Rezanov [66]
restored the bars, and looked out over the fields of grain planted by the padres, the immense sand dunes beyond that shut the lovely bay from sight; the hills embracing the primitive scene in a frowning arc. With all her imagination it was long before she could picture a great city covering that immense and almost deserted space. A pueblo in time, perhaps, for Rezanov had awakened her mind to the importance of the har- bor as a port of call. Many more adobe homes where the sand was not hot and shifting, a few ships in the bay when Spain had been compelled to relax her jealous vigilance--or--who knew?--per- haps!--a flourishing colony when the Russian bear had devoured the Spanish lion. She knew some- thing and suspected more of the rottenness and in- efficiency of Spain, and, were Russia a nation of Rezanovs, what opposition in California against the tide thundering down from the north? Then, per- haps, the city that had travelled from the brain of the Russian to hers when the fog had rolled over the heights; the towers and palaces and bazaars, the thousand little golden domes with the slender cross atop; the forts on the crags and the villas in the hollows, and on all the island and hills. But when she and her lover were dust. When she and her lover were dust.
But she was too young and too ardent to listen long to the ravens of the spirit. Two years are not eternity, and in happiness the past rolls together like a scroll and is naught. She fell to dreaming. Her lips that had been set with the gravity of stone re- laxed in warm curves. The color came back to her cheek, the light to her eyes. She was a girl at her grating with the roses poignant above her, and the world, radiant, alluring, and all for her, swimming in the violet haze beyond.
XXII
Rezanov in those days was literally lord and mas- ter at the Presidio. If he did not burn the house of his devoted host he ran it to suit himself. He turned one of its rooms into an office, where he re- ceived the envoys from the different Missions and examined the samples of everything submitted to him, trusting little to his commissary. His leisure he employed scouring the country or shooting deer and quail in the company of his younger hosts. The literal mind of Don Jose accepted him as an actual son and embryonic California, and, his conscience at peace, revelled in his society as a sign from propitiated heaven; rejoicing in the virtue of his years. The Governor, testily remarking that as California was so well governed for the present he would retire to Monterey and take a siesta, rode off one morning, but not without an affectionate: "God preserve the life of your excellency many years."
But although Rezanov saw the most sanguine hopes that had brought him to California fulfilled, and although he looked from the mountain ridges of the east over the great low valleys watered by rivers and shaded by oaks, where enough grain could be raised to keep the blood red in a thousand times the colonial population of Russia, although he felt himself in more and more abundant health, more and more in love with life, it is not to be supposed for a moment that he was satisfied. Concha he barely saw. She remained with the Moragas, and although she came occasionally to the afternoon dances at the Presidio, and he had dined once at her cousin's house, where the formal betrothal had taken place and the marriage contract had been signed in the presence of her family and more inti- mate friends, the priests, his officers, and the Gov- ernor, he had not spoken with her for a moment alone. Nor had her eyes met his in a glance of understanding. At the dances she showed him no favor; and as the engagement was to be as secret as might be in that small community, until his re- turn with consent of Pope and King, he was forced to concede that her conduct was irreproachable; but when on the day of the betrothal she was oblivious to his efforts to draw her into the garden, he mounted his horse and rode off in a huff.
The truth was that Concha liked the present arrangement
But she was too young and too ardent to listen long to the ravens of the spirit. Two years are not eternity, and in happiness the past rolls together like a scroll and is naught. She fell to dreaming. Her lips that had been set with the gravity of stone re- laxed in warm curves. The color came back to her cheek, the light to her eyes. She was a girl at her grating with the roses poignant above her, and the world, radiant, alluring, and all for her, swimming in the violet haze beyond.
XXII
Rezanov in those days was literally lord and mas- ter at the Presidio. If he did not burn the house of his devoted host he ran it to suit himself. He turned one of its rooms into an office, where he re- ceived the envoys from the different Missions and examined the samples of everything submitted to him, trusting little to his commissary. His leisure he employed scouring the country or shooting deer and quail in the company of his younger hosts. The literal mind of Don Jose accepted him as an actual son and embryonic California, and, his conscience at peace, revelled in his society as a sign from propitiated heaven; rejoicing in the virtue of his years. The Governor, testily remarking that as California was so well governed for the present he would retire to Monterey and take a siesta, rode off one morning, but not without an affectionate: "God preserve the life of your excellency many years."
But although Rezanov saw the most sanguine hopes that had brought him to California fulfilled, and although he looked from the mountain ridges of the east over the great low valleys watered by rivers and shaded by oaks, where enough grain could be raised to keep the blood red in a thousand times the colonial population of Russia, although he felt himself in more and more abundant health, more and more in love with life, it is not to be supposed for a moment that he was satisfied. Concha he barely saw. She remained with the Moragas, and although she came occasionally to the afternoon dances at the Presidio, and he had dined once at her cousin's house, where the formal betrothal had taken place and the marriage contract had been signed in the presence of her family and more inti- mate friends, the priests, his officers, and the Gov- ernor, he had not spoken with her for a moment alone. Nor had her eyes met his in a glance of understanding. At the dances she showed him no favor; and as the engagement was to be as secret as might be in that small community, until his re- turn with consent of Pope and King, he was forced to concede that her conduct was irreproachable; but when on the day of the betrothal she was oblivious to his efforts to draw her into the garden, he mounted his horse and rode off in a huff.
The truth was that Concha liked the present arrangement