Short Stories of Love, Death and Nature, by Horacio Quiroga

After the first few weeks of breaking up with Elena, one evening I could not help attending a ball. I had been sitting for a long time and was bored out of my wits, when Julio Zapiola, seeing me there, came to greet me. He is a young man, gifted with rare elegance and virility of character. I had esteemed him many years before, and he was then returning from Europe, after a long absence.

Thus our talk, which on another occasion would not have passed eight or ten sentences, was prolonged this time in long and unburdened sincerity. I learned that he had married; his wife was there that night. For my part, I informed him of my courtship with Elena-and their recent break-up. Possibly I complained about the bitter situation, for I remember telling him that I thought any arrangement was out of the question.

-Don’t believe in such jolts,” Zapiola told me with a calm and serious air, “You almost never know at the beginning what will happen or what will be done afterwards. I have in my marriage a novel infinitely more complicated than yours; which does not prevent me from being to-day the happiest husband on earth. Listen to it, for it may be of great use to you. Five years ago I met very frequently with Vezzera, a school friend whom I had loved long before, and above all he loved me. All that the boy promised was fully realised in the man; he was as before fickle, passionate, with feminine depressions and exaltations. All his anxieties and suspicions were unhealthy, and you do not know how one suffers and is made to suffer in this way of being.

One day he told me that he was in love, and would possibly marry very soon. Although he spoke to me with mad enthusiasm of the beauty of his bride, this appreciation of her beauty was of no value to me. Vezzera insisted, irritated by my pride.

-I don’t know what pride has to do with it,” I observed.

-If that’s what it is! I am sickly, excitable, exposed to continual gazing, and I must always be wrong. Not you! What you say is the right weighting of what you have seen!

-I swear to you…

-Bah; leave me alone,” he concluded, more and more irritated with my tranquillity, which was to him another manifestation of pride. Each time I saw him again in succeeding days, I found him more and more exalted with his love. He was thinner, and his eyes, heavy with dark circles under his eyes, shone with fever.

-Do you want to do something? Let’s go to his house tonight. I’ve already told him about you. You’ll see whether or not it’s like I told you.

We went. I don’t know if you have had such an impression; but when she held out her hand to me and we looked at each other, I felt that by that warm contact, the splendid beauty of those sombre eyes and that mute body, infiltrated in a warm wave into my whole being.

When we went out, Vezzera said to me:

-So?…is it as I told you?

-Yes,” I answered.

-Can impressionable people then communicate an impression in accordance with reality?

-This time, yes,” I could not help laughing.

Vezzera gave me a sidelong glance and was silent for a long time.

-It seems,” he said to me suddenly, “that you did nothing but grant me her beauty by the greatest grace!

-But are you mad,” I answered.

Vezzera shrugged his shoulders as if I had dodged his answer. He continued without speaking to me, visibly displeased, until at last he turned his feverish eyes upon me again.

-Do you really, really swear to me that you think she’s pretty?

-Of course, you idiot! I think it’s very pretty; do you want more?

He calmed down then, and with the inevitable reaction of his feminine nerves, he spent with me an hour of mad enthusiasm, burning with the memory of his fiancée.

I went several more times with Vezzera. One evening, to a new invitation, I replied that I was not feeling well and that we would leave it for another time. Ten days later I said the same thing, and the following week I said the same thing. This time Vezzera looked me straight in the eye:

-Why don’t you want to go?

-It’s not that I don’t want to go, it’s just that I’m not in the mood for such things today.

-It’s not that, it’s that you don’t want to go any more!

-Me?

-Yes; and I demand of you, as of a friend, or as of yourself, that you tell me just this: Why don’t you want to go any more?

-I don’t feel like it!… Do you like it?

Vezzera looked at me as tuberculous people condemned to rest look at a strong man who doesn’t boast about it. And in fact, I think that his consumption was already approaching.

He immediately looked at his sweaty hands, which were trembling.

-Do you know why you don’t want to go anymore? Do you want me to tell you?

His nostrils were flaring, and his rapid breathing was closing his lips.

-Come on! Don’t be… Calm down, it’s for the best.

-I’m going to tell you!

-But don’t you see that you’re delirious, that you’re dead of fever,” I interrupted him. Fortunately, a violent fit of coughing stopped him. I pushed him affectionately.

-Lie down for a moment… you’re ill.

Vezzera lay down on my bed and folded his two hands on his forehead.

A long moment passed in silence. Suddenly her voice came to me, slow:

-You know what I was going to tell you… That you didn’t want Maria to fall in love with you… That’s why you weren’t going.

-How stupid,” I smiled.

-Yes, stupid! Anything, anything you want!

We were speechless again. At last I approached him.

-Tonight let’s go,” I said, “Do you want to?

-Yes, I want to.

Four hours later we arrived there. Maria greeted me as if she had stopped seeing me the day before, not seeming in the least concerned about my long absence.

-Ask her,” laughed Vezzera with visible affectation, “why she hasn’t come for so long.

Maria wrinkled her brow imperceptibly, and turned to me with laughing surprise:

-But I suppose he had no desire to visit us!

Though the tone of the exclamation did not call for an answer, Maria stood for a moment in suspense, as if waiting for it. I saw that Vezzera was devouring me with her eyes.

-Though I should be eternally ashamed,” she said, “I confess that there is some truth in it…..

-Isn’t it true,” she laughed.

But already in the movement of her feet and the dilation of Vezzera’s nostrils, I knew her nervous tension.

-Tell him to tell you,” he said to Maria, “why he really didn’t want to come.

So perverse and cowardly was the attack, that I looked at him with real rage. Vezzera affected not to notice, and held the strained expectation with the convulsive tapping of his foot, while Maria’s eyebrows contracted again.

-Is there something else,” she smiled with an effort.

-Yes, Zapiola will tell you…..

-Vezzera,” I exclaimed.

-That is to say, not his motive, but the one I attributed to him for not coming here any more… do you know why?

-Because he thinks you are going to fall in love with me,” I said, turning to Maria.

Even before I said this, it was clear to me how ridiculous I was going to be; but I had to do it. Maria burst out laughing, the tiredness in her eyes becoming more noticeable.

-Did you think so, Antenor?

-No, you suppose… it was a joke,” he laughed too.

The mother came back into the room, and the conversation changed course.

-You’re a scoundrel,” I hastened to say in Vezzera’s eyes, as we left.

-Yes,” she replied, looking clearly at me, “I did it on purpose.

-Did you want to ridicule me?

-Yes… I did.

-And aren’t you ashamed? What the hell is the matter with you? What have you got against me?

He didn’t answer me, shrugging his shoulders.

-Fuck off,” I muttered. But a moment later, as I broke away, I felt his cruel, distrustful gaze fixed on mine.

-Do you swear to me by all you love, by all you love most, that you don’t know what I think?

-No,” I answered dryly.

-You’re not lying, you’re not lying?

-I am not lying.

And I was lying deeply.

-Well, I’m glad… Let’s leave it at that. See you tomorrow. When do you want us to go back there?

-Never! It’s over.

I saw real anguish dilate his eyes.

-You don’t want to go anymore?” he said in a hoarse, strange voice.

-No, never again.

-You’re not angry, are you?

-Oh, don’t be a creature,” I laughed.

And I was really irritated against Vezzera, against me…

The next day Vezzera came into my room in the evening. It had been raining since the morning, with a heavy rainstorm, and the dampness and the cold overwhelmed me. From the first moment I noticed that Vezzera was burning with fever.

-I have a request to make of you,” she began.

-Why did you go out with me tonight? Can’t you see that you are gambling your life on this?

-I don’t care about life… in a few months it’ll be over… it’s better. What I want is for you to go there again.

-No! -I told you.

-No, come on! I don’t want you to not want to go! -It kills me! Why don’t you want to go?

-I’ve already told you: no-qui-e-ro! Not another word about this, do you hear?

The anguish of the night before had once again made his eyes wild.

-Then,” he articulated in a deep voice, “that’s what I think, what you know I thought when you lied last night. So… Well, let’s leave it, it’s nothing. See you tomorrow.

I stopped him by the shoulder and he immediately dropped into the chair, his head on his arms on the table.

-Stay,” I said, “You’re going to sleep here with me. Don’t be alone.

For a while we lay in profound silence. At last he uttered without any intonation:

-I feel like killing myself….

-That’s why! Stay here… Don’t be alone!

But I could not restrain it, and spent the whole night in restlessness.

You know what a terrible force of attraction suicide has, when the fixed idea has become entangled in a skein of sick nerves. It would have been necessary that at all costs Vezzera should not have been alone in his room. And yet the motive always persisted.

What I feared happened. At seven o’clock in the morning a letter was brought to me from Vezzera, who had been dead for four hours. In it he told me that it was all too clear that I was in love with his fiancée, and she with me. That as for Maria, he was absolutely certain, and that I had only confirmed my love for her by my refusal to go any further. That I was far from believing that he was killing himself with grief, absolutely not. But he was not a man capable of sacrificing anyone to his selfish happiness, and so he left me and her free. Besides, his lungs couldn’t take any more… it was only a matter of time. May he make Maria happy, as he would have wished…, etc., etc.

And two or three sentences more. It is useless for me to tell you in detail my confusion during those days. But what stood out clearly to me in his letter-to me who knew him-was the desperation of jealousy that drove him to suicide. That was the only motive; the rest: sacrifice and a clear conscience were worthless.

In the midst of it all, the image of Mary remained very much alive, radiant with sudden happiness. I know the effort I had to make, when I was from Vezzera, to stop going to see her. And I had thought I had guessed that something similar was happening to her. And now, free! yes, just the two of us, but with a corpse between us.

After a fortnight I went to her house. We talked vaguely, avoiding the slightest allusion. He scarcely answered me; and though he tried hard, he could not hold my gaze for a moment.

-Then,” I said at last, rising, “I think it would be most discreet if I never saw her again.

-I think the same,” he answered.

But I did not move.

-Never again,” I added.

-No, never… as you wish,” she burst into a sob, as two defeated tears rolled down her cheeks.

As I approached she put her hands to her face, and as soon as she felt my touch she shuddered violently and burst into sobs. I leaned behind her and embraced her head.

-Yes, my dear soul…will you? We can be very happy. That doesn’t matter at all…will you?

-No, no!” she answered, “we couldn’t… no, impossible!

-Later, yes, my love… Yes, later?

-No, no, no, no!” she still redoubled her sobs.

Then I went out in despair, and thinking with raging bitterness that that imbecile, in killing himself, had also killed us both.

Here ends my novel. Now, would you like to see it?

-Maria,” he said to a young woman passing by on his arm, “it’s time now; it’s three o’clock.

-Already? Three o’clock?” she turned back. “I wouldn’t have believed it. Well, let’s go. Just a moment.

Zapiola then said to me:

-You see, my friend, how one can be happy after what I have told you. And your case… Wait a second.

And while he was introducing me to his wife:

-I was telling X how we were on the verge of being unhappy.

The young woman smiled at her husband, and I recognised those sombre eyes of which he had spoken to me, and which, like all those of that character, sparkle with happiness when they laugh.

-Yes,” she replied simply, “we suffered a little…..

-You see,” laughed Zapiola, taking his leave, “I would go back to the drawing-room if I were you.

I was left alone. The thought of Elena came back again; but in the midst of my displeasure I remembered at every moment the impression Zapiola received on first seeing Maria’s eyes.

And I could not but remember them.

 

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