Dona Perfecta

“It seems that he is no engineer at all,” added an olive-planter, whose plantations were mortgaged for double their value. “But it is as you say: those starvelings from Madrid think they are justified in deceiving poor provincials, and as they believe that here we all wear tails—”

“It is plain to be seen that he is penniless—”

“Well, half-jest and the whole earnest, he told us last night that we were lazy barbarians.”

“That we spent our time sunning ourselves, like the Bedouins.”

“That we lived with the imagination.”

“That’s it; that we lived with the imagination.”

“And that this city was precisely like a city in Morocco.”

“Well! one has no patience to listen to those things. Where else could he see (unless it might be in Paris) a street like the Calle del Condestable, that can show seven houses in a row, all of them magnificent, from Dona Perfecta’s house to that of Nicolasita Hernandez? Does that fellow suppose that one has never seen any thing, or has never been in Paris?”

“He also said, with a great deal of delicacy, that Orbajosa was a city of beggars; and he gave us to understand that in his opinion we live in the meanest way here without being ourselves aware of it.”

“What insolence! If he ever says that to me, there will be a scene in the Casino,” exclaimed the collector of taxes. “Why didn’t they tell him how many arrobas of oil Orbajosa produced last year? Doesn’t the fool know that in good years Orbajosa produces wheat enough to supply all Spain, and even all Europe, with bread? It is true that the crops have been bad for several years past, but that is not the rule. And the crop of garlic! I wager the gentleman doesn’t know that the garlic of Orbajosa made the gentleman of the jury in the Exposition of London stare!”

These and other conversations of a similar kind were to be heard in the rooms of the Casino in those days. Notwithstanding this boastful talk, so common in small towns, which, for the very reason that they are small, are generally arrogant, Rey was not without finding sincere friends among the members of the learned corporation, for they were not all gossips, nor were there wanting among them persons of good sense. But our hero had the misfortune—if misfortune it can be called—to be unusually frank in the manifestation of his feelings, and this awakened some antipathy toward him.

Days passed. In addition to the natural disgust which the social customs of the episcopal city produced in him, various causes, all of them disagreeable, began to develop in his mind a profound sadness, chief among these causes being the crowd of litigants that swarmed about him like voracious ants. Many others of the neighboring landowners besides Uncle Licurgo claimed damages from him, or asked him to render accounts for lands managed by his grandfather. A claim was also brought against him because of a certain contract of partnership entered into by his mother and which, as it appeared, had not been fulfilled; and he was required in the same way to acknowledge a mortgage on the estate of The Poplars executed in an irregular form by his uncle. Claims swarmed around him, multiplying with ant-like rapidity. He had come to the determination to renounce the ownership of his lands, but meanwhile his dignity required that he should not yield to the wily manoeuvres of the artful rustics; and as the town-council brought a claim against him also on account of a pretended confusion of the boundary lines of his estate with those of an adjoining wood belonging to the town-lands, the unfortunate young man found himself at every step obliged to prove his rights, which were being continually called in question. His honor was engaged, and he had no alternative but to defend his rights to the death.

Dona Perfecta had promised in her magnanimity to help him to free himself from these disgraceful plots by means of an amicable arrangement; but the days passed, and the good offices of the exemplary lady had produced no result whatever. The claims multiplied with the dangerous swiftness of a violent disease. Pepe Rey passed hour after hour at court, making declarations and answering the same questions over and over again, and when he returned home tired and angry, there appeared before him the sharp features and grotesque face of the notary, who had brought him a thick bundle of stamped papers full of horrible formulas—that he might be studying the question.

It will be easily understood that Pepe Rey was not a man to endure such annoyances when he might escape from them by leaving the town. His mother’s noble city appeared to his imagination like a horrible monster which had fastened its ferocious claws in him and was drinking his blood. To free himself from this monster nothing more was necessary, he believed, than flight. But a weighty interest—an interest in which his heart was concerned—kept him where he was; binding him to the rock of his martyrdom with very strong bonds. Nevertheless, he had come to feel so dissatisfied with his position; he had come to regard himself as so utterly a stranger, so to say, in that gloomy city of lawsuits, of old-fashioned customs and ideas, of envy and of slander, that he resolved to leave it without further delay, without, however, abandoning the project which had brought him to it. One morning, finding a favorable occasion, he opened his mind to Dona Perfecta on this point.

“Nephew,” responded that lady, with her accustomed gentleness, “don’t be rash. Why! you are like fire. Your father was just the same—what a man he was! You are like a flash—I have already told you that I will be very glad to call you my son. Even if you did not possess the good qualities and the talents which distinguish you (in spite of some little defects, for you have those, too); even if you were not as good as you are; it is enough that this union has been proposed by your father, to whom both my daughter and myself owe so much, for me to accept it. And Rosarito will not oppose it since I wish it. What is wanting, then? Nothing; there is nothing wanting but a little time. The marriage cannot be concluded with the haste you desire and which might, perhaps, give ground for interpretations discreditable to my dear daughter’s reputation. But as you think of nothing but machines, you want every thing done by steam. Wait, man, wait; what hurry are you in? This hatred that you have taken to our poor Orbajosa is nothing but a caprice. But of course you can only live among counts and marquises and orators and diplomats—all you want is to get married and separate me forever from my daughter,” she added, wiping away a tear. “Since that is the case, inconsiderate boy, at least have the charity to delay for a little this marriage, for which you are so eager. What impatience! What ardent love! I did not suppose that a poor country girl like my daughter could inspire so violent a passion.”

The arguments of his aunt did not convince Pepe Rey, but he did not wish to contradict her. A fresh cause of anxiety was soon added to those which already embittered his existence. He had now been in Orbajosa for two weeks, and during that time he had received no letter from his father. This could not be attributed to carelessness on the part of the officials of the post-office of Orbajosa, for the functionary who had charge of that service being the friend and protégé of Dona Perfecta, the latter every day recommended him to take the greatest care that the letters addressed to her nephew did not go astray. The letter-carrier, named Cristoval Ramos, and nicknamed Caballuco—a personage whose acquaintance we have already made—also visited the house, and to him Dona Perfecta was accustomed to address warnings and reprimands as energetic as the following:

“A pretty mail service you have! How is it that my nephew has not received a single letter since he has been in Orbajosa? When the carrying of the mail is entrusted to such a giddy-pate, how can things be expected to go well? I will speak to the governor of the province so that he may be careful what kind of people he puts in the post-office.”

Caballuco, shrugging his shoulders, looked at Rey with the most complete indifference.

One day he entered the house with a letter in his hand.

“Thank Heaven!” said Dona Perfecta to her nephew. “Here are letters from your father. Rejoice, man! A pretty fright we have had through my brother’s laziness about writing. What does he say? He is well, no doubt,” she added, seeing that Pepe Rey opened the letter with feverish impatience.

The engineer turned pale as he glanced over the first lines.

“Good Heavens! Pepe, what is the matter?” exclaimed Dona Perfecta, rising in alarm. “Is your father ill?”

“This letter is not from my father,” responded Pepe, revealing in his countenance the greatest consternation.

“What is it, then?”

“An order from the Minister of Public Works, relieving me from the charge which was confided to me.”

“What! Can it be possible!”

“A dismissal pure and simple, expressed in terms very little flattering to me.”

“Was there ever any thing so unjust!” exclaimed Dona Perfecta, when she had recovered from her amazement.

“What a humiliation!” exclaimed the young man. “It is the first time in my life that I have received an affront like this.”

“But the Government is unpardonable! To put such a slight upon you! Do you wish me to write to Madrid? I have very good friends there, and I may be able to obtain satisfaction for you from the Government and reparation for this brutal affront.”

“Thanks, senora, I desire no recommendations,” said the young man, with ill-humor.

“But what a piece of injustice! what a high-handed proceeding! To discharge in this way a young man of your merit, an eminent scientist. Why, I cannot contain my anger!”

“I will find out,” said Pepe, with energy, “who it is that occupies himself in injuring me.”

“That minister—but what is to be expected from those infamous politicasters?”

“In this there is the hand of some one who is determined to drive me to desperation,” declared the young man, visibly disturbed. “This is not the act of the minister; this and other contrarieties that I am experiencing are the result of a revengeful plot, of a secret and well-laid plan of some implacable enemy, and this enemy is here in Orbajosa, this plot has been hatched in Orbajosa, doubt it not, dear aunt.”

“You are out of your mind,” replied Dona Perfecta, with a look of compassion. “You have enemies in Orbajosa, you say? Some one wishes to revenge himself upon you? Come, Pepillo, you have lost your senses. The reading of those books in which they say that we have for ancestors monkeys or parrots has turned your brain.”

She smiled sweetly as she uttered the last words, and taking a tone of familiar and affectionate admonition, she added:

“My dear boy, the people of Orbajosa may be rude and boorish rustics, without learning, or polish, or fine manners; but in loyalty and good faith we yield to no one—to no one, I say, no one.”

“Don’t suppose,” said the young man, “that I accuse any one in this house. But that my implacable and cruel enemy is in this city, I am persuaded.”

“I wish you would show me that stage villain,” responded Dona Perfecta, smiling again. “I suppose you will not accuse Uncle Licurgo, nor any of the others who have brought suits against you; for the poor people believe they are only defending their rights. And between ourselves, they are not altogether wanting in reason in this case. Besides, Uncle Licurgo likes you greatly. He has told me so himself. From the moment he saw you, you took his fancy, and the poor old man has conceived such an affection for you—”

“Oh, yes—a profound affection!” murmured Pepe.

“Don’t be foolish,” continued his aunt, putting her hand on his shoulder and looking at him closely. “Don’t imagine absurdities; convince yourself that your enemy, if you have one, is in Madrid, in that centre of corruption, of envy and rivalry, not in this peaceful and tranquil corner, where all is good-will and concord. Some one, no doubt, who is envious of your merit–There is one thing I wish to say now—and that is, that if you desire to go there to learn the cause of this affront and ask an explanation of it from the Government, you must not neglect doing so on our account.”

Pepe Rey fixed his eyes on his aunt’s countenance, as if he wished to penetrate with his glance the inmost depths of her soul.

“I say that if you wish to go, do so,” repeated Dona Perfecta, with admirable serenity, while her countenance expressed the most complete and unaffected sincerity.

“No, senora: I do not wish to go.”

“So much the better; I think you are right. You are more tranquil here, notwithstanding the suspicions with which you are tormenting yourself. Poor Pepillo! We poor rustics of Orbajosa live happy in our ignorance. I am very sorry that you are not contented here. But is it my fault if you vex and worry yourself without a cause? Do I not treat you like a son? Have I not received you as the hope of my house? Can I do more for you? If in spite of all this you do not like us, if you show so much indifference toward us, if you ridicule our piety, if you insult our friends, is it by chance because we do not treat you well?”

Dona Perfecta’s eyes grew moist.

“My dear aunt,” said Pepe, feeling his anger vanish, “I too have committed some faults since I have been a guest in this house.”

“Don’t be foolish. Don’t talk about committing faults. Among the persons of the same family every thing is forgiven.”

“But Rosarito—where is she?” asked the young man, rising. “Am I not to see her to-day, either?”

“She is better. Do you know that she did not wish to come down stairs?”

“I will go up to her then.”

“No, it would be of no use. That girl has some obstinate notions—to-day she is determined not to leave her room. She has locked herself in.”

“What a strange idea!”

“She will get over it. Undoubtedly she will get over it. We will see to-night if we cannot put these melancholy thoughts out of her head. We will get up a party to amuse her. Why don’t you go to Don Inocencio’s and ask him to come here to-night and bring Jacintillo with him?”

“Jacintillo!”

“Yes, when Rosarito has these fits of melancholy, the only one who can divert her is that young man.”

“But I will go upstairs–”

“No, you must not.”

“What etiquette there is in this house!”

“You are ridiculing us. Do as I ask you.”

“But I wish to see her.”

“But you cannot see her. How little you know the girl!”

“I thought I knew her well. I will stay here, then. But this solitude is horrible.”

“There comes the notary.”

“Maledictions upon him!”

“And I think the attorney-general has just come in too—he is an excellent person.”

“He be hanged with his goodness!”

“But business affairs, when they are one’s own, serve as a distraction. Some one is coming. I think it is the agricultural expert. You will have something to occupy you now for an hour or two.”

“An hour or two of hell!”

“Ah, ha! if I am not mistaken Uncle Licurgo and Uncle Paso Largo have just entered. Perhaps they have come to propose a compromise to you.”

“I would throw myself into the pond first!”

“How unnatural you are! For they are all very fond of you. Well, so that nothing may be wanting, there comes the constable too. He is coming to serve a summons on you.”

“To crucify me.”

All the individuals named were now entering the parlor one by one.

“Good-by, Pepe; amuse yourself,” said Dona Perfecta.

“Earth, open and swallow me!” exclaimed the young man desperately.

“Senor Don Jose.”

“My dear Don Jose.”

“Esteemed Don Jose.”

“My dearest Don Jose.”

“My respected friend, Don Jose.”

Hearing these honeyed and insinuating preliminaries, Pepe Rey exhaled a deep sigh and gave himself up. He gave himself up, soul and body, to the executioners, who brandished horrible leaves of stamped paper while the victim, raising his eyes to heaven with a look of Christian meekness, murmured:

“Father, why hast thou forsaken me?”

CHAPTER XII

HERE WAS TROY

Love, friendship, a wholesome moral atmosphere, spiritual light, sympathy, an easy interchange of ideas and feelings, these were what Pepe Rey’s nature imperatively demanded. Deprived of them, the darkness that shrouded his soul grew deeper, and his inward gloom imparted a tinge of bitterness and discontent to his manner. On the day following the scenes described in the last chapter, what vexed him more than any thing was the already prolonged and mysterious seclusion of his cousin, accounted for at first by a trifling indisposition and then by caprices and nervous feelings difficult of explanation.

Rey was surprised by conduct so contrary to the idea which he had formed of Rosarito. Four days had passed during which he had not seen her; and certainly it was not because he did not desire to be at her side; and his situation threatened soon to become humiliating and ridiculous, if, by boldly taking the initiative, he did not at once put an end to it.

“Shall I not see my cousin to-day, either?” he said to his aunt, with manifest ill-humor, when they had finished dining.

“No, not to-day, either. Heaven knows how sorry I am for it. I gave her a good talking to this morning. This afternoon we will see what can be done.”

The suspicion that in this unreasonable seclusion his adorable cousin was rather the helpless victim than the free and willing agent, induced him to control himself and to wait. Had it not been for this suspicion he would have left Orbajosa that very day. He had no doubt whatever that Rosario loved him, but it was evident that some unknown influence was at work to separate them, and it seemed to him to be the part of an honorable man to discover whence that malign influence proceeded and to oppose it, as far as it was in his power to do so.

“I hope that Rosarito’s obstinacy will not continue long,” he said to Dona Perfecta, disguising his real sentiments.

On this day he received a letter from his father in which the latter complained of having received none from Orbajosa, a circumstance which increased the engineer’s disquietude, perplexing him still further. Finally, after wandering about alone in the garden for a long time, he left the house and went to the Casino. He entered it with the desperate air of a man about to throw himself into the sea.

In the principal rooms he found various people talking and discussing different subjects. In one group they were solving with subtle logic difficult problems relating to bulls; in another, they were discussing the relative merits of different breeds of donkeys of Orbajosa and Villahorrenda. Bored to the last degree, Pepe Rey turned away from these discussions and directed his steps toward the reading-room, where he looked through various reviews without finding any distraction in the reading, and a little later, passing from room to room, he stopped, without knowing why, at the gaming-table. For nearly two hours he remained in the clutches of the horrible yellow demon, whose shining eyes of gold at once torture and charm. But not even the excitement of play had power to lighten the gloom of his soul, and the same tedium which had impelled him toward the green cloth sent him away from it. Shunning the noise, he found himself in an apartment used as an assembly-room, in which at the time there was not a living soul, and here he seated himself wearily at a window overlooking the street.

This was very narrow, with more corners and salient angles than houses, and was overshaded throughout its whole extent by the imposing mass of the cathedral that lifted its dark and time-corroded walls at one end of it. Pepe Rey looked up and down and in every direction; no sign of life—not a footstep, not a voice, not a glance, disturbed the stillness, peaceful as that of a tomb, that reigned everywhere. Suddenly strange sounds, like the whispering of feminine voices, fell on his ear, and then the rustling of curtains that were being drawn, a few words, and finally the humming of a song, the bark of a lap-dog, and other signs of social life, which seemed very strange in such a place. Observing attentively, Pepe Rey perceived that these noises proceeded from an enormous balcony with blinds which displayed its corpulent bulk in front of the window at which he was sitting. Before he had concluded his observations, a member of the Casino suddenly appeared beside him, and accosted him laughingly in this manner:

“Ah, Senor Don Pepe! what a rogue you are! So you have shut yourself in here to ogle the girls, eh?”

The speaker was Don Juan Tafetan, a very amiable man, and one of the few members of the Casino who had manifested for Pepe Rey cordial friendship and genuine admiration. With his red cheeks, his little dyed mustache, his restless laughing eyes, his insignificant figure, his hair carefully combed to hide his baldness, Don Juan Tafetan was far from being an Antinous in appearance, but he was very witty and very agreeable and he had a happy gift for telling a good story. He was much given to laughter, and when he laughed his face, from his forehead to his chin, became one mass of grotesque wrinkles. In spite of these qualities, and of the applause which might have stimulated his taste for spicy jokes, he was not a scandal-monger. Every one liked him, and Pepe Rey spent with him many pleasant hours. Poor Tafetan, formerly an employe in the civil department of the government of the capital of the province, now lived modestly on his salary as a clerk in the bureau of charities; eking out his income by gallantly playing the clarionet in the processions, in the solemnities of the cathedral, and in the theatre, whenever some desperate company of players made their appearance in those parts with the perfidious design of giving representations in Orbajosa.

But the most curious thing about Don Juan Tafetan was his liking for pretty girls. He himself, in the days when he did not hide his baldness with half a dozen hairs plastered down with pomade, when he did not dye his mustache, when, in the freedom from care of youthful years, he walked with shoulders unstooped and head erect, had been a formidable Tenorio. To hear him recount his conquests was something to make one die laughing; for there are Tenorios and Tenorios, and he was one of the most original.

“What girls? I don’t see any girls,” responded Pepe Rey.

“Yes, play the anchorite!”

One of the blinds of the balcony was opened, giving a glimpse of a youthful face, lovely and smiling, that disappeared instantly, like a light extinguished by the wind.

“Yes, I see now.”

“Don’t you know them?”

“On my life I do not.”

“They are the Troyas—the Troya girls. Then you don’t know something good. Three lovely girls, the daughters of a colonel of staff, who died in the streets of Madrid in ‘54.”

The blind opened again, and two faces appeared.

“They are laughing at me,” said Tafetan, making a friendly sign to the girls.

“Do you know them?”

“Why, of course I know them. The poor things are in the greatest want. I don’t know how they manage to live. When Don Francisco Troya died a subscription was raised for them, but that did not last very long.”

“Poor girls! I imagine they are not models of virtue.”

“And why not? I do not believe what they say in the town about them.”

Once more the blinds opened.

“Good-afternoon, girls!” cried Don Juan Tafetan to the three girls, who appeared, artistically grouped, at the window. “This gentleman says that good things ought not to hide themselves, and that you should throw open the blinds.”

But the blind was closed and a joyous concert of laughter diffused a strange gayety through the gloomy street. One might have fancied that a flock of birds was passing.

“Shall we go there?” said Tafetan suddenly.

His eyes sparkled and a roguish smile played on his discolored lips.

“But what sort of people are they, then?”

“Don’t be afraid, Senor de Rey. The poor things are honest. Bah! Why, they live upon air, like the chameleons. Tell me, can any one who doesn’t eat sin? The poor girls are virtuous enough. And even if they did sin, they fast enough to make up for it.”

“Let us go, then.”

A moment later Don Juan Tafetan and Pepe Rey were entering the parlor of the Troyas. The poverty he saw, that struggled desperately to disguise itself, afflicted the young man. The three girls were very lovely, especially the two younger ones, who were pale and dark, with large black eyes and slender figures. Well-dressed and well shod they would have seemed the daughters of a duchess, and worthy to ally themselves with princes.