Cup of Gold

by John Steinbeck

  “Why do I tell you these things, Ysobel—knowing you will understand them? You must understand them. Perhaps I know by the dark, sweet music of your eyes. Perhaps I can read the throbbing heart-beats on your lips. Your beating heart is a little drum urging me to battle with your fears. Your lips are like twin petals of a red hibiscus.

  “And if I find you lovely, am I to be put in fear by a dull circumstance? May I not speak my thought to you whom it most concerns next to myself? Do not let us go apart bearing black embers of a flame that has not burned itself to death.”

  When he had started to speak she listened carefully to his words, and then a little pain had flitted across her face; but when he had done there was only amusement in her eyes—that and the lurking ridicule under their surfaces. Ysobel laughed softly.

  “You forget only one thing, sir,” she said. “I do not burn. I wonder if I shall ever burn again. You do not carry a torch for me—and I hoped you did. I came this morning to see if you did. And I have heard your words so often and so often in Paris and Cordova. I am tired of these words that never change. Is there some book with which aspiring lovers instruct themselves? The Spanish men say the same things, but their gestures are more practiced, and so a little more convincing. You have much to learn.”

  She was silent. Henry looked at the floor. His amazement had raised a fog of dullness in his brain.

  “I took Panama for you,” he said plaintively.

  “Ah—yesterday I hoped you did. Yesterday I dreamed you had, but to-day—I am sorry.” She spoke softly and very sadly.

  “When I heard of you and your blustering up and down the ocean, I thought of you, somehow, as the one realist on an earth of vacillation. I dreamed that you would come to me one day, armed with a transcendent, silent lust, and force my body with brutality. I craved a wordless, reasonless brutality. The long thought of it bore me up when I was paraded by my husband. He did not love me. He was flattered with the thought that I loved him. It gave him importance and charm in his own eyes, neither of which were his. He would take me through the streets and his eyes would say, ‘See what I have married! No ordinary man could marry such a woman; but then, I am not an ordinary man.’ He was afraid of me—a little man, and afraid of me. He would say, ‘With your permission, my dear, I shall exercise the prerogative of a husband.’ Ah, the contempt I have for him!

  “I wanted force—blind, unreasoning force—and love not for my soul or for some imagined beauty of my mind, but for the white fetish of my body. I do not want softness. I am soft. My husband uses scented lotions on his hands before he touches me, and his fingers are like thick, damp snails. I want the crush of hard muscles, the delicious pain of little hurts.”

  She searched his face closely, as though looking once more for a quality which had been lost.

  “I thought richly of you once; you grew to be a brazen figure of the night. And now—I find you a babbler, a speaker of sweet, considered words, and rather clumsy about it. I find you are no realist at all, but only a bungling romancer. You want to marry me—to protect me. All men, save one, have wanted to protect me. In every way I am more able to protect myself than you are. From the morning of my first memory I have been made sick with phrases. I have been dressed in epithets and fed endearments. These other men, like you, would not say what they wanted. They, like you, felt it necessary to justify their passion in their own eyes. They, like you, must convince themselves, as well as me, that they loved me.”

  Henry Morgan had sunk his head, seemingly in shame. Now he started toward her.

  “But I will force you then,” he cried.

  “It is too late—I would perforce think of you standing there, declaiming your considered words. While you wrenched at my clothing, I would picture you fawning before me, blurting out your words. And I should laugh, I’m afraid. I might even protect myself—and you, who should be somewhat an authority on rape, must know the consequence of that. No, you have failed—and I am sorry of your failure.”

  “I love you,” he said miserably.

  “You speak as though it were some new, tremendous thing. Many men have loved me; hundreds have said they did. But what are you going to do with me, Captain Morgan? My husband is in Peru, and my inheritance is there also.”

  “I—I do not know.”

  “But am I to be a slave—a prisoner?”

  “Yes; I must take you away with me. The men would laugh at me, else. It would ruin discipline.”

  “If I must be a slave,” she said, “if I must go away from my own country, I hope I shall be your slave—yours or the property of a charming young buccaneer I met last night. But I do not think you will take me, Captain Morgan. No; I do not think you will force me to go, for I will, perhaps, twist the knife I have already in your breast.”

  Henry Morgan was aroused.

  “Who was this young buccaneer?” he asked crossly.

  “Ah, you perceive the knife,” said Ysobel. “And how do I know the fellow? But he was charming, and I should like to see him again.”

  The captain’s eyes were flaming with rage.

  “You will be locked up,” he said harshly. “You will remain in a cell until the time when we go again to Chagres. And we shall see whether this knife you speak of is sharp enough to keep you here in Panama.”

  As she followed him across the garden to her jail, her clear laughter rang out. “Captain Morgan, it has just occurred to me—I have begun to see that a great many different kinds of men make the same kind of husband.”

  “Get to your cell,” he ordered her.

  “Oh—and Captain Morgan, you will find an old woman on the steps of the Palace. My duenna, she is. Send her to me, please. And now, good-by for the time, sir; I must get to my devotions. The sin to be dissolved, Captain Morgan, is truthfulness. It is a bad thing for the soul, truthfulness.”

  He went slowly back to his chair in the Hall of Audience. He was filled with a kind of shame for his manhood. It was as though she had plucked his rapier from its scabbard and scratched his face with it while he stood helpless before her. She had beaten him without apparent effort. Now he quailed before the knowledge of his men’s laughter when they discovered his embarrassment. There would be snickering when his back was turned. Groups of pirates would be silent as he passed, and when he had gone they would break into sharp laughter. This hidden ridicule was terrifying to Henry Morgan. His hates began to raise their heads; hatreds not for Ysobel, but for his own men who would laugh at him; for the people of Tortuga who would tell the story in the taverns; for the whole Indian Coast.

  Now from the little prison across the garden came a shrill voice praying to the Virgin. The penetrating sound charged the whole Palace with a fervent cacophony. Henry Morgan listened with shame-sharpened ears for mockery in the words or in the tone, but there was no mockery. Over and over, a shrill Ave Maria; the tone of a fearful, pleading sinner—Ora pro nobis. A shattered world, and the black skeleton of a golden city—Ora pro nobis. No mockery at all, but broken-hearted repentance reading its poor testimony on the dropping beads. A shrill woman’s voice, piercing, insistent—it seemed to be digging at a tremendous, hopeless sin. She had said it was the sin of truthfulness. “I have been honest in my being, and that is a black lie on the soul. Forgive my body its humanity. Forgive my mind which knows its limitations. Pardon my soul for being anchored this little time to both. Ora pro nobis.”

  The mad, endless rosary cankered in Henry’s brain. At last he seized his rapier and his hat and ran from the hall into the street. Behind him the treasure lay smiling under the slanting sun.

  The streets about the Governor’s Palace had not been touched by the fire. Captain Morgan walked along the paved way until he came to the ways of ruin. Here blackened walls had spilled their stones into the road. Those houses which had been made of cedar were vanished into the frames of smoking ashes which marked their places. Here and there lay murdered citizens grinning their last agony into the sky.

  “Their faces will
be black before the night,” Henry thought. “I must have them removed or the sickness will come.”

  Dallying clouds of smoke still arose from the city, filling the air with the sickly odor of damp things burning. The green hills beyond the plain seemed incredible to Henry Morgan. He regarded them closely and then looked back at the city. This destruction which had seemed so complete, so awful, during the night, was, after all, a pitifully small and circumscribed destruction. Henry had not thought of the hills remaining green and standing. This conquest, then, was more or less unimportant. Yes, the city was in ruins. He had destroyed the city, but the woman who had drawn him to the Cup of Gold eluded him. She escaped while she still lay in his power. Henry winced at his impotence, and shuddered that other people should know it.

  A few buccaneers were poking about in the ashes, looking for melted plate which might have escaped the search of the night before. Turning a corner, Henry came upon the little Cockney Jones, and saw him quickly thrust something into his pocket. A flame of rage arose in Captain Morgan. Cœur de Gris had said that there was no difference between this epileptic dwarf and Henry Morgan. No difference, indeed! This man was a thief. The rage changed to a fearful lust to hurt the little man, to outrage him, to hold him up to scorn as Henry Morgan had been scorned. The cruel desire made the captain’s lips grow thin and white.

  “What have you in your pocket?”

  “Nothing—nothing, sir.”

  “Let me see what you have in your pocket.” The captain was pointing a heavy pistol.

  “It’s nothing, sir—only a little crucifix! I found it.” He drew out a golden cross studded with diamonds, and on it a Christ of ivory. “You see, it’s for my wife,” the Cockney explained.

  “Ah! for your Spanish wife!”

  “She’s half negro, sir.”

  “You know the penalty for concealing spoil?”

  Jones looked at the pistol and his face grayed. “You would not— Oh, sir, you would not—” he began chokingly. Then he seemed to be clutched by invisible, huge fingers. His arms dropped stiffly to his sides, his lips sagged open, and a dull, imbecilic light came into his eyes. There was a little foam on his lips. His whole body twitched like a wooden dancing figure on a string.

  Captain Morgan fired.

  For a moment the Cockney seemed to grow smaller. His shoulders drew in until they nearly covered his chest, like short wings. His hands clenched, and then the whole contracted mass fell to the ground, convulsing like a thick, animate jelly. His lips drew back from his teeth in a last idiot snarl.

  Henry Morgan stirred the body with his foot, and a change stirred in his mind. He had killed this man. It was his right to kill, to burn, to plunder—not because he was ethical nor even because he was clever, but because he was strong. Henry Morgan was the master of Panama and all its people. There was no will in Panama save Henry Morgan’s will. He could slaughter every human in the country if he so chose. All this was true. No one would deny it. But in the Palace back there was a woman who held his power and his will in contempt, and her contempt was a stronger weapon than his will. She fenced at his embarrassment and touched him at her convenience. But how could that be? he argued. No one was master in Panama but himself, and he had just killed a man to prove it. Under the battering of his arguments the power of Ysobel waned and slowly disappeared. He would go back to the Palace. He would force her as he had promised. This woman had been treated with too much consideration. She did not realize the significance of slavery, nor did she know the iron of Henry Morgan.

  He turned about and walked back toward the Palace. In the Hall of Audience he threw off his pistols, but the gray rapier remained at his side.

  Ysobel was kneeling before a holy picture in her little whitewashed cell when Henry Morgan burst upon her. The dried duenna shrank into a corner at the sight of him, but Ysobel regarded him intently, noted his flushed face, his half-closed, fierce eyes. She heard his heavy breathing, and with a smile of comprehension rose to her feet. Her laughter rang banteringly as she drew a pin from her bodice and assumed the position of a fencer, one foot forward, her left arm held behind her for balance, the pin pointed before her like a foil.

  “En garde!” she cried. Then the captain rushed at her. His arms encircled her shoulders and his hands were tearing at her clothing. Ysobel stood quite still, but one hand darted about with its pin—striking, striking—like a small white serpent. Little spots of blood appeared on Henry’s cheeks, on his throat.

  “Your eyes next, captain,” she said quietly, and stabbed him thrice on the cheekbone. Henry released her and stepped away, wiping his bloody face with the back of his hand. Ysobel laughed at him. A man may beat—may subject to every violation—a woman who cries and runs away, but he is helpless before one who stands her ground and only laughs.

  “I heard a shot,” she said. “I thought perhaps you had killed some one to justify your manhood. But your manhood will suffer now, will it not? Word of this encounter will get about somehow; you know how such things travel. It will be told that you were beaten with a pin in the hands of a woman.” Her tone was gloating and cruel.

  Henry’s hand slipped to his side, and the lean rapier crept from its sheath like a frozen serpent. The light licked viciously along its lank blade. At last the needle point came out, and the steel turned and pointed at the woman’s breast.

  Ysobel grew sick with terror. “I am a sinner,” she said. Then a dawning relief came into her face. She motioned the aged duenna to her and spoke in rapid, clattering Spanish.

  “It is true,” said the old woman. “It is true.”

  At the end of her speaking, Ysobel thriftily drew aside the webby lace of her mantilla that it might not be spotted with blood. The duenna began interpreting.

  “Sir, my mistress says that a true Catholic who dies at the hand of an infidel goes to heaven. This is true. Further, she says that a Catholic woman who dies protecting her holy marriage vow goes straightway to heaven. This also is true. Lastly, she thinks that such a woman might, in course of time, be canonized. Such things have happened. Ah, sir! Captain, be kind! Permit me to kiss her hand, now, before you strike. What grace to have kissed the hand of a living saint! It may do much for my own sinful soul.”

  Ysobel spoke to her again.

  “My mistress bids you strike; more, she urges it, pleads for the blow. The angels are hovering about her head. She sees the great light, and the holy music is sounding in her ears.”

  The rapier point lowered. Henry Morgan turned away and gazed out into the sunlit garden. Little Chico came galloping along the path and sat down in the open doorway. The little beast clasped his paws and raised them above his head as though in prayer. The lean rapier made a sharp swishing sound as it drove into its scabbard. And Captain Morgan stooped to pick up the tiny monkey. He walked away stroking Chico’s head with his forefinger.

  V

  Henry Morgan lifted a golden cup from the heap of loot. It was a lovely, slender chalice with long curved handles and a rim of silver. Around its outer edge four grotesque lambs chased each other, and inside, on the bottom, a naked girl lifted her arms in sensual ecstasy. The captain turned the cup in his hands. Then, suddenly, he hurled it at a little fiery pyramid of diamonds. The stones scattered from their neat pile with a dry, rustling sound. Henry Morgan turned and went back to his serpent chair. He was thinking of the little Cockney, Jones; thinking of the cold hand of epilepsy which had seized him in his last moment of life. The hand had been always behind him, a giant hand to wring the man’s body until the white drops of agony oozed from his lips. Henry wondered, now, why he had wanted to hurt the little man, to torture him, and finally to kill him. Jones had been shadowed through all his life by a sleepless tormentor. Of course, this murder had been caused by the words of Cœur de Gris who had said that Jones was like Henry Morgan. Yes, he knew it now, and he knew, also, a red shame for his trumped charge of thievery. Why could he not have killed the man without explanation?

  And Cœu
r de Gris—where was he now? He had seen Ysobel—that was fairly sure—and she had noticed him. Perhaps she loved Cœur de Gris, with his bright hair and his curious way with women. And how could he keep this young man from knowing his defeat, from hearing the adventure of the pin and all the ignominy of Henry Morgan’s dealings with La Santa Roja? The pistol which had killed Jones was lying on the floor. Henry picked it up and methodically went to loading it. He did not fear ridicule from Cœur de Gris, but rather sympathy and understanding. Henry did not want understanding now. His lieutenant would look at him with compassion and some pity; and there would be something superior about the pity, something faintly ironic. It would be the pity of a young, handsome man who condones the amorous failure of one not so handsome. And then, Cœur de Gris was something like a woman for knowing things—something like Ysobel. He gathered information with a mysterious hidden eye.

  And the Red Saint. Henry must take her away with him, of course. He could do nothing else. Perhaps, after a long time, she would fall in love with him, but not, surely, because of merits in himself. Her contempt had convinced him that he had no merits; that he was a monstrous being, set apart from other men by unmentionable ugliness. She had not said so much, but she had intimated it. No, he had not the qualities like to draw a woman to his side when there were other men about. But perhaps, if she saw no other men, she might ignore the qualities so lacking in him. She might come, at last, to build on something he possessed.

  He thought of the last scene with her. Now that he was calm, his wild action seemed the showing off of a thick-legged little boy. But how could any man have done otherwise? She had beaten assault with laughter—sharp, cruel laughter which took his motives out and made sport of them. He might have killed her; but what man could kill a woman who wanted to be killed, who begged to be killed? The thing was impossible. He rammed a bullet into the muzzle of his pistol.

  A draggled, unkempt figure came through the doorway. It was Cœur de Gris, a red-eyed, mud-spattered Cœur de Gris with the blood of the battle still on his face. He looked at the heap of treasure.