Luna Benamor | Page 6

perhaps, born of some Oriental beauty and a British soldier.
She looked without any bashfulness toward the window of the hotel,
examining the Spaniard with the leisurely glance of a bold boy,
meeting the shock of his eyes without flinching. Then she wheeled
about on her heel as if beginning a dancing figure, turned her back to
the Spaniard and leaned against the shoulders of the two other young
ladies, thrusting them aside and taking pleasure, to the accompaniment
of loud outbursts of laughter, in pushing their unwieldy persons with
her vigorous, boyish arms.
When all the women returned to the interior of the tabernacle, Aguirre
abandoned his lookout, more and more convinced of the exactness of
his observations. Decidedly, she was not a Jewess. And the better to
convince himself, he talked at the door with the manager of the hotel,
who knew all Gibraltar. After a few words this man guessed to whom
Aguirre was referring.

"That's Luna... Lunita Benamor, old Aboab's granddaughter. What a
girl, eh? The belle of Gibraltar! And rich! Her dowry is at least one
hundred thousand duros."
A Jewess!... She was a Jewess! From that time Aguirre began to meet
Luna frequently in the narrow limits of a city where people could
hardly move without encountering one another. He saw her on the roof
of her house; he came across her on Royal Street as she entered her
grandfather's place; he followed her, sometimes in the vicinity of the
Puerta del Mar and at others from the extreme end of the town, near the
Alameda. She was usually unaccompanied, like all the young ladies of
Gibraltar, who are brought up in conformity with English customs.
Besides, the town was in a manner a common dwelling in which all
knew one another and where woman ran no risk.
Whenever Aguirre met her they would exchange casual glances, but
with the expression of persons who have seen each other very often.
The consul still experienced the astonishment of a Spaniard influenced
by centuries of prejudice. A Jewess! He would never have believed that
the race could produce such a woman. Her outward appearance, correct
and elegant as that of an Englishwoman, gave no other indication of her
foreign origin than a marked predilection for silk clothes of bright hues,
especially strawberry color, and a fondness for sparkling jewelry. With
the gorgeousness of an American who pays no attention to hours, she
would go out early in the morning with a thick necklace of pearls
hanging upon her bosom and two flashing pendants in her ears. A
picture hat with costly plumes, imported from London, concealed the
ebony beauty of her hair.
Aguirre had acquaintances in Gibraltar, idlers, whom he had met in the
cafés, young, obsequious, courteous Israelites who received this
Castilian official with ancestral deference, questioning him about
affairs of Spain as if that were a remote country.
Whenever passed by them during her constant walks along Royal
Street,--taken with no other purpose than to kill time--they spoke of her
with respect. "More than a hundred thousand duros." Everybody knew
the amount of the dowry. And they acquainted the consul with the

existence of a certain Israelite who was the girl's affianced husband. He
was now in America to complete his fortune. He was rich, but a Jew
must labor to add to the legacy of his fathers. The families had arranged
the union without even consulting them, when she was twelve years old
and he already a man corrupted by frequent changes of residence and
traveling adventures. Luna had been waiting already ten years for the
return of her fiancé from Buenos Aires, without the slightest
impatience, like the other maidens of her race, certain that everything
would take its regular course at the appointed hour.
"These Jewish girls," said a friend of Aguirre, "are never in a hurry.
They're accustomed to biding their time. Just see how their fathers have
been awaiting the Messiah for thousands of years without growing
tired."
One morning, when the Feast of Tabernacles had ended and the Jewish
population of the town returned to its normal pursuits, Aguirre entered
the establishment of the Aboabs under the pretext of changing a
quantity of money into tender of English denomination. It was a
rectangular room without any other light than that which came in
through the doorway, its walls kalsomined and with a wainscoting of
white, glazed tiles. A small counter divided the shop, leaving a space
for the public near the entrance and reserving the rest of the place for
the owners and a large iron safe. Near the door a wooden charity-box,
inscribed in Hebrew, awaited the donations of the faithful for the
philanthropic activities of the community. The Jewish customers, in
their dealings with the house, deposited there