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Updated: June 8, 2025
"That Rafael of ours," she would say to don Andrés, mimicking the long face he used to put on when bringing up her troubles with her husband, "what a rascal he is! I'll bet he's got both arms around her by this time!" "Let 'em alone, let 'em alone, doña Bernarda! The deeper in he gets with this one, the less likely he'll be to go back to the other." Back to her?... There was no fear of that.
Some afternoons doña Bernarda would take "the children" to her own orchards or to the wealthy holdings of don Matías. It was a sight worth seeing the kindly shrewdness with which she chaperoned the young couple, shouting with shocked alarm if they disappeared behind the orange-trees for a moment or two in their frolics.
He knew the bad state in which the great man had left his affairs upon his death; and more than once he had given money to doña Bernarda outright, proud that she should do him the honor of appealing to him in her straits. But in his eyes, the House of Brull, poor or rich, was always the House of Brull, the cradle of a dynasty whose authority no power could shake. He had money.
An indiscreet remark of Cupido had even brought her to the bottom of that mysterious and perilous night trip down the flooded river not to rescue a "poor family," but to call on that comica that "chorus girl" as doña Bernarda called Leonora in a furious burst of scorn. Stormy scenes occurred that were to leave a strong undercurrent of bitterness and fear in Rafael's character.
The women of other countries were not idle in this period of musical activity. Germany, in spite of her meagre records, can show at least one great name. Madelka Bariona, who lived during the sixteenth century, upheld the musical reputation of her country by publishing seven five-voiced psalms at Altdorf, in 1586. Bernarda Ferreira de Lacerda was of Portuguese nationality.
With a deliberate, determined lustfulness, he went scouring the District like a wild satyr, and his brutish assaults, his terrorism and abuse of authority, were reported back by scurrilous tongues to the seignorial mansion, where his friend don Andrés was trying in vain to pacify the wife. "That man!" doña Bernarda would stammer in her rage. "That man is going to ruin us!
His most enthusiastic adherents, without losing their traditional respect for him, would speak smilingly of his "weaknesses"; but at night, when don Ramón, exhausted by his struggle with the insatiable demon gnawing at his spirit, would be snoring painfully away, with a disgusting rattle that made it impossible for people in the house to sleep, doña Bernarda would sit up in her bed with her thin arms folded across her bosom, and pray to herself: "My Lord, My God!
And when the murmur of general protest reached the ears of doña Bernarda, she lifted her hands to heaven in despair. Where would it all end! Where would it all end! That son of hers was bent on ruining himself! Don Matías, the rustic millionaire, said nothing; and, in the presence of doña Bernarda, at least, pretended to know nothing.
Don Andrés at once grew serious, as if a frightful vision had suddenly passed before his eyes; and he added in a respectful tone: "But no: that was only a jest. Don't pay any attention to what I say. Your mother would be terribly provoked." The thought of doña Bernarda, the personification of austere, uncompromising virtue, chased the mirth from every face in the company.
When party exigencies forced don Ramón to be out of town, it was his wife, the energetic doña Bernarda, who attended to the consultations, issuing statements on party policy, as wise and apt as those of "the chief" himself. This collaboration in the upbuilding and the up-holding of the family influence was the single bond of union between husband and wife.
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