The oldpeople had ordered that the dancing should stop at ten o’clock but it was almostmidnight before the carriages came filing up the departing guests, while the girls whowere staying were promptly herded upstairs to the bedrooms, the young men gathering aroundto wish them a good night and lamenting their ascent with mock signs and moaning,proclaiming themselves disconsolate but straightway going off to finish the punch and thebrandy though they were quite drunk already and simply bursting with wild spirits,merriment, arrogance and audacity, for they were young bucks newly arrived from Europe;the ball had been in their honor; and they had waltzed and polka-ed and bragged andswaggered and flirted all night and where in no mood to sleep yet--no, caramba, not onthis moist tropic eve! not on this mystic May eve! --with the night still young and soseductive that it was madness not to go out, not to go forth---and serenade the neighbors!cried one; and swim in the Pasid! cried another; and gather fireflies! cried athird—whereupon there arose a great clamor for coats and capes, for hats and canes,and they were a couple of street-lamps flickered and a last carriage rattled away upon thecobbles while the blind black houses muttered hush-hush, their tile roofs looming likesinister chessboards against a wile sky murky with clouds, save where an evil young moonprowled about in a corner or where a murderous wind whirled, whistling and whining,smelling now of the sea and now of the summer orchards and wafting unbearable childhoodfragrances or ripe guavas to the young men trooping so uproariously down the street thatthegirls who were desiring upstairs in the bedrooms catered screaming to the windows,crowded giggling at the windows, but were soon sighing amorously over those young menbawling below; over those wicked young men and their handsome apparel, their proudflashing eyes, and their elegant mustaches so black and vivid in the moonlight that thegirls were quite ravished with love, and began crying to one another how carefree were menbut how awful to be a girl and what a horrid, horrid world it was, till old Anastasiaplucked them off by the ear or the pigtail and chases them off to bed---while from up thestreet came the clackety-clack of the watchman’s boots on the cobble and theclang-clang of his lantern against his knee, and the mighty roll of his great voicebooming through the night, "Guardia serno-o-o! A las doce han dado-o-o.
And it wasMay again, said the old Anastasia. It was the first day of May and witches were abroad inthe night, she said--for it was a night of divination, and night of lovers, and those whocared might peer into a mirror and would there behold the face of whoever it was they werefated to marry, said the old Anastasia as she hobble about picking up the piled crinolinesand folding up shawls and raking slippers in corner while the girls climbing into fourgreat poster-beds that overwhelmed the room began shrieking with terror, scrambling overeach other and imploring the old woman not to frighten them.
"Enough,enough, Anastasia! We want to sleep!"
"Goscare the boys instead, you old witch!"
"She isnot a witch, she is a maga. She is a maga. She was born of Christmas Eve!"
"St.Anastasia, virgin and martyr."
"Huh?Impossible! She has conquered seven husbands! Are you a virgin, Anastasia?"
"No,but I am seven times a martyr because of you girls!"
"Lether prophesy, let her prophesy! Whom will I marry, old gypsy? Come, tell me."
"Youmay learn in a mirror if you are not afraid."
"I amnot afraid, I will go," cried the young cousin Agueda, jumping up in bed.
"Girls,girls---we are making too much noise! My mother will hear and will come and pinch us all.Agueda, lie down! And you Anastasia, I command you to shut your mouth and goaway!""Your mother told me to stay here all night, my grand lady!"
"And Iwill not lie down!" cried the rebellious Agueda, leaping to the floor. "Stay,old woman. Tell me what I have to do."
"Tellher! Tell her!" chimed the other girls.
The oldwoman dropped the clothes she had gathered and approached and fixed her eyes on the girl."You must take a candle," she instructed, "and go into a room that is darkand that has a mirror in it and you must be alone in the room. Go up to the mirror andclose your eyes and shy:
Mirror,mirror, show to me him whose woman I will be. If all goes right, just above your leftshoulder will appear the face of the man you will marry." A silence. Then: "Andhat if all does not go right?" asked Agueda. "Ah, then the Lord have mercy onyou!" "Why." "Because you may see--the Devil!"
The girlsscreamed and clutched one another, shivering. "But what nonsense!" cried Agueda."This is the year 1847. There are no devil anymore!" Nevertheless she had turnedpale. "But where could I go, hugh? Yes, I know! Down to the sala. It has that bigmirror and no one is there now." "No, Agueda, no! It is a mortal sin! You willsee the devil!" "I do not care! I am not afraid! I will go!" "Oh, youwicked girl! Oh, you mad girl!" "If you do not come to bed, Agueda, I will callmy mother." "And if you do I will tell her who came to visit you at the conventlast March. Come, old woman---give me that candle. I go." "Ohgirls---give methat candle, I go."
But Aguedahad already slipped outside; was already tiptoeing across the hall; her feet bare and herdark hair falling down her shoulders and streaming in the wind as she fled down thestairs, the lighted candle sputtering in one hand while with the other she pulled up herwhite gown from her ankles. She paused breathless in the doorway to the sala and her heartfailed her. She tried to imagine the room filled again with lights, laughter, whirlingcouples, and the jolly jerky music of the fiddlers. But, oh, it was a dark den, a weirdcavern for the windows had been closed and the furniture stacked up against the walls. Shecrossed herself and stepped inside.
The mirrorhung on the wall before her; a big antique mirror with a gold frame carved into leaves andflowers and mysterious curlicues. She saw herself approaching fearfully in it: a smallwhile ghost that the darkness bodied forth---but not willingly, not completely, for hereyes and hair were so dark that the face approaching in the mirror seemed only a mask thatfloated forward; a bright mask with two holes gaping in it, blown forward by the whitecloud of her gown. But when she stood before the mirror she lifted the candle level withher chin and the dead mask bloomed into her living face.
She closedher eyes and whispered the incantation. When she had finished such a terror took hold ofher that she felt unable to move, unable to open her eyes and thought she would standthere forever, enchanted. But she heard a step behind her, and a smothered giggle, andinstantly opened her eyes.
"Andwhat did you see, Mama? Oh, what was it?" But Dona Agueda had forgotten the littlegirl on her lap: she was staring pass the curly head nestling at her breast and seeingherself in the big mirror hanging in the room. It was the same room and the same mirrorout the face she now saw in it was an old face---a hard, bitter, vengeful face, framed ingraying hair, and so sadly altered, so sadly different from that other face like a whitemask, that fresh young face like a pure mask than she had brought before this mirror onewild May Day midnight years and years ago.... "But what was it Mama? Oh please go on!What did you see?" Dona Agueda looked down at her daughter but her face did notsoften though her eyes filled with tears. "I saw the devil." she said bitterly.The child blanched. "The devil, Mama? Oh... Oh..." "Yes, my love. I openedmy eyes and there in the mirror, smiling at me over my left shoulder, was the face of thedevil." "Oh, my poor little Mama! And were you very frightened?" "Youcan imagine. And that is why good little girls do not look into mirrors except when theirmothers tell them. You must stop this naughty habit, darling, of admiring yourself inevery mirror you pass- or you may see something frightful some day." "But thedevil, Mama---what did he look like?" "Well, let me see... he has curly hair anda scar on his cheek---" "Like the scar of Papa?" "Well, yes. But thisof the devil was a scar of sin, while that of your Papa is a scar of honor. Or so hesays." "Go on about the devil." "Well, he had mustaches.""Like those of Papa?" "Oh, no. Those of your Papa are dirty and graying andsmell horribly of tobacco, while these of the devil were very black and elegant--oh, howelegant!" "And did he speak to you, Mama?" "Yes… Yes, he spoke tome," said Dona Agueda. And bowing her graying head; she wept.
"Charmslike yours have no need for a candle, fair one," he had said, smiling at her in themirror and stepping back to give her a low mocking bow. She had whirled around and glaredat him and he had burst into laughter. "But I remember you!" he cried. "Youare Agueda, whom I left a mere infant and came home to find a tremendous beauty, and Idanced a waltz with you but you would not give me the polka." "Let mepass," she muttered fiercely, for he was barring the way. "But I want to dancethe polka with you, fair one," he said. So they stood before the mirror; theirpanting breath the only sound in the dark room; the candle shining between them andflinging their shadows to the wall. And young Badoy Montiya (who had crept home very drunkto pass out quietly in bed) suddenly found himself cold sober and very much awake andready for anything. His eyes sparkled and the scar on his face gleamed scarlet. "Letme pass!" she cried again, in a voice of fury, but he grasped her by the wrist."No," he smiled. "Not until we have danced." "Go to thedevil!" "What a temper has my serrana!" "I am not your serrana!""Whose, then? Someone I know? Someone I have offended grievously? Because you treatme, you treat all my friends like your mortal enemies." "And why not?" shedemanded, jerking her wrist away and flashing her teeth in his face. "Oh, how Idetest you, you pompous young men! You go to Europe and you come back elegant lords and wepoor girls are too tame to please you. We have no grace like the Parisiennes, we have nofire like the Sevillians, and we have no salt, no salt, no salt! Aie, how you weary me,how you bore me, you fastidious men!" "Come, come---how do you know aboutus?"
"I wasnot admiring myself, sir!" "You were admiring the moon perhaps?""Oh!" she gasped, and burst into tears. The candle dropped from her hand and shecovered her face and sobbed piteously. The candle had gone out and they stood in darkness,and young Badoy was conscience-stricken. "Oh, do not cry, little one!" Oh,please forgive me! Please do not cry! But what a brute I am! I was drunk, little one, Iwas drunk and knew not what I said." He groped and found her hand and touched it tohis lips. She shuddered in her white gown. "Let me go," she moaned, and tuggedfeebly. "No. Say you forgive me first. Say you forgive me, Agueda." But insteadshe pulled his hand to her mouth and bit it - bit so sharply in the knuckles that he criedwith pain and lashed cut with his other hand--lashed out and hit the air, for she wasgone, she had fled, and he heard the rustling of her skirts up the stairs as he furiouslysucked his bleeding fingers. Cruel thoughts raced through his head: he would go and tellhis mother and make her turn the savage girl out of the house--or he would go himself tothe girl’s room and drag her out of bed and slap, slap, slap her silly face! But atthe same time he was thinking that they were all going to Antipolo in the morning and wasalready planning how he would maneuver himself into the same boat with her. Oh, he wouldhave his revenge, he would make her pay, that little harlot! She should suffer for this,he thought greedily, l*****g his bleeding knuckles. But---Judas! He remembered her bareshoulders: gold in her candlelight and delicately furred. He saw the mobile insolence ofher neck, and her taut b*****s steady in the fluid gown. Son of a Turk, but she was quiteenchanting! How could she think she had no fire or grace? And no salt? An arroba she hadof it!
"... Nolack of salt in the chrism At the moment of thy baptism!" He sang aloud in the darkroom and suddenly realized that he had fallen madly in love with her. He ached intenselyto see her again---at once! ---to touch her hands and her hair; to hear her harsh voice.He ran to the window and flung open the casements and the beauty of the night struck himback like a blow. It was May, it was summer, and he was young---young! ---and deliriouslyin love. Such a happiness welled up within him that the tears spurted from his eyes. Buthe did not forgive her--no! He would still make her pay, he would still have his revenge,he thought viciously, and kissed his wounded fingers. But what a night it had been!"I will never forge this night! he thought aloud in an awed voice, standing by thewindow in the dark room, the tears in his eyes and the wind in his hair and his bleedingknuckles pressed to his mouth.
But, alas,the heart forgets; the heart is distracted; and May time passes; summer lends; the stormsbreak over the rot-tipe orchards and the heart grows old; while the hours, the days, themonths, and the years pile up and pile up, till the mind becomes too crowded, tooconfused: dust gathers in it; cobwebs multiply; the walls darken and fall into ruin anddecay; the memory perished...and there came a time when Don Badoy Montiya walked homethrough a May Day midnight without remembering, without even caring to remember; beingmerely concerned in feeling his way across the street with his cane; his eyes having grownquite dim and his legs uncertain--for he was old; he was over sixty; he was a very stoppedand shivered old man with white hair and mustaches coming home from a secret meeting ofconspirators; his mind still resounding with the speeches and his patriot heart stillexultant as he picked his way up the steps to the front door and inside into theslumbering darkness of the house; wholly unconscious of the May night, till on his waydown the hall, chancing to glance into the sala, he shuddered, he stopped, his blood rancold-- for he had seen a face in the mirror there---a ghostly candlelight face with theeyes closed and the lips moving, a face that he suddenly felt he had been there beforethough it was a full minutes before the lost memory came flowing, came tiding back, sooverflooding the actual moment and so swiftly washing away the piled hours and days andmonths and years that he was left suddenly young again; he was a g*y young buck again,lately came from Europe; he had been dancing all night; he was very drunk; he s stepped inthe doorway; he saw a face in the dark; he called out...and the lad standing before themirror (for it was a lad in a night go jumped with fright and almost dropped his candle,but looking around and seeing the old man, laughed out with relief and came running.
"OhGrandpa, how you frightened me. Don Badoy had turned very pale. "So it was you, youyoung bandit! And what is all this, hey? What are you doing down here at this hour?""Nothing, Grandpa. I was only... I am only ..." "Yes, you are the greatSeñor only and how delighted I am to make your acquaintance, Señor Only! But if I breakthis cane on your head you maga wish you were someone else, Sir!" "It was justfoolishness, Grandpa. They told me I would see my wife."
"Wife?What wife?" "Mine. The boys at school said I would see her if I looked in amirror tonight and said: Mirror, mirror show to me her whose lover I will be.
Don Badoycackled ruefully. He took the boy by the hair, pulled him along into the room, sat down ona chair, and drew the boy between his knees. "Now, put your cane down the floor, son,and let us talk this over. So you want your wife already, hey? You want to see her inadvance, hey? But so you know that these are wicked games and that wicked boys who playthem are in danger of seeing horrors?"
"Well,the boys did warn me I might see a witch instead."
"Exactly!A witch so horrible you may die of fright. And she will be witch you, she will tortureyou, she will eat
your heartand drink your blood!"
"Oh,come now Grandpa. This is 1890. There are no witches anymore."
"Oh-ho,my young Voltaire! And what if I tell you that I myself have seen a witch.
"You?Where?
"Rightin this room land right in that mirror," said the old man, and his playful voice hadturned savage.
"When,Grandpa?"
"Not solong ago. When I was a bit older than you. Oh, I was a vain fellow and though I wasfeeling very sick that night and merely wanted to lie down somewhere and die I could notpass that doorway of course without stopping to see in the mirror what I looked like whendying. But when I poked my head in what should I see in the mirror but...but..."
"Thewitch?"
"Exactly!"
"Andthen she bewitch you, Grandpa!"
"Shebewitched me and she tortured me. l She ate my heart and drank my blood." said theold man bitterly.
"Oh, mypoor little Grandpa! Why have you never told me! And she very horrible?
"Horrible?God, no--- she was the most beautiful creature I have ever seen! Her eyes were somewhatlike yours but her hair was like black waters and her golden shoulders were bare. My God,she was enchanting! But I should have known---I should have known even then---the dark andfatal creature she was!"
A silence.Then: "What a horrid mirror this is, Grandpa," whispered the boy.
"Whatmakes you slay that, hey?"
"Well,you saw this witch in it. And Mama once told me that Grandma once told her that Grandmaonce saw the devil in this mirror. Was it of the scare that Grandma died?"
Don Badoystarted. For a moment he had forgotten that she was dead, that she had perished---the poorAgueda; that they were at peace at last, the two of them, her tired body at rest; herbroken body set free at last from the brutal pranks of the earth---from the trap of a Maynight; from the snare of summer; from the terrible silver nets of the moon. She had been amere heap of white hair and bones in the end: a whimpering withered consumptive, lashingout with her cruel tongue; her eye like live coals; her face like ashes... Now, nothing---nothing save a name on a stone; save a stone in a graveyard---nothing! was left of theyoung girl who had flamed so vividly in a mirror one wild May Day midnight, long, longago.
Andremembering how she had sobbed so piteously; remembering how she had bitten his hand andfled and how he had sung aloud in the dark room and surprised his heart in the instant offalling in love: such a grief tore up his throat and eyes that he felt ashamed before theboy; pushed the boy away; stood up and looked out----looked out upon the medieval shadowsof the foul street where a couple of street-lamps flickered and a last carriage wasrattling away upon the cobbles, while the blind black houses muttered hush-hush, theirtiled roofs looming like sinister chessboards against a wild sky murky with clouds, savewhere an evil old moon prowled about in a corner or where a murderous wind whirled,whistling and whining, smelling now of the sea and now of the summer orchards and waftingunbearable the window; the bowed old man sobbing so bitterly at the window; the tearsstreaming down his cheeks and the wind in his hair and one hand pressed to hismouth---while from up the street came the clackety-clack of the watchman’s boots onthe cobbles, and the clang-clang of his lantern against his knee, and the mighty roll ofhis voice booming through the night:
"Guardiasereno-o-o! A las doce han dado-o-o
Tags: Anastasia, Day, Eve