At length a barber-surgeon (for the
professions were united in Seville) consented, with many a yawn, to
attend him, and came duly armed with lint and styptics. The distance was
short, and he was soon by the bed of the young sufferer. The parents
observed, with consternation unspeakable, the languid looks of
recognition, the ghastly smile of consciousness, that Everhard viewed
him with, as he approached the bed; and when he had succeeded in
stopping the hæmorrhage, and bound up the arms, a whisper passed between
him and the patient, and the latter raised his bloodless hand to his
lips, and uttered, “Remember our bargain.” As the man retired, Walberg
followed, and demanded to know the meaning of the words he had heard. Walberg was a German, and choleric--the surgeon was a Spaniard, and
cool. “I shall tell you to-morrow, Senhor,” said he, putting up his
instruments,--“in the mean time be assured of my gratuitous attendance
on your son, and of his certain recovery. We deem you heretics in
Seville, but that youth is enough to canonize the whole family, and
cover a multitude of sins.” And with these words he departed. The next
day he attended Everhard, and so for several, till he was completely
recovered, always refusing the slightest remuneration, till the father,
whom misery had made suspicious of every thing and nothing, watched at
the door, and heard the horrible secret. He did not disclose it to his
wife,--but from that hour, it was observed that his gloom became more
intense, and the communications he used to hold with his family, on the
subject of their distress, and the modes of evading it by hourly
expedients, utterly and finally ceased. “Everhard, now recovered, but still pale as the widow of Seneca, was at
last able to join the family consultation, and give advice, and suggest
resources, with a mental energy that his physical weakness could not
overcome. The next day, when they were assembled to debate on the means
of procuring subsistence for the following one, they for the first time
missed their father. At every word that was uttered, they turned to ask
for his sanction--but he was not there. At last he entered the room, but
without taking a part in their consultation. He leaned gloomily against
the wall, and while Everhard and Julia, at every sentence, turned their
appealing looks towards him, he sullenly averted his head. Ines,
appearing to pursue some work, while her trembling fingers could scarce
direct the needle, made a sign to her children not to observe him. Their
voices were instantly depressed, and their heads bent closely towards
each other. Mendicity appeared the only resource of this unfortunate
family,--and they agreed, that the evening was the best time for trying
its effect. The unhappy father remained rocking against the shattered
wainscot till the arrival of evening. Ines repaired the clothes of the
children, which were now so decayed, that every attempt at repair made a
fresh rent, and the very thread she worked with seemed less attenuated
than the worn-out materials it wrought on. “The grandfather, still seated in his ample chair by the care of Ines,
(for his son had grown very indifferent about him), watched her moving
fingers, and exclaimed, with the petulance of dotage, “Aye,--you are
arraying them in embroidery, while I am in rags.--In rags!” he repeated,
holding out the slender garments which the beggared family could with
difficulty spare him. Ines tried to pacify him, and showed her work, to
prove that it was the remnants of her children’s former dress she was
repairing; but, with horror unutterable, she perceived her husband
incensed at these expressions of dotage, and venting his frantic and
fearful indignation in language that she tried to bury the sound of, by
pressing closer to the old man, and attempting to fix his bewildered
attention on herself and her work. This was easily accomplished, and all
was well, till they were about to separate on their wretched precarious
errands. Then a new and untold feeling trembled at the heart of one of
the young wanderers. Julia remembered the occurrence of a preceding
evening,--she thought of the tempting gold, the flattering language, and
the tender tone of the young cavalier. She saw her family perishing
around her for want,--she felt it consuming her own vitals,--and as she
cast her eye round the squalid room, the gold glittered brighter and
brighter in her eye. A faint hope, aided perhaps by a still more faint
suggestion of venial pride, swelled in her heart. “Perhaps he might love
me,” she whispered to herself, “and think me not unworthy of his hand.”
Then despair returned to the charge. “I must die of famine,” she
thought, “if I return unaided,--and why may I not by my death benefit my
family! I will never survive shame, but they may,--for they will not
know it!”--She went out, and took a direction different from that of the
family. “Night came on,--the wanderers returned slowly one by one,--_Julia was
the last_. Her brothers and sister had each obtained a trifling alms,
for they had learned Spanish enough to beg in,--and the old man’s face
wore a vacant smile, as he saw the store produced, which was, after all,
scarce sufficient to afford a meal for the youngest. “And have you
brought us nothing, Julia?” said her parents. She stood apart, and in
silence. Her father repeated the question in a raised and angry voice. She started at the sound, and, rushing forward, buried her head in her
mother’s bosom. “Nothing,--nothing,” she cried, in a broken and
suffocated voice; “I tried,--my weak and wicked heart submitted to the
thought for a moment,--but no,--no, not even to save you from perishing,
could I!--I came home to perish first myself!” Her shuddering parents
comprehended her,--and amid their agony they blessed her and wept,--but
not from grief. The meal was divided, of which Julia at first steadily
refused to partake, as she had not contributed to it, till her
reluctance was overcome by the affectionate importunity of the rest, and
she complied. “It was during this division of what all believed to be their last meal,
that Walberg gave one of those proofs of sudden and fearful violence of
temper, bordering on insanity, which he had betrayed latterly. He seemed
to notice, with sullen displeasure, that his wife had (as she always
did) reserved the largest portion for his father. He eyed it askance at
first, muttering angrily to himself. Then he spoke more aloud, though
not so as to be heard by the deaf old man, who was sluggishly devouring
his sordid meal. Then the sufferings of his children seemed to inspire
him with a kind of wild resentment, and he started up, exclaiming, “My
son sells his blood to a surgeon, to save us from perishing(2)! My
daughter trembles on the verge of prostitution, to procure us a meal!”
Then fiercely addressing his father, “And what dost thou do, old dotard?