Portrait in Sepia Read Online Free PDF Page B

heart.
    Severo del VaIle had no idea when or how the idea of marrying Nívea had come up; it may have been that they didn't decide it, the family did, but neither of them rebelled against their fate because they had known and loved each other from childhood. Nívea belonged to a branch of the family that had been well off when her father was alive but that at his death found itself impoverished. A wealthy uncle who was to be a prominent figure in the war, Don Francisco Jose Vergara, helped educate his nieces and nephews. "There is no poverty worse than that of people who have come down in the world, because they have to give the appearance of having more than they do," Nívea had confessed to Severo in one of her characteristic moments of sudden lucidity. She was four years younger, but much more mature than he; it was she who set the tone for their childhood affection, with a firm hand leading him toward the romantic relationship they shared when Severo set sail for the United States. In the enormous houses where they lived their lives, there were more than enough corners to play at love. Groping in the shadows, and with the clumsiness of pups, the cousins discovered the secrets of their bodies. They caressed one another with curiosity, verifying their differences, not knowing why he had this and she had that, dazed by modesty and guilt, never speaking: if they didn't put it into words, it was as if it had never happened, and was therefore less sinful. They explored one another with haste and fear, aware that they couldn't admit these cousinly games even in the confessional, though it meant being condemned to hell. There were a thousand eyes spying on them. The old maidservants who had seen them born protected that innocent love, but spinster aunts watched them like crows: nothing escaped those scaly eyes whose only function was to register every instant of family life or those crepuscular tongues that divulged secrets and aggravated quarrels—though always within the bosom of the clan. Nothing left the walls of those houses. It was everyone's first duty to preserve the honor and good name of the family. Nívea had developed late and at fifteen still had an innocent face and the body of a girl. Nothing in her appearance revealed her strength of character: short, plump, with large dark eyes that were her only memorable feature, she seemed insignificant until she opened her mouth. While her sisters were assuring their way to heaven by reading pious books, she was, on the sly, reading the articles and books her cousin Severo slipped her beneath the table, and the classics lent to her by her uncle Jose Francisco Vergara. When almost no one in her social setting was speaking of it, Nívea pulled out of her sleeve the idea of women's suffrage. The first time she mentioned it at a family dinner in the home of Agustin del Valle, she sparked a conflagration. "When are women and the poor going to have the vote in this country?" Nívea had blurted out, forgetting that children were not to open their mouths in the company of adults. The aged patriarch of the del Valles thumped the table so hard that the cups danced, and ordered Nívea to go immediately to confess. Nívea quietly fulfilled the penance imposed by the priest, then wrote in her diary, with her usual passion, that she did not plan to rest until women won their basic rights, even if she were expelled from the family. She had been fortunate enough to have an exceptional teacher, Sor Maria Escapulario, a nun with the heart of a lioness hidden beneath her habit, who had taken note of Nívea's intelligence. With this girl who avidly absorbed everything she was taught, who questioned what even Sor Maria Escapulario herself had never questioned, who challenged her with reasoning unexpected in her years, and who seemed about to explode with vitality and health inside her horrible uniform, the nun felt well rewarded as a teacher. All by herself, Nívea was worth the effort of having