The Street of the Jewel is also connected with a story full of love and
its companion, despair. Here dwelled Gasper Villareal and his wife,
Violante Armejo. Gasper was a man of moderate means, but he had enough
to preserve his wife from labor. She was of wondrous beauty but quite
strange, she only cared to hide herself in her convent-like home. She
loved her husband, and he was as jealous as a Mexican can be.
One day a young noble, Diego de Fajardo, rode by the door, and, being
thirsty, he asked the mozo for a drink. Violante sat in the corridor,
looking upon the garden, and dreaming, doubtless, of her absent lord.
True to the instincts of her race, she ordered the mozo to take the
stranger a glass of wine. The servant did her bidding, explaining
to the young cavalier the reason of the change in his refreshments.
Diego de Fajardo felt that it would be churlish to ride away without
acknowledging the gracious hospitality. He tossed his bridle to the man
and passed into the garden.
Violante still sat in her hammock, garbed in spotless white, the
perfection of beauty, grace and innocence. The young _caballero_ had
not uttered his thanks until he had vowed to win Gasper Villareal's
lovely wife.
Day after day he watched the casa, waiting for an opportunity to find
the wife alone. At last fate favored him. It was near nightfall when he
saw the husband come forth, and, taking saddle, ride toward the city.
In a moment, eager and confident, he fell on his knees before Violante
and confessed his love.
She did not full into his arms, but she spurned him and with such anger
that he saw his conduct in its true light, and, repentant he arose from
his knees and left her. Violante started to her chamber to seek her
rosary and to cool her throbbing brow with the touch of holy water,
when her foot struck a sparkling object; it was a bracelet, with her
name, "Violante," in diamonds, close beside the coronet and arms of De
Fajardo.
As she stood her husband entered. Having to return for something, he
had been struck with horror to see a man rush from his gateway. There
stood his wife with the jewel in her hand, the evidence of her guilt.
Without a word he sunk his dagger in her breast. As she sunk lifeless
to the floor, he snatched the gleaming bracelet from her stiffening
fingers and left the house.
Diego do Fajardo was wakened in the morning by his mozo. Something had
happened and he was wanted to go out in the street to see if he could
understand it. Tremblingly he obeyed. On the pavement, Gasper Villareal
lay rigid, his garments soaked with his life's blood. Near the bronze
knocker of the massive door was a splendid diamond bracelet, suspended
on a blood-stained dagger.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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