Section 5

94
ESTEBAN answer. The priest thought for a while that they were merely in awe before his rank and before the luxury of his apartment, but at last, much per- plexed, he divined the presence of some deeper reluctance and sadly let them go.
This language was the symbol of their pro- found identity with one another, for just as resig- nation was a word insufficient to describe the spir- itual change that came over the Marquesa de Montemayor on that night in the inn at Clux- ambuqua, so love is inadequate to describe the tacit almost ashamed oneness of these brothers. What relationship is it in which few words are ex- changed, and those only about the details of food, clothing and occupation; in which the two persons have a curious reluctance even to glance at one another; and in which there is a tacit ar- rangement not to appear together in the city and to go on the same errand by different streets? And yet side by side with this there existed a need of one another so terrible that it produced miracles
95
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY as naturally as the charged air of a sultry day produces lightning. The brothers were scarcely aware of it themselves, but telepathy was a com- mon occurrence in their lives, and when one re- turned home the other was always aware of it when his brother was still several streets away.
Suddenly they discovered that they were tired of writing. They went down to the sea and found an occupation in loading and unloading vessels, not ashamed of working side by side with In- dians. They drove teams across the provinces. They picked fruit. They were ferrymen. And al- ways they were silent. Their sombre faces took on from these labors a male and gypsy cast. Their hair was seldom cut and under the dark mat their eyes looked up suddenly surprised and a little sullen. All the world was remote and strange and hostile except one’s brother.
But at last the first shadow fell across this unity and the shadow was cast by the love of women. They had returned to the city and re-
96
ESTEBAN
sumed the copying of parts for the theatre. One night the manager, foreseeing a thinning house, gave them a free admission. The boys did not like what they found there. Even speech was for them a debased form of silence; how much more futile is poetry which is a debased form of speech. All those allusions to honour, reputation, and the flame of love, all the metaphors about birds, Achilles and the jewels of Ceylon were fatiguing. In the presence of literature they had the same darkling intelligence that stirs for a time behind the eyes of a dog, but they sat on patiently, gaz- ing at the bright candles and the rich clothes. Be- tween the acts of the comedy the Perichole stepped out of her röle, put on twelve petticoats and danced before the curtain. Esteban had some copying still to do, or pretended so, and went home early; but Manuel stayed on. The red stockings and shoes of the Perichole had made their im- pression.
Both brothers had fetched and carried their
97
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY manuscripts up and down the dusty stairs be- hind the stage. There they had seen an irritable girl in a soiled bodice mending her stockings be- fore a mirror while her stage director read aloud her lines for memorization. She had let fall upon the boys for a moment the detonation of her amaz- ing eyes, immediately dissipated in her amused recognition that they were twins. Forthwith she had dragged them into the room and placed them side by side. Carefully, amusedly and remorse- lessly she had peered into every square inch of their faces, until finally laying one hand on Este- ban’s shoulder she had cried out: “This one is the younger!” That had been several years before and neither brother had thought of the episode again.
Henceforth all Manuel’s errands seemed to lead him past the theatre. Late at night he would drift about among the trees beneath her dressing- room window. It was not the first time that Manuel had been fascinated by a woman (both
98
ESTEBAN
brothers had possessed women, and often, es- pecially during their years at the waterfront; but simply, latinly), but it was the first time that his will and imagination had been thus overwhelmed. He had lost that privilege of simple nature, the dissociation of love and pleasure. Pleasure was no longer as simple as eating; it was being compli- cated by love. Now was beginning that crazy loss of one’s self, that neglect of everything but one’s dramatic thoughts about the beloved, that feverish inner life all turning upon the Perichole and which would so have astonished and disgusted her had she been permitted to divine it. This Manuel had not fallen in love through any imita- tion of literature. It was not of him, at all events, that the bitterest tongue in France had remarked only fifty years before: that many people would never have fallen in love if they had not heard about it. Manuel read little; he had only been once to the theatre (where above all there reigns the legend that love is a devotion) and the Peru- 99
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY
vian tavern-songs that he might have heard, un- like those of Spain, reflected very little of the romantic cult of an idealized woman. When he said over to himself that she was beautiful and rich and fatiguingly witty and the Viceroy’s mis- tress, none of these attributes that made her less obtainable had the power to quench his curious and tender excitement. So he leaned against the trees in the dark, his knuckles between his teeth, and listened to his loud heart-beats.
But the life that Esteban was leading had been full enough for him. There was no room in his imagination for a new loyalty, not because his heart was less large than Manuel’s, but because it was of a simpler texture. Now he discovered that secret from which one never quite recovers, that even in the most perfect love one person loves less profoundly than the other. There may be two equally good, equally gifted, equally beautiful, but there may never be two that love one another
100
ESTEBAN equally well. So Esteban sat up in their room by a guttering candle, his knuckles between his teeth, and wondered why Manuel was so changed and why the whole meaning had gone out of their life.
One evening Manuel was stopped on the street by a small boy who announced to him that the Perichole wished him to call upon her at once. Manuel turned in his path and went to the the- atre. Straight, sombre and impersonal, he entered the actress’s room and stood waiting. Camila had a service to ask of Manuel and she thought a few preliminary blandishments were necessary, but she scarcely paused in combing a blond wig that was dressed upon the table before her.
“You write letters for people, don’t you? I want you to write a letter for me, please. Please come in,
He came forward two steps.
“You never pay me the least visit either of you.
101
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY That’s not Spanish of you.”—meaning ‘courte- ous.— “Which are you, Manuel or Esteban?”
“Manuel.”
“Tt doesn’t matter. You are both unfriendly. Neither of you ever comes to see me. Here I sit learning stupid lines all day and no one ever comes to see me but a lot of peddlers. It is be- cause I am an actress, no?”
This was not very artful, but for Manuel it was unspeakably complicated. He merely stared at her from the shadows of his long hair and left her to improvise.
“T am going to engage you to write a letter for me, a very secret letter. But now I can see that you don’t like me and that to ask you to write a letter would be as good as reading it aloud in all the wine-shops. What does that look mean, Man- uel? Are you my friend ?”
“Yes, señora.”
“Go away. Send me Esteban. You do not even say Yes, señora as a friend would say it.”
102
ESTEBAN
Long pause. Presently she raised her head: “Are you still there, Unfriendly?”
“Yes, señora . . . you can trust me to do any- thing for you . . . you can trust...”
“If I ask you to write one letter for me, or two letters, you promise never to mention to a human being what is in them, or even that you wrote them?”
“Yes, señora.”
“What do you promise by?—by the Virgin Mary?”
“Yes, señora.”
“And by the heart of Saint Rose of Lima?”
“Yes, señora.”
“Name of the Name, Manuel, anyone would think you were as stupid as an ox. Manuel, I am very angry with you. You are not stupid. You don't look stupid. Please don't say just Yes, señora again. Don’t be stupid or ГИ send for Esteban, Is anything the matter with you?”
Here Manuel cast himself upon the Spanish
103
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY
language and exclaimed with unnecessary vigor: “Т swear by the Virgin Mary and the heart of St. Rose of Lima that all that has to do with the let- ter will be secret.”
“Even from Esteban,” prompted the Perichole.
“Even from Esteban.”
“Well, that's better.” She motioned him to sit down at a table where writing materials were al- ready laid out. As she dictated she strode about the room, frowning, swinging her hips. With her arms akimbo, she hugged her shawl about her shoulders defiantly.
“Camila Perichole kisses the hands of Your Excellency and says—No, take another piece of paper and begin again. The senora Micaela Ville- gas, artist, kisses the hands of Your Excellency and says that, being the victim of the envious and lying friends that Y. E.’s goodness permits about Him, she can no longer endure Y. E.’s suspi- cions and jealousy. Y. E.’s servant has always valued Y. E.s friendship and has never com-
104
ESTEBAN
mitted, nor even thought, an offense against it, but she can no longer fight against the calumnies that Y. E. believes so readily. Senora Villegas, artist, called the Perichole, therefore returns here- with such of Y. E.’s gifts as have not been placed beyond recall, since without Y. E.’s confidence, Y. E.’s servant can take no pleasure in them.”
Camila continued walking about the room for several minutes, consumed by her thoughts. Pres- ently without so much as glancing at her sec- retary, she commanded: “Take another leaf. Have you gone mad? Do not ever think of dedi- cating another bull to me again. It has caused a frightful war. Heaven protect you, my colt. Fri- day night, the same place, the same time. I may be a little late, for the fox is wide-awake. ‘That will be all.”
Manuel rose.
“You swear that you have made no errors?”
“Yes, I swear.”
“There is your money.”
105
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY.
Manuel took the money.
“I shall want you to write me more letters from time to time. My uncle Pio generally writes my letters; these I do not wish him to know about. Good night. Go with God.”
“Go with God.”
Manuel descended the stairs and stood for a long time among the trees, not thinking, not mov- ing.
Esteban knew that his brother was continually brooding over the Perichole, but he never sus- pected that he saw her. From time to time during the next two months a small boy would approach him in great haste and ask whether he were Man- uel or Esteban, and being informed that he was only Esteban, the boy would add that Manuel was wanted at the theatre. Esteban assumed that the call was for copyist’s work and was therefore ut- terly unprepared for a visit that they received one night in their room.
It was almost midnight. Esteban had gone to
106
ESTEBAN bed, and lay gazing out from under the blanket at the candle beside which his brother was working. There was a light tap at the door and Manuel opened to admit a lady heavily veiled, out of breath and nervous. She threw back the scarf from her face and said hurriedly:
“Quick, ink and paper. You are Manuel, yes? You must do a letter for me at once.”
For a moment her glance fell on the two bright eyes that glared at her from the edge of the cot. She murmured: “Ем... you must excuse me. І know it is late. It was necessary . . . I must come.” Then turning to Manuel, she whispered into his ear: “Write this: I, the Perichole, am not accustomed to wait at a rendez-vous. Have you finished that? You are only a cholo, and there are better matadors than you, even in Lima. I am half Castilian and there are no better actresses in the world. You shall not have the opportunity— Have you got that?—to keep me waiting again, cholo, and I shall laugh the last, for even an
107
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY actress does not grow old as fast as a bull- fighter.”
To Esteban in the shadows the picture of Camila leaning over his brother’s hand and whis- pering into his ear was complete evidence that a new congeniality had formed such as he would never know. He seemed to shrink away into space, infinitely tiny, infinitely unwanted. He took one more glance at the tableau of love, all the para- dise from which he was shut out, and turned his face to the wall.
Camila seized the note the moment it was done, pushed a coin along the table and in a last flurry of black lace, scarlet beads and excited whispers left the room. Manuel turned from the door with his candle. He sat down, put his hand over his ears, his elbows on his knees. He worshipped her. He murmured to himself over and over again that he worshipped her, making of the sound a sort of incantation and an obstacle to thought.
He emptied his mind of everything but a sing-
108
ws.
ESTEBAN song, and it was this vacancy that permitted him to become aware of Esteban’s mood. He seemed to hear a voice that proceeded from the shadows saying: “Go and follow her, Manuel. Don’t stay here. You’ll be happy. There’s room for us all in the world.” Then the realization became even more intense and he received a mental image of Esteban going a long way off and saying good- bye many times as he went. He was filled with terror; by the light of it he saw that all the other attachments in the world were shadows, or the illusions of fever, even Madre Maria del Pilar, even the Perichole. He could not understand why Esteban’s misery should present itself as demand- ing a choice between him and the Perichole, but he could understand Esteban’s misery, as misery. And at once he sacrificed everything to it, if it can be said we ever sacrifice anything save what we know we can never attain, or what some se- cret wisdom tells us it would be uncomfortable or saddening to possess. To be sure there was 109
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY nothing on which Esteban could base a complaint. It was not jealousy, for in their earlier affairs it had never occurred to either of them that their loyalty to one another had been diminished. It was merely that in the heart of one of them there was left room for an elaborate imaginative attach- ment and in the heart of the other there was not. Manuel could not quite understand this and, as we shall see, he nourished a dim sense of being accused unjustly. But he did understand that Este- ban was suffering. In his excitement he groped for a means of holding this brother who seemed to be receding into the distance. And at once, in one unhesitating stroke of the will, he removed the Perichole from his heart.
He blew out the candle and lay down on his bed. He was trembling. He said aloud with ex- aggerated casualness: “Well, that’s the last let- ter I write for that woman. She can go and find a pander somewhere else. If ever she calls here or sends for me when I’m out, tell her so. Make
110
ESTEBAN it plain. That’s the last I have to do with Дег; and with that he began reciting his evening psalm aloud. But he had hardly reached A sagitta vol- ante in die when he became aware that Esteban had risen and was lighting the candle.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Tm going out for a walk,” replied Esteban sombrely, fastening his belt. After a moment, he broke out with an assumption of anger: “You don’t have to зау... what you just said, for me. I don’t care whether you write her letters or not. You don’t have to change for me. I haven’t anything to do with that.”
“Go to bed, you fool. God, you’re a fool, Este- ban. What made you think I said that, for you? Don’t you believe I mean it when I say I’m through with her? Do you think I want to write any more of her dirty letters and get paid for them like that?”
“IPs all right. You love her. You don’t have to change because of me.”
111
THE BRIDGE OF SAN LUIS REY
“ ‘Tove her?’ Love her? You're crazy, Este- ban. How could I love her? What chance would there be for me? Do you suppose she’d give me those letters to write if there were any chance? Do you suppose she’d push a piece of money across the table every time. . . . You're crazy, Este- ban, that’s all.”