Part 15

"Let us last one more day," she reflected to herself, "this illusory but ineffable happiness. I am a condemned woman, whom they drag from the dungeon to ascend the stage and for a few moments play the role of a happy and powerful queen; when I descend, I shall be buried again in my dungeon never to leave it. Let us prolong these instants; will it not be lawful to let pass, at least in dreams, one hour of happiness over the brow of the wretched condemned one?... there will always be time to break this fragile chain of gold that binds me to heaven, and to fall back into the hell of my sufferings.

In this indecision, in this inner struggle, in which always the voice of passion stifled the dictates of reason and conscience, some days passed until that one on which Alvaro induced them by almost violent means to accept an invitation to a ball. From then on Isaura understood that it would be a disloyalty, an unnameable infamy, to keep her lover any longer in illusion regarding her condition, and that there was no longer any way to prolong, without dishonor to them both, so false and precarious a situation.

It was too much to abuse the ignorance of the noble and generous youth! a runaway slave to present herself at a ball, and to parade on his arm before the most brilliant and distinguished class of an important capital!... it was to repay with the ugliest ingratitude and the most degrading disloyalty the services which with so much delicacy and kindness he had rendered her. This absolutely repugnant to the scruples of Isaura's sensitive conscience. It is true that Miguel, terrified by the considerations Alvaro had put to him, found himself forced to agree to his gracious invitation; Isaura, however, had kept absolute silence, which both took as a sign of acquiescence.

They were mistaken. Isaura, withdrawn into silence, was doing no more than attempting supreme efforts to shake off the burden of that disguise which weighed so heavily on her conscience, resolutely tearing away the veil that concealed from her lover's eyes her true condition. However much she invoked all her energy and resolution, at the decisive moment courage abandoned her. Already the word hovered on her half-open lips, already she had taken the step to go prostrate herself at Alvaro's feet, but finding fixed upon her the gentle and passionate gaze of the youth, she remained as if fascinated; the word did not dare break through her paralyzed lips and flowed back to her heart, and her feet refused to move as if they were nailed to the ground. Isaura was like the wretch whom fatal circumstances drag to suicide, but who on reaching the edge of the dreadful precipice into which he wishes to hurl himself, recoils in terror.

"Weak and cowardly creature that I am!" she thought at last, disheartened: "what misery! I do not even have the courage to fulfill a duty! no matter; for everything there is a remedy; he must hear from my father's mouth what I have not the spirit to tell him."

This idea shone in her spirit like a saving plank; she clung to it greedily, and before her courage could fail her again, she set about putting it into execution.

"My father," she said resolutely, as soon as Alvaro had crossed the gate of the small garden, "I declare to you that I am not going to that ball; I do not want to, nor should I by any means present myself there."

"You are not going?!" exclaimed Miguel astonished. "And why did you not say this sooner, when Mr. Alvaro was still here? now that we have already given our word..."

"For everything there is a remedy, my father," the daughter cut in with feverish vivacity, "and for this case it is quite simple. Go quickly, my father, to that young man's house, and tell him what I had not the spirit to tell him; declare to him who I am, and it is all over."

Saying this, Isaura was pale, she spoke with precipitation, her colorless lips trembled, and the words uttered with a convulsive and strident voice seemed to be torn with difficulty from her heart. It was the result of the extreme effort she was making to carry out so painful a resolution. Her father looked at her with astonishment and consternation.

"What are you saying, my daughter!" he replied to her, "you are so pale and altered!... it seems to me you have a fever... are you suffering something?"

"I am suffering nothing, my father; do not worry about my health. What I am telling you is that it is absolutely necessary that my father go seek that young man and confess everything to him..."

"That never!... are you mad, girl?... do you want me to see you locked in a jail, led in irons to your province, delivered to your master, and at last to see you die among torments in the claws of that monster! oh! Isaura, for the love of all you hold dear, do not speak to me more of this. As long as blood flows in these veins, as long as the smallest resource remains to me, I shall seize upon it to save you..."

"To save me by means of an indignity, an infamy, my father!..." retorted the girl with exaltation. "How can I, without committing the vilest disloyalty, appear presented by him as a free lady in a ballroom?... When that gentleman and so many other illustrious persons learn that he mingled with them, and beside them a wretched runaway slave danced..."

"Be quiet, girl!" interrupted the old man, annoyed by his daughter's exaltation. "Do not speak so loud... calm yourself; they will never know anything. As soon as possible we shall leave this land; tomorrow even, if it be possible. We shall embark on any packet, and go far away, to the United States, for example. There, according to what I have heard, we can remain beyond the reach of any persecution. I with my work, and you with your talents and accomplishments, we can live without suffering want in any corner of the world."

"Ah! my father! that idea of going so far, without hope of one day being able to return, oppresses my heart."

"What remedy, my daughter!... by now, even though we must end up at the end of the world, we are forced to flee the claws of the monster."

"But that young man, who takes such interest in us, Mr. Alvaro, noble and generous as he is, knowing my true condition, and the terrible circumstances that oblige us to go thus fugitive and disguised through the world, perhaps he may wish and be able to aid and protect us against persecutions."

"And who guarantees us that?... the most certain is that he will deliver you to contempt, as soon as he knows that you are nothing but a runaway slave, if, vexed by the deception he has suffered, he is not the first to denounce you to the police. In the strait in which we find ourselves, it is absolutely necessary to deceive him and everyone; if we reveal to anyone whomever the secret of our position, we are lost. Take courage, and let us go to the ball, my daughter; it is a cruel sacrifice, but a passing one, to which we must submit for the sake of our safety. Soon we shall be far away, and if some day they learn who you were, what does it matter to us? they will never again see our faces, nor hear our names. Your conscience is overly scrupulous. If they do not know who you are, your company can in no way defame them. With that you do harm to no one; it is a measure of salvation, which everyone would forgive you."

"My father seems to be right; but I do not know why, it absolutely repugns my heart to take that step."

"But it must be taken, my daughter, if you do not want for us both misfortune and death. If we do not go to that ball, and we disappear from one day to the next, as is forced upon us, then the suspicions we are beginning to arouse will take on much greater proportions, and the police will set themselves on our trail, and will pursue us everywhere. It is a sacrifice in truth, but will it not be much gentler than the persecutions of the police, the prison, the tortures and death, which is what you can expect in your master's house?..."

Isaura did not answer; her spirit was agitated amid the most poignant and bitter reflections.

Her father's words had plunged her into a glacial and profound discouragement. Stunned by so many blows, her soul struggled in a sea of doubts and perplexities, like a fragile bark in the midst of an irritated ocean, shaken at random by conflicting billows.

The cry of her scrupulous and delicate conscience, the uprightness and sincerity of her heart, which could not accommodate itself to deceit and lies, and a kind of vague presentiment that weighed upon her spirit, turned her away from that ball, and at moments seemed to fix her resolution definitively; and firm in this purpose she said to herself: "no, I will not go."

On the other hand, her father's considerations, which seemed so reasonable and sensible, as well as the desire to see Alvaro once more, to enjoy for a few hours his presence, made her spirit waver again on the sea of irresolutions. The remembrance that soon, perhaps the next day, she would have to leave that land and separate from Alvaro, without any hope of ever seeing him again, without being able to say a farewell to him, without his being able to know who she was, nor where she was going, tore at her heart. To depart without having a single being to clasp in her arms at the hour of farewell, nor a breast on which to pour the tears of the most poignant longing; to depart to lead a wandering and fugitive life, without hope nor any consolation, through a thousand labors and dangers, to end it perhaps among the torments of the most atrocious slavery, oh!... this was dreadful!—and, meanwhile, this was the only future that poor Isaura had before her eyes. But no; she still had before her a whole night of pleasure and happiness, a splendid night of ball and rejoicing of her lover, breathing the same air, intoxicating herself with his voice, drinking his breath, gathering within her soul his passionate glances, feeling upon hers the pressure of that adored hand, counting the pulsations of that heart which beat only for her. Oh! a night like that was well worth an eternity, let the anguish and dangers come afterward, slavery and death!

Candida and modest as she was, Isaura was nonetheless aware of how much she was worth. Seeing herself the object of the love of a young man of elevated spirit, and endowed with such noble and brilliant qualities as Alvaro, she became all the more confirmed in the idea she had of herself.

With her natural perspicacity and penetration, she soon convinced herself that the affection the youth devoted to her was not a simple and superficial homage paid to her charms and talents, nor yet a passing caprice of youth, but a true passion, sincere, energetic and profound. This was for her a motive of intimate pride, which elevated her in her own eyes, and for moments made her forget that she was a slave.

--I am convinced that I am worthy of Alvaro's love, if not, he would not love me; and if I am worthy of his love, why should I not be worthy of presenting myself in the bosom of the most brilliant society? Can the perversity of men perhaps destroy what is good and beautiful in the creator's making? Thus reflected Isaura, and exalted by these ideas and by the seductive prospect of some hours of ineffable bliss in the company of her lover, she exclaimed within her soul.--I must go, I must go to the ball!--

While Isaura, silent and with her face in her hand, was absorbed in her musings, seeking to settle upon a resolution, her father, no less uneasy and preoccupied, paced distractedly among the flowerbeds of the garden, awaiting with anxiety a definitive answer from his daughter.

--I will go, my father, I will go to the ball,--she said at last, rising, but I will prepare myself for it like the victim who must be led to the sacrifice amid chants and flowers. I have a cruel presentiment, which overwhelms me...

--A presentiment of what, Isaura?...

--I do not know, my father; of some misfortune.

--As for me, Isaura, my heart seems to be foretelling that from going to this ball will result our salvation.

Chapter XIII.