IN San Sebastián, a beautiful watering place on the northern coast of Guipúzcoa, Spain, Don Pío Baroja y Nessi was born on the 28th day of December, 1872. There, wandering among the foothills of the Pyrenees, listening to the talk of the hardy Basque peasants, playing on the beautiful crescent of the playa, sailing about the pretty land-locked harbour, he spent his childhood. In those early days he became thoroughly conversant with the Basque tongue—that mysterious and impossibly difficult language of whose true origin students are still in doubt.
His father was Don Serafín Baroja. Born in San Sebastián in 1840, Don Serafín was a well known mining engineer, and enjoyed no small amount of fame as a writer. As far as literature is concerned, he is perhaps best known for his songs and ballads written in the Basque tongue. He composed the libretto of the first Basque opera ever produced, the music of which was by Santesteban. He is said to have been responsible for the libretto of one other opera—a Spanish one.
His son, Don Pío, decided to take up the study of medicine, and he went to Valencia for that purpose. He received his doctorate in 1893, when he was but twenty-one years of age.
He practised his profession in Cestona, in the Province of Guipúzcoa. Life in that small, provincial town proved very dull indeed, and he decided that the medical profession was not his proper sphere. After two years in Cestona, he moved to Madrid. There he tried his hand at several kinds of business. He even set up a bakery in partnership with his brother Ricardo, a painter and engraver of no mean ability! We do not hear of his return to the practice of medicine. Evidently he had proved to his own satisfaction that he was not suited to it.
After he had failed in several attempts at business, he began writing for the newspapers. He succeeded in obtaining positions on El País, El Imparcial, and El Globo. His success in this line of work inspired him to further effort, and, from that time on (1900), he devoted himself entirely to literature.
His first published work was a collection of short stories, or sketches, entitled Vidas Sombrías. Among them are some exquisite pictures of Basque life. This volume was closely followed by a novel, La casa de Aizgorri. These two books scarcely caused a ripple in the literary circles of the Cortes. Certainly, Baroja cannot claim to have sprung into fame over night! His next attempt was a humorous novel which he called Aventuras, inventos y mixtificaciones de Silvestre Paradox. It was scarcely more successful than the first two.
His next book, Camino de perfección, was characterized as “a book of apparently sane tendencies”! From that time on, he became a recognized figure in the Spanish literature of the day. Idilios vascos appeared that same year, and in 1903 he produced El mayorazgo de Labraz, a novel that has been compared most favourably (by Spanish critics) with the best of contemporary novels both in Spain and abroad.
In all lists of the works of Pío Baroja, most of his novels are divided into trilogies. For the sake of convenience, I shall follow the same plan, without any attempt at chronological order:
Tierra vasca (Basque Country): La casa de Aizgorri; El mayorazgo de Labraz; Zalacaín, el aventurero.
La vida fantastica (Life Fantastic): Camino de perfección; Inventos, aventuras y mixtificaciones de Silvestre Paradox; Paradox, rey.
La Raza (Race): La dama errante; La ciudad de la niebla; El árbol de la ciencia.
La lucha por la vida (The Struggle for Life): La busca; Mala hierba; Aurora roja. (In this trilogy, Don Pío evinces a “spirit of opposition to the present social organization and the prejudices that embitter life and kill human spontaneity.”)
El pasado (The Past): La feria de los discretos; Los últimos romanticos; Las tragedias grotescas.
Las ciudades (Cities): César o nada, El mundo es así (incomplete).
El mar (The Sea): Las inquietudes de Shanti Andía (incomplete).
Besides these trilogies, Baroja has written several novels under the general title of Memorias de un hombre de acción (Memoirs of a Man of Action), long winded affairs in which any real action is sadly lacking.
In addition to his novels, he has published several volumes of essays, and not a little verse. Few of his works have been translated into other languages; none (except the present novel) into English.
Personally, Se?or Baroja is somewhat of an enigma, a mystery. He is extremely modest and retiring, and seldom appears prominently before the public. It has been said of him that, although he apparently knows what every one else thinks and believes, there is no one who can say for sure just what his thoughts and beliefs are. He is an ardent, pious Catholic, with very advanced ideas. One is led to believe from some of his works that he is an ardent Republican. Some even go so far as to assert that he entertains strong anarchistic views. But, just as we have about made up our minds as to his political creed, along comes a novel like La feria de los discretos, in which he ridicules Republicans and Anarchists, and we are forced to reject our conception.
While his name is often coupled with that of V. Blasco Ibá?ez, there is more difference than similarity between the two, especially in their style. The Valencian spreads his canvas with the broad, brilliant, impressionistic strokes of a Sorolla, while Baroja employs the more subtle and delicate methods of a Zuloaga. He is a stylist. His vocabulary is remarkably extensive, and he employs it in a masterly fashion—not as one who would overwhelm his readers with a flood of ponderous verbiage, but rather as one who, knowing all the delicate shades and nuances of his language, employs words as an artist uses his colours—to produce the proper effects. His power of description is marvellous. In a sentence, sometimes in a single phrase, he brings a character or scene vividly before our mental vision. The chapter headed “Spring,” in The City of the Discreet, fairly aches with the drowsiness of an Andalusian Spring.
La feria de los discretos has been chosen for this series mainly on account of its Spanish atmosphere. Though not his best novel, it is perhaps the best one with which to introduce him to the English reading public. Above all else, it demonstrates his powers of description, and his subtle, quaint humour. It is not my purpose in this paper to write a criticism of this novel. I shall leave that to abler pens. I might say, however, that in this work, Pío Baroja has no special message to convey, no propaganda. His purpose here is essentially to entertain, to amuse. One suspects that he derived no little pleasure himself from its creation. It is said that its appearance aroused a storm of protests from Republicans on account of the sorry light into which he put them. Be that as it may, the details of his description of Cordova and its environs are accurate in the extreme. The City of the Discreet might almost serve as a guide book to that ancient city. One can follow Quentin’s adventures on any accurate map of Cordova. Of his knowledge of Masonry, one cannot speak quite so highly!
J. S. F., Jr.
Cambridge, Mass.
October, 1917.
QUENTIN awoke, opened his eyes, looked about him, and exclaimed between his yawns:
“We must be in Andalusia now.”
The second-class coach was occupied by six persons. Opposite Quentin, a distinguished-looking Frenchman, corpulent, clean-shaven, and with a red ribbon in his buttonhole, was showing a magazine to a countryman in the garb of a wealthy cattle owner, and was graciously explaining the meanings of the illustrations to him.
The countryman listened to his explanations smiling mischievously, mumbling an occasional aside to himself in an undertone:
“What a simpleton.”
Leaning against the shoulder of the Frenchman, dozed his wife—a faded woman with a freakish hat, ruddy cheeks, and large hands clutching a portfolio. The other persons were a bronze-coloured priest wrapped in a cloak, and two recently-married Andalusians who were whispering the sweetest of sweet nothings to each other.
“But haven’t we reached Andalusia yet?” Quentin again inquired impatiently.
“Oh, yes!” replied the Frenchman. “The next station is Baeza.”
“Baeza!—Impossible!”
“It is, never-the-less—It is,” insisted the Frenchman, rolling his r’s in the back of his throat. “I have been counting the stations.”
Quentin arose, his hands thrust into his overcoat. The rain beat incessantly against the coach windows which were blurred by the moisture.
“I don’t know my own country,” he exclaimed aloud; and to see it better he opened the window and looked out.
The train was passing through a ruddy country spotted here and there with pools of rainwater. In the distance, small, low hills, shadowed by shrubs and thickets raised themselves into the cold, damp air.
“What weather!” he exclaimed in disgust, as he closed the window. “This is no land of mine!”
“Are you a Spaniard?” inquired the Frenchman.
“Yes, sir.”
“I would have taken you for an Englishman.”
“I have just left England, where I spent eight years.”
“Are you from Andalusia?”
“From Cordova.”
The Frenchman and his wife, who had awakened, studied Quentin. Surely his looks were not Spanish. Tall, stout, and clean-shaven, with a good complexion and brown hair, enveloped in a grey overcoat, and with a cap on his head; he looked like a young Englishman sent by his parents to tour the continent. He had a strong nose, thick lips, and the expression of a dignified and serious young man which a roguish, mischievous, and gipsy-like smile completely unmasked.
“My wife and I are going to Cordova,” remarked the Frenchman as he pocketed his magazine.
Quentin bowed.
“It must be a most interesting city—is it not?”
“Indeed it is!”
“Charming women with silk dresses ... on the balconies all day.”
“No; not all day.”
“And with cigarettes in their mouths, eh?”
“No.”
“Ah! Don’t Spanish women smoke?”
“Much less than French women.”
“French women do not smoke, sir,” said the woman somewhat indignantly.
“Oh! I’ve seen them in Paris!” exclaimed Quentin. “But you won’t see any of them smoking in Cordova. You French people don’t know us. You believe that all we Spaniards are toreadors, but it is not so.”
“Ah! No, no! Pardon me!” replied the Frenchman, “we are very well acquainted with Spain. There are two Spains: one, which is that of the South, is Théophile Gautier’s; the other, which is that of Hernani, is Victor Hugo’s. But perhaps you don’t know that Hernani is a Spanish city?”
“Yes, I know the place,” said Quentin with aplomb, though never in his life had he heard any one mention the name of the tiny Basque village.
“A great city.”
“Indeed it is.”
Having made this remark, Quentin lit a cigarette, passed his hand along the blurred windowpane until he had made it transparent, and began to hum to himself as he contemplated the landscape. The humid, rainy weather had saddened the deserted fields. As far as one could see there were no hamlets, no villages—only here and there a dark farmhouse in the distance.
They passed abandoned stations, crossed huge olive groves with trees planted in rows in great squares on the ruddy hillsides. The train approached a broad and muddy river.
“The Guadalquivir?” inquired the Frenchman.
“I don’t know,” replied Quentin absently. Then, doubtless, this confession of ignorance seemed ill-advised, for he looked at the river as if he expected it to tell him its name, and added: “It is a tributary of the Guadalquivir.”
“Ah! And what is its name?”
“I don’t remember. I don’t believe it has any.”
The rain increased in violence. The country was slowly being converted into a mudhole. The older leaves of the wet olive trees shone a dark brown; the new ones glistened like metal. As the train slackened its speed, the rain seemed to grow more intense. One could hear the patter of the drops on the roof of the coach, and the water slid along the windows in broad gleaming bands.
At one of the stations, three husky young men climbed into the coach. Each wore a shawl, a broad-brimmed hat, a black sash, and a huge silver chain across his vest. They never ceased for an instant talking about mills, horses, women, gambling, and bulls.
“Those gentlemen,” asked the Frenchman in an undertone, as he leaned over to Quentin, “What are they—toreadors?”
“No,—rich folk from hereabouts.”
“Hidalgos, eh?”
“Pst! You shall see.”
“They are talking a lot about gambling. One gambles a great deal in Andalusia, doesn’t one?”
“Yes.”
“I have heard some one say, that once a hidalgo was riding along on horseback, when he met a beggar. The horseman tossed him a silver coin, but the beggar, not wishing to accept it drew a pack of cards from among his rags and proposed a game to the hidalgo. He won the horse.”
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed Quentin boisterously.
“But isn’t it true?” asked the Frenchman somewhat piqued.
“Perhaps—perhaps it is.”
“What a simpleton!” murmured the countryman to himself.
“Isn’t it true either, that all beggars have the right to use the ‘Don’?”
“Yes, indeed, that’s true enough,” answered Quentin, smiling his gipsy smile.
The three husky youths in the shawls got off at the next station to Cordova. The sky cleared for an instant: up and down the platform walked men with broad-brimmed Andalusian hats, young women with flowers in their hair, old women with huge, red umbrellas....
“And those young men who just went by,” asked the Frenchman, full of curiosity about everything, “each one carries his knife, eh?”
“Oh, yes!—Probably,” said Quentin, unconsciously imitating his interlocutor’s manner of speech.
“The knives they carry are very large?”
“The knives! Yes, very large.”
“What might their dimensions be?”
“Two or three spans,” asserted Quentin, to whom a span more or less mattered very little.
“And is it hard to manage that terrible weapon?”
“It has its difficulties.”
“Do you know how?”
“Naturally. But the really difficult thing is to hit a mark with a knife at a distance of twenty or thirty metres.”
“How do they do that?”
“Why, there’s nothing much to it. You place the knife like this,” and Quentin assumed that he had placed one in the palm of his hand, “and then you throw it with all your might. The knife flies like an arrow, and sticks wherever you wish.”
“How horrible!”
“That is what we call ‘painting a jabeque .’”
“A ca—a cha—a what?”
“Jabeque.”
“It is truly extraordinary,” said the Frenchman, after attempting in vain to pronounce the guttural. “You have doubtless killed bulls also?”
“Oh! yes, indeed.”
“But you are very young.”
“Twenty-two.”
“Didn’t you tell me that you have been in England for eight years?”
“Yes.”
“So you killed bulls when you were fourteen?”
“No ... in my vacations.”
“Ah! You came from England just for that?”
“Yes—for that, and to see my sweetheart.”
The Frenchwoman smiled, and her husband said:
“Weren’t you afraid?”
“Afraid of which?—The bulls, or my sweetheart?”
“Of both!” exclaimed the Frenchman, laughing heartily.
“What a simpleton!” reiterated the countryman, smiling, and looking at him as he would at a child.
“All you have to do with women and bulls to understand them,” said Quentin, with the air of a consummate connoisseur, “is to know them. If the bull attacks you on the right, just step to the left, or vice versa.”
“And if you don’t have time to do that?” questioned the Frenchman rather anxiously.
“Then you may count yourself among the departed, and beg them to say a few masses for the salvation of your soul.”
“It is frightful—And the ladies are very enthusiastic over a good toreador, eh?”
“Of course—on account of the profession.”
“What do you mean by ‘on account of the profession’?”
“Don’t the ladies bully us?”
“That’s true,” said the countryman, smiling.
“And he who fights best,” continued the Frenchman, “will have the doors of society opened to him?”
“Of course.”
“What a strange country!”
“Pardon me,” asked his wife, “but is it true that if a girl deceives her lover, he always kills her?”
“No, not always—sometimes—but he is not obliged to.”
“And you—have you killed a sweetheart?” she inquired, consumed with curiosity.
“I!”—and Quentin hesitated as one loath to confess—“Not I.”
“Ah!—Yes, yes!” insisted the Frenchwoman, “you have killed a sweetheart. One can see it in your face.”
“My dear,” said her husband, “do not press him: the Spaniards are too noble to talk about some things.”
Quentin looked at the Frenchman and winked his eye confidentially, giving him to understand that he had divined the true cause of his reserve. Then he feigned a melancholy air to conceal the joy this farce afforded him. After that, he diverted himself by looking through the window.
“What a bore this weather is,” he murmured.
He had always pictured his arrival at Cordova as taking place on a glorious day of golden sunshine, and instead, he was encountering despicable weather, damp, ugly, and sad.
“I suppose the same thing will happen to everything I have planned. Nothing turns out as you think it will. That, according to my schoolmate Harris, is an advantage. I’m not so sure. It is a matter for discussion.”
This memory of his schoolmate made him think of Eton school.
“I wonder what they are doing there now?”
Absorbed in his memories, he continued to look out the window. As the train advanced, the country became more cultivated. Well-shaped horses with long tails were grazing in the pastures.
The travellers commenced to prepare their luggage for a quick descent from the train: Quentin put on his hat, stuffed his cap into his pocket, and placed his bag on the seat.
“Sir,” said the Frenchman to him quickly, “I thank you for the information with which you have supplied me. I am Jules Matignon, professor of Spanish in Paris. I believe we shall see each other again in Cordova.”
“My name is Quentin García Roelas.”
They shook hands, and waited for the train to stop: it was already slowing up as it neared the Cordova station.
They arrived; Quentin got off quickly, and crossed the platform, pursued by four or five porters. Confronting one of these who had a red handkerchief on his head, and handing him his bag and check, he ordered him to take them to his house.
“To the Calle de la Zapatería,” he said. “To the store where they sell South American comestibles. Do you know where it is?”
“The house of Don Rafaé? Of course.”
“Good.”
This done, Quentin opened his umbrella, and began to make his way toward the centre of the city.
“It seems as though I hadn’t crossed the Channel at all,” he said to himself, “but were walking along one of those roads near the school. The same grey sky, the same mud, the same rain. Now I am about to see the parks and the river—”
But no—what he saw was the orange trees on the Victoria, laden with golden fruit glistening with raindrops.
“I’m beginning to be convinced that I am in Cordova,” murmured Quentin, and he entered the Paseo del Gran Capitán, followed the Calle de Gondomar as far as Las Tendillas, whence, as easily as if he had passed through the streets but yesterday, he reached his house. He scarcely recognized it at first glance: the store no longer occupied two windows as before, but the whole front of the house. The doors were covered with zinc plates: only one of them having a window through which the interior could be seen full of sacks piled in rows.
Quentin mounted to the main floor and knocked several times: the door was opened to him, and he entered.
“Here I am!” he shouted, as he traversed a dark corridor. A door was heard to open, and the boy felt himself hugged and kissed again and again.
“Quentin!”
“Mother! But I can’t see you in all this darkness.”
“Come”—and his mother, with her arms about him, led him into a room. Bringing him to the light of a balcony window, she exclaimed: “How tall you are, my son! How tall, and how strong!”
“I’ve become a regular barbarian.”
His mother embraced him again.
“Have you been well? But you will soon tell us all about it. Are you hungry? Do you want something to drink?—A cup of chocolate?”
“No, no—none of your chocolate. Something a bit more solid: ham, eggs.... I’m ferociously hungry.”
“Good! I’ll tell them to get your breakfast ready.”
“Is everybody well?”
“Everybody. Come and see them.”
They followed a narrow corridor and entered a room where two boys, aged fifteen and twelve respectively, had just finished dressing. Quentin embraced them none too effusively, and from the larger room they went into a bedroom, where a little girl between eight and nine years old was sleeping in a huge bed.
“Is that Dolores?” asked Quentin.
“Yes.”
“The last time I saw her she was a tiny little thing. How pretty she is!”
The child awoke, and seeing a stranger before her, became frightened.
“But it’s your brother Quentin, who has just arrived.”
Her fears immediately allayed, she allowed herself to be kissed.
“Now we shall go and see your father.”
“Very well,” said Quentin reluctantly.
They left the bedroom, and at the end of the corridor, found themselves in a room in whose doorway swung a black screen with a glass panel.
“We’ll wait a moment. He must have gone into the store,” said his mother, as she seated herself upon the sofa.
Quentin absently examined the furnishings of the office: the large writing-desk full of little drawers; the safe with its gilt knobs; the books and letter-press lying upon a table near the window. Upon the wall opposite the screen hung two large, mud-coloured lithographs of Vesuvius in eruption. Between them was a large, hexagonal clock, and below it, a “perpetual” calendar of black cardboard, with three elliptic apertures set one above the other—the upper one for the date, the middle one for the month, and the lower one for the year.
Mother and son waited a moment, while the clock measured the time with a harsh tick-tock. Suddenly the screen opened, and a man entered the office. He was clean-shaven, elegantly dressed, with a full, pink face, and an aristocratic air.
“Here is Quentin,” said his mother.
“Hello!” exclaimed the man, holding out his hand to the youth. “So you have arrived without notifying us in advance? How goes it in England?”
“Very well.”
“I suppose you’re quite a man now, ready to do something useful.”
“I believe so,” answered Quentin.
“I am glad—I am very glad to see you so changed.”
At this point an elderly man entered the office. He was tall and thin, with a drooping grey moustache. He bowed low by way of a greeting, but Quentin’s mother, nodding toward her son, said:
“Don’t you know him, Palomares?”
“Whom, Do?a Fuensanta?”
“This boy. It’s Quentin.”
“Quentin!” the old man fairly shouted. “So it is! My boy, how you have grown! You’re a regular giant! Well, well! How do you like the English? They’re a bad race, aren’t they? They’ve done me many a bad turn! When did the boy come, Do?a Fuensanta?”
“This very minute.”
“Well—” said Quentin’s father to Palomares.
“Come,” announced his mother, “they have work to do.”
“We shall have a little more time to talk later on at the table,” said his father.
Mother and son left the office and made their way to the dining-room. Quentin sat at the table and ravenously devoured eggs, ham, rolls, a bit of cheese, and a plate of sweets.
“But you’ll lose your appetite for dinner,” warned his mother.
“Ca! I never lose my appetite. I could go right on eating,” replied Quentin. Then, smacking his lips over the wine as he stuck his nose into the glass, he added: “What wine, mother! We didn’t drink anythink like this at school.”
“No?”
“I should say not!”
“Poor boy!”
Quentin, touched, cried:
“I was lonesome, oh, so lonesome over there for such a long time. And now ... you won’t love me as you do the others.”—
“Yes, I shall—just the same. I’ve thought about you so much—” and the mother, again embracing her son, wept for a time upon his shoulder—overcome with emotion.
“Come, come, don’t cry any more,” said Quentin, and seizing her by her slender waist, he lifted her into the air as easily as if she had been a feather, and kissed her upon the cheek.
“What a brute! How strong you are!” she exclaimed, surprised and pleased.
Then they went over the house together. Some of the details demonstrated very clearly the economic stride the family had made: the hall with its large mirrors, marble consoles, and French hearth, was luxuriously furnished: displayed in a cabinet in the dining-room, were a table-service of Sèvres porcelain, and dishes, teapots, and platters of repoussé silver.
“This table-service,” said Quentin’s mother, “we bought for a song from a ruined marquis. Every one of the dishes and platters had a crown and the marquis’ initials painted on it—but between the three girls and me, we have rubbed them all off with pumice stone. It took us months.”
After seeing the entire house, mother and son descended to the store. Here, the commercial ballast of the house was in evidence: heaped-up piles of sacks of all sorts separated by narrow aisles. The employés of the store came forward to greet Quentin; then he and his mother reclimbed the stairs and entered the house.
“Your room is all ready for you,” said his mother. “We shall have dinner directly.”
Quentin changed his clothes, washed, and presented himself in the dining-room, very much combed and brushed, and looking extremely handsome. His father, elegant in the whitest of collars, presided at the table: his mother distributed the food: the children were clean and tidy. A girl in a white apron served the meal.
Throughout the entire meal there existed a certain coldness, punctuated by long and vexatious moments of silence. Quentin was furious, and when the meal was finished, he arose immediately and went to his room.
“They have forgotten nothing here,” he thought. “I don’t believe I shall be able to stay in this house for any length of time.”
His baggage had been brought to his room, so he devoted himself to unpacking his books, and to arranging them in a bookcase. It was still raining, and he had no desire to go out. It soon grew dark; for these were the shortest days of the year. He went down to the store, where he came upon Palomares, the old dependent of the house.
“How did you like England?” he was asked.
“Very much. It is a great country.”
“But a bad race, eh?”
“Ca, man! Better than ours.”
“Do you think so?”
“I certainly do.”
“Maybe you’re right. Have you seen the store?”
“Yes, this morning.”
“We’ve made a great fight here, my boy. We have worked wonders—your mother most of all. When she’s around, I can laugh at any other woman, no matter how clever she may be.”
“Yes, she must be clever.”
“Indeed she is! She is responsible for everything. When I used to go into the office upstairs, and turn the screws on the calendar, I thought ‘Today we’ll have the catastrophe’—but no, everything turned out well. I’m going upstairs for a while. Are you coming?”
“No.”
Quentin seized an umbrella and took a stroll through the city. It was pouring rain; so, very much bored, he soon returned to the house.
His mother, Palomares, and all the children were playing Keno in the dining-room. They invited him to take part in the game, and although it did not impress him as particularly amusing, he had no choice but to accept. It was a source of much laughter and shouting when Quentin failed to understand the nicknames which Palomares gave to the numbers as he called them; for beside those that were common and already familiar to him, such as “the pretty little girl” for the 15, he had others that were more picturesque which he had to explain to Quentin. The 2, for example, was called “the little turkey-hen”; the 11, “the Catalonians’ gallows”; the 6, “the clothier’s rat”; the 22, “mother Irene’s turkeys”; the 17, “the crooked Maoliyo.” Among the nicknames, were some that were surprisingly fantastic; like the 10, which Palomares designated by calling “María Francisca, who goes to the theatre in dirty petticoats.”
At the end of each game, Palomares took a tray with a glass of water on it, and said to the winner:
“You who have won behold your glass of water and your sugar-loaf: you who have lost,” and he pointed to the loser, “go whence you came.”
His fun was hailed with delight every time he went through the ceremony.
“Now tell us what you did in Chile,” said one of the youngsters.
“No, no,” said Quentin’s mother. “You two boys must study now, and my little girl must go to bed.”
They obeyed without a protest, and soon after, one could hear the buzzing of the two boys as they read their lesson aloud.
“Well,” said Palomares, “I’m going to supper,” and taking his cloak, he went out into the street.
Quentin’s father came in, and they had supper. The evening meal had the same character as the dinner. As soon as they had finished dessert, Quentin arose and went to his room.
He climbed into bed, and amid the great confusion of images and recollections that crowded his brain, one idea always predominated: that he was not going to be able to live in that house.
ON the following day, Quentin awoke very early. An unusual sensation of heat and dryness penetrated his senses. He looked through the balcony window. The delicate, keen, somewhat lustreless light of morning glowed in the street. In the clear, pale sky, a few white clouds were drifting slowly.
Quentin dressed himself rapidly, left the house in which all were still sleeping, turned down the street, went through a narrow alley, crossed a plaza, followed a street, and then another and another, and soon found himself without knowledge as to his whereabouts.
“This is amusing,” he murmured.
He was completely at sea. He did not even know on which side of the city he was.
This made him feel very gay; happily, and with a light heart, thinking of nothing in particular, but enjoying the soft, fresh air of the winter morning, he continued with real pleasure to lose himself in that labyrinth of alleys and passages—veritable crevices, shadow-filled....
The streets narrowed before him, and then widened until they formed little plazas: they were full of sinuous twists; they traced broken lines through the city. Water-spouts, terminating in wide-open dragon mouths, threatened each other from opposite eaves, and the two lines of tiled roofs, broken now and then by projecting bay-windows, and azoteas (flat roofs or terraces upon the house-tops), were so close together that the sky was reduced between them to a ribbon of blue—of a very pure blue.
When one narrow, white street came to an end, on either side there opened out others equally narrow, white, and silent.
Quentin never imagined that there could be so much solitude, so much light, so much mystery and silence. His eyes, accustomed to the filtered and opaque light of the North, were blinded by the reverberation of the walls. The air buzzed in his ears like a huge, sonorous sea-shell.
How different everything was! What a difference between this clear and limpid atmosphere, and that grey northern air: between the refulgent sun of Cordova, and the turbid light of the misty, blackened towns of England!
“This is a real sun,” thought Quentin, “and not that thing in England that looks like a wafer stuck on brown paper.”
In the plazoletas, white houses with green blinds, with their eaves shaded by tracings of blue paint, their intersecting angles twisted, and splashed with lime, sparkled and shone. And from the side of one of these sunbaked plazas, there started a narrow, damp, and sinuous alley, full of violet shadows.
Sometimes Quentin paused before sumptuous fa?ades of old manorial houses. At the furthest end of the broad entrance, the wrought-iron flowers of the grating stood out against the brilliant clarity of a resplendent patio. That drowsy spot was surrounded by rows of arches, and jardinières were hung from the roofs of the corridors; while from a marble basin in the centre, a fountain of crystalline water plashed in the air.
In the houses of the rich, great plantain trees spread their enormous leaves, and cactus plants in green wooden pots, decorated the entrance. In some of the poorer houses, the patios could be seen overflowing with light at the end of very long and shadowy corridors.
The day was advancing: from time to time a figure wrapped in a cloak, or an old woman with a basket, or a girl with her hair down her back and an Andújar pitcher on her well-rounded hip, would pass quickly by, and suddenly, instantaneously, one or the other of them would disappear in the turn of an alley. An old woman was setting up a small table, on top of which, and upon some bits of paper, she was arranging coloured taffy.
Without realizing where he was going, Quentin came to the Mosque, and found himself before the wall facing an altar with a wooden shed, and a grating decorated with pots of flowers. On the altar was this sign:
Si quieres que tu dolor
se convierta en alegría,
no pasarás, pecador,
sin alabar a María.
(If you wish your grief to be changed to joy, you will not pass by, O sinner, without first praising the Virgin Mary.)
Near the altar was an open gate, and through it, Quentin passed into the Patio de los Naranjos.
Above the archway of the entrance, the cathedral tower, broad, strong, and resplendent in the sun, raised itself toward heaven, standing out in clear and sharp silhouette in the pure and diaphanous morning air.
Now and then a woman crossed the patio. A prebendary, with cap and crimson mozetta, was walking slowly up and down in the sun, smoking, with his hands clasped behind his back. In the shelter of the Puerta del Perdón, two men were piling oranges. As Quentin neared the fountain, a little old man asked him solicitously:
“Do you wish to see the Mosque?”
“No, sir,” replied Quentin pleasantly.
“The Alcázar?”
“No.”
“The Tower?”
“No.”
“Very well, Se?orito, pardon me if I have molested you.”
“Not at all.”
When Quentin left the Patio de los Naranjos, he met the French couple of the train near the Triunfo column. M. Matignon hastened to greet him.
“Oh, what a town! What a town!” he cried. “Oh, my friend, what an extraordinary affair!”
“Why, what has happened to you?”
“A thousand things.”
“Good or bad?”
“Both. Just fancy: last night as I was coming out of a house, and was about to enter my hotel, a man with a lantern in his hand, and a short pike, commenced to pursue me. I went into the hotel and locked myself in my room; but the man came into the hotel; I’m sure of it, I’m sure of it.”
Quentin laughed, realizing that the man with the lantern and the short pike was a night watchman.
“Pay no attention to the man with the pike,” said he. “If he sees you again and starts to follow you, look him straight in the eye, and say to him firmly: ‘I have the key.’ It is the magic word. As soon as he hears it, he will go away.”
“Why?”
“Ah! That is a secret.”
“How strange! One says to him, ‘I have the key,’ and he goes?”
“Yes.”
“It is marvellous. Something else happened to me.”
“What?”
“Last night we went to a café, and I left my stick upon a chair. When I went back after it, it was no longer there.”
“Naturally! Some one carried it off.”
“But that is not moral!” declared M. Matignon indignantly.
“No. We Spaniards have no morals,” replied Quentin somewhat dejectedly.
“One cannot live without morality!”
“But we do live without it. With us, stealing a stick, or stabbing a friend are things of small importance.”
“You cannot have order in that way.”
“Of course not.”
“Nor discipline.”
“True.”
“Nor society.”
“Assuredly not: but here we live without those things.”
M. Matignon shook his head sadly.
“Are you going to continue your walk?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“We shall go with you if we won’t be in your way.”
“Come by all means.”
Together the trio began to wander through that puzzling entanglement of alleys. The barrio, or district into which they penetrated (the vicinity of El Potro), was beginning to come to life. A few old women with sour-looking faces, some with mantles of Antequera baize, others with black mantillas, were on their way to mass, carrying folding chairs under their arms.
“Due?as, eh?” said the Frenchman, pointing his finger at the old women. “But their ladies, where are they now?”
“Probably snoring at their ease,” replied Quentin.
“But, do they snore?”
“Some of them, yes.”
“Snore? What is that?” Madame Matignon inquired of her husband in French.
“Ronfler, my dear,” said Matignon, “ronfler.”
His wife made a disdainful little grimace.
When the gossips in the streets caught sight of the trio, they exchanged a jest or two from door to door. Servant girls were scrubbing the floors of the patios with mops, and singing gipsy songs; balcony windows flew open with a bang, as women came out to shake their rugs and carpets.
Grimy-looking men passed them, pushing carts and shouting: “Fish!” Vendors of medicinal herbs languidly cried their wares; and a muleteer, mounted upon the hindmost donkey of his herd, rode along singing to the tune of the tinkling bells on his decorated asses.
Once, behind a window-grating, they caught sight of a pallid, an?mic face with large, sad, black eyes, and a white flower stuck in the ebony hair.
“Oh! Oh!” cried Matignon, and immediately ran to the window.
The maiden, offended by his curiosity, pulled down the curtain, and went on embroidering or sewing, waiting for the handsome gallant, who perhaps never came.
“They are odalisques,” declared the Frenchman rather spitefully.
In the doorways on some of the streets, they saw men working at turning lathes in the Moorish fashion, using a sort of bow, and helping themselves in their tasks with their feet.
Quentin, who was already tired of the walk and of the observations and comments of the Frenchman, announced his intention of leaving them.
“I would like to ask you a question first,” said Matignon.
“Proceed.”
“I wish to see an undertaking establishment.” “An undairtaking estableeshment,” the good man called it.
“There are none here,” replied Quentin. “They are all far away; but if you should see a shop where they sell guitars, you may be pretty sure that that is where they make coffins, too.”
“Can it be possible?”
“Yes. It’s a Cordovese custom.”
M. Matignon’s mouth fell open in surprise.
“It is extraordinary!” he exclaimed when he had recovered from his astonishment, and he drew a memorandum book and a pencil from his pocket. “Where did this custom come from?”
“Oh! It is very ancient. The casket-makers here declared that they were loath to confine their efforts to sad things, so from the same wood out of which they make a coffin, they take a piece for a guitar.”
“Admirable! Admirable! And they do not know that in France! What a philosophy is that of the casket-maker! O, Cordova, Cordova! How little thou art known in the world!”
At that moment, a tattered, bushy-haired vendor of sacred images crossed a very small plaza which contained a very large sign-post. Upon his white, matted hair he wore a greasy and dirty hat as large as a portico. His loose-fitting, long-sleeved cloak was worn wrong side to: the back across his breast, and the sleeves, knotted and bulky at the ends, falling down his back. Under his right arm he carried the saint, and in his belt was a cash-box with a slot for pennies.
“Pst! Silence!” said Quentin. “You are about to behold a most interesting spectacle.”
“What is it?”
“Do you see that man?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll wager you cannot guess who he is?”
“No.”
“The Bishop of Cordova!”
“The Bishop!”
“Yes, sir.”
“But he hasn’t the appearance of a bishop, nor even of a cleanly person.”
“That doesn’t matter. If you follow him cautiously, you will be able to see something very strange.”
After he had said this, Quentin bowed to the couple, and walked rapidly away in the direction of his home.
ARCH?OLOGISTS guard those curious, twice-written documents called palimpsests as carefully as though they were so much gold. They are parchments from which the first inscriptions were erased years and years ago, to be substituted by others. More recently, assiduous investigators have learned how to bring the erased characters to light, to decipher them, and to read them.
The idea of those strange documents came to Quentin’s mind as he thought about his life.
Eight years of English school had apparently completely erased the memories of his early childhood. The uniformity of his school life, the continual sports, had dulled his memory. Night after night Quentin went to bed overcome with fatigue, with nothing to preoccupy his mind save his themes and his lessons; but his removal from the scholarly atmosphere, and his return to his home, had been sufficient to reawaken memories of his childhood—vaguely at first, but daily growing stronger, more distinct, and more detailed.
The erased inscription of the palimpsest was again becoming comprehensible: memories long dormant were crowding Quentin’s mind: of these recollections, some were sad and gloomy; others, and these were very few, were gay; still others were not as yet very clear to him.
Quentin endeavoured to reconstruct his childhood. He remembered having passed it in a house on the Calle de Librerías, near the Calle de la Feria and the Cuesta de Luján, and he went to see the place. It was on a corner of the street: a rose-coloured house with a silversmith’s shop on the lower floor, two large and pretentious balconies on the main floor, and above them, two rectangular windows. On top of the roof, was a diminutive azotea surrounded by a rubble-stone wall.
“That is where I was as a child,” said Quentin to himself.
He remembered vaguely that hedge-mustard used to grow between the slabs of the azotea, and that he had a white cat with which he used to play.
He peeped into the shop, and there came to his mind the picture of a man with white hair whom his mother tried to get him to kiss—something she never succeeded in doing.
“I must have been a little savage in those days,” thought Quentin.
He strolled along the Calle de la Feria and recalled his escapades with the little boys of the vicinity of La Ribera and El Murallón where they used to play.
His memory did not flow smoothly. There were large gaps in it: persons, things, and places were blurred confusedly. His vivid recollections began in the Calle de la Zapatería, where his parents established their first shop. From there on, the incidents were linked together; they had an explanation, a conclusion.
Quentin was taken to school when he was very young—three or four years old—because he was in the way at the store. As a very small child he was distinguished as a dare-devil, a rowdy, and a swaggering boaster; and many times he returned from school with his trousers torn, or a black eye.
Once he had a fight with one of his schoolmates who came from a town called Cabra (Goat). For this reason, the others used to poke fun at him, calling him a “son of a goat,” and making rude derivations from the name of his home town. Quentin was one of the most insulting, and one day the tormented lad answered him:
“You’re a bigger son of a goat than I am, and your mother is living with a silversmith.”
Quentin waited for his comrade to come out of school, and then punched his nose—only to be thrashed by his victim’s older brother afterwards. This affair gave origin to a continual series of fights, and nearly every day Quentin was crippled by the beatings he received.
“Why, what’s the matter with you?” his mother once asked.
“They told me at school that my mother was living with a silversmith.”
“Who told you?”
“Everybody,” replied Quentin with a frown.
“And what did you do?”
“Fought ’em all!”
His mother said nothing more, but she withdrew Quentin from that school and took him to another, which was presided over by a dominie, and attended by a couple of dozen children.
The dominie was a secularized monk by the name of Pi?uela—an old fossil full of musty prejudices. He was a strong partisan of the ancient pedagogic principle, so much beloved by our ancestors, of “La letra con la sangre entra” (Learn by the sweat of thy brow).
Dominie Pi?uela was a ridiculous and eccentric individual. His nose was large, coarse, and flaming red: his under lip hung down: his great eyes, turbid, and bulging from their sockets like two eggs, were always watery: he wore a long, tight-fitting frock coat, which was once black, but now with the passage of time, covered with layers of dirt and grease and dandruff; narrow trousers, bagging loosely at the knees, and a black skull-cap.
Pi?uela’s only store of knowledge consisted of Latin, rhetoric, and writing. His system of instruction was based on the division of the class into two groups, Rome and Carthage, a book of translations, and a Latin Grammar. Besides these educational mediums, the secularized monk counted upon the aid of a ferrule, a whip, a long bamboo stick, and a small leather sack filled with bird-shot.
Pi?uela taught writing by the Spanish method, with the letters ending in points. To do this one had to know how to cut and trim quill pens; and few there were who had the advantage of the Dominie in this art.
Besides this, Pi?uela corrected the vicious pronunciation of his pupils; and in order to do so, he exaggerated his own by doubling his z’s and s’s. One of the selections of his readings began as follows: Amanezzía; era la máss bella ma?ana de primafera (Dawn was breaking; it was the most beautiful day of Spring): and all the children had to say “primafera” and “fida” unless they wished their lessons to be supplemented by a blow with the ferrule.
The Dominie walked constantly to and fro with his pen behind his ear. If he saw that a child was not studying, or had not pointed his letters sufficiently in his copy-book, according to the principles of Iturzaeta, he beat him with the stick, or threw the bag of shot at his head.
“Idling, eh?—Idling?” he would murmur, “I’ll teach you to idle!”
For more serious occasions, the stupid Dominie had his whip; but nearly all of the parents warned him not to use it on their children—which for Pi?uela was the plainest symptom of the decadence of the times.
At first Quentin felt the profoundest hate for the Dominie: he tormented him every time he could with unutterable joy; he broke his inkwells; he bored holes in his writing-desk; and Pi?uela retaliated by boxing his ears. Between master and pupil there began to arise a certain ironical and joyous esteem by force of beatings from the one, and pranks from the other. They looked upon each other as faithful enemies; Quentin’s mischief provoked laughter from Pi?uela, and the Dominie’s beatings wrested an ironical smile from Quentin.
Once the pupils saw Pi?uela advancing with his pointer raised on high, and Quentin running, hiding behind tables, and throwing inkwells at the Dominie’s head.
One day two old women were gossiping in the shop at home. They were two street vendors, one of whom was called Siete Tonos, on account of the seven different tones she used in crying her wares.
“They have hard luck with the little scamp. He’s a wicked little devil,” said one of them.
“Yes; he’s not like his father,” added the other.
“But El Pende isn’t his father.”
“Ah! Isn’t he?”
“No.”
Quentin waited for them to say more, but the clerk entered the store, and the gossips fell silent.
El Pende was the nickname of the man who passed for Quentin’s father. The boy thought about the conversation of the two old gossips for a long time, and came to the conclusion that there had been something obscure about his birth. He was proud and haughty, and considered himself worthy of royal descent, so the idea of dishonour irritated him, and made him desperate.
One day his mother went to ask the Dominie how her son was behaving himself.
“How is he behaving himself?” cried Pi?uela with ironic geniality. “Badly! Very badly! He’s the worst boy in the class. A veritable dishonour to my school. He knows nothing about Latin, nor grammar, nor logic, nor anything. I’m sure that he doesn’t even know how to decline musa, musae.”
“So you think he is no good at studying?”
“He is a rowdy, incapable of ever possessing the sublime language of Lacius.”
His mother told her husband what Pi?uela had said, and El Pende launched a sermon at Quentin.
“So this is the way you behave after the sacrifices we have made for you!”
Quentin did not reply to the charges they made against him, but when El Pende told him that if he continued his pranks he would throw him out of the house, the thought that was in Quentin’s heart rushed to his lips.
“It makes no difference to me,” he cried, “because you are not my father.”
El Pende boxed the boy’s ears; the mother wept; and that night Quentin left the house and roamed the fields half-starved, until Palomares, the clerk, found him and brought him to his parents.
The boy began to take notice of things, and made it plain to his mother that instead of studying Latin, he preferred to learn French and go to America, as a schoolmate of his—the son of a Swiss watch-maker—had done.
Accordingly they took him to the academy of a French emigré, a violent republican, who, at the same time that he taught his pupils to conjugate the verb avoir, spoke to them enthusiastically about Danton, Robespierre, and Hoche.
Perhaps this excited Quentin’s imagination; perhaps it did not need to be excited; at any rate, one Sunday morning he decided to put into execution his great projét de voyage.
His mother was accustomed to hide the key to the cabinet where she kept her money under her pillow. While she was at mass, Quentin seized the key, opened the cabinet, stuffed the seventy dollars that he found there into his pocket, and a few minutes later was calmly increasing the distance between himself and his home.
Fifteen days after his escape he was apprehended in Cadiz just as he was about to set sail for America, and was brought back to Cordova in the custody of the guardia civil.
Then his mother took him to a monastery, but Quentin had made up his mind to run away from everything, so he attempted to escape several times. At the end of a month, the friars intimated that they did not wish to keep him any longer.
To the boys of his age, Quentin was now the prototype of wildness, impudence, and disobedience. People predicted an evil future for him.
At this point his mother said to him one day:
“We are going to a certain house. Kindly answer politely anything they may ask you there.”
Quentin said nothing, but accompanied his mother to a palace on the Calle del Sol. They climbed some marble stairs, and entered a hall where a white-haired old man was sitting in a large, deep armchair, with a blond little girl who looked like an angel to Quentin, by his side.
“So this is the little scamp?” inquired the little old man with a smile.
“Sí, Se?or Marqués,” replied Quentin’s mother.
“And what do you wish to do, my boy?” the Marquis asked him.
“I!—Get out of here as soon as I possibly can,” replied Quentin in a dull voice.
“But, why?”
“Because I hate this town.”
The little girl must have looked at him in horror; at least he supposed she did.
His mother and the old man chatted a while, and at last the latter exclaimed:
“Very well, my boy. You shall go to England. Get his baggage ready,” he added, turning to the mother, “and let him go as soon as possible.”
Quentin departed, making the journey sometimes in the company of others, sometimes alone, and entered Eton School, near Windsor. In a short time he had forgotten his entire former life.
In the English school the professor was not the enemy of the scholar, but rather one of his schoolmates. Quentin met boys as daring as he, and stronger than he, and he had to look alive. That school was something like a primitive forest where the strong devoured the weak, and conquered and abused them.
The brutality of the English education acted like a tonic upon Quentin, and made him athletic and good-humoured. The thing of paramount importance that he learned there, was that one must be strong and alert and calm in life, and ready to conquer always.
In the same way that he accepted this concept on account of the way it flattered him, he rejected the moral and sentimental concepts of his fellow-pupils and masters. Those young men of bulldog determination, valiant, strengthened by football and rowing, and nourished by underdone meat, were full of ridiculous conventions and respect for social class, for the hierarchy, and for authority.
In spite of the fact that he passed for an aristocrat and a son of a marquis in order to enjoy a certain prestige in the school, Quentin manifested a profound contempt for the principles his schoolmates held in such respect. He considered that authority, wigs, and ceremonies were grotesque, and consequently was looked upon as the worst kind of a poser.
He used to maintain, much to the stupefaction of his comrades, that he felt no enthusiasm for religion, nor for his native land; that not only would he not sacrifice himself for them, but he would not even give a farthing to save them. Moreover, he asserted that if he should ever become rich, he would prefer to owe his money to chance, rather than to constant effort on his part; and that to work, as the English did, that their wives might amuse themselves and live well, was absurd—for all their blond hair, their great beauty, and their flute-like voices.
A man with his ideas, and one, moreover, who followed women—even servant girls—in the street, and made complimentary remarks to them, could not be a gentleman, and for this reason, Quentin had no intimate friends. He was respected for his good fists, but enjoyed absolutely no esteem....
During his last years at school, his only real friend was an Italian teacher of music named Caravaglia. This man communicated to Quentin his enthusiasm for Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini, and Verdi. Caravaglia used to sit at the piano and sing. Quentin listened to him and was much softened by the music. The Alma innamoratta from Lucia, and La cavattina from Hernani, made him weep; but his greatest favourites, the songs that went straight to his heart, were the manly arias from the Italian operas like that in Rigoletto, that goes:
La constanza teranna del core.
This song, overflowing with arrogance, merry fanfaronade, indifference, and egoism, enchanted him.
On the other hand, to his psalm-singing comrades, this merry and swaggering music seemed worthy of the greatest contempt.
In the farewell banquet which Quentin gave to his four or five companions, and to the Italian professor, there were several toasts.
“I am not a Protestant,” said Quentin at the last, somewhat befuddled with whiskey, “nor am I a Catholic. I am a Horatian. I believe in the wine of Falernus, and in Cécube and his wines of Calais. I also believe that we mortals must leave the task of calming the winds to the gods.”
After this important declaration, nothing more is known, except the fact that the diners all fell asleep.
“SEE here, Quentin,” said his mother, “you ought to go and call on the Marquis.”
“Very well,” Quentin answered, “must I go today?”
“You’d better.”
“Then I shall.”
“Do you remember where he lives?”
“Yes, I think I can find the house.”
“It’s in the Calle del Sol; any one will point out the palace to you.”
Quentin left the house, turned into the Plaza de la Corredera, and from the Calle del Poyo, by encircling a church, he came out upon the Calle de Santiago. It was a moderately warm day in January, with an overcast sky. A few drops of rain were falling.
Quentin was very much preoccupied by the visit he was about to make.
So far, he had not asked what relation he was to that man. Surely some relationship did exist; a bastard kinship; something defamatory to Quentin.
Sunk deep in these thoughts, Quentin wandered from his way, and was obliged to ask where the street was.
The palace of the Marquis of Tavera stood in a street in the lower part of town, which with different names for its different parts, stretched from the Plaza de San Pedro to the Campo de la Madre de Dios.
The Marquis’ palace was extremely large. Five bay-windows, framed in thick moulding, with ornate iron-work and brass flower-pots, opened from a fa?ade of a yellow, porous stone. On either side of the larger centre balcony, there rose two pilasters surmounted by a timpanum, in the middle of which was the half-obliterated carving of a shield. The decayed iron-work of the balustrade was twisted into complicated designs.
On the ground floor, four large gratings clawed the walls of the palace, and in the centre was a large opening closed by a massive door studded with nails, and topped by a fan-shaped window.
Before the palace, the street widened into a small-sized plaza. Quentin entered the wide entrance, and his footsteps resounded with a hollow sound.
Some distance ahead of him, through the iron bars of the grating at the end of a dark gallery, he could see a sunny garden; and that shady zone, terminating in such a brilliant spot of light, recalled the play of light and shade in the canvases of the old masters.
Quentin pulled a chain, and a bell rang in the distance with a solemn sound.
Several minutes elapsed without any one coming to the entry, and Quentin rang again.
A moment later the vivid sunlight of the distant garden, which shone like a square patch of light at the end of the shadowy corridor, was dimmed by the silhouette of a man who came forward until he reached and opened the grating. He was small in stature, and old, and wore overalls, an undershirt, and a broad-brimmed hat.
“What did you wish?” asked the old man.
“Is the Se?or Marqués at home?”
“Sí, Se?or.”
“May I see him?”
“I don’t know; ask upstairs.” The old man opened the grating, and Quentin passed through.
Through a door on the right he could see a deserted patio. In the centre of it was a fountain formed by a bowl which spilled the water into a basin in six sparkling jets. On the left of the wide vestibule rose a monumental stairway made of black and white marble. The very high ceiling was covered with huge panels which were broken and decayed.
“Is this the way?” Quentin asked the old man, pointing to the stairway.
“Sí, Se?or.”
He climbed the stairs to the landing, and paused before a large, panelled, double door. In the centre of each half, he discerned two large and handsomely carved escutcheons. To the left of this door there was a window through which Quentin peeped.
“Oh, how beautiful!” he murmured in astonishment.
He saw a splendid garden, full of orange trees laden with fruit. In the open, the trees were tall and erect; against the walls they took the form of vines, climbing the high walls, and covering them with their dark green foliage.
A light rain was falling, and it was a wonderful sight to see the oranges glistening like balls of red and yellow gold among the dark, rain-soaked leaves. The glistening brilliancy of the foliage, and of the golden fruit, the grey sky, and the damp air created an extraordinary effect of exuberance and life.
Silence reigned in the shady garden. From time to time, from his hiding-place in a tree, some bird poured forth his sweet song. A pale yellow sunbeam struggled to illuminate the spot, and as it was reflected upon the wet leaves, it made them flash with a metallic brilliancy....
Above the opposite wall, rose the silhouette of a blackened and moss-covered belfry, surmounted by the figure of an angel. In the distance, over the house-tops, rose the dark sierra, partially hidden by bluish mists. These mists were moved about by the wind, and as they drifted along, or dissipated into the air, they disclosed several white orchards which heretofore had been concealed by the haze.
On the mountain-top, as the white penants of mist floated among the trees, they left tenuous filaments like those silver threads woven among the thorn bushes by lemures.
Quentin was gazing tirelessly upon the scene, when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned and saw a little girl of ten or twelve years, with her hair down her back.
“Good-afternoon,” said the child with a marked Andalusian accent, as she came up to him.
Quentin removed his hat respectfully, and the child smiled.
“Have you rung?” she asked.
“No.”
She rang the bell, and a large, over-grown servant girl opened the door and asked Quentin what he wanted.
“Give the Se?or Marqués my card,” he said, “and tell him that I have come to pay him my respects.”
“Come in, Se?or.”
Quentin entered. He rather wished that the Marquis would not care to receive him, hoping in this way to avoid making a tiresome call, but his wish was not granted, for in a short time, the over-grown servant girl asked him to kindly follow her.
They traversed a gallery whose windows looked out upon the patio of the fountain; then, after crossing two large, dark rooms, they came to a high-ceilinged hall panelled in leather, and with a red rug, tarnished by the years, upon the floor.
“Sit down, Se?or; the master will be here directly,” said the maid.
Quentin seated himself and began to examine the hall. It was large and rectangular, with three broad, and widely-separated balcony windows looking out upon the garden. The room possessed an air of complete desolation. The painted walls from which the plaster had peeled off in places, were hung with life-size portraits of men in the uniforms and habiliments of nobility: in some of the pictures the canvas was torn; in others, the frames were eaten by moths: the great, rickety, leather-covered armchairs staggered under the touch of a hand upon their backs: two ancient pieces of tapestry with figures in relief, which concealed the doors, were full of large rents: on the panels in the ceiling, spiders wove their white webs: a very complicated seventeenth century clock, with pendulum and dial of copper, had ceased to run: the only things in that antique salon that were out of harmony, were the French fire-place in which some wood was burning, and a little gilt clock upon the marble mantel, which, like a good parvenu, impertinently called attention to itself.
When he had waited a moment, a curtain was pulled aside, and an old man, bent with age, entered the salon. He was followed by a little bow-legged hunchback, crosseyed, grey-haired, and dressed in black.
“Where is the boy?” asked the old man in a cracked voice.
“Right in front of you,” replied the hunchback.
“Come closer!” exclaimed the Marquis, addressing Quentin. “I do not see very well.”
Quentin approached him, and the old man seized his hand and looked at him very closely.
“Come, sit by me. Have you enjoyed good health at school?”
“Yes, Se?or Marqués.”
“Don’t call me that,” murmured the old man, patting Quentin’s hand. “Have you learned to speak English?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But, well?”
“I speak it as well as I do Spanish.”
“English is very hard,” said the hunchback, who had seated himself upon the floor. “Yes means yesca (tinder); verigüel means muy bien (very well), and as for the rest—when you can say, ‘I catch, I go, I say’—you know English.”
“Hush, Colmenares,” said the Marquis, “don’t be a fool.”
“You’re more of a fool than I am,” replied the dwarf.
The old man, paying no attention to him, said to Quentin:
“I already know, I already know that you have not been up to any more foolishness.”
The hunchback burst into noisy laughter.
“Then he doesn’t belong to your family,” he exclaimed, “because every one of your family, beginning with you, is a fool.”
“Hush, buffoon, be quiet; I’ll warm your ribs for you if you don’t.”
This threat from the lips of the sickly octogenarian, was absolutely absurd; but the hunchback appeared to take it in earnest, for he began to make faces and grin in silence.
“Oh, Colmenares,” said the old man, “kindly call Rafaela, will you?”
“Very well.”
The hunchback went out, leaving the Marquis and Quentin alone.
“Well, my boy, I have asked your mother about you very often. She told me that you were well, and that you were working hard. I am very glad to see you”—and again he pressed Quentin’s hand between his own weak and trembling ones.
Quentin regarded the old man tenderly, without knowing what to say. At this moment, the hunchback returned, followed by a young lady and a little girl. The little girl was the one Quentin had greeted upon the stairs; the young lady was the same girl he had seen several years before—probably in that very same room.
Quentin rose to greet them.
“Rafaela,” said the old man, addressing the older girl, “this boy is a relative of ours. I am not going to recall incidents that sadden me: the only thing I want is that you should know that you are related. Quentin will come here often, will you not?”
“Yes, sir,” answered he, more and more astounded at the direction the interview was taking.
“Good. That is all.”
At this point, the hunchback, clutching the Marquis by the sleeve, asked:
“Would you like me to play for you?”
“Yes, do.”
The hunchback brought a small, lute-shaped guitar, drew up a tabouret, and sat at the feet of the Marquis. Then he began to pluck the strings with fingers as long and delicate as spiders’ legs. He played a guitar march, and then, much to Quentin’s astonishment, the old Marquis began to sing. He sang a patriotic song in a cracked voice. It was a very old one, and ended with the following stanza:
Ay mi patria, patria mía,
y tambien de mi querida;
luchar valiente por patria y amor,
es el deber del guerrero espa?ol.
(Ah, my country, country of mine, and also of my sweetheart; to fight for country and love, is the duty of the Spanish warrior.)
When the old man had finished the song, his grand-daughters embraced him, and he smiled most contentedly.
Quentin felt as though he had been transported to another century. The shabby house, the old Marquis, the buffoon, the beautiful girls—everything seemed unusual.
The two sisters were pretty; Rafaela, the older sister, was extremely attractive. Some twenty-three or twenty-four years of age, she had clear, blue eyes—eyes the colour of pale blue satin—blond hair, a straight nose, and an enchanting smile. Lacking the freshness of her first youth, there was a suspicion of marcidity in her face, which, perhaps, enhanced her attractiveness.
The face of Remedios, the child, was less symmetrical, but more positive: she had large, black eyes, and an expression of mixed audacity, childishness, and arrogance. Now and then she smiled silently and mischievously.
When Quentin felt that he had stayed long enough, he rose, gave his hand to the two girls, and hesitantly approached the old man, who threw his arms about his neck and tearfully embraced him.
He saluted the hunchback with a nod of his head which was scarcely answered; descended the stairs, and upon reaching the vestibule, the man who had let him in, asked:
“Excuse me, Se?or, but are you the man who got back from England a little while ago?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I thought. Are you going to stay in Cordova?”
“I believe so.”
“Then we shall see you?”
“Yes, I shall call from time to time.”
The two men shook hands, and Quentin stepped into the street.
“The old man is my grandfather,” said Quentin, “that’s just what he is. His emotion, his harrowed look—that’s just what he is.”
Perhaps the best thing to do would be to ask his mother exactly what the circumstances of his birth were; but he feared to offend her.
He soon forgot about that, and began to think about the blond-haired girl Rafaela. She was pretty. Indeed she was! Her clear, soft eyes; her pleasant smile; and above all, her opaque voice had gone straight to Quentin’s heart: but as Quentin was not a dreamer, but a B?otian, a Horatian, as he himself had remarked, he associated with Rafaela’s soft, blue eyes, the ancestral home, the beautiful garden, and the wealth which her family must still possess.
Quentin devoted the days following this visit to cogitating upon this point.
Rafaela was an admirable prize—pretty, pleasant, and aristocratic. He must attempt the conquest. True, he was an illegitimate child. He had a desire to laugh at that thought, it seemed so operatic to him: now he could sing the aria from Il Trovatore:
Deserto sulla terra.
Bastard or no bastard, he considered that the thing was possible. He was tall, handsome, and above all, strong. In Eton, he had noticed that after all, the greatest attraction in a man for women is strength.
They said that the Marquis’ house was going to ruin: he would save it from ruin and restore it splendidly. Then—into the street with those who got in his way! It was a great plan.
Truly, Rafaela was an admirable prize. To marry her, and live in that sumptuous house with the two sisters until the place was completely repaired, would be a life indeed! He would write his school friends and tell them about his marriage to an Andalusian descendant of the Cid, and describe the patios filled with orange trees.... Then he could say with his poet: “Let them serve us quickly this bottle of Falernus in the neighbouring gorge.” After that ... then came new chapters, as yet scarcely outlined in his imagination....
He would represent himself from the very first as a romanticist, an idealist, a scorner of the impurities of reality. He would manifest a respectful enthusiasm for her, like that of a man who dares not even dream of so much felicity.
“You’ll win, Quentin, you’ll win,” he said to himself joyously. “What do you desire? To live well, to have a beautiful home, not to work. Is that a crime, forsooth? And if it were a crime, then what? They do not carry one off to jail for that. No. You are a good B?otian, a good swine in the herd of Epicurus. You were not born for the base bodily wants of a merchant. Dissemble a little, my son, dissemble a little. Why not? Fortunately for you, you are a great faker.”
A WEEK later, on a rainy day which recalled that of his first visit, Quentin approached the palace. In spite of his Epicureanism and his B?otianism, he dared not enter; he passed by without stopping until he reached the Campo de la Madre de Dios.
He leaned over the railing on the river bank. The Guadalquivir was muddy, clay-coloured: some fishermen in black boats were casting their nets near the Martos dam and mill: others, with poles, perched upon the rocks of the Murallón, were patiently waiting for the shad to bite.
Quentin returned to the Calle del Sol disgusted with his weakness, but as soon as he reached the house, his energy again disappeared. Fortunately for him, the man who had opened the gate for him a few days before was seated on a stone bench in the vestibule.
“Good-afternoon,” said Quentin.
“Good-afternoon, Se?or. Did you come to see the Marquis?”
“No; I was just out for a walk.”
“Won’t you come in?”
“Very well, I’ll come in for a while.”
The old man opened the gate, shut it again, and they went down the long gallery. At the end of it, after climbing two steps, they came into the garden. It was large and beautiful: the walls were hidden by the fan-shaped foliage of the orange and lemon trees. Close-trimmed myrtles lined the walks, and underfoot, yellow and green moss carpeted the stones.
“I have taken care of this garden for fifty years,” said the man.
“Caramba!”
“Yes; I began to work here when I was eight or ten years old. It is rather neglected now, for I can’t do much any more.”
“Why are those orange trees in the centre so tall?”
“Orange trees grow taller when they are shut in like that than they do in the country,” answered the gardener.
“And what do you do with so many oranges?”
“The master gives them away.”
At one end of the garden was a rectangular pool. On one of its long sides rose a granite pedestal adorned with large, unpolished urns which were reflected in the greenish and motionless water.
Quentin was contemplating the tranquil water of the pool, when he heard the halting notes of a Czerny étude on the piano.
“Who is playing?” he asked.
“Se?orita Rafaela, who is giving her sister a lesson. Why don’t you go up?”
“Why, I think I shall.”
And with throbbing heart, Quentin left the garden and climbed the stairs. He rang, and a tall, dried-up maid led him through several rooms until he reached one in which Remedios was playing the piano while Rafaela, just behind her, was beating time upon an open book of music.
An old woman servant was sewing by the balcony window.
Quentin greeted the two sisters, and Rafaela said to him:
“You haven’t been here for several days! Grandfather has asked for you again and again.”
“Really?” asked Quentin idiotically.
“Yes, many times.”
“I couldn’t come; and besides, I was afraid I would be an annoyance, that I would bother you.”
“For goodness’ sake!”
“Well, you see you have already stopped the lesson on my account.”
“No; we were just about to finish anyway,” said Remedios. “Go on,” she added, turning to Rafaela, “why don’t you play for us?”
“Oh! Some other day.”
“No. Do play,” urged Quentin.
“What would you like me to play?”
“Anything you like.”
Rafaela took a book, placed it on the rack, and opened it.
Quentin could read the word Mozart upon the cover. He listened to the sonata in silence: he did not know very much about classical music, and while the girl played, he was thinking about the most appropriate exclamation to make when she had finished.
“Oh! Fine! Fine!” he exclaimed. “Whose is that delicious music?”
“It is Mozart’s,” replied Rafaela.
“It’s admirable! Admirable!”
“Don’t you play the piano, Quentin?”
“Oh, very little. Just enough to accompany myself when I sing.”
“Ah! Then you sing?”
“I used to sing a little in school; but I have a poor voice, and I use it badly.”
“Very well, sing for us; if you do it badly, we’ll tell you,” said Rafaela.
“Yes, sing—do sing!” exclaimed Remedios.
Quentin sat down at the piano and played the introductory chords of Count di Luna’s aria in Il Trovatore:
Il balen del suo sorriso
d’una stella vince al raggio.
Then he began to sing in a rich, baritone voice, and as he reached the end of the romanza, he imparted an expression of profound melancholy to it:
Ah l’amor, l’amore ond’ ardo
le favelli in mio favor
sperda il sole d’un suo sguardo
la tempesta, ah!... la tempesta del mio cor.
And he repeated the phrase with an accent that was more and more expressive. Any one listening to him would have said that truly, la tempesta was playing havoc with his heart.
“Very good! Very good!” cried Rafaela. Remedios applauded gleefully.
“It’s going to rain,” announced the old woman servant as she glanced at the sky.
“That’s because I did so badly,” said Quentin with a smile.
They went to the window. The sky was darkening; it was beginning to rain. The heavy drops fell in oblique lines and glistened on the green leaves of the orange trees, and on the moss-covered tiles; the continuous splashing of the drops in the pool, made it look as if it were boiling....
The rain soon ceased, the sun came out, and the whole garden glowed like a red-hot coal; the oranges shone among the damp foliage; the green hedge-mustard spotted the glittering grey roof tiles with its gay note; water poured from the dark, ancient belfry of a near-by tower; and several white gardens smiled upon the mountain side.
“That is a regular gipsy sun,” lisped Remedios, who at times had an exaggerated Andalusian pronunciation.
Quentin laughed; the little girl’s manner of speech amused him immensely.
“Don’t laugh,” said Rafaela to Quentin with mock gravity; “my little girl is very sensitive.”
“What did you say to him?” demanded Remedios of her sister.
“Oh, you rascal! He’s heard it, now,” Rafaela exclaimed humorously; and seizing the child about the waist, she kissed the back of her neck.
It was beginning to clear up; the dark clouds were moving off, leaving the sky clear; a ray of sunshine struck a tower formed by three arches set one above the other. In the three spaces, they could see the motionless bells; a figure of San Rafael spread its wings from the peak of the roof.
“What is that figure?” asked Quentin.
“It belongs to the church of San Pedro,” replied the servant.
“Is it hollow like a weather-vane?”
“No; I think it is solid.”
“It’s stopped raining now,” said Remedios. “Have you seen the house yet,” she added, turning to Quentin, and using the familiar second person.
“No,” he replied.
“She uses ‘thou’ to everybody,” explained Rafaela.
They left the music-room, and in the next room, they showed Quentin various mirrors with bevelled edges, a glass cabinet full of miniatures with carved frames and antique necklaces, two escritoires inlaid with mother-of-pearl, bright-coloured majolica ware, and pier-glasses with thick plates.
“It is my mother’s room,” said Rafaela; “we’ve kept it exactly as it was when she was alive.”
“Did she die very long ago?”
“Six years ago.”
“Come on,” said Remedios, seizing him by the hand, and looking into her sister’s face with her great, restless eyes.
The three descended the stairs and traversed the gallery that connected the vestibule with the garden. On either side of them were an infinite number of rooms; some large and dark, with wardrobes and furniture pushed against the walls; others were small, with steps leading up to them. At the end of the gallery were the stables, extremely large, with barred windows. They entered.
“Now you’ll see what kind of a horse we have here,” said Rafaela. “Pajarito! Pajarito!” she called, and a little donkey which was eating hay in a corner came running up.
In the same stable was an enormous coach, painted yellow, very ornate, with several very small windows, and the family coat-of-arms on the doors.
“Grandfather used to ride in this coach,” said Rafaela.
“It must have taken more than two horses to draw it.”
“Yes; they used eight.”
“These girls are admirably stoical,” thought Quentin.
After the stables, they saw the corrals, and the cellar, which was huge, with enormous rain-water jars that looked like giants buried in the ground.
“We can’t go in there,” said Rafaela ironically.
“Why not?”
“Because this little idiot,” and she seized her sister, “is afraid of the jars.”
Remedios made no reply; they went on; through crooked passages that were full of hiding-places, and labyrinthic corridors, until they came to a large, abandoned garden.
“Would you like to go in?” Rafaela asked Remedios.
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you afraid of the genet any more?”
“No.”
“What is it?” inquired Quentin.
“The gardener keeps a caged animal in here, and it frightens us because it looks like such a monster.”
“You’re a naughty girl,” said Remedios to her sister. “What will you bet that I won’t go to the genet, take it out of the cage, and hold it in my hand?”
“No, no; he might bite you.”
“Where is this monster?” asked Quentin.
“You’ll soon see.”
It was a specie of weasel with a long tail and a fierce eye.
“The animal certainly has an evil look,” said Quentin.
They walked about the abandoned garden: a thick carpet of burdock and henbane and foxglove and nettles covered the soil. In the middle of the garden, surrounded by a circle of myrtles, was a summer-house with a decayed door; inside of it they could see remnants of paint and gilt. On the old wall, was a tangled growth of ivy. Enveloped in its foliage, and close to the wall, they could make out a fountain with a Medusa head, through a dirty pipe in whose mouth flowed a crystalline thread which fell sonorously into a square basin brimful of water. There were two broad, moss-covered steps leading up to the fountain, and the weeds and wild figs, growing in the cracks, were lifting up the stones. From among the weeds there rose a marble pedestal; and a wild-orange tree near by, with its little red fruit, seemed spotted with blood.
“There are all sorts of animals here in the summer,” said Rafaela. “Lizards come to drink at the fountain. Some of them are very beautiful with their iridescent heads.”
“They are woman’s enemies,” warned Remedios.
Quentin laughed.
“Some of the foolishness the servant girls tell her,” explained Rafaela. “I’ve forbidden them to tell her anything now.”
The three returned to the corridor.
“What about the roof? We haven’t showed him the roof,” said the little girl.
“Juan must have the key; I’ll go and ask him for it.”
Remedios ran out in search of the gardener, and returned immediately.
They climbed the main stairs until they reached a door near the roof.
“What panels!” exclaimed Quentin.
“They are full of bats,” said Rafaela.
“And thalamanderth,” lisped Remedios.
Quentin suppressed a smile.
“How funny! How very funny!” murmured the child somewhat piqued.
“I am not laughing at what you said,” replied Quentin, “I was just remembering that that is the way we boys used to talk.”
“She talks like the rowdies in the streets,” said Rafaela.
“Well, I don’t want anything more from you,” cried Remedios. “You’re always saying things to me.”
“Come, girlie, come; the genet isn’t coming here to eat you.”
“He couldn’t.”
From the door, and through a corridor, they came out upon a broad, tiled terrace with an iron railing.
“Let’s go up higher,” said Remedios.
They climbed a winding staircase inside a tower until they came out upon a small azotea, whence they could command a view of nearly the entire city.
The wind was blowing strongly. From that height, they could see Cordova, a great pile of grey roofs and white walls, between which they could make out the alleys, which looked like crooked lines inundated with light. Sierra Morena appeared in the background like a dark wave, and its round peaks were outlined in a gentle undulation against the sky, which was cloudless. The gardens stood out very white against the skirts of the mountain, and upon a sharp-pointed hill at the foot of the dark mountain wall, stood a rocky castle.
Toward Cordova la Vieja, pastures glistened, a luminous green; in the country, the sown ground stretched out until it was lost in the distance, interrupted here and there by some brown little hill covered with olive trees.
“I’m going to fetch the telescope,” announced Remedios suddenly.
“Don’t fall,” warned her sister.
“Ca!”
Rafaela and Quentin were left alone.
“How charming your sister is,” said he.
“Yes; she’s as clever as a squirrel, but more sensitive than any one I know. The slightest thing offends her.”
“Perhaps you have petted her too much?”
“Of course. I am years older than she. She is like a daughter to me.”
“You must be very fond of her.”
“Yes; I put her to bed and to sleep even yet. Sometimes she has fits of temper over nothing at all! But she has a heart of gold.”
At this point the little girl returned, carrying a telescope bigger than she was.
“What a tiny girl!” exclaimed Rafaela, taking the telescope from Remedios.
They rested the instrument on the wall of the azotea and took turns looking through it.
The afternoon was steadily advancing; yellow towers and pink belfries rose above the wet roofs, their glass windows brilliant in the last rays of the setting sun; a broad, slate-covered cupola outlined its bulk against the horizon; here and there a cypress rose like a black pyramid between great, white walls, and the thousands of grey tiled roofs; and the iron weather-vanes, some in the shape of a peaceable San Rafael, others in the form of a rampant dragon with fierce claws and pointed tongue, surmounted the gables and sheds, and decorated the ancient belfries, covered with a greenish rust by the sun of centuries....
Toward the west, the sky was touched with rose; flaming clouds sailed over the mountain. The sun had set; the fire of the clouds changed to scarlet, to mother-of-pearl, to cold ashes. Black night already lurked in the city and in the fields. The wind commenced to murmur in the trees, shaking the window blinds and curtains, and rapidly drying the roofs. A bell clanged, and its solemn sound filled the silent atmosphere.
Slowly the sky was invaded by a deep blue, dark purple in some places; Jupiter shone from his great height with a silver light, and night took possession of the land; a clear, starry night, that seemed the pale continuation of the twilight.
From the house garden arose a fresh perfume of myrtles and oranges; of the exhalations of plants and damp earth.
“We must go now,” said Rafaela. “It’s getting cold.”
They descended the stairs. Quentin took leave of the two girls and stepped into the street.
FOR a whole week Quentin walked through the Calle del Sol day and night, hoping to see Rafaela without going to her house. It did not seem expedient to him to call again so soon; he was afraid of being considered inopportune; and he would have liked it had chance—more apparent than real—granted him a meeting with Rafaela while he was strolling about the neighbourhood of the palace.
One warm night in January, Quentin left his house with the intention of walking by the palace in the Calle del Sol.
It was a beautiful, serene night, without a breath of air stirring. The great, round face of the moon was shining high overhead, its light dividing the streets into two zones—one white, and the other bluish black.
Some of the plazas seemed covered with snow, so white were the walls of the houses and the stones of the pavements.
Absently strolling along, Quentin approached the Mosque; its walls rose as solemn and black as those of a fortress; above their serrated battlements, the moon floated giddily in the deep, veiled blue of the sky.
“All this contains something of the stuff that dreams are made of,” he thought.
No one was passing there, and his footsteps echoed loudly on the pavement.
Quentin started toward El Potro in order to reach the Calle del Sol, which was nearly at the other end of the town, and he was thinking of the thousand and one possibilities, both for and against his plans, when a little hunchback boy came running up to him, and said:
“A little alms, Se?orito, my mother and I have nothing to eat.”
“You come out at this time of night to ask alms!” murmured Quentin. “You’ll have a fine time finding any people here.”
“But my mother has fainted.”
“Where is she?”
“Here, in this street.”
Quentin entered a dark alley, and had no sooner done so, than he felt himself seized by his arms and legs, and tied by his elbows, and then blind-folded with a handkerchief.
“What’s this? What do you want of me?” he exclaimed, trying vainly to disengage himself. “I’ll give you all the money I have.”
“Shut up,” said a gruff voice with a gipsy accent, “and come with us—Somebody wants to settle a little account with you.”
“With me! Nobody has any accounts to settle with me.”
“Be quiet, my friend, and let’s be going.”
“Very well; but take off the handkerchief; I’ll go wherever you tell me to.”
“It can’t be done.”
When Quentin found that he was overpowered, he felt the blood rush to his head with anger. He began to stumble along. When he had gone about twenty paces, he stopped.
“I said that I would go wherever he is.”
“No, Se?or.”
Quentin settled himself firmly on his left leg, and with his right, kicked in the direction whence he had heard the voice. There was a dull thud as a body struck the ground.
“Ay! Ay!” groaned a voice. “He hit me on the hip. Ay!”
“You’ll either go on, or I’ll knock your brains out,” said the gipsy’s voice.
“But why don’t you take off this handkerchief?” vociferated Quentin.
“In a minute.”
Quentin went on stumblingly, and they made several turns. He was not sufficiently acquainted with the streets near El Potro to get his bearings as he went along. After a quarter of an hour had elapsed, the gipsies stopped and made Quentin enter the door of a house.
“Here’s your man,” said the voice of the gipsy.
“Good,” said a vigorous and haughty voice. “Turn him loose.”
“He wounded Mochuelo bad,” added the gipsy.
“Was he armed?”
“No, but he gave him a kick that smashed him.”
“Good. Take off the handkerchief so we can see each other face to face.”
Quentin felt them remove his bandage, and found himself in a patio before a pale, blond, little man, with a decisive manner, and a cala?és hat on his head. The moonlight illuminated the patio; jardinières and flower-pots hung upon the walls; and overhead, in the space between the roofs, gleamed the milky veil of the blue night sky.
“Whom have you brought me?” exclaimed the little man. “This isn’t the sergeant.”
“Well! So it isn’t! We must have made a mistake.”
“You are lucky to have escaped, my friend,” exclaimed the little man, turning to Quentin. “If you had been the sergeant, they would have had to pick you up in pieces.”
“Bah! It wouldn’t be that bad,” said Quentin as he gazed in disgust at the boastful little man.
“Wouldn’t it?”
“Of course not.”
“Do you know to whom you are speaking?”
“No; and the most curious thing about it is that I don’t care. Still, if you want us two to fight it out alone, come with me, and we’ll see if it is your turn to win or to lose.”
“I never lose, young man.”
“Neither do I,” replied Quentin.
“We’ll have to give this lad a lesson,” said the gipsy, “to teach him how to talk to quality folk.”
“Be quiet, Cantarote,” said the little man in the cala?és. “This gentleman is a man, and talks like a man, and we are going to drink a few glasses this very minute to celebrate our meeting.”
“That’s the way to talk,” said Quentin.
“Well, come on. This way, please.”
Quentin followed the little fellow through a small door and down three or four steps to a corridor, through which they reached a dark cellar. It was dimly lighted by several lamps which hung on wires from the ceiling. Seated upon benches about a long, greasy table, were gathered a dozen or so persons, of whom the majority were playing cards, and the rest drinking and chatting. Upon entering the cellar, Quentin and the little man in the cala?és made their way to a small table, and sat down facing each other. The blackened lamp, hanging by a wire from a beam in the ceiling, distilled a greenish oil drop by drop, which fell upon the greasy table.
The little man ordered the innkeeper to bring two glasses of white wine, and while they waited, Quentin observed him closely. He was a blond individual, pale, with blue eyes, and slender, well-kept hands. To Quentin’s scrutinizing glance, he responded with another, cool and clear, without flinching.
At this point, a queer, ugly-looking man who was talking impetuously, and showing huge, yellow, horselike teeth, came toward the table and said to Quentin’s companion:
“Who is this bird, Se?or José?”
“This ‘bird,’” replied the other, “is a hard-headed bull—understand?—The best there is.”
“Well, that’s better.”
Quentin smiled as he gazed at the man who had called him a bird. He was an individual of indefinite age, clean-shaven, a mixture of a barber and a sacristan, with a forehead so low that his hair served him as eyebrows, and with a jaw like a monkey’s.
“And this chap, who is he?” asked Quentin in turn.
“He? He is one of the most shameless fellows in the world. He wanders about these parts to see if they won’t give him a few pennies. Though he is old and musty, you will always find him with sporting women and happy-go-lucky folk. Ask any one in Cordova about Currito Martín, and no matter where you are, they can tell you who he is.”
“Not everywhere, Se?or José,” replied Currito, who had listened impassively to the panegyric, gesticulating with a hand whose fingers resembled vine-creepers. “If you should ask the Bishop, he would not know me.”
“Well, I would have taken him for a sacristan,” said Quentin.
“I’m a sacristan of blackbirds and martens, if you must know,” said Currito somewhat piqued. “The only places where I am known are the taverns, the huts in the Calle de la Feria, and the Higuerilla.”
“And that’s enough,” said one of the card-players.
“That’s right.”
Two of the onlookers got up from the bench and began to chaff Currito. The sly rascal was at home among jests, and he answered the repartee that they directed at him with great impudence.
“That’s a fine amber cigarette-holder, Currito,” said one of them.
“The Marquis,” he replied.
“A fine little cape, old boy,” said the other, turning over the muffler of the scoundrel’s cloak.
“The Marquis,” he repeated.
“This Currito,” said Se?or José, “hasn’t an ounce of shame in him; for a long time he has lived on his wife, who is kept by a marquis, and he has the nerve to brag about it. Come here, Currito.”
Currito came to their table.
“Why do you keep boasting about your shame?” asked Se?or José. “Don’t you do it again in front of me. Do you understand? If you do, I’ll skin you alive.”
“Very well, Se?or José.”
“Come, have a glass, and then see if La Generosa is in any of the rooms here.”
Currito emptied the wine-glass, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and left the cellar.
“Are you a foreigner?” Se?or José asked Quentin.
“I was educated outside of Spain.”
“Will you be in Cordova for some time?”
“I think so.”
“Well, I’m glad, because I like you.”
“Many thanks.”
“I’ll tell you who I am, and if after that, it doesn’t seem a bad idea to you, we’ll be friends.”
“Before, too.”
“No, not before. I am Pacheco, the horseman, or rather Pacheco, the bandit. Now, if you care to be Pacheco’s friend, here’s my hand.”
“Here is mine.”
“Well, you’re a brave chap,” exclaimed Pacheco. “That’s the way I like to have a fellow act. Listen: any time you need me, you will find me here, in El Cuervo’s tavern. Now let’s see what these lads are talking about.”
Pacheco got up, and followed by Quentin, went over to the card-players’ table.
“Hello, Pajarote!” said Pacheco to the banker.
“Hello, Se?or José! Were you here? I didn’t see you.”
“What’s doing in Seville and the low country?”
“Nothing.... It’s pretty slow. Everything is closed by hunger and poverty, and here I am with these thieves who would even steal a man’s breath.... Why, I’m beginning to lose faith even in San Rafael himself.”
“Now you’ve spoiled my luck, comrade,” said one of the players, throwing down his cards angrily. “What business did you have ringing in that angel? Look here, I’m not going to play any more.”
Pajarote smiled. He was a scoundrel and a card sharp, and he always took delight in pretending to be unlucky while he was cleaning his friends of their money. He dealt the cards.
“I’ll bet,” said a man with one eye higher than the other whom they called Charpaneja, in the thin voice of a hunchback.
“I’ll bet six,” gruffly replied a charcoal-burner nicknamed El Torrezno.
More cards were tossed upon the table, and, as before, Pajarote won.
“I don’t want to play,” squeaked Charpaneja.
“Why not?” asked the banker.
“Because your hands are always lucky.”
“The fact is, you haven’t any spirit,” replied Pajarote coldly. “You start out like a Cordovese colt, and quit like a donkey of La Mancha.”
At this point Currito returned, and coming up to Se?or José, said:
“La Generosa hasn’t come yet, but Se?ora Rosario with her two girls, and Don Gil Sabadía are in the next room.”
“Well, let’s go in,” said Pacheco.
He and Quentin again came out into the patio, and entered a room illuminated by a brass lamp set upon a round table. By the light of the lamp he could see a frightful-looking old woman with a hooked nose and moles on her chin, two young girls with flowers in their hair, and a bushy-haired old man with a long beard.
“The peace of God be with you,” said Pacheco as he entered. “How is Don Gil? Good evening, Se?ora Rosario; what’s the news?”
“Nothing: we just came here so these girls could have a drink of something.”
“You mean these rosebuds,” interrupted Currito.
“Thanks, Currito,” said one of the girls with a smile.
“Child!” exclaimed Pacheco, “be very careful of Currito, for he’s dangerous.”
“He!” replied the old woman, “he is already among the down-and-outs.”
“I’m like the old guide in the Mosque,” replied Currito. “Every time he saw me, he used to say, ‘Let me have an old suit of clothes—I’m more dead than alive.’”
“Heavens! What little wit you have!” said one of the girls with a gesture of contempt.
“Well, I live by my wits, my girl,” answered Currito, piqued.
“Then, confound them, my man,” she replied with the same gesture of contempt.
Currito peevishly fell silent, and Pacheco presented Quentin to the bushy-haired man.
“This gentleman,” and he indicated Quentin, “is a brave chap whom I have had the pleasure of meeting this evening by mistake. This man,” and he nodded to the old man with the long beard, “is Don Gil Sabadía, the only person in Cordova who knows the history of every street, alley, and by-way in the city.”
“Not as much as that, man, not as much as that,” said Don Gil with a smile.
“If there is anything you don’t know,” Pacheco went on, “nobody in Cordova knows it. Well, if you and the girls would like to drink a bottle of the best Montilla, I’ll treat.”
“Accepted.”
“Cuervo!” shouted Pacheco, stepping outside the door.
The innkeeper appeared; a man of some fifty years, stoop-shouldered, ill-shaven, with hatchet-shaped side whiskers, and a red sash about his waist.
“What does Se?or José wish?” he inquired.
“Bring a few bottles of your best.”
While they were waiting for the wine, the ill-tempered girl and Currito resumed their quarrel.
“Look out for that girl,” said Currito, “she hasn’t much sense.”
“Did anybody speak?” she asked in disgust.
“I believe the girl is suffering from jaundice.”
“My goodness! What a bad-tempered old uncle he is!” said she.
“Listen, my child,” continued Currito, “I’m going to make you a present of a sugar-plum to see if we can’t sweeten your mouth.”
“Currito, we don’t need any sugar around here,” answered the other girl easily.
“Girls! There’s no need of getting scared,” said the old woman in a gruff voice.
“I’ve left her hanging like a fresco painting, haven’t I?” Currito remarked to Quentin.
“I’ve never noticed that fresco paintings were hung.”
“He’s a fool,” explained the contemptuous girl.
The innkeeper arrived with the bottle and the glasses, and Currito seized the former and served every one.
“You know so much, Don Gil, what will you bet that you don’t know what that Italian bishop said when he saw the Mosque?” said Currito.
“What did he say? Let’s hear it,” inquired Don Gil with an ironic smile.
“Well, the canon Espejito went up to him, and pointing out the Christ of the Column, explained to him how it was made: ‘A prisoner made that Christ with his finger-nails,’ and the Bishop said to him, ‘The man who did it must have had good nails.’”
“He must be a heretic,” said Se?ora Rosario.
“And who told you that fake?” asked Don Gil.
“El Moji told me.”
“Well, he fooled you like a Chinaman.”
“No, sir, he did not fool me,” replied Currito. “El Moji was a man’s man, El Moji never lied, and El Moji....”
“But you are trying to tell me what the Bishop said, when I was there at the time,” exclaimed Don Gil.
“You there! Why, it was the time you went to Seville!”
“Very well, I was not there. Blas told me, and there’s an end to it.”
“But of what importance is all this?” asked Quentin.
“Let them be,” interrupted the ill-tempered girl; “they’re two disagreeable old uncles!”
“Don Gil,” said Pacheco, smiling and winking his eye, “permits no one to be informed of anything he does not know about himself.”
“Well, what will you bet,” Currito presently broke out, “that you don’t know what El Golotino said when he had the lawsuit with El Manano?”
“Let’s hear, let’s hear. This is most important,” remarked Pacheco.
“Well, there isn’t much to it. El Golotino, as you know, had a herd of a couple of dozen goats, and El Manano, who was a charcoal-burner, had rented a hill; and to find out whether the goats had wandered on the hill or not, they had a lawsuit, which El Golotino lost. Don Nicanor, the clerk, was making an inventory of the property of the owner of the goats, and was adding: ‘two and four are six, and four are ten—carry one; fourteen and six are twenty, and three are twenty-three—carry two; twenty-seven and eight are thirty-five, and six are forty-one—carry four.’ El Golotino thought that when the clerk said, ‘carry one,’ he meant that he was going to carry off one goat, so he shouted tearfully: ‘Well, for that, you can carry off the whole bunch of them!’”
“That is not the way it was,” Se?or Sabadía started to remark, but every one burst out laughing.
“Come, girls, we must go home,” announced Se?ora Rosario.
“I’m going out,” said Don Gil, annoyed by the laughter.
“I am too,” added Quentin.
They took leave of Pacheco, and the innkeeper accompanied the three women and the two men to the door with the lamp. They went through several alleys and came out in the lower part of the Calle de la Feria. They stopped, before a miserable white hut, the old woman knocked on the door with her knuckles, it was opened from within, and Se?ora Rosario and the three girls entered. Through a small window next the door could be seen a very small, whitewashed room, with a glazed tile pedestal, a varnished bureau, and flower-pots full of paper flowers.
“What a cage! What a tiny house!” said Quentin.
“All the houses on this side of the street are like this,” answered Se?or Sabadía.
“Why?”
“On account of the wall.”
“Ah! Was there a wall here?”
“Of course! The wall that separated the upper city from the lower. The upper city was called Almadina, and the lower, Ajerquía.”
“That’s curious.”
They walked up the Calle de la Feria. The sloping street, with its tall, white houses bathed in the moonlight, presented a fantastic appearance; the two lines of roofs were outlined against the blue of the sky, broken here and there by the azoteas on some of the houses.
“Oh, yes,” continued the arch?ologist, “this wall used to extend from the Cruz del Rastro, to the Cuesta de Luján; then it stretched on through the Calle de la Zapatería and the Cuesta del Bailío, until it reached the tower on the Puerta del Rincón, where it ended.”
“So it cut the town in two, and one could not go from one side to the other? That was nice!”
“No. What nonsense! There were gates to go through. Up there near the Arquillo de Calceteros, was the Puerta de la Almadina, which in the time of the Romans, was called Piscatoria, or Fish Gate. The Portillo did not exist, and when they built against the wall, in the place it now occupies, there stood a house which the city bought in 1496 from its owner, Francisco Sánchez Torquemada, in order to open up an arch in the wall. This data,” added Don Gil confidentially, “comes from an original manuscript which is preserved in the City Hall. It’s curious, isn’t it?”
“Most curious.”
They climbed the Cuesta de Luján. The neighbouring streets were deserted; within some of the houses they could hear the vague sound of guitars; lovers whispered to each other at the grated windows.
“See?” said Don Gil, looking toward the lower end of the Calle de la Feria, “the fosses of the wall followed the line the moon makes in the street.”
“Very interesting,” murmured Quentin.
“Have you noticed how high the houses are in this street?”
“Yes, indeed; why is that?”
“For two reasons,” answered Don Gil, turned dominie. “First, to gain the height the wall deprived them of; and second, because in times gone by, the majority of the spectacles were celebrated here. Here is where executions were held; where they baited bulls; and broke lances; and where, during the week preceding the Day of the Virgin of Linares, the hosiers held a grand fair. That is why there are so many windows and galleries in these houses, and why the street is called the Calle de la Feria.”
The arch?ologist seized Quentin’s arm and proceeded to relate several stories and legends to him. The two men traversed narrow alleys, and plazoletas lined with white houses with blue doors.
“You know no one here?” inquired the arch?ologist.
“Not a soul.”
“Absolutely no one?”
“No. That is ... I know a Cordova boy who was educated with me in England. His name is ... Quentin García Roelas. Do you know him?”
“Not him; but I know his family.”
“He is a silent, taciturn chap. It seems to me that there is something unusual connected with his life. I’ve heard something....”
“Yes, there is an interesting story.”
“Do you know it?”
“Of course,” replied Don Gil.
“But you are so discreet that you will not tell it?”
“Naturally.”
“Very well, Don Gil. I’m going; I’m sorry to leave your agreeable company, but....”
“Must you go?”
“Yes, I must.”
“My dear man; don’t go. I must show you a most interesting spot, with a history....”
“No, I cannot.”
“I’ll take you to a place that you will have to like.”
“No, you must excuse me.”
“Moreover, I’ll tell you the story of your friend and schoolmate.”
“You see....”
“It’s early yet. It’s not more than one o’clock.”
“Very well, we’ll go wherever you say.”
They passed through very nearly the whole city until they came to the Paseo del Gran Capitán.
“What a city this is!” exclaimed Don Gil. “They can’t talk to me about Granada or Seville; for look you, Granada has three aspects: the Alhambra, the Puerta Real, and the Albaicín—three distinct things. Seville is larger than Cordova, but it is already more cosmopolitan—it’s like Madrid. But not so Cordova. Cordova is one and indivisible. Cordova is her own sauce. She is a city.”
From the Paseo del Gran Capitán, they followed Los Tejares, and on the right hand side, Se?or Sabadía paused before some little houses that were huddled close to a serrated wall. There were four of them, very small, very white, each with only one story, and all closed up except one, which merely had its door shut.
“Read this placard,” said Don Gil, pointing to a sign in a frame hanging on one side of the door.
Quentin read by the light of the moon:
Patrocinio de la Mata dresses
corpses at all hours of the day
or of the night in which she is
notified, at very regular prices.
“The devil! What a lugubrious sign!” exclaimed Quentin after reading it.
“Do you see this hut?” asked Don Gil. “Well, every intrigue that God ever turned loose, goes on here. But let us go in.”
They entered, and a cracked voice shouted:
“Who is it?”
“I, Se?ora Patrocinio, Don Gil Sabadía, who comes with a friend. Bring a light, for we’re going to stay a while.”
“One moment.”
The old woman descended with a lamp in her hand, and led the two men into a small parlour where there was a strong odour of lavender. She placed the lamp on the table and said:
“What do you want?”
“Some small olives, and a little wine.”
The old woman opened a cupboard, took out a dish of olives, another of biscuits, and two bottles of wine.
“Is there anything else you want?”
“Nothing more, Se?ora Patrocinio.”
The old woman withdrew and shut the door.
“How do you like the place, eh?” asked Don Gil.
“Magnificent! Now for the history of my friend Quentin.”
“Before the history, let’s drink. Your health, comrade.”
“Yours.”
“May all our troubles vanish into thin air.”
“True,” exclaimed Quentin. “Let us leave to the gods the care of placating the winds, and let us enjoy life as long as fortune, age, and the black spindle of the Three Sisters will permit us.”
“Are you a reader of Horace?” asked Don Gil.
“Yes.”
“One more reason for my liking you. Another glass, eh?”
“Let us proceed. Go on with the story, comrade.”
“Here goes.”
Don Gil cleared his throat, and commenced his story as follows....
TOWARD the first part of last century, upon one of the folds of Sierra Morena, stood a tavern called El Ventorro de la Sangre (Bloody Tavern). It was half way between Pozo Blanco and Cordova, in a fertile little pasture near an olive orchard.
Its name arose from a bloody encounter between the dragoons and guerillas in that spot at the time of the French intervention.
The tavern was situated on a small clearing that was always kept green. It was surrounded by tall prickly-pears, a ravine, and an olive orchard in which one could see ruins—vestiges of a fortress and a watch-tower. This land belonged to a village perched upon the most rugged and broken part of the mountain.... Its name does not at present concern the story.
The tavern was neither very large, nor very spacious; it had neither the characteristics of a hostelry, nor even of a store. Its front, which was six metres long, whitewashed, and pierced by a door and three windows, faced a bad horse-shoe road strewn with loose stones; its humble roof leaned toward the ground, and joined that of a shed which contained the stables, the manger, and the straw-loft.
One passed through the entrance of the little tavern from whose lintel hung a bunch of sarment—which indicated, for your enlightenment, that in the house thus decorated wine was sold—and entered a miserable vestibule, which also served as a kitchen, a larder, and, at times, a dormitory.
During the years 1838 and ’39, the proprietor of El Ventorro de la Sangre was a man named El Cartagenero, who, so evil tongues asserted, had been a licentiate—though not of philosophy—in a university with mayors for professors, and sticks for beadles. No one knew the truth—a clear indication that the tavern was not run badly; the man paid well, behaved himself as a man should, and was capable, if the occasion arose, of lending a hand to any of the neighbouring farmers.
El Cartagenero demonstrated in his delightful and entertaining conversation, that he had travelled extensively, both by land and by sea; he knew the business of innkeeping—which has its secrets as well as anything else in the world; robbed very little; was hard-working, sensible, upright, and if need be, firm, generous, and brave.
El Cartagenero was to all appearances a fugitive; and that very condition of his made him most reserved and taciturn, in no way a prier, and very little given to mixing himself in other people’s affairs.
When he had run the little tavern for six years, El Cartagenero rented an oil-press; he then installed a tile-kiln, and by his activity and perseverance, was getting along splendidly, when one day, unfortunately for him, while he was loading a cart with bricks, he fell in such a way that he struck his head on the iron-shod wheel, and was instantly killed.
From that very day, the tavern began to run down; La Cartagenera did not care to continue the renting of the press, because, as she said, she could not attend to it; she abandoned the kiln for the same reason, and neglected the tavern for no pretext at all, though, if there was no pretext or motive, there was an explanation; and this was La Cartagenera’s vice of drinking brandy, and the laziness and idleness of her daughters—two very sly and very slothful un-belled cows.
The elder of El Cartagenero’s daughters made her arrangements with a swaggering rascal from Cordova; and the other, not to be outdone by her sister, took for her good man, one of those country loafers—and what with the sweetheart of the former, and the friend of the other, and the brandy of the mother, the house began to run down hill.
The muleteers soon guessed what was up; they no longer found good wine there as before; nor a diligent person to prepare their meals and feed their animals; so now because the hosier had left the place swearing mad, again because the pedlar had quarrelled with them, all of their customers began to leave; and for a whole year no one dismounted at the tavern; and the mother and her daughters, with the two corresponding swains, passed the time insulting and growling at each other, stretched out in the sun in the summer, toasting sarment at the fire-place in the winter, and in all the seasons hurling bitter complaints against an adverse destiny.
After a year of this régime, there was nothing left in the house to eat, nor to drink, nor to sell—for they had sold everything including the doors—the family determined to get rid of the tavern. The girls’ two friends came to Cordova and opened up negotiations with all their acquaintances, and were about despairing of making a sale, when a farmer from these parts by the name of El Mojoso, presented himself at the tavern. He was a clever, sensible chap, and the owner of a drove of five very astute little donkeys.
El Mojoso entered into negotiations with the widow, and for less than nothing, became possessed of the establishment. El Mojoso was very sagacious, and immediately comprehended the situation at the tavern; so he began to think about conducive methods of restoring the credit of the house. The first thing that occurred to him after he had been installed a few days, was to change its name, and he had a painter friend of his paint in huge letters upon the whitewashed wall above the door, this sign:
THE CROSS-ROADS STORE
El Mojoso had a wife and three children: one, employed as a miner in Pueblo Nuevo del Terrible; and two girls, with whom and his wife he established himself in the store.
His wife, whom they called La Temeraria, was a tall, strong, industrious, and determined matron. The daughters were splendid girls, but too refined to live in that deserted spot.
El Mojoso himself was a tough sort of a chap, crazy about bulls, slangy, and somewhat of a boaster. As a man who had spent his childhood in the Matadero district, which is the finest school of bull-fighting in the world, he knew how to differentiate the several tricks of the bull-ring.
At first, El Mojoso did not abandon his drove; the returns from the inn were very small, and it did not seem expedient to him to quit his carrying business. But instead of walking the streets of Cordova, he devoted himself to going to and from the mountain villages carrying wheat to the mill, farming utensils to the farms, and doing a lot of errands and favours that were gaining him many friends in the neighbourhood.
When he had no errands or favours to do, he carried stones to his house on his donkeys and piled them under the shed. After a year of this work, when he had gathered together the wherewithal, he got a mason from Cordova, and under his direction, La Temeraria and he and his daughters, and a youth whom they had hired as a servant, lengthened the house, raised it a story, tiled the roof, and whitewashed it.
El Mojoso had to sell his donkeys to pay the costs—only keeping one. The muleteers were already resuming their old custom of stopping at the store.
During the first months, the wine was pure, and there was a pardillo and a claret such as had not been known in those parts for many years. Little by little the store commenced to grow in fame; lively and genial folk met there; the wine grew worse, according to the opinion of the intelligent, but good wine was not lacking if the customer who asked for it had the means of paying without protest or objection three or four times its worth. During the slaughter season there was pork chine when they wanted it, and at other times of the year, pork sausage, blood pudding and other such delicacies.
El Mojoso learned his new business very quickly. Without doubt, he was a thief a nativitate. He watered the wine and perjured himself by swearing that it was the only pure wine that was sold in the entire mountain district; he put pepper in the brandy; he cheated in grain and hay; tangled up the accounts, and—always came out ahead.
Nearly every day he went to the city with his donkey under the pretext of shopping; but the truth is that his trips were to carry instructions and orders from a few timid men who went about the mountain, blunderbuss in hand, to some poor chaps in prison.
La Temeraria knew how to help her husband. She was a quiet, hard-working woman as long as no one interfered with her; but if any one dared to fail her, she was a she-wolf, more vengeful than God. She had enough spirit to look upon robbing as a pardonable and permissible thing, and even to the extent of not considering it extraordinary for a man to bring down a militia-man and leave him on the ground chewing mud.
In fine, the husband and wife were the most artful ... innkeepers in these parts. At the Cross-roads Store, the traveller could spend the night in peace, whether he was an orderly person or had some little account to settle with the police; or whether he was a merchant or a horseman, he could be sure of being undisturbed. One day . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
“But tell me, my friend,” Don Gil asked Quentin; “how does the beginning of the story strike you?”
“Very well.”
“Did you like the exposition?”
“I should say so! You are a master.”
“Thanks!” exclaimed Don Gil, satisfied. “To your health, comrade.”
“To yours.”
“Now you’ll hear the good part.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
One rainy day in the month of February, just at dusk, there was gathered in the kitchen of the Cross-roads Store, a group of muleteers from the near-by village. Some of them, imbued with a love of heat, were seated upon two long benches on either side of the hearth; others were seated upon chairs and stools of wicker and lambskin, further away from the fire.
By the light of the blackened lamp and the flame of the candle, the whole circumference of the kitchen, which was a large one, could be seen: its enormous mantel, its rafters twisted and blackened with smoke, the big stones in the floor, and the walls adorned with a collection of pot-covers, saucepans, wooden spoons, and coloured jars hung upon nails.
The muleteers were engaged in an animated conversation while they waited for the supper which La Temeraria was at that moment preparing in two frying-pans full of pork chine and potatoes; El Mojoso was filling the measure with barley which he took from a bin; then, pouring the grain into a leather sieve, he handed it to a youth who was going to and from the kitchen and the stable.
Night had already fallen, and it was raining torrents, when repeated knocks sounded upon the door.
“Who is it?” shouted El Mojoso in a loud voice. “Come in, whoever it is.”
This said, the host took a lantern, lit it with a brand from the fire, crossed the kitchen, and stood in the vestibule with the light held high to see who was coming in. The vestibule was as narrow as a corridor; it had board walls, and upon them, hanging from wooden pot-hooks, could be seen several kinds of pack-saddles, panniers, headstalls, and other harness of leather, cloth, and esparto-grass. Upon the slanting stone floor, several muleteers who had made their beds there were sleeping peacefully.
The knock on the door was repeated.
“Come in!” said El Mojoso.
The wooden half-door opened with a screech, and a man appeared on the threshold, wrapped in a Jerez shawl which was drenched with water.
“Is there lodging here?” the man asked.
“There’s good will,” answered the innkeeper. “Did you come on horseback?”
“Yes.”
“Come in. I’ll take your horse to the stable. Walk right in there.”
The man went to the kitchen.
“The peace of God be with you, gentlemen!” he said.
“May He keep you,” they all answered.
The recent arrival went in, took off his long, tasseled shawl, and sat down upon a grass-bottomed chair near the fire.
The innkeeper’s daughter, more out of curiosity than anything else, threw an armful of dry rose-wood upon the fire, which began to burn brilliantly, producing a large flame, and filling the kitchen with the odour of its incense.
By the light of the flames they could see that the recent arrival was a tall and strong young man of about twenty years, upon whose upper lip the down had not yet begun to appear. He looked like a gentleman of noble blood; he wore a short coat, knee breeches fastened with silver buttons, buckled leggings, a blue sash, a coloured silk handkerchief about his neck, and a small, creased cala?és. The hostess noticed that his shirt studs were made of diamonds.
“You have bad weather for travelling,” she said.
“Bad it is,” replied the youth dryly, without removing his eyes from the fire.
The muleteers examined the young man in silence. El Mojoso came back from the stable where he had taken the horse, brought in a half-filled sack on his back, and emptied it into the bin, weighed the barley in the measure, and asked the horseman:
“What shall I give the animal?”
“Give him a good feed.”
“Shall I give him two quarts?”
“Yes.”
El Mojoso went out with the measure in one hand and the lantern in the other.
“This chap,” he murmured into his cloak, “is a rich youngster who has been in some escapade in Cordova. His horse is out there with an embossed saddle. The boy will pay well.”
El Mojoso was a man who knew his profession. Convinced of the character of the young man, he returned to the kitchen with a broader smile than usual, and said:
“What would your worship like for supper?”
“Anything.”
“And would you like a bed?”
“Have you one?”
“Sí, Se?or.”
“Good: Then I shall sleep in a bed.”
“Very well; they’ll get it ready for you directly.”
The hostess took one of the large frying-pans from the fire and emptied its contents into a dish which she placed upon a low table.
The muleteers prepared themselves for the meal. La Temeraria took one of the blackened lamps from the grime of the mantel-piece, lit it, and seeing that it did not give a very good light, took a hairpin from her hair, stuck it into the wick to trim and ventilate it, and this done, fastened it with a wooden peg to a beam that stuck out of the wall.
“Bring wine, Mojoso,” she then said to her husband.
The innkeeper passed behind a counter which he had at the right of the kitchen door, and filled two bottles from a wine-skin; then, from another skin, using great care lest he spill the wine, he filled a small Andújar jar. One of the large bottles he placed upon the table about which the muleteers had seated themselves as they chatted and waited for their supper to be prepared.
La Temeraria placed a tripod over the fire, and presently the older daughter of the house entered with a large lamp.
“The room is ready, father,” she murmured.
Turning to the youth, the innkeeper said:
“You may go up now, if you wish.”
The young man arose and followed the landlord, who lighted his way. They went into the vestibule, and, one behind the other, climbed up a steep stairway to a granary. The wind blew strongly through the cracks in the roof; by the flickering lamp-light they could see piles of walnuts and acorns upon the floor, and large gourds hanging in rows. El Mojoso pushed open a white door of freshly-painted wood, entered a room with an alcove attached, placed the lamp upon the table, and after trimming it by all the rules of the art, said:
“Supper will be served to you directly. If you need anything, call;” and he shut the door as he went out.
The youth listened to the innkeeper’s footsteps in the attic, and when he found himself alone, drew two pistols from his sash, entered the alcove, and hid them on the bed under the pillow; he inspected the door, and found that it was solid with a strong lock; next he opened the window, and a gust of cold air made the flame of the lamp flicker violently. He looked out.
“This doubtless looks out upon the other side of the road,” he said to himself.
He closed the outside shutter and paced back and forth, waiting for his supper. The room was narrow and low and whitewashed, with blue rafters in the ceiling, and an alcove at one end occupied by a bed covered with a red quilt. Pushed against the wall was a mahogany bureau with a Carmen Virgin in a glass case; opposite the bureau was a straw couch with a mahogany frame. There was a round table in the middle of the room upon whose coarse top were two plates, a glass, and the lamp. Upon the walls were several rough engravings and a gun.
The young man showed signs of impatience, listening attentively to the slightest distant noises. Tired of pacing to and fro, he sat upon the couch and thoughtfully contemplated the rafters in the ceiling.
A half hour had elapsed since El Mojoso’s departure, when there came a shy knock at the door. The youth was so preoccupied that he heard nothing until the third or fourth knock, and a voice saying:
“May I come in?”
“Come!”
The door opened and a girl entered—the landlord’s second daughter—with a dish in one hand, and an Andújar jar in the other.
The youth was astounded at seeing such a pretty maid, and completely upset by the sight.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Your supper.”
“Ah! You are the landlord’s daughter?”
“Sí, Se?or,” she replied with a smile.
The girl set the dish upon the table, and he sat down without taking his eyes off her. She made a tremendous impression upon him. The child was truly charming; she had black, almond-shaped eyes, a pale complexion, and in her hair, which was cleverly done up and as black and lustrous as the elytra of some insects, was a red flower.
“What is your name, my dear, if I may ask?” said he.
“Fuensanta,” she replied . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
“Ah! Her name was Fuensanta!” exclaimed Quentin involuntarily.
“Yes. It’s a very common name in these parts. Why does it surprise you?”
“Nothing, nothing: proceed....”
“Well, I shall.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
The youth sighed, and as his admiration had doubtless not taken away his appetite, he attacked the slices prepared by La Temeraria with his fork, and after several drinks from the jar, he succeeded in emptying it, and doing away with the portions of the savoury country food.
The little girl returned directly to his room to bring the traveller his dessert, and they talked.
He asked her if she had a sweetheart, and she said she hadn’t; he asked her if she would like to have him, and she answered that gentlemen could not very well love poor girls who lived in taverns, and then they talked for a long time.
The next day, the young horseman left the tavern to proceed on his journey, and El Mojoso went down to Cordova to his business . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
“And who was that young man?” asked Quentin.
“Wait, comrade. Everything in its time. How do you like the way I tell it, eh?”
“You certainly are a past master.”
“Well, now comes the best part of it. You’ll see....”
SEVERAL days afterward, just at dawn, El Mojoso was returning from Cordova to his tavern, when, at a turn in the road, he came upon a small cavalcade made up of six men—five of whom were soldiers, and the other, an elegantly dressed young man.
El Mojoso, who had little liking for evil encounters, pricked up his beast in order to get into the paths ahead of the group, but the chief, who wore the insignia of a sergeant, when he noticed the innkeeper’s intention, shouted to him:
“Hey, my good man, wait a moment!”
El Mojoso stopped his donkey.
“What do you want?” he asked ill-humouredly.
“We’ve got something to say to you.”
“Well, I can’t lose anything by listening to it.”
“You are the owner of the Cross-roads Store, aren’t you?”
“Yes, sir: what else do you want?”
“Why, just don’t go so fast, friend, we feel like going along with you.”
“Are you going to Pozo Blanco?”
“No, sir.”
“To Obejo, perhaps?”
“No. We’re going to the Store.”
“To the Store!” exclaimed El Mojoso, overcome with astonishment. “Whom are you looking for in my house?”
“We’re looking for the Marquesito.”
“The Marquesito? What Marquesito?”
“Don’t you know him?”
“Upon my word I do not! I hope to die if I’m not telling you the truth.”
“Well, it seems that your daughter knows him very well,” replied the soldier meaningly.
El Mojoso’s face darkened, not that it had ever been exactly light, and looking back at the sergeant, he murmured in a dull voice:
“You’ve either said too much or too little.”
“I’ve said all that was necessary,” answered the soldier gruffly.
El Mojoso fell silent and urged on his donkey, while the soldiers and the unknown young gentleman followed him.
The sun came out from behind the mountain; in the distance they could see a series of low-lying hills and the Cross-roads Store in its little green clearing near the ravine.
When they reached the Store, El Mojoso dismounted from his donkey and began to pound furiously upon the door. He beat frantically with hands and feet.
“Open! Open!” he shouted impatiently.
“Who is it?” came from within.
“Me,” and El Mojoso ripped out a string of angry oaths.
A lock screeched, the door opened, and La Temeraria appeared half-dressed on the threshold.
“Why didn’t you open sooner?” El Mojoso vociferated.
“What’s the matter?” she asked as she drew a short skirt over head and fastened it rapidly about her waist.
“A whole lot’s the matter. Are there any travellers in the house?”
“The young man who was here a few days ago passed the night here.”
The unknown gentleman and the chief of the soldiers exchanged a look of understanding. El Mojoso entered his house, and La Temeraria followed behind him.
“Go and see if there is a horse in the stable,” said the sergeant to one of his men, “and if there is, bring it here.”
The soldier dismounted, went into the stable, and returned after a little, leading a horse by the bridle.
La Temeraria, who had heard the noise, intercepted the soldier.
“Where are you taking that horse?” she asked.
“The sergeant ordered me to bring him out.”
“What for?”
“So the man who is here can’t escape.”
“What has the young man done?” asked La Temeraria, looking contemptuously at the soldier.
“He killed a man in Cordova about a month ago.”
At this moment, the innkeeper, who had been inside the house, returned shouting to the vestibule.
“Where is Fuensanta?” he asked his wife.
“She must be in her room.”
“She isn’t there.”
“Not there?”
“No. I just looked.”
El Mojoso and La Temeraria looked at each other furiously and understandingly.
Meanwhile the sergeant, followed by one of his soldiers, went up the stairs to the garret. When the fugitive heard the noise their boots and spurs made, he must have realized his danger, for they heard the thud of a body as he threw himself against the door, then the turning of a key in the lock, and then a murmur of voices.
The sergeant drew his sword, went up to the door behind which he had heard the voices, and knocked with the hilt of his weapon.
“Open in the name of the law!” he shouted in a thundrous voice.
“Wait a moment, I’m dressing,” came the answer from within.
After a minute had elapsed, the sergeant exclaimed impatiently:
“Come, come! Open the door!”
“Wait just a second.”
“I won’t wait a minute longer. Open: I promise not to hurt you.”
“Words are air, and the wind carries them all away,” replied the fugitive ironically.
“Will you open, or will you not?”
“I will not; and he who contradicts me is in danger of his life. You’ll have to kill me here.”
At the risk of breaking his neck, the sergeant ran down the stairs three steps at a time, and addressing his soldiers, said:
“Boys, come upstairs with your guns. We’ve got to break down the door. One of you stay here on guard, and if any one tries to escape, fire on him.”
Two of the men dismounted rapidly, crossed the vestibule, and, preceded by the sergeant, rushed headlong upstairs, reached the garret, and began to beat upon the door with the butts of their heavy guns.
“Surrender!” shouted the sergeant again and again.
No one answered.
“Quick now! Throw down the door.”
The door was new and did not yield to the first blows, but little by little the panels gave way, and at last, a formidable blow with the butt broke the lock....
The soldiers entered:—stretched upon the floor lay a half-dressed woman. The window was open.
“The scoundrel escaped through that,” said one of the men.
“My God! We can’t let him escape,” shouted the sergeant, and sticking his head through the window, he saw a man running across a field half hidden among the olive trees. Without making sure whether it was the man they were after or not, he drew a pistol from his belt and fired.
“No—he’s gone. We’ve got to catch him.”
They all left the room; there came a devilish noise of boots and spurs on the stairs, and they crossed the vestibule.
“To your horses,” said the sergeant.
The order was obeyed instantly.
“You, Aragonés, and you, Segura, get behind that hay-stack,” and the chief indicated a great pile of black straw. “You two, ride around that field, and this gentleman and I will go and look for the Marquesito face to face.”
The two pairs of troopers took their appointed places, and the sergeant and the unknown gentleman advanced through the middle of the olive orchard.
Aragonés and Segura were the first to see the fugitive, who was running along hiding behind the olive trees, with a gun in his hand. The two soldiers cocked their guns and advanced cautiously; but the youth saw them, stopped and waited for them, kneeling upon one knee. The soldiers attempted to make a detour in order to get near their game, but as they described an arc, the youth kept the trunk of an olive tree between him and them. Seeing that he was making sport of them, the soldiers advanced resolutely. The Marquesito aimed his gun and fired, and one of the horses, that of Aragonés, fell wounded in the shoulder, throwing his rider. Segura, the other soldier, made his horse rear, in order to guard against a shot, but the Marquesito fired a pistol with such good aim, that the man fell to the ground with blood pouring from his mouth.
Then the youth, realizing that the other pursuers would immediately come to the spot where they had heard the shots, ran until he came to a century-old olive tree with a great, deformed trunk whose gnarled roots resembled a tangled mass of snakes. He took advantage of the respite to load his gun and pistol. Then he waited. Presently a shot was fired behind him, and he felt a bullet enter his leg. He turned rapidly and saw the sergeant and the gentleman approaching on horseback.
“My death will cost you dear,” murmured the Marquesito angrily.
“Surrender!” shouted the sergeant, and approached the fugitive at a trot.
The Marquesito waited, and when the sergeant was twenty paces from him, he fired his gun and pierced him with a bullet.
“Hey, boys!” shouted the sergeant. “Here he is. Kill him!” Then he put his hand to his breast, began to bleed at the mouth, and fell from his horse murmuring, “Jesus! He’s killed me!”
One of the sergeant’s feet caught in the stirrup, and the horse, becoming frightened, dragged his rider’s body for some distance over the ground.
“Now it’s your turn, coward!” shouted the Marquesito, addressing the gentleman.
But that person had turned on his croup and couldn’t get away fast enough.
The youth began to think that he was safe: the blood was flowing copiously from his wound, so he took the handkerchief from about his neck and bound his leg firmly with it. Next, he reloaded his weapons, and limping slowly, sheltering himself behind the olive trees and glancing from side to side, he advanced.
When he had reached a little plaza formed by a space that was bare of trees, he saw one of the soldiers in ambush. Perhaps it was the last one.
When they saw each other, pursuer and pursued immediately took refuge behind the trees. The soldier fired; a ball whistled by the Marquesito’s head; then he rested his gun against a tree trunk, fired, and the soldier’s helmet fell to the ground.
They both concealed themselves while they reloaded their weapons, and for more than a quarter of an hour, they kept shooting at each other, neither of them making up his mind to come out into the open.
The Marquesito was beginning to feel faint from the loss of blood; so he decided to risk all for all.
“Let’s see if we can’t finish this business,” he murmured between his clenched teeth; and he advanced, limping resolutely toward the soldier. After a few steps he discharged his gun point blank, and immediately after, his pistol.
When he saw that his enemy had not fallen, that he was still standing, he tried to escape, but his strength failed him. Then the soldier took aim and fired. The Marquesito fell headlong ... he was dead. The ball had struck him in the back of the neck and had come out through one of his eyes, shattering his skull.
“He was a brave chap,” murmured the soldier as he gazed at the corpse; then he kneeled by his side and searched his clothes. He wrapped his watch and chain, his shirt studs, and his money, in a handkerchief, tied it in a knot, and made his way back to the tavern.
As he drew near, he heard a voice wailing in despair:
“Oh, mother! Oh, mother! Oh, my dearest mother!”
In the clearing before the house was Fuensanta, half-undressed, livid, with her face black and blue from the beating her father had given her. The girl was moaning upon the ground, terror-stricken. La Temeraria, with her arms lifted tragically, was shouting:
“She has dishonoured us! She has dishonoured us!”
The innkeeper’s other daughter stood in the doorway, watching her sister as she dragged herself along the ground, exhausted by her beating.
“Don’t beat the girl like that,” said the soldier.
“Don’t beat her!” shouted El Mojoso. “No, I won’t beat her any more,” and seizing his daughter by the arm he pushed her brutally from him, shouting:
“Go ... and never come back!”
The bewildered girl hid her face in her hands, and then the poor little thing began to walk away, weeping, and not knowing what she was doing, nor where she was going.
Months later, a woman from an Obejo mill came to El Mojoso and announced that Fuensanta had given birth to a son, and that she desired to be forgiven and to return home; but the innkeeper said that he would kill her if she ever came near him.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
“The scoundrel! The bandit!” exclaimed Quentin, striking the table a blow with his fist.
“Who is a scoundrel?” asked Se?or Sabadía in surprise.
“That Mojoso fellow, the dirty thief ... his daughter dishonoured him because she loved a man, yet he did not dishonour himself, though he robbed every one that came along.”
“That’s different.”
“Yes, it’s different,” cried Quentin furiously. “To the hidalgos of Spain it is a different matter; to all those commonplace and thoughtless men, a woman’s honour is beneath contempt. Imbeciles!”
“I see that you are enraged,” said Don Gil with a smile. “Does the story interest you?”
“Very much.”
“Shall I proceed?”
“Please do.”
“Then kindly call Se?ora Patrocinio and ask her to bring more bottles of wine, for my throat is very dry.”
“But you are a regular cask, my dear Don Gil.”
“Yes I’m the Cask of the Danaides. Call her, please.”
“Se?ora Patrocinio! Se?ora Patrocinio!” called Quentin.
“Isn’t she coming?”
“No. She is probably busy with her witchcraft. Perhaps this very minute she is burning in her magic fire the sycamore torn from the sepulchre.”
“Or the funereal cypress, and the feathers and eggs of a red owl soaked in toad’s blood,” added Don Gil.
“Or the poisonous herbs which grew in such abundance in Iolchos, and in far-off Iberia,” continued Quentin.
“Or the bones torn from the mouth of a hungry bitch,” added the arch?ologist.
“Se?ora Patrocinio! Se?ora Canidia!” shouted Quentin.
“Se?ora Patrocinio! Se?ora Canidia!” echoed Se?or Sabadía.
“What do you want?” asked the old woman as she suddenly entered the room.
“Ah! She was here!” exclaimed Quentin.
“She was here!” echoed Se?or Sabadía. “We want some more bottles.”
“What kind do you want?”
“I believe, venerable dame,” Quentin ejaculated, “that it is all the same to my friend here, whether it be wine from the vines of Falernus, Phormio, or Cécube, as long as it is wine. Is that not true, Don Gil?”
“Of course. I see that you are a sagacious young man. Bring them, old woman,” said the arch?ologist, turning to Se?ora Patrocinio, “bring fearlessly forth that excellent wine that you have guarded so jealously these four years in the Sabine pitchers.”
The old woman brought the bottles, Quentin filled Don Gil’s glass and then his own, they emptied them both, and Se?or Sabadía went on with his story in these words:
YEARS ago in the Calle de Librerías, in a little corner near the Cuesta de Luján, there stood a silversmith’s shop, with an awning stretched over the doorway, a very narrow show-case in which a number of rosaries, rings, medals, and crosses were displayed, and a miserable half-obliterated sign with these words: “Salvador’s Shop.” From one end of this sign, symbolically, hung a pair of pasteboard scales.
Salvador, the proprietor of this silversmith’s shop, was a wealthy bachelor who had lived with a sister for many years before her death.
At the time of my story, Don Andrés, as the silversmith was called, was a man of some sixty years, small, clean-shaven, with white hair, rosy cheeks, clear eyes, and smiling lips. He resembled a silver medal.
With all his sweet, beatific countenance, Don Andrés was at heart, an egoist. Possessing little intelligence and less courage, life made a coward of him. He had an idea that things advanced too rapidly, and was, therefore, an enemy to all innovations. Any change whatever, even if it were beneficial, disturbed him profoundly.
“We have lived like this so far,” he would say, “and I can see no necessity for any change.”
Don Andrés Salvador was equally conservative in his business: all he had was an ability for work that required patience. Rosaries, crosses, rings, and medals left his house by the gross, but everything manufactured in his shop was always the same; unchanged, and unimproved—wrought with the same old-fashioned and decadent taste.
Besides being a conservative, Don Andrés was distrust personified; he did not want any one to see him at work. At that time, repoussé work was still something mysterious and secret, and the silversmith, to prevent any one from surprising his secrets, shut himself up in his own room when he was about to make something of importance, and there worked unseen.
One morning when Don Andrés was standing in the doorway of his shop, he saw a girl running toward him along the Calle de la Feria, pursued by an old woman.
His instinct as a law-abiding citizen made him go out and stop the girl.
“Let me go, Se?or,” she cried.
“No. Is that your mother following you?”
“No, she isn’t my mother,” and the child began to cry disconsolately. In a broken voice she told him how she had been ill for some time in a hut on the Calle de la Feria, and how, when she had become well, the mistress of the house had tried to force her to remain as her ward, and how she had escaped.
By this time the old woman had come up behind the girl, and as a group of children began to form around the shop door, the silversmith led the two women inside.
He asked the old woman if what the girl had said was true, and the Celestina in her confusion said that it was, but defended herself by declaring that she had kept the girl because she had not paid for what she had spent on medicines during her illness, and for dresses, stockings, and underclothes with which to clothe her.
The silversmith realized that it was a matter of an infamous exploitation, and whether he was indignant at this, or whether he was touched by the girl’s appearance, the fact is, he said with more vehemence than he was accustomed to use:
“I see, Se?ora Consolación, that you are trying to exploit this child in an evil way. Leave her alone, for she will return your clothes, and go back to your house; for if you don’t, I shall warn the authorities, and you will rest your old bones in jail.”
The old woman, who knew the influence and prestige the silversmith enjoyed in the district, began once more to complain of the great prejudice they had against her, but Don Andrés cut her argument short by saying:
“Either you get out, or I will call the alguacil.”
The Celestina said not another word, but tied her handkerchief about her neck as if she wished to strangle herself with it, and moved off down the street, spouting curses as she went.
The girl and the silversmith were left alone in the shop. He followed the old woman with his eyes as she went screaming along the Calle de la Feria among the noisy people who came running to their doorways as she passed. When she was out of sight, he said to the girl:
“You can go now. She’s gone.”
When she heard this, the girl began to sob again.
“For God’s sake, don’t send me away, Se?or! For God’s sake!”
“I’m not going to send you away. You may stay a while if you wish.”
“No. Let me stay here always. You are good. I’ll be your servant, and you won’t have to give me a thing for it.”
“No, no—I cannot,” replied the silversmith.
Then the child knelt on the floor, and with her arms thrown wide apart, said:
“Se?or! Se?or! Let me stay!”
“No, no. Get up! Don’t be silly.”
“Then if I kill myself,” she cried as she regained her feet, “it will be your fault.”
“Not mine.”
“Yes, yours,” and the girl, changing her tone, added, “But you don’t want me to go. You won’t throw me out; you’ll let me live here; I’ll serve you, and take care of you; I’ll be your servant, and you needn’t give me a thing for it; and I will thank you and pray for you.”
“But, what will people say?” murmured Don Andrés, who foresaw a complication in his life.
“I swear to you by the Carmen Virgin,” she exclaimed, “that I won’t give them a chance to talk, for nobody shall see me. You’ll let me live here, won’t you?”
“How can I help it! You stick a dagger into one’s heart. We’ll give it a try. But let me warn you about one thing: the first time I notice a failing—even if it is only a man hanging around the house—I’ll throw you out immediately.”
“No one will hang around.”
“Then I shall give you some old clothes this very minute, and you may send those to Se?ora Consolación’s house. Then go to work in the kitchen immediately.”
And so it was done; and Fuensanta, for the girl was Fuensanta, the daughter of El Mojoso, entered the house of the silversmith as a servant, and became, as she had promised, circumspect, submissive, silent and industrious.
Little by little the silversmith grew fond of her; Don Andrés’ sister had been a basilisk, a violent and ill-tempered old maid for whose fits of bad temper he had always suffered. Fuensanta paid the old man delicate attentions to which he was unaccustomed, and he looked forward to an old age in an atmosphere of affection and respect.
“See here,” Don Andrés once said to her, “you must not be separated from your son. Bring the boy here.”
Fuensanta went to Obejo, and returned the following day with the boy. He was three years old, and a regular savage. Fuensanta, who realized that such a wild creature would not please such an orderly and meticulous person as the silversmith, always kept him segregated on the roof, where the little lad passed the long hours in play.
After she had been in Don Andrés Salvador’s house for three years, Fuensanta got married.
Among the agents and pedlars who were supplied in the shop, there was a young man, Rafael by name, whom they nicknamed El Pende.
This Rafael was at that time a gracious, pleasant chap of some twenty-odd years; he had the reputation of being lazy—firstly because he came from the Santa Marina district, and secondly because he was the son of Matapalos, one of the biggest loafers in Cordova.
Matapalos, a distinguished member of the Pende dynasty, was a carpenter, and such a poor one, so they said, that the only things he could make were wedges, and even these never came out straight.
El Pende junior, in spite of his reputation as a loafer, used to work. He took up the business of peddling from town to town; selling necklaces and rosaries throughout the entire highlands, and buying old gold and lace wherever he went.
He was a gaudy and elegant lad, who spent nearly everything he earned on jewels and good clothes.
“I’d rather wear jewels than eat,” he said.
Rafael, or El Pende, as you will, began promptly to pay court to the girl. She duly checked his advances, but he grew stronger under punishment, and she, seeing that the man persisted, told him the story of her misfortune.
El Pende made light of it all. He was very much enamoured, or perhaps he saw something in the woman that others had missed for, though she had no money, nor any possibility of inheriting any, he did not give up trying until he succeeded in persuading her to marry him.
“Now I’ve got to persuade the master,” said Fuensanta, after coming to an understanding with her sweetheart. “Because, if he opposes us—I won’t marry you.”
Slowly, insinuatingly, Fuensanta prepared the ground day by day. Allowing herself to stumble, she suggested the idea of marriage to the silversmith, until Don Andrés himself advised his servant to marry, and pointed out to her the advantages she would have should she join herself to Rafael.
They were married, and lived in an attic next the roof. The silversmith gladly granted them the attic, for they scared away thieves, and he liked to have a young man around to look after the house.
Fuensanta continued to serve him as before. El Pende made his trips; he had made advantageous terms with the silversmith in his commissions, and he and the old man understood each other admirably.
Fuensanta began to behold a useful collaborator in her husband. He was intelligent and sagacious; he had a latent ambition which was awakened with real violence at his marriage.
The child was an obstacle to the peace of the household. Quentin was stupid, brutal, proud, and meddlesome.
After two years of matrimony, Fuensanta gave birth to a son whom they called Rafael, after his father. Quentin had no use for the boy, a fact that caused El Pende to hate his stepson.
Quentin did not go to school, so he knew nothing. He played about the streets in rags with rowdies and toughs. One day, when El Pende saw him with some gipsies, he seized him, carried him home, and said to his mother:
“We’ve got to do something about this child.”
“Yes, we must do something,” she agreed.
“Why don’t you ask the master if he knows of a cheap school?”
Fuensanta spoke to the silversmith, who listened to her attentively.
“Do you know what we’ll do?” said Don Andrés.
“What?”
“We’ll find out who his father’s family are. How long ago was he killed?”
“Seven years.”
“Good. Then I’ll find out.”
On that same street, on the corner of the Calle de la Espartería, in a house upon whose chamfer was an iron cross, there lived a retired captain of militia, Don Matías Echavarría. The silversmith called on him, related what had happened in the Cross-roads Store, and asked the captain if he remembered the affair, and if he knew the name of the protagonist.
“Yes,” said Don Matías, “the boy who ran away and was killed on the Pozo Blanco road, was the son of the Marquis of Tavera. When the thing happened, they hushed it up, saying that he had met his death by a fall from his horse, and no one ever knew anything about it.”
When the silversmith returned to his house, he said nothing to Fuensanta, but, shut up in his room, he wrote a letter to the old Marquis, giving him a detailed account of the facts, and telling him that a grandson of his was living in his modest home.
He had to wait for the answer. At the end of two weeks, Don Andrés received a message from the Marquis telling him to send Fuensanta to his house to talk with him, and to bring the boy with her.
Fuensanta made Quentin as presentable as possible, and went with him to the Marquis’ palace. The old man received her very pleasantly, bade her tell him her story, caressed the child, and murmured from time to time:
“He’s just like him, just like him....” Then he added, turning to the mother, “Are you in needy circumstances?”
“Sí, Se?or Marqués.”
“Very well; take one hundred dollars for the present. We shall see what we can do for the boy.”
Fuensanta told her husband what had happened in the Marquis’ house, and El Pende immediately took possession of the hundred dollars.
The economical chap already had a like amount, and he believed that the moment had arrived to realize his plans of establishing himself. Consequently, a little later, he rented a store in the Calle de la Zapatería.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
“What’s the matter with you, Don Gil?” asked Quentin, as he saw the narrator looking about for something.
“Why, you’re not pouring wine for me.”
“There’s none left.”
“Then call Se?ora Patrocinio.”
“What will you have, Don Gil? Falernus? Or shall we devote ourselves this time to the vines of Calais?”
“No, no; Montilla.”
“Can’t we make a change?”
“Mix one wine with another? Never! It’s very dangerous. But are you, or are you not going to call that old woman? If you do not, I will not go on with my story.”
“Do go on with it, Don Gil,” said Se?ora Patrocinio, opening the door and placing two bottles upon the table. “I was almost asleep out here, and was amusing myself by listening to what you were saying.”
“Eh!” exclaimed Don Gil, “I must be a great historian if even Sister Patrocinio listens to my tale. Allow me to wet my throat. Now for it, ladies and gentlemen, now for it!”