The Devil in Love Read online

  “Is one always in a position to control one’s impulses? I am a woman by choice, Alvaro, but I am a woman, open to all impressions; I am not made of marble. I chose the elemental matter of which my earthly body is made; it is susceptible; were it not, I would lack sensitivity; you would cause me to feel nothing and I would cease to be of interest to you. Forgive me for having run the risk of taking on all the imperfections of my sex to unite, if I could, all its graces; but the rash step has been taken, and constituted as I am at present, my responses are incomparably keen: my imagination is volcanic. In a word, I have passions of a violence which should alarm you, were you not the object of the most unshackled of all, and if we did not know the principles and effects of these natural impulses better than they are known in Salamanca. There they are given odious names; there is talk of stifling them, at the very least. To stifle a celestial flame, the only means by which body and soul can act mutually upon one another and force each other to concur in the necessary maintaining of their union – that is foolish, my dear Alvaro! One must regulate these impulses, but sometimes one should yield to them; if they are thwarted they rise up all at once, and reason no longer knows where to stand in order to rule. Spare me in these moments, Alvaro: I am only six months old, I am at the mercy of everything I feel. Remember that a single refusal, a single word spoken without due consideration, stirs up pride, dawning resentment, mistrust, fear; what am I saying? How clearly can I see it – myself a poor lost creature, and my Alvaro as unhappy as I!”

  “Oh Biondetta,” I began once more, “you are a continual source of astonishment; but I can sense nature herself in your avowal of your inclinations. We shall find the means to combat them in our mutual tenderness. Furthermore, we may put all our trust in the advice of that estimable mother who will receive you in her arms. She will cherish you, I am convinced, and everything will conspire towards our spending happy days together…”

  “I must abide by your wishes, Alvaro. I know my sex and do not hope for as much as you do; but, to please you, I shall obey you and put myself in your hands.”

  Pleased at finding myself on the road to Spain, at Biondetta’s response and at being in the company of the object which had captivated my reason and my senses, I was in a hurry to cross the Alps and reach France; but it seemed that the heavens had turned against me since she had joined me: fearful storms delayed my progress, making roads impassable and passes impracticable. The horses stumbled; my carriage, which seemed new and well-assembled, fell apart at every stop and had a faulty axle, or back train, or wheels. At last, after an infinity of set-backs, I reached the col de Tende.

  Amidst all these possibilities for disquiet and the obstacles that such a tempestuous journey offered me, I could not but admire the figure cut by Biondetta. She was no longer the tender, sad or passionate woman I had previously known; it was as though she wanted to soothe my anxiety by giving herself over to moments of the greatest gaiety, and to convince me that the stresses and strains held nothing irksome for her.

  All this agreeable badinage was mingled with caresses so seductive as to be irresistible. I yielded, but with reservations; my endangered pride acted as a brake to the violence of my desires. She could read my expression too well not to judge of my confusion and so try to increase it. I was in danger, I confess. On one occasion in particular, had a wheel not broken, I do not know what would have become of my honour. That put me a little on my guard for the future.

  After incredible exertions, we arrived at Lyon. Out of consideration to Biondetta I agreed to rest there for several days. She drew my attention to the freedom and ease of manner of the French nation. “It is in Paris, at court, that I should like to see you established. Resources of all kinds will be at your disposal; you will be able to cut whatever figure you choose, and I have unfailing means of ensuring that you would triumph; the French are ladies’ men and, if I do not presume too much of my appearance, the most distinguished among them would come to pay me homage, while I would sacrifice them all to my Alvaro. A fine victory for that famous Spanish vanity!”

  I took this proposition as banter. “No,” said she, “I am seriously entertaining the idea.”

  “Then let us leave quickly for Estremadura,” I replied, “to return to present the wife of don Alvaro Maravillas at the court of France, for it would never do to show yourself there as a mere adventuress…”

  “I am on the road to Estremadura,” she said, “and I must perforce regard it as the goal where I must find my happiness. What else is there for me?”

  I heard and saw her reluctance, but I was proceeding towards my own ends, and soon found myself on Spanish soil. There I was given even less respite from unexpected obstacles – quagmires, impassable ruts, drunken muleteers, restive mules – than I had had in Piedmont and Savoy.

  Much ill is spoken of the inns of Spain, and this with good reason; yet I esteemed myself happy when the contretemps experienced during the day did not force me to spend part of the night in the open countryside, or in some sequestered grange.

  “What sort of a country are we to find,” she said, “ to judge by what we are going through? Have we still a long way to go?”

  “You are in Estremadura,” I told her, “and ten leagues from the castle of Maravillas.”

  “We shall certainly never reach it; the sky is barring our way. Look at that mist.”

  I looked at the sky, and never had it seemed more menacing. I observed to Biondetta that our grange could shelter us from the storm. “And from the thunder?” she said.

  “What do you fear from thunder, you who are so accustomed to dwelling in the air, who have so often observed its formation and must know its physical origins so well?”

  “I would not fear it if I were less familiar with it; I have subjected myself to physical phenomena out of love for you, and I fear them because they kill and because they are physical.”

  We were seated on two heaps of straw at the two ends of the grange. Meanwhile the storm, after having made its presence felt from a distance, was approaching and lowing fearsomely. The sky looked like a fire-pan whipped by the winds in a thousand directions; the thunderclaps, echoing in the caverns of the nearby mountains, reverberated horribly around us. They did not follow one another, they seemed to clash. Wind, rain and hail fought as to which might add most to the horror of the frightful tableau which distressed our senses. A lightning flash seemed to set our shelter ablaze, followed by a terrible thunder clap. Biondetta, her eyes closed, fingers in her ears, rushed into my arms: “Ah, Alvaro, I am lost…”

  I tried to reassure her. “Put your hand on my heart,” she said. She placed it on her bosom, and although she was ill-advised in causing me to press upon a place where the beating should not have been at its most detectable, I could feel that its movement was indeed extraordinary. She was clutching me with all her strength at every lightning flash. At last a flash occurred even more terrifying than those preceding it: Biondetta took refuge from it in such a way as to ensure that, in the case of mishap, it could not strike her without first striking me.

  The effect of this fright seemed strange to me, and I began to fear, not the consequences of the storm, but the outcome of a plot devised in her mind to overcome my resistance to her views. Although more overwhelmed than words can express, I got up: “Biondetta,” I told her, “you do not know what you are doing. Calm this fear; this uproar threatens neither you nor me.”

  My phlegm must have surprised her, but she managed to hide her thoughts from me while continuing to simulate disquiet. Luckily the storm had done its utmost, the sky was clearing, and soon the moon’s brightness told us that we no longer had anything to fear from the disorder of the elements.

  Biondetta remained on the spot where she had positioned herself. I sat down next to her without profferring a word. She pretended to sleep, and I set to pondering, more sadly than I had done since the beginning of my adventure, on the necessarily problematical outcome of my passion. The bare bones of my reflectio
ns were these: my mistress was charming, but I wanted to make her my wife.

  Daylight having surprised me in these thoughts, I arose to go and see whether I could continue my journey. But this was impossible, for the moment. The muleteer who was driving my caleche told me that his mules could not be moved at present. While I was in this quandary, Biondetta came up to join me.

  I was beginning to lose patience when a man of sinister mien, but vigorously built, appeared before the door of the farm, driving two robust-looking mules before him. I suggested that he drive me to my home; he knew the road, and we agreed upon a price.

  I was about to climb back into my carriage, when I thought I recognized a countrywoman who was crossing the road, followed by a manservant. I approached, looking at her fixedly. It was Berthe, a good farmer’s wife from my village and the sister of my nurse. I called to her and she stopped, looking at me in her turn, but with an expression of consternation. “What, is it you?” she said to me, “senor don Alvaro! What brings you to a place where your undoing is certain, and to which you have brought desolation?”

  “Me! My dear Berthe, what have I done?”

  “Ah, senor Alvaro, does not your conscience reproach you for the wretched situation to which your estimable mother, our good mistress, finds herself reduced? She is dying…”

  “Dying!” I cried…

  “Yes,” she continued, “and this as a result of the chagrin you have caused her; even as I speak to you, she is probably dead. Letters have reached her from Naples, from Venice, containing news to make one tremble. Our good lord, your brother, is furious; he says that he will denounce you, deliver you over himself…”

  “Well now, Mme Berthe, if you return to Maravillas before me, tell my brother he will be seeing me soon.”

  Whereupon, the caleche being harnessed, I presented my hand to Biondetta, concealing the turmoil in my soul beneath an appearance of firmness. She, showing herself alarmed, cried out: “What! Are we going to turn ourselves over to your brother? Are we going to embitter an angry family and woe-begone vassals with our presence?”

  “I would hardly be afraid of my brother, Madame, if he were imputing to me wrongs I have not done; it is important that I should disabuse him. If I have done wrong, I must excuse myself, and since these wrongs do not come from my heart, I have a right to his compassion and indulgence. If I have led my mother to the grave, I must make amends for this scandal , and bemoan this loss so loudly that the truth, the public nature of my regrets, may wash away the stain with which my unnatural behaviour would taint my blood in the sight of all Spain.”

  “Ah, don Alvaro, you are rushing headlong to your ruin and my own; these sundry letters, these presumptions broadcast so rashly, so unfairly, are the consequence of our adventures and of the persecution I experienced in Venice. The traitor Bernardillo, insufficiently known to you, is hounding your brother; he will bring him to his ruin…”

  “What have I to fear from Bernardillo or from any other coward on this earth? I myself, Madame, am the only enemy I need fear. My brother will never be led to blind vengeance, or to actions unworthy of a man of courage and intelligence, in short, of a gentleman.”

  This somewhat lively conversation was followed by silence; it could have discountenanced both of us; but after a few moments, Biondetta gradually became drowsy, and fell asleep.

  Could I fail to gaze upon her? Could I consider her without emotion? Upon that face, aglow with all perfection, all luxuriance, in a word, with youth, sleep overlaid the natural grace of repose with that delicious living freshness which lends harmony to all features; a new enchantment seized me; it dispelled my distrust; my misgivings were stilled, or rather, my remaining foremost concern was that the head of the object of whom I was enamoured, jolted by the bumpings of the carriage, might not be inconvenienced by their suddenness and roughness. I had to do all I could to support it, to shield it. But then we felt a jolt so violent that it became impossible for me to soften it; Biondetta gave a cry and we were overturned. The axle was broken; the mules, fortunately, had stopped. I disengaged myself: filled with the most intense alarm, I hastened to Biondetta. She had only a slight contusion of the elbow, and soon we were standing in the open countryside, but exposed to the ardour of the mid-day sun, five leagues from my mother’s castle, without any apparent means of reaching it, for there was no sign of any habitation whatsoever.

  Yet my careful gaze seemed to descry some smoke rising behind a coppice about a league away, mingling among some fairly tall trees; so, entrusting my vehicle to the care of the muleteer, I engaged Biondetta to walk with me in the direction that seemed to offer some semblance of assistance.

  The further we advanced, the steadier became our hope; ahead, the little forest seemed to cleave into two; soon it formed an avenue at the end of which the buildings of a modest structure could be perceived; finally, a considerable farm bounded our view.

  All seemed to be movement in this dwelling, isolated though it was. As we came into view, a man stepped forward and came towards us.

  He approached us civilly. His outward appearance was decent; he was dressed in a black satin doublet slashed with orange, decorated with silver braid. He looked about twenty five to thirty years of age, and had a countryman’s complexion. There was a certain freshness beneath the tan, bespeaking vigour and health.

  I informed him of the accident which had brought us thither.

  “Senor caballero,” he replied, “you are most welcome, and among people who are filled with good will. I have a forge here, and your axle can be repaired; but to-day you could give me all the gold of my master the duke of Medina-Sidonia, and neither I nor any of my men would set to work. My wife and I are just back from church: this is our brightest hour. When you see the bride, my relatives, my friends and the neighbours whom I must entertain, you will judge if I could set anyone to work just now. However, if Madame and yourself do not scorn a company which has earned its living honestly since the beginning of the monarchy, we shall sit down at table. We are all happy to-day, and we hope you will share our pleasure. To-morrow we shall think about business”.

  Then he gave orders for my carriage to be fetched.

  So there I was, the guest of Marcos, the duke’s tenant- farmer, and we entered the room prepared for the wedding breakfast; adjoining the main house, it occupied the entire far end of the courtyard, a sort of arcaded arbour, decorated with festoons of flowers, whence one’s gaze, caught at first by two small copses, lost itself agreeably in the countryside, across the interval formed by the avenue.

  The meal was ready. Luisia, the newly-wed, was seated between Marcos and myself; Biondetta was on the other side of Marcos. The parents-in-law and other relatives were opposite, and the young folk at the two ends.

  The bride lowered two dark eyes which were not meant for furtive glances; every remark that was made to her, even the most indifferent, caused her to smile and blush.

  At the beginning of the meal, gravity presided, for such is the character of the nation; but as the wineskins became less swollen, faces became less solemn. People began to unbend when, suddenly, local improvisers appeared around the table. These were blind men who sang the following couplets, accompanying themselves on their guitars:

  Marcos said to Luisia:

  Will you take my trust and my heart?

  She answered, Follow me,

  We shall talk in church.

  There, with mouth and eyes

  They swore to one another

  A pure and living flame:

  If you are curious

  To see a happy couple,

  Come to Estremadura.

  Luisia is good, she is fair:

  Marcos has many rivals;

  But he disarms them all,

  Proving himself worthy of her;

  And here all, with one accord,

  Applauding their choice,

  Praise a passion so pure.

  If you are curious

  To see a happy couple,
r />   Come to Estremadura.

  Their hearts are united

  With a tender sympathy!

  Their flocks are together

  In the same fold;

  Their pains and their pleasures,

  Their cares, vows, desires,

  Follow the same measures.

  If you are curious

  To see a happy couple,

  Come to Estremadura.

  While the company was listening to these songs, which were as simple as those for whom they seemed to be fashioned, all the men servants of the farm, no longer required for service, foregathered gaily to eat the leavings; mingling with the ‘Egyptians’ summoned to add to the pleasure of the merrymaking, beneath the trees of the avenue they formed groups which embellished our view, and which were as lively as they were motley.

  Biondetta was continually seeking out my gaze, forcing me to look in the direction of the objects with which she appeared agreeably preoccupied, seeming to reproach me for quite failing to share with her all the amusement they procured her.

  But the meal already seemed to have lasted too long for the young folk, who were waiting for the dancing. Those of a more mature age had to show indulgence. The table was dismantled, the boards which formed it and the casks on which it stood were pushed to the back of the arbour; becoming trestles, they acted as a theatre for the musicians. The Sevillian fandango was played, young gypsy girls danced it with their castanets and tambourines; the wedding guests mingled amongst them, imitating them; the dance had become general.

  Biondetta seemed to devour the spectacle with her eyes. Without leaving her seat, she tried out all the movements she saw being performed.