Part 1

THE SLAVE ISAURA

NOVEL

BY

BERNARDO GUIMARÃES

RIO DE JANEIRO B. L. GARNIER Bookseller-Publisher of the Institute 65--Rua do Ouvidor--65 Formerly 69. Paris.--E. BELHATTE, Bookseller, 14 rue de l'Abbaye 1875

All rights of property are reserved.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I. Chapter II. Chapter III. Chapter IV. Chapter V. Chapter VI. Chapter VII. Chapter VIII. Chapter IX. Chapter X. Chapter XI. Chapter XII. Chapter XIII. Chapter XIV. Chapter XV. Chapter XVI. Chapter XVII. Chapter XVIII. Chapter XIX. Chapter XX. Chapter XXI. Chapter XXII.

CHAPTER I.

It was in the first years of the reign of Sir D. Pedro II.

In the fertile and opulent municipality of Campos de Goitacases, on the bank of the Paraíba, a short distance from the town of Campos, there was a beautiful and magnificent estate.

It was a building of harmonious proportions, vast and luxurious, situated in a pleasant meadow at the foot of high hills covered with forest partly devastated by the farmer's axe. Far around, nature still displayed itself in all its primitive and wild rudeness; but nearby, around the delightful dwelling, the hand of man had converted the rough jungle that covered the soil into delightful gardens and orchards, into lush lawns and rich pastures, shaded here and there by gigantic gameleiras, perobas, cedars and copaíbas, which attested to the vigor of the ancient forest. One scarcely saw there wall, fence, nor hedge; garden, vegetable plot, orchard, pastures, and neighboring plantations were divided by lush and verdant hedges of bamboo, piteiras, hawthorns and gravatás, which gave the whole the appearance of the most pleasant and delightful garden.

The house presented its front to the hills. One entered it through a beautiful porch all entwined with climbing flowers, to which one ascended by a stone staircase of six or seven steps. The rear was occupied by other accessory buildings, slave quarters, courtyards, corrals and granaries, behind which stretched the garden, the vegetable plot, and an immense orchard, which lost itself on the bank of the great river.

It was on a beautiful and calm October afternoon. The sun was not yet set, and seemed to float on the horizon suspended over rolls of foam of changing colors bordered with fringes of gold. The breeze saturated with balmy effluvia stretched itself along the banks, awakening only faint murmurs in the treetops, and making the tops of the coconut palms rustle lightly, which gazed proudly at themselves in the lucid and tranquil waters of the stream.

The weather was fine; the vegetation, revived by moderate rains, displayed itself fresh, lush and luxuriant; the water of the river, not yet muddied by the great floods, rolling with majestic slowness, reflected in all purity the splendid colors of the horizon, and the clear verdure of the wooded banks. The birds, giving rest to their wings fatigued from continual flying through the neighboring orchards, meadows and thickets, were beginning to prelude their evening songs.

The glow of the setting sun so kindled the windowpanes of the building that it seemed to be devoured by the flames of an interior fire. Meanwhile, both within and around, deep silence reigned, and perfect tranquility. Truculent oxen, and sleek heifers lying in the grass, ruminating tranquilly in the shade of tall trunks. The domestic fowls cackled around the house, the sheep bleated, and some cows lowed, which came by themselves seeking the corrals; but no human voice or figure was heard or seen. It seemed that no inhabitant was there. Only the raised windowpanes of a large front room and the door leaves of the entrance open wide announced that not all the inhabitants of that sumptuous property were absent.

In favor of that almost harmonious silence of nature, one heard distinctly the harping of a piano marrying itself to a woman's voice, a melodious voice, sweet, passionate, and of the purest and freshest timbre that one can imagine.

Although somewhat muffled, the song had a sonorous vibration, ample and voluminous, which revealed an excellent and vigorous vocal organization. The veiled and melancholic tone of the song seemed the suffocated moan of a solitary and suffering soul.

That was the only voice that broke the silence of the vast and tranquil dwelling. Outside, everything seemed to listen to it in mystic and profound recollection.

The verses she was singing said thus:

Since the cradle breathing The airs of slavery, Like seed cast In land of curse, I spend life weeping My sad condition.

My arms are bound, I can embrace no one, Nor my lips, nor my eyes Can speak of love; God gave me a heart Only to suffer.

In the open air of the fields The flower exhales its perfume; The breeze sings in freedom, In the grove the winged singer; Only for the poor captive There are no songs, nor love.

Be silent, poor captive; Your complaints are crimes; That song is an affront, Which expresses your affliction. Life does not belong to you, Your heart is not your own.

The heartfelt and tender notes of that singing escaping through the open windows and echoing far around make one wish to know the siren who sings so beautifully. If she is not a siren, only an angel can sing thus.

Let us ascend the steps that lead to the porch, all garlanded with lush festoons and beautiful flowers, which serves as vestibule to the building. Let us enter without ceremony. Immediately to the right of the corridor we find open a wide door, which gives entrance to the reception room, vast and luxuriously furnished. There, alone and seated at the piano, is a beautiful and noble figure of a young woman. The lines of her profile are drawn distinctly between the ebony of the piano case and the thick tresses even blacker than it. Those lines are so pure and soft that they fascinate the eyes, enrapture the mind, and paralyze all analysis. Her complexion is like the ivory of the keyboard, white that does not dazzle, softened by a delicate nuance, which you could not say whether it is slight pallor or the color of a faded rose. Her graceful neck and of the purest workmanship sustains with ineffable grace the marvelous bust. Her loose and strongly waved hair tumbles curling down her shoulders in thick and glossy rolls, and like black fringes almost completely hid the back of the chair against which she was leaning. On her brow, calm and smooth as polished marble, the light of the sunset cast a rosy and soft reflection; you would call it a mysterious alabaster lamp guarding in its diaphanous breast the celestial fire of inspiration. Her face was turned toward the windows, and her vague gaze hovered through space.

The charms of the gentle singer were further enhanced by the simplicity, and we might almost say poverty, of her modest attire. A dress of ordinary light-blue calico perfectly outlined with charming simplicity her slender bearing and delicate waist, and spreading around her in ample undulations seemed a cloud, from whose breast the singer rose like Venus born of the foam of the sea, or like an angel emerging from vaporous mists. A small jet cross fastened to her neck by a black ribbon constituted her only ornament.

Scarcely had the song ended when the young woman remained a moment musing with her fingers on the keyboard as if listening to the last echoes of her song.

Meanwhile the gauze curtain of one of the inner doors opens subtly, and a new personage penetrates the salon. She too was a beautiful lady still in the bloom of youth, pretty, well made and elegant. The richness and exquisite care of her attire, her haughty and lordly bearing, a certain affected and languorous swaying of her movements gave her that pretentious air which accompanies every pretty and rich young woman, even when she is alone. But with all that luxury and grande dame grace, her great beauty was nonetheless somewhat eclipsed in the presence of the pure and correct forms, the noble simplicity, and the so natural and modest manners of the singer. Nevertheless Malvina was beautiful, charming even, and although vain of her beauty and high position, there shone through her large and gentle blue eyes all the native goodness of her heart.

Malvina approached gently and without being sensed to the side of the singer, placing herself behind her, waited for her to finish the last verse.

--Isaura!... she said, laying her delicate little hand lightly on the singer's shoulder.

--Ah! it is you, ma'am?!--answered Isaura, turning startled.--I did not know you were there listening to me.

--Well, what of it?... continue singing;... your voice is so beautiful!... but I would rather you sang something else; why do you like so much that sad song, which you learned I don't know where?...

--I like it, because I find it beautiful, and because ... ah! I must not speak...

--Speak, Isaura. Have I not told you that you must hide nothing from me, and fear nothing from me?...

--Because it makes me remember my mother, whom I did not know, poor thing!... But if you do not like that song, I will not sing it anymore.

--I don't like you singing it, no, Isaura. They will think you are mistreated, that you are an unhappy slave, the victim of barbarous and cruel masters. Meanwhile you live a life here that would make many a free person envious. You enjoy the esteem of your masters. They gave you an education, such as many rich and illustrious ladies I know did not have. You are beautiful, and you have such a lovely color that no one would say a single drop of African blood runs in your veins. You well know how much my good mother-in-law, before she expired, recommended you to me and to my husband. I shall always respect the recommendations of that saintly woman, and you well see, I am more your friend than your mistress. Oh! no; that mournful song, which you so love to sing, does not belong in your mouth.--I don't want,--she continued in a tone of gentle reproof,--I don't want you to sing it anymore, did you hear, Isaura? ... otherwise, I will close my piano on you.

--But, mistress, despite all that, what am I more than a simple slave? That education they gave me, and that beauty they praise so much, what use are they to me? ... they are luxury items placed in the African's slave quarters. The slave quarters is none the less what it is; a slave quarters.

--You complain of your lot, Isaura?...

--I, no mistress; I have no reason; ... what I mean by this is that despite all those gifts and advantages they attribute to me, I know how to recognize my place.

--Come now; I already know what troubles you; your song says it well. Pretty as you are, you cannot help having some sweetheart.

--I, mistress! ... for pity's sake, don't think that.

--You yourself; well, what of it? ... don't be embarrassed; is it something from the other world? Come now, confess; you have a lover, and that is why you lament not having been born free so you could love the one who pleased you, and in whose favor you fell, isn't that so?...

--Forgive me, mistress Malvina;--replied the slave with a candid smile.--You are very mistaken; I am so far from thinking of that!

--Far indeed! ... you don't fool me, my little girl! ... you love, and you are much too pretty and accomplished to incline toward a slave; unless it were a slave like you, which I doubt exists in the world. A girl like you can well conquer the love of some handsome young man, and that is the cause of the weeping of your song. But don't distress yourself, my Isaura; I promise you that tomorrow itself you will have your freedom; let Leoncio arrive; it is a shame that a girl like you still finds herself in the condition of a slave.

--Forget it, mistress; I don't think of love and much less of freedom; sometimes I grow sad for no reason, with no motive at all...

--It doesn't matter. It is I who want you to be free, and you shall be.

At this point the conversation was cut short by a trampling of horsemen, who were arriving and dismounting at the door of the plantation house.

Malvina and Isaura ran to the window to see who they were.

Chapter II.