Spring

It was Shrove Tuesday. Nebel had just entered the corso, already at

dark, and as she unpacked a bundle of streamers, she looked at the

carriage ahead. Missed from a face she hadn't seen the afternoon

Previously, he asked his companions:

-Who is it? She doesn't look ugly.

-A demon! She is gorgeous. She think she is the niece, or something like that, of the doctor

Arrizabalaga. She arrived yesterday, it seems to me ...

Nébel then fixed her eyes intently on the beautiful creature. She was a

still a very young girl, perhaps no more than fourteen, but completely

nubile. She had, under her very dark hair, a face of supreme whiteness,

of that matt white and satin that is the exclusive patrimony of very

fine. Long blue eyes, losing towards the temples in the circle of his

black lashes of hers. Maybe a little apart, what gives, under a forehead

smooth, air of great nobility or great stubbornness. But her eyes, like this,

they filled that blooming countenance with the light of her beauty. And feeling them

Nebel stopped a moment in his, he was dazzled.

"What a charm!" He murmured, standing still with one knee over the man.

Surrey cushion. A moment later the streamers were flying

towards victory. Both carriages were already linked by the bridge

hanging of ribbons, and the one who caused it smiled from time to time at the

gallant boy.

But that already came to the lack of respect for people, coachman and even

carriage: over the shoulder, head, whip, fender, streamers

they rained incessantly. So much so that the two people sitting in the back

They returned and, rather than smiling, examined the spender carefully.

"Who are they?" Asked Nebel in a low voice.

—Dr. Arrizabalaga; true that you do not know. The other is the mother of

your girl ... She's the doctor's sister-in-law.

As if in pursuit of the exam, Arrizabalaga and the lady smiled at each other

frankly before that exuberance of youth, Nébel believed in the

duty to greet them, to which the triplet responded with jovial condescension.

This was the beginning of an idyll that lasted three months, and to which Nébel contributed

how much adoration there was in her passionate adolescence. While

She continued the privateering, and in Concordia it lasts until incredible hours,

Nebel incessantly stretched his arm forward, so well that the

The cuff of his shirt, detached, danced over his hand.

The next day the scene was replayed; and how this time the corso was

resumed at night with a battle of flowers, Nébel exhausted in a quarter of

hour four huge baskets. Arrizabalaga and the lady laughed,

turning often, and the young woman hardly took her eyes off Nebel. East

he cast a desperate look at his empty baskets; more about him

Surrey cushion there was still one left, a poor bouquet of evergreens

and jasmine of the country. Nebel jumped with him over the surrey wheel,

he nearly dislocated an ankle, and running to victory, panting, drenched in

sweat and excitement on the surface, he handed the bouquet to the young woman. She searched

recklessly another, but she didn't have it. Her companions laugh.

"But crazy!" Her mother told him, pointing to her chest, "there you have one!"

The carriage started at a trot. Nebel, who had come down from the stirrup,

afflicted, he ran and reached for the bouquet the young woman held out to him, her body almost

out of the car.

Nébel had arrived three days ago from Buenos Aires, where he was finishing his

baccalaureate. He had been there for seven years, so his

Knowledge of the current society of Concordia was minimal. He should

stay still fifteen days in his hometown, enjoyed peacefully

of soul, if not of body; and lo and behold, from the second day he lost all

the serenity of him. But instead what charm!

"What a charm!" He repeated to himself, thinking of that ray of light, flower and flesh

female that had come to him from the carriage. He recognized himself as real and

deeply dazzled — and in love, of course.

What if she wanted it!… Would she want it? Nebel, to elucidate it, she trusted

much more than in the bouquet on her breast, in the dazed haste with

that the young woman she had searched for something to give him. She clearly evoked the brightness

out of her eyes when she saw him come running, the uneasy expectation with which

she waited for him, and — in another order, the morbidity of her young breast, as she held out the

bouquet.

And now, finished! She was leaving the next day for Montevideo. What do you

did the rest matter, Concordia, her friends before her, hers, her father?

At least he would go with her to Buenos Aires.

They did, indeed, make the journey together, and during it, Nébel reached the most

high degree of passion that can reach a romantic boy of 18

years, that feels loved. Her mother welcomed the almost childish idyll with

affable complacency, and she often laughed at the sight of them, speaking little,

smiling incessantly, and looking at each other endlessly.

The farewell was brief, because she Nebel did not want to lose the last vestige of

sanity he had left, cutting off her race after her.

They would return to Concordia in the winter, perhaps a season. Would he go? "Oh,

I won't come back! "And while Nebel was walking away, slowly, along the dock,

turning every moment, she, chest on the side of her, her head a

little low, she followed him with her eyes, while on the ironing the sailors

raised their smiling ones to that idyll — and to the dress, still short, of the

very tender girlfriend.

Summer

On June 13, Nebel returned to Concordia, and although she knew from the first

While Lidia was there, she spent a week without worrying a little or

a lot for her. Four months is plenty of time for a lightning bolt of

passion, and scarcely in the sleeping water of her soul, the last glow

he managed to curl her self-esteem. He was, yes, curious to see her. But a

Minor incident, pricking his vanity, dragged him away again. The first

Sunday, Nébel, like every good village boy, waited on the corner for the

out of mass. At last, the last perhaps, standing tall and looking forward, Lidia

and her mother walked through the row of boys.

Nebel, seeing her again, felt her eyes widen to suck on all its fullness the abruptly adored figure. She looked forward to almost

painful the moment her eyes, in a sudden glow of

happy surprise, they would recognize him among the group.

But he passed, her cold gaze fixed ahead.

"It seems that she doesn't remember you more," said a friend, who was next to her.

he had followed the incident.

"Not much!" He smiled. "And it's a shame, because I liked the girl in

reality.

But when he was alone he mourned his misfortune to himself. And now that

he had seen her again! How, how he had always loved her, he who believed

remember no more! And finished! Pum, pum, pum! "He repeated without realizing

It counts, with the boy's habit. "Boom!" All over!

Suddenly: What if she hadn't seen me? ... Of course! but of course! Her face is

he encouraged again, relying with full conviction on a probability

like that, deeply reasonable.

At three o'clock he was beating at Dr. Arrizabalaga's house. The idea of ​​him was

elementary: he would consult the lawyer on any paltry pretext, and

meanwhile he might see her. A sudden rush across the yard responded to the

doorbell, and Lidia, to stop her impulse, had to violently grab her

the glass door. She saw Nebel, uttered an exclamation, and hiding with her

arms the domestic lightness of her clothing, she fled even more swiftly.

An instant later her mother opened the office, and welcomed her old

known with more lively satisfaction than four months ago. Nebel no

she was filled with joy, and as the lady she did not seem to be disturbed by the

Nébel's legal concerns, he also preferred a million

sometimes such a presence to that of the lawyer.

Yet he was on the embers of too fiery happiness, and

As she was 18 years old, she wanted to leave at once to enjoy herself alone, and without

shortness, the immense happiness of him.

"So soon, already!" Said the lady. "I hope we will have the pleasure of

see it again… Isn't it?

"Oh yes, ma'am!"

"At home we would all have a lot of pleasure… I suppose all of us!" Wants

What do we consult? "She smiled with maternal derision.

"Oh, with all my soul," said Nebel.

-Lidia! Come here a minute! There is a person here whom you know.

Nebel had already been seen by her; but it didn't matter.

Lidia arrived when he was standing. She advanced to meet her, her eyes

sparkling with bliss, and she handed him a large bouquet of violets, with lovely

clumsiness.

"If you don't mind," the mother continued, "you could come all the

Monday ... what do you think?

"That is very little, ma'am!" Replied the boy.

also ... may I?

The lady laughed.

"How in a hurry!" I don't know… let's see what Lidia says. What do you say, Lidia?

The creature, which did not take its laughing eyes away from Nébel, said yes! in full

her face, since he owed her answer.

"Very well: then until Monday, Nébel."

Nébel objected:

"Won't you let me come tonight?" Today is an extraordinary day ...

-Good! Tonight too! Join him, Lidia.

But Nebel, in mad need of movement, said goodbye right there, and

he fled with his bouquet whose cape he had almost undone, and with his soul

projected to the last heaven of happiness. For two months, every moment they saw each other, every hour

that separated them, Nébel and Lidia adored each other. For him, romantic until

feel the state of painful melancholy caused by a simple garúa that

the courtyard grays, that creature, with its angelic face, her blue eyes and

the early fullness of it, had to embody the possible sum of ideal. For her,

Nébel was manly, handsome, and intelligent. There was no in their mutual love

more cloud for the future than Nébel's minority. The boy,

Putting aside studies, careers and superfluities like that, he wanted

get marry. As proven, there were only two things: that he was

absolutely impossible to live without his Lidia, and that he would carry on

how much he opposed it. He sensed — or rather, he felt — that he was going to

rock roughly.

His father, indeed, whom he had deeply disliked the year that

Nébel lost after a carnival affair, he had to point out the i's with terrible

vigor. At the end of August, he definitely spoke to his son one day:

—I have been told that you continue your visits to Arrizabalaga. It's true?

Because you don't deign to say a word to me.

Nebel saw the whole storm in that dignified way, and his voice shook a

little bit.

"If I didn't tell you anything, Dad, it's because I know you don't like me talking about it."

-Bah! how to like you, you can, indeed, save yourself the work ...

But I would like to know what state you are in. Are you going to that house as a boyfriend?

-Yes.

"And do they formally receive you?"

"I-I think so."

The father stared at him and drummed on the table. -It's good! Very good! ... Hey, because I have a duty to show you

the way. Do you know well what you do? Have you thought about what can

pass?

"Come in? ... what?"

"May you marry that girl." But mind you: you are old enough to

reflect, at least. Do you know who she is Where she comes from? Do you know

someone who knows what life he leads in Montevideo?

-Dad!

"Yes, what are they doing there!" Bah! don't make that face ... I don't mean your ...

bride. That is a creature, and as such she does not know what she does. But you know

what do they live on?

-Do not! I don't even care, because even if you are my father ...

"Bah, bah, bah!" Leave that for later. I do not speak to you as a father but

as any honest man could speak to you. And since he outrages you

so much what I ask you, find out who wants to tell you, what kind of

Your girlfriend's mother has relationships with her brother-in-law, ask!

-Yes! I know that she has been ...

"Ah, do you know that she has been Arrizabalaga's mistress?" What about him or another

support the house in Montevideo? And you stay so cool!

"...!

"Yeah, I know, your girlfriend has nothing to do with this, I know!" There are not

more beautiful impulse than yours ... But be careful, because you can

be late!… No, no, calm down! I have no idea of ​​offending you

girlfriend, and I believe, as I have told you, that she is not contaminated yet by the

rot that surrounds it. But if the mother wants to sell it to you in

marriage, or rather to the fortune that you will inherit when I die,

tell him that old Nébel is not up for such traffic, and that he will first

the devil will have to consent to that. I just wanted to tell you.

The boy loved his father very much despite his tough character;

he left full of rage for not having been able to vent his anger, all the more violent because he himself knew it was unfair. It has been a long time since

He was ignorant of this: Lidia's mother had been loved by Arrizabalaga in

life of her husband, and still four or five years later. They still looked from

from time to time, but the old rake, now wrapped up in his arthritis of

sickly bachelor, he was far from being with respect to his sister-in-law what he

intended; And if he kept the mother-daughter train, he did it for a kind

compassionate ex-lover, bordering on vile selfishness, and above all for

authorize current gossip that inflated his vanity.

Nebel evoked her mother; and with a mad boy extreme

for married women, he remembered a certain night when browsing together and

reclined an Illustration, he had thought he felt on his nerves

suddenly tense, a deep breath of desire that rose from the full body

that brushed against him. Looking up from her, Nébel had seen her gaze,

in languid vagueness of dizziness, resting heavily on hers.

Had he been wrong? She was terribly hysterical, but strangely

overflowing demonstration; his messy nerves rattled back

inside, and hence the sudden tenacity in nonsense, the abrupt abandonment

of a conviction; and in the prodromes of crises, obstinacy

growing, convulsive, building itself up to great blocks of absurdities.

He abused morphine, out of dire necessity and out of elegance. He had

Thirty seven years; she was tall, with very full lips and flushed, that

she moistened incessantly. Without being large, her eyes looked so for a little

sunken and have very long eyelashes; but they were admirable of shade and

fire. She painted herself. She dressed, like her daughter, with perfect good taste, and she was

she is, without a doubt, her greatest seduction. She must have had, as a woman,

deep charm; now hysteria had worked his

of her body of her - being she, of course, sick of her womb. When the lash of

the morphine passed, her eyes blurred, and from the corner of her lips,

a fine net of wrinkles hung from her globose eyelid. But even though

That, the very hysteria that unnerved her nerves was her nourishment, a little

magical, sustaining her tonicity.

She loved Lidia dearly; and with the morality of the hysterics

her bourgeoisie, he would have debased her daughter to make her happy — that is, to

she provide him with that which would have made her her own happiness.

Thus, the concern of Nébel's father in this regard touched his son as far as

Deeper than the strings of his lover. How had Lidia escaped?

Because the clarity of her complexion, the frankness of her passion as a girl of hers who emerged with adorable freedom from her sparkling eyes, they were, no longer proof of

purity, but as a step of noble joy by which Nebel ascended triumphantly to

snatch the flower that was asking for it from the rotten plant with a slap.

This conviction was so intense that Nebel had never kissed her. A

afternoon, after lunch, when he was passing by at Arrizabalaga, he had

mad desire to see her. Her happiness was complete, for she found it alone, in

robe, and her curls on her cheeks. As Nebel held her against the wall,

she, laughing and cut off, leaned against the wall. And the boy, in front of her,

almost touching her, he felt in his inert hands the high happiness of a love

immaculate, how easy it would have been to stain.

But then once his wife! Nebel hastened as much as possible her

marriage of him. His age qualification, obtained in those days, allowed him for

the legitimate mother of him to bear the expenses. She was left with the consent of the

father, and mother urged this detail.

Her situation, more than equivocal in Concordia, demanded a sanction

that should begin, of course, with that of the future father-in-law of his

daughter of her. And above all, she was sustained by the desire to humiliate, to force morality

bourgeoisie, to bend her knees at the very inconvenience she despised.

She had already touched the point several times with her future son-in-law, with allusions to

"my father-in-law" ... "my new family" ... "my daughter's sister-in-law". Nebel is

she was silent, and her mother's eyes were now glowing with more fire.

Until one day the flame rose. Nebel had set October 18

for her marriage. There was more than a month to go, but her mother did

clearly understand to the boy that she wanted the presence of her father that

night.

"It will be difficult," said Nebel after a mortifying silence. Costs

a lot of going out at night ... It never goes out.

"Ah!" Exclaimed only her mother, quickly biting her lip. Other

A pause followed, but this was already an omen.

"Because you don't have a clandestine marriage, do you?"

"Oh!" Nebel smiled hard. My father doesn't think so either.

-And then? New increasingly stormy silence.

"Is it because of me that your lord father doesn't want to attend?"

"No, no ma'am!" Nébel finally exclaimed impatiently. Is in his mode

to be ... I'll talk to him again, if he wants.

"Me, love?" Her mother smiled, widening her nose. Do what

Do you want to go, Nébel, now? I'm not well.

Nebel came out, deeply disgusted. What was he going to say to his father? East

always maintained his outright opposition to such a marriage, and his son had already

taken steps to do without it.

"You can do that, much more, and whatever you want." But my

consent for that entertainer to be your mother-in-law, never!

After three days, Nébel decided to clarify this state of mind once and for all.

things, and he took advantage of a moment when Lidia was not there.

"I spoke with my father," began Nébel, "and he has told me that he will be

completely impossible to attend.

The mother turned a little pale, while her eyes, in a sudden glow,

they stretched toward her temples.

"Ah!" And because?

"I don't know," said Nebel in a muffled voice.

"That is to say ... is his father afraid of staining himself if he sets foot here?"

"I don't know," he repeated with unconscious stubbornness.

"It is a gratuitous offense that that man does to us!" What has

figurative? "he added, his voice already altered and his lips trembling.

is he to give himself that tone?

Nebel felt then the whip of reaction in the deep strain of her

his family.

"What is it, I don't know!" He replied in a hasty voice in turn, "but not only refuses to attend, but also does not consent.

-That? What does she refuse? And because? Who is he? The most authoritative

for this!

Nebel got up:

-Ms…

But she had gotten up too.

-If he! You are a creature! Ask her where she got her

fortune, stolen from your customers! And with those airs! His irreproachable family,

no blemish, she fills her mouth with it! Your family!… Tell him to tell you

how many walls he had to jump to go to sleep with his wife, before

get marry! Yes, and he is coming with his family! ... Very well, go away; I'm up

here of hypocrisies! Have a good time!