Pepita Ximenez Part 19

The Count of Genazahar, after being confined to his bed for five months, is now cured of his wound, and, according to what they say, is very much improved in respect to his manners. He paid Pepita, a short time ago, more than half of his debt to her, and asks for a respite in the payment of the remainder.

We have had a very great grief, although one that we had foreseen for some time past. The father vicar, yielding to the advance of years, has pa.s.sed to a better life. Pepita remained to the last at his bedside, and closed his eyes with her own beautiful hands. The father vicar died the death of a blessed servant of the Lord. Rather than death, it seemed a happy transit to serener regions. Nevertheless, Pepita and all of us have mourned him sincerely. He has left behind him only a few dollars and his furniture, for he gave all he had in alms. His death would have made orphans of the poor of the village, if it were not that Pepita still lives.

Every one in the village laments the death of the reverend vicar; and there are many who regard him as a real saint, worthy of religious honors, and who attribute miracles to him. I know not how that may be, but I do know that he was an excellent man, and that he must have gone straight to heaven, where we may hope to have in him an intercessor.

With all this, his humility, his modesty, and his fear of G.o.d were such that he spoke of his sins in the hour of death, as if he had in reality committed any, and he besought our prayers to the Lord and to the Virgin Mary for their forgiveness.

A strong impression has been produced on the mind of Luis by the exemplary life and death of this man. He was simple, it must be confessed, and of limited intelligence, but of upright will, ardent, faith, and fervent charity. When Luis compares himself with the vicar, he feels humiliated. This has infused into his soul a certain bitter melancholy; but Pepita, who has a great deal of tact, dissipates it with smiles and caresses.

Everything prospers with us. Luis and I have some wine-vaults than which there are no better in Spain, if we except those of Xeres. The olive-crop of this year has been superb. We can afford to allow ourselves every species of luxury; and I counsel Luis and Pepita to make the tour of Germany, France, and Italy, as soon as Pepita is over her trouble, and once more in her usual health. The children may, without improvidence or folly, throw away a few thousands of dollars on the expedition, and bring back many fine books, pieces of furniture, and objects of art, to adorn their dwelling.

We have deferred the baptism for two weeks, in order that it may take place on the first anniversary of the wedding. The child is a marvel of beauty, and is very healthy. I am the G.o.dfather, and he has been named after me. I am already dreaming of the time when Periquito shall begin to talk, and amuse us with his prattle.

In order that nothing may be wanting to the prosperity of this tender pair, it turns out now, according to letters received from Havana, that the brother of Pepita, whose evil ways we feared might disgrace the family, is almost--and indeed without an _almost_--about to honor and elevate it by becoming a person of eminence. During all the time in which we heard nothing from him, he has been profiting by his opportunities, and fortune has sent him favoring gales. He obtained another employment in the custom-house; then he trafficked in negroes; then he failed--an occurrence which for certain business men is like a good pruning for trees, making them sprout again with fresh vigor--and now he is so prosperous that he has formed the resolution of entering the highest circles of the aristocracy, under the t.i.tle of marquis or duke. Pepita is frightened and troubled at this unexpected turn of fortune, but I tell her not to be foolish: if her brother is, and must in any case be, a rascal, is it not better that he should at least be a fortunate one?

We might thus go on making extracts did we not fear to weary the reader.

We shall end, then, by copying a few pa.s.sages from one of the latest letters:

My children have returned from their travels in good health. Periquito is very mischievous and very charming. Luis and Pepita come back resolved never again to leave the village, though their lives should be longer than were those of Philemon and Baucis. They are more in love with each other than ever.

They have brought back with them articles of furniture, a great many books, some pictures, and I know not how many other elegant trifles, purchased in the countries through which they have traveled, and princ.i.p.ally in Paris, Rome, Florence, and Vienna.

The affection they entertain for each other, and the tenderness and cordiality with which they treat each other and every one else, have exercised a beneficent influence on manners here; and the elegance and good taste with which they are now completing the furnis.h.i.+ng of their house will go far to make exterior culture take root and spread.

The people in Madrid say that in the country we are stupid and uncouth; but they remain where they are, and never take the trouble to come and reform our manners. On the contrary, no sooner does any one make his appearance in the country who knows or is worth anything, or who thinks he knows or is worth anything, than he makes every possible effort to get away from it, and leaves the fields and provincial towns behind him.

Pepita and Luis pursue the opposite course, and I commend them for it with my whole heart. They are gradually improving and beautifying their surroundings, so as to make out of this secluded spot a paradise.

Do not imagine, however, that the inclination of Pepita and Luis for material well-being has cooled in the slightest degree their religious feelings. The piety of both grows deeper every day; and in each new pleasure or satisfaction which they enjoy, or which they can procure for their fellow-beings, they see a new benefaction of Heaven, in which they recognize fresh cause for grat.i.tude. More than this, no pleasure or satisfaction would be such, none would be of any worth, or substance, or value in their eyes, were it not for the thought of higher things, and for the firm belief they have in them.

Luis, in the midst of his present happiness, never forgets the dethronement of the ideal he had set up for himself. There are times when his present life seems to him vulgar, selfish, and prosaic, compared with the life of sacrifice, with the spiritual existence to which he believed himself called in the first years of his youth. But Pepita hastens, solicitous, to dispel his melancholy on such occasions; and then Luis comprehends and acknowledges that it is possible for man to serve G.o.d in every state and condition, and succeeds in reconciling the lively faith and the love of G.o.d that fill his soul, with this legitimate love of the earthly and perishable. But in the earthly and perishable he beholds the divine principle, as it were, without which, neither in the stars that stud the heavens, nor in the flowers and fruits that beautify the fields, nor in the eyes of Pepita, nor in the innocence and beauty of Periquito, would he behold anything lovely. The greater world, all this magnificent fabric of the universe, he declares, would without its all-seeing G.o.d seem to him sublime indeed, but without order, or beauty, or purpose. And as for the lesser world, as we are accustomed to call man, neither would he love it were it not for G.o.d; and this, not because G.o.d commands him to love it, but because the dignity of man, and his t.i.tle to be loved, have their foundation in G.o.d himself, who not only made the soul of man in his own likeness, but enn.o.bled also his body, making it the living temple of the Spirit, holding communion with it by means of the sacrament, and exalting it to the extreme of uniting with it his uncreate Word. In these and other arguments, which I am unable to set forth here, Luis finds consolation.

He reconciles himself to having relinquished his purpose of leading a life devoted to pious meditations, ecstatic contemplation, and apostolic works, and ceases to feel the sort of generous envy with which the father vicar inspired him on the day of his death; but both he and Pepita continue to give thanks, with great Christian devoutness, for the benefits they enjoy, comprehending that not to their own merit do they owe these benefits, but only to the goodness of G.o.d.

And so my children have in their house a couple of apartments resembling beautiful little Catholic chapels or oratories: but I must confess that these chapels have, too, their trace of paganism--an amorous-pastoral-poetic and Arcadian air, which is to be seen only beyond city walls.

The orchard of Pepita is no longer an orchard, but a most enchanting garden, with its _araucarias_, its Indian fig-trees, that grow here in the open air, and its well-arranged though small hot-house, full of rare plants.

The dining-room in which we ate the strawberries on the afternoon on which Pepita and Luis saw and spoke with each other for the second time has been transformed into a graceful temple, with portico and columns of white marble. Within is a s.p.a.cious apartment, comfortably furnished, and adorned by two beautiful pictures. One represents Psyche, discovering, by the light of her lamp, Cupid asleep on his couch; the other represents Chloe, when the fugitive gra.s.shopper has taken refuge in her bosom, where, believing itself secure, it begins to chirp in the pleasant hiding-place from which Daphne tries, meanwhile, to take it forth.

A very good copy, in Carrara marble, of the Venus de' Medici occupies the most prominent place in the apartment, and, as it were, presides over it. On the pedestal are engraved, in letters of gold, these words of Lucretius:

"_Nec sine te quidquam dias in luminis oras Exoritur, neque fit laetum, neque amabile quidquam._"

THE END.