THE FISHERMAN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXI, Issue 35, 29 December 1893, Page 23

THE FISHERMAN.

(From the Spanish of Fbbhan Oabaxlbbo.)

" You are not bappy as on other evenings," said the Oonde de Viana to the Marquesa de Alora, on finding her seated by the fireplace, her obeek resting sorrowfully on her hand. " It is so," answered the Marquesa. " Wbat is the matter ? tell me what ails yon." " I am sorrowful. The storm of to-day, the wind sighing, and the clouds and rain, have made me so. As in nature tbe clouds interpose between the heavens and the earth, so there are days when ■ombre and painful ideas interpose between Heaven and the soul." " On other occasions I hays heard you express delight in a storm as a beautiful sight, saying that there is life and movement in a tempest, that it is beneficial to natnre as a Turkish bsth is to man, giving new vigour. " I do not deny it. Who is so foolish as to maintain that tbey will always think the same f Or what man is such an automaton as always to feel according to rule ? Experience and circumstances influence wbat we think and feel. Besides, there are days when the clouds have neither form nor movement, but appear like one heavy inert mass of lead, threatening to fall on our defenceless heads." * So the same c*uie which gladdened yon yesterday may sadden you to-day T" •• And if it were so, what remedy have yon ?" " Tbe will should be used to overcome such impressions, or else tbey will become scourges to us." " Ton may restrain a wild animal, but not a cloud." " Tbe comparison is not exact, dear friend." ** All comparison may be questioned." " Not when tbey are exact, There is one that I frequently make without danger of beiog coo trad icted when I compare you to an angel." '• Thank yon, any old and dear friend. lam far from rejecting compliments, not that I merit them, but being a woman, I think them a sweet incense that refines the sphere in which we move. The bitter and hostile spirit of the dty ridicules and condemns them because tbe cordiality and courtesy which in other times inspired them, scarcely exist now<a-dsys. Compliments sre considered mere flattery, and it is clear that they are an, because no longer sincere, they are just cold and weak echoes of what in other limes were voices of the heart." "It is as you say, but you are too young to realise bo fully as I do tbe changes brought about in society by modern ideas. Even those, like myßelf, who cliDg to old-fashioned notions of good breeding, are influenced by the reigning spirit of discourtesy and want of attention to others. Mutual respect, one of tbe first duties of those in socie y, is almost unknown, consisting as it does of a sustained attention to other?, which should be more particularly shown by a superior to an inferior. A want of attention to a superior offends ; a want of attention to an inferior wounds." 11 1 share all your ideaß, Conde," replied the Marqaesa ; " tbey are traditional in my family. I tbink moreover that lor society to be what it should each ought to treat a superior with deference, an inferior with deference and kindness, friends only with freeiom, and no one with familiarity. " But bow we have wandered away from tbe starting point of our conversation,*' said the Conde, " and I am longing to know what preoccupies you : something there is ; and do not look so fixedly at the flame, for you will spoil your sight." •' When I have spoilt it I will wear spectacles. If all things had but their remedy as easily?" " I am finding the thread I seek for, Something sad, some »# hay remedio (tnere is no remedy) dismays and overwhelms you." "You have guessed right, ConJe. The terrible no hay remedit that I have heard to-day from a doctor's lips weighs on my heart like the slab of a sepulchre. Mercedes has lost her reas >o, and for her insanity no hay remedio. lam quite disconsolate, it is most sad for me — whatever it may be, woeiber it comes from scruples, oversensitiveness, or superstition, a feeling of bifer remorse bus arisen in my conscience, as if it threw in my face that I had destroyed the happiness of tbat good family by making a vaia display of it to you. As id the fable of Psyche, one flash of the indiscreet torch dispelling the darkness in which tbe gods delighted, destroyed the cbarm. " " Your superstition and your comparison are alike pagan," observed the Conde ; " God has nothing to do wi b darkness : truth and light belong to heaven. To care for and contribute to the happiness of others, as you did in this case, is so beautiful an action tbat it was one of God's motives for creating man. Do not afflict yourself Senors," pursued tbe Oonde, as be saw tears stealing from his friend's eyes. " To-day it falls to me to see things in a better light than my Queen of Smiles. Let us talk it over. Perhaps you think tbe insane suffer very muoh, but is it not possible tbat God may send insanity as a relief in insupportable misfortune?" " Oh ! no, no. It is so rare tbat the cause of insanity is forgotten, though all power of consolation is lost. An insane person cannot be calmed by reflection, or soothed by the sympathy of others. Insanity is a nightmare from which there is no awakening."

" That may be, if the form taken ii sad." " It is almoft always io, for in nearly all oases insanity is oaased by the shook of some great calamity." " Bat sometimes the insane oease to feel what has befallen them ; all is blotted out through complete loss of memory, whioh alone preserves sorrow imperishable. 80 you may see many insane persons gay ; one believes himself Prester John, another is a king, this one a poet, that one an inventor or some eminent man, without contradiction or deception." " Of the last yon name there are many in the world who pass for sane," said the Marqaesa ; with a half-smile ; " bnt the greater part of the insaoc are misantbiopes — they suffer, weep, and at times beoome furious. Never shall I forget the day I was taken to see a mad* home. The feathers and gay colours of the inmates appeared to me more funereal than grave clothes. Insanity is more sad than death —for dear ones lost by death, there is the hope of their blessedness, , and prayers for them which hasten it. Tbe deepest impression was made on me by seeing a young man in one of the oells who appeared so quiet and sad, that I could not forbear asking his keeper why the poor youog fellow was so severely guarded and chained to his bench. I was answered that, when seized with frenzy, no one could hold him ; he tried at snob times to cast himself towards some place that he sought wildly for, crying out all tbe time in a heartrending voice, ♦ Rafael, Bafael I' Thia name was the sole word that ever esoaped from bia stifled breast, and it seemed as if tbe sound of that name by his own voice struck terror to bis heart ; and, strangely enough, Bafael was bis own name 1 He bad the deadly pallor peculiar to bia affliction, so deathlike that it makes one fancy tbe heart no longer warms the blood that passes through it. His dark eyes had no light in them, and appeared only like the smouldering cinders of a fire that no longer burnt It was mournful to ste the ravages which suffering had made on bis young face. He belonged to the humbler class, in which the best type of tbe Spanish raoe is so often found. I cannot express the compassion I felt for that young lad in the flower of his youth, appearing so gentle and sad, chained as he was like an animal, cut off from all society like a leper. I was called away, and left with my companions ; but shortly after it appeared that tbe auffsrer was seised by one of bis treozied paroxysms, for from tbe direction of his cell I heard a plaintive cry repeating at intervals, ' Bafael I Bafael I* Tbe impression made on me by my imprudent visit lasted a long time, and gave me a profound terror of this terrible moral suffering, this awful state in wbiua the individual appears like one dead, while only one permanent remembracce survives like a phantom of the night. I prayed God to hasten tbe work of time, tint as on trees the leaves that have been destroyed by bitter winds shoot forth again, so the bitter impression made on me might be replaced by a sweeter one. But this cry of ' Bafael ' long resounded in my ears, pregnant with some fatal mystery, as the expression of gime terrible anguish." " And you never found out the cause of (be lad's insanity ?" asked the Conde. "No, and I am glad of it. Bang already so impressed, how much more should I have felt bad 1 known the cause ?" "The effdct would have been lessened," sad tbe Oonde, "the effect of the known is less than the unknown, whioh, being dark as night, causes terror by the very fact. The real arrests, but the mysterious seta the imagination at work ; and you know that yours ba9 no bounds, especially as regar is wbat is horrible 1 By chance it is in my power to tell you the origin of this same Bafael's insanity, which for the future will seem to you a misfortune certainly worthy of tbe deepest pity, but will do longer bang over you as a type of mysteri >U8 horror." " You are going to give me a bad time of it," exclaimed the Marquesa. " It may be so, bat after some tears of compassion yon will no longer shudder with terror as you have hitherto done at the thought of this unh ippy man. Tou must know that last year I went for awhile to Sanlucar de Birramada to drink tSe waters. Opposite the house where I lodged lived an old woman whom my landlady knew and considered the happiest worn in in the world, and in reality she was so. She bad two suns, or, to apeak more truly, two lovers, for 1 never koew instances of more perfect filial love. Neither of them cared to marry whilst tbeir mother lived, and when chaffed about it, they answered merrily that tbey were both married to tbe same woman without being jealous. They were fishermen, and what they earned they always gave to their mother, assuring her the labour was sweet to them that gave her all she might want for in her old age. You ein imagine the intensity of this good woman's love for her sons, uniting as it did tender gratitude to a naothei's love." ■' How much she must have snffered when her sons went to sea," observed tbe Marquesa, who in compensation for her own happiness bad almost exaggerated aptitude for compassion. "You have a beart of raw flash," answered tbe Oonde, smiling ; " pardon me tbe vulgarity of tbe illustration io consideration of its exactitude. I have often told you that you are wont to feel more for tbe ills of others than tbey do themselves, and you do yourself barm and iham no good. Custom familiarises us with all things, even danger, and so their mother was not alarmed at seeing her sons

pen their lives at the mercy of winds and waves. Von must remember, Marquess, that these two slept in their boat like ohildren in their cradles, and sung in it like birds in a cage. In fishing villages the wand of the wind doee not cause alarm, nor do the risks run by those they love present themselves in so lively a fashion to the mothers and wives as to your imagination. They run so many risks and escape so many it becomes habitual to know that they are more or less exposed, and habit with man has such power that it lessens his fears. The sea-folk are wont to return from fishing in the fall of the evening, they go at once to their homes, where they sleep until the honr of the tide calls them to embark in order to be at sea by daybreak, when they oast out their nests. Generally at midnight or •t one or two o'clock, always in the small hoars of the night, the Bleeping fishermen are awakened, their names being called out one after the other, sometimes at a great distance in the still night. Although my years, each one of which is a narcotic, have brought me to that fortunate stage of maturity which resembles a plant dried op by exposure, I am not without imagination, that creative faculty which is never at rest, and when between sleeping and waking I beard the voice that shouted for Bafael (this was the name of my neighbour's eldest son), the voice sounded to me, now as a warning, bow as a menace. Was it, I asked myself, the voioe of a man, of the sea, or of his destiny ? Bat the two brothers, yoang and full of life, only heard in it the call of duty, jumping up and hurriedly dressing, they ran down to their boat, and putting the prow seawards like a brave man facing the enemy, launched out fearlessly to meet whatever might befall them. One night the pairs put ont (so the embarkation of the fishermen was called, because they set out two and two) in spite of the night being dark and threatening. The heavens were clouded and not a star to be seen. The waves of the sea surged like the rising and falling of a bosom that sought relief ; the wind alone was lacking to the menacing state of the weather, and so soon as the boats had got well out to sea the wind burst on them with the violence of a hurricane. The boat in which the two brothers were was taken aback by the sudden blast of wind, and the men hastened to shorten sail. " Miguel, reef the top sail, while I take in the jib," cried Bafael to his brother, and with the vigorous yet firm steps of a sailor he sprang to the prow of the boat. At that moment a tremendous gust of wind split the top-mast j its fall added to the confusion of the raging hurricane, the planks strained and groaned, the wind whistled through the rigging and roared against the sails as they gave way with a crackling, clapping sound impossible to describe. A momentary lull followed on this outburst of nature, a momentary silence to tbe,deafening roar of the elements. " ' Bafael 1 ' cried a voice from the waves. " < Maria Santisima I A man overboard ! ' shouted the men in consternation. " ' Rafael 1 ' This time the voice was more distant and full of anguish. "*ltis my brother ! ' cried Bifael. ' Save him 1 Save him I Cast a rope overboard I he swims like a fish.' " ' Bafael I ' again came the cry between the roaringjof the wiod, which once more gathered in intensity. " ' Put about, put about I hit voice comes from 'be leeward, cast him a rope, throw tbe oars overboard— if perhaps— but so dark is it I cannot see my own band 1 ' " • Bafael I ' 111 Patron, the other side, tbe wave carries him on it ; save him. save him comrades, be will drown ! ' "'Bafael I ' the voice came fainter with a wailing eound. " Put back, put back, we are leaving him, the wind carries us on its wings ! Pat about, by all the saints in HeaveD, put about 1 ' " This appalling scene lasted for three-quarters of an honr, during which th« darkness, the violence of the storm, and tbe irresistible force of the wind, made it impossible to Bave the able swimmer, who all the while made a desperate fight for his life. During threequarters of an hour Bafael beard bis brother's voice imploring him for help. During three-quarters of an hour one brother agonised between life and death, and the other between hope and desperation, At the end of that time the voice was no longer heard, the sea bad obtained its prey and went roaring on as though seeking another victim, while the wind moaned as if all the cries of tbe shipwrecked were borne on it. Bafael had fallen senseless in the bottom of the

boat, the reit of the crew, with that innate and spontaneous respect which in the supreme moment of death impels the souls of the living to follow the soul that has just parted, uncovered and said the Credo. "Tbe day following, the old mother, so happy on the vigil, had lost one son through drowning, and tbe remaining one had been brought home to her insane*" " So that unfortunate man is my Bafael I " exclaimed the Marquesa, deeply moved. " Yes, Senora, he it is who always hean bis brother's voice and tries to precipitate himself to aid him." "And tbe mother?" asked tbe Marquess with a trembling voice. " She lives 1 " " Bhe lives ? Poor thing, poor thing ! Tell me, Conde, can Ido anything to help or comfort her 1 " " Nothing Marquesa. There is bnt one thing that she needs." " What is it, Conde, tell ma ? " " Yon cannot give it her, Senora, bat God has given it her as He alone can." "Anditis-f " " Christian resignation, Senora. To this alone she owes it that she is not dead like one of her sons, or mad like the other." " That woman is a heroine I " exclaimed the Marquesa, "or rather she is a saint. What has she done to merit such unheard of misfortune, whilst others—? But how can we understand the things of this earth without believing in heavenly things ? How can we explain the confused enigma of life without railing oar eyes from earth and fixing them on heaven ? " "Where?" added the Oonde, "for those who understand their language the stars have written the answer in letters of gold, and it is Cosa cumplido tola en la otra vida " — Completed only in the other life.