Marianela. Benito Pérez Galdós

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СКАЧАТЬ parapet, and I rolled out and fell into the river."

      "And you were not drowned!"

      "No, Señor; for I fell on the stones. Holy Mother of God! I was a dear little thing before that, they tell me."

      "Yes, I am sure you were," said the stranger with an impulse of loving-kindness. "And so you are still.—But tell me what next. Have you lived long in the mines?"

      "Thirteen years, they say. My mother took me back after my tumble. My father fell ill, and as my mother would not do anything for him, because he was wicked to her, he was taken to the hospital where they say he died. Meanwhile my mother came to work in the mines. They say the overseer discharged her one day because she drank so much."

      "And your mother went.... Go on, I take a real interest in the good woman; she went...."

      "She went to a very big hole over there," said the child, standing still and speaking with intense pathos, "and she threw herself in."

      "The devil she did! That was coming to a bad end. I suppose she did not come out again?"

      "No, Señor," said Nela with perfect simplicity. "She is there still."

      "And since that catastrophe, poor child," said Golfin kindly, "you have stayed at work here. Mining work is very hard labor and you have taken the hue of the soil; you are thin and ill-nourished. This life is enough to ruin the strongest constitution."

      "No, Señor; I do not labor. They say I am not good for anything and never shall be."

      "God forbid, silly child! why you are a treasure."

      "No indeed," insisted the girl, "I cannot work at all. If I take up ever so small a load, I fall down, and if I am set to any hard work I faint away before long."

      "You are as God made you—and if you fell into the hands of any one who knew how to treat you, you would work very well."

      "No, Señor, no indeed," she repeated as energetically as though it were in her own praise that she spoke, "I am no good to any one—only in the way."

      "Then you are a mere vagabond?"

      "No, Señor, for I attend on Pablo."

      "And who is Pablo?"

      "That young blind gentleman, whom you met in La Terrible. I have been his guide for the last year and a half. I take him everywhere; we go for long walks in the fields."

      "He seems a good fellow, this Pablo."

      Nela again stood still and looked up at the doctor, and her face glowed with enthusiasm as she exclaimed:

      "Holy Virgin! He is the best and dearest creature in the whole world! Poor fellow!—and he is cleverer without eyes than all those who can see."

      "Yes, I liked your master. Does he belong to the place?"

      "Yes, Señor; he is the only son of Don Francisco Penáguilas, a very kind and very rich gentleman who lives in the houses at Aldeacorba."

      "Tell me, why are you called Nela? What does it mean?"

      The child shrugged her shoulders, and after a pause, she said:

      "My mother's name was María Canela, and so she was called Nela; they say it is a dog's name. My name is María."

      "Mariquita."

      "María Nela they call me, or sometimes Canela's girl, and some say Marianela, and some merely Nela."

      "And your master, is he fond of you?"

      "Yes, Señor; he is very good to me. He says he sees with my eyes, for I take him everywhere, and tell him what everything is like."

      "Everything that he cannot see?" The stranger seemed much interested in this conversation.

      "Yes—I tell him everything. He asks me what a star is like, and I tell him all about it in such a way that it is the same to him as if he could see it. I explain it all—what the planets are like, and the clouds, and the sky, and the water, and the lightning, the weather-cocks, the butterflies, the mists, the snails, and the shapes and faces of men and animals. I tell him what is ugly and what is pretty, and so he gets to understand everything."

      "I see; your work is no trifle. What is ugly and what is pretty! There is nothing.... You decide upon that question? Tell me, can you read?"

      "No, Señor.—I tell you I am good for nothing."

      She said this in a tone of perfect conviction, and the gesture that emphasized her protestation seemed to add: "You must be a great blockhead to fancy that I am good for anything."

      "Would you not be glad if your friend, by the grace of God, should recover his sight?"

      The girl did not answer at once, but after a pause she said:

      "It is impossible."

      "No, not impossible, only difficult and doubtful."

      "The engineer who manages the mines did give my master's father some hope of it."

      "Don Cárlos Golfin?"

      "Yes, Señor. Don Cárlos has a brother who is an eye-doctor, and they say he gives sight to the blind, and makes those who squint look straight."

      "What a clever man!"

      "Yes; and when the eye-doctor wrote to Don Cárlos that he was coming to see him, his brother wrote to him to bring his instruments with him to try if he could make Pablo see."

      "And has this good man been here yet?"

      "No, sir; for he is always travelling about in England and America, and it seems it will be some time yet before he comes. Pablo laughs at it all, and says no man can give him what the Holy Virgin has denied him from his birth."

      "Well—perhaps he is right. But are we not nearly there? For I see some chimneys which pour forth smoke darker than the bottomless pit, and a light too, which looks like a forge."

      "Yes—here we are. Those are the roasting furnaces, which burn day and night. There, in front, are the machines for washing the ore; they only work by day. To the right-hand is the chemical workshop, and down there, last of all, the counting-house and offices."

      The place seemed to lie in fact as Marianela indicated. In the absence of any wind a mist hung over the spot, shrouding the buildings in heavy, gaseous fog, and giving them a confused and fantastic outline against the moonlit sky.

      "This is a pleasanter place to see for once than to live in," said Golfin, hastening onwards. "The cloud of vapor wraps round everything, and the lights have dim circles round them, like the moon on a sultry night. Which is the office?"

      "Here, we are almost there."

      After passing in front of the furnaces, where the heat made them hurry on, the doctor perceived a house which was no less dingy and smoky than the others, and at the same instant he heard a piano being played with a vigor bordering on frenzy.

      "We СКАЧАТЬ