La conciencia 2

- I -

La conciencia ~ Conscience. escrito por Fernán Caballero

- III -

Ortografía original ~ Publicado en Nueva York, 1901 ~ [1]

Capítulo Segundo ‎La joven que hemos descrito se llamaba Ismena, y era hija única de don Patricio O'Carty, cuya familia había emigrado de Irlanda, como otras muchas. La mayor parte de estos fieles, que abandonaron sus empleos, casas y tierras, siguieron á James Stewart, ó Jaime II de Inglaterra, á Francia, y le acompañaron cuando en 1690, auxiliado por Luis XIV, hizo aquel desgraciado rey un desembarco en Irlanda, y, después de muchas vicisitudes, mandó en persona la desgraciada batalla de la Boyne. Después de esta derrota entraron aquellas tropas, que se componían de la primera nobleza de Irlanda y Escocia, al servicio de Francia y España. Mandaba estas tropas Jacobo Stuart, duque de Berwick, quien ganó la batalla de Almansa . Tuvo este bizarro general dos hijos: el primero se naturalizó en España y el segundo en Francia. ‎Casó don Patricio con una española, y su hija Ismena reunió la belleza de ambos tipos. Sus rasgados ojos azul turquí tenían, entre sus obscuras pestañas, la altiva y entendida mirada de las hijas del Sur, y su porte era gracioso y natural. ‎La naturalidad es el mayor encanto de la gracia española, tan justamente célebre y decantada. En la naturalidad está la verdad, y fuera de la verdad no hay perfección; en la naturalidad está la gracia, y sin la gracia no hay elegancia genuína. ‎En cuanto á lo moral, peor dotada Ismena que en su persona, unía al alma fría y serena de su padre, el genio altivo y dominador que había heredado de su madre. No se ocupaba la celebrada Ismena, la rica heredera, sino de sí y de un futuro que se forjaba en su imaginación, lucido y brillante cual los que pronostican las hadas. Así fué que despreció con impertinencia el amor de cuantos jóvenes se le ofrecieron sinceramente, no pareciéndole ninguno digno de realizar su soñado porvenir. ‎Pero los cambios de la suerte son repentinos é inesperados como las trasformaciones de las comedias de magia. En pocos meses perdió el padre de Ismena todo su caudal, y don Patricio, que por entonces también perdió á su mujer, se retiró arruinado a la bella casa de campo que en Chiclana tenía; pero en breve ni aun ese recurso le quedó, y la casa fué puesta en venta por los acreedores. ‎El primer comprador que se presentó fué el general conde de Alcira, hombre que, aunque no tenía sino cincuenta y cinco años, parecía mucho mayor. ‎El general se había establecido antes en Sevilla su pueblo natal. Allí, su cuñada le trató de una manera tan agria y tan hostil, que el general, á pesar de ser el hombre mejor, más honrado, noble y generoso del mundo, se indignó, y se resolvió á dejar á Sevilla y á vivir en Cádiz. ‎No había entonces, es claro, vapores, esos correvediles que han estrechado los vínculos de amistad entre ambas ciudades, joyas de Andalucía. Cádiz, tan bella ó más que lo es hoy, nadaba en un mar de saladas aguas, en un mar de placeres y en un mar de riquezas. Sabía hermanar admirablemente la cultura y el arte de la elegancia extranjera, con el señorío, la gracia y la espontaneidad de la elegancia española. ‎En aquel los tiempos se tenía amor á lo español sencilla y naturalmente: como tiene el valiente su denuedo, sin pregonarlo; como las estatuas griegas tienen su belleza, sin adornarla; como tiene el campo sus flores, sin ostentarlas. El españolismo estaba en la sangre, en la índole y en los gustos, y se hacía tan fino, tan amable, tan donoso, tan caballero; se le conservaba tanto su gracioso tipo meridional, que era la admiración y encanto de los extranjeros. Entonces reinaba la más franca alegría, identificada con la más exquisita finura. No había clubs; no había sino tertulias, en las que la galantería tenía por código estos versos antiguos del poeta Suárez, que floreció en el siglo XVI: Vosotras sois las temidas, Nosotros somos temientes; Vosotras sóis las servidas, Vosotras obedecidas, Nosotros los obedientes; Vosotras sojuzgadoras, Nosotros los sometidos; Vosotras libres señoras, Vosotras las vencedoras, Nosotros siervos vencidos; Vosotras las adoradas, Nosotros los denegados; Vosotras las muy loadas, Vosotras las estimadas, Nosotros los desechados. ‎El general conde de Alcira, á su regreso a Cádiz, deseó comprar una casa de campo; le propusieron la de don Patricio O'Carty, y fué á verla. Quedó admirado el conde de cuanto vió en aquella rica morada; pero de nada tanto como de la hija del dueño, a la que, enlutada y cubierto el cuello de rubios rizos, halló escribiendo y llorando en un apartado gabinete, que tomaba del jardin luz y fragancia. Ismena lloraba al contestar á dos amigas suyas que le habían informado de sus espléndidos casamientos. ‎¡Cuan amargamente contrastaban en aquellas cartas la suerte de sus amigas con la de Ismena, que tenía que abandonar hasta esta casa, último resto de su brillante posición pasada! ‎Interesaron y conmovieron tanto aquellas lágrimas al bondadoso general, que después de comprar la casa, suplicó a su antiguo dueño que se quedase viviéndola, y que le admitiera en ella como uno de la familia, uniéndole á su hija. Excusado es decir que don Patricio é Ismena recibieron esta oferta como una embajada de felicidad. ‎Difícil sería pintar la furia que se apoderó de la cuñada del conde cuando supo el proyectado enlace. Desfogóla esparciendo calumnias sobre Ismena, y cubriendo de ridículo este matrimonio, vaticinando, por ultimo, que la ambiciosa y arruinada joven, que por interés se casaba con un anciano gastado y valetudinario, no tendría sucesión, quedando así burlados sus ambiciosos cálculos, y haciendo volver el mayorazgo a su familia, por falta de su actual poseedor. ‎¡Cuánto no se resentirían el excesivo orgullo y el altivo amor propio de Ismena, tan exageradamente susceptibles desde sus desgracias, con estos escarnios y vilipendios! Exasperábase más, viendo los vaticinios de su contraria verificarse, puesto que hacía dos años que estaba casada sin haber tenido hijos. ‎En esta época es cuando hemos presentado á Ismena, condesa de Alcira, vertiendo lágrimas.

Chapter Second ‎The young girl whom we have described was called Ismena, and was the only daughter of Don Patricio O'Carty, whose family had, like many others, emigrated from Ireland. The greater part of these faithful persons, who abandoned their occupations, homes, and properties, followed James Stewart, or James the Second of England, to France, and accompanied him when in 1690, with the help of Louis XIV, that unfortunate King landed in Ireland, and after many misfortunes, commanded in person, at the fatal battle of the Boyne. After this defeat, these troops, which were composed of the chief nobility of Ireland and Scotland, entered the service of France and Spain. James Stewart, Duke of Berwick, who gained the battle of Almansa, commanded these troops. This brave general had two sons: the elder was naturalized in Spain and the second in Franee. ‎Don Patricio married a Spanish lady, and his daughter Ismena combined the beauty of both types. Her full turquoise-blue eyes had, between her dark eyelashes, the haughty and knowing look of the daughters of the South, and her carriage was graceful and natural. ‎Naturalness is the greatest charm of Spanish gracefulness, so justly celebrated and praised. In naturalness is truth, and without truth there is no perfection; in naturalness is gracefulness, and without gracefulness there is no genuine elegance. ‎As regards moral character, Ismena, less favorably endowed than in her person, combined with the cold and serene spirit of her father, the haughty and commanding temper which she had inherited from her mother. The celebrated Ismena, the rich heiress, thought only of herself and of a future which she created in her imagination, as bright and brilliant as those which fairies predict. Thus she rejected with scorn, the love of all those young men, who sincerely offered themselves to her, no one appearing to her worthy to realize the future of her dreams. ‎But the changes of fortune are as sudden and unexpected as the transformations of the comedies of magic. In a few months Ismena's father lost all his fortune, and Don Patricio, who then, also lost his wife, retired, a ruined man, to the beautiful country house which he had at Chiclana; but in a short time, not even this recourse was left to him, and the house was offered for sale by his creditors. ‎The first purchaser who presented himself, was General Count de Alcira, a man who, though only fifty five years old, appeared much older. ‎The General had before settled in Seville, his native city. There, his sister-in-law treated him in so rude and hostile a manner, that the General, in spite of being the best, most honorable, noble, and generous man, in the world, became indignant and resolved to quit Seville and live in Cádiz. ‎There were not then, of course, steamboats, — those links which have tightened the chain of friendship between both cities — gems of Andalusia. Cádiz, then as beautiful, or more so, than she is to-day, swam in a salt sea, in a sea of pleasures and in a sea of riches. She knew how to admirably harmonize culture and the art of foreign elegance, with the stateliness, the gracefulness, and the spontancity of Spanish elegance. ‎In those days, the love for everything Spanish, was naturally and unostentatiously chreished: like the brave man who is courageous, without proclaiming it; like the greek statues, which have their beauty, without adorning it; like the field which has its flowers without ostentatious display. Spaniolism was in the blood, in the temperament, in the tastes, and became so delicate, so pleasing, so witty, so knightly; it preserved so well its southern graceful type, that it was the wonder and charm of foreigners. Then the freest gayety prevailed, identified with the most exquisite refinement. There were no clubs; there were only informal parties; where gallantry had for its code those ancient verses of the poet Suárez, who flourished in the XVI century: Ye are the feared, We are the fearers; Ye are the served, Ye are the obeyed, We are the obedient; Ye are the subduers, We are the submissive; Ye are the free matrons, Ye are the conquerors, We are the vanquished slaves; Ye are the adored, We are the refused; Ye are the much praised, Ye are the esteemed, We are the rejected. ‎General Count de Alcira on his return to Cadiz, wished to buy a countryhouse; that of Don Patricio O'Carty was offered to him and he went to see it. The Count was seized with admiration for all that he saw in this rich mansion; but for nothing so much as for the daughter of the owner, whom, in mourning and her neck covered with blond curls, he found writing and weeping in a detached cabinet, which took from the garden light and fragrance. Ismena was weeping in replying to two female friends of hers who had informed her of their splendid marriage. ‎How bitterly did these letters cause the lot of her friends to contrast with that of Ismena, who had to abandon even this house, the last thing left of her past brilliant position! ‎These tears interested and moved the generous General so much, that, after purchasing the house, he entreated the former owner to remain living in it, and that he might be admitted as one of the family by uniting him to his daughter. It is superfluous to say that Don Patricio and Ismena received this offer like a tender of happiness. ‎It would be difficult to describe the fury which seized the Count's sister-in-law when she heard of the projected alliance. She vented her anger by spreading calumnies about Ismena and casting ridicule upon this marriage, prophesying finally, that this ambitious and ruined young woman, who out of self-interest was going to marry a worn out old man and valetudinarian, would have no offspring, thus frustrating her ambitious calculations, and making the succession return to his family, through the death of its owner. ‎How much must the excessive pride and haughty self-love of Ismena, rendered so much more susceptible since her misfortunes, have resented this contemptuous ridicule and reviling! She was all the more exasperated because the predictions of her opponent were verified, seeing that two years had elapsed since her marriage, without her having had any children. ‎It was at this period that we have presented Ismena, Countess of Alcira, shedding tears.

Notas ~ Notes

Tierras, lands, property.

James II Stewart of England, or Stuart, by the French modifying orthography, son of Charles I., and Henrietta Maria, was born on the 15th of Oct. 1633. In 1648, during the civil war, he made his escape to France, where he served in the French army; but on peace being made with Cromwell, he was obliged to leave the territory of Louis XIV. He then entered into the military service of Spain. At the Restoration he was made Lord High Admiral of England. In 1660, he married Anne, daughter of Lord Chancellor Hyde, who died a few years later, and he then married again, Mary Beatrice, daughter of the Duke of Modena, by whom he had a son, James, Prince of Wales, born on the 27th of April, 1688, and known as the Chevalier St. George, or the eider Pretender. A few months after, on the 5th of November, William, Prince of Orange, landed at Torbay with 14,000 men, and James, who found himself deserted by the nobility, gentry and army, had to retire to France, where he was hospitably received by Louis XIV. Early in March in the following year, he made an attempt to regain his throne, by invading Ireland with a small army. The Boyne, a river which enters the Irish sea four miles below Drogheda, is famous for the battle fought then by that Prince against William III, on its banks, the 1st of July, 1690, where James II, was defeated. He then retumed to France where he continued to reside until his death, 1701.

Prince James Francis Edward, Prince of Wales, married in 1719, one of the wealthiest heiresses in Europe, Maria Clementina Sobieski, grand-daughter of John Sobieski, King of Poland, and by her had, at Rome, two sons: Charles Edward Stuart, bom in 1710 called the younger Pretender, and Henry Benedict, Cardinal York, in 1747. The first, who bore among the Jacobites the title of Prince of Wales, served under the King of Spain until 1743, when a scheme was contrived in France, with the support of the Jacobites in England, by which Charles Edward was to recover the throne of Great Britain for his family. But the attempt was unsuccessful. In July 1745, while George II was in Hanover, he landed with a few devoted followers in the bay of Lochnanuagh, and ten days after, Charles marched at the head of a large body of hardy mountaineers, who were joined by the Duke of Perth and Lord Strathallan, each with a large retinue of followers.

Edinburgh surrendered to him, and Charles proclaimed his father King of Great Britain, and himself, regent. After having routed Sir John Cope, the commander-in-chief of the King's troops in Scotland, Charles resolved, contrary to the advice of his council, to advance into England, though his force hardly exceeded 6,500 men, and three English Armies, each larger than his own, were preparing to meet him. Finally, after some victories and reverses, on the 16th of April 1746, the Duke of Cumberland encountered Charles's army, and though the Highlanders at first rushed boldly forward, they gave way later, the battle becoming a rout, where the fugitives were pursued and slaughtered by the dragoons who spread carnage and desolation over the country. The bravest and most devoted men to the cause of Charles were killed, and Charles escaped, succeeding in reaching France, where he remained until the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, when it was made a condition that France should abandon the cause of the Stuarts, and Charles, refusing to quit France voluntarily, was conducted with a guard out of the Kingdom, and retired to Rome, where he took the title of Count of Albany. He died the 31st of January 1788.

Almansa, a city in the province of Albacete, Spain, celebrated for the battle of the same name, the 25th of April 1707, between the Spanish and French armies, under the command of the Duke of Berwick, against those composed of English, German, Dutch and Portuguese, the former being victorious, which assured the crown to Felipe V. In commemoration of this battle, a beautiful monument was erected which, among other inscriptions, has the following on one of its pyramids:

Del Quinto Carlos memorias Felipe Quinto también Excita en nobles victorias, Cuando de los Jaimes glorias En este campo se ven

alluding to King Jaime el Conquistador, who was victorious in the same field in a battle against the Moors, 1255.

Sus rasgados ojos azul turquí, her large torquois blue eyes.

Entre sus obscuras pestañas, between her dark eye-lashes.

Altiva, haughty.

Su porte, her carriage.

Decantada, praised.

Peor dotada, worse endowed.

Que se forjaba en su imaginación, which she created for herself in her imagination.

Cual los que pronostican las hadas, the same as those the fairies predict.

Su soñado porvenir, her dreamed-of future.

Suerte, lot.

Caudal, fortune.

Cuñada, sister-in-law.

Manera tan agria y tan hostil, so rude and hostile a manner.

Á pesar de ser, in spite of being.

Correvediles, links.

Joyas de Andalucía, gems of Audalucia, a large and fertile territory in the south of Spain. It takes the name from the turkish Andalosh, land of the West. The Romans named it Baetica, from the river Betis, the modern Guadalquivir. See Cortina's, Spanish in 20 Lessons, pages 273 to 278.

Como tiene el valiente su denuedo, as the valiant has his boldness.

Sin pregonarlo, without proclaiming it.

Índole, temperament.

Tan donoso, so witty.

Finura, politeness.

No había sino tertulias, there were nothing but informal parties.

Vosoiras sois las temidas, jou are the feared.

Temientes, fearers.

Sojuzgadoras, subjugators

Sometidos, submissive.

Siervos vencidos, vanquished servants.

Denegados, refused.

Las muy loadas, the much-praised.

Los desechados, the rejected.

Morada, dwelling.

Dueño, master.

Enlutada, in mourning.

Lloraba al contestar, cried when answering (use of the infinitive instead of the present participle in English. Cortina's, Spanish in 20 Lessons, page 349).

Cuán amargamente contrastaban en aquellas cartas la suerte, how bitterly did these letters cause the lot to contrast.

Embajada, a tender.

Supo, (past of saber: sup-e, -iste, -o, -imos, -isteis, -ieron) she knew.

Desfogóla esparciendo calumnias sobre Ismena, she vented it covering Ismena with calumnies.

Un anciano gastado, a worn-out old man.

Quedando así burlados sus ambiciosos cálculos, remaining thus frustrated her ambitious calculations.

Mayorazgo, right of primo-geniture (right of succession in family estates, vested in the first-born son).

El excesivo orgullo y el altivo amor propio, the excessive pride and the haughty self-love.

Escarnios y vilipendios, scoffs and disdain (contempt).

Vertiendo, shedding.