Висенте Бласко-Ибаньес
Luna Benamor
III
IT was a winter afternoon; the sky was overcast and the air was gray, but it was not cold. Luna and the Spaniard were walking slowly along the road that leads to Europa Point, which is the extreme end of the peninsula of Gibraltar. They had left behind them the Alameda and the banks of the Arsenal, passing through leafy gardens, along reddish villas inhabited by officers of army and navy, huge hospitals resembling small towns, and garrisons that seemed like convents, with numerous galleries in which swarms of children were scurrying about; here, too, clothes and tableware were being washed and cleaned by the soldiers' wives—courageous wanderers over the globe, as much at home in the garrisons of India as in those of Canada. The fog concealed from view the coast of Africa, lending to the Strait the appearance of a shoreless sea. Before the pair of lovers stretched the dark waters of the bay, and the promontory of Tarifa revealed its black outline faintly in the fog, resembling a fabulous rhinoceros bearing upon its snout, like a horn, the tower of the lighthouse. Through the ashen-gray clouds there penetrated a timid sunbeam,—a triangle of misty light, similar to the luminous stream from a magic lantern,—which traced a large shaft of pale gold across the green-black surface of the sea. In the center of this circle of anemic light there floated, like a dying swan, the white spot of a sailboat.
The two lovers were oblivious to their surroundings. They walked along, engrossed in that amorous egotism which concentrates all life in a glance, or in the delicate contact of the bodies meeting and grazing each other at every step. Of all Nature there existed for them only the dying light of the afternoon, which permitted them to behold each other, and the rather warm breeze which, murmuring among the cacti and the palms, seemed to serve as the musical accompaniment to their conversation. At their right rumbled the far-off roar of the sea striking against the rocks. On their left reigned pastoral peace,—the melodious calm of the pines, broken from time to time only by the noise of the carts, which, followed by a platoon of soldiers in their shirt sleeves, wheeled up the roads of the mountain.
The two looked at each other with caressing eyes, smiling with the automatism of love; but in reality they were sad, with that sweet sadness which in itself constitutes a new voluptuousness. Luna, influenced by the positivism of her race, was gazing into the future, while Aguirre was content with the present moment, not caring to know what would be the end of this love. Why trouble oneself imagining obstacles!…
"I'm not like you, Luna. I have confidence in our lot. We'll marry and travel about the world. Don't let that frighten you. Remember how I came to know you. It was during the Feast of Tabernacles; you were eating almost on foot, like those gypsies that wander over the earth and resume their journey at the end of their meal. You come from a race of nomads which even today roams the world. I arrived just in time. We'll leave together; for I, too, am, because of my career, a wanderer. Always together! We will be able to find happiness in any land whatsoever. We'll carry springtime with us, the happiness of life, and will love each other deeply."
Luna, flattered by the vehemence of these words, nevertheless contracted her features into an expression of sadness.
"Child!" she murmured, with her Andalusian accent. "What sweet illusions… my precious consul! But only illusions, after all. How are we to marry? How can this be arranged?… Are you going to become a convert to my religion?"
Aguirre started with surprise and looked at Luna with eyes that betrayed his amazement.
"Man alive! I, turn Jew?…"
He was no model of pious enthusiasm. He had passed his days without paying much attention to religion. He knew that the world contained many creeds, but without doubt, as far as he was concerned, decent persons the world over were all Catholics. Besides, his influential uncle had warned him not to jest with these matters under penalty of hampering advancement in his career.
"No. No, I don't see the necessity of that.... But there must be some way of getting over the difficulty. I can't say what it is, but there surely must be one. At Paris I met very distinguished gentlemen who were married to women of your race. This can all be arranged. I assure you that it shall be. I have an idea! Tomorrow morning, if you wish, I'll go to see the chief Rabbi, your 'spiritual head,' as you call him. He seems to be a fine fellow; I've seen him several times upon the street; a well of wisdom, as your kind say. A pity that he goes about so unclean, smelling of rancid sanctity!… Now don't make such a wry face. It's a matter of minor importance! A little bit of soap can set it aright.... There, there, don't get angry. The gentleman really pleases me a great deal, with his little white goatee and his wee voice that seems to come from the other world!… I tell you I'm going to see him and say, 'Señor Rabbi, Luna and I adore each other and wish to many; not like the Jews, by contract and with the right to change their minds, but for all our life, for centuries and centuries. Bind us from head to foot, so that there'll be none in heaven or on earth that can separate us. I can't change my religion because that would be base, but I swear to you, by all my faith as a Christian, that Luna will be more cared for, pampered and adored than if I were Methuselah, King David, the prophet Habakkuk or any other of the gallants that figure in the Scriptures.'"
"Silence, you scamp!" interrupted the Jewess with superstitious anxiety, raising one hand to his lips to prevent him from continuing. "Seal your lips, sinner!"
"Very well. I'll be silent, but it must be agreed that we'll settle this one way or another. Do you believe it possible for any one to sever us after such a serious love affair… and such a long one?"
"Such a long one!" repeated Luna like an echo, imparting a grave expression to his words.
Aguirre, in his silence, seemed to be given over to a difficult mental calculation.
"At least a month long!" he said at last, as if in wonder at the length of time that had flown by.
"No, not a month," protested Luna. "More, much more!"
He resumed his meditation.
"Positively; more than a month. Thirty-eight days, counting today.... And seeing each other every day! And falling deeper and deeper in love each day!…"
They walked along in silence, their gaze lowered, as if overwhelmed by the great age of their love. Thirty-eight days!… Aguirre recalled a letter that he had received the day before, bristling with surprise and indignation. He had been in Gibraltar already two months without sailing for Oceanica. What sort of illness was this? If he did not care to assume his post, he ought to return to Madrid. The instability of his present position and the necessity of solving this passion which little by little had taken possession of him came to his thoughts with agonizing urgency.
Luna strolled on, her eyes upon the ground, moving her fingers as if counting.
"Yes, that's it. Thirty-eight.... Exactly! It seems impossible that you could have loved me for so long. Me! An old woman!"
And in response to Aguirre's bewildered glance she added, sadly, "You already know. I don't hide it.... Twenty-two years old. Many of my race marry at fourteen."
Her resignation was sincere; it was the resignation of the Oriental woman, accustomed to behold youth only in the bud of adolescence.
"Often I find it impossible to explain your love for me. I feel so proud of you!… My cousins, to vex me, try to find defects in you, and can't!… No, they can't! The other day you passed by my house and I was behind the window-blinds with Miriam, who was my nurse; she's a Jewess from Morocco, one of those who wear kerchiefs and wrappers. 'Look, Miriam, at that handsome chap, who belongs to our neighborhood.' Miriam looked. 'A Jew? No. That can't be. He walks erect, with a firm step, and our men walk haltingly, with their legs doubled as if they were about to kneel. He has teeth like a wolf and eyes like daggers. He doesn't lower his head nor his gaze.' And that's how you are. Miriam was right. You stand out from among all the young men of my blood. Not that they lack courage; there are some as strong as the Maccabees; Massena, Napoleon's companion, was one of us, but the natural attitude of them all, before they are transformed by anger, is one of humility and submission. We have been persecuted so much!… You have grown up in a different environment."
Afterwards the young woman seemed to regret her words. She was a bad Jewess; she scarcely had any faith in her beliefs and in her people; she went to the synagogue only on the Day of Atonement and on the occasion of other solemn, unavoidable ceremonies.
"I believe that I've been waiting for you forever. Now I am sure that I knew you long before seeing you. When I saw you for the first time, on that day during the Feast of the Tabernacles, I felt that something grave and decisive had occurred in my life. When I learned who you were, I became your slave and hungered anxiously for your first word."
Ah, Spain!… She was like old Aboab; her thoughts had often flown to the beautiful land of her forefathers, wrapped in mystery. At times she recalled it only to hate it, as one hates a beloved person, for his betrayals and his cruelties, without ceasing to love him. At others, she called to mind with delight the tales she had heard from her grandmother's lips, the songs with which she had been lulled to sleep as a child,—all the legends of the old Castilian land, abode of treasures, enchantments and love affairs, comparable only to the Bagdad of the Arabs, to the wonderful city of the thousand and one nights. Upon holidays, when the Jews remained secluded in the bosom of the family, old Aboab or Miriam, her nurse, had many a time beguiled her with ancient ballads in the manner of old Castile, that had been transmitted from generation to generation; stories of love affairs between arrogant, knightly Christians and beautiful Jewesses with fair complexions, large eyes and thick, ebony tresses, just like the holy beauties of the Scriptures.
En la ciudad de Toledo,
en la ciudad de Granada,
hay un garrido mancebo
que Diego León se llama.
Namorose de Thamar,
que era hebrea castellana....
(In the city of Toledo, in the city of Granada, there is a handsome youth called Diego Leon. He fell in love with Tamar, who was a Spanish Jewess....)
There still echoed in her memory fragments of these ancient chronicles that had brought many a tremor to her dreamy childhood. She desired to be Tamar; she would have waited years and years for the handsome youth, who would be as brave and arrogant as Judas Maccabeus himself, the Cid of the Jews, the lion of Judea, the lion of lions; and now her hopes were being fulfilled, and her hero had appeared at last, coming out of the land of mystery, with his conqueror's stride, his haughty head, his dagger eyes, as Miriam said. How proud it made her feel! And instinctively, as if she feared that the apparition would vanish, she slipped her hand about Aguirre's arm, leaning against him with caressing humility.
They had reached Europa Point, the outermost lighthouse of the promontory. On an esplanade surrounded by military buildings there was a group of ruddy young men, their khaki trousers held in place by leather braces and their arms bare, kicking and driving a huge ball about. They were soldiers. They stopped their game for a moment to let the couple pass. There was not a single glance for Luna from this group of strong, clean-living youths, who had been trained to a cold sexuality by physical fatigue and the cult of brawn.
As they turned a corner of the promontory they continued their walk on the eastern side of the cliff. This part was unoccupied; here tempests and the raging winds from the Levant came to vent their fury. On this side were no other fortifications than those of the summit, almost hidden by the clouds which, coming from the sea, encountered the gigantic rampart of rock and scaled the peaks as if assaulting them.
The road, hewn out of the rough declivity, meandered through gardens wild with African exuberance. The pear trees extended, like green fences, their serried rows of prickle-laden leaves; the century-plants opened like a profusion of bayonets, blackish or salmon-red in color; the old agaves shot their stalks into the air straight as masts, which were topped by extended branches that gave them the appearance of telegraph poles. In the midst of this wild vegetation arose the lonely summer residence of the governor. Beyond was solitude, silence, interrupted only by the roar of the sea as it disappeared into invisible caves.
Soon the two lovers noticed, at a great distance, signs of motion amidst the vegetation of the slope. The stones rolled down as if some one were pushing them under his heel; the wild plants bent under an impulse of flight, and shrill sounds, as if coming from a child being maltreated, rent the air. Aguirre, concentrating his attention, thought he saw some gray forms jumping amid the dark verdure.
"Those are the monkeys of the Rock," said Luna calmly, as she had seen them many times.
At the end of the path was the famous Cave of the Monkeys. Now Aguirre could see them plainly, and they looked like agile, shaggy-haired bundles jumping from rock to rock, sending the loose pebbles rolling from under their hands and feet and showing, as they fled, the inflamed protuberances under their stiff tails.
Before coming up to the Cave of the Monkeys the two lovers paused. The end of the road was in sight a little further along abruptly cut off by a precipitous projection of the rock. At the other side, invisible, was the bay of the Catalanes with its town of fisherfolk,—the only dependency of Gibraltar. The cliff, in this solitude, acquired a savage grandeur. Human beings were as nothing; natural forces here had free range, with all their impetuous majesty. From the road could be seen the sea far, far below. The boats, diminished by the distance, seemed like black insects with antennae of smoke, or white butterflies with their wings spread. The waves seemed only light curls on the immense blue plain.
Aguirre wished to go down and contemplate at closer range the gigantic wall which the sea beat against. A rough, rocky path led, in a straight line, to an entrance hewn out of the stone, backed by a ruined wall, a hemispherical sentry-box and several shanties whose roofs had been carried off by the tempests. These were the débris of old fortifications,—perhaps dating back to the time in which the Spaniards had tried to reconquer the place.
As Luna descended, with uncertain step, supported by her lover's hand and scattering pebbles at every turn, the melodious silence of the sea was broken by a reverberating raack! as if a hundred fans had been brusquely opened. For a few seconds everything vanished from before their eyes; the blue waters, the red crags, the foam of the breakers,—under a flying cloud of grayish white that spread out at their feet. This was formed by hundreds of sea-gulls who had been frightened from their place of refuge and were taking to flight; there were old, huge gulls, as fat as hens, young gulls, as white and graceful as doves. They flew off uttering shrill cries, and as this cloud of fluttering wings dissolved, there came into view with all its grandeur, the promontory and the deep waters that beat against it in ceaseless undulation.
It was necessary to raise one's head and to lift one's eyes to behold in all its height this fortress of Nature, sheer, gray, without any sign of human presence other than the flagstaff visible at the summit, as small as a toy. Over all the extensive face of this enormous cliff there was no other projection than several masses of dark vegetation, clumps suspended from the rock. Below, the waves receded and advanced, like blue bulls that retreat a few paces so as to attack with all the greater force; as an evidence of this continuous assault, which had been going on for centuries and centuries, there were the crevices opened in the rock, the mouths of the caves, gates of ghostly suggestion and mystery through which the waves plunged with terror-inspiring roar. The débris of these openings, the fragments of the ageless assaults,—loosened crags, piled up by the tempests,—formed a chain of reefs between whose teeth the sea combed its foamy hair or raged with livid frothing on stormy days.
The lovers remained seated among the old fortifications, beholding at their feet the blue immensity and before their eyes the seemingly interminable wall that barred from sight a great part of the horizon. Perhaps on the other side of the cliff the gold of the sunset was still shining. On this side already the shades of night were gently falling. The sweethearts were silent, overwhelmed by the silence of the spot, united to each other by an impulse of fear, crushed by their insignificance in the midst of this annihilating vastness, even as two Egyptian ants in the shadow of the Great Pyramid.
Aguirre felt the necessity of saying something, and his voice took on a grave character, as if in those surroundings, impregnated with the majesty of Nature, it was impossible to speak otherwise.
"I love you," he began, with the incongruity of one who passes without transition from long meditation to the spoken word. "I love you, for you are of my race and yet you are not; because you speak my language and yet your blood is not my blood. You possess the grace and beauty of the Spanish woman, yet there is something more in you,—something exotic, that speaks to me of distant lands, of poetic things, of unknown perfumes that I seem to smell whenever I am near you.... And you, Luna. Why do you love me?"
"I love you," she replied, after a long silence, her voice solemn and veiled like that of an emotional soprano, "I love you because you, too, have something in your face that resembles those of my race, and yet you are as distinct from them as is the servant from the master. I love you… I don't know why. In me there dwells the soul of the ancient Jewesses of the desert, who went to the well in the oasis with their hair let down and their pitchers on their heads. Then came the Gentile stranger, with his camels, begging water; she looked at him with her solemn, deep eyes, and as she poured the water in between her white hands she gave him her heart, her whole soul, and followed him like a slave.... Your people killed and robbed mine; for centuries my forefathers wept in strange lands the loss of their new Zion, their beautiful land, their nest of consolation. I ought to hate you, but I love you; I am yours and will follow you wherever you go." The blue shadows of the promontory became deeper. It was almost night. The sea-gulls, shrieking, retired to their hiding-places in the rocks. The sea commenced to disappear beneath a thin mist. The lighthouse of Europe shone like a diamond from afar in the heavens above the Strait, which were still clear. A sweet somnolence seemed to arise from the dying day, enveloping all Nature. The two human atoms, lost in this immensity, felt themselves invaded by the universal tremor, oblivious to all that but a short time before had constituted their lives. They forgot the presence of the city on the other side of the mountain; the existence of humanity, of which they were infinitesimal parts.... Completely alone, penetrating each other through their pupils! Thus, thus forever! There was a crackling sound in the dark, like dry branches creaking before they break.
All at once a red flash sped through the air,—something straight and rapid as the flight of a fiery bird. Then the mountain trembled and the sea echoed under a dry thunder. The sunset gun!… A timely boom.
The two shuddered as though just awakening from a dream. Luna, as if in flight, ran down the path in search of the main road, without listening to Aguirre.... She was going to get home late; she would never visit that spot again. It was dangerous.