a little later the scene had changed. don cayetano, finding rest from his sublime labors in a gentle slumber that had overcome him after dinner, reclined comfortably in an arm-chair in the dining-room. rosarito, seated at one of the windows that opened into the garden, glanced at her cousin, saying to him with the mute eloquence of her eyes:
“cousin, sit down here beside me and tell me every thing you have to say to me.”
her cousin, mathematician though he was, understood.
“my dear cousin,” said pepe, “how you must have been bored this afternoon by our disputes! heaven knows that for my own pleasure i would not have played the pedant as i did; the canon was to blame for it. do you know that that priest appears to me to be a singular character?”
“he is an excellent person!” responded rosarito, showing the delight she felt at being able to give her cousin all the data and the information that he might require.
“oh, yes! an excellent person. that is very evident!”
“when you know him a little better, you will see that.”
“that he is beyond all price! but it is enough for him to be your friend and your mamma’s to be my friend also,” declared the young man. “and does he come here often?”
“every day. he spends a great deal of his time with us,” responded rosarito ingenuously. “how good and kind he is! and how fond he is of me!”
“come! i begin to like this gentleman.”
“he comes in the evening, besides, to play tresillo,” continued the young girl; “for every night some friends meet here—the judge of the lower court, the attorney-general, the dean, the bishop’s secretary, the alcalde, the collector of taxes, don inocencio’s nephew——”
“ah! jacintito, the lawyer.”
“yes; he is a simple-hearted boy, as good as gold. his uncle adores him. since he returned from the university with his doctor’s tassel—for he is a doctor in two sciences, and he took honors besides—what do you think of that?—well, as i was saying, since his return, he has come here very often with his uncle. mamma too is very fond of him. he is a very sensible boy. he goes home early with his uncle; he never goes at night to the casino, nor plays nor squanders money, and he is employed in the office of don lorenzo ruiz, who is the best lawyer in orbajosa. they say jacinto will be a great lawyer, too.”
“his uncle did not exaggerate when he praised him, then,” said pepe. “i am very sorry that i talked all that nonsense i did about lawyers. i was very perverse, was i not, my dear cousin?”
“not at all; for my part, i think you were quite right.”
“but, really, was i not a little—”
“not in the least, not in the least!”
“what a weight you have taken off my mind! the truth is that i found myself constantly, and without knowing why, in distressing opposition to that venerable priest. i am very sorry for it.”
“what i think,” said rosarito, looking at him with eyes full of affection, “is that you will not find yourself at home among us.”
“what do you mean by that?”
“i don’t know whether i can make myself quite clear, cousin. i mean that it will not be easy for you to accustom yourself to the society and the ideas of the people of orbajosa. i imagine so—it is a supposition.”
“oh, no! i think you are mistaken.”
“you come from a different place, from another world, where the people are very clever, and very learned, and have refined manners, and a witty way of talking, and an air—perhaps i am not making myself clear. i mean that you are accustomed to live among people of refinement; you know a great deal. here there is not what you need; here the people are not learned or very polished. every thing is plain, pepe. i imagine you will be bored, terribly bored, and that in the end you will have to go away.”
the expression of sadness which was natural in rosarito’s countenance here became so profound that pepe rey was deeply moved.
“you are mistaken, my dear cousin. i did not come here with the ideas you fancy, nor is there between my character and my opinions and the character and opinions of the people here the want of harmony you imagine. but let us suppose for a moment that there were.”
“let us suppose it.”
“in that case i have the firm conviction that between you and me, between us two, dear rosarito, perfect harmony would still exist. on this point i cannot be mistaken. my heart tells me that i am not mistaken.”
rosarito blushed deeply, but making an effort to conceal her embarrassment under smiles and fugitive glances, she said:
“come, now, no pretences. but if you mean that i shall always approve of what you say, you are right.”
“rosario,” exclaimed the young man, “the moment i saw you my soul was filled with gladness; i felt at the same time a regret that i had not come before to orbajosa.”
“now, that i am not going to believe,” she said, affecting gayety to conceal her emotion. “so soon? don’t begin to make protestations already. see, pepe, i am only a country girl, i can talk only about common things; i don’t know french; i don’t dress with elegance; all i know is how to play the piano; i——”
“oh, rosario!” cried the young man, with ardor; “i believed you to be perfect before; now i am sure you are so.”
her mother at this moment entered the room. rosarito, who did not know what to say in answer to her cousin’s last words, was conscious, however, of the necessity of saying something, and, looking at her mother, she cried:
“ah! i forgot to give the parrot his dinner.”
“don’t mind that now. but why do you stay in here? take your cousin for a walk in the garden.”
doña perfecta smiled with maternal kindness at her nephew, as she pointed toward the leafy avenue which was visible through the glass door.
“let us go there,” said pepe, rising.
rosarito darted, like a bird released from its cage, toward the glass door.
“pepe, who knows so much and who must understand all about trees,” said doña perfecta, “will teach you how to graft. let us see what he thinks of those young pear-trees that they are going to transplant.”
“come, come!” called rosarito to her cousin impatiently from the garden.
both disappeared among the foliage. doña perfecta watched them until they were out of sight and then busied herself with the parrot. as she changed its food she said to herself with a contemplative air:
“how different he is! he has not even given a caress to the poor bird.”
then, thinking it possible that she had been overheard by her brother-in-law, she said aloud:
“cayetano, what do you think of my nephew? cayetano!”
a low grunt gave evidence that the antiquary was returning to the consciousness of this miserable world.
“cayetano!”
“just so, just so!” murmured the scientist in a sleepy voice. “that young gentleman will maintain, as every one does, that the statues of mundogrande belong to the first phoenician immigration. but i will convince him—”
“but, cayetano!”
“but, perfecta! there! now you will insist upon it again that i have been asleep.”
“no, indeed; how could i insist upon any thing so absurd! but you haven’t told me what you think about that young man.”
don cayetano placed the palm of his hand before his mouth to conceal a yawn; then he and doña perfecta entered upon a long conversation. those who have transmitted to us the necessary data for a compilation of this history omit this dialogue, no doubt because it was entirely confidential. as for what the engineer and rosarito said in the garden that afternoon, it is evident that it was not worthy of mention.
on the afternoon of the following day, however, events took place which, being of the gravest importance, ought not to be passed over in silence. late in the afternoon the two cousins found themselves alone, after rambling through different parts of the garden in friendly companionship and having eyes and ears only for each other.
“pepe,” rosario was saying, “all that you have been telling me is pure fancy, one of those stories that you clever men know so well how to put together. you think that because i am a country girl i believe every thing i am told.”
“if you understood me as well as i think i understand you, you would know that i never say any thing i do not mean. but let us have done with foolish subtleties and lovers’ sophistries, that lead only to misunderstandings. i will speak to you only in the language of truth. are you by chance a young lady whose acquaintance i have made on the promenade or at a party, and with whom i propose to spend a pleasant hour or two? no, you are my cousin. you are something more. rosario, let us at once put things on their proper footing. let us drop circumlocutions. i have come here to marry you.”
rosario felt her face burning, and her heart was beating violently.
“see, my dear cousin,” continued the young man. “i swear to you that if you had not pleased me i should be already far away from this place. although politeness and delicacy would have obliged me to make an effort to conceal my disappointment, i should have found it hard to do so. that is my character.”
“cousin, you have only just arrived,” said rosarito laconically, trying to laugh.
“i have only just arrived, and i already know all that i wanted to know; i know that i love you; that you are the woman whom my heart has long been announcing to me, saying to me night and day, ‘now she is coming, now she is near; now you are burning.’”
these words served rosario as an excuse for breaking into the laugh that had been dimpling her lips. her soul swelled with happiness; she breathed an atmosphere of joy.
“you persist in depreciating yourself,” continued pepe, “but for me you possess every perfection. you have the admirable quality of radiating on all around you the divine light of your soul. the moment one sees you one feels instinctively the nobility of your mind and the purity of your heart. to see you is to see a celestial being who, through the forgetfulness of heaven, remains upon the earth; you are an angel, and i adore you.”
when he had said this it seemed as if he had fulfilled an important mission. rosarito, overcome by the violence of her emotion, felt her scant strength suddenly fail her; and, half-fainting, she sank on a stone that in those pleasant solitudes served as a seat. pepe bent over her. her eyes were closed, her forehead rested on the palm of her hand. a few moments later the daughter of doña perfecta polentinos gave her cousin, amid happy tears, a tender glance followed by these words:
“i loved you before i had ever seen you.”
placing her hands in those of the young man she rose to her feet, and their forms disappeared among the leafy branches of an oleander walk. night was falling and soft shadows enveloped the lower end of the garden, while the last rays of the setting sun crowned the tree-tops with fleeting splendors. the noisy republic of the birds kept up a deafening clamor in the upper branches. it was the hour in which, after flitting about in the joyous regions of the sky, they were all going to rest, and they were disputing with one another the branches they had selected for sleeping-places. their chatter at times had a sound of recrimination and controversy, at times of mockery and merriment. in their voluble twitter the little rascals said the most insulting things to each other, pecking at each other and flapping their wings, as orators wave their arms when they want to make their hearers believe the lies they are telling them. but words of love were to be heard there too, for the peace of the hour and the beauty of the spot invited to it. a sharp ear might have distinguished the following:
“i loved you before i had even seen you, and if you had not come i should have died of grief. mamma used to give me your father’s letters to read, and he praised you so much in them that i used to say, ‘that is the man who ought to be my husband.’ for a long time your father said nothing about our marrying, which seemed to me great negligence. uncle cayetano, whenever he spoke of you, would say, ‘there are not many men like him in the world. the woman who gets him for a husband may think herself fortunate.’ at last your father said what he could not avoid saying. yes, he could not avoid saying it—i was expecting it every day.”
shortly after these words the same voice added uneasily: “some one is following us.”
emerging from among the oleanders, pepe, turning round, saw two men approaching them, and touching the leaves of a young tree near by, he said aloud to his companion:
“it is not proper to prune young trees like this for the first time until they have taken firm root. trees recently planted have not sufficient strength to bear the operation. you know that the roots can grow only by means of the leaves, so that if you take the leaves from a tree—”
“ah, señor don josé,” cried the penitentiary, with a frank laugh, approaching the two young people and bowing to them, “are you giving lessons in horticulture? insere nunc meliboee piros; pone ordine vites, as the great singer of the labors of the field said. ‘graft the pear-tree, dear meliboeus, trim the vines.’ and how are we now, señor don josé?”
the engineer and the canon shook hands. then the latter turned round, and indicating by a gesture a young man who was behind him, said, smiling:
“i have the pleasure of presenting to you my dear jacintillo—a great rogue, a feather-head, señor don josé.”
