Olalla by Robert Louis Stevenson - Part 2

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
O Lala by Robert Louis Stevenson, Part two. Meanwhile, I
gained rapidly in health. The residencia stood on the crown
of a stony plateau. On every side the mountains hemmed
it about. Only from the roof, where was a Bartizan,
there might be seen between two peaks a small segment
of plain blue. With extreme distance. The air in these

(00:23):
altitudes moved freely and largely. Great clouds congregated there, and
were broken up by the wind and left in tatters.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
On the hilltops.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
A hoarse and yet faint rumbling of torrents rose from
all round, and one could there study all the ruder
and more ancient characters of nature in something of their
pristine force. I delighted from the first in the vigorous
scenery and changeful weather, nor less in the antique and
dilapidated mansion where I dwelt. This was a large oblong,

(00:53):
flanked at two opposite corners by bastion like projections, one
of which commanded the door, while both were loopholed from musketry.
The lower story was besides naked of windows, so that
the building, if garrisoned, could not be carried without artillery.
It enclosed an open court planted with pomegranate trees. From this,

(01:13):
a broad flight of marble stairs ascended to an open
gallery running all round and resting towards the court on
slender pillars. Thence again several enclosed stairs led to the
upper stories of the house, which were thus broken up
into distinct divisions. The windows, both within and without were
closely shuttered. Some of the stone work in the upper

(01:34):
parts had fallen. The roof in one place had been
wrecked in one of the flurries of wind, which were
common in these mountains, and the whole house, in the
strong beating sunlight, and standing out above a grove of
stunted cork trees, thickly laden and discolored with dust, looked
like the sleeping palace of the legend. The court, in
particular seemed the very home of slumber. A hoarse cooing

(01:56):
of doves haunted about the eaves. The winds were excluded
that when they blew outside the mountain, dust fell here
as thick as rain, and veiled the red bloom of
the pomegranates. Shuttered windows, and the closed doors of numerous cellars,
and the vacant arches of the gallery enclosed it, and
all day long the sun made broken profiles on the

(02:17):
four sides and paraded the shadow of the pillars on
the gallery floor. At the ground level, there was, however,
a certain pillared recess which bore the marks of human habitation.
Though it was open in front upon the court, it
was yet provided with a chimney where a wood fire
would be always prettily blazing, and the tile floor was
littered with the skins of animals. It was in this

(02:39):
place that I first saw my hostess. She had drawn
one of the skins forward and sat in the sun,
leaning against a pillar. It was her dress that struck
me first of all, for it was rich and brightly colored,
and shone out in that dusty courtyard with something of
the same relief as the flowers of the pomegranates. At
a second look, it was her beauty of person that

(03:01):
took hold of me. As she sat back watching me,
I thought, though with invisible eyes and wearing at the
same time an expression of almost imbecile good humor and contentment,
she showed a perfectness of feature and a quiet nobility
of attitude that were beyond a status. I took off
my hat to her in passing, and her face puckered
with suspicion as swiftly as lightly as a pool ruffles

(03:23):
in the breeze. But she paid no heed to my courtesy.
I went forth on my customary walk a trifle daunted,
her idol like impassivity haunting me, And when I returned,
although she was still in much the same posture, I
was half surprised to see that she had moved as
far as the next pillar, following the sunshine. This time, however,

(03:43):
she addressed me with some trivial salutation, civilly enough conceived,
and uttered in the same deep chested and yet indistinct
and lisping tones that had already baffled the utmost niceness
of my hearing from her son, I answered rather at
a venture, for not only did I fail to take
her meaning with precision, but the sudden disclosure of her
eyes disturbed me. They were unusually large, with the iris

(04:06):
golden like felipes, but the pupil at that moment so
distended that they seemed almost black. And what affected me
was not so much their size, what was, perhaps its consequence,
the singular insignificance of their regard a look more blankly stupid,
I have never met. My eyes dropped before it, even
as I spoke, and I went on my way upstairs

(04:28):
to my own room, at once baffled and embarrassed. Yet
when I came there and saw the face of the portrait,
I was again reminded of the miracle of family descent.
My hostess was indeed both older and fuller in person.
Her eyes were of a different color. Her face, besides,
was not only free from the ill significance that offended
and attracted me in the painting. It was devoid of

(04:50):
either good or bad, a moral blank expressing literally not.
And yet there was a likeness, not so much speaking
as imminent, not so much in any particular feature, as
upon the whole it should seem. I thought, as if
when the Master set his signature to that grave canvas,
he had not only caught the image of one smiling

(05:11):
and false eyed woman, but stamped the essential quality of
a race. From that day forth, whether I came or went,
I was sure to find the signora seated in the
sun against a pillar, or stretched on a rug before
the fire. Only at times she would shift her station
to the top round of the stone staircase, where she
lay with the same nonchalance.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Right across my path.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
In all these days, I never knew her to display
the least spark of energy beyond what she expended in
brushing and rebrushing her copious copper colored hair, or enlisping
out in the rich and broken hoarseness of her voice
her customary idle salutations to myself. These I think were
her two chief pleasures, beyond that of mere quiescence. She

(05:56):
seemed always proud of her remarks, as though they had
been witnesses. And indeed, though they were empty enough, like
the conversation of many respectable persons, and turned on a
very narrow range of subjects, they were never meaningless or incoherent. Nay,
they had a certain beauty of their own breathing, as
they did of her entire contentment. Now she would speak

(06:18):
of the warmth in which like her son she greatly delighted.
Now of the flowers of the pomegranate trees, and now
of the white doves and long winged swallows that fanned
the air of the court. The birds excited her as
they raked the eaves in their swift flight, or skimmed
sidelong past her with a rush of wind. She would
sometimes stir and sit up a little, and seemed to

(06:40):
waken from her doze of satisfaction.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
But for the rest of her.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
Days she lay luxuriously, folded on herself and sunk in
sloth and pleasure. Her invincible content at first annoyed me,
but I came gradually to find repose in the spectacle,
until at last it grew to be my habit to
sit down beside her four times in the day, both
coming and going, and to talk with her sleepily. I
scarce knew of what I had come to like. Her dull,

(07:05):
almost animal neighborhood. Her beauty and her stupidity soothed and
amused me. I began to find a kind of transcendental
good sense in her remarks, and her unfathomable good nature
moved me to admiration and envy. The liking was returned.
She enjoyed my presence half unconsciously, as a man in
deep meditation may enjoy the babbling of a brook. I can,

(07:27):
scarce say, she brightened when I came for satisfaction was
written on her face eternally, as on some foolish statues.
But I was made conscious of her pleasure by some
more intimate communication than the sight. And one day, as
I sat within reach of her on the marble step,
she suddenly shot forth one of her hands and patted mine.
The thing was done, and she was back in her

(07:48):
accustomed attitude. Before my mind had received intelligence of the caress,
And when I turned to look her in the face,
I could perceive no answerable sentiment. It was plain she
attached no moment to the act, and I blamed myself
for my own more uneasy consciousness. The sight, and if
I may so call it, the acquaintance of the mother,

(08:09):
confirmed the view I had already taken of the sun.
The family blood had been impoverished, perhaps by long inbreeding,
which I knew to be a common error among the
proud and the exclusive. No decline, indeed, was to be
traced in the body which had been handed down unimpaired
in shapeliness and strength. And the faces of to day
were struck as sharply from the mint as the face

(08:30):
of two centuries ago that smiled upon me from the portrait.
But the intelligence that more precious heirloom was degenerate. The
treasure of ancestral memory ran low and it had required
the potent plebeian crossing of a muledeer or mountain contrabandista
to raise what approached hebetude in the Mother into the
active oddity of the Sun. Yet of the two, it

(08:53):
was the Mother I preferred of Felipe, vengeful and placable,
full of starts, and shy inconstant, as a hare I
could even conceive as a creature possibly noxious, of the Mother,
I had no thoughts but those of kindness, And indeed,
as spectators are apt ignorantly to take sides, I grew
something of a partisan in the enmity which I perceived

(09:15):
to smolder between them.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
True, it seemed mostly on the Mother's part.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
She would sometimes draw in her breath as he came near,
and the pupils of her vacant eyes would contract, as
if with horror or fear. Her emotions, such as they were,
were much upon the surface and readily shared. And this
latent repulsion occupied my mind and kept me wondering on
what grounds it rested, and whether the Sun was certainly
in fault. I had been about ten days in the

(09:42):
residencia when there sprang up a high and harsh wind,
carrying clouds of dust. It came out of malarious low
lands and over several snowy sierras. The nerves of those
on whom it blew were strung and jangled, their eyes
smarted with the dust, their legs ache under the burden
of their body, and the touch of one hand upon

(10:03):
another grew to be odious. The wind, besides, came down
the gullies of the hills and stormed about the house
with a great hollow buzzing and whistling that was wearisome
to the ear and dismally depressing to the mind. It
did not so much blow in gusts as with the
steady sweep of a waterfall, so that there was no
remission of discomfort while it blew. But higher upon the

(10:25):
mountain it was probably of a more variable strength, with
accesses of fury, for there came down at times a
far off wailing infinitely grievous to hear, and at times
on one of the high shelves or terraces there would
start up and then disperse a tower of dust, like
the smoke of an explosion. I no sooner awoke in

(10:46):
bed than I was conscious of the nervous tension and
depression of the weather, and the effect grew stronger as
the day proceeded. It was in vain that I resisted,
in vain that I set forth upon my customary morning's walk.
The irrational, unshape changing fury of the storm had soon
beat down my strength and wrecked my temper. And I
returned to the residenzia glowing with dry heat and foul

(11:09):
and gritty with dust. The court had a forlorn appearance.
Now and then a glimmer of sun fled over it.
Now and then the wind swooped down upon the pomegranates
and scattered the blossoms, and set the window shutters clapping
upon the wall. In the recess, the signora was pacing
to and fro, with a flushed countenance and bright eyes.
I thought, too she was speaking to herself like one

(11:31):
in anger. But when I addressed her with my customary salutation,
she only replied by a sharp gesture and continued her walk.
The weather had distempered even this impassive creature, and as
I went on upstairs, I was the less ashamed of
my own discomposure. All day, the wind continued, and I
sat in my room and made a feint of reading,

(11:51):
or walked up and down, and listened to the riot overhead.
Night fell, and I had not so much as a candle.
I began to long for some society, and stole down
to the court. It was now plunged in the blue
of the first darkness, but the recess was readily lighted
by the fire. The wood had been piled high, and
was crowned by a shock of flames, which the draft

(12:13):
of the chimney brandished to and fro. In this strong
and shaken brightness, the senora continued pacing from wall to
wall with disconnected gestures, clasping her hands, stretching forth her arms,
throwing back her head as an appeal to Heaven. In
these disordered movements, the beauty and grace of the woman
showed more clearly. But there was a light in her

(12:34):
eye that struck on me unpleasantly. And when I had
looked on a while in silence and seemingly unobserved, I
turned tail as I had come, and groped my way
back again to my own chamber. By the time Philippe
brought my supper and lights, my nerve was utterly gone.
And had the lad been such as I was used
to seeing him, I should have kept him even by force,
had that been necessary to take off the edge from

(12:55):
my distasteful solitude. But on Felipe also the wind had
exedized its influence. He had been feverish all day. Now
that the night had come, he was fallen into a
low and tremulous humor that reacted on my own. The
sight of his scared face, his starts and pallors and
sudden hearkenings unstrung me. And when he dropped and broke

(13:16):
a dish, I fairly leapt out of my seat. I
think we are all mad to day, said I, affecting
to laugh. It is the black wind, he replied, dolefully.
You feel as if you must do something, and you
don't know what it is. I noted the aptness of
the description, but indeed Felipe had sometimes a strange felicity

(13:37):
in rendering into words the sensations of the body. And
your mother, too, said I, she seems to feel this
weather much. Do you not fear she may be unwell?
He stared at me a little, and then said no,
almost defiantly, And the next moment, carrying his hand to
his brow, cried out lamentably on the wind and the
noise that made his head go round like a mill wheel.

(14:00):
Who can be well? He cried, And indeed I could
only echo his question, for I was disturbed enough myself.
I went to bed early, wearied with day long restlessness.
But the poisonous nature of the wind and its ungodly
and unintermittent uproar would not suffer me to sleep. I
lay there and tossed my nerves and senses on the stretch.

(14:22):
At times I would doze, dream horribly, and wake again.
And these snatches of oblivion confused me as to time.
But it must have been late on in the night
when I was suddenly startled by an outbreak of pitiable
and hateful cries. I leapt from my bed, supposing I
had dreamed, But the cries still continued to fill the house.
Cries of pain, I thought, but certainly of rage also,

(14:45):
and so savage and discordant that they shocked the heart.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
It was no illusion.

Speaker 1 (14:50):
Some living thing, some lunatic or wild animal, was being
foully tortured. The thought of Philipe and the squirrel flashed
into my mind, and I ran to the door. It
had been locked from the outside, and I might shake
it as I pleased. I was a fast prisoner. Still
the cries continued. Now they would dwindle down into a
moaning that seemed to be articulate, And at these times

(15:12):
I made sure they must be human. And again they
would break forth and fill the house with ravings worthy
of hell. I stood at the door and gave ear
to them, till at last they died away. Long after
that I still lingered, and still continued to hear them
mingle in fancy with the storming of the wind.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
And when at.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
Last I crept to my bed, it was with a
deadly sickness and a.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Blackness of horror on my heart.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
It was little wonder if I slept no more. Why
had I been locked in what had passed? Who was
the author of these indescribable and shocking cries?

Speaker 2 (15:45):
A human being?

Speaker 1 (15:47):
It was inconceivable a beast. The cries were scarce, quite bestial,
and what animal short of a lion or tiger could
thus shake the solid walls of the residencia. And while
I was thus turning over the elements of the mystery,
it came into my mind that I had not yet
set eyes upon the daughter of the house. What was
more probable than that the daughter of the Senora and

(16:09):
the sister of Felipe should be herself insane, or what
more likely than that these ignorant and half witted people
should seek to manage an afflicted kinswoman by violence.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
Here was a solution.

Speaker 1 (16:21):
And yet when I called to mind the cries, which
I never did without a shuddering chill, it seemed altogether insufficient.
Not even cruelty could wring such cries from madness. But
of one thing I was sure. I could not live
in a house where such a thing was half conceivable,
and not probe the matter home, and, if necessary, interfere.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
The next day.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
Came, the wind had blown itself out, and there was
nothing to remind me of the business of the night.
Felipe came to my bedside with obvious cheerfulness. As I
passed through the court, the Senora was sunning herself with
her accustomed immobility. And when I issued from the gateway,
I found the whole face of nature, of steely smiling,
the heavens of a cold blue and sown with great

(17:04):
cloud islands, and the mountain sides mapped forth into provinces
of light and shadow. A short walk restored me to
myself and renewed within me the resolve to plumb this mystery.
And when from the vantage of my knoll I had
seen Felipe pass forth to his labors in the garden,
I returned at once to the residencia to put my
design in practice. The Senora appeared, plunged in slumber. I

(17:26):
stood awhile and marked her, but she did not stir.
Even if my design were indiscreet, I had little to
fear from such a guardian, And turning away, I mounted
to the gallery and began my exploration of the house.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
All morning.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
I went from one door to another, and entered spacious
and faded chambers, some rudely shuddered, some receiving their full
charge of daylight, all empty and unhomely. It was a
rich house on which time had breathed his tarnish, and
dust had scattered disillusion. The spider swung there, The blowt
tarantula scampered on the cornices. Ants had their crowded highways

(18:04):
on the floors of halls of audience. The big and
foul fly that lives on carrion, and as often the
messenger of death had set up his nest in the
rotten woodwork, and buzzed heavily about the rooms. Here and
there a stool or two, a couch, a bed, or
a great carved chair remained behind like islets on the
bare floors, to testify of man's bygone habitation. And everywhere

(18:28):
the walls were set with the portraits of the dead.
I could judge by these decaying effigies in the house
of what a great and what a handsome race I
was then wandering. Many of the men wore orders on
their breasts and had the port of noble offices. The
women were all richly attired, the canvases, most of them
by famous hands. But it was not so much these

(18:49):
evidences of greatness that took hold upon my mind, even
contrasted as they were with the present depopulation and decay
of that great house. It was rather the parable of
family life, life that I read in the succession of
fair faces and shapely bodies. Never before had I so
realized the miracle of the continued race, the creation and recreation,

(19:11):
the weaving and changing and handing down of fleshly elements.
That a child should be born of its mother, that
it should grow and clothe itself. We know not how
with humanity, and put on inherited looks, and turn its
head with the manner of one ascendant, and offer its
hand with the gesture of another. Are wonders dulled for

(19:31):
us by repetition, But in the singular unity of look
in the common features and common bearing of all these
painted generations on the walls of the residenzia, the miracles
started out and looked me in the face. And an
ancient mirror, falling opportunely in my way, I stood and
read my own features a long while, tracing out on

(19:52):
either hand the filaments of descent and the bonds that
knit me with my family. At last, in the course
of these investigationtions, I opened the door of a chamber
that bore the marks of habitation. It was of large proportions,
and face to the north, where the mountains were most
wildly figured. The embers of a fire smoldered and smoked

(20:12):
upon the hearth to which a chair had been drawn close.
And yet the aspect of the chamber was ascetic to
the degree of sternness. The chair was uncushioned, the floor
and walls were naked, and beyond the books which lay
here and there in some confusion, there was no instrument
of either work or pleasure. The sight of books in
the house of such a family exceedingly amazed me, and

(20:33):
I began with a great hurry, and in a momentary
fear of interruption, to go from one to another and
hastily inspect their character. They were of all sorts, devotional, historical,
and scientific, but mostly of a great age, and in
the Latin tongue. Some I could see to bear the
marks of constant study. Others had been torn across and

(20:53):
tossed aside, as if in petulance or disapproval. Lastly, as
I cruised about that empty chamber, I espied some papers
written upon with pencil on a table near the window.
An unthinking curiosity led me to take one up. It
bore a copy of verses, very roughly metered in the
original Spanish, and which I may render somewhat. Thus pleasure

(21:14):
approached with pain and shame. Grief with the wreath of
lilies came. Pleasure showed the lovely sun, Jesu Dear, how
sweet it shone, Grief with her worn hand pointed on
Jesu Dear to thee. Shame and confusion at once fell
upon me, and laying down the paper, I beat an

(21:35):
immediate retreat from the apartment. Neither Felipe nor his mother
could have read the books nor written these rough but
feeling verses. It was plain I had stumbled with sacrilegious
feet into the room of the daughter of the house.
God knows my own heart most sharply punished me for
my indiscretion. The thought that I had thus secretly pushed
my way into the confidence of a girl so strangely situated,

(21:57):
and the fear that she might somehow come to hear
of it, oppressed me like guilt. I blamed myself besides
for my suspicions of the night before, wondered that I
ever should have attributed those shocking cries to one of
whom I now conceived as of a saint spectral of mien,
wasted with maceration, bound up in the practices of a
mechanical devotion, and dwelling in a great isolation of soul,

(22:20):
with her incongruous relatives. And as I leaned on the
balustrade of the gallery and looked down into the bright
close of pomegranates, and at the gaily dressed and somnolent
woman who just then stretched herself and delicately licked her lips,
as in the very sensuality of sloth. My mind swiftly
compared the scene with the cold chamber, looking northward on
the mountains where the daughter dwelt. That same afternoon, as

(22:43):
I sat upon my knoll, I saw the Padre enter
the gates of the residencia. The revelation of the daughter's
character had struck home to my fancy and almost blotted
out the horrors of the night before. But at sight
of this worthy man, the memory revived. I descended then
from the knoll, and, making a circuit among the woods,
posted myself by the wayside to await his passage. As

(23:04):
soon as he appeared, I stepped forth and introduced myself
as the lodger of the residencia. He had a very strong,
honest countenance, on which it was easy to read the
mingled emotions with which he regarded me as a foreigner,
a heretic, and yet one who had been wounded for
the good cause of the family at the residencia. He
spoke with reserve and yet with respect. I mentioned that

(23:25):
I had not yet seen the daughter, whereupon he remarked
that that was as it should be, and looked at
me a little askance. Lastly, I plucked up the courage
to refer to the cries that had disturbed me in
the night. He heard me out in silence, and then
stopped and partly turned about, as though to mark beyond
doubt that he was dismissing me. Do you take tobacco powder,
said he, offering his snuff box. And then, when I

(23:48):
had refused, I am an old man, he added, and
I may be allowed to remind you that you are
a guest.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
I have then your.

Speaker 1 (23:56):
Authority, I returned firmly enough, although I flushed the implied
reproof to let things take their course and not to interfere.
He said yes, and with a somewhat uneasy salute, turned
and left me where I was. But he had done
two things. He had set my conscience at rest, and
he had awakened my delicacy. I made a great effort

(24:18):
once more dismissed the recollections of the night, and fell
once more to brooding on my saintly poetess. At the
same time, I could not quite forget that I had
been locked in, And that night, when Felipe brought me
my supper, I attacked him warily on both points of interest.

Speaker 2 (24:34):
I never see your sister, said I casually.

Speaker 1 (24:37):
Oh, no, said he, She is a good, good girl,
and his mind instantly veered to something else. Your sister
is pious, I suppose, I asked in the next pause. Oh,
he cried, joining his hands with extreme fervor. A saint.
It is she that keeps me up. You are fortunate,
said I. For the most of us, I am afraid,

(24:58):
and myself among the number, are better at going down, Senor,
said Philippe earnestly. I would not say that you should
not tempt your angel. If one goes down, where is
he to stop? Why?

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Filipe said I.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
I had no guess you were a preacher, and I
may say a good one. But I suppose that is
your sister's doing.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
He nodded at me with round eyes.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
Well, then, I continued, she has doubtless reproved you for
your sin of cruelty twelve times, he cried. For this
was the phrase by which the odd creature expressed the
sense of frequency. And I told her you had done so,
I remembered that, he added proudly, And she was pleased.
Then Filipe said, I what were those cries that I

(25:41):
heard last night? For surely they were cries of some
creature in suffering. The wind returned Felipe, looking in the fire.
I took his hand in mine, at which, thinking it
to be a caress, he smiled with a brightness of
pleasure that came near disarming my resolve. But I trod
the weakness down the wind, I repeated, And yet I

(26:02):
think it was this hand holding it up that had.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
First locked me in.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
The lad shook visibly, but answered never a word. Well
said I. I am a stranger and a guest. It
is not my part either to meddle or to judge
in your affairs. In these you shall take your sister's counsel,
which I cannot doubt be excellent. But in so far
as concerns my own, I will be no man's prisoner,
And I demand that key. Half an hour later my

(26:30):
door was suddenly thrown open, and the key tossed, ringing
on the floor. And of Part two