Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Textbook Human and Machine Learning Visible Explainable Trustworthy and Transparent Jianlong Zhou Ebook All Chapter PDF
Textbook Human and Machine Learning Visible Explainable Trustworthy and Transparent Jianlong Zhou Ebook All Chapter PDF
https://textbookfull.com/product/explainable-and-interpretable-
models-in-computer-vision-and-machine-learning-hugo-jair-
escalante/
https://textbookfull.com/product/interpretable-ai-building-
explainable-machine-learning-systems-meap-v02-ajay-thampi/
https://textbookfull.com/product/medical-image-recognition-
segmentation-and-parsing-machine-learning-and-multiple-object-
approaches-1st-edition-zhou/
https://textbookfull.com/product/learn-data-mining-through-excel-
a-step-by-step-approach-for-understanding-machine-learning-
methods-1st-edition-hong-zhou/
https://textbookfull.com/product/visible-learning-guide-to-
student-achievement-schools-edition-john-hattie/
https://textbookfull.com/product/machine-learning-foundations-
supervised-unsupervised-and-advanced-learning-taeho-jo/
https://textbookfull.com/product/hyperparameter-optimization-in-
machine-learning-make-your-machine-learning-and-deep-learning-
models-more-efficient-1st-edition-tanay-agrawal/
Human–Computer Interaction Series
Human and
Machine
Learning
Visible, Explainable, Trustworthy and
Transparent
Human–Computer Interaction Series
Editors-in-Chief
Desney Tan
Microsoft Research, Redmond, USA
Jean Vanderdonckt
Université catholique de Louvain, Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/6033
Jianlong Zhou Fang Chen
•
Editors
123
Editors
Jianlong Zhou Fang Chen
DATA61 DATA61
CSIRO CSIRO
Eveleigh, NSW, Australia Eveleigh, NSW, Australia
This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer International Publishing AG
part of Springer Nature
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Foreword
Machine learning has transitioned from an arcane and obscure research area to one
of the hottest technologies around. Like other new and general purpose technolo-
gies, this rise to prominence brings social issues to the forefront. When electricity
was the plaything of eccentric hobbyists, it was of little concern to most people.
When it became infrastructure, many more took an interest because it directly
started affecting their lives. Machine learning is now affecting everyone’s lives, and
reasonably, higher demands are being made about the technology as a consequence.
Thus, the book you hold in your hand is timely and important. Machine learning
is arcane. It makes use of sophisticated mathematics and unimaginably complex
data to seemingly magically ascertain patterns that were previously hidden from the
view. As it becomes widely deployed, this arcaneness becomes a problem.
Machine learning offers the opportunity for great good, but also for great harm.
A first step in taming the new technology is to better understand it, and in particular
understand each of its manifestations when embedded in a social context. That is
the focus of this book. This is not a simple problem. Neither is it a single problem,
and that plurality and messiness is reflected in the diverse approaches in the book.
There is not (and cannot be) a single solution to this problem. Indeed, at present, I
do not believe we have an adequate handle on what ‘the problem’ is. We can wave
our arms about the need for transparency and understandability and accountability,
but what do those big words really mean? We can only find out by hard analysis
and thinking, and by attempting to build real systems, and importantly, doing
rigorous scientific experiments with such systems.
This is a new chapter for machine learning researchers, necessitating the mastery
of a much richer set of ways of knowing. The editors of the book have been at the
forefront of this richer view, and they have assembled an eclectic set of contributions
that start to make sense of the exciting problem situation we now find ourselves in.
This is not the last word on the subject. But it is a very important first step.
v
Preface
With the rapid boom of data from various fields such as infrastructure, transport,
energy, health, education, telecommunications and finance, data analytics-driven
solutions are increasingly demanded for different purposes. From management
service delivery to customer support and all the way to specialised decision support
systems, domain users are looking to integrate ‘Big Data’ and advanced analytics
into their business operations in order to become more analytics-driven in their
decision-making (which is also known as predictive decision-making). Rapid
advances in Machine Learning (ML) research have been inspired by such expec-
tations. While we continuously find ourselves coming across ML-based appealing
systems that seem to work (or have worked) surprisingly well in practical scenarios
(e.g. AlphaGO’s beating with professional GO players, and the self-driving cars for
deciding to choose among different road conditions), ML technologies are currently
still facing prolonged challenges with user acceptance of delivered solutions as well
as seeing system misuse, disuse or even failure.
These fundamental challenges can be attributed to the nature of the ‘black-box’
of ML methods for domain experts and a lack of consideration of the human user
aspects when offering ML-based solutions. For example, for many non-ML users,
they simply provide source data to an ML-based predictive decision-making sys-
tem, and after selecting some menu options on screen, the system displays colourful
viewgraphs and/or recommendations as output. It is neither clear nor well under-
stood how ML algorithms processed input data to get predictive probabilities, how
trustworthy was this output, or how uncertainties were handled by underlying
algorithmic procedures. That is, explanation and transparency of ML are significant
for domain users to trust and use ML confidently in their practices. To this end,
visual representation plays a significant role in fostering the understanding of ML
mechanisms. As a result, demands for visible, explainable, trustworthy and trans-
parent ML are increasing as the use of predictive decision-making systems grows
and as people realise the potential impact of these systems in society. For example,
Google launched a new initiative of ‘People + AI Research’ (PAIR) in 2017 to
study and redesign the ways human interact with AI systems. The PAIR focuses on
vii
viii Preface
the ‘human side’ of AI: the relationship between humans and technology, the new
applications it enables and how to make it broadly inclusive.
The above observations and discussions motivate the editing of this book: Human
and Machine Learning: Visible, Explainable, Trustworthy and Transparent. This
edited book makes a systematic investigation into the relations between human and
machine learning, and reports the state-of-the-art advances in theories, techniques
and applications of transparent machine learning. The book specifically focuses on
four aspects of ML from a human user’s perspective: visible, explainable, trust-
worthy and transparent. The book consists of six parts, which are based on the
systematic understanding of the current active research activities and the outcomes
related to the topic of human and machine learning. The six parts cover the areas of
transparency in machine learning, visual explanation of ML processes/results,
algorithmic explanation of ML models, human cognitive responses in ML-based
decision-making, human evaluation of machine learning and domain knowledge in
transparent ML applications.
Part I investigates the Transparency in machine learning when applying ML to
real-world applications. This part presents a 2D transparency space which integrates
domain users and ML experts to translate ML into impacts. It demonstrates that
transparency not only includes ML method transparency but also means input
influence transparency and user response transparency. The transparency in ML is
investigated from various perspectives in this part. From the perspective of fairness,
the involvement of the human in ML stages such as collecting data, building a model
and reporting the results introduces various bias, for example, data can be collected
and labelled in a biased way which is discriminative against a certain race, gender,
ethnicity or age, resulting in unfair models. The transparency in ML is the first step
towards ethical and fair ML models. From the end-user’s perspective, the End-User
Development (EUD) models are used to create an end-user data analytics paradigm
for transparent machine learning. From the cognitive perspective, the knowledge
transfer in human deep cognitive learning benefits the transparency in ML by
considering human cognitive processes in the ML design and implementation. From
the communication perspective, the impediment to a human’s situation awareness of
ML-based systems often results in the disuse or over-reliance of ML-based auton-
omous systems. The Situation Awareness-based Agent Transparency (SAT) aims to
communicate ML in autonomous systems.
Part II features visualisation for the explanation and understanding of ML models.
The visualisation is not simply to make ML models visible but to foster under-
standing by the viewer. This part specifically focuses on the visual explanation of the
neural network which is one of the most complex ML models to understand. For
example, with the use of saliency map visualisation, it is possible to localise
the regions that affect image classifications to understand and interpret the
Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) classification mechanisms. Six case studies
are also discussed to investigate visual representation and explanation of neural
networks crossing disciplinary boundaries, focusing on extracting semantic encod-
ings, developing interactive interfaces, discovering critical cases and negotiating
cultural images of neural networks.
Preface ix
Our timely research on ‘human and machine learning’ for transparent machine
learning was originally motivated for investigation at National ICT Australia
(NICTA) (now DATA61) in early 2012. Our research outcomes together with the
increasing significance of transparent machine learning in the community as well as
the yearly consistent support from DATA61 inspire the editing of this volume
Human and Machine Learning: Visible, Explainable, Trustworthy and Transparent.
We would like to express our sincere appreciation to NICTA/DATA61 for its
continuous strong support to this research.
This edited book represents the state-of-the-art advances in the area of ‘human
and machine learning’, to which all authors contributed their excellent wisdom to
make it an integrated volume from both research and application’s perspectives. We
express our deepest gratitude to all authors for their outstanding contributions and
effective collaborations.
Our appreciation is also given to our reviewers, who voluntarily spent many of
hours to give insightful comments and suggestions. We would also like to thank
Springer Editorial Director Beverley Ford and her colleagues for their highest level
of professional support to this book’s publication.
We would also like to thank Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
through Asian Office of Aerospace R&D (AOARD) for research grants to supporting
editors in their different projects on human–machine interactions exploring human
behaviours and responses to automation systems and predictive decision-making.
xi
Contents
xiii
xiv Contents
xvii
xviii Contributors
xxi
xxii Acronyms
Abstract Machine Learning (ML) is currently facing prolonged challenges with the
user acceptance of delivered solutions as well as seeing system misuse, disuse, or even
failure. These fundamental challenges can be attributed to the nature of the “black-
box” of ML methods for domain users when offering ML-based solutions. That is,
transparency of ML is essential for domain users to trust and use ML confidently
in their practices. This chapter argues for a change in how we view the relation-
ship between human and machine learning to translate ML results into impact. We
present a two-dimensional transparency space which integrates domain users and
ML experts together to make ML transparent. We identify typical Transparent ML
(TML) challenges and discuss key obstacles to TML, which aim to inspire active
discussions of making ML transparent with a systematic view in this timely field.
1.1 Introduction
With the rapid boom of data from various fields such as biology, finance, medicine,
and society, data analytics-driven solutions are increasingly demanded for different
purposes. From government service delivery to commercial transactions and all the
way to specialised decision support systems, domain users are looking to integrate
“Big Data” and advanced analytics into their business operations in order to become
more analytics-driven in their decision making (which is also known as predictive
decision making) [29]. Rapid advances in Machine Learning (ML) research have
been inspired by such expectations. While we continuously find ourselves coming
across ML-based appealing systems that seem to work (or have worked) surprisingly
© Crown 2018 3
J. Zhou and F. Chen (eds.), Human and Machine Learning, Human–Computer
Interaction Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90403-0_1
4 J. Zhou and F. Chen
well in practical scenarios (e.g. AlphaGO’s beating with professional GO players, and
the self-driving cars for choosing between different road conditions), ML technolo-
gies are currently still facing prolonged challenges with user acceptance of delivered
solutions as well as seeing system misuse, disuse, or even failure. These fundamen-
tal challenges can be attributed to the nature of the “black-box” of ML methods
for domain experts and a lack of consideration of the human aspects when offer-
ing ML-based solutions [39]. For example, for many of non-ML users, they simply
provide source data to an ML-based predictive decision making system, and after
selecting some menu options on screen, the system displays colourful viewgraphs
and/or recommendations as output [48]. It is neither clear nor well understood that
how ML algorithms processed input data to get predictive probabilities, how trust-
worthy was this output, or how uncertainties were handled by underlying algorithmic
procedures. That is, transparency of ML is significant for domain users to trust and
use ML confidently in their practices. As a result, demands for ML transparency are
increasing as the use of predictive decision making systems grows and as humans
realise the potential impact of these systems in society.
Therefore, besides the development of ML algorithms, the research of introducing
humans into the ML loop and making ML transparent has emerged recently as one of
the active research fields recently [18, 20, 45]. Other terms are also used to refer to
such researches, e.g. human-in-the-loop machine learning [19], human interpretabil-
ity in machine learning [18], or eXplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) [14] and
others. We use Transparent Machine Learning (TML) in this chapter. TML aims
to translate ML into impacts by allowing domain users understand ML-based data-
driven inferences to make trustworthy decisions confidently based on ML results,
and allowing ML to be accessible by domain users without requiring training in
complex ML algorithms and mathematical concepts. TML results in evolutionary
improvements of the existing state of practice, for example,
• TML not only helps domain users proactively use ML outputs for informative and
trustworthy decision making, but also allows users to see if an artificial intelligence
system is working as desired;
• TML can help detect causes for an adverse decision and therefore can provide
guidance on how to reverse it;
• TML allows effective interactions with ML algorithms, thus providing opportuni-
ties to the improve impact of ML algorithms in real-world applications.
Various approaches ranging from visualisation of the ML process to algorithmic
explanations of ML methods have been investigated to make ML understandable
and transparent [2, 9]. Yet these efforts are highly biased towards explaining ML
algorithms, and are largely based on abstract visualisation or statistical algorithms,
which introduce further complexities to domain users.
According to Wagstaff’s [39] three-stage model of presenting an ML research
program (the stage 1 is the preparation stage for an ML research program, the stage
2 is the development of ML algorithms, and the stage 3 is the impact stage of ML
methods on real-world applications), the ML algorithm development is only one of
three stages in the overall pipeline. Therefore the current highly biased ML algorithm
1 2D Transparency Space—Bring Domain Users and Machine … 5
explanation ignores the other two critical stages to translate ML results into impact.
The success of the other two stages of preparation of an ML program and deployment
of ML results is highly dependent on human users and therefore human factors. This
is because that the judgement of ML results as “right” or “wrong” is an activity
that comes after apprehension, which needs a very human intervention [36, 40].
Furthermore, the current visualisation or algorithmic explanations of ML are isolated
from the two other stages and are rarely accompanied by an assessment of whether
or how human factors from the preparation stage and deployment stage affect ML
algorithm explanations or how the three stages interact with each other.
This also occurs because there is no a systematic understanding of the problem of
making ML transparent. A systematic view of TML can be used as the guidance for
future investigations in this timely field in order to translate ML results into impact
in real-world applications. Furthermore, many TML or ML explanation approaches
are phrased in terms of answering why a prediction/classification is made. It is time
for us to ask questions of a larger scope: What is TML’s ideal objective? What are
the roles of domain users in TML? Can we maximize the transparency of ML by
approaches besides explaining ML algorithms? Or can we characterise ML-based
solutions in a more meaningful way that measures the user’s cognitive responses
because of ML transparency?
In this chapter, we argue for a change in how we view the relationship between
human and machine learning to translate ML results into impact. The contributions of
this work include: (1) identifying a fundamental problem in making ML transparent:
a lack of connection between domain users and ML experts; (2) suggesting a two-
dimensional (2D) transparency space which integrates the domain users and ML
experts together to make ML transparent; (3) introducing transparent questions and
transparent uses as well as feedback into the 2D transparency space from domain
user’s perspective to make ML transparent; (4) identifying example TML challenges
to the community; and (5) finding several key obstacles to TML. This chapter does
not propose ML algorithms or present experimental results but inspires a systematic
view of making ML transparent in this timely field for further active discussions to
improve the impact of ML in real-world applications.
This section highlights related work conducted recently and demonstrates their lim-
itations in making ML transparent.
visualisation methods are used to examine specific values and show probabilities of
picked objects visually for Naïve–Bayes [5, 26], decision trees [3], Support Vector
Machines (SVMs) [7], or Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) [10]. Advanced visuali-
sation techniques are then proposed to present more complex ML processes. Erra et
al. [12] introduced a visual clustering which utilises a collective behavioral model.
Each data item is represented by an agent visualised with a metaphor in 3D domain.
Visualisation helps users to understand and guide the clustering process. Huang et
al. [17] used a visual clustering for assisting the analysis of email attacks. Paiva
et al. [30] presented an approach that employs the similarity tree visualisation to
distinguish groups of interest within the data set.
Visualisation is also used as an interaction interface for users in data analysis. For
example, Guo et al. [15] introduced a visual interface named Nugget Browser allow-
ing users to interactively submit subgroup mining queries for discovering interesting
patterns dynamically. Talbot et al. [38] proposed EnsembleMatrix allowing users to
visually ensemble multiple classifiers together and provides a summary visualisation
of results of these multiple classifiers. Zhou et al. [48] revealed states of key internal
variables of ML models with interactive visualisation to let users perceive what is
going on inside a model.
More recent work tries to use visualisation as an interactive tool to facilitate
ML diagnosis. ModelTracker [2] provides an intuitive visualisation interface for
ML performance analysis and debugging. Chen et al. [8] proposed an interactive
visualisation tool by combining ten state-of-the-art visualisation methods in ML
(shaded confusion matrix, ManiMatrix, learning curve, learning curve of multiple
models, McNemar Test matrix, EnsembleMatrix, Customized SmartStripes, Cus-
tomized ModelTracker, confusion matrix with sub-categories, force-directed graph)
to help users interactively carry out a multi-step diagnosis for ML models. Krause
et al. [23, 24] presented an interactive visual diagnostic tool for ML models based
on the concept of partial dependence to communicate how features affect the predic-
tion, as well as support for tweaking feature values and seeing how the prediction
responds.
Visualisations comprise the major body of ML process explanations. However,
the abstract visualisations may introduce more complexities to users. Furthermore,
without the consideration of how a domain problem is phrased as an ML task and
what user cognitive responses on ML-based decisions are, users still have difficulty
understanding the overall ML process with abstract visualisations.
As the ultimate frontline users of ML-based systems, humans are the key stakeholders
and human factors such as user trust are essential in extracting and delivering more
sensible and effective insights from data science technologies [13]. From this per-
spective, Zhou et al. [44, 47] argued that communicating human cognitive responses
such as user trust (on ML results) and confidence (in decision making based on
ML results) benefit the evaluation of effectiveness of ML approaches. On the one
hand, human cognition status could help understand to what degree humans accept
innovative technologies. On the other hand, through understanding human cogni-
tion status in predictive decision making, ML-based decision attributes and even
8 J. Zhou and F. Chen
Usually, it is more acceptable for domain users to get an understanding of data and
their analysis with the use of domain knowledge. Therefore, domain knowledge is
used in ML for different purposes. For example, Sun and DeJong [37] proposed
explanation-augmented SVMs by incorporating domain knowledge into SVMs to
identify the “important” features in the explained instance that are allowed to con-
tribute to the kernel inner product evaluation. In the Bayesian network, domain
knowledge is used to judge the form of linear inequality and approximate equal-
ity constraints on Bayesian network parameters to improve learning accuracy [46].
Domain knowledge is also used as a form of restrictions (e.g. existence or absence
of arcs or edges between nodes) to improve Bayesian network structure (e.g. in less
time) [11]. Altendorf et al. [1] used domain knowledge on qualitative monotonicity
to guide the process of finding the maximum likelihood parameters. Williams and
Mostafa [42] used domain knowledge of anticipated changes between the source and
target tasks to reduce prediction uncertainty in active transfer learning. Interestingly,
Harrison et al. [16] used sociocultural knowledge presented in stories to train vir-
tual agents and robots to exhibit desired behaviours using reinforcement learning.
Peng et al. [32] investigated the strategy of non-expert humans in curriculum learn-
ing and showed its potentials in the reinforcement learning process to improve the
learning performance.
1 2D Transparency Space—Bring Domain Users and Machine … 9
Before giving more details on TML, this section presents the current workflow of
applying ML technologies to a practical problem with the use of water pipe failure
prediction as a case study, in order to motivate TML approaches. Water supply net-
works constitute one of the most crucial and valuable urban assets. The combination
of growing populations and ageing pipe networks requires water utilities to develop
advanced risk management strategies in order to maintain their distribution systems
in a financially viable way [28]. Especially for critical water mains (generally >300
mm in diameter), failure of defining based on the network location (e.g. a single
trunk line connecting distribution areas or under a major road) or size which infers
impact potential, failure of them typically bring severe consequences due to service
interruptions and negative economic and social impacts, such as flooding and traf-
fic disruption, which can cost millions of dollars [28]. From an asset management
perspective there are two goals for critical mains management [41]: (1) minimise
unexpected critical mains failure by prioritising timely renewals; (2) avoid replacing
a pipe too early before the end of its economic life. Thus, utility companies use
outcomes from failure prediction models, to make renewal plans based on risk levels
of pipes and reasonable budget plans for pipe maintenance.
Figure 1.1 illustrates the workflow of phrasing water pipe failures as an ML pro-
gram in the current practice. In this workflow, original domain data (in the format of
various spread sheets and images) are firstly collected from customers. Interviews
with domain experts are then arranged to learn details of the water pipes, such as
what factors affect pipe failures from the domain experts’ view, how domain experts
predict pipe failures in their routine work. After this stage, the original domain data
are cleaned in order to be processed easily by future stages, such as removing records
with missing information or inputting default values in records with missing informa-
tion. After cleaning the data, ML method developers try to get an overview of domain
data and learn some patterns in the data. Based on the overview of the cleaned data,
various data features are derived and ML models are developed. In order to allow
users to easily perceive ML results, visualisation of ML results is then presented.
The results need to be explained to users using domain knowledge. According to
the explanation of ML results, decisions are made to practice domain actions such
as digging out and replacing high risk pipes. From the practice actions, significant
information can be gathered such as whether pipes predicted as high risk ones are
confirmed or violated from actual digging. The information can be used as feedback
to the pipeline to improve effectiveness of the ML analysis, such as feature definition
and ML modeling.
10 J. Zhou and F. Chen
Instead of just explaining why a certain prediction is being made with abstract visual-
isation or more complex mathematical algorithms which add additional complexities
to domain users, can domain users play a greater role as they are the key stakeholders
of ML-based solutions? This is also not simply a matter of user studies on different
ML algorithms. A fundamental change is highly necessary in the overall workflow
of making ML transparent in applying ML to domain applications.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
corazón oprimido de pena y lleno de la noble envidia que infunde e
bien no merecido. En la ventana que frente a él estaba, un arbolillo
agitado por el viento, tocaba con sus ramas los vidrios. Varias veces
durante el curso del diálogo precedente, Salvador había mirado all
creyendo que alguien llamaba en los vidrios. Ya llegado el momento de
su desengaño, miró la rama, y viendo que daba más fuerte, murmuró
«Ya me voy, ya me voy».
Volviéndose otra vez a Sola, le dijo:
—Me has hablado en un lenguaje que no admite réplica. No debo
quejarme, pues he venido tarde, y habiendo tenido el bien en mi mano
durante mucho tiempo, lo he soltado para seguir locamente un camino
de aventuras. Pero algo me disculparán mi desgracia, mi destierro y
también mi pobreza, causa de que antes no te propusiera lo que ahora
te propongo. Aquí me tienes razonable, con esperanzas de ser rico, y
a pesar de tales ventajas, más desgraciado y más solo que antes.
Animada por el triunfo que había obtenido en su espíritu, Sola quiso
ir más allá, quiso hacer un alarde de valentía diciendo a su amigo: ya
encontrarás otra con quien casarte; pero cuando iba a pronunciar la
primera sílaba de esta frase triste, no tuvo ánimos para ello y fue
vencida por su congoja. No dijo nada.
—Yo quería —dijo Salvador no desesperanzado todavía— que
meditaras...
Sola, que vio un abismo delante de sí, quiso hacer lo que
vulgarmente se llama cortar por lo sano.
—No hables de eso... —dijo—. No puede ser... Figúrate que no
existo.
Sin darse cuenta de ello, le miró con lágrimas. Pero sobrecogida
repentinamente de miedo, se levantó y corriendo a la ventana se puso
a mirar los morales al través de los vidrios. Allí la infeliz imaginó un
engaño o salida ingeniosa para justificar su emoción. Volviose a él
segura de salir bien de tal empeño.
—¿Sabes por qué lloro? Porque me acuerdo de tu pobre madre
que murió en mis brazos, desconsolada por no verte... Dejome un
encargo para ti, un paquetito donde hay una carta y varias alhajas
encargándome que a nadie lo fiara y que te lo diera en tu propia mano
¡Y yo tan tonta que no te lo he dado aún, cuando no debí hacer otra
cosa desde que entraste!... Lo que me confió tu madre no se separa
nunca de mí... Aquí lo tengo y voy a traértelo.
Sin esperar respuesta, Sola subió a su habitación, y al poco rato
puso en manos de Monsalud un paquete cuidadosamente cerrado con
lacres. Salvador lo abrió con mano trémula. Lo primero que sacó fue
una carta, que besó muchas veces. En pie al lado de su amigo, que
continuaba en el sofá de paja, Sola no podía apartar los ojos de
aquellos interesantes objetos. La carta tenía varios pliegos. Salvado
pasó la vista rápidamente por ellos antes de leer.
—¡Mira, mira lo que dice aquí! —exclamó señalando una línea—. M
madre me suplica que me case contigo.
—Te lo suplicaba hace mucho tiempo —dijo Sola, disimulando su
pena con cierta jocosidad afectada, que si no era propia del momento
venía bien como pantalla.
—Necesito una hora para leer esto —dijo Monsalud—. ¿Me
permites leerlo aquí?
Sola miró a las ventanas, y por un momento pareció aturdida Su
corazón atenazado le sugería clemencia, mientras la dignidad, e
deber y otros sentimientos muy respetables, pero un poco lúgubres
como los magistrados que condenan a muerte con arreglo a la justicia
le ordenaban ser cruel y despiadada con el advenedizo.
—Mucho siento decírtelo, hermano —manifestó la joven sonriendo
como se sonríe a veces el que van a ajusticiar—, lo siento muchísimo
pero... pronto anochecerá. Tú, que estás ahora tan razonable, me
dirás si es conveniente...
—Sí, debo marcharme —replicó Salvador levantándose.
—Debes marcharte y no volver... y no volver —afirmó ella marcando
muy bien las últimas palabras.
—¿Y qué pensaré de ti?
Sola meditó un rato y dijo:
—¡Que me he muerto!
Se apretaron las manos. Sola miraba fijamente al suelo. Fue aquella
la despedida de menos lances visibles que imaginarse puede. No pasó
nada, absolutamente nada, porque no puede llamarse acontecimiento
el que doña Sola y Monda se acercase a los vidrios de la ventana para
verle salir y que le estuviese mirando hasta que desapareció entre los
olivos, caballero en el más desvencijado rocín que han visto cuadras
toledanas. Ni es tampoco digno de mención el fenómeno (que no
sabemos si será óptico o qué será) de que Sola le siguiese viendo aun
después de que las ramas de los olivos y la creciente penumbra de la
tarde ocultaran completamente su persona.
La noche cayó sobre ella como una losa.
Fatigado y displicente, con los hábitos arremangados y su gran
caña de pescar al hombro, subía el padre Alelí la cuestecilla del olivar
Ya era de noche. Los muchachos acompañaban al fraile, trayendo e
uno la cesta, otro los aparejos y el pequeño dos ranas grandes y
verdes. Esto era lo único que el reino acuático había concedido
aquella tarde a la expedición piscatoria de que era patrón el buen Alelí
Todas nuestras noticias están conformes en que tampoco en las tardes
anteriores fueron más provechosas la paciencia del fraile y la
constancia de los muchachos para convencer a las truchas y otras
alimañas del aurífero río de la conveniencia de tragar el anzuelo; por lo
que Alelí volvía de muy mal talante a casa, echando pestes contra e
Tajo y sus riberas.
Todavía distaba de la casa unas cincuenta varas, cuando encontró
a Sola que lentamente bajaba como si se paseara, saliendo a
encuentro de las primeras ondas de aire fresco que de los cercanos
montes venían. Los niños menores la conocieron de lejos y volaron
hacia ella, saludándola con cabriolas y gritos, o colgándose de sus
manos para saltar más a gusto.
—¿Usted por aquí a estas horas? —dijo Alelí deteniendo el paso
para descansar—. La noche está buena y fresquecita. ¿Querrá usted
creer que tampoco esta tarde nos han dicho las truchas esta boca es
mía? Nada, pasan por los anzuelos y se ríen. Esos animalillos de Dios
han aprendido mucho desde mis tiempos, y ya no se dejan engañar..
Hola, hola, ¿no son estas pisadas de caballo? Por aquí ha pasado un
jinete. Dígame usted: ¿ha enviado Benigno algún propio con buenas
noticias?
Sola dio un grito terrible, que dejó suspenso y azorado a
bondadoso fraile. Fue que Jacobito puso una de las ranas sobre e
cuello de la joven. Sentir aquel contacto viscoso y frío y ver casi a
mismo tiempo el salto del animalucho rozándole la cara, fueron causa
de su miedo repentino; que este modo de asustarse y esta manera de
gritar son cosas propias de mujeres. Alelí esgrimió la caña como un
maestro de escuela, y dio dos cañazos al nene.
—¡Tonto, mal criado!
—No, no han venido buenas noticias —dijo Sola temblando.
Aquella noche cenaron como siempre, en paz y en gracia de Dios
hablando de Cordero y pronosticando su vuelta para un día próximo
La vida feliz de aquella buena gente no se alteró tampoco lo más
mínimo en los siguientes días. Sola estaba triste; pero siempre en su
puesto, siempre en su deber, y todas las ocupaciones de la casa
seguían su marcha regular y ordenada. Ninguna cosa faltó de su sitio
ni ningún hecho normal se retrasó de su marcada hora. La reina y
señora de la casa, inalterable en su imperio, lo regía con rectitud
pasmosa, cual si ninguno de sus pensamientos se distrajese de las
faenas domésticas. Interiormente fortalecía su alma con la
conformidad, y exteriormente con el trabajo.
Fuera de algunos breves momentos, ni el observador más
perspicaz habría notado alteración en ella. Estaba como siempre
grave sin sequedad, amable con todos, jovial cuando el caso lo
requería, enojada jamás. Sin embargo, cuando Crucita y ella se
sentaban a coser, podían oírse en boca de la hermana de don Benigno
observaciones como esta:
—Pero, mujer, está Mosquetín haciéndote caricias, y ni siquiera le
miras.
Sola se reía y acariciaba al perro.
—Hace días que estás no sé cómo... —continuaba el ama de
Mosquetín—. Nada, mujer, ya vendrán esos papeles; no te apures, no
seas tonta. Pues qué, ¿han de estar en la China esos cansados
legajos?... ¡Vaya cómo se ponen estas niñas del día cuando les llega
el momento de casarse! Todo no puede ser a qué quieres boca. Menos
orgullito, señora, que ya que el bobalicón de mi hermano ha querido
hacerte su mujer, Dios no ha de permitir que este disparate se realice
sin que te cueste malos ratos.
Sola reía de nuevo y acariciaba a Mosquetín.
Una mañana, los chicos, que se pasaban el día en la huerta
haciendo de las suyas, empezaron a gritar: «Padre, padre». Don
Benigno llegaba. Entró en la casa sofocado, ceñudo, limpiándose con
el pañuelo el copioso sudor de su inflamado rostro, y dejándose cae
en una silla con muestras de cansancio, no decía más que esto:
—¡Los papeles!... ¡Los papeles!... ¡Don Felicísimo!...
—¿Qué?... ¿Han parecido?... —le preguntó Sola con ansiedad.
—¡Qué han de parecer!... ¡Barástolis! No hay paciencia para esto
no hay paciencia...
XXIX