Part 2

The horsemen, who had just dismounted, were two handsome and elegant young men, who had arrived from the town of Campos. From the familiar manner in which they entered, it was immediately apparent that they were people of the house.

In fact, one was Leôncio, Malvina's husband; and the other Henrique, her brother.

Before we go further, we must become more intimately acquainted with the two young gentlemen.

Leôncio was the only son of the rich and magnificent Commander Almeida, owner of the beautiful and sumptuous estate in which we find ourselves. The Commander, already quite aged and full of infirmities after the marriage of his son, which had taken place a year before the time at which this story begins, had abandoned to him the administration and usufruct of the estate, and lived at court, where he sought relief or distraction from the ailments that tormented him.

Leôncio had found from infancy, in the largesse and ease of his parents, ample means to corrupt his heart and lead his intelligence astray. A bad student and an incorrigible child, turbulent and insubordinate, he went from school to school, and passed like a cat over hot coals through all the preparatory courses, whose examinations he nonetheless always passed under the shadow of patronage. The teachers did not dare to give the noble and munificent Commander the grief of seeing his son fail. Enrolled in the school of medicine, in the very first year he grew disgusted with that discipline, and since his parents did not know how to oppose him, he went to Olinda in order to attend the law course. There, after having squandered no small portion of his father's fortune in the satisfaction of all his vices and mad fantasies, he also grew weary of legal studies, and came to understand that only in Europe could he worthily develop his intelligence and slake his thirst for knowledge at pure and abundant springs. So he wrote to his father, who believed him and sent him to Paris, whence he expected to see him return made into a new Humboldt. Installed in that vast pandemonium of luxury and pleasures, Leôncio rarely, and only out of boredom, went to hear the eloquent lectures of the eminent professors of the time, and was not even seen in the museums, institutes, and libraries. In compensation, he was an assiduous frequenter of the Jardin Mabille, as well as of all the most fashionable cafés and theaters, and had become one of the most famous and elegant lions of the boulevards. After some years, now of residence in Paris, now of recreational tours through the waters and the principal capitals of Europe, he had so copiously and pitilessly bled his father's purse that the Commander, despite all his condescension and tenderness toward his only and beloved son, saw himself obliged to recall him to the shadow of his native hearth in order to avoid complete ruin. But even so, in order not to wound him by suddenly and rudely pulling in the reins on his career of follies and dissipations, he resolved to attract him gently by holding out the prospect of a rich and highly advantageous marriage.

Leôncio took the bait and returned to his homeland a perfect dandy, gentle and elegant like no other, bringing from his travels, instead of knowledge and experience, an enormous dose of fatuity and petulance, and such a perfect polish of high society that you would take him for a prince. But the worst was that, if he brought back an empty brain, he returned with a soul corrupted and a heart ruined by habits of debauchery and libertinism. Some good and generous instincts, with which nature had endowed him, had been extinguished in his heart by the friction of the worst doctrines confirmed by even worse examples.

Back from Europe, Leôncio was twenty-five years old. His father warned him with insinuating and tactful words that it was now time to apply himself to something, to embrace some career; that he had already availed himself of his father's purse more than was necessary for his education, and that it was necessary to begin learning, if not to increase, at least to preserve a fortune, at the head of which he would sooner or later have to find himself. After much hesitation, Leôncio finally opted for the career of commerce, which seemed to him to be the most independent and secure of all; but his broad and audacious ideas on this subject terrified the good Commander. The import and export trade of goods, even on a large scale, and the very traffic in Africans, seemed to him degrading speculations, improper for his high position and refined education. The counter and retail business inspired in him disgust and pity. Only high exchange speculations suited him, banking operations, and transactions in which he played with large capitals. Only thus could he double, triple in a short time his father's fortune. With what he had observed on the Paris Stock Exchange and in other European markets, he presumed himself sufficiently qualified to direct the operations of the most important banking establishment, or the most grandiose industrial enterprises.

His father, however, did not dare to entrust his fortune to the speculative hazards of that financier in bud, who until then had given proof only of great talent for consuming, in a short time and to pure loss, considerable sums. He resolved therefore not to touch that subject with him again, hoping that the young man would acquire a little more sense.

Seeing that his father completely forgot the plans to create for him a patrimony of his own, Leôncio looked to marriage as the gentle and natural means of acquiring fortune, as the only career that offered itself to him for having money to squander at his pleasure.

Malvina, the beautiful daughter of a very rich merchant of the court, a friend of the Commander, was already destined for Leôncio by common accord and acquiescence of the parents of both. The Commander's family went to the court; the young people saw each other, loved each other, and married; it was a matter of a few days. Shortly after their marriage, Leôncio suffered the grief of losing his mother by an unexpected blow. This good and respectable lady had not been very happy in the relations of intimate life with her husband, who, as a man of arid and cold heart, was ignorant of the holy and pure delights of conjugal affection, and with his libertinism and debaucheries daily tore at his wife's heart. To crown her misfortunes, she had also lost all her children in infancy, leaving her only Leôncio. She lamented chiefly that heaven had not left her at least a daughter, who might serve as company and consolation in her desolate old age. Fate, however, wished to provide her in her own house with some compensation for her misfortunes in a fragile creature, who came in some way to fill the void she felt in her kind and tender heart, and to make less sad and solitary the home in which she spent her days so monotonous and tedious.

A little slave girl had been born in the house, who from the cradle attracted by her grace, gentleness, and vivacity all the attention and solicitude of the good old woman.

Isaura was the daughter of a beautiful mulatta, who had for a long time been the favorite maid and faithful servant of the Commander's wife. He, who as a libidinous and unscrupulous man looked upon the slaves as a seraglio at his disposal, cast covetous eyes, burning with lasciviousness, upon the gentle mulatta. For a long time she resisted his brutal solicitations; but at last she had to yield to his threats and violence. Such a base and barbarous proceeding could not for long remain hidden from the eyes of his virtuous wife, who conceived mortal grief over it.

Overwhelmed by her with the most violent and bitter reproaches, the Commander no longer dared to employ violence against the poor slave, nor did he ever manage by any other means to overcome the invincible repugnance she inspired in him. He became enraged at so much resistance, and resolved in his perverse heart to take revenge in the most barbarous and ignoble manner, overwhelming her with labor and punishments. He exiled her from the parlor, where she performed only light and delicate services, to the slave quarters and the heavy labor of the fields, recommending firmly to the overseer that he spare her neither work nor punishment. The overseer, however, who was a good Portuguese still in the vigor of his years, and who did not have his entrails as hardened as his master's, seduced by the mulatta's charms, instead of work and beatings gave her only caresses and gifts, so that some time later the mulatta gave birth to the gentle little slave girl of whom we have spoken. This fact further exacerbated the Commander's fury against the wretched slave. He expelled with insults and threats the good and faithful overseer, and subjected the mulatta to such harsh labor and such cruel treatment that he soon precipitated her into the tomb, before she could finish raising her tender and delicate little daughter.

Behold, then, under what sad auspices the beautiful and unfortunate Isaura was born. Yet, as if to indemnify her for such misfortune, a saintly woman, an angel of goodness, bent over the cradle of the poor child and came to shelter her under the shadow of her charitable wings. The Commander's wife regarded that tender and beautiful creature as a gift that heaven had sent her to console her for the anguish and sorrows she swallowed as a consequence of the base excesses of her debauched husband. She raised to heaven eyes bathed in tears, and swore by the soul of the unfortunate mulatta to take charge of Isaura's future, to raise her and educate her as if she were a daughter.

Thus she fulfilled it with the most religious scruple. As the girl grew and reached the age of learning, she herself taught her to read and write, to sew and to pray. Later she also sought out teachers of music, of dance, of Italian, of French, of drawing, bought her books, and strove at last to give the girl the most careful and fine education, as she would have done for a beloved daughter. Isaura for her part, not only through the development of her graces and bodily attractions, but also through the rapid progress of her lively and robust intelligence, went far beyond the most exaggerated hopes of the excellent old woman, who in view of such happy and brilliant results, increasingly took delight in cutting and polishing that jewel, which she said was the pearl braided in her white hairs.--Heaven did not wish to give me a daughter of my womb,--she used to say,--but in compensation it gave me a daughter of my soul.

What however was most to be admired in the interesting girl is that that predilection and extreme solicitude of which she was the object did not make her impertinent, vain or arrogant, not even toward her companions in captivity. The pampering with which she was treated in no way altered the natural goodness and candor of her heart. She was always cheerful and good with the slaves, docile and submissive with the masters.

The commander did not at all like the singular caprice of his wife toward the little mulatto girl, a caprice which he qualified as dotage.

--A fine madness!--he used to exclaim with an accent of commiseration.--There she is striving to create a formidable dandy, who in time to come will give her water for her beard. Old women, some take to praying, others to scolding from morning till night, others to washing little dogs or to raising chicks; this one took to raising little mulatto princesses. It is a somewhat more expensive amusement in truth; but ... may it do her good; at least while they amuse themselves there with their delight, it spares me a good dozen of impertinent and peevish sermons... Let her fend for herself!...