A CHRISTIAN WOMAN

DOÑA EMILIA PARDO BAZÁN.

A CHRISTIAN WOMAN

BY
EMILIA PARDO BAZÁN
TRANSLATED BY
MARY SPRINGER
NEW YORK
CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY
104 & 106 Fourth Avenue
Copyright, 1891, by
CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.
All rights reserved.
THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,
RAHWAY, N. J.

INTRODUCTION.

“I have heard it told of a great-grandmother of mine, of noble family (grandees, in fact), that she was obliged to teach herself to write, copying the letters from a printed book, with a pointed stick for pen and mulberry-juice for ink.” The great-granddaughter who said this is the first woman of letters in Spain to-day; indeed, she is perhaps as widely known as any contemporary Spanish writer, man or woman. Though her achievements do not yet entitle her to rank, as a novelist, with Galdós and Pereda, she has conquered a place only second to theirs, and with long years of work before her (she is not yet forty) may even come to rival their great fame. From the Spain that looked with suspicion upon a woman who could more than barely read and write, to the Spain that counts the literary renown of Emilia Pardo Bazán among its modern glories, is a long way; and the chapters recording the struggles and successive triumphs of Spanish women in their efforts to get within reaching-distance of the tree of knowledge, will be, when they come to be written, among the most striking in the history of the emancipation of woman. Señora Bazán must always be a great figure in the record of that educational development, and happily we are able to trace her own progress pretty fully, taking advantage principally of the charming autobiographical sketch which she prefixed to her novel “Los Pazos de Ulloa.”

She was born in 1852, in Coruña, of a family which traced its descent on both sides to the most distinguished among the ancient Galician nobility. One of those children whose earliest memories are of delightful hours passed in some safe retreat in company with a book, she was fortunate in having a father with the good sense, rare in those days, to let her follow her bent. She tells us of the happy days she had when enjoying free swing at a library in the summer villa which the family rented by the sea, and later when allowed to browse at her will among her father’s books in Coruña. Plutarch and Homer (in translation, of course,) thrilled her young fancy, and whole chapters of Cervantes remain to this day photographed upon her memory, fixed there in those early, sensitive days. Her first attempt to write came at the age of eight, and was born of patriotic excitement. It was at the close of the triumphant expedition of O’Donnell to Morocco, and the returned soldiers were fairly apotheosized by their exuberant fellow-countrymen. The Pardo Bazáns had two or three honest country louts among the volunteers to entertain at their house, and to the little Emilia the good clodhoppers embodied the idea of military glory as well as any Hector or Achilles. The worthy fellows were up to their eyes in luck, given the best that the mansion afforded, put to bed between lace-trimmed sheets in the best room; but it all seemed too little to the enthusiastic child, and in a passion of adoring homage she rushed off to her room to write a poem in honor of the heroes! It could not have been long after this that she addressed a sonnet to a deputy of her father’s party, and was exalted to the seventh heaven by the great man’s extravagant praise of her performance. However, it was not as a poet that she was to find expression for her genius; and though she afterward published a volume of verse for which she still professes a sneaking fondness, she admits that she is not much more of a poet than can be met on every street-corner in Spain.

Her education, so far as she did not get it by herself, was principally obtained in a fashionable French boarding-school in Madrid, where “Télémaque” was served up three times a day, and where Emilia was given the idea that she had exhausted the possibilities of astronomical science when she had looked at an eclipse through a bit of smoked glass. Later she was turned over to the tender mercies of tutors. Instead of lessons on the piano, she begged her father to allow her to study Latin; but this was quite too wild a thing to ask, even of him, and his refusal only gave her a lasting hatred for the piano. By the time she was fourteen, she was allowed to read pretty much everything, though still forbidden to look into the works of Hugo, Dumas, and the French Romanticists generally. Instead of these, an uncle put into her hands the novels of Fernan Caballero—a most suggestive incident, the woman who worked out the beginnings of the modern Spanish novel, read by the girl who was to help carry it to its highest development! However, her unformed taste thought nothing worthy to be called a novel unless a man was fired out of a cannon or flung over a cliff in every chapter, and her furtive reading of Hugo—of course, she tasted the forbidden waters—confirmed her in a liking which she was long in outgrowing.

In 1868, just after she had first put on long dresses, she was married. To make short work with her domestic life, let it be added, that her husband’s name is Don José Quiroga, and that three children have been born to them. During the troublous times that came in with the Revolution of 1868, and throughout the reign of Amadeus, her family was in political eclipse, and with her father she traveled extensively in France and southern Europe, learning English and Italian, and from her industrious practice of keeping a diary acquiring the writing habit. On her return to Spain, she found the German philosophical influence in the ascendant, and to put herself abreast of the intellectual movement of the time, read deeply in philosophy and history. By this time she had come fully to perceive the defective nature of her education, and set herself rigorously to correct it, for some years devoting herself to the severest studies. At a literary contest in Orense, in 1876, she carried off the first prize both in prose and verse, though for three years after that she wrote nothing except occasional articles for a Madrid periodical. Finally, as a relaxation from her strenuous historical studies, she began reading novels again, beginning with contemporary English, French, and Italian writers; for in her provincial home, and in her absorption in philosophical and historical reading, she had never heard of the splendid development of the novel in her own country. At last a friend put her on the track, and then she read with deepening delight.

To her it was the chance magic touch that finally gave her genius its full vent. If a novel was thus a description of real life, and not a congeries of wild adventures, why could she not write one herself? That was the question she put to herself, and the answer came in the shape of her first novel, “Pascual López,” published in the Revista de España, and afterward separately. She began her biography of Francis de Assisi in 1880, but a temporary failure of health sent her off to Vichy. Of this journey was born her “Un Viaje de Novios,” the first chapters of which she wrote in Paris, and read to such distinguished auditors as Balzac, Flaubert, Goncourt, and Daudet. Fully conscious now of the place and method of the realistic novel, and of the high value of its development in Spain, her course was clear. Since then her novels have appeared with surprising rapidity. She has all along kept her feet on the earth, writing of what she knows, and thus it happens that most of her scenes are laid in Galicia. As a preparation for writing “La Tribuna,” a study of working women, she went to a tobacco factory for two months, morning and afternoon, to listen to the conversation and observe the manners of the women employed there. Her work has been steadily broadening, and “A Christian Woman,” with its sequel, is the largest canvas she has filled.

Though now definitely and mainly a novelist, her literary activity has been highly varied. Her letters on criticism, published in La Epoca in 1882, evoked the widest discussion, and her lectures on “The Revolutionary Movement and the Novel in Russia,” delivered before the most brilliant literary circle of Madrid, have already been given an English dress. Articles from her pen are a frequent attraction in the leading magazines, and her vivacious series of letters about the Paris Exposition won much attention. As might be inferred from her unflagging productiveness, she is possessed of as much physical as mental vigor. She is of winning appearance and unaffected manners. Since the death of her father, in 1888, she has been entitled as his sole heir to be called a countess; but she does not use the title. “Who would know me as a countess?” she asks. “I shall be simply Pardo Bazán as long as I live.”

Rollo Ogden.

A CHRISTIAN WOMAN.

CHAPTER I.

You will see by the following list the course of studies that the State obliged me to master in order to enter the School of Engineering: arithmetic and algebra as a matter of course; geometry equally so; besides, trigonometry and analytics, and, finally, descriptive geometry and the differential calculus. In addition to these mathematical studies, French, only held together with pins, if the truth must be told, and English very hurriedly basted; and as for that dreadful German, I would not put tooth to it even in jest—the Gothic letters inspired me with such great respect. Then there was the everlasting drawing—linear, topographic, and landscape even, the latter being intended, I presume, to enable an engineer, while managing his theodolite and sights, to divert himself innocently by scratching down some picturesque scene in his album—after the manner of English misses on their travels.

After entrance came the “little course,” so called, in order that we might not be afraid of it. It embraced only four studies—to wit, integral calculus, theoretical mechanics, physics, and chemistry. During the year of the “little course,” we had no more drawing to do; but in the following, which is the first year of the course properly speaking, we were obliged, besides going deep into materials of construction, applied mechanics, geology, and cubic mensuration, to take up new kinds of drawing—pen-drawing, shading and washing.

I was not one of the most hard-working students, nor yet one of the most stupid—I say it as shouldn’t. I could grind away when it was necessary, and could exercise both patience and perseverance in those branches where, the power of intellect not being sufficient, one must have recourse to a parrot-like memory. I failed to pass several times, but it is impossible to avoid such mishaps in taking a professional course in which they deliberately tighten the screws on the students, in order that only a limited number may graduate to fill the vacant posts. I was sure of success, sooner or later; and my mother, who paid for the cost of my tuition, with the assistance of her only brother, was as patient as her disposition would allow her to be with my failures. I assured her that they were not numerous and that, when I finally emerged a full-fledged civil engineer, I should have in my pocket the four hundred and fifty dollar salary, besides extras.

Nor were all my failures avoidable, even if I had been as assiduous as possible in my studies. I was all run down and sick for one year, finally having an attack of varioloid; and this reason, with others not necessary to enumerate, will explain why at the age of twenty-one I found myself still in the second year of the course, although I enjoyed the reputation of being a studious youth and quite well informed—that is to say, I yet lacked three years.

The year before, the first year of the course strictly speaking, I was obliged to let some studies go over to the September examinations. I attribute that disagreeable occurrence to the bad influence I was under, in a certain boarding-house, where the evil one tempted me to take up my abode. The time I passed there left undying recollections in my memory, which bring a smile to my lips and indiscreet joy to my soul whenever I evoke them. I will give some idea of the place, so that the reader may judge whether Archimedes himself would have been capable of studying hard in such a den.

There are several houses in Madrid at the present date—for example, the Corralillos, the Cuartelillos, the Tócame Roque—all very similar to the one I am about to describe. Within that abode dwelt the population of a small-sized village; it had three courts with balconies, on which opened the doors of the small rooms,—or pigeon-holes one might call them,—with their respective numbers on the lintels. There was no lack of immodest and quarrelsome inmates; there were street musicians singing couplets to the accompaniment of a tuneless guitar; cats in a state of high nervous excitement scampering from garret to garret, or jumping from balustrade to balustrade—now impelled by amorous feelings, now by a brick thrown at them full force. Clothes and dish-cloths were hung out to dry; ragged petticoats and patched underwear, all mixed up pell-mell. There were pots of sweet basil and pinks in the windows; and in fact, everything would be found there that abounds in such dens in Madrid—so often described by novelists and shown forth by painters in their sketches from real life.

The third suite on the right had been hired by Josefa Urrutia, a Biscayan, the ex-maid of the marchioness of Torres-Nobles. At first her business was pretty poor, and she sank deeper and deeper in debt. At last she got plenty of boarders, and when I took up my abode in the “dining-room bed-room,” the place was in its glory; she had not a single vacant apartment. All the boarders paid their dues honestly, if they had the money, with certain exceptions, and the reason of these I will reveal under the seal of profound secrecy.

A certain Don Julián occupied the parlor, which was the best room on the floor. He was a Valencian, jolly and gay; a great spendthrift, fond of jokes and fun, and an inveterate gambler. They said that he had come to Madrid in quest of an office, which he never succeeded in getting; nevertheless the candidate lived like a prince, and instead of helping with his board to keep up Pepa’s business, it was whispered about that he lived there gratis, and even took from time to time small sums from her, destined to go off in the dangerous coat-tails of the knave of hearts.

However, these little private weaknesses of Pepa Urrutia’s would never have come to light, if it had not been for the green-eyed monster. The Biscayan was furiously jealous of a handsome neighbor, who was fond of flirting with all the boarders opposite, as I have indubitable evidence. In a fit of desperation Pepa would sometimes shriek at the top of her lungs, and would call out “swindler; rogue!” adding, “If you had any decency, you would pay me at once what you have wheedled out of me, and what you owe me.”

On such occasions Don Julián would stick his hands in his pockets, firmly shut his jaws, and, silent as the grave, pace up and down the parlor. His silence would exasperate Pepa still more, and sometimes she would go off into hysterics; and after showering injurious epithets on the Valencian, she would rush out, slamming the door so as to shake the whole building.

Then a stout, florid, bald-headed man, about fifty years old, with a nice pleasant face, would appear in the passage-way, and with a strongly marked Portuguese accent, inquire of the irate landlady:

“Pepiña, what ails you?”

“Nothing at all,” she would reply, making a stampede into the kitchen, and muttering dreadful oaths in her Basque dialect. We would hear her knocking the kettles and frying pans about, and after a little while the cheerful sputtering of oil would announce to us that anyhow potatoes and eggs were frying, and that breakfast would soon be ready.

The stout, bald-headed gentleman, who had the back parlor, was a Portuguese physician who had come to Madrid to bring a lawsuit against the Administration for some claim or other he had against it. He was an ardent admirer of Spanish popular music, like most Portuguese, and he would pass the whole blessed day in a chair, near the balcony,—dressed as lightly as possible in jacket and linen pantaloons (it was in the month of June, I must observe), a Scotch cap, with floating streamers concealing his bald pate,—and strumming on a guitar, to the harsh and discordant accompaniment of which he would sing the following words:

Love me, girl of Seville, beauteous maid, spotless flower,
For with the sound of my guitar my heart beats for thee,

Here he would break off his song to look toward the window of a young washerwoman, ugly enough in appearance, but lively and sociable. She would stand at the window laughing and making eyes at him. The Portuguese would sigh, and exclaim in broken Spanish: “Moy bunita!” and then, attacking his guitar with renewed zest, would finish his song:

Oh, what grief, if she is false—no, fatal doubt flee far from me.
Ah, what joy is love when one finds a heavenly soul!

When he was done, he would draw a straw cigar-case from his breast pocket, with a package of cigarettes and some matches. Hardly would he have finished lighting the first one, when a young man, twenty-four years old,—one of Pepa’s boarders also, whom I looked upon for a long time as the personification of an artist,—would burst into the room. His surname was Botello, but I never thought to inquire his Christian name. He was fine looking, of good height, wore his hair rumpled, not too long, but thick and curly, and he looked something like a mulatto—like Alexandre Dumas, with his great thick lips, mustache like Van Dyke’s, bright black eyes, and a fine, dark complexion. We used to tease him, calling him Little Dumas every hour of the day.

Why had Pepa Urrutia’s boarders made up their minds that Botello was an artist? Even now, when I think of it, I cannot understand why. Botello had never drawn a line, nor murdered a sonata, nor scrawled an article, nor written a poor drama, not even a simple farce in one act; yet we all had the firm conviction that Botello was a finished artist.

I think that this conviction sprang from his careless and slovenly attire more than from his way of living, or his striking and genial countenance. In all sorts of weather, he would wear a close-fitting blue cloth overcoat, which he declared belonged to the Order of the Golden Fleece, because the collar and cuffs displayed a broad band of grease, and the front a lamb, figured in stains. This precious article of apparel was such an inseparable companion that he wore it in the street, washed and shaved in it, and even threw it over his bed, as a covering, while he slept. His trousers were frayed around the bottom, his boots were worn down at the heels, and the cracked leather allowed his stockings to be seen, smeared with ink so that their incautious whiteness might not appear. With all that, Botello’s handsome head and graceful form did not lose all their attractiveness even in such a guise; on the contrary, his very rags, when seen upon his elegant figure, acquired a certain mysterious grace.

Another distinctive phase of Botello’s character, which made him resemble a Bohemian of the artistic type, was his happy-go-lucky disposition, as well as his contempt for labor, and utter ignorance of the realities of life. Botello was the son of a judge, and the nephew of a nobleman’s steward. When Botello’s father died, he was left under his uncle’s charge, who lodged and fed him, and gave him an allowance of two hundred and fifty dollars, only demanding that Botello should be in bed by twelve o’clock. He did not oblige him to study, nor take any pains to give him an education; but when he discovered that his nephew passed every evening at the Bohemian café or at some low resort, and came home at all hours of the night, letting himself in with a latch-key so as not to be heard, he made the welkin ring. Instead of trying to reform him, he ignominiously drove him out of his house.

Without any occupation, with only twenty-one dollars a month to keep him, Botello wandered from boarding-house to boarding-house, each one worse than the last, until in a gaming-saloon he made the acquaintance of Don Julián, the lord and master of Pepa’s heart. Thus he came to our dwelling, drawn by this new bond of friendship. From that hour, Botello found an exemplary guardian in the Valencian. Don Julián took it upon himself to draw the young man’s monthly allowance, and then off he would rush to the tavern or gaming-house to try his luck. If he got a windfall of one or two hundred dollars, he could give Botello his twenty-one, and even, occasionally, add a few more; but if fate were unpropitious, Botello might take leave of his money forever. As he sorely needed funds, the ward would then engage in a lively tussle with his guardian.

“Well, now, señor mio, how shall I get along this month?” he would ask. Just then a providential apparition would present itself in Pepa, who would come to the rescue of her dear extortioner, while she screamed loudly, threatening Botello:

“Be quiet, be quiet! I will wait.”

“What of that?” the unfortunate youth would reply; “he has not left me even a dime to buy tobacco.”

Pepa would then put her hand in her pocket, and, drawing out a grimy quarter, would exclaim:

“There now, buy yourself a package of cigarettes.”

But when Pepa’s quarters were scarce, or even when they were not, Botello would have recourse to the Portuguese. He would be in the latter’s room as soon as he heard him strike a match to light a cigarette, and half jokingly, half in earnest, would tease for some, until the best part of the package would find its way into the Bohemian’s pocket. As the Portuguese was accustomed to the ways and disposition of little Dumas,—who was a genuine artist, as he solemnly assured everybody he met,—he never took his jokes seriously, nor did he get offended on account of the marauding inroads into his pockets. On the contrary, one would say that the musical physician’s heart was wonderfully drawn to Botello by his very pranks, even though he often carried his practical jokes too far. I will mention one as an instance.

As the Portuguese was obliged to make calls and to present his letters of recommendation, in order to hasten the execution of his business, he ordered a hundred very glossy visiting-cards with his name, “Miguel de los Santos Pinto,” engraved in beautiful script. Botello happened to see them, and showed them to everybody in the house; expressing his amazement that a Portuguese should have so few surnames. He wanted to add at least, “Teixeira de Vasconcellos Palmeirim Junior de Santarem do Morgado das Ameixeiras,” so that it should be more in character. We got that out of his head, but his next idea was even worse. He surreptitiously laid hold of the pen and India ink, which I used for my drawings and my plans, and wrote carefully under “Miguel de los Santos Pinto” this appendage, “Corno de Boy” (Ox-horn). In order not to take the trouble of adding it to all the cards, he did so to twenty-five only, and hid the rest.

The next day the Portuguese went out to make some calls, and left ten or twelve of the cards at different places. The following Sunday he met an acquaintance in Arenal Street, who, half-choked with laughter, stopped him, saying, “Why, Don Miguel, is your name really Corno de Boy? Is there any such name in your country?”

“What do you mean?” said the embarrassed Portuguese. “Of course not; my name is simply Santos Pinto; nothing more.”

“Well, just look at this card.”

“Let me see, let me see!” murmured the poor man. “It really does say so!” he exclaimed in amazement, on reading the addition.

“The engraver must have made a mistake,” added his friend, jocosely.

But Don Miguel did not swallow that, and as soon as he reached the house showed the card to Botello, and demanded an explanation of the sorry jest. The big scamp so warmly protested that he was innocent, that he succeeded in diverting Don Miguel’s suspicions toward me.

“Don’t you see,” he said, “Salustio has the very pen and ink with which that was written, in his room now? Don’t trust those quiet people. Oh, these proper fellows!”

In consequence of this Macchiavellian scheme, the good-natured Portuguese singled me out for his jealous suspicion, although I had never meddled with him in my life. But I firmly believe that his blindness was voluntary, because he could not have had the slightest doubt in regard to some other malicious pranks that Botello perpetrated.

One day when he was playing dominoes with his victim, Botello managed to put a paper crown, with donkey’s ears, on the latter’s head, so that the nymph of the ironing-table might be convulsed with laughter, for she was watching the whole performance. Then, one day, he pinned long strips of paper upon his coat-tails, so that when he went out in the street all the street Arabs hooted at him. Nevertheless, the fondness of the Portuguese for Botello never failed. When Botello lacked money to pay for a ball ticket, he would go to Don Miguel and ask for half a dollar, and exhaust all his eloquence in trying to persuade him that he ought to go on a frolic also. When the Portuguese would refuse, making the excuse that he did not want to displease the washerwoman, Botello would retort, calling him a booby. As the Portuguese did not understand that word, and appeared somewhat offended, Botello would make a movement as if to return the half-dollar. “Take it, take it, if you are angry with me,” the sly youth would exclaim. “My personal dignity will not allow me to accept favors from any one who looks at me in that way. You are angry, aren’t you now?”

“I can never be angry with you,” the Portuguese would reply, putting the money into his hand by main force; then turning toward the rest of us who were witnessing this scene, he would say with the most kindly smile I have ever seen on any human countenance: “This rapacious rogue! But he is a great artist.”

Then he would go back to his place at the window, and strum on his guitar.

The reader must acknowledge that there was no opportunity for applying one’s mind to methodical, engrossing, and difficult study in a house where such scenes occurred every moment of the day. The bursts of laughter, alternating with frequent squabbles; the racing up and down the halls; the continual going in and out of lazy fellows who, not knowing how to kill time, endeavor to make the studious ones lose it; the irregularity of our meals; the confidential way we had of living in each other’s rooms; the being up all night, and getting out of bed at midday, did not greatly help a student to win distinction in the School of Engineering. On the other hand, the contagion of joking and mirth could not possibly be withstood at my age.

Other students boarded there; some attending the University, others the School of Mountain Engineering, and others the School of Architecture; but none of them was a prodigy of learning. Perhaps I was ahead of them all in diligent application to my studies; but as my subjects were very difficult, it turned out that I found myself put over to the September examinations that year. Consequently I was obliged to spend my vacation in Madrid, and was unable to enjoy the cool breezes of my home in the province.

That summer would have been wearisome indeed, and unbearable, if I had not been surrounded by such jolly and frolicsome people, and if the good-natured Portuguese had not afforded us such fun by submitting to the endless pranks of Botello.

When there was no other way of killing an afternoon, little Dumas would snap his fingers and say, throwing back his perspiring head so as to brush away the thick black mane, which was suffocating him:

“Let us play a trick on Corno de Boy. Who will help me catch some bugs?”

“Catch bugs?”

“Yes, just make a cornucopia and fill it with bugs to the top. The small ones will not do; they must be big ones.”

Then every one would go to his room to engage in the strange hunt. Unfortunately, it was not difficult. As soon as we searched under our beds, or our pillows, we would quickly collect a dozen or more fearful fellows. We would carry our tributes to the inventor of the practical joke, and he would put them all together. As soon as we knew that the Portuguese was in bed, we would take off our shoes, and, repressing our desire to laugh, would station ourselves at his door. As soon as Don Miguel began to snore, Botello would softly raise the latch, and, as the headboard was next the door, all that the imp of an artist had to do was to open the cornucopia and scatter the contents over the head and face of the sleeping man. After this was accomplished, Botello would close the door very quietly, while we, convulsed with laughter, and pinching one another in sheer excitement, would wait for the pitched battle to begin. Hardly two minutes would elapse before we would hear the Portuguese turn over in bed. Then we would hear broken and unintelligible phrases; then strong ejaculations; then the scratching of a match, and his astonished exclamation, “By Jove!”

We would come forward with great hypocrisy, inquiring whether he was sick or whether anything had happened. “By Jove!” the good man would exclaim; “pests here, and pests everywhere. By Jove! Ugh!”

The next day we would advise him to change his room; and he would do so, hoping to find some relief; but we would repeat the same performance.

So we managed to kill time during the dog-days, with these stupid practical jokes. What most surprised me was that the Portuguese, who was always the butt of them, never thought of changing his boarding-house nor even gave his persecutor a drubbing.

When I passed in my deficient subjects in September, I was obliged to exert all my energy and resolution in order to do what I thought the Portuguese should have done—that is, to change my boarding-house. The attraction of a gay and idle life, my pleasant intercourse with Botello, for whom it was impossible not to feel a compassionate regard, similar to tenderness; the very defects and inconveniences of that abode, made me much fonder of it than was expedient. But reason finally triumphed. “Life is a treasure too precious to be squandered in boyish pranks and stupid practical jokes,” I reflected, as I was packing up my effects preparatory to taking myself off somewhere else. “If that unfortunate Botello is an idle dreamer, and has made up his mind to fetch up in a public hospital, I, for my part, am determined to acquire a profession, take life seriously, and be my own lord and master. The people in this house are poor deluded mortals, destined to end in nameless wretchedness. I must go where one can work.”

Notwithstanding all this, my heart felt heavy when I took leave of them all. Pepa’s tears flowed freely at losing a good boarder who, she declared, always paid punctually and never gave her the slightest trouble. My eyes were not filled with tears, but I felt as much regret as though I were parting with some of my dearest friends, while I embraced Botello, and cordially pressed the hand of the good Portuguese. As I walked behind the porter who carried my trunk, I explained my emotion to myself in the following words: “This picturesque irregularity, this predominance of feeling and jolly good humor and contempt for serious life, which I observe in Pepa Urrutia’s house and among her boarders, have a certain charm, inasmuch as they make up a kind of romanticism innate in our countrymen,—a romanticism which I also suffer from. That dwelling seems like a community founded not on a basis of socialism but on a total lack of common sense and brains. I have met several persons there who are so very good that they are totally devoid of discretion or common sense. I suppose that I shall miss them greatly at first, for that very reason, and shall feel homesick; and as years roll on my imagination will invest everything connected with them with a poetic glamor, even to the episode of the bugs. Nevertheless, I am worth more than what I am leaving behind me, because I am capable of tearing myself away from that place.” My pride consoled me, by whispering to me, that I was better bred and more energetic than Pepa’s boarders.

CHAPTER II.

My homesickness did not last as long as I feared. Everybody prefers his natural element, and I did not find mine in the confusion and rollicking ways of the Bohemian boarding-house.

My new abode was in Clavel Street. It was in a suite on the fourth floor, with plenty of sunshine; the rooms there were not so small as those which are usually furnished for six shillings a day. Our landlady was also a native of Biscay, for half of the boarding-house keepers in Spain come from that province. But she was very unlike Pepa Urrutia. She was as neat as wax, and could make most delicious stews of codfish and tomatoes, as well as stewed tripe and vegetable soup, and other savory messes of our national cuisine, and she had no wastefulness apparently; consequently all the boarders had either to settle their bills in due time, or to leave the house. In Doña Jesusa’s abode—we called her Doña because she was middle-aged—the beds were scrupulously clean, though hard and narrow. She kept the maid scrubbing and cleaning all the time. A caged linnet sang merrily in the passageway in front of the kitchen. On Christmas Eve she regaled us with almond pottage and sea-bream, and there was some kind of humble comfort and domestic peace to be enjoyed there. It is true that everything was scrimped and scanty; and, as our rations were so meager, the five or six students of us who usually dined there, ordinarily left the table unsatisfied. I don’t wish to complain of the chocolate, which was pasty stuff of the color of a brick, nor of the leathery corn-cakes, nor of our dessert of apples and pears, which seemed like wax counterfeits to judge by the way we refrained from touching them.

“At least they ought to give us the dessert of raisins and almonds, which they give to criminals condemned to death,” said Luis Portal, a fellow from my province, who was of a humorous vein.

I will not say much about the maccaroni soup, which Luis classified as “alphabetical” or “astronomical,” according as the paste was cut in the shape of letters or of stars; I will not dwell on the wretched pieces of boiled meat, with a bit of bacon hidden behind a pea, and already served out in portions, so that no boarder should take more than his share; nor will I betray the flabbiness of the beef, nor the maggots we used to find in the fish. At my age it is seldom that one bothers himself much about the pleasures of the palate. Besides, on any boarder’s birthday, or on any great holiday, Doña Jesusa would regale us with some rural dish, upon which she had lavished all her skill, and we would then take our revenge. Doña Jesusa always celebrated the principal holidays, and observed them by having an extra dish on the table; so these extraordinary occasions helped us to put up with her usual parsimony—after the manner of the pleasing alternations between want and plenty in our homes.

Luis Portal was the son of a coffee-merchant in Orense, and as he was very ingenious as well as fond of good living, he conceived the idea that we might enjoy a cup of coffee, mornings and afternoons, without great cost. So he purchased a second-hand coffee-pot in the Rastro, which held enough for six cups; he also bought a second-hand coffee-mill, got some of the best coffee, and two pounds of brown sugar; and, when the cost was divided between us, we found that we had the most delicious coffee at a very low price. If we could only afford half a wineglass of champagne or of brandy! But we were brought to a stand-still there. Our means would not reach thus far, for brandy was ruinously expensive. Portal had a bottle in his trunk which he had brought from home, so we made up our minds to make the most of that by taking only one swallow at a time; and we kept to our resolution so well that in two days we drank it all up.

In fact, one could study in Doña Jesusa’s house. It was quiet and orderly, and there were regular hours for everything. Sometimes the landlady would fall to scolding the maid; but this familiar and expected noise did not disturb us at all. So we all ground away to the best of our powers, trying not to have to say “not prepared” when the professors questioned us. The professor, who taught the principles of machinery, used to frighten us a little by his habit of going a-fishing, that is, asking questions out of the regular order.

I have already said that I was not one of the most diligent in my studies, nor was Luis Portal, either. We both used to fall back on general knowledge, letting our wits float easily unburdened by a great load in the memory, because we feared the particular exhaustion which those arid and hard studies cause in weak brains, and which Luis called “The mathematical topsy-turviness.”

On the other hand, two lads who lived with us were so completely worn out that we were afraid that by the time they finished their course—if they ever did finish it—they would be ready for a lunatic asylum. One of them, a Cuban, was gifted with a prodigious memory. With the aid of this inferior but indispensable faculty, which can so deftly cover the weakness of the intellect, he would fairly devour text-books, and as long as it was not necessary to enlarge upon a subject, nor to add a single word to the text, nor take one away, he would come off with flying colors. But the slightest objection, or the gentlest interruption, anything, in fact, which called for the exercise of mind, would crush him; he would get completely addled, and could not give a straight answer to the simplest question.

Portal used to call him the little parrot, and make sport of his serenity and his languid air; and laughed to see him always shivering, even when close to the fire. When he put away his books, the West Indian was like a bird released from his cage. At such times, in place of the mental vigor to handle the heavy iron weights of science skillfully, the poor exile would display the riches of a brilliant imagination, all light and colors; or to be more exact, all spangles and phosphorescent gleams. The commonest phrase, on issuing from his lips, took on a poetic form; he could make rhymes as unconsciously as a mocking-bird sings, and could talk in rhythmical and harmonious verse an hour at a time.

But the sarcastic Portal used to say that the Cuban’s poetry had precisely the same artistic value as the tunes we compose and hum while we are lathering our faces preparatory to shaving, and had as much meaning read from the bottom up as from the top down.

“We’ll call him the mocking-bird instead of parrot,” he would say every time that the Cuban would display for us his poetical string of glass-beads which usually occurred after he had filled himself with coffee.

The other assiduous student came from Zamora; he had a narrow forehead and an obtuse mind. He had neither father nor mother, and the cost of his education was met by his octogenarian and paralyzed grandmother, who used to say: “I don’t want to die until you are a man, and have finished your studies, and can see your future secure.”

It was but a slight thread which bound the poor old woman to this world, and the lad knew it; so he displayed a silent and savage determination. As the Cuban studied with his memory, the Zamoran studied with his will, always kept tense. His poor mental endowments obliged him to work doubly. He neither took nights off on Saturdays nor had holidays on Sundays, nor any excursions whatever. No correspondence with a sweetheart for him; no—nothing but his books, his everlasting books, from morning till night; an equation here and a problem there, without relaxing his assiduity for a single moment, without being absent for a single day, and never saying “not prepared.”

“Have you ever seen such a fellow? He is always on the stretch,” my friend Luis Portal would say; “why, he’ll be a civil engineer before we are, if he does not burst his skin. How thin he is, and his hands are very feverish at times. His breath is very bad; his digestion must surely be out of order. No wonder it is, for he does not take any exercise nor any recreation whatever. Salustiño, it is all right to get ahead, but one must look out for his health!”

I got along well with Luis Portal, and we became fast friends, although our ideas and aspirations were so entirely different. Portal used to like to show himself a sagacious, practical person, or, at least, gave indications that he would be when he arrived at the age when a person’s moral nature becomes well-defined and unified.

We did not differ totally in our views; we had some opinions in common. Portal, like me, was a champion of self-help, and despised restraint or tutelage. He thought that a man should be self-sufficient, and should take advantage of his earlier years, in order to secure freedom or comfort for his manhood.

“We don’t appear like Galicians,” he sometimes used to say, “for we are so energetic in everything.”

I did not agree with him on this point, and bade him remember the adventurous and enterprising spirit the Galicians had displayed within a short time past.

“There’s no doubt about it,” he would say, obstinately, “we are more like Catalans than Galicians, my dear fellow.”

If we were much alike in our ideas of the way to order our lives, we differed greatly in our estimate of the principal aim of life.

Portal used to say:

“Look here, sonny, I am not going to waste my time catching flies nor in trifling pursuits. I’ll try to get money so as to set the world at defiance. It is but a sorry joke to pass one’s life grubbing and in want. My father is an awful miser; he will not shell out a cent, and as yet I know nothing at all about many fine things there are going. I don’t know whether by following my profession I shall ever succeed in obtaining them; I believe that politicians and tradespeople know how to make money better than professional men. It is true the two things are not incompatible, and that Sagasta himself is a civil engineer. Anyway, just let them give me free swing and I shall know how to fix things. If I don’t get rich, put me down for a fool.”

While I applauded his valiant resolution, yet I knew that my dreams of the future differed from his. By “fine things” Portal meant to live well, to drink good wines, to smoke good cigars, and perhaps marry some beautiful, rich girl; while I, without despising all these good things of the earth, did not long for any one of them in particular. I only desired my freedom. I foresaw that with that I might obtain something very noble, and worthy of being tasted and enjoyed; but not in a material or prosaic sense; something like renown, celebrity, passion, adventures, wealth, authority, home, children, travels, combats, even misfortune. At any rate, it would be life—life rich, and worthy of a rational being—who is not content simply to vegetate nor to gloat over pleasures, but who must run over the whole scale of thought, of feeling, and of action. I could not clearly define in what my hopes consisted, but I thought that it would be degrading to lower them to Portal’s material and sensuous level.

Nor did I consider myself a visionary, or an enthusiast, or a dreamer. On the contrary, I knew that if sometimes my head did lift itself toward the clouds, my feet still remained firmly planted on the earth; and that all my actions were those of a man fully determined to make his way in the world, without being distracted by the siren of enthusiasm.

If our creed for the individual had certain points in common, in our creed for the nation, Portal and I utterly disagreed. We were both Republicans; but he belonged to Castelar’s party, was a cautious opportunist, and almost a monarchist by force of concessions; while I was a radical, one of Pi’s followers, and firmly believed that we ought not to carry out a conciliatory policy in Spain, nor accommodate ourselves to old traditions in any respect whatever; but that, on the contrary, we ought to press on resolutely and uncompromisingly in the path of thorough and progressive change.

“These concessions are ruinous and fatal to our country,” I would say, “and by concessions in this case I mean something equivalent to cheating. They say ‘concessions’ so as not to say capitulation or defeat. If our forefathers, those upright men of 1812 to 1840, had accepted a compromise and walked softly about absorbed in thought, a pretty fix we should be in now! It hurts to cut out a cancer, and causes disturbance in the system; but the cancer is destroyed. I can’t understand this mania for compromising with the past, with absolute and fanatic Spain. Your illustrious Chief—for thus we styled Castelar—is a man of the world, fond of making himself agreeable to duchesses and to crowned heads; and that’s what he calls holding to old traditions. Empty words! Fortunately, the French in 1793 did not adopt that method, nor did we in later times. Don’t talk to me. At the rate we are going, within a few years Spain will be crowded with convents again. It is absurd to tolerate such craftiness, and even protect it, as our most liberal government does now. The Jesuits have again spread their net, and every once in a while draw it in a little more. Some day they will catch the whole of us. Of course, when such big bugs as they gain their ends, they don’t care what comes after. ‘After me the deluge,’ as that old scamp, Louis XV., used to say. No well-balanced mind can think that in order to weaken and uproot an institution like Monarchy, you must begin by strengthening and coddling it, and quietly implanting it in the hearts of the people. I don’t swallow that ‘concession’ hook; don’t let them try that business on me.”

Portal would then get excited and answer me with equal energy: “Well, you are simple, to say the least. Those who think as you do are in a fool’s paradise. With your system, we would have an outbreak of the Carlists in the twinkling of an eye, and Spain would be plunged in petty civil war. I don’t like to think, either, what would happen on the establishment of your famous federation. Within two months after the establishment of the Galician canton, there wouldn’t be a rag left. All would want to command, and none to obey. If you begin by wounding and outraging the susceptibilities of a nation, it will surely result in demoralization like that which followed the Revolution of September. Rest assured, Castelar has a long head. It is the republic that is not yet of age, not the king. Let the republic fall of its own weight, like a ripe pear.”

“Try some other dog with that bone. What they all want here is to be chief. Sonny, there are no ideals; all that has collapsed and we must bring them to life, believe me.”

“Don’t spin me great yarns about your ideals,” Portal would reply, getting angry. “Ideals are the cause of all our troubles. There is no other ideal but peace, and to bring order into all this chaos, little by little.”

Another subject of dispute was local government. I was not at all modest in my demands. I wanted the independence of Galicia. In regard to our annexation to Portugal, we might discuss that later. We would see what was most expedient. But it would be well for Portugal, also, to shake off her ancient and fantastic monarchical yoke, and assent to the Iberian Federation.

“I don’t know what I’d give just to see your swinish ideal realized for about twenty-four hours,” Luis would exclaim. “If Galicia should declare itself a canton, not even the evil one would stay there. Make up your mind to one thing: in Spain, the smaller the governing entities—is that the right word?—the worse they are. The central government, as you call it, makes a thousand blunders; but the provincial legislature would make two thousand, the county justices three thousand, and the village authorities a million. Fortunately, to talk about Galician independence is as idle as to ask the fish and the sands what they know about the sea.”

“So you think that the provinces have no right to say, like individuals, ‘each one for himself.’”

“Look here, don’t say anything about their rights. To talk about their rights, is running off on a tangent. By rights and technicalities, I can prove to you that Isabella the Second is to-day the rightful Queen of Spain, and that her grandson is only a usurper. In rational politics no rights nor mummeries exist. There is only what is advantageous or otherwise, what is successful or unsuccessful. There is a sense of smell and of touch, and although I can’t explain to you in what it consists, yet it shows itself in the result. Radical ideas lead on to logical absurdities. You can’t apply algebra to politics. And say no more about independence. Our Spanish nation is an indisputable reality, even if you do not believe it.”

Irritated by his opposition, I would exclaim: “What a musty idea that love of country is! The great thinkers laugh at the idea of patriotism; you can’t deny that.”

“Tell your great thinkers to go think in a stable. If they suppress the springs of action, little by little, because humanity has always progressed, we’ll no longer have any pretext for so much as living. You know that I am not at all sentimental, but our country is like our family, and there’s no need of poetry or sentimentalism to make us love it and defend it with our lives. You think you settle everything by dragging out that about old-fashioned notions. Well, old-fashioned notions are inevitable and necessary and proper. We live on them. And that old idea about our love of country is not the only one bred in our bones. There are a great many others, my dear fellow, which we’ll not give up for twenty centuries. I believe that in this country, in order to foster the ideas which are to replace the old-fashioned ones, what we must do is to be crossed with other races. All of us who are a bit enlightened—why, let us marry foreign wives!”

Sometimes we got to quarreling over these profundities, and would roar at each other while loitering at the table or even while eating. These disputes usually gave us the greatest eagerness in the play of mind on mind; and even in the midst of our hottest arguments we felt drawn toward each other by the conviction that though our opinions were so antagonistic, we were able to understand each other and to spur each other on.

We had come to be inseparable. We helped each other in our studies; we used to go to walk together, even when Luis was going to promenade before the house of a certain outlandish sweetheart he had discovered; we used to sit at the same table in the Levante Café; when we had a little spare cash we would go together to our favorite resort—the gallery in the Teatro Real. All of us students at Doña Jesusa’s were musical; we were all ready to die for “L’Africaine,” and “Les Huguenots,” especially the Cuban, who had a musical craze. His retentive memory would store up not only the music but the words as well, and we used to amuse ourselves on getting home by making him sing over the whole opera.

“Trinidad,” we would say, for that was his name, “Come now, sing the love duet between Vasco and Selika.” “Trinidad, there now, the poniard scene.” “Come, Triny, sing that about O paradiso. Now about Copre fuoco.” “Triny, sing the Protestant psalm. Now, the violins start in—now come the oboe’s notes, when Marcelo appears.” The mocking-bird would sing all we called for, reproducing with astonishing exactness the slightest details of the instrumentation, until at length fairly worn out, he would exclaim, beseechingly:

“Let me go to bed. I see you are making a fool of me.”

CHAPTER III.

One morning, or, rather, afternoon, almost at the end of the term, we rushed out of school, almost running from Turco Street to Clavel Street. You must remember that from eight o’clock, when we took our muddy chocolate, until half-past one, the hour when our drawing-class closed, our recitations came along one after the other; and we had nothing to sustain our strength, but now and then a sausage which we would surreptitiously purchase from the janitor, or some scrap which we would filch at the boarding-house and carry along. Smelling our lunch from afar, we mounted two steps at a time, and on entering the dining-room, I came face to face with my Uncle Felipe, who said to me, abruptly, “You must lunch with me to-day at Fornos’s. I imagine that eatables are scarce here.”

“I should be glad to go, but I have so much studying to do just now,” I answered, affecting reluctance.

“Bah, you’ll not lose a year’s time if you don’t study to-day. Come along, for we must have a talk—a talk about a great many things,” he added, with an air of mystery.

The truth is—and it would do no good to conceal it, because it will be made very evident in the course of this story—that I had not merely no affection or respect for my Uncle Felipe, but not even any sort of attachment or as much as gratitude for the favors he was conferring upon me. Quite the contrary. I know it does me no credit to say so, and that ingratitude is the ugliest of faults; but I know, also, that I am not naturally ungrateful, and in order to justify, or at least explain myself, I will sketch in silhouette my Uncle Felipe’s physical and moral characteristics, to do which I must allude to some matters that are of the nature of family secrets.

My baptismal name is Salustio, my paternal surnames are Meléndez Ramos, my maternal, Unceta Cardoso. That name Unceta indicates plainly that my mother’s father was a Basque, and came from Guipuzcoa, to be more exact; and Cardoso—that’s where the mischief comes in. It seems that the Cardosos of Marín—I was born in Pontevedra, and my mother’s family came from the little seaport of Marín—were a broken branch of the Portuguese trunk of Cardoso Pereira, a Jewish trunk, if there is such a thing. How did the fact come to my knowledge that my mother’s ancestors were Jews? Just find out if you can who tells these things to children. One day when I was nine or ten, unable to restrain my curiosity any longer, I asked my mother:

“Mamma, is it true that we belong to the Jewish race?”

With fire flashing from her eyes, she lifted her hand and cuffed my ears soundly, crying:

“If you say that again, I’ll break all the bones in your body!”

That chastisement left the impression in my mind that to be a Jew was a sore disgrace; and two or three years later, when one of my school-mates at Pontevedra threw it in my face, calling out,

Cardoso’s a Jew,
And a tricky one, too!

I seized my slate and broke it over his skull.

I cannot be sure when I reached the religious crisis, or that period in which boys scrutinize their beliefs, sift them and finally discard them, feeling a pain from the loss of their faith like that caused by the pulling of a double-tooth. I do not think I ever experienced such a change, or felt such agonizing doubts, or such remorse and longing when looking upon a Gothic church. I was naturally skeptical and took up, if not with atheism, at least with religious indifference, as if it were something perfectly congenial to me.

I had never been “perverted” by reading any particular book, nor by hearing a person of “dangerous ideas” discourse upon religion; nobody “opened my eyes,” for I believe that I came into the world with them wide open. As many young men cannot say exactly how and when they lost the innocence of childhood in matters relating to the sexes, so I cannot fix the precise time when my faith began to waver, for, indeed, I do not recall that it was ever very steadfast. I believe that I was born a rationalist.

But it is singular that in spite of that, the insult, “tricky Jew,” always clung to my mind like a poisoned dart. My fellow-students never dared repeat it before me, but notwithstanding, I never could forget it for a single day. When I was about to graduate, quite a tall, shapely fellow by that time, I became acquainted with Don Wenceslao Viñal, a queer individual, but a good deal of a scholar, mousing around in libraries, filled with all sorts of strange learned trifles, and very well informed in regard to Galician archæology and history. He used to lend me old books, and sometimes carry me off to walk in the vicinity of Pontevedra in search of beautiful views and ruined buildings. I used to torment him with questions, to keep up my reputation as a studious youngster.

One day I got it into my head that Viñal might clear up my doubts in regard to the Jewish question, so I boldly said:

“See here, Don Wenceslao, is it true that there are families living in Marín, who are of Jewish descent, and that the Cardoso family is one?”

“Yes, indeed,” answered the bibliomaniac quietly, without noticing the great eagerness of my question. “They are of Portuguese origin; that is so certain that there is much antipathy shown them in Marín. It is said that they have not abjured their faith, and that they still keep up their Jewish rites; that they change their linen on Saturdays instead of Sundays, and that they will not eat a bit of pork for love or money.”

“And do you believe all that?”

“For my part, I think it is all tittle-tattle and old woman’s gossip—I mean in regard to their observing the Jewish rites; but that they are of Jewish origin, cannot be denied. Furthermore, if I have time, I’ll rummage through some old papers I know of, and we’ll disinter a certain Juan Manuel Cardoso Muiño, a native of Marín, whom the Inquisition of Santiago tortured and flogged, on the ground that he was a Judaizer. He was besides an incurable leper. So you see I know all about it, you curious fellow. I’ll look up the papers.”

“No, no, it’s not necessary. I only wanted to find out—mere idle curiosity. Don’t trouble yourself about it, Don Wenceslao.”

For a month I was sorely afraid that the fellow actually would look the matter up, or perhaps even send an absurd communication to some wretched sheet in Pontevedra, as he used to do every two years, whenever he imagined that he had discovered some important and unpublished data which might serve as an historical key to the ancient kingdom of Galicia. I therefore carefully avoided recurring to the conversation about the Judaizers of Marín. This very precaution indicated that I was not quite reconciled to the drubbing which had been inflicted upon Juan Manuel Cardoso Muiño.

Later on, when I left Pontevedra for Madrid to begin my studies preparatory to the School of Engineering, I often recalled that stigma, and tried to view it in a sensible light. It seemed to me absurd to place so much importance upon a thing that, in our present social state, has none whatever in the light of good judgment and the philosophy of history. The Jews are, in fact, a people of noble origin, who have given us “the religious conception”—a conception to which, viewed either as a sublime product of the mind or as a lofty flight of the imagination, I attributed great importance.

In another point of view, also, that of social standing, it no longer seemed right to me to despise Hebrews. The stigma of the Middle Ages has been so far obliterated that wealthy Jewish capitalists intermarry with the most aristocratic families in France, and give splendid receptions and banquets at which the Spanish aristocracy deigns to appear. Aside from these outward considerations, I used to fix my thought on others, higher and deeper, and remembered that great thinker Baruch Spinosa, who was of Jewish race; as were also Meyerbeer and Heine.

In fact, as I assured myself again and again, there was not the slightest reason for feeling so sore at having descended from the Jews, except the unreason of an instinctive aversion, born of sentimental hereditary prejudice. There was no doubt about it; the blood of the old Christians which flowed in my veins, shrank with horror from intermingling with that of the Jewish race. It is very singular, I thought, that the inmost part of our being thus resists our will and reason, and that, in spite of ourselves, there exists within us a rebellious and self-governed something, over which our own convictions have no control whatever, but which is only affected by those of past generations.

And here my Uncle Felipe again appears on the scene. I do not know whether I remarked before that he was my mother’s brother, somewhat younger than she was. He was about forty-two or forty-three at the time our story commences, and was considered “quite good-looking;” perhaps because he was tall, well-formed, and somewhat stout, with thick hair and whiskers. But at the first glance my uncle showed all the unmistakable traces of a Jewish origin. He certainly did not look like the images of Christ, but resembled, rather, another Semitic type, that of the sensual Jews, such as the scribes, Pharisees and doctors of the law, as they appear in pictures and sculptures representing scenes in the Crucifixion.

The first time I ever visited the Prado Museum I was struck by the great number of faces resembling my Uncle Felipe’s. Above all was this the case in Rubens’s paintings, in those big, fat, florid Jews, with their hooked noses and gluttonous, sensual lips, hard, suspicious gaze, and with profiles like a bird of prey. Some of them, exaggerated by the Flemish master’s heavy strokes, were caricatures of my uncle, but most faithful ones. His red beard and curly hair made my uncle look precisely like the figure of one of the executioners carried in the processions of Holy Week. And to me it was very plain, it was my uncle’s deicide face which from childhood inspired me with that stolid, sullen, insuperable aversion, like that we feel for a reptile though it does us no harm. Not even my rationalistic ideas, nor my scientific positivism, nor the knowledge that I was supported and protected by that hated being, could rid me of this aversion.

“These are the tricks of art,” I reflected. “For five hundred years past the painters have endeavored to bring together in half a dozen faces the expression of avarice, of gluttony, cruelty, selfishness, and hypocrisy, and so have succeeded in making the Jewish type so repugnant. Luis is right. Tradition, that binding cement, that mold which gathers in our very souls, is stronger than culture or progress. Instead of reflecting, we feel; and not even that, because it is the dead who feel for us.”

Sometimes, in order not to acknowledge myself guilty of fear or childishness, I sought other reasons for the antipathy I felt toward my uncle. I make a great point of personal neatness, while my uncle, without being careless in his dress, was not very cleanly in his person; his nails were sometimes not immaculate, and his teeth betrayed a tinge of green. My dislike for my uncle was also stimulated by my seeing that he, without any desert whatever, as the result of no moral or intellectual qualities, had yet been able to secure a good position. I do not mean to say that he was wicked or stupid, but that he was one of those intermediate hybrid creatures, of whom we can never quite discover, whether they are bright or stupid, good or knavish, although they are strongly inclined to be the latter. A mushroom springing up in the corruption of our politics, and growing rank in the deadly shade of electoral intrigue, he was condemned by my puritanical and radical ideas, with all the rigid inflexibility of youth, to the punishment of general contempt. Although he was not as high in power as some of his fellow-bosses, his unjustifiable prosperity sufficed to stir all my youthful indignation against him.

When my uncle was licensed to practice law, he owned some land and a house or two in Pontevedra, which he had inherited from his father. This property would not yield him an income of $1000 annually, at five per cent. How it happened that this meager fortune was more than doubled in bank stocks and four per cent. government bonds a few years later, let any one explain who understands how such miracles are worked; so common nowadays that they no longer surprise anybody. My uncle did not practice his profession; the law was for him, what it usually is for Spaniards in political life—an avocation, a passport. He went into politics cautiously, swimming, but keeping an eye on his clothes. He was elected provincial deputy several times, and picked away at his pleasure in the fig-basket of offices. In order not to waste his money in electoral campaigns, he contented himself with going to the Cortes only once, standing for one of those vacancies which occur on the eve of a general election, and which usually go to the benefit of journalists. My uncle, by the favor of Don Vicente Sotopeña, the all-powerful “boss” of Galicia, carried off the prize without spending a single penny; and took the oath the very day before the House was dissolved, leaving the way open to become a Governor, and later on—who can tell?—a Councilor of State or Minister of Public Instruction. Governor he was very quickly, sometimes as acting head of the province, sometimes as executive in his own right.

From time to time some good thing fell mysteriously into his lap; and they had a great deal to say in Pontevedra about the expropriation of some of my uncle’s property, which the city council bought at a fabulous price. But it is neither pleasant nor profitable to recount these transactions. My uncle was one of the petty third-rate politicians who never dip into the dish without bringing out a fat slice. His method consisted in cutting down expenses and adding up profits, without despising the most insignificant.

They used to say in his praise that he was long-headed. Now such a trait appeared to me only another symptom of Judaism, though, perhaps I was unjust in this, because many bosses in my part of the country, though of the purest Aryan extraction, are not behind Uncle Felipe in that respect.

Sometimes I felt conscience-stricken on account of my dislike toward my nearest relative. I accused myself of being without proper feeling, because I was returning only hatred for favors. If my uncle were mean and stingy, he deserved all the more credit for meeting a good part of the expenses of my education. And I could not deny that my uncle showed a liking for me, in his own fashion. When he was in Madrid, he used to give me an occasional quarter to go to the theater; and two or three times during his stay he would invite me to breakfast or dine with him at Fornos’s; and he was never strict with me. He used to treat me like a pleasure-loving young lad of not much consequence, questioning me about my tricks and frolics, about my fellow-boarders’ pranks, and about the girls over the way, who were amusing.

Sometimes he even dropped into worse talk, boasting that he was an expert in all matters relating to licentious amours. After dinner, when the wine, the coffee and the liquors had flushed his cheeks, he would display his expertness, treating of dubious subjects which sometimes nauseated me. I did not dare to protest, for we men are ashamed to appear innocent; but the truth is, my youthful palate refused that spicy, too-highly-seasoned dish. Sometimes it happened, also, that at night the indecent images called up by his conversation would assault and excite me, until I would freely bathe the back of my head and neck with cold water out of the pitcher. In winter as well as in summer this proceeding would refresh my brain and enable me to forget myself in my books again.

Aversion, or rather antipathy, is as powerful a motive force as love, and I was looking forward to the end of my studies as the close of a patronage which I felt to be unbearable. To be my own master, to earn enough money to live on, to pay back to my uncle what he had given me—that was my dream; and I clung to its wings in order to reach the top of the dry hill of machinery, construction and topography.

Now that I have drawn my Uncle Felipe’s portrait, I will add, that when we found ourselves in the little, dark, low room in Fornos’s, seated at the table where the waiter was placing a dish of radishes, Vienna rolls, butter, and the rest of the lunch; after making several remarks on various unimportant subjects, he said, clapping me on the shoulder, but without looking me in the face, “Guess what I have to tell you.”

“How can I?”

“Well, what use is it for you to study so hard, if you cannot?”—said he, making an effort to appear jocose.

I shrugged my shoulders, and my uncle added:

“I am going to get married.”

CHAPTER IV.

It was doubtless in order to lead up to this piece of news that he had ordered a caraffe of iced champagne, a luxury always to be enjoyed, and the more so that the heat was beginning to grow intense and the air to be parched in Madrid. I held the delicate glass, filled to the brim with that cool, golden liquid, and could not repress a start of surprise, when I heard his announcement, so that I dashed a little cascade of it on the table-cloth.

My uncle avoided meeting my gaze, though I stared at him with my eyes wide open in amazement. He pretended to be picking up the bread crumbs, and to be fastening his napkin to his button-hole, but he was looking at me out of the corner of his eye. As he observed that I did not say a word, he went on, with a forced voice: “I shall be very glad if you and your mother approve of my marriage.”

I, in the mean time, was absorbed in thought. Now I understand it. There is some mystery hidden here. His next neighbor must have lost her husband, or else they desire to legitimize their offspring. That’s the way it always works with old bachelors.

Finally, as I thought I ought to say something, I asked in a faltering tone: “Does my mother know about it?”

“Yes, I wrote to her yesterday.”

“I presume that you informed her of the name of your bride-elect?”

“Yes, it so happens that I first met her at Ullosa, at your mother’s, and became acquainted with her there.”

When the ice was once broken, my uncle kept on chattering very fast, like one wanting to free his mind in a hurry.

“It seems impossible that you should not know about it,” he said. “Last summer your mother and she became very intimate. She is Carmiña Aldao, don’t you know? Carmiña Aldao of Pontevedra.”

“I don’t know her; however, the name sounds familiar. Perhaps my mother may have written to me about her. I don’t know. You know I had no vacation last summer.”

“That’s true. Well, she is the young Aldao girl, the daughter of the owner of that fine property called the Tejo.”

“Is she an only child?” I inquired, somewhat sharply, thinking perhaps self-interest was the motive for the marriage.

“Oh, no! she has a brother who also lives in Pontevedra.”

“Well, I don’t know her,” I repeated. “But anyhow, if she is going to marry you, I’ll have plenty of time to become acquainted with her.”

“Of course you will, as I am going to take you to the wedding, my boy. As soon as you pass your examination, you must go there with me. The thing will not take place before Carmen’s birth-day, and between now and then I have yet to find a house, and to furnish it,—so you see!”

“Ah, so you are going to live in Madrid?”

“Yes, the bride wants to do so. I’ll take you to the wedding, you may be sure of that. We shall be married at Tejo! Look here, I don’t know what your mother will think of it. She has a temper somewhat peculiar. So if you write to her, tell her that I shall not give you the cold shoulder, when I get married. Until you finish your studies——”

“I believe I didn’t say anything about that,” I exclaimed, while for the second time the glass of champagne trembled in my hand.

“Well, I do. Don’t get excited, for there is no cause for it. I suppose that I am master of my own actions, and do not hurt anybody by getting married.”

“Who talks about its hurting?” I cried, feeling myself turn pale under a rush of sudden hatred which tempted me to throw myself upon that man.

“Well, if you take it in that way——”

“I don’t take it in any way whatever! You are entirely free to do what you like; and if you do anything for me, it is not because I have asked you for it. I’ll pay back to you the money you are spending on my education, if I live.”

In spite of the fact that he always got very red, when animated by eating and drinking, my uncle also turned pale. His lips were compressed, and his eyes gleamed with anger.

“If you were not a whipper-snapper, I’d be tempted to answer you roughly. What is bred in the bone will come out in the flesh. You are just like your father, the most ungrateful and ill-behaved man in the world.”

“Be kind enough not to mix up my father’s name in this matter, with which it has nothing whatever to do,” I replied, feeling that if I did not exert my self-control, I was liable to seize the bottle and smash it over his head.

“I only mentioned your father to say that though one always tries to help you, you are always growling and scratching. However, I was not going to get married without telling you about it. It is easy to see that you don’t like it at all. Come, my boy, have patience. It was not a thing to consult you about beforehand. The bill, waiter,” he added, knocking his spoon against the glass.

We had raised our voices pretty high and some of the loiterers at the adjoining tables turned their heads and looked at us. I felt ashamed, and frowning, though trembling inwardly, shook the crumbs off my coat and made a movement to rise. My humiliation had a real and immediate foundation, seeing my uncle put a bank-note on the plate on which the waiter had presented the bill. That note I desperately wished I could have taken out of my own pocket. I breathed more freely (boy-like) when a good deal of change in silver was brought back—more than five dollars. With the tip of his forefinger, my uncle pushed a couple of nickels toward the waiter, and getting up, took down his hat from the rack, saying dryly:

“Let’s go.” But on emerging from the dark restaurant into the sunshine, he immediately controlled himself, and, with the adaptability which characterized him in his business relations and political schemes, extended his hand to me, saying, half in joke:

“When you feel better, come to see me. I want to show you your prospective aunt’s photograph.”

I returned to my boarding-house in a very bad humor, feeling dissatisfied with myself, but without knowing very well the cause of my mental disturbance. All the animosity I felt toward my uncle was not sufficient to prevent me from recognizing the fact that, on this occasion, I was the one who had conducted himself badly. Luis agreed with me on this subject, when, on questioning me in the evening as to the cause of my ill-humor, I told him what had occurred.

“Well, my dear fellow, you were altogether in the wrong, and your uncle was perfectly right. You must have known that he would get married some day.”

“I don't care a rap whether he marries or not,” I exclaimed, hotly. “What does it matter to me, anyhow?”

“It matters a great deal,” replied the sensible fellow. “It makes a great deal of difference to any nephew when his uncle, his mother's only brother, gets married. It matters so much to you that you are much worried over the match. But all that you can do is to make the best of it. Make concessions, you eager fellow, for that's the way government is carried on.”

“Don't talk to me about matrimonial opportunism!”

“There isn't a subject with which opportunism will better square than this very marriage. Your uncle is going to get married? Well, then all you have to do is to make the best of the situation; try to get into the good graces of your dear little aunt--all the more so as she is really a charming girl.”

“Have you seen her?”

“No, I have not seen her; but when I was in Villagarcia last year, taking sea baths, I met some girls from Cambados who told me all about her. I recall it perfectly.”

“What did they say?”

“Oh, girl's talk. That she is handsome, and plays the piano very well; that they were going to make her father a marquis, and so forth and so on. It seems that the girl is not a beggar. I understand that her father has a fat income.”

“And how is it that my uncle can carry off such a prize, rich, beautiful, and young? He must have nerve!”

“Are you crazy? What is there to despise in your uncle? Because he did not care to study much, that does not prove that he is not quick-witted and a great manager. He has almost as much political influence as Don Vicente himself, and is certain of a political future. Come now, don’t be stupid. Go to the wedding and try to ingratiate yourself with your dear little auntie. Don’t be glum, for it will be all the worse for you if you are.”

“Well, now, you surprise me. If any one should hear you run on, who does not know me, he would think that I am deluding myself with false hopes in regard to inheriting my uncle’s money, and that I am disappointed at seeing it escape from my grasp.”

“That’s not the question,” argued my friend, resenting my words a little; “I don’t assert that you are capable of any meanness for the sake of a bit of cash, or of running after it. But what I do say is that, until you finish your education, you cannot get along without your uncle—and I fancy that you don’t want to be left in the lurch.”

Before many hours passed, I began to see that my friend was right, and had talked common sense. And as our own errors seem plainer, when we see them committed by other people, whom we consider inferior to ourselves in mental capacity and culture, I more clearly perceived the necessity of making the best of the situation, after reading a letter which the postman brought me the next day.

I recognized its handwriting at once, and saw by its thickness that it was stuffed with furious complaints and outpourings, such as spring to the lips or flow from the pen under the shock of unexpected events. In order to be able to read it quietly, I repaired to a little coffee-house near by, which was entirely deserted at that hour.

The waiter, after the regular “what’ll it be?” brought me some beer, and left me in peace. I took a swallow, and while enjoying the bitter flavor of the fermented hops, broke the seal, and pored over the thin sheets written in a clear, small, Spanish hand-writing, with several slight errors in spelling, particularly in the use of double r’s which indicated great vehemence of temper; without a suspicion of punctuation, or division into paragraphs, or capital letters. Although it may seem strange, all these things lend a certain forcible iteration and rapidity of movement to this kind of angry, feminine letters, really doubling their effect.

It was just what I had imagined it to be, a furious tirade against Uncle Felipe’s marriage, alternating with the narration of events, some of which were entirely new to me. I will copy a few paragraphs without adding so much as a period or comma, or disentangling the grammar, or suppressing the repetitions:

“You see now Salustio how much a poor mother suffers without any hope but that of seeing you well established and being somebody to-morrow or next day and her greatest hope that your old prig of an uncle might leave you something whose duty it was to do so if he had a conscience and the worst of all is that he will have children and you will be left with your mouth wide open without what belongs to you for although I call it yours I am not talking nonsense for you must know that your uncle in the division of my father’s property for my mother did not have so much as a bed to die on but father left a handsome property and your uncle grabbed it almost all up and left me almost in the street though I don’t know how he worked it and set the trap so that I only had three or four crusts while he ate up all the soft part of the loaf himself I know not how he consented to give me Ullosa that was a wonder for he took all the houses and lots in Pontevedra and afterwards fixed up a fine bargain with the city council and frightened the brave schemers as soon as your father died whom Felipe bothered dreadfully because he was empowered by the clergy and compromised him frightfully you can’t recollect about it for you were but a child when your father died who is now in heaven well at that time I said to him with great dignity of manner Felipe it is one thing to be a good sister and another to be obliged to beg and I have a son and no bread to give him so I speak freely I shall have the partition looked into for there was cheating there and in this way I cannot live for I am going to educate my son and he goes on to reply very patronizingly don’t feel anxious I will not abandon you but will give your son the best profession to be found don’t go to law for law suits are the ruination of a property and only fatten the lawyers be quiet silly creature for whose shall be what I have I am not going to carry it to the other world and as for marrying I shall not marry any sooner than the devil does a loose ox is hard to catch I can swear to you that your uncle said this and I haven’t changed a single word.”

Without doubt, on reaching this point, the moral necessity of attending to her punctuation must have suddenly taken possession of my mother’s mind with great force, and in order not to do things by halves, she added a whole string of periods and two exclamation points side by side...!!

“Oh my son any one who trusts the word of a man without religion or conscience and now he comes out with his nonsense that the idea of getting married came to him suddenly I don’t know what he saw in the Aldao girl she is quite plain and in delicate health and in sober earnest I don’t know how it will turn out for in her own house she has the bad example her father sets by being mixed up with her mother’s maid who has been there for years and two other little girls in the house who knows if they are daughters or nieces of the gadabout anyhow the girl takes up with your uncle so they say solely in order to get away from that infernal place where they abuse her and don’t give her enough to eat but I don’t know how your uncle will treat her for he comes of a bad race and is the very image of the Jews who come out in the procession of Holy Thursday I feel ashamed of being his sister for God had reason in singling him out for punishment mark my words for I know that God is very just and they want you to visit them on your vacation to see their beautiful place I am a silly if the Evil One didn’t tempt me to bring Carmen Aldao home next summer it will be different I’ll shine by my absence and we’ll see how they get on if they leave you out in the cold we will have the partition papers looked into and there will be an awful time for your uncle cannot make a fool of me and I am ready to go to law as long as I have any clothes to my back.”

I went on reading the letter, between swallows of the beer. It affected me differently from what my mother had intended. My uncle’s schemes to get hold of my inheritance, all that about the partition, instead of arousing in me justifiable indignation, soothed my mind. I was delighted to have reason for complaining of my uncle instead of being grateful to him, and now that I knew his wicked conduct, it seemed to me that the throbbing of my deadly hatred for him was diminishing. At least I no longer need feel conscience-stricken for hating him; and that somewhat consoled me.

I at once wrote my mother a very discreet letter, the very quintessence of good sense. I advised her to restrain herself, insisting that it was very unlikely that my uncle who had helped us so far, should leave us to our own resources at the last, and saying how useless and futile litigation and lawsuits seemed to me. What had been done, should be left as it was; for it was of no use to kick against the pricks. It was absurd to think that a man in the prime of life, strong and well-preserved, should keep single in order to please us. A few idle words could not possibly bind him to remain unmarried. As for attending the wedding or not, we would discuss that matter later. Meanwhile, calmness and patience.

I read the letter to Portal, who applauded it greatly, saying:

“That is the right way; make concessions, compromise, and avoid the breakers. That’s what I like. Follow my plan, and at least conform outwardly, for nobody can see what your inner feelings are.”

“Outside or inside, what in thunder does it matter to me that my uncle is going to marry? How you do talk!” I exclaimed, feeling hurt. Portal wagged his head, and I added, “My mother asserts that my uncle’s betrothed is homely.”

“Who knows? Perhaps she is, and it would be all the better if she were. Anyhow, she has a pretty name, Carmiña Aldao, don’t you like it?”

“The name—oh, well, that’s good enough.”

“You should try to captivate your uncle’s betrothed,” resumed Portal, after a short silence. “Yes, captivate her, that’s a good idea. Make her love you, my boy—I mean no harm—like a brother, or a son, or however you wish. Anyway, try to make her like you. But do it slyly, skillfully; be polite; no outbreaks or scandal. Your uncle is an old rooster, and she is nearer your own age. But be careful, youngster, for you are a bit like the youthful Werther. Take care, don’t let us have any family dramas.”

CHAPTER V.

I will pass over all the events of the end of the term and examinations, for all that the reader most interested in my future will care to know is that I passed that year; I had my books at my tongue’s end.

The boy from Zamora was likewise successful, but Portal and Trinito did not come off so well; they had not worked hard enough. The Cuban bore his disappointment with his usual indolent composure; but Portal tore out his hair, and laid the blame on the professor’s spite, and on the influence artfully brought to bear in favor of other students, the practical result of which had been to put all the strain on him.

“They have cut me square in two, they have fairly smashed me!” cried the unhappy fellow, forgetting all about that pleasant theory of his in regard to adjusting one’s self, making concessions, conforming and waiting. His calmness in the field of theory turned into furious impatience in actual practice. But he had felt so sure of success that year!

I left him fuming with rage, and went to tell my uncle the good news of my success. I felt greatly pleased, because it seemed to me that every step forward was another victory over my hateful protector, and was like breaking one of the links of the golden chain which bound me. My uncle lived at the Embassador’s hotel, but the concierge told me, with a knowing air: “He is usually at his new house, at this time of day. He does not stay here much of the time. Don’t you know, sir? He has rented a house—but he does not sleep there yet. Where is it, do you ask? Why, Claudio Coello Street, No.——”

I took a car and got off almost at the door of the new dwelling, going up to the second floor. I did not have to ring the bell, for the door was wide open, and in the reception-room there was a man seated Turk-fashion, and sewing strips of fine matting together, with a big needle.

My uncle was pacing up and down in a good-sized parlor, bare of furniture, and was agreeably surprised to see me.

“Halloo, Paul Pry! You here! Come in and take a look at everything.”

“They gave me your address at the hotel, so I came to tell you——”

“Why, come in at once! I want you to look around. What do you think of the house, eh? It is very good for the price. But then, the street is not very central. The parlor is not fixed yet; they have not brought the tête-à-tête, nor the large mirror, nor the hangings. One loses all patience with these upholsterers! The boudoir and the bed-room are farther along. Come in, come in!”

I entered and looked abstractedly at the boudoir, which was the extreme of commonplace, with its white marble mantle-piece, its arm-chairs upholstered in raw silk with a plush border of a darker shade, its tiny writing-desk, and its theatrical-looking toilet-table, dressed with imitation lace and adorned with bows of ribbon of the same color as the curtains. The narrow looking-glass over the mantle-piece did not have a gilt frame, but one of plush like that on the arm-chairs and sofa. My uncle wanted me to observe all this style, for he was like all niggardly people, when they make up their minds to spend anything extra, in wanting people to know about it.

“Do you see the little mirror?” he said. “That is the way they frame them now—a fashionable freak. And don’t think that they are any cheaper. Whew! they cost three times as much, my dear fellow. That empty space there, in front of the window, is for the piano. My fiancée plays beautifully.”

From the boudoir we passed into the sanctum sanctorum, the nest, or bedroom, which was a roomy apartment with stuccoed walls. The wooden bridal-couch, which was very broad and quite low, and had a carved head-board, was standing in the center of the room.

“The two mattresses are still wanting,” murmured my uncle, with a complacent smile. “Just fancy, the upholsterer has got it into his head to make them of rich, costly satin. I told him that cotton damask was good enough. If I had not been careful to furnish the house, your prospective aunt, who does not know what people are in Madrid, would have been swindled right and left. Look at those commodes; would you believe that the two cost me twenty-five dollars? People are so extravagant nowadays. Come now, and take a look at my study.”

We went through the hall and into his study, already completely furnished with its large desk, like a cabinet officer’s, and a big book-case which seemed ashamed to contain nothing but heavy government reports and half a dozen foolish and indecent novels, paper-covered, and very dirty. My uncle opened the glass doors, and taking a handful of books by Paul de Kock, Amancio Peratoner, and the Chinese Da-gar-li-kao, gave them to me, saying, with a suggestive smile: “I make you a present of them, my boy. Don’t get corrupted by reading them, do you understand? Just amuse yourself for a moment, and that’s all. Married men cannot keep such contraband goods in their homes. Send after them, or do you prefer to take them with you?”

I answered, that I had no time to delve in such serious writings, nor did they, in fact, amuse me.

From the study we proceeded to visit the dining-room, which was already furnished with sideboards and chandeliers, and then inspected even the humbler regions of kitchen and storeroom.

Back of the dining-room there was a cheerful little room, with a window overlooking some vacant lots.

“This is our spare room,” said my uncle; “so we shall be able to entertain a guest.”

After thus examining the entire house, we went back to the study, and my uncle took out a cigar, and offered me another one, praising the brand; but, as I did not smoke, I gave it back, so that he might be able, in his own words, “to pay off his debts with somebody else.” While he was taking the first puff, I told him the good news about my having passed my examination. His face lighted up with sincere joy. Two or three times I saw him carry his hand to his pocket, instinctively, while he murmured in a smothered tone, as he still held his cigar between his teeth:

“Well done, man; well done! So another year has passed, and you only have two to go. Bravo! At that rate you’ll soon be building bridges over the Lerez. I vow, I’ll push you forward on the works ordered by the legislature. One must know how to pull out the stops. You may understand all about problems in algebra, and be able to fling equations and logarithms about; but I know all about the key-board.”

When I rose to leave, my uncle got up his resolution, put his hand, not into his vest pocket, but into his inside coat pocket, brought out his pocket-book without saying a word, and took out a greasy bank-note.

How often have I observed that brief struggle in my uncle’s mind between his parsimony and the quick instinct which notified him when and why it was necessary, advantageous, or extremely agreeable to spend his money. I never saw him spend a cent without perceiving that effort and inward struggle in his soul—the painful and longing good-by which he gave to his money. It was evident that reason advised him to make the expenditure, but always had to fight with his temperament. To superficial observers, even if my uncle did not seem lavish, he was far from appearing avaricious; but to me, who studied him closely, with the cruel sharp-sightedness of hatred, his owl’s beak revealed avarice, though checked, kept latent, and in that larva-form to which civilization reduces so many passions or frenzies that, in other days, when the impulses of the individual had greater power, used to reach a tragic development.

My uncle was a frustrated miser; reflection, the power of surrounding circumstances, as well as the desire for enjoyment and comfort which modern society fosters, all counteracted his disposition—for nowadays an old-fashioned miser would appear absurd, and nobody would have anything to do with him. But under the cover of the successful man of the present, who knew how to acquire riches in order to enjoy them, I could see the Hebrew of the Middle Ages, with his greedy and rapacious claws. Whenever my uncle let any money go, he would turn slightly pale, his jaw would drop, and his eyes would be cast down as though to conceal their expression.

Well, he handed me the bank-note, saying: “This is to enable you to attend my wedding. They are selling cheap excursion tickets now, round-trip, do you understand? Yes, they are good for two months, or I don’t know how long, so that will be very convenient for you. Of course, you’ll travel second-class, for third-class is too uncomfortable. You can write at once to your mother what day you expect to start. The sooner the better, because you’ll not only get more pure country air, but you’ll save your board at the same time. Your mother is at Ullosa, and from there to Pontevedra and Tejo is only a step. Come a few days before the wedding. I don’t know as I told you; it will take place on the day of Our Lady of Carmen. There is room enough for everybody at Tejo. It is an old castle, which has been rebuilt and fixed up recently. You’ll not be in the way. Try to make your mother go also; I am afraid she is so queer that she’ll not do so.”

It was getting late in the afternoon, and the man at work at the matting had finished his task; so my uncle put the key in his pocket, and went out with me. We turned down the street, and got on a horse-car. When we came to the Puerta del Sol, instead of going toward the hotel, we took another car and proceeded toward Ancha de San Bernardo Street.

“Come with me,” said the Hebrew. “As it is now vacation time, a little recreation will not harm you. You’ll see some fine people.” Although I suspected what his “fine people” might be, I could not help feeling surprised when a very fine-looking girl opened the door for us. This handsome damsel had on a red calico wrapper, with pink flowers, low slippers, and wore her hair in that style of large bands pasted down over the ears which the women of the lower classes in Madrid have discarded at present for cork-screw curls.

I warmly admired her raven black hair, her beautiful form, her cheeks, where the fresh color struggled to show itself through a thick coating of rice-powder, which she had daubed on hurriedly. Her velvety eyes, bold, but sweet by reason of their fine lashes, fastened themselves upon mine, and said something to me, to which I immediately responded in the same mute language.

Behind this lovely specimen of the Madrid type appeared the head of a younger girl; not so good-looking, thin, mocking, and combed and powdered like her elder sister.

My uncle entered with the air of a lord and master.

“Come here at once, all of you. I have brought you a young man, and you must be careful how you treat him.”

Saying this, he led on over the loosened tiles of the passage-way to a small parlor, without any furniture excepting a sofa and two arm-chairs with calico coverings, an old mahogony shelf, several cheap and gaudy chromos, a little table on which stood several bottles of mucilage, broken plates, brushes, and scissors; scattered all around, on the table, chairs, sofa, floor, shelf, and I believe even on the walls and the ceiling, were endless remnants of silk, satin, and plush; blue, yellow, green, pink, and of all the colors of the rainbow, mixed up with strips of paste-board, circular pieces of the same, gilt and silver tinsel, ribbons and galloons, chromos and paints, flowers, and the thousand other accessories belonging to the pleasing trade of covering and decorating boxes of sweetmeats “for weddings and christenings,”—for this was the official occupation of those buxom girls. A woman, about fifty years old, shriveled, untidy, with very weak eyes, was busy in decorating a lilac-silk bag by pasting on each side a bunch of lilies and an angel’s face that she had cut from a chromo containing at least ten legions of angels. She saluted my uncle, saying, “Good afternoon,” in a dry manner, and went on pasting lilies and angels. Then my uncle, turning toward the girls who were following us, tapped each one under the chin in succession, and introduced them to me as “Señorita Belén—Señorita Cinta.”

After that, drawing near to the table, he exclaimed, jestingly:

“What a barricade! Come, girls, clear things away! I must treat my nephew.”

The old woman then interfered, exclaiming harshly:

“That’s it! waste the afternoon for us, so that when the time comes to deliver the work at the shop, we’ll just tell them that there was too much chattering, isn’t that so? As for things to eat, there’s nothing here but a miserable dish of rice and mussels.”

My uncle’s lips contracted, as they always did previous to his disbursing any money, but that movement was only momentary, and drawing forth a coin from his vest pocket he gave it to the smaller girl, saying:

“Cintita, just get some sherry wine, and biscuits, and a few oranges also.”

This argument was convincing to the old woman.

“Gents, I’ll go into the next room to finish my work of sticking on these angels so as to leave the table free; make yourselves at home.”

They brought the wine and biscuits, and got some cracked, dirty glasses from the depths of the kitchen, and the scene became quite animated. Belén took down her guitar, and sang something or other in that low, hoarse voice, which reminds one of the cooing of a dove, displaying all the grace of her southern beauty, and showing her pretty, arched foot, which rested on the round of the chair.

Cinta brought out a tambourine, and put it on her head like a hat, laughing merrily all the while, and amusing herself by throwing orange-peels at us. Then she got a little old India crape shawl out of a drawer, and put it on, while she made all sorts of contortions, saying that she wanted to have a regular spree.

Then ensued bravos, sky-larking, pushing, racing round the room, chairs upset, and pieces of silk flying through the air. Afterward they made us strum on the guitar, and sing, while the girls danced. The wine flowed freely; my uncle breaking the bottle against the edge of the marble table, for we had no corkscrew. As we soon dispatched the contents of that bottle, he told Cinta to bring up another one.

“I have spent all the cash,” answered the girl. My uncle scowled a little, and said:

“But I gave you four dollars.”

Belén came to her rescue, exclaiming, “Come now, old fellow, you must not be mean. We need a lot of things and they will not trust us at the grocery for our pretty faces. Keep quiet skin-flint, you stingy thing you!”

What with scolding and joking, they got two dollars more out of the Hebrew, so we had something “to wet our whistles.”

My uncle’s face was flaming red, and it seemed as though the blood would burst from his veins; if his tongue was thick, his eyes, on the other hand, gleamed more than ordinarily, and a beatific expression of material enjoyment was clearly marked upon his face.

I also felt the effects of the wine, for as it was adulterated, it kept rising to my nose; and this, together with the natural excitement of youth in the society of two girls—one a proud, and the other a saucy beauty;—but either capable of turning the head of an anchorite, and much more so of a student,—made me beside myself.

Nevertheless, it would not be fair to say that I was tipsy. I had made up my mind never to fall into the ignoble condition of a drunken man. I had often seen Botello completely fuddled, stumbling around, or falling on the floor like a block, or wild and beside himself; and I could never forget the shock it gave me, to see that handsome creature converted into a beast, talking nonsense, or bellowing like a calf. Luis Portal, the man of the golden mean in self-indulgence, used to say:

“In jolly company, when there is some advantage in it, one may get a trifle elevated, but never drunk. On the contrary, you should keep cool, and try to enjoy yourself at the expense of the tipsy fellows.”

I followed this maxim, and was thus able to keep within bounds, not losing my head. I did foolish things, but knew that I was doing them, and rather enjoyed it.

The frolic was getting more obstreperous every moment. My uncle took out three dollars more; Cinta went down several times, now to get wine, now a shrimp salad, now fruit and preserves. Finally, he bled again in order to have some coffee and liqueurs brought up. In short, there was got together at last an appetizing mixture of dinner and supper. The old woman must have feasted herself on the platter of rice and mussels, all alone out there in the kitchen, for that commonplace dish did not make its appearance.

We did not leave that diabolical den until after one o’clock. The mamma lighted us down the narrow, crooked stairs, with a kerosene lamp which gave out a ray of sickly light. When we reached the street, the first breath of fresh air aroused me as if from a dream. While we walked down Ancha Street, my uncle smacked his lips over the jolly time we had had.

“What do you think of the girls, eh? There are none of that kind in our part of the country. Which do you like the best? Belén, of course. She’s just splendid. How lovely she is! I presume, of course, you are discreet, so mum’s the word. There is no need of talking yonder about these fair ones we run across here; they are innocent creatures, and harm nobody. We must have a good time, my boy, for the very reason that I am about to become a sober, married man. It is well enough to go on a lark once in a while. And then, Belén and Cinta are not so exacting as many others; although, if they could, they would make me scatter money like dust all day long.”

“Why didn’t you give them one or two bank-notes at first? It would have been better than to keep haggling over one dollar after another.”

“Pshaw! Are you perchance some Russian prince? Such creatures, if one is free-handed with them, get so high and mighty you can’t stand them. If I had shown them my pocket-book! I am even sorry that I carried it with me, because in such rollickings, one never can tell——”

He suddenly stopped, entirely recovered from the effects of the sherry, and pale and frightened, hastily thrust his hand into his pocket, crying:

“Why! my pocket-book! It is not here! Daggers and knives, it isn’t, it isn’t! Those thieves have stolen it. Three bills of a hundred each, at least. Thunder and Mars! It is not here, I tell you. Let’s go and make them give it up.”

“Search for it carefully,” I murmured, with difficulty concealing my annoyance and disgust. “Search your pocket, they have not taken it, that’s nonsense! I think your overcoat bulges out at the side, there.”

He took a deep breath; the pocket-book was found. He felt of it joyfully, stopping under the light of a lamp-post to make sure that all the money was there. After he had searched the depths of his pocket-book, he recovered his good humor and said: “And, besides, it contained my Carmen’s photograph. A nice fix I’d have been in, if they had stolen it. Belén would have been capable of digging out the eyes with a big pin.”

He handed me the photograph, which was a small one, such a we give to those we love. I saw a youthful face, with a high, broad forehead, the hair dressed in a simple style, a pair of bright eyes with a gleam of passion and strength of will which surprised me—for I had pictured my uncle’s sweetheart as mild and yielding, passively submitting to everything put upon her. Nor did I find her as plain as my mother had led me to expect. She had one of those faces, which, without being beautiful, attract your gaze the second time.

I left my uncle at the door of his hotel, and went to bed not far from daybreak.

I should never end if I were to tell how Portal teased me the next day. He smelled of my clothes, and then smacked his lips, exclaiming:

“Aha! You’re a sly bird, you rogue! Odor di femina!” Suddenly he burst out laughing:

“Ho, ho! What’s all this!”

On the left leg of my trousers were stuck two little heads of angels, a rose, a bunch of lilies, and I know not what other properties. I had to make a clean breast of it, and give him a faithful and detailed description of the sweetmeat-box artists.

CHAPTER VI.

How glad I felt to start for Galicia! In Madrid the heat had become stifling, while at home one could enjoy the pure, fresh air, filled with the sweet fragrance of the country. It seemed as if I had never breathed before, and that my exhausted lungs required that moist, balmy, and pure air in order to perform their functions properly.

I am not one of those Galicians who feel homesickness very intensely, but, nevertheless, the first group of chestnuts which I recognized in the distance, appeared to me like a friend bidding me welcome home.

My mother was at Ullosa, so I went there at once, partly by stage and partly on foot, for one has to make use of all sorts of locomotion to get there. I arrived at sunset, and my mother came out into the road to meet me. With joined hands, and arm in arm, we walked over the space which separates Ullosa from the highway.

After she had wiped away the tears which invariably gather in a mother’s eyes when she sees her son after a long absence, her first volley of questions was as follows: “So your uncle has hired a house, eh? Is it true that he has furnished it very handsomely? That’s what a man does if he has money. They say that the bridal-bed is sumptuous. What rent does he pay? Something frightful, I presume, because everything is up to the sky in Madrid. And do you know whether he has yet secured a servant? It will be a wonder if he does not hire some horrid jade. That’s the way the city council’s funds fly off. That’s why they do such mean things. Don’t say that they don’t, or you’ll drive me wild, Salustio.”

“But, my dear mother, what difference does it make to us?” I exclaimed, when I could get in a word edgewise. “How am I to blame because my uncle gets married?”

“Because you said it was all right,” she replied, stopping to take breath, while her lips quivered like children’s when their little troubles come upon them.

“You seem to think my uncle would be guided by what I say. You must make the best of it, dear mother, and try to bear patiently what you can’t help. I am sure that is the best way to act, on all accounts, even for our own advantage.”

My mother fixed her eyes on me. She was two years older than Uncle Felipe, and had kept her good looks remarkably, thanks to her robust health, to the simple and healthful life she led, and perhaps also to her lack of serious thought and resulting intellectual weariness. She was as brisk as a bird, and her excitable and changeable disposition kept her from getting bilious, and whipped her blood into a more rapid circulation. Her moral fickleness, her inability to rise to the region of general and abstract ideas, allowed my mother to keep all her energy and ability for action. It was her strong will which guided her thoughts; and the predominance of the emotive and practical elements was revealed in her smooth, narrow brow, in the capricious play of her lips, and in the questioning, restless gaze of her ever-watchful eyes.

My mother never went to Pontevedra except in cold weather, or in Holy Week, or at Easter to take communion. The Ullosa place was kept up the year round. With all her reviling of the Cardoso stock, my mother had much of the acquisitiveness, the sordid economy, and the mercantile spirit which characterize the Hebrew race. How much affection can do, and how it tangles up logic! Those traits which disgusted me in my uncle appeared like virtues in my mother, and really were so, if it is a virtue to make the best of circumstances. With a miserable four or five hundred, which was the most that could be got out of our property with the utmost squeezing, it was little short of a miracle to be able to live as she did with comparative comfort, pay no small part of the expenses of my education, and even hide away inside of a mattress five or six onzas for a rainy day. She who could succeed in doing this, was not an ordinary woman.

My mother always wore the Carmelite habit, to save expense for dresses, of course. She had linen woven from the flax raised on her land,—that strong, coarse, brown, Galician linen, which never wears out,—and made shirts and sheets out of that. Out of a vineyard of sour grapes she made a little claret with which she would regale me during my vacations; from the rye raised in her fields, she made the bread she ate; a couple of pigs, fattened at home, kept her pot full all the year round; she raised chickens, to furnish her with eggs; she got her wood from a bit of a grove; she kept a cow, and sold it at the fair at a good profit when it no longer gave milk; other cattle she used to have in partnership with her tenants, making some small gains in that way; she distilled brandy from the grape-skins, and preserved plums in it,—in fact, she did everything possible to get the juice out of her money and her property, thus accomplishing those prodigies of good management and frugality, which a woman is only able to perform when she lives alone. Forced by her sex to confine her business undertakings within narrow limits, she made up for it by looking carefully after the smallest details, and not wasting the value of a pin. Healthy, high-spirited, indefatigable, she passed every moment of the day in some useful occupation; and I even suspect that she sometimes did sewing or embroidery, in a secret way, for other people.

“I shall be as proud as a queen the day you finish learning your profession, and begin to earn money,” she would say, when I used to express my amazement at seeing her so eager and so busy.

So I studied with greater zest, desiring to be able to make the last years of my mother’s life easy and tranquil. But that was a mistaken idea; for, even if my mother were to have heaps of money, she would be just as active, given her temperament and disposition. She was so overflowing with life, and was so energetic and determined to get what she could out of the world, that far from inspiring compassion, she should have excited envy in those of us who dwell much within ourselves, and finally make of our imagination a prison cell.

My mother’s disposition was of the kind that makes people happy and strong, and arms them against the friction and disappointments of life.

It was singular, but when I did not see my mother, I idealized her, and gave her credit for certain traits and weaknesses associated with her sex, which she was far from possessing. For example, I was strongly persuaded that she had passionate religious convictions, and sometimes I would respond to the profane jokes of my companions, or exclaim when I gave utterance to some audacious assertion: “Heaven grant that my mother may never know it.” If I ate meat in Holy Week, or remembered how long a time had passed without my going to church, I would say to myself: “I hope my mother wont find it out.” But the fact is that my mother, in spite of her Carmelite habit, attended to her church duties only perfunctorily, and never displayed any great concern for the welfare of my soul.

That is not to say that the high-spirited Galician woman had no positive beliefs. Doubtless my mother inherited from her Jewish ancestors the most deeply-rooted of her religious convictions, namely, that God was an angry, vindictive and implacable being—the God of the Old Testament who “visits the sins of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generation.” She believed naïvely that God does all this punishing unmercifully, right on the spot; and she also imagined that he was particularly disposed to pour out all the vials of his wrath upon those who troubled her, Benigna Unceta, for any cause or in any way. Thanks to her incapacity for general ideas, she concluded that the Deity was greatly interested in her personal wrongs and resentments. So much so, that when she stopped on the slope between us and Ullosa, quite out of breath with climbing and the vehemence of her anger, she exclaimed, in a prophetic tone:

“You’ll see how God will punish your Uncle Felipe in His own way. You’ll see. Just wait; he’ll not get off scot-free.”

I protested against this singular supposition, and, as though a heavenly voice from above joined with me in proclaiming mercy and charity, just then the Angelus sounded from the little church near by, with subdued melancholy and great poetic effect.

My mother turned abruptly and inquired:

“Are you going to the wedding?”

“Yes, indeed, and you ought to go also. It is scandalous that you should not go.”

“Don’t say anything to me, for I have no desire to be present at such a frightful scene. There never was, and never will be, such an absurd thing. Heaven grant that your uncle may not get an unfaithful wife! I wouldn’t wager a copper that he will not, though, marrying at his age! A nice thing it would be if I got married now!”