Catalina

Somerset Maugham

Description

When a sixteen-year-old Spanish girl sees a religious vision while praying in a convent, she becomes involved in a series of humorous adventures.

Catalina is a crippled girl, supposedly cured by divine intervention after witnessing a vision of the Virgin Mary. As a result of this, she is pressured into becoming a nun in a Carmelite convent. The Bishop of Segovia, himself undergoing a crisis of faith, becomes involved in the debate about the debt owed to god by Catalina for her cure, but the girl resists all attempts to control her life, determined to marry the man she loves. She joins a troupe of strolling players and becomes the most famous actress in all of Spain.

Sujets

• Romantic Comedy
• Romance
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 29 janvier 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456636364
• Langue: English

Extrait

Catalina
by W. Somerset Maugham
Subjects: Fiction -- Religious; Romance; Spain

First published in 1948
This edition published by Reading Essentials
Victoria, BC Canada with branch offices in the Czech Republic and Germany
[e-mail]
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except in the case of excerpts by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

Catalina


a romance




W. SOMERSET MAUGHAM

I
I t was a great day for the city of CastelRodriguez. The inhabitants, wearing their bestclothes, were up by dawn. On the balconies of the grimold palaces of the nobles rich draperies were spread andtheir banners flapped lazily against the flagpoles. Itwas the Feast of the Assumption, August the fifteenth,and the sun beat down from an unclouded sky. Therewas a feeling of excitement in the air. For on this daytwo eminent persons, natives of the city, were arrivingafter an absence of many years and great doings hadbeen arranged in their honour. One was Friar Blascode Valero, Bishop of Segovia, and the other his brotherDon Manuel, a captain of renown in the King’s armies.There was to be a Te Deum in the Collegiate Church,a banquet at the Town Hall, a bullfight and when nightfell fireworks. As the morning wore on more and morepeople made their way to the Plaza Mayor. Here theprocession was formed to go out and meet the distinguishedvisitors at a certain distance from the city. Itwas headed by the civil authorities, then came the dignitariesof the Church and finally a string of gentlemenof rank. The throng lined the streets to watch it passand then composed themselves to wait until the twobrothers, followed by these important personages,should enter the city when the bells of all the churcheswould ring out their welcome.
In the Lady Chapel of the church attached to theConvent of the Carmelite nuns a crippled girl was praying.She prayed with passionate devotion before theimage of the Blessed Virgin. When at last she rosefrom her knees she fixed her crutch more comfortablyunder her arm and hobbled out of the church. It hadbeen cool and dark there, but when she came out intothe hot breathless day the sudden glare for a momentblinded her. She stood and looked down at the emptysquare. The shutters of the houses round it were closedto keep out the heat. It was very silent. Everyone hadgone to see the festivities, and there was not even amongrel dog to bark. You would have thought the citywas dead. She glanced at her own home, a small houseof two storeys wedged between its neighbours, andsighed despondently. Her mother and her uncle Domingo,who lived with them, had gone with all the restand would not be back till after the bullfight. She feltvery lonely and very unhappy. She had not the heart togo home, so she sat down at the top of the steps that ledfrom the church door to the plaza and put down hercrutch. She began to cry. Then suddenly she was overcomewith grief and with an abrupt gesture fell back onthe stone platform and, burying her face in her arms,sobbed as though her heart would break. The movementhad given the crutch a push, the steps were narrowand steep, and it clattered down to the bottom ofthem. That was the last misfortune; now she wouldhave to crawl or slither down to fetch her crutch, forwith her right leg paralysed she could not walk withoutit. She wept disconsolately.
Suddenly she heard a voice.
“Why do you weep, child?”
She looked up, startled, for she had heard no oneapproach. She saw a woman standing behind her and itlooked as though she had come out of the church, butshe had just done that herself and there had been noone there. The woman wore a long blue cloak that camedown to her feet, and now she pushed back the hoodthat had covered her head. It looked as though shehad indeed come out of the church, since it was a sin forwomen to enter the house of God with uncovered heads.She was fairly tall for a Spanish woman and she wasyoung, for there were no lines under her dark eyes, andher skin was smooth and soft. Her hair was very simplydone with a parting in the middle and tied in a looseknot on the nape of her neck. She had small delicatefeatures and a kindly look. The girl could not decidewhether she was a peasant, wife perhaps of a farmerin the neighbourhood, or a lady. There was in her aira sort of homeliness and at the same time a dignity thatwas somehow intimidating. A long cloak concealed thegarment underneath, but as she withdrew her hood thegirl caught a brief glimpse of white and guessed thatthat must be the colour of her dress.
“Dry your tears, child, and tell me your name.”
“Catalina.”
“Why do you sit here alone and cry when all theworld has gone forth to see the reception of the Bishopand his brother the captain?”
“I am a cripple, I cannot walk far, señora. And whathave I to do with all those people who are well andhappy?”
The lady stood behind her and Catalina had had toturn round to speak to her. She gave a glance at thechurch door.
“Where have you come from, señora? I did not seeyou in the church.”
The lady smiled, and it was a smile of such sweetnessthat the bitterness seemed to fade from the girl’s heart.
“I saw you, child. You were praying.”
“I was praying as I have prayed night and day sincemy infirmity fell upon me to the Blessed Virgin to freeme of it.”
“And do you think she has the power to do that?”
“If so she wills.”
There was something so benign and so friendly in thelady’s manner that Catalina felt impelled to tell her sadstory. It had happened when they were bringing in theyoung bulls for the bullfight on Easter Day and everyonein the town had collected to see them being drivenin under the safe conduct of the oxen. Ahead of themon their prancing horses rode a group of young nobles.Suddenly one of the bulls escaped and charged down aside street. There was a panic and the crowd scatteredto right and left. One man was tossed and the bullrushed on. Catalina, running as fast as her legs wouldcarry her, slipped and fell just as the beast was reachingher. She screamed and fainted. When she came to theytold her that the bull in his mad charge had trampledover her, but had run wildly on. She was bruised, butnot wounded; they said that in a little while she wouldbe none the worse, but in a day or two she complainedthat she could not move her leg. The doctors examinedit and found it was paralysed; they pricked it withneedles, but she could feel nothing; they bled her andpurged her and gave her draughts of nauseous medicine,but nothing helped. The leg was like a dead thing.
“But you still have the use of your hands,” said thelady.
“Thanks be to God, for otherwise we should starve.You asked me why I cry. I cry because when I lost theuse of my leg I lost the love of my lover.”
“He could not have loved you very much if he abandonedyou when you were stricken with an infirmity.”
“He loved me with all his heart and I love him betterthan my soul. But we are poor people, señora. He isDiego Martinez, the son of the tailor, and he followshis father’s trade. We were to be married when he wasfinished with his apprenticeship, but a poor man cannotafford to marry a wife who cannot struggle with theother women at the market place or run up and downstairs to do all the things that need to be done in ahouse. And men are but men. A man does not want awife on crutches, and now Pedro Alvarez has offeredhim his daughter Francisca. She is as ugly as sin, butPedro Alvarez is rich, so how can he refuse?”
Once more Catalina began to cry. The lady looked ather with a compassionate smile. On a sudden in the distancewas heard the beating of drums and the blare oftrumpets, and then all the bells began to ring.
“They have entered the city, the Bishop and hisbrother the captain,” said Catalina. “How is it that youare here when you might be watching them pass,señora?”
“I did not care to go.”
This seemed so strange to Catalina that she lookedat the lady with suspicion.
“You do not live in the city, señora?”
“No.”
“I thought it strange that I had not seen you before.I thought there was no one here that I did not knowat least by sight.”
The lady did not answer, Catalina was puzzled andunder her eyelashes looked at her more closely. Shecould hardly be a Moor, for her complexion was notdark enough, but it was quite possible that she was oneof the New Christians, that is to say one of those Jewswho had accepted baptism rather than be expelled fromthe country, but who, as everyone knew, still in secretpractised Jewish rites, washed their hands before andafter meals, fasted on Yom Kippur and ate meat on Fridays.The Inquisition was vigilant and, whether theywere baptized Moors or New Christians, it was unsafeto have any communication with them; you could neverknow when they would fall into the hands of the HolyOffice and under torture incriminate the innocent. Catalinaasked herself anxiously whether she had said anythingthat could give rise to a charge, for at that timein Spain everyone went in terror of the Inquisition, anda careless word, a pleasantry, might be a sufficient reasonfor arrest, and then weeks, months, years evenmight go by before you could prove your innocence.Catalina thought it better to get away as quickly as possible.
“It is time for me to go home, señora,” she said, andthen, with the politeness that was natural to her, added:“So if you will excuse me I will leave you.”
She cast a glance at the crutch that was lying at thebottom of the steps and wondered if she dared ask thelady to fetch it for her. But the lady paid no attentionto her remark.
“Would you like to recover the use of your legs,child, so that you can walk and run as though you hadnever had anything the matter with you?” she asked.
Catalina went white. That question revealed thetruth. She was no New Chris