The Doomswoman | Page 2

there was a time when he was wild,--when the mescal
burnt his throat like hornets and the aguardiente was like scorpions in
his brain; but that was long ago, before he was twenty; now he is
thirty-four. He amuses himself sometimes with the girls,--valgame Dios!
he has made hot tears flow,--but I suppose we do not know enough for
him, for he marries none. Ay! but he has a charm."
"Like what does he look? A beautiful caballero, I suppose, with eyes
that melt and a mouth that trembles like a woman in the palsy."
"Ay, no, my Chonita; thou art wrong. He is not beautiful at all. He is
rather haggard, and wears no mustache, and he has the profile of the
great man, fine and aquiline and severe, excepting when he smiles, and
then sometimes he looks kind and sometimes he looks like a devil. He
has not the beauty of color; his hair is brown, I think, and his eyes are
gray, and set far back; but how they flash! I think they could burn if
they looked too long. He is tall and straight and very strong, not so
indolent as most of our men. They call him The American because he
moves so quickly and gets so cross when people do not think fast
enough. He thinks like lightning strikes. Ay! they all say that he will be

governor in his time; that he would have been long ago, but he has been
away so much. It must be that he has seen and admired thee, my
Chonita, and discovered thy grating. Thou art happy that thou too hast
read the books. Thou and he will be great friends, I know!"
"Yes!" exclaimed Chonita, scornfully. "It is likely. Thou hast
forgotten--perhaps--the enmity between the Capulets and the
Montagues was a sallow flame to the bitter hatred, born of jealousy in
love, politics, and social precedence, which exists between the
Estenegas and the Iturbi y Moncadas?"

II.
Delfina, the first child of Alvarado, born in the purple at the governor's
mansion in Monterey, was about to be baptized with all the pomp and
ceremony of the Church and time. Doña Martina, the wife of a year,
was unable to go to the church, but lay beneath her lace and satin
coverlet, her heavy black hair half covering the other side of the bed.
Beside her stood the nurse, a fat, brown, high-beaked old crone,
holding a mass of grunting lace. I stood at the foot of the bed, admiring
the picture.
"Be careful for the sun, Tomasa," said the mother. "Her eyes must be
strong, like the Alvarados',--black and keen and strong."
"Sure, señora."
"And let her not smother, nor yet take cold. She must grow tall and
strong,--like the Alvarados."
"Sure, señora."
"Where is his Excellency?"
"I am here." And Alvarado entered the room. He looked amused, and
probably had overheard the conversation. He justified, however, the
admiration of his young wife. His tall military figure had the perfect

poise and suggestion of power natural to a man whose genius had been
recognized by the Mexican government before he had entered his
twenties. The clean-cut face, with its calm profile and fiery eyes, was
not that of the Washington of his emulation, and I never understood
why he chose so tame a model. Perhaps because of the meagerness of
that early proscribed literature; or did the title "Father of his Country"
appeal irresistibly to that lofty and doomed ambition?
He passed his hand over his wife's long white fingers, but did not offer
her any other caress in my presence.
"How dost thou feel?"
"Well; but I shall be lonely. Do not stay long at the church, no? How
glad I am that Chonita came in time for the christening! What a
beautiful comadre she will be! I have just seen her. Ay, poor Diego! he
will fall in love with her; and what then?"
"It would have been better had she come too late, I think. To avoid
asking Diego to stand for my first child was impossible, for he is the
man of men to me. To avoid asking Doña Chonita was equally
impossible, I suppose, and it will be painful for both. He serenaded her
last night, not knowing who she was, but having seen her at her grating;
he only returned yesterday. I hope she plants no thorns in his heart."
"Perhaps they will marry and bind the wounds," suggested the woman.
"An Estenega and an Iturbi y Moncada will not marry. He might forget,
for he is passionate and of a nature to break down barriers when a wish
is dear; but she has all the wrongs of all the Iturbi y Moncadas on her
white shoulders, and all their pride