that same afternoon, while monsalvat was wrestling with his doubts, nacha was on the way to belgrano to see julieta.
tormented by her anxieties, the slow progress of the street-car racked her nerves. she would never get there! and now it was stopping again! she looked angrily at the woman who dawdled cumbersomely in getting on or off. didn't they care how long they took? why were they so fat? two or three men near her attempted to flirt, but nacha's contemptuous eyes discouraged them. at the end of the first half hour she bought a newspaper, but when she tried to read it, she found that she did not understand a word. she made repeated efforts to fix her attention on the police news. at the end of two or three phrases, a line perhaps, her mind jumped to other things. then she realized that she was not reading and began again, with the same result. at last she tossed the newspaper away.
the car had now reached streets where there was little traffic, and went more rapidly. at the end of an hour, it had arrived at belgrano. nacha got out and walked along silent avenues that were well shaded by fine trees. in her nervous haste she almost ran past pretty villas, with their flower-filled gardens, that spoke of peace and comfort. over some of the streets the trees formed an arch and the air was sweet with perfume. only the footsteps of an occasional passer-by broke the silence of this suburb, apparently the home of calm and contentment. but nacha could not yield to this atmosphere. grief and terror drove her relentlessly on.
julieta was working in belgrano in a shop on cabildo street. like nacha, she earned very little; but her expenses were slight, for she was living with friends who accepted only a small sum in payment for her room and board. before concluding arrangements with the husband and wife, people from her home town who had known her family, she told them the kind of life she had led up to that time. the wife hesitated a moment; but the husband, who was a militant socialist, declared in a loud voice, with sweeping gestures and oratorical phrases, that there were no prejudices in his home, that he considered it a duty to contribute to the moral regeneration of anyone who needed it!
while nacha waited for julieta to come home, the socialist and his wife chatted with her while their brood of children flocked around with staring eyes. the man's countless questions distracted her a little from her worries. but it required a great effort to attend to what he was saying. every once in a while her expression grew blank, and her eyes opened wide as though she were in a paroxysm? of fear.
when julieta finally appeared, she took nacha to her room.
"what is the trouble?" she exclaimed. "something has happened! come, tell me about it," and they sat down on the edge of the bed.
"i am running away!" nacha said in a quivering voice.
"running away! from whom?"
"i don't know. from monsalvat, from arnedo, from that awful man in the house there—from myself! i am afraid of myself, julieta! if you knew what presentiments i have! everything is black, and full of horror—and crimes—and ... oh, i don't know what!"
"presentiments?"
"yes, something horrible is going to happen to me. julieta listen! i have a presentiment that...."
she could not go on, for her teeth chattered; her throat worked convulsively, and her eyes were starting from her head with terror. julieta looked at her with gentle, sad eyes, and murmured affectionately to her, as to a child.
"no, no! i must tell you. you must know about it—this feeling i have almost drives me crazy! it makes me desperate!"
"but," said julieta, "what is the matter?"
nacha told her about arnedo's renewed pursuit of her. he wanted to carry her off! and he was obstinate, and wild, and bad! and he always got what he wanted! and what could she do to stop him? he had such will power! and then ... why did she feel this strange attraction towards him? she didn't love him. she hated him rather—he was so brutal with her! and yet, she never would have left him of her own accord; and now she was sure she would go away with him if he insisted very much. that was what terrified her. to go away with arnedo, after all her struggles to be decent! to make monsalvat suffer so, when he was so good to her, and had given up everything for her sake! to go down again into that evil world from which he had rescued her!
"but nacha, you must not lose courage! i thought you were quite safe. it was you who saved me! why must you go back again, if you don't want to?"
"i have to! it's fate! i always said i was destined to be a bad woman! every time i tried to be good something happened to break up all my plans. now it seems impossible for me to be decent. everything is against me! look at what happened to me in the store! why should everything be so hard for me?"
"but why don't you tell him about it—fernando, i mean? he worships you, and he'll make everything right. i am sure that he is more than a match for arnedo. why doesn't he have the man arrested? or you can both leave the house!"
"but julieta, you don't know what has happened! that awful man, mauli, knows about me; and he told everyone in the building—that's why they're all after me, laughing at me and insulting me! the superintendent called me a name—that i deserved perhaps, once.... oh, if you only knew! and they say mauli is a police agent, a spy—today, when i left the store, i saw him talking to pampa! i couldn't move i was so scared—just stood there frozen on the sidewalk. they tried to get out of sight, but i could see they were on friendly terms. who knows but that they are planning something, julieta! i have imagined so many awful things. i couldn't go home, that's why i came here. i want to get away from those men, from monsalvat, from myself, from all the things i am afraid of! for something is sure to happen—today or tomorrow, or ... sometime."
julieta insisted that nacha should tell monsalvat everything.
"but how can i tell him that i am likely to go away with pampa!"
"don't you love monsalvat, nacha? i don't understand you! you used to adore him! why, you talked of nothing else! and now...."
"now i love him more than i ever did. i know how fine he is, how good—whatever you want to call it! he wanted to marry me...."
"and why didn't you let him, nacha?"
"just because i love him so much. he has lost everything on my account, position, money, friends—even his health! i can't let him go on like that. he ought to go back to his place in life, and leave me to my fate. a girl like me has no right to marry a man as good as he is and ruin him. he was generous towards me, and i want to be generous too. if he has sacrificed everything for me, and the sacrifice turns out to be of no avail, i ought to pay him back, make him give up leading a life that is so useless!"
"useless, nacha? haven't we both a chance to be decent? didn't he make you become the girl you are? what more could any one do?"
nacha was silent. then she came closer to julieta and said, speaking very low:
"i'll be good, yes! but i shall never, never be happy. i am more unhappy now than i ever was. bad luck follows me everywhere. i can't be meant for this kind of life! if i was, i ought not to be so uneasy all the time, i ought to feel contented at least! but i don't, i don't! and it grows worse every day!"
julieta, however, was determined to convince her friend that she must talk things over with monsalvat. nacha consented finally to go back with her after supper, and discuss her fears with him.
monsalvat meanwhile was anxiously awaiting nacha's return. when, after reaching home from his visit to police headquarters, he discovered that she was not in, he became alarmed. a woman who lived next door told him that nacha had probably gone out to find new quarters, as the superintendent had "ordered her out." monsalvat at once went down to the patio in search of an explanation of this report.
it was already dark. the air in the courtyard was heavy with the smell of cooking. mothers were crooning to their babies, and children were whimpering. from one of the windows came the strumming of a guitar; and in a corner of the courtyard two old men were gossiping in genoese.
the superintendent had, until that moment, been quite servile in his attitude toward monsalvat. but he knew now that this tenant of his had been called to account by the police, and he intended to use this bit of information. he began, however, by attracting an audience. he intensified his attitude of humility. as he bent his head before monsalvat's energetic accusations, he had all the appearance of being bullied by his lodger.
"yes, sir. you can shout if you like, and insult me, and even strike me. i'm only a poor man, so what does it matter? but i have to carry out my orders. and the landlady, who is a fine woman, and highly respectable, doesn't want anyone in this house with dangerous ideas in their heads, nor any woman like that!"
monsalvat lost all the serenity that still remained to him after the events of the day. he clenched his fists, ready to attack this man, at the first word of allusion to nacha.
"so that's why, sir, i'm asking you to let us have your room. we are very sorry, of course; but it can't be helped! as to the young lady you're so friendly with, let me tell you—if my respectable tenants here present will excuse the word—we don't want any street-girls in this house!"
his hearers, now fairly numerous, burst into a loud guffaw. monsalvat, exasperated beyond endurance, seized the man by the shoulder and said to him in a voice that shook with anger:
"you'll get what's coming to you, you hypocrite!"
but something made him glance around. mauli was standing close to him, smiling his crooked smile. he stopped short. this evil-looking individual represented law and order, force and reason, organized society, of which he was one of the props! he was the enemy, hidden until that moment, but now revealed, his enemy, indeed, for monsalvat felt himself to be the only champion there of the justice and goodness in human nature!
the superintendent made no move to defend himself from monsalvat's threatened attack, but appeared to shrink, become more humble still. he smiled however, a treacherous and evil smile, and with lowered eyes, he murmured meekly:
"you ain't fair to me—but i don't need to defend myself! i'll trust to getting my reward in heaven! no, i'm not going to fight this here gentleman, but i am going to ask the landlady to get him a pretty suit of striped clothes, and have his head shaved, and put him where he can have plenty of cold showers...."
his audience greeted this allusion with explosions of mirth; and encouraged by his success, the superintendent continued:
"as to the young lady—excuse me, sir, the princess, i mean—as to the fair princess in room no. 22, i'll present her with...."
monsalvat had turned his back on the man, and was trying to force his way out of the crowd. but people, eager to prolong the scene as much as possible, got in his way.
"what? what will you present her with?" shrilled the women.
"i'll present her with—excuse the expression, ladies!—with a yellow ticket!"
coarse, brutal laughter greeted this witticism and people gathered round the superintendent to make him repeat his part of the dialogue. as monsalvat went slowly up the stairs it seemed to him that these people were all flaunting their heartless mirth in his face. he was incapable of seeing or hearing anything. his feeling for nacha had, for a moment, carried him away, spurred him to violence! but instantly, he had realized that if he did not curb it, it would be ruinous to himself, as well as to her. no, he could not risk leaving her alone, abandoned to herself, and to the cruelties she would be sure to experience.
after reaching his room, he began thinking of that humanity, whose foul words and coarse laughter were even then following him up the stairs. now at last he saw how useless his ideals and his work were. what could he accomplish while men continued to be so full of evil? yet whose fault was it? whose but that of the men and women who allow the poor to wallow in poverty, ignorance, and the grossness which is perhaps but a protection necessary for self-preservation? no, the evil in these people was not inborn! it was acquired; it came from hunger, from disease, from the sense of being shut out from the banquet of life at which so many feast! and little by little he began to think of those who were still laughing at him under his window as no more than unconscious victims; and he pitied them, he even forgave them!
there was a knock at the door, and nacha appeared, accompanied by julieta. mauli, lounging about the front door, was the only person in the house who had seen them come in. as they passed, he turned aside, but no sooner were they on their way up the stairs than he ran to get the superintendent; and together they tiptoed to monsalvat's door, where they stood with an ear to the panel, listening, and kneeling to look through the keyhole. what they saw was a girl sobbing, and a man looking very wretched; but this of course failed to arouse any compassion in them. finally when they saw that the girls were taking leave of their host, they scuttled away.
no sooner had nacha and julieta left him than monsalvat went to the police station. he had no fears on mauli's account; for, unpleasant as the man was, he was nevertheless in the employ of the department, and not likely therefore, monsalvat thought, to take direct part in any plot of arnedo's. so he had assured nacha, quieting her fears a little. at the station they promised him to assign a special watchman to the house; and the latter returned with him, went up to nacha's door, and told monsalvat he would keep watch all night.
monsalvat could not bring himself to believe that he had correctly heard the unbelievable things that nacha was saying. how was it possible that nacha should no longer love him, that she should be able to go away with arnedo when, if what she declared was true, she hated the fellow! at certain moments he thought he must have dreamed the cruel words that rang in his ears: and that night as he lay in bed, despair blew with icy breath upon his hands, and lips, creeping through his blood to his heart, and to his brain, threatening to wither forever the warm hope that was his life.
the next morning nacha went to the store, and returned in an almost happy frame of mind. it had made her feel freer to tell monsalvat how she felt towards him. up to that moment it had seemed to her that she was deceiving him, and not treating him fairly. now an enormous weight had been lifted from her conscience. also she knew that monsalvat had understood. her words had caused him keen suffering, but now he would return to his old world and forget her!
monsalvat did not see her when she returned from work. he had gone directly from his office to see torres. the doctor had just come in from his calls.
"i told you so," torres asserted, after monsalvat had related his conversation with nacha. "no good can come of dealing with such women. you have got nothing out of it but disillusionment and bitterness: you've lost almost a year of your life—and that isn't all! your reputation is quite done for, my boy. you'll have a job of it, to rehabilitate yourself socially!"
monsalvat listened, wondering how this friend, the only one now left him, could know him so little. he had come to confide his trouble to the only human being of his own class who would consent to listen to him: and he had been misunderstood! it seemed useless to explain. abruptly, without shaking hands with torres, he went away, downcast and ill. why hope for anything from anyone? life weighed too heavy on him; he had no illusions, no hopes; and then it was that he knew what the frigid abysses of solitude are really like! abysses into which everything falls away, and vanishes, and nothing, not even feeling remains....
not caring to go home he wandered about the streets. at dinner time he went into a coffee house and drank a little coffee. then he continued his aimless walk for several hours, scarcely conscious of what he was doing, or of the passing of time. at last he went back to his room and tried to read, but with no success. finally he wrote nacha a long letter, in which he tried to convince her that she loved him; strove to communicate his own feeling to her, painted the serene and happy days awaiting them if only nacha would accept the love stretching out its imploring hands towards her!
an hour passed, two hours, three hours. monsalvat wrote for a time, then broke off, then resumed writing. he would get up, pace to and fro, sit down again. it was now two o'clock. everything was silent; the house, and the street outside.
but suddenly the silence was broken. he heard a noise like that of an automobile stopping near by. then a door opened, and there was a subdued sound of footsteps in the courtyard. monsalvat leaned out of his window, which opened on the street; but he could distinguish nothing. then he went out to the narrow hallway which led to his room. from there he could not see the lower hall; so he went downstairs. there was no one to be seen in the patio, and everything was silent once more. only in mauli's room, almost directly facing nacha's, was there a light. it must have been he coming home, monsalvat concluded; and he returned to his room. then he lay down, and quite exhausted, fell into a heavy sleep.
a few minutes later, however, a strange noise aroused him. he thought it must have been a scream; not a sharp cry, but muffled, stifled, as though coming from a distance. then, as his brain cleared a little, he decided it had been from close at hand—from the street, from the front door, perhaps. he heard men's voices, the noise of footsteps, and an automobile approaching. jumping up from his bed, he leaned out from the window.
he must have uttered a frantic cry; for what he saw was as distinct and horrible and swift as the visions in a dream.... four men came out from under the archway of the front door. they were carrying something, a dark huddled form that moved; and now they were thrusting it into the automobile drawn up at the curb. a woman!
