Olalla by Robert Louis Stevenson - Part 1

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
O Lallah by Robert Louis Stevenson, Part one. Now said
the doctor, my part is done, and I may say
with some vanity, well done. It remains only to get
you out of this cold and poisonous city, and to
give you two months of a pure air and an
easy conscience. The last is your affair. To the first,

(00:22):
I think I can help you. It falls indeed, rather
oddly it was. But the other day the Padre came
in from the country, and as he and I are
old friends, although of contrary professions, he applied to me
in a matter of distress. Among some of his parishioners.
This was a family. But you are ignorant of Spain,
and even the names of our grandees are hardly known

(00:42):
to you. Suffice it then, that they were once great people,
and are now fallen to the brink of destitution. Nothing
now belongs to them but the Residenzia and certain leagues
of desert mountain, in the greater part of which not
even a goat could support life. But the house is
a fine old place, and stand at a great height
among the hills, and most salubriously. And I had no

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sooner heard my friend's tale than I remembered you. I
told him I had a wounded officer, wounded in the
good cause, who was now able to make a change,
and I proposed that his friend should take you for
a lodger. Instantly, the Padre's face grew dark, as I
had maliciously foreseen it would It was out of the question,
he said. Then let them starve, said I, for I

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have no sympathy with Tatterdemalian pride. Thereupon we separated, not
very content with one another. But yesterday, to my wonder,
the Padre returned and made a submission. The difficulty, he said,
he had found upon enquiry to be less than he
had feared. Or, in other words, these proud people had
put their pride in their pocket. I closed with the offer,

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and subject to your approval, I have taken rooms for
you in the residencia. The air of these mountains will
renew your blood, and the quiet in which you will
there live is worth all the medicines in the world.
Doctor said I. You have been throughout my good angel,
and your advice is a command. But tell me, if
you please something of the family with which I am

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to reside. I am coming to that, replied my friend,
and Indeed, there is a difficulty in the way. These
beggars are, as I have said, of very high descent,
and swollen with the most baseless vanity. They have lived
for some generations in a growing isolation, drawing away on
either hand from the rich, who had now become too

(02:28):
high for them, and from the poor, whom they still
regarded as too low. And even to day, when poverty
forces them to unfasten their door to a guest, they
cannot do so without a most ungracious stipulation. You are
to remain, they say, a stranger. They will give you attendance,
but they refuse from the first the idea of the
smallest intimacy. I will not deny that I was piqued,

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and perhaps the feeling strengthened my desire to go, for
I was confident that I could break down that barrier
if I desired. There is nothing offensive in such a stipulation,
said I, and I even sympathize with the feeling that
inspired it. It is true that they have never seen you,
returned the doctor politely, and if they knew you were
the handsomest and most pleasant man that ever came from England,

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where I am told that handsome men are common, but
pleasant ones not so much so. They would doubtless make
you welcome with a better grace. But since you take
the thing so well, it matters not to me. Indeed,
it seems discourteous. But you will find yourself the gainer.
The family will not much tempt you. A mother, a son,
and a daughter, an old woman said to be half witted,

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a country lout, and a country girl who stands very
high with her confessor, and is therefore chuckled. The physician
most likely plain, there is not much in that to
attract the fancy of a dashing officer. And yet you
say they are high born. I objected well as to
that I should distinguish, returned the doctor. The mother is

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not so the children. The mother was the last representative
of a princely stock, degenerate both in parts and fortune.
Her father was not only poor, he was mad, and
the girl ran wild about the residencya till his death. Then,
much of the fortune having died with him, and the
family being quite extinct, the girl ran wilder than ever

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until at last she married Heaven knows whom a mule tear,
some say, others a smuggler, while there are some who
uphold there was no marriage at all, and that Philippe
and Olalla are bastards. The union, such as it was,
was tragically dissolved some years ago, but they live in
such seclusion, and the country at that time was in
so much disorder that the precise manner of the man's

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end is known only to the priest, if even to him.
I begin to think I shall have strange experiences, said I.
I would not romance if I were you, replied the doctor,
you will find I fear a very groveling and commonplace reality. Filipe,
for instance, I have seen and what am I to say?

(05:01):
He's very rustic, very cunning, very loutish, and I should say,
an innocent. The others are probably to match. No. No
signor Commandante. You must seek congenial society among the great
sights of our mountains, and in these at least, if
you are at all a lover of the works of nature,
I promise you will not be disappointed. The next day,

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Felipe came for me in a rough country cart drawn
by a mule, and a little before the stroke of noon,
after I had said farewell to the doctor, the innkeeper
and different good souls who had befriended me during my sickness.
We set forth out of the city by the eastern
gate and began to ascend into the Sierra. I had
been so long a prisoner since I was left behind

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for dying after the loss of the convoy, that the
mere smell of the earth set me smiling. The country
through which we went was wild and rocky, partially covered
with rough woods, now of the cork tree and now
of the great Spanish chestnut, and frequently intersected by the
beds of mountain torrents. The sun shone, the wind rustled joyously,

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and we had advanced some miles, and the city had
already shrunk into an inconsiderable knoll upon the plain behind us.
Before my attention began to be diverted to the companion
of my drive. To the eye, he seemed but a diminutive, loutish,
well made country lad, such as the doctor had described,
mighty quick and active, but devoid of any culture. And

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this first impression was with most observers. Final what began
to strike me was his familiar chattering talk, so strangely
inconsistent with the terms on which I was to be received.
And partly from his imperfect denunciation, partly from the sprightly
incoherence of the matter, so very difficult to follow clearly
without an effort of the mind. It is true I

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had before talked with persons of a similar mental constitution,
persons who seemed to live as he did, by the
senses taken and possessed by the visual object of the moment,
and unable to discharge their minds of that impression. He
seemed to me as I sat distantly, giving ear a
kind of conversation proper to drivers who passed much of

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their time in a great vacancy of the intellect, and
threading the sights of a familiar country. But this was
not the case of Felipe. By his own account, he
was a home keeper. I wish I was there now,
he said, And then, spying a tree by the wayside,
he broke off to tell me that he had once
seen a crow among its branches, A crow, I repeated,

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struck by the ineptitude of the remark, and thinking I
had heard imperfectly. But by this time he was already
filled with a new idea, hearkening with a rapt intentness,
his head on one side, his face puckered, and he
struck me rudely to make me hold my peace. Then
he smiled and shook his head. What did you hear?
I asked, Oh it is all right, he said, and

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began encouraging his mule with cries that echoed unhumanly up
the mountain walls. I looked at him more closely. He
was superlatively well built, light and lithe, and strong. He
was well featured. His yellow eyes were very large, though
perhaps not very expressive. Take him altogether, he was a
pleasant looking lad, and I had no fault to find

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with him beyond that he was of a dusky hue
and inclined to hairiness, two characteristics that I disliked. It
was his mind that puzzled and yet attracted me. The
doctor's phrase and innocent came back to me, and I
was wondering if that were, after all the true description.
When the road began to go down into the narrow

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and naked chasm of a torrent, the waters thundered tumultuously
in the bottom, and the ravine was filled full of
the sound the thin spray, and the claps of wind
that accompanied their descent. The scene was certainly impressive. But
the road was in that part very securely walled in.
The mule went steadily forward, and I was astonished to
perceive the paleness of terror in the face of my companion.

(09:00):
The voice of that wild river was inconstant, now sinking lower,
as if in weariness, now doubling its hoarse tones. Momentary
freshets seemed to swell its volume, sweeping down the gorge, raving,
and booming against the barrier walls. And I observed it
was at each of these ascensions to the Clamor that
my driver more particularly winced and blanched some thoughts of

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Scottish superstition, and the river Kelpie passed across my mind.
I wondered if perchance the like were prevalent in that
part of Spain, and, turning to Felipe, sought to draw
him out. What is the matter, I asked, Oh, I
am afraid, he replied, of what are you afraid? I returned,
This seems one of the safest places on this very

(09:43):
dangerous road. It makes a noise, he said, with a
simplicity of awe. That set my doubts at rest. The
lad was but a child, and intellect his mind was
like his body active and swift, but stunted in development,
and I began from that time forth to regard him
with a measure of pity, and to listen, at first
with indulgence, and at last even with pleasure, to his

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disjointed babble. By about four in the afternoon we had
crossed the summit of the mountain line, said farewell to
the western sunshine, and began to go down upon the
other side, skirting the edge of many ravines, and moving
through the shadow of dusky woods. There rose upon all
sides the voice of falling water, not condensed and formidable,

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as in the gorge of the river, but scattered and
sounding gaily and musically from Glen to Glenn. Here too,
the spirits of my driver mended, and he began to
sing aloud, in a falsetto voice, and with a singular
bluntness of musical perception, never true either to melody or key,
but wandering at will, and yet somehow with an effect
that was natural and pleasing, like that of the birds.

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As the dusk increased, I fell more and more under
the spell of this artless warbling, listening and waiting for
some articulate air, and still disappointed, and when at last
I asked him what it was, he sang, oh, cried he,
I'm just singing. Above all, I was taken with a
trick he had of unweariedly repeating the same note at

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little intervals. It was not so monotonous as you would think,
or at least not disagreeable, and it seemed to breathe
a wonderful contentment with what is such as we love
to fancy in the attitude of trees or the quiescence
of a pool. Night had fallen dark before we came
out upon a plateau and drew up a little laughter
before a certain lump of superior blackness, which I could

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only conjecture to be the residencia hear. My guide, getting
down from the cart, hooted and whistled for a long
time in vain, until at last an old peasant man
came towards us from somewhere in the surrounding dark, carrying
a candle in his hand. By the light of this
I was able to perceive a great arched doorway of
a Moorish character. It was closed by iron studded gates,

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in one of the leaves of which Felipe opened a wicket.
The peasant carried off the cart to some outbuilding, but
my guide and I passed through the wicket, which was
closed again behind us, and by the glimmer of the candle,
passed through a court, up a stone stair, along a
section of an open gallery, and up more stairs again,
until we came at last to the door of a
great and somewhat bare apartment. This room, which I understood

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was to be mine, was pierced by three windows, lined
with some lustrous wood, disposed in panels, and carpeted with
the skins of many savage animals. A bright fire burned
in the chimney, and shed abroad a changeful flicker. Close
up to the blaze, there was drawn a table laid
for supper, and in the far end a bed stood ready.

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I was pleased by these preparations, and said so to Felipe,
and he, with the same simplicity of disposition that I
had already remarked in him, warmly re echoed my praises.
A fine room, he said, A very fine room. And
fire too. Fire is good, it melts out the pleasure
in your bones. And the bed. He continued, carrying over

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the candle in that direction, see what fine sheets, how soft,
how smooth? Smooth? And he passed his hand again and
again over their texture, and then laid down his head
and rubbed his cheeks among them, with a grossness of
content that somehow offended me. I took the candle from
his hand, for I feared he would set the bed
on fire, and walked back to the supper table, where,

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perceiving a measure of wine, I poured out a cup
and called to him to come and drink of it.
He started to his feet at once and ran to
me with a strong expression of hope. But when he
saw the wine, he visibly shuddered. Oh no, he said,
not that that is for you. I hate it very well, Senor,
said I. Then I will drink to your good health
and to the prosperity of your house and family, speaking

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of which I added, after I had drunk, shall I
not have the pleasure of laying my salutations in person
at the feet of the Senora your mother. But at
these words, all the childishness passed out of his face
and was succeeded by a look of indescribable cunning and secrecy.
He backed away from me at the same time as
though I were an animal about to leap, or some

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dangerous fellow with a weapon, And when he had got
near the door, glowered at me sullenly, with contracted pupils. No,
he said at last, and the next moment was gone, noiselessly,
out of the room, and I heard his footing die
away downstairs, as light as rainfall, and silence closed over
the house. After I had supped, I drew up the

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table nearer to the bed, and began to prepare for rest.
But in the new position of the light, I was
struck by a picture on the wall. It represented a
woman still young, to judge by her costume and the
mellow unity which reigned over the canvas, she had long
been dead, to judge by the vivacity of the attitude,
the eyes, and the features I might have been beholding

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in a mirror the image of life. Her figure was
very slim and strong, and of a just proportion. Red
tresses lay like a crown over her brow. Her eyes
of a very golden brown, held mine with a look,
and her face, which was perfectly shaped, was yet marred
by a cruel, sullen and sensual expression. Something in both

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face and figure, something exquisitely intangible, like the echo of
an echo, suggested the features and bearing of my guide.
And I stood awhile, unpleasantly attracted and wondering at the
oddity of the resemblance. The common carnal stalk of that race,
which had been originally designed for such high dames as
the one now looking on me from the canvas, had

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fallen to baser uses wearing country clothes, sitting on the
shaft and holding the reins of a mule cart to
bring home a lodger. Perhaps an actual link subsisted, Perhaps
some scruple of the delicate flesh that was once clothed
upon with the satin and brocade of the dead lady
now winced at the rude contact of Felipe's frieze. The

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first light of the morning shone full upon the portrait,
and as I lay awake, my eyes continued to dwell
upon it with growing complacency. Its beauty crept about my heart,
insidiously silencing my scruples one after another. And while I
knew that to love such a woman were to sign
and seal one's own sentence of degeneration, I still knew
that if she were alive, I should love her. Day

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after day, the double knowledge of her wickedness and of
my weakness grew clearer. She came to be the heroine
of many day dreams in which her eyes led on
to and sufficiently rewarded crimes. She cast a dark shadow
on my fancy. And when I was out in the
free air of heaven, taking vigorous exercise and healthily renewing
the current of my blood, it was often a glad

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thought to me that my enchantress was safe in the grave,
her wand of beauty broken, her lips closed in silence,
her filters spilt. And yet I had a half lingering
terror that she might not be dead after all, but
re arisen in the body of some descendant. Felipe served
my meals in my own apartment, and his resemblance to

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the portrait haunted me at times. It was not at times,
upon some change of attitude or flash of expression, it
would leap out upon me like a ghost. It was,
above all in his ill tempers that the likeness triumphed.
He certainly liked me. He was proud of my notice,
which he sought to engage by many simple and childlike devices.
He loved to sit close before my fire, talking his

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broken talk, or singing his awed, endless wordless songs, and
sometimes drawing his hand over my clothes, with an affectionate
manner of caressing that never failed to cause on me
an embarrassment of which I was ashamed. But for all
that he was capable of flashes of causeless anger and
fits of sturdy sullenness. At a word of reproof, I

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have seen him upset the dish of which I was
about to eat, and this not surreptitiously, but with defiance.
And similarly, at a hint of inquisition, I was not
unnaturally curious, being in a strange place and surrounded by
strange people, But at the shadow of a question he
shrank back, lowering and dangerous. Then it was that, for

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a fraction of a second, this rough lad might have
been the brother of the lady in the frame. But
these humors were swift to pass, and the resemblance died
along with them. In these first days, I saw nothing
of any one but Felipe, unless the portrait is to
be counted, And since the lad was plainly of weak
mind and had moments of passion, it may be wondered

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that I bore his dangerous neighborhood with equanimity. As a
matter of fact, it was for some time irksome. But
it happened before long that I obtained over him so
complete a mastery as set my disquietude at rest. It
fell in this way. He was by nature slothful and
much of a vagabond. And yet he kept by the house,
and not only waited upon my wants, but labored every

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day in the garden or small farm to the south
of the residenzia. Here he would be joined by the
peasant whom I had seen on the night of my arrival,
and who dwelt at the far end of the enclosure,
about half a mile away, in a rude outhouse. But
it was plain to me that of these two it
was Felipe who did most. And though I would sometimes
see him throw down his spade and go to sleep
among the very plants he had been digging, his constancy

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and energy were admirable in themselves, and still more so
since I was well assured they were foreign to his
disposition and the fruit of an ungrateful effort. But while
I admired, I wondered what had called forth in a
lad so shuttle witted this enduring sense of duty. How
was it sustained, I asked myself, And to what length
did it prevail? Over his instincts? The priest was possibly

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his inspirer. But the priest came one day to the residencia.
I saw him both come and go after an interval
of close upon an hour, from a knoll where I
was sketching, And all that time Felipe continued to labor
undisturbed in the garden. At last, in a very unworthy spirit,
I determined to debauch the lad from his good resolutions,
and waylaying him at the gate, easily persuaded him to

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join me in a ramble. It was a fine day,
and the woods to which I led him were green
and pleasant, and sweet smelling, and alive with the hum
of insects. Here he discovered himself in a fresh character,
mounting up to heights of gaiety that abashed me, and
displaying an energy and grace of movement that delighted the eye.
He leapt, he ran round me in mere glee. He

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would stop and look and listen, and seemed to drink
in the world like a cordial And then he would
suddenly spring into a tree with one bound, and hang
and gambol there like one at home. Little, as he
said to me, and that of not much import I
have rarely enjoyed more stirring company. The side of his
delight was a continual feast. The speed and accuracy of

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his movements pleased me to the heart. And I might
have been so thoughtlessly unkind as to make a habit
of these wants, had not chance prepared a very rude
conclusion to my pleasure. By some swiftness or dexterity, the
lad captured a squirrel in a tree top. He was
then some way ahead of me, but I saw him
drop to the ground and crouch there, crying aloud for pleasure,

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like a child. The sound stirred my sympathies. It was
so fresh and innocent. But as I bettered my pace
to draw near, the cry of the squirrel knocked upon
my heart. I have heard and seen much of the
cruelty of lads, and above all of peasants. But what
I now beheld struck me into a passion of anger.
I thrust the fellow aside, plucked the poor brute out

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of his hands, and with swift mercy killed it. Then
I turned upon the torturer, spoke to him long out
of the heat of my indignation, calling him names, at
which he seemed to wither, and at length, pointing toward
the residencia, bade him begone and leave me, for I
chose to walk with men, not with vermin. He fell
upon his knees, and the words, coming to him with

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more cleanness than usual, poured out a stream of the
most touching supplications, begging me in mercy to forgive him,
to forget what he had done, to look to the future. Oh,
I try so hard, he said, Oh, Commandante, bear with
Felipe this once. He will never be a brute again. Thereupon,
much more affected than I cared to show, I suffered

(22:01):
myself to be persuaded, and at last shook hands with
him and made it up. But the squirrel, by way
of penance, I made him bury, speaking of the poor
thing's beauty, telling him what pains it had suffered, and
how base a thing was the abuse of strength. See
Felipe said I you are strong, indeed, but in my
hands you are as helpless as that poor thing of

(22:23):
the trees. Give me your hand in mine. You cannot
remove it. Now suppose that I were cruel like you
and took a pleasure and pain. I only tighten my hold,
and see how you suffer. He screamed aloud, his face stricken, ashy,
and dotted with needle points of sweat. And when I
set him free, he fell to the earth and nursed

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his hand and moaned over it like a baby. But
he took the lesson in good part. And whether from
that or from what I had said to him, or
the higher notion he now had of my bodily strength,
his original affection was changed into a dog like, adoring fidelity.
End of Part one,