Traducción
Original
Capítulo VIII
Emplea Glanville, sin éxito, muchos medios para corregir a Arabela de su heroísmo
Levantose Arabela e hizo una seña a Carlota para que la siguiera. Así que estuvieron solas en su cuarto, echó a llorar. Carlota, admiradísima, la preguntó la causa de su extremo dolor.
—¡Ay! –respondió–. ¡No tengo motivos para juzgarme la mujer más desgraciada del mundo! He causado la muerte del triste Silven y toco ya el momento de ver a Glanville herido de una desesperación violenta.
—¿Por eso te agitas y lloras, prima mía? No tienes de qué, sosiégate: Silven está muy vivo y, en cuanto a mi hermano, no sé que tenga intención de desesperarse.
—¡Pues cómo! ¿No ha muerto Silven? ¿No fue mortal su herida?
—¡Su herida! Vaya, prima, dime de buena fe: ¿de dónde sacas unas ideas como esas?
—Pues entonces voy a mandarle por escrito que viva.
—¡Oh! Respondo de su obediencia.
Pidió Arabela recado de escribir y, viendo entrar a su primo, le dio parte de su intención.
—Ya está desterrado –le dijo–, conque así no tengo que temer sus persecuciones.
—Os juro, prima, que vivo tranquilísimo sobre ese punto… y para ahorraros el trabajo de escribir, puedo deciros que goza una salud muy cabal.
—¡Como es dable que así sea! Según el orden natural de las cosas bien sabéis que debe…
—Lo que sé es que Silven no se tiene por obligado a obedeceros y que lleva su impudencia hasta dudar que podáis desterrarlo de su país146.
—Pero…, mi autoridad se funda sobre el poder que me dio.
—Eso es lo que positivamente niega y, además, opina que el mismo derecho tiene él para dar este poder que vos para ejercerlo, porque ambos vivís sometidos a las leyes del país que habitáis. p. 212
Tan maravillada quedó Arabela de oír estas proposiciones que dio a creer, por unos instantes, a Glanville, que había encontrado un medio para curarla de sus nociones extravagantes; iba este a continuar cuando ella, mirándole con gravedad, le dijo:
—El imperio del amor tiene leyes propias como el de la honra y ya sabéis que no tienen relación con las demás.
—Perdonadme, prima: las leyes han fijado los límites de la honra y del amor.
—No puede ser eso, porque veo en ello contradicción. Por ejemplo, las leyes prohíben quitar la vida a cualquiera; el honor manda, muy frecuentemente, buscar al enemigo para quitársela y, como no cabe que una cosa sea justa e injusta, resulta necesariamente que la ley que condena y la que justifica son opuestas, y, de consiguiente, independiente una de otra. ¿Qué responderéis a esto?
—Habéis probado muy bien que lo que se llama honor no es lo mismo que lo que se llama justicia; si queréis darme el gusto de oírme, yo…
Arabela, poseída de su asunto, no le dio tiempo para acabar; se extendió mucho sobre el imperio del amor y probó que, no solamente era la pasión de los héroes, sino que también todos ellos la fueron deudores de su celebridad.
—El amor –continuó ella diciendo– pide una obediencia a que no se oponga consideración alguna, una obediencia infinitamente más sumisa que la que los reyes exigen de sus vasallos. «Viviré, señora», dijo el Príncipe de Escitia a Estatira, «pues lo mandáis: no debe la muerte tener imperio sobre una vida en que os interesáis». «Mandadme vencer», dijo Juba a la sin par Cleopatra, «y miraré ya a mis contrarios como vencidos»147. Encontradme, aun para los más grandes monarcas, unos títulos comparables a los que se dan a las soberanas de los corazones, como árbitro divino de mi suerte, divinidad visible, diosa mortal y tantos otros igualmente sublimes.
Glanville perdió la paciencia, desvió la conversación con una pregunta extraña y se fue, poco después, más que nunca desesperado de vencer la manía de Arabela.
Chapter IV
In which Mr. Glanville makes an unsuccessful attempt upon Arabella.
Arabella, when she had finished these words, which banished in part Mr. Glanville’s confusion, went to her own apartment, followed by Miss Glanville, to whom she had made a sign for that purpose; and throwing herself into a chair, burst into tears, which greatly surprising Miss Glanville, she pressed her to tell her the cause.
“Alas!” replied Arabella. “Have I not cause to think myself extremely unhappy? The deplorable death of Mr. Selvin, the despair to which I see your brother reduced, with the fatal consequences which may attend it, fill me with a mortal uneasiness.”
“Well,” said Miss Glanville, “your ladyship may make yourself quite easy as to both these matters; for Mr. Selvin is not dead, nor is my brother in despair that I know of.”
“What do you say, miss?” interrupted Arabella. “Is not Mr. Selvin dead? Was the wound he gave himself not mortal then?”
“I know of no wound that he gave himself, not I,” said Miss Glanville. “What makes your ladyship suppose he gave himself a wound? Lord bless me, what strange thoughts come into your head!”
“Truly I am rejoiced to hear it,” replied Arabella, “and in order to prevent the effects of his despair, I’ll instantly dispatch my commands to him to live.”
[225] “I dare answer for his obedience, madam,” said Miss Glanville smiling.
Arabella then gave orders for paper and pens to be brought her, and seeing Mr. Glanville enter the room, very formally acquainted him with her intention, telling him that he ought to be satisfied with the banishment to which she had doomed his unhappy rival, and not require his death, since he had nothing to fear from his pretensions.
“I assure you, madam,” said Mr. Glanville, “I am perfectly easy upon that account. And in order to spare you the trouble of sending to Mr. Selvin, I may venture to assure you that he is in no danger of dying.”
“It is impossible, sir,” replied Arabella, “according to the nature of things, it is impossible but he must already be very near death—You know the rigour of my sentence, you know—”
“I know, madam,” said Mr. Glanville, “that Mr. Selvin does not think himself under a necessity of obeying your sentence; and has the impudence to question your authority for banishing him from his native country.”
“My authority, sir,” said Arabella, strangely surprised, “is founded upon the absolute power he has given me over him.”
“He denies that, madam,” said Glanville, “and says that he neither can give, nor you exercise, an absolute power over him; since you are both accountable to the king, whose subjects you are, and both restrained by the laws under whose sanction you live.”p. 293
[226] Arabella’s apparent confusion at these words giving Mr. Glanville hopes that he had fallen upon a proper method to cure her of some of her strange notions, he was going to pursue his arguments, when Arabella looking a little sternly upon him:
“The empire of love,” said she, “like the empire of honour, is governed by laws of its own, which have no dependence upon, or relation to any other.”
“Pardon me, madam,” said Glanville, “if I presume to differ from you. Our laws have fixed the boundaries of honour as well as those of love.”
“How is that possible,” replied Arabella, “when they differ so widely that a man may be justified by the one, and yet condemned by the other? For instance,” pursued she, “you are not permitted by the laws of the land to take away the life of any person whatever; yet the laws of honour oblige you to hunt your enemy through the world, in order to sacrifice him to your vengeance. Since it is impossible then for the same actions to be at once just and unjust, it must necessarily follow that the law which condemns it, and that which justifies it, is not the same, but directly opposite— And now,” added she, after a little pause, “I hope I have entirely cleared up that point to you.”
“You have, indeed, madam,” replied Mr. Glanville, “proved to a demonstration that what is called honour is something distinct from justice, since they command things absolutely opposite to each other.”
[227] Arabella, without reflecting on this inference, went on to prove the independent sovereignty of love:
“Which,” said she, “may be collected from all the words and actions of those heroes who were inspired by this passion. We see it in them,” pursued she, “triumphing not only over all natural and avowed allegiance, but superior even to friendship, duty, and honour itself. This the actions of Oroondates, Artaxerxes, Spitridates, and many other illustrious princes sufficiently testify.
“Love requires a more unlimited obedience from its slaves than any other monarch can expect from his subjects; an obedience which is circumscribed by no laws whatever, and dependent upon nothing but itself.
“‘I shall live, madam,’ says the renowned prince of Scythia to the divine Statira. ‘I shall live, since it is your command I should do so; and death can have no power over a life which you are pleased to take care of—' ‘Say only that you wish I should conquer,’ said the great Juba to the incomparable Cleopatra, ‘and my enemies will be already vanquished. Victory will come over to the side your favour, and an army of a hundred thousand men will not be able to overcome the man who has your commands to conquer.’
“How mean and insignificant,” pursued she, “are the titles bestowed on other monarchs compared with those which dignify the sovereigns of hearts, such as Divine Arbitress of my Fate, Visible Divinity, Earthly Goddess and many others equally sublime—”
[228] Mr. Glanville, losing all patience at her obstinate folly, interrupted her here with a question quite foreign to the subject she was discussing, and soon after quitting her chamber, retired to his own, more than ever despairing of her recovery.