Marianela. Benito Pérez Galdós

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      He was still speaking when a girl came running to meet them, a tiny scrap of a child, swift of foot and slightly built.

      "Nela, Nela!" cried the blind boy. "Have you brought me a cloak?"

      "Here it is," said the girl, putting it over his shoulders.

      "Is this the songstress? Do you know you have a lovely voice?"

      "Oh!" exclaimed the boy, in a tone of innocent admiration, "she sings beautifully! Now, Mariquilla, you must show this gentleman the way to the works, and I must go home. I can hear my father's voice already; he is coming to look for me, and he will be sure to scold me.... I am here, I am coming!"

      "Make haste in, my boy!" said Golfin, shaking hands with him. "The air is fresh, and you might take cold. Many thanks for your company. I hope we may be good friends, for I shall be here some little time. I am the brother of Cárlos Golfin, the engineer of the mines."

      "Oh! indeed.... Don Cárlos is a great friend of my father's. He has been expecting you these two days."

      "I arrived this evening at the station at Villamojada, and they told me that Socartes was not far, and that I could come up on foot. So, as I like to see the country and get exercise, and as they told me it was 'on, straight on,' I set out, and sent my luggage in a cart. You saw how I had lost my way—but there is no evil out of which good does not come.... I have made your acquaintance, and we shall be friends, very good friends perhaps. Go in, good-bye; get home quickly, for the autumn evenings are not good for you. The little Señora here will be so good as to guide me."

      "It is not more than a quarter of an hour's walk to the works, quite a short way. But take care not to stumble over the rails, and look out as you cross the inclined plane. There often are trucks on the road, and in this damp weather the ground is like soap.—Good-bye, Caballero, and my very good friend.—Good-night." He went up the slope by a narrow flight of steps cut in the soil and squared by beams of wood; Golfin went straight on, guided by Nela. Does what they said deserve a separate chapter? In case it should, I will give it one.

CHAPTER III.

       A DIALOGUE WHICH EXPLAINS MUCH.

       Table of Contents

      "Wait a moment my child, do not go so fast," said Golfin, himself standing still. "I want to light a cigar."

      The night was so still, that no precautions were needed in striking the light to guard it from the wind, and when the doctor had lighted his cigar he held the wax match in front of Nela, saying kindly:

      "Show me your face, little one."

      He looked in the child's face with astonishment; her black eyes shone with a red spot, like a spark, for the instant while the match lasted. She looked a child, for she was but a tiny creature, extremely thin and undeveloped; but she seemed like a little woman, for her eyes had not a childlike expression, and her face had the mature look of a nature which has gone through experience and acquired judgment—or will have acquired it soon. In spite of this anomaly, she was well-proportioned and her small head sat gracefully on her lean little body. You might have said she was a woman seen through a diminishing-glass; or, again, that she was a child with the eyes and expression of a grown-up person. In your uncertainty, it was hard to say whether she was astonishingly forward or lamentably backward.

      "How old are you?" asked Golfin, shaking his fingers free of the match which was beginning to burn them.

      "They say I am sixteen," said Nela, gazing in her turn at the doctor.

      "Sixteen!" exclaimed Golfin. "Much less than that, child! You are twelve at most to judge by appearances."

      "Holy Virgin! They say I am quite a phenomenon," said the girl in a tone of weariness of the subject.

      "A phenomenon!" repeated Golfin laying his hand on her hair. "Well, perhaps so. Now, come along—show me the way."

      Nela set out resolutely, keeping but a little way in front of the traveller but rather on one side of him, to show her just appreciation of such illustrious company. Her nimble little feet, which were bare, were evidently familiar with the ground they trod, with the stones, the puddles and the thistles. She wore a plain frock of scanty breadth, and the rudimentary simplicity of her garb, as well as the loose flow of her thick, short hair, which fell in natural waves, had a stamp of savage independence rather than of abject poverty. Her speech, on the other hand, struck Golfin by its modest propriety, indicating a formed and thoughtful mind. Her voice had a gentle inflection of kindliness, which could not be the result of education, and her glance was restless and shy, whenever she was not looking at the sky or the earth.

      "Tell me," said Golfin. "Do you live in the mines? Are you the child of any of the workmen employed here?"

      "They say I have neither father nor mother."

      "Poor little girl! and you work in the mines?"

      "No, Señor. I am of no use at all," she replied without raising her eyes.

      "Well, you are modest, at any rate."

      The doctor bent down to look closely at her face; it was small and freckled all over with little mole-like spots. Her forehead was narrow, her nose sharp but not ill-shaped, her eyes black and brilliant, but their light shone but sadly. Her hair, naturally of a golden brown, was dull for want of care, and from exposure to the sun, wind and dust. Her lips were so thin as to be hardly visible, and always wore a smile, but it was like the faint smile of the dead who have died dreaming of Heaven. Nela's mouth was, strictly speaking, ugly, still it deserved a word of praise from the point of view expressed in the line from Polo de Medina: "A mouth is sweet that asks for nothing." [1] In fact, neither in word, look, or smile, did the poor child betray any of the degrading habits of the beggar. Golfin stroked the sad little face, holding it under the chin and almost encircling it with his big fingers.

      "Poor little body!" he said. "Providence has not been over-generous to you. Who do you live with?"

      "With Señor Centeno, the overseer of the beasts belonging to the mines?"

      "You do not seem to have been born in luxury.—Who were your parents?"

      "They say my mother sold peppers in the market at Villamojada. She was not married. She had me one All-Saints' day, and then she went to be wet-nurse at Madrid."

      "A highly estimable woman!" muttered Golfin ironically.

      "And no one knows who your father was?"

      "Yes, Señor," said Nela with some pride. "My father was the first who ever lighted the lamps of Villamojada."

      "Wonderful!"

      "I ought to tell you," said the little girl with the gravity befitting the dignity of history, "that when the town council first had lamps hung up in the streets, my father was entrusted with the care of lighting and cleaning them. I was nursed by a sister of my mother's—not that she was married either, as they tell me. My father had quarrelled with her—they all lived together as I have heard—and when he went out to light the lamps he used to put me in his basket, with his lamp-chimneys and cottons and oil. One day when he went up to light the lamp on СКАЧАТЬ