Isaura, the SlavePart 24
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Part 24
It was enough for Leoncio to associate her with the plan of punishment and revenge that he was devising against the unfortunate slave. He well knew that Malvina, with her gentle and compassionate soul, would never consent to cruel punishments; but what he was meditating had nothing barbarous in appearance, although it was the most humiliating and painful torment imposed on the heart of a woman who was conscious of her beauty and of the nobility and elevation of her spirit.
"And what do you intend to do with Isaura?" asked Malvina.
"Give her a husband and a letter of freedom."
"And have you already found that husband?"
"Are husbands lacking? To find one I did not need to leave the house."
"Some slave, Leoncio? Oh! That, no."
"And what would be the harm, since I would also free the husband? It was creature with creature, like with like. I did think of André, who worships the air she breathes; but for that very reason I do not want to give her to that rascal. I have a much better match for her."
"Who, Leoncio?"
"Who else! Belchior."
"Belchior!" exclaimed Malvina, laughing a great deal. "You are joking; speak seriously, who is it?"
"It is Belchior, madam; I am speaking seriously."
"But do you by chance expect that Isaura would want to marry that monstrosity?"
"If she does not want to, so much the worse for her; I will not give her freedom, and she will spend her life cloistered and in irons."
"Oh! But that is too much cruelty, Leoncio. What is the use of giving her freedom in everything, if you do not leave her free to choose a husband? Give her freedom, Leoncio, and let her marry whomever she wants."
"She will not marry anyone: she will fly straight to Pernambuco, and there she will remain very smug in the arms of her insolent dandy, mocking me..."
"And what does that matter to you, Leoncio?" asked Malvina with a certain suspicious air.
"What does it matter to me!" replied Leoncio, somewhat disturbed by the question. "What does it matter to me! That is the same as asking me if I have honor in my face. If you knew how that fool provoked me by hurling atrocious insults at me! How he challenged me with a thousand bravadoes and threats, protesting that he would tear Isaura from my power. If it were not for your sake, and also to satisfy my mother's wishes, I would never give that slave her freedom, even if she rendered me no service and I had to treat her like a princess, just to break that insolent fellow's pride and punish the audacity and petulance of that shameless ruffian."
"Well then, Leoncio; but I understand that Isaura would more easily let herself be burned alive than marry Belchior."
"Do not worry about that, my dear; we shall catechize her properly. I have already forged my plan, with which I hope to reduce her to marrying him very willingly."
"If she consents, I have no reason to oppose that arrangement."
Leoncio had in fact skillfully prepared his atrocious plan. Having brought Miguel from Recife under arrest, together with Isaura, upon arriving in Campos he had him locked up in jail and sentenced to pay all the expenses and losses he had incurred with Isaura's flight, which he had calculated at an exorbitant sum. The poor man was therefore left exhausted of the last resources he had, and still as an extra burden owing an enormous sum that only long years of work could pay. Since Leoncio was rich, a friend of the ministers, and had great influence in the place, the local authorities readily lent themselves to all these persecutions.
After Leoncio, discouraged at being able to overcome Isaura's obstinate reluctance, changed his plan of revenge, he went in person to seek out Miguel.
"Senhor Miguel," he said in a formal tone, "I have compassion for you and your daughter, despite the troubles and losses you have caused me, and I come to propose a means for us to put an end once and for all to the disorders, intrigues and upheavals with which your daughter has disturbed my house and the peace of my life."
"I am ready for any arrangement, Senhor Leoncio," Miguel replied respectfully, "as long as it is just and honest."
"Nothing more honest, nor more just. I want to marry your daughter to a man of worth, and give her freedom; but for that purpose I need very much your cooperation."
"Then say in what I can serve you."
"I know that Isaura must feel some repugnance at marrying the person I destine for her, because of a foolish and extravagant passion that she seems still to have for that infamous fop from Pernambuco, who put a thousand notions in her head and filled her with extravagant ideas and mad hopes."
"I believe that she must remember that young man only out of gratitude..."
"What gratitude! Do you think he is paying much attention to her? As much as to the first shoe he put on. That was a caprice of a giddy head, a fantasy of a wealthy young nobleman, and the proof is here; read this letter... The scoundrel has the shamelessness to write to me, as if nothing had happened between us, with the airs of an old friend, informing me that he is married! What do you think of that? What do I care about his marriage! But that is not all; taking the occasion, he asks me with complete shamelessness that at any and all times, if I resolve to dispose of Isaura, I never do so without informing him, because he very much desires to have her as a maid for his wife! That is how far cynicism and impudence can go!"
"Indeed, sir! This from Senhor Alvaro is hard to believe!"
"Then convince yourself with your own eyes; read; do you not recognize this handwriting?"
And saying this, Leoncio presented to Miguel a letter whose handwriting perfectly imitated Alvaro's.
"The handwriting is his; there is no doubt," said Miguel, astonished at what he had just read. "There are infamies in this world that are hard to comprehend."
"And also cruel lessons, which one must not despise, is that not so, Senhor Miguel? Well then; keep that letter to show to your daughter; it is good that she know everything so as not to count on that man anymore, and to sweep from her spirit the fumes that perhaps still cloud her judgment. Also do what you can to predispose your daughter toward this marriage, which is of much advantage, and I will not only forgive you everything you owe me, but I return to you what you have already given me, so that you may open a business here in Campos and live quietly the rest of your days, in the company of your daughter and your son-in-law."
"But who is that son-in-law? Your Grace has not yet told me."
"That is true; I forgot. It is Belchior, my gardener; do you not know him?"
"Very well! Oh, sir! With what a miserable figure you want to marry my daughter! Poor Isaura! I very much doubt that she will want to."
"What does the figure matter, if he has a good soul and is honest and hardworking?"
"That is true enough; the point is whether she will want to."
"I am certain that advised and well catechized by you she will resolve to."
"I will do what I can; but I have little hope."
"And if she does not want to, so much the worse for her and for you: what is said is unsaid; everything remains as it was," said Leoncio definitively.
Miguel was not a man of a temperament to struggle against adversity. The captivity and perennial seclusion of his daughter, the misery that loomed before him accompanied by a thousand anguish, were for him hideous phantoms, whose aspect he could not face without feeling mortal dread and despondency. He did not find too burdensome the price at which the inhuman master, freeing him from misery, granted freedom to his daughter, and he accepted the agreement.
Chapter XX.
While Rosa and André were dusting the furniture of the salon, chattering gaily, a very sad and moving scene was taking place in a dark room adjoining the slave quarters, where Isaura, seated on a block, with one of her white and dainty little feet bound by a chain fixed to the wall, had been imprisoned for two months.
Miguel had been introduced there by order of Leoncio, to inform his daughter of his master's plan and to exhort her to accept the match he proposed to them. The picture presented by those two miserable creatures, pale, emaciated and cast down by misfortune, shut in a narrow and gloomy den, was poignant and desolating. On meeting again after two long months, more oppressed and wretched than ever, the first language with which they greeted each other was nothing more than a weeping of tears and sobs of indescribable anguish, which, embracing for a long time, they poured into each other's bosom.
"Yes, my daughter; you must resign yourself to this sacrifice, which is unfortunately the only recourse they leave us. It is on this condition that I come to open for you the doors of this sad prison, in which you have lived shut up for two months. It is no doubt a cruel sacrifice for your heart; but it is incomparably more bearable than this harsh captivity with which they intend to kill you."
"It is true, my father; my executioner gives me the choice between two yokes; but I still do not know which of the two will be more hateful and unbearable. I am pretty, they say; I was educated like a rich heiress; they inspired in me a high esteem of myself with the feeling of modesty and of the dignity of woman; I am a slave who makes many a beautiful young woman bite herself with envy; I have incomparable gifts of body and spirit; and all this so that, my God! So that I may be given as a treat to a miserable idiot! Can there be a more cruel and poignant mockery!"
And a convulsive and sinister laugh broke from Isaura's pale lips and echoed through the gloomy room like the strident howl of an owl among the sepulchers.
"It is not as much as it seems to you in your imagination shaken by sufferings. Time can do much, and with patience and resignation you will grow accustomed to this new life, no doubt much gentler than this hell of martyrdoms, and we may still enjoy days if not happy, at least more tranquil and serene."
"For me tranquility can exist only in the grave, my father. Between the two torments they leave me to choose, I still see something that smiles at me like a consoling idea, an extreme recourse that God reserves for the unfortunate, whose evils are without remedy."
"It is of resignation, no doubt, that you wish to speak, isn't it, my daughter?..."
"Ah! my father, when resignation is not possible, only death..."
"Be quiet, daughter!... do not say blasphemies and crazy words. I want, I need, for you to live. Will you have the courage to leave your father in this world all alone, old and given over to misery and helplessness? If you fail me, what will become of me in the sad circumstances in which you leave me?..."
"Forgive me, my good, my dear father; only in an extreme case would I think of dying. I know that I must live for my father, and that is what I want; but for that will it be necessary for me to marry a deformed man?... oh! this is mockery and opprobrium too much! Keep me under the most rigorous captivity, put me in the fields with a hoe in my hand, barefoot and dressed in cotton, punish me, treat me in short as the vilest of slaves, but for charity spare me this ignominious sacrifice!..."
"Belchior is not as deformed as he seems to you; and besides, time and habit will make you familiar with him. You have not seen him for a long time; with age he is straightening up, for he is still very much a child. Now you would not recognize him; he no longer has that exterior so coarse and unpleasant, and he has taken on other manners less rough. Take courage, my daughter; when you leave this sad dungeon, the air of freedom will restore your joy and tranquility, and even with the husband they give you, you will be able to live happily...."
"Happily!" exclaimed Isaura with a bitter smile; "do not speak to me of happiness, my father. If at least I had my heart free as before ... if I loved no one. Oh!... it was not necessary that he love me, no; it was enough that he want me as a slave, that angel of goodness, who in vain employed his generous efforts to tear me from this abyss. How much happier I would be than by being the wife of this poor man, whom they want me to marry! But woe is me! should I think more of him? can he, noble and rich gentleman, still remember the poor and unhappy captive!..."
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