The Arrow of Gold: A Story Between Two Notes

, all the moral economy of Do?a Rita had gone to pieces. Everything was gone except her strong sense of life with all its implied menaces. The woman was a mere chaos of sensations and vitalit

of Do?a Rita, into her preciou

olable child and very much with a child's comple

some mysterious manner. Along one of the walls there was the whole complicated apparatus of solid brass pipes, and quite close to it an enormous bath sunk into the floor. The greatest part of the room along its whole length was covered with matting and had nothing else but a long, narrow leather-upholstered bench fixed to the wall. And that was all. And the door leading to the studio was locked. And Therese had the key. And it flashed on my mind, independently of Do?a Rita's pessimism, by the force of personal conviction, that, of

t monstrous conception of fanaticism, of a perfectly horrible aberration. For who could mistake the state that made José Ortega the figure he was, inspiring both pity and fear? I could not deny that I understood, not the full extent but the exact nature of his suffering. Young as I was I had solved for myself that grotesque and sombre personality. His contact with me, the personal contact with (as he thought) one of the actual lovers of that woman who brought to him as a boy the curse of the gods, had

cunning began? She had also the faculty of never forgetting any fact bearing upon her one idea; and I remembered now that the conversation with me about the will had produced on her an indelible impression of the Law's surprising justice. Recalling her na?ve admiration of the "just" law that required no "paper" from a sister, I saw her casting loose the raging fate with a sanctimonious air. And Therese would naturally g

-incomparably swifter. And all this was really one flash of light through my mind. A comfo

se had left him her own. That was possible, but then those thick mats-and then, anyway, why should he drop it? and, hang it all, why shouldn't he have gone straight on and tried the door? I had suddenly a sickening vision of the fellow crouching at the key-hole, listening, listening, liste

uarding my lips with my hand I urged Do?a Rita to go back to the sofa. She wouldn't answer me and when I got hold of her arm I discovered that she wouldn't move. She had taken root in that thick-pile

ggle as far as I, myself, was concerned, but I was afraid of it for Do?a Rita. To be rolling at her feet, locked in a literally tooth-and-nail struggle with Ortega would have been odious. I wanted to spare her feelings, just as I would have been anxious to save from any contact with mud the feet of that goatherd of the mountains with a symbolic face. I looked at her face. For immobility it might have been a carving. I wished I knew how to deal with that embodied mystery, to influence it, to manage it. Oh, how I longed for the gift of authority! In addition, since I had become completely sane, all my scruples

yed to discover that she had heard me, understood me; that she even had command over her rigid

ect of a smile. And I don't know whether I was pleased when she, who was not to be touched, gripped my wrist suddenly. It had the air of being done on purpose because almost instantly another: "Beloved!" louder, more agonized if possible, got into the room an

ot to be trifled with. Leaving the room was for us out of the question. It was quite possible for him to dash round into the hall before we could get clear of the front door. As to making a bolt of it upstairs there was the same objection; and to allow ourselves to be chased all over the empty house by this maniac woul

d grouped between them stars and suns of choppers, swords, knives; from Italy, from Damascus, from Abyssinia, from the ends of the world. Ortega had only to make his barbarous choice. I suppose he had got up on the bench, and fumbling about amongst them must ha

terrified murmur of her voice. "Take me o

pered. "He will soon

n't kno

o. Been with

ce with her hands passionately. When she dropp

d he say

ra

me. It wa

, but what

voice on the other side of the door burst out with an impassioned request for a little pity, just a little, and went on begging for a few words, for two words, for

ered her eyelids over the anxio

ceived. The voice returned, stammering words without connection, pausing and faltering, till suddenly steadied it soared into impassioned e

t comic," I

had I seen her look exactly like that, for an instant another, an incredible R

with your goat tricks. . ." All was still for a time, then came a most awful bang on the door. He must have stepped back a pace to hurl himself bodily against the panels. The whole house seemed to shake. He re

ta feverishly, "take me out of t

e to stand it

st go away yourself. Go no

t died out in the house. I don't know why precisely then I had the acute vision of the red mouth o

se pretty gentlemen, on horseback, like a princess, with pure cheeks like a carved saint? I wonder I didn't throw stones at you, I wonder I didn

little table, bearing the six-branched candlestick. It hit the floor, rebounded with a dull ring on the carpet, and by the time it came to a rest every single candle was out. He on the other side of the door naturally heard the noise and greeted it with a triumphant screech: "Aha! I've managed to wake you up," the very savagery of which had a laughable effect. I felt the weight of Do?a Rita grow on my arm and thought it best to let her sink on the floor, wishing to be free in my movements and really afraid that now he had actually heard a noise he would infallibly burst the door. But he didn't even thump it. He seemed to have exhausted himself in that scream. There was no other light in the room but the darkened glow of the embers and I could hardly make out amongst the shadows of furniture Do?a Rita sunk on her knees in a penitential and despairing attitude. Before this collapse I, who had bee

t life. Come, Rita, you can't take a boy's soul away and then let him grow up and go about the world, poor devil, while you go amongst the rich from one pair of arms to another, showing all your best tricks. But

t laugh," for in his grotesque, almost burlesque discourses there se

farcical unexpectedness he yelled shrilly: "Oh, you dece

prey was escaping him. His swiftness was amazing, almost inconceivable, more like the effect of a trick or of a mechanism. The thump on the door was awful as if he had not been able to stop himself in time. The shock seem

wn. She was struggling with an appalling fit of merriment, repeating to herself, "Yes, every day, for two months. Sixty times at least, sixty times at least." Her voice was rising high. She was struggling against laughter, but when I tried to put

ening, but he must have thought that his ears had deceived him. He was getting tired, too. He was keepi

epeated tremulously, following this mechanical appeal with a string of extravagantly endearing names, some of them quite childish, which all of a

scornful: "Do! Why, slink off home looking over your shoulder as y

a moment. Then, goodness only knows why, in his dismay or rage

ast-Catin! You were that from the c

g silence on both sides of the door perfectly awful. It seemed to me that if I didn't resist with all my might something in me would die on the instant. In t

e foot of the stairs and screamed again, "Therese, Therese! There is a man wi

ll over-note which made me certain that if she was in bed the only thing she would think of doing would be to put her head unde

distressing, and vaguely alarming as if it could bring the house down. At the same time the futility of it had, it cannot be denied, a comic effect. The very magnitude of the racket he raised was funny. But he couldn't keep up that violent exertion continuously, and when he stopped to rest we could hear hi

the fading glow. I called out to her quite openly, "Do keep your self-control." And she called back to me in a clear voice: "Oh

. "But don't l

he fiendish associates of that obscene woman! . . . Then he began another interlude upon the door, so sustained and strong that I had the thought t

rses at the door, and seemed

her. I was so near the door that I thought I ought to hear him panting there. He was terrifying, but he was not serious. He was at the end of his strength, of his breath, of every kind of endurance, but I did not know it. He was done up, finished; but perhaps he did not know it himself. How still he was! Just as I began to wonder at it, I heard him distinctly give a slap to his forehead. "I see it all!" he cried. "That miserable, canting peasant-woman upstairs has arranged it all. No doubt she consulted her priests. I must regain my self-respect. Let he

rds and the fingers rigidly spread out. The shadow of the lowest step slanted across his face but one whisker and part of his chin could be made out. He appeared strangely flattened. He didn't move at all. He was in his shirt-sleeves. I felt an extreme distaste for that sight. The characteristic sound of a key worrying in the lock stole into my ears. I couldn't locate it but I didn't attend much to that at first. I was

nt door which seemed pushed a little ajar. Was somebody trying to get in? I had no objection, I went to the door and said: "Wait a moment, it's on the chain." The deep voice on the other side said: "What an extraordinary thing," and I assented mentally.

e chain and as I allowed the door to swing open a little more I put myself in his way. He was burly, venerable, a little indignant, and full of thanks. Behind him his two girls, in short-skirted costumes, white stockings, an

n a hurried whisper: "There is a dead man in the hall." He didn't say a single word but put me aside a little, projected his body

e. When near Se?or Ortega he trod short just in time and said: "In truth, blood"; then selecting the place, knelt down by the body in his tall hat and respectable overcoat, his white beard giving him immense authority somehow. "But-this man is not dead," he exclaimed, looking up at me. With profound sagacity, inherent as it were in his great beard, he never took the trouble to put any questions to me and seemed certain that I h

without appeal. I certainly had no inclination to argue. When we lifted him up the head of Se?

couch on which we deposited our burden. My venerable friend jerke

the doctor is your affair. If you don't want this busine

rtain of the right sort of doctor. He was an iron-grey man of forty and of a stout habit of body but who was able to put on a spurt. In the cold, dark, and deserted by-streets, he ran with earnest, and ponderous footsteps, which echoed loudly in the cold night air, while I skimmed along the ground a pace or two in front of him. It was only on arri

e up to, th

mining this cur

ad thrown on the table. Then while wiping his hands: "I would bet there is a woman somewhere under this;

do him any g

happened to see her once or twice. I shouldn't wonder if she were to raise considerable

es

officer here, a lean, tall, dark man, who couldn't slee

N

wiping his hands and f

tless brain. Not a good thing, that. For the rest a per

pt for the trouble he might cause to the Carlist sympat

tory sort of place where you have put him. I'll try to find somebody w