bazilio form of the acquaintances, the friends of the house, by this badly-dressed man whose collar was soiled and whose coat was old and ill-fitting? She felt her chic diminished by this visit, and instinctively, influenced by a sentiment of futile vanity, her countenance assumed a reserved, almost a serious air, as if Julião’s visit were a surprise to her, and his attire an offence.

Julião vaguely comprehended that his presence was an annoyance, and with something of embarrassment said, settling his spectacles on his nose,—

“I was passing this way by chance, and I stopped in to ask if you have had any news of Jorge.”

“Thanks, yes; he has written to me. He is well.”

Bazilio, leaning back among the cushions of the sofa with all the familiarity of a near relative, was attentively observing his silk stockings embroidered with red, and languidly caressing his mustache, displaying, as he did so, two rings,—a ruby and a sapphire,—that glittered on his little finger. The affectation of this attitude, and the gleams of color shot forth by the jewels, confused Julião. Then, desirous of showing his intimacy in the family, he said,—

“I should be glad to stay with you a while, but that I am exceedingly busy.”

“A thousand thanks!” returned Luiza, blushing. And wishing to divest this apparent familiarity of any importance that it mighty possess in Bazilio’s eyes, she continued, arranging the folds of her morning-gown, “During the last few days I have not been quite well, and I have received no one, excepting, of course, my cousin.”

Julião understood, in a vague sort of way, that he was being reproved. Surprised, confounded, ashamed, he crossed one leg over the other, laying on his knees the book he carried; and, as his trousers were too short, the elastics of his well-worn boots were disclosed to view.

There was a moment of painful silence.

“What lovely roses!” said Bazilio, at last, looking with an air of indifference at Sebastião’s roses.

“Very lovely,” responded Luiza. Beginning to feel sorry for Julião, she looked at him with a smile, trying to think of something pleasant to say to him.

“How warm it is!” she said at last, precipitately. “The heat is killing! Have you many patients?”

“Some cases of cholera-morbus,” responded Julião. “The fruits are the cause of these disorders of the stomach.”

Luiza lowered her eyes, and Bazilio began at once to talk of the little Viscountess of Azeias; when he left Lisbon she was looking charming. And what had become of her elder sister?

These inquiries concerning ladies of the nobility whom Julião did not know excluded him completely from the conversation, and covered him with humiliation. He felt his neck bathed in perspiration, and he began to open and shut mechanically the thick yellow-covered volume he carried.

“Is that book you have there a novel?” Luiza asked him.

“No,” he responded in an important tone; “it is a treatise of Dr. Lee on the diseases of women.”

Luiza blushed, and Bazilio, repressing a smile, asked her what had become of Raphaela Grijo, who used to come sometimes to the house in the street of the Magdalena,—the lady who wore spectacles, and had a brother-in-law who stammered.

“Her husband died, and she married her brother-in-law afterwards,” Luiza answered.

“What! the one who stammered?”

“Yes; and they have a child who stammers also.”

“A family conversation in that house must be amusing! And Donna Eugenia, the wife of Braga?”

Here Julião, unable to endure his position any longer, rose.

“I am in a hurry,” he said in a choking voice, “and I can stay no longer. When you write to Jorge, remember me to him.”

He hardly bent his head to Bazilio. But when he looked for his hat he could not find it; it had rolled under a chair. He got entangled in the portière, he struck himself violently against the closed door, and went out at last, furious, his heart filled with hatred towards Luiza, Jorge, wealth, and life itself; and thinking too late of the ironical words, the apt retorts, with which he ought to have crushed that fool and that silly woman.

No sooner had the street door closed behind him than Bazilio rose, and standing before Luiza with folded arms,—

“Who is that savage?” he exclaimed.

“He is a young doctor,” stammered Luiza, turning very red.

“But he is an impossible being! He has the air of a charity student.”

“Poor young man!” said Luiza, confused. “He is not rich, by any means.”

“It is not necessary that he should be rich,” replied Bazilio, “in order that he should brush his coat, and keep his hair and his nails in order.” She ought not to receive such a man, he said. He was a disgrace to the house. If he was according to her husband’s taste, let him receive him in his office.

He said all this taking long strides up and down the room, very much excited, jingling his money and his keys in his pockets.

“Fine specimens the friends of the family are!” he continued. “What the deuce! you were not brought up in this manner. People like that never came to the street of the Magdalena.”

This was true. Luiza confessed it to herself. She began to think that her marriage had brought her into contact with some plebeian acquaintances. But a certain respect for the opinions and the likings of Jorge made her say,—

“My husband thinks he has a great deal of ability.”

“It would be better for him if he had boots.”

“I find him very amusing, for my part,” said Luiza, without venturing to contradict Bazilio.

“He is horrible, my dear child.”

These last words made her heart beat. Thus it was that he used to call her in former days. Before she could answer, the door-bell rang vigorously.

Luiza was disturbed. Good Heavens! if it should be Sebastião! Bazilio would find him still more common, still more vulgar than Julião.

Juliana came to say that the counsellor was outside.

“Shall I ask him to come in?” she added.

“Certainly,” said Luiza, delighted to find her fears unfounded.

The stately figure of the counsellor, in his alpaca coat and well-ironed white trousers that fell over his low shoes, advanced towards Luiza.

When she had presented Bazilio, he said to the latter, in accents of profound respect,—

“I was already aware of your arrival. I saw it announced among the interesting items of news of our ‘high-life.’ And Jorge?” he added, addressing Luiza.

“Jorge is in Beja, and, judging from his letters, he seems to be very much bored there.”

“In effect,” said Bazilio, with affability, “I cannot form to myself the least idea of how he can spend his time in Beja. It must be horrible.”

“It is, however, the capital of a province,” observed the counsellor, passing over his mustache a white hand adorned with a seal-ring.

“But if in Lisbon, which is the capital of the kingdom,” said Bazilio, pulling down his cuffs, “one does not know what to do with one’s self. It is enough to make one die of ennui!”

“Don’t say that before the counsellor,” said Luiza, laughing, enchanted with Bazilio’s affability. “He is a great admirer of Lisbon.”

“I was born in Lisbon,” said Accacio, bowing, “and I esteem Lisbon, dear Senhora. I recognize the fact, nevertheless,” he continued ingenuously, “that it is not to be compared to Paris, to London, or to Madrid.”

“Oh, of course not!” said Luiza.

“But,” continued the counsellor, with an air of pride, “Lisbon has beauties of its own that have no equal. The entrance to the harbor, as I have heard, for I have never been there, is a magnificent panorama that rivals the bay of Constantinople or that of Naples,—worthy to be described by the pen of a Garrett or a Lamartine,” he continued pompously.

But Luiza, dreading quotations and literary criticisms, asked him what he had done with himself last Sunday; saying she had gone with Donna Felicidade to the Passeio, and had been disappointed at not seeing him there.

The counsellor declared that he never went to the Passeio on Sunday. He could well understand that it might be very agreeable, but the crowd made him sea-sick. He had noticed—and in saying this his voice assumed the tone of a revelation—that many persons gathered together in one place were apt to cause vertigo in men of literary habits. Besides, his health was not very good, and he was overwhelmed with work. He was writing a book, and drinking the waters of Vichy.

“You may smoke,” said Luiza, abruptly to Bazilio, with a smile. “Do you want a light?”

She rose with joyful alacrity to get a match. She wore a fresh morning-gown of light-colored and semi-transparent material. Her hair looked brighter and her complexion clearer than usual.

Bazilio puffed out the smoke from his cigar, and said, settling himself on the sofa,—

“The Passeio on Sunday is simply a piece of stupidity!”

“Do not be so severe, Senhor Brito,” said the counsellor, after a moment’s reflection. “Formerly, indeed, it was a very agreeable resort. For one thing, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can take the place of military music; then, there is the price of admission to be considered: I have studied the question closely. Low prices favor the agglomeration of the inferior classes. Far be it from my thoughts to look with contempt upon that part of the population. The liberality of my ideas is well known. I appeal to this lady; but it must be admitted that it is always preferable to meet select society. For my part, I assure you I do not go to the Passeio even when there are fireworks. On those nights I go, indeed, to enjoy the spectacle, but I remain outside the railings. Not from economy, assuredly not,—without being rich I can yet allow myself this expense,—but I fear that some accident might happen. I could give you an instance of an individual whose name I have forgotten, whose skull was pierced by a rocket. To go no further, a spark might fall on one’s head, or on a new suit. And it is well to be prudent,” he added in conclusion, passing over his lips his neatly folded handkerchief of India silk.

Then they spoke of the season. There were a great many people in Cintra. Lisbon was so hot in summer! The counsellor declared that Lisbon would be a city of no real importance until the opening of the Chambers and of the S. Carlos.

“What were you playing when I came in?” Bazilio asked Luiza.

“If you were having music,” said the counsellor at once, “I beg you will continue. For eighteen years I have been a constant subscriber to the S. Carlos.”

“Are you a musician?” said Bazilio.

“I was at one time, I will not deny it; when I was a young man I played the flute,—youthful follies,” he said, with a benevolent gesture. “Were you playing something new, Donna Luiza?”

“No, on the contrary, something very old,—the ‘Fisherman’s Daughter,’ of Meyerbeer.”

Luiza closed the windows and seated herself at the piano. “Sebastião plays admirably, does he not, Counsellor?”

“Our Sebastião,” responded the counsellor, in a voice of authority, “is the equal of Thalberg and of Liszt. Do you know him?” he added, addressing Bazilio.

“No, I do not know him.”

“A pearl among men.”

Bazilio slowly approached the piano, with his hands in his pockets.

“Do you still sing?” Luiza asked him, smiling.

“When I am alone.”

The counsellor immediately asked him for a song. Bazilio laughed, saying that he was afraid of shocking an old habitué of the S. Carlos.

The counsellor began to encourage him, and approaching him said, with a paternal smile,—

“Courage, Senhor Brito! Come, come, courage!”

Luiza played a prelude, and Bazilio began to sing, in a voice full and of good quality, his high notes resounding through the parlor. The counsellor, standing upright beside his chair, listened attentively, his head bent down, as by the weight of his responsibility as judge and critic, his dark spectacles forming a contrast to his bald forehead, which was rendered still more pallid by the heat.

Bazilio sang with simplicity, but his voice was full of a grave and passionate melancholy as he pronounced the words:—

“As in the dark sea,

There are depths in my heart.”

An anonymous poet had translated the verses for the “Ladies’ Almanac,” prefixing to them a mysterious dedication. Luiza had copied them with her own hand from between the lines of the music. Bazilio sang the last verses with an intonation of dignified melancholy:—

“On its surface are storms,

In its depths there are pearls.”

The expressive eyes of Luiza were fixed on the music before her, or cast from time to time a rapid glance at Bazilio. At the final note, which she prolonged on the piano, giving it an expression of passionate appeal, Bazilio’s voice had all the force of an invocation:—

“Come, come

To rest, my well-belovèd,—

Beside my heart, thy heart!”

His eyes fixed themselves upon her with an expression of such ardent passion that Luiza’s heart began to beat, her fingers trembled as they ran over the keys, and her countenance displayed an agitation that she hastened to conceal.

The counsellor applauded.

“An admirable voice!” he exclaimed; “admirable!”

Bazilio said that the quality of it was somewhat impaired.

“No, Senhor, no,” protested the counsellor; “you possess an excellent organ. I will even go so far as to say that there is no better voice in Lisbon society.”

Bazilio laughed, and said that since it pleased him he would sing a little Brazilian song of Bahia. He seated himself at the piano, and after a prelude of a few bars of melodious rhythm and tropical movement, sang:—

“Black I am, but in my breast

Beats a truer heart than thine.”

“This song was making a furore in the reunions at Bahia when I came away,” he interrupted himself to say. It was the story of a young negress born on a plantation, who gave utterance in commonplace verses to her passion for a white planter. Bazilio imitated the sentimental accents of the young ladies of Bahia, and his voice had a comic ring when he sang the lachrymose ritornela:—

“And her gaze the dark-skinned maiden

Fixes on the distant sea,

While myriad birds the palm-tree’s shadow

Vocal make with melody.”

The counsellor thought this charming, and deplored, apropos of the song, the condition of the slaves. His Brazilian friends assured him, he said, that the negroes were very well treated. But after all, civilization is civilization. Slavery is a disgrace. He had a great deal of confidence in the emperor.

“He is a monarch of rare intelligence,” he ended, with an expression of profound respect.

He took his hat, declaring with a bow that it was long since he had spent so pleasant a morning. In his opinion there was nothing to compare to agreeable society and good music.

“Where are you staying, Senhor Brito?”

“At the Central Hotel; but I beg that you will not trouble yourself.”

The counsellor declared that nothing ever prevented him from fulfilling his duty, and he would fulfil it now. He had but little influence, as Luiza knew; but if Bazilio needed anything,—the address of any one, a presentation in official quarters, permission to visit any public establishment,—he placed himself at his orders.

“Rua do Ferregial de Cima, No. 3, third floor,” he said, pressing Bazilio’s hand. “The humble abode of a hermit.” And turning to Luiza he continued, “When you write to our traveller, present to him my sincere good-wishes for the success of his enterprise. Your servant.”

And with grave and stately air he left the room.

“At least this one is cleaner,” murmured Bazilio, with his cigar in the corner of his mouth. Then, seating himself at the piano, he let his fingers run over the keys. Luiza drew near.

“Sing something for me,” she said.

Bazilio looked at her fixedly.

Luiza colored and smiled confusedly; through the light and transparent material of her dress could be seen the creamy contours of her neck and arms; in her eyes, on her lips, in the snowy whiteness of her teeth, glowed the ardor of a luxuriant vitality.

Bazilio said to her in a voice low and full of emotion,—

“You are more beautiful than ever, Luiza.”

His eager gaze confused her.

“Sing me something,” she repeated, resting her fingers on the keys of the piano, her heart beating violently.

“Sing you,” murmured Bazilio.

He continued to gaze at her fixedly; then he gave a quick sigh, and caught her hands in his. They remained a moment thus, their hands, moist and trembling, clasped together.

At that instant the door-bell rang softly. Luiza drew her hand away quickly.

“Some one is coming,” she said.

The confused murmur of voices conversing together in low tones at the door reached their ears. Bazilio shrugged his shoulders with an expression of annoyance, and took up his hat to go.

“What! are you going away?” said Luiza in regretful accents.

“One cannot be alone with you for a moment,” he answered.

They heard the street door close noisily.

“It is no one; whoever it was has gone away,” said Luiza.

They were both standing.

“Bazilio, don’t go!” she murmured. Her beautiful eyes had in them an expression of gentle entreaty.

Bazilio put down his hat on the piano, nervously biting his mustache.

“But why do you want to be alone with me?” asked Luiza, in some agitation. “What does it matter to you if visitors come?” The moment she had uttered the words she was sorry for saying them.

With a sudden movement Bazilio passed his arm around the waist of his cousin, and drawing her head towards him, pressed passionate kisses on her eyes and hair.

She freed herself quickly from his embrace, her eyes sparkling, her countenance crimson.

“Forgive me,” he said, with a passionate gesture. “Forgive me; I acted without reflection. But the truth is that I adore you, Luiza.”

He spoke with the sincerity of passion, taking her hands in his with an air of authority, almost as if he had the right to do so.

“No,” he said; “you must listen to me. From the first moment in which I saw you again, I loved you as madly as ever. I never ceased to adore you; but I was poor, as you know, and I desired to make you rich and happy! I could not take you with me to Brazil. That would have been to kill you, my beloved. You cannot picture to yourself what that country is! Therefore I wrote you that letter; but what have I not suffered! What tears have I not shed!”

Luiza, her head bent down, her eyes fixed on the floor, listened motionless to these accents, full of power and passion, that breathed in her ear the breath of love, overmastering and subjugating her; the contact of Bazilio’s hands transmitted to hers a feverish heat; a subtle languor stole over her, stupefying her senses.

“Speak to me, answer me,” he said with anxiety, crushing her hands in his, and eagerly seeking to meet her glance.

“What do you wish me to say to you?” responded Luiza in a languid voice. “Let us speak of something else,” she said, turning her head aside and sighing.

“But why, why?” asked Bazilio.

“No, Bazilio, no; leave me.”

Her voice had the fervor of a prayer and the sweetness of a caress.

Without further hesitation he caught her in his arms. Luiza was powerless to resist; her lips were pale, her eyes closed, and Bazilio, drawing her head to his breast, bent down, and softly pressed long kisses on her eyelids, her face, her mouth; her knees bent under her, her lips were slightly parted. But all at once she straightened herself, and drawing back from him, exclaimed in accents of desperation,—

“Leave me! leave me!”

With a violent effort she released herself from his arms, pushed him away from her, and passed her hands over her forehead and her hair, with a look of terror.

“Oh, my God!” she cried; “this is horrible! Leave me!”

Bazilio approached her, his lips firmly closed; but Luiza retreated.

“Go away! What do you want? Go away! Why do you remain here? Leave me!” she cried.

Bazilio, in tender accents, said he did not understand why she should be angry. A kiss! What was a kiss? What had she fancied? It was true that he adored her, but with a pure love.

“I swear it to you,” he said, laying his hand upon his heart.

He made her sit down on the sofa, and then sat down beside her, and began to reason with her. He would be resigned; circumstances demanded it from him. They would be friends, as if they were brother and sister, nothing more.

Luiza listened, unable to resist his persuasive accents.

It was true, he said, that his love for her was a torture to him; but he was strong, and he would control himself. All he desired was to see her, to speak to her. Theirs should be an ideal love.

As he spoke thus, he devoured her with his eyes. He took her hand in his, bent over it, and pressed a kiss upon the palm.

Luiza rose, trembling, and said, “No; leave me!”

“Very well; good-by!”

He rose with a resigned and melancholy gesture.

“Good-by,” he repeated sorrowfully, smoothing his silk hat with his hand.

“Good-by,” responded Luiza.

“Are you angry with me?” asked Bazilio, with tenderness.

“No.”

His glance brightened.

“Listen to me,” he murmured, approaching her.

Luiza stamped her foot upon the floor.

“Oh, what a man!” she cried. “Leave me. To-morrow! Good-by! go away—till to-morrow.”

“Till to-morrow,” said Bazilio tenderly, and left her.

Luiza returned to her room, her nerves quivering. As she looked at herself in the glass, she hardly recognized herself. Never before had she been so beautiful. She took a few steps in silence. Juliana was arranging the drawers of the bureau.

“Who rang the bell a little while ago?” asked Luiza.

“Senhor Sebastião. He would not come in. He said he would return.”

He had, in fact, said that he would return; but he began to be ashamed of coming every day, and always finding her with visitors. He was surprised at first when Juliana said to him, “She is with a gentleman,—a young man who was here yesterday.”

“Who could it be?” he asked himself. He was acquainted with all the friends of the family. It was probably some clerk in the Department, he told himself, or some proprietor of mines; the son of Alonso, perhaps, in relation to some business of Jorge’s,—yes, that must be it. And on Sunday evening, when he saw the windows of the parlor unlighted, he had felt a vague sense of oppression. He had brought with him the score of Gounod’s “Romeo and Juliet,” which Luiza wished to study; and when Juliana told him from the balcony that her mistress had left the house in a carriage with Donna Felicidade, he stood softly stroking his beard in momentary embarrassment, his heavy book under his arm. Then he remembered the enthusiastic admiration of Donna Felicidade for the theatre of Donna Maria. But, could they have gone alone to the theatre, and with this July heat? After all, it was possible; and so he went to the Donna Maria.

The theatre, which was almost empty, presented a lugubrious aspect. Here and there, in the boxes, were to be seen a few family groups who were enjoying the Sunday evening with a melancholy air, the children leaning, asleep, against the embossed morocco-covered railing. In the pit and in the almost deserted stalls were to be seen a few persons listening to the play with a sleepy air, wiping the perspiration from their foreheads from time to time with their silk handkerchiefs. The chandelier diffused a drowsy light. Every one was yawning. On the stage, which represented a ball-room furnished in yellow, an old man was speaking, with the monotony of water dropping from a fountain, to a very slender woman with her hair in curls. In the orchestra the musicians were fast asleep.

Sebastião went out. Where could they be? On the following day he learned. As he was going down the street of the Moinho de Vento, his neighbor Netto, who was coming towards him, his cigar in the corner of his mouth, which was shaded by a gray mustache, stopped him abruptly with the words,—

“Oh, friend Sebastião, I want to speak to you. Yesterday I saw Donna Luiza in the Passeio, with a young man with whose face I am familiar. But where have I seen him? Who the devil is he?”

Sebastião shrugged his shoulders.

“A young man, tall, fine-looking, with a foreign air,” Netto continued. “I know I have met him before. The other day I saw him go into a house down the street. Don’t you know who he is?”

Sebastião said he did not know.

“I have seen that face before. Let me try to think—” and he passed his hand over his forehead. “I have seen him somewhere. He belongs to Lisbon!” After a moment’s silence he resumed, “And what is there new, Sebastião?”

Sebastião had heard nothing new.

“Nor I either; it is all nothing but lies! Good-by.”

CHAPTER VI.
ON TRIAL.

AT about four in the afternoon Sebastião went again to Luiza’s. He found the same gentleman with her as before. He went away thoughtful, without seeing her. No doubt the visitor had come on some business of Jorge’s; for Sebastião could not comprehend that Luiza should think, speak, or feel, except with reference to the interests of the household, and with Jorge’s happiness in view. But the business must be a serious one to be the occasion of so many visits. Could anything of importance affect their interests and he not know of it? This seemed to him a piece of ingratitude on their part, and a diminution of their friendship for him.

Aunt Joanna noticed that something was the matter with him.

“A headache,” he said, in answer to her inquiries. That night he slept badly. Next day he learned that the gentleman was her Cousin Bazilio,—Bazilio de Brito. His uncertainty was at an end, but a more definite fear took possession of him.

Sebastião did not know Bazilio personally, but he knew the story of his youthful days. It is true that in this there was neither any exceptional scandal nor any piquant history. Bazilio had been simply a viveur, and as such had passed methodically through all the traditional episodes of Lisbon life,—parties of monte lasting till daylight, in the companionship of the wealthy bourgeois of Alemtejo; a carriage dashed to pieces on a Saturday at the bull-fights; dinners with some Lola or Carmen, followed by a lobster salad; a bull caught by the horns, applauses in the circus of Salvaterra or in Alhandra; nights spent in the taverns with guitar-players, eating codfish and drinking Collares; and a shower of flour eggs, thrown in the face of one of the municipal authorities during the Carnival. The only women who appeared in this story, with the exception of the Lolas and the Carmens, were la Pistelli, a German dancer with the legs of an athlete, and the little Countess of Alvini, a feather-head, and a great Amazon, who had separated from her husband after having given him a beating, and who once dressed in male attire to drive a coach from Rocio to Dá Fundo. All this was enough to make Sebastião regard him as a rake, as one who had already gone to destruction. He had heard that he was obliged to fly to Brazil from his creditors, and that he became rich by chance through a speculation in Paraguay; that not even when his fortunes were at their lowest ebb, in Bahia, would he devote himself persistently to work; and he took it for granted that the possession of a fortune would be the means of developing his vices. And this man came every day to see Luiza, staying with her for hours, accompanying her to the Passeio, with what purpose it was only too evident.

He was going down the street, oppressed by the weight of these thoughts, when he heard a hoarse voice saying in respectful tones,—

“Senhor Sebastião!”

It was Paula the furniture-dealer.

“I hope you are well, Senhor João.”

Paula spat on the pavement, and with his hands crossed behind him under the long skirts of his coat, said gravely,—

“Senhor Sebastião, is there any one sick in the house of the Senhor Engineer?”

“No,” returned Sebastião, in a tone of surprise. “Why?”

Paula coughed, spat again, and said,—

“Because I have observed a gentleman entering the house every day, and I thought it might be the doctor,—one of those new homœopaths.”

Sebastião turned scarlet.

“No,” he responded; “it is the cousin of Donna Luiza.”

“Ah!” said Paula. “I thought— Excuse me, Senhor Sebastião.”

And he bowed respectfully.

“They begin to gossip already,” thought Sebastião, as he continued on his way.

He returned home ill at ease. He lived in an old-fashioned house with a garden, belonging to himself. Sebastião lived alone. He possessed a small fortune in bonds, arable land, and his villa in Almada called the Rozegal. His two servants had been with him for many years; the cook was a negress from St. Thomas who had been in the service of the family since before his mother’s death; Joanna the housekeeper had served in the house for thirty-five years, and still called Sebastião the little one. She had now all the caprices of a child, but she was treated with the respect that might be shown to a grandmother. She was from Oporto,—Poarto, as she called it, for she had not lost her native accent. The friends of Sebastião called her uma velha de comedia. She was short and stout, with a round and jovial face, a smile full of kindness, hair white as flax, gathered in a knot on the top of her head, and fastened by an antique tortoiseshell comb; and she always wore a large white kerchief, freshly ironed, around her shoulders. She went about the house from morning till night, shuffling her feet and jingling her keys, repeating proverbs and taking pinches of snuff from a round box, on the lid of which was a picture of the hanging bridge of Oporto.

There was something in the aspect of the whole house that called an involuntary smile to the lips. The immense sofa and the easy-chairs reminded one of the days of José I., and the damask covering, of a faded red, recalled the pomp of a decrepit court; on the walls of the dining-room hung engravings of Napoleon’s battles, in all of which was to be seen the white horse standing on a height, towards which a hussar of high rank galloped furiously, brandishing his sabre.

Sebastião slept seven hours of tranquil sleep every night, in an antique bed of bent-wood, in a small dark bedroom. On a bureau with brass scutcheons, a St. Sebastian, pierced with arrows, had for many years past writhed—in the light of a little lamp kept carefully burning by Joanna—within the cords that bound him to the trunk of a tree. All the clothes put away in the drawers were perfumed by lavender-flowers.

The house resembled its master. Sebastião had old-fashioned ideas; he was shy, and he loved solitude. Years ago, in the Latin class, they had called him the bear; his comrades pinned rags on his back for sport, and unblushingly robbed him of his luncheon. To the strength of an athlete Sebastião joined the patience of a martyr.

He was always rejected in the first examinations at college. He was intelligent, but a question put to him, the glitter of the spectacles of a professor, the sight of the large black table, petrified him, and deprived him of the power of speech, leaving him with his face crimson, his knees trembling, his glance wandering.

His mother, who had come to Lisbon from a little village where she had kept a baker’s shop, who was very proud of her rents, her villa, her furniture, and who was always dressed in silks and weighed down with jewelry, would say,—

“Has he not enough to provide him with food and drink? Why trouble the boy with studies? Let him alone! Let him alone!”