THE SAME TO THE SAME
January.
Our master is a poor refugee, forced to keep in hiding on account of
the part he played in the revolution which the Duc d'Angouleme has
just quelled--a triumph to which we owe some splendid fetes. Though a
Liberal, and doubtless a man of the people, he has awakened my
interest:
I fancy that he must have been condemned to death. I make
him talk for the purpose of getting at his secret; but he is of a
truly Castilian taciturnity, proud as though he were Gonsalvo di
Cordova, and nevertheless angelic in his patience and gentleness. His
pride is not irritable like Miss Griffith's, it belongs to his inner
nature; he forces us to civility because his own manners are so
perfect, and holds us at a distance by the respect he shows us. My
father declares that there is a great deal of the nobleman in Senor
Henarez, whom, among ourselves, he calls in fun Don Henarez.
A few days ago I took the liberty of addressing him thus. He raised
his eyes, which are generally bent on the ground, and flashed a look
from them that quite abashed me; my dear, he certainly has the most
beautiful eyes imaginable. I asked him if I had offended him in any
way, and he said to me in his grand, rolling Spanish:
"I am here only to teach you Spanish."
I blushed and felt quite snubbed. I was on the point of making some
pert answer, when I remembered what our dear mother in God used to say
to us, and I replied instead: "It would be a kindness to tell me if you have anything to complain
of." A tremor passed through him, the blood rose in his olive cheeks; he
replied in a voice of some emotion:
"Religion must have taught you, better than I can, to respect the
unhappy. Had I been a don in Spain, and lost everything in the
triumph of Ferdinand VII., your witticism would be unkind; but if I am
only a poor teacher of languages, is it not a heartless satire?
Neither is worthy of a young lady of rank."
I took his hand, saying: "In the name of religion also, I beg you to pardon me."
He bowed, opened my Don Quixote, and sat down.
This little incident disturbed me more than the harvest of
compliments, gazing and pretty speeches on my most successful evening.
During the lesson I watched him attentively, which I could do the more
safely, as he never looks at me.