Isaura, the SlavePart 23
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Part 23
I understand that to come out well from the terrible situation in which he found himself, there was only one path—to kill his antagonist or die at his hands—and yielding to those suggestions of wrath and despair, he jumped from the chair in which he was, grabbed Leoncio by the collar and shaking him with force:
"Villain!" he shouted, foaming with rage, "there you have your slave! But before taking her, you must answer for the insults you have directed at me, do you hear?... or perhaps you think that I am also your slave?..."
"You are mad, man!" said Leoncio, frightened. "The laws of our country do not permit dueling."
"What do the laws matter to me!... for a man of honor, honor is superior to the laws, and if you are not a coward, as I think..."
"Help, they want to murder me," shouted Leoncio, freeing himself from Alvaro's hands and running to the door.
"Infamous one!" roared Alvaro, crossing his arms and gnashing his teeth in a smile of wrath and disdain...
At that same moment, drawn by the noise, there entered the room from one side Isaura and Miguel, from the other the officer of justice and the guards.
Isaura had her ear sharpened, and from the interior of the house she had heard and understood everything.
She saw that all was lost, and she ran to forestall the folly that for love of her Alvaro was about to commit.
"Here I am, sir!" were the only words she pronounced, presenting herself with crossed arms before her master.
"There they are; it is these!" exclaimed Leoncio, indicating to the guards Isaura and Miguel. "Arrest them!... arrest them!..."
"Go, Isaura, go," murmured Alvaro with a trembling and faint voice, approaching the captive. "Do not lose heart; I will not abandon you. Trust in God and in my love."
An hour later Alvaro received at home the visit of Martinho. He came very puffed up and spruce to give an account of his commission, and eager to pocket the agreed sum.
"Ten contos!... oh!" he came thinking. "It is a fortune! now yes, I can live independent!... Goodbye, worn-out benches of the Academy! goodbye, greasy books, which I spent so long leafing through in vain!... I am going to throw you out the window; I no longer need you; my future is made. Soon I will be a capitalist, a banker, a commander, a baron, and they will see how much I am worth!..."
And by dint of multiplying calculations of usury and profiteering, Martinho had already multiplied that sum a hundredfold in his imagination.
"My dear sir Alvaro," he came saying at once without further preamble, "everything is arranged according to our desires. Your Grace can live tranquilly in the company of the gentle fugitive, for from now on no one will trouble you anymore. In fact, Your Grace's conduct in this question has been very fine and worthy of praise; it is proper to a great and generous heart like that of Your Grace. No greater outrage could be given! in captivity such a delicate and accomplished girl!... Now here is the letter, which I am writing to the blockhead of the little sultan. I give him half a dozen blows, which will disorient him completely."
Thus speaking, Martinho unfolded the letter, and was already beginning to read it, when Alvaro, impatient, interrupted him.
"Enough, sir Martinho," he said to him with ill humor; "the business is arranged; I no longer need your services."
"Arranged!... how?..."
"The slave is in the power of her master."
"Of Leoncio!... impossible!"
"Nevertheless, it is the pure truth; if you wish to know more, go to the police, and inquire."
"And my ten contos?..."
"I believe I no longer owe them to you."
Martinho let out a roar of despair, and left Alvaro's house with such precipitation that he seemed to go rolling down the stairs.
To describe the miserable state in which that poor soul was left is a task I will not undertake; let the readers form an idea.
The hungry dog, deluded by the shadow, let go of the meat it had between its teeth, and was left with neither one nor the other.
Chapter XIX.
"Look how you arrange that, Rosa; this girl is really a scatterbrain; she has no knack for anything. You show well that you were not born for the parlor; your place is in the kitchen."
"Just look at the figure of who wants to give me rules!... who called you here, meddler? Your place is not here either, it is there in the stable. Go govern your horses there, André, and do not meddle in what is not your concern."
"Shut up there, you fool," replied André, changing the place of some chairs. "What you know is only to chatter. This is not the place for these chairs... Look how these jars are!... you have not even cleaned the mirrors!... what a clumsy and lazy thing you are!... In Isaura's time all this here was a gem; it was a pleasure to enter this room. Now, it is this. It is clear that you are not for these things."
"That one now is well remembered!" retorted Rosa, highly vexed. "If you miss Isaura's time, go take her out of the dark room of the trunk, where she is living. That one certainly she will not have pleasure to decorate it with flowers."
"Shut your mouth, Rosa; watch out that you too can end up there."
"Not I, for I am not a runaway."
"Because you do not find someone to carry you, otherwise you would flee even with the devil. Poor Isaura! a girl so good and so delicate, treated like a kitchen negress! and you have no pity for her, Rosa?"
"Pity for what, now?... who told her to do her own things?"
"Well look, Rosa, I was ready to endure half the punishment that she is suffering, but in her company, understand."
"That costs little, André; it is to do what she did. Go, like her, take airs in Pernambuco, for you will infallibly go to Isaura's company."
"I wish!... if I knew they would arrest me with her, that would be a flight. But the devil is that poor Isaura now will leave us all forever. What a lack she will make in this house!..."
"Leave how?"
"You will see."
"Was she sold?..."
"What sold!"
"Pawned?"
"Not even that."
"Is she free?..."
"What a busybody!... Wait, Rosa; have a little patience, for today perhaps you will come to know everything."
"Just put yourself with mysteries ... then what you know, others cannot know?..."
"It is not mystery, Rosa; it is my suspicion. Here in the house there will soon be a big novelty; keep listening."
"Ah! ah!" replied Rosa, mocking. "You yourself have the face of novelty."
"Psst!... beak shut, Rosa!... here comes young master."
From the dialogue above the reader well sees that we find ourselves again at Leoncio's plantation, in the municipality of Campos, and in the same room in which at the beginning of this story we found Isaura singing her favorite song.
About two months have passed since Leoncio had gone to Recife to seize his slave. Leoncio and Malvina had reconciled, and having come from the court they had arrived at the plantation the day before. Some slaves, among whom are Rosa and André, are cleaning the floor, arranging and dusting the furniture of that rich salon, impassive witness of the family's mysteries, of so many scenes now touching and enchanting, now shameful and sinister, and which during Malvina's absence had remained always closed.
What, however, is the fate of Isaura and Miguel, since they left Pernambuco? what destiny did Leoncio give or intend to give to that one?... in what manner did he reconcile with his wife?
This is what we now proceed to explain to the reader, before we continue in this narrative.
Leoncio, having brought Isaura to his plantation, had kept her in the most complete and rigorous reclusion. This was not only with the aim of punishing her or feeding his ferocious vengeance on the unhappy captive. He knew how ardent and capable of extremes was the love that the young Pernambucan had conceived for Isaura; he had heard the last words that Alvaro had directed at him = trust in God, and in my love; I will not abandon you =.—It was a threat, and Alvaro, rich and audacious as he was, had great means to put it into execution, whether by some violence, or by means of cunning and snares. Leoncio therefore not only imprisoned his slave with all rigor, but also armed all his slaves, who from then on almost completely distracted from the labors of the plantation, lived on alert day and night like soldiers garrisoning a fortress.
But the ardent and ferocious soul of the young planter never gave up his mad love, and did not even lose hope of overcoming Isaura's coldness.
And it was no longer only love or sensuality that dragged him, it was a tyrannical caprice, a ferocious and satanic desire to avenge himself on her and on the preferred rival. He wanted to enjoy her, even if only for a single day, and after defiling and polluting her, to deliver her disdainfully to his antagonist, saying to him: "Come buy your lover; now I am disposed to sell her, and cheap."
He began then against her a new campaign of promises, seductions and protests, followed by threats, rigors and tyrannies. Leoncio only recoiled before tortures and brutal violence, not because he lacked ferocity for so much, but because knowing the heroic temper of Isaura's virtue, he understood that with such means he would only succeed in killing her, and Isaura's death did not satisfy his sensualism, nor even his vengeance. Therefore he set about meditating new plans, not only to trample underfoot what he called the slave's pride, but also to frustrate and completely mock Alvaro's generous views, thus taking from both the most complete vengeance.
Besides all this, Leoncio found himself in absolute need of reconciling with Malvina, not that honor, morality, and much less conjugal affection induced him to it, but for reasons of interest, which the reader will soon come to know. For this end, then, Leoncio went to the court and sought Malvina.
Besides all the bad qualities he possessed, lying, calumny, deceit, were weapons he wielded with the skill of the most refined hypocrite. He showed himself ashamed and repentant of the way in which he had treated her, and swore to erase with his future behavior even the memory of his past follies. He confessed with a sincerity and candor of an angel, that for some time he had let himself be carried away by Isaura's attractions, but that this had been no more than a passing folly, which had left no impression on his soul.
Furthermore, he hurled a thousand insults and slanders on account of poor Isaura. He alleged that she, as the refined coquette she was, had employed the most subtle and cunning artifices to seduce him and provoke him, with the aim of obtaining her freedom in exchange for her favors. He invented a thousand other things, and at last made Malvina believe that Isaura had fled from home seduced by a gallant who had long been courting her, without their knowing it; that it was he who had furnished her father the means to free her, and that not being able to achieve it they had conspired hand in hand and carried out the plan of abduction; that arriving at Recife, a young man as rich as he was extravagant and harebrained, falling in love with her, had taken her as his first lover; that Isaura with her artifices, passing herself off as a free lady, had entangled and deluded him in such a way that the poor young man was on the point of marrying her, and even after learning that she was a captive he did not want to let her go, and committing a thousand scandals and follies was disposed to anything to free her. It was from that young man's hands that he had gone to take her in Recife.
Malvina, an ingenuous and credulous girl, with a heart always prone to tenderness and forgiveness, gave full credit to everything it pleased Leoncio to invent, not only to justify his past faults, but to predispose the behavior he intended to follow from then on.
As an offended wife she had once become irritated against Isaura, when she surprised her husband addressing amorous words to her; but her rancor was gradually subsiding, and would have vanished entirely, if Leoncio had not come with false and treacherous information attributing the most vile proceedings to her. Malvina began to feel for Isaura from that moment, not hatred, but a certain aloofness and contempt, mixed with compassion, such as she would feel for any other bold and ill-behaved slave.
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