A CHANGE OF HEART
Gonzalo, after talking for some time with his bride-elect, left his
seat, took three or four turns up and down the room, and seated himself
by the side of Venturita, with whom he was always on good terms, for
they liked laughing and joking together after they had once become
friendly. The girl was drawing some letters preparatory to embroidering
them.
"Don't come teasing here, Gonzalo; you know how badly I draw," she said,
while the look that she gave the youth was so flashing and provocative
that it made him drop his eyes.
"I am not so sure of that. You don't draw badly," he replied in a low
voice that slightly trembled, as he bent his face down to the paper
which Venturita had on her lap.
"Pure flattery. You will acknowledge that it might be better."
"Better--better--everything in the world might be better. This is good
enough."
"You are getting quite a flatterer. I don't want you to make fun of me,
do you hear?"
"I don't make fun of anybody, much less of you," he returned, without
raising his eyes from the paper, and with his voice lower every minute,
and evidently agitated. Venturita kept her eyes fixed upon him with a
mocking expression, in which the triumph of satisfied pride was plainly
visible.
"Come, then, you draw them, Mr. Clever," she said, as she passed him the
pencil and paper with gracious condescension.
The youth acceded to the suggestion, as he ventured to raise his eyes to
the girl's, but he quickly dropped them as if he feared their magnetism.
He took the book from her lap on to his knee, put a piece of white paper
on it, and proceeded to draw.
But instead of the letters, he began to sketch, with some skill, the
head of a woman; first the hair parted in two braids, then the straight,
pretty forehead, then a delicate nose, a pretty, short chin joined to
the throat by a soft, graceful curve. It was wonderfully like Venturita.
The girl, leaning on the shoulder of her future brother, followed the
movements of the pencil, and a vain smile gradually overspread her face.
After drawing the head Gonzalo proceeded to delineate the figure, and
the peignoir, or dressing-gown, worn by the girl was soon reproduced;
but he took some time drawing minutely the silk bows with which it was
fastened in front. When the picture was finished, Venturita asked him in
a mischievous tone:
"Now put underneath who it is."
The young man raised his head and their smiling eyes met. Then, quickly
and decisively, he wrote under the drawing:
"The one I love best in all the world."
Venturita took the paper in her hands and looked at it with delight for
some moments; then, with a pout of assumed disdain, she gave it back to
him, saying:
"Take it, take it, you rude fellow."
But before it reached Gonzalo's hands Cecilia stretched out hers and
snatched it from him laughingly, saying:
"What papers are these?"
Then Venturita sprang from her seat, as if she had been stung, and
caught hold of her sister's hand.
"Give it up, give it up, Cecilia! Let go!" she cried, with her face
aflame and distorted with a forced smile.
"No, I want to see it."
"You shall see it afterward; let go!"
"I want to see it now."
"Let be, child; let her see it. What does it signify to you?" said Dona
Paula.
"I don't like anything being taken from me by force," Venturita cried,
turning serious. Then realizing that she was losing ground, she resumed
her smile, saying:
"Come, Cecilia, let go; don't be disagreeable."
"Don't make such a fuss! Let go yourself; you are hurting me."
"Who are you to snatch the paper from my hand?" she returned, and really
in a rage. "Let go, let go, you ugly thing, you parrot nose, you fool!
Let go or I will scratch you," she added, with her eyes flashing and her
face distorted with rage.
Seeing her like this, the smile that had suffused Cecilia's face
suddenly left it, and opening her large eyes, full of surprise, she
exclaimed:
"Goodness, you seem mad, child. Take it, take it; I don't want it."
So she gave up the paper, which was crumpled in her hand, and Venturita,
with her face still distorted with rage, tore it into a thousand pieces.
"In all the days of my life I never saw such a mad creature!" exclaimed
Dona Paula in amazement. "Ave Maria! Ave Marie! Wherever did you get
such a bad temper from, child?"
"It would be from you," replied Venturita sulkily, without looking at
anybody.
"You shameless girl! If it were not for folk being here! How dare you
answer your mother like that? Don't you know the commandment of the law
of God? I will take you to-morrow to confess to Don Aquilino."
"Very well; give my regards to Don Aquilino."
"Wait a bit, wait a bit, you bad girl!" cried the senora, making as
though she would rise to chastise her daughter.
But at that instant the figure of Don Rosendo, in his many colored
dressing gown and silk tasseled velvet cap, appeared at the door.
"What is the matter?" he asked with surprise at the sight of his wife's
excited state.
Suffocated with sobs, Dona Paula then proceeded to give him an account
of his daughter's want of respect.
Don Rosendo thought it behooved him to frown severely and say in a
solemn tone:
"You have behaved badly, Ventura; go and ask your mother's pardon."
We know that he was absent-minded, always absorbed in some idea, so this
domestic episode only partially roused him from his preoccupation.
Nevertheless, seeing his child obstinate, supercilious, and angry, he
repeated his command with greater firmness.
"Come, daughter, go and ask your mother's pardon, seeing that you have
been rude to her."
The girl made her usual scornful pout and murmured under her breath:
"As if I should think of doing such a thing!"
"Come, Venturita, what are you muttering there? Come, before I get
angry."
"Do, do, Venturita; don't behave like that," implored all the
needlewomen in low tones.
"Don't bother me. Will you leave me in peace?" she retorted, also in a
low tone, albeit an angry one.
"Won't you do as I tell you?" now demanded Don Rosendo, with increased
severity, "won't you?" But the girl sat silent and motionless.
"Then leave the room at once; get out of my sight!" stormed the father.
Venturita rose from her seat and, stiff and sullen, she made her way
through the party, and left the room, slamming the door heavily behind
her. Don Rosendo, after standing a moment motionless with his eyes on
the door by which his daughter had made her exit, turned round and said:
"I am sorry to have to be so severe with my children, but sometimes
there is no help for it."
The fierce expression soon faded from Belinchon's fine face, and was
superseded by his habitual look of thoughtful abstraction.
"Gonzalo, if it is not troubling you, I wish you would come with me into
my study," he said, turning to his future son-in-law.
The young man, who had several times started and turned pale during the
last scene, was now filled with dismay, for he feared that the summons
betokened nothing less than that Don Rosendo, having a suspicion of the
inconstancy of his feelings, was now about to call him to account. So,
with his head bent and very anxious, he followed Belinchon into the
study, which was a spacious apartment, furnished with the luxury
befitting a rich merchant--a massive table and cabinets of mahogany,
loaded with parcels of books and papers, a velvet carpet, sofas
upholstered with brocade, and a colossal silver inkstand. A quarter of
the room was filled with a heap of little packets, wrapped in paper of
various colors, which would puzzle anybody who entered it for the first
time. Not so Gonzalo, or any intimate friend of the house. Those
packages were full of toothpicks!
"How so?" the reader will ask.
Don Rosendo Belinchon, a cod merchant of such renown, a dealer in
toothpicks as well?
No, Don Rosendo did not deal in toothpicks; he made them. And this not
from any speculative motive, which would have been beneath him, but from
a purely disinterested love of the thing. He had evinced the taste in
early youth, but the assiduous occupations of his trade and the
vicissitudes of his life had only hitherto permitted him to indulge his
passion in a desultory way in leisure hours. But from the time he could
leave his office to a few faithful underlings he gave himself up heart
and soul to such a simple and useful amusement. In the morning at
Graell's shop, in the afternoon at the saloon, in the evening at home,
or at Don Pedro Miranda's, he was always working. His servant spent a
great part of the day in preparing perfectly equal pieces of dry wood,
from which his dexterous hand produced the queen of toothpicks.
And as he never rested from his work, not even on holidays, the
production was so excessive that there were not enough purchasers in
town, and when the heap reached from the table to the ceiling he was
obliged to despatch packets of them to his friends in the capital.
Thanks to the noble efforts of this clever representative of his trade,
we can say with pride that Sarrio attained the level of the great
capitals in this interesting branch of civilization, and that no other
Spanish or foreign town could compete with it, for the house of every
rich man, as well as every poor one, boasted a well-cut toothpick,
irrefutable testimony of the cultured refinement of its inhabitants.
Don Rosendo signed to the young man to be seated on the sofa, which he
did in visible agitation. Then the merchant proceeded to take a chair
with an air of mystery, and placing himself opposite the youth, he gave
him a dig in the ribs and jauntily said with a smile:
"Well, Gonzalito, and what do you think of this question of the
slaughter-house?"
"The slaughter-house?" asked the young man, opening his eyes wide with
surprise.
"Yes, the new slaughter-house; do you think it ought to be put on the
Escombrera, or on the Plaza de las Meanas, or at the back of Don
Rudesindo's houses?"
Gonzalo seemed to see heaven open and, smiling with pleasure, he
replied:
"I think it would be very well on the Plaza de las Meanas. It is very
open--very airy there."
Then seeing that a frown gathered on his future father-in-law's
forehead, and that the smile suddenly left his face, he added
stammeringly:
"I don't think it would be bad at the Escombrera either."
"Much better, Gonzalo; infinitely better."
"Maybe, maybe."
"But it _must_ be, and I tell you plainly that to have it on the Plaza
de las Meanas (this, mind you, quite between you and me) is an act of
utter madness; an act of ut-ter madness," he repeated, with additional
stress on each syllable.
"And this opinion of mine," he added, "is not, as you imagine, a thing
of yesterday, or of to-day, but of all my life. From the time that I was
capable of understanding anything I knew that the slaughter-house ought
not to be where it is; in a word, that it ought to be moved. Whither? An
internal voice always replied: 'To the Escombrera.' Before I was able
to give any scientific reason I was as convinced as I am now that it was
there that it ought to be, and nowhere else. Now that the discussion of
the problem is at hand, I feel obliged to support this opinion, to
communicate my idea to the public, and to give it the result of my
meditations. If you have nothing to do, I will now read you the letter
that I am sending to the 'Progress of Lancia' with this end in view."
And in effect, without waiting for Gonzalo to reply, he turned to the
table, took up some sheets of paper that were upon it, put on his
spectacles, and, approaching the window, he commenced reading the letter
in a voice which betrayed his emotion.
The letter was written on business paper, large and ruled. All the
letters that for years past he had sent to the "Progress of Lancia" and
to other periodicals had been written on the same sort of paper, on both
sides. He did not then know that the paper ought only to be written on
one side for the press, but he soon acquired that valuable knowledge, as
we shall see.
Don Rosendo Belinchon evinced a taste for writing communications to the
press almost simultaneously with that for toothpicks; that is to say, it
dated from his early years.
A great advocate of human progress, of reform, of all kinds of
discussion and instruction, it was natural that the press should
inspire him with respect and enthusiasm. Newspapers had always been an
indispensable element of his existence. He subscribed to many, both
national and foreign, because, being educated for commerce, he was well
versed in French and English, and he never missed devoting a couple of
hours to reading the journals even on the busiest days. These hours had
increased during later years, at the expense of the codfish business.
The delight that our hero felt in the morning, after taking his
chocolate, in perusing the leading articles of the "Pabellon Nacional,"
the events of the "Politica," and the light news of the "Figaro," was so
intense that the brightness of his face pervaded the atmosphere.
Like all men of wide and lofty views, he was not exclusive in his press
proclivities. He liked a paper as a paper, a pleasant medium of the
progress of human reason, or, as he better expressed it, as a "lofty
manifestation of public opinion."
The opinions that each supported were secondary matters. He subscribed
to papers of every opinion, and enjoyed them all equally. If he had any
particular predilection, it was for venomous articles and paragraphs,
for their way of saying one thing and conveying another, of twisting
phrases in such a manner that an apparently innocent clause was an
envenomed shaft, filled Don Rosendo with such delight that he went
nearly mad with joy. Sometimes on reading in "La Espana" a paragraph in
this style:
"Yesterday the circular of the Senor President of the Supreme Court to
his subordinates appeared at last. We congratulate General O'Donnell,
the president of the Liberal party, and Senor Negrete and the Democratic
Government party on the colossal work that they have consummated in a
few moments of lucidity," he would exclaim, waving the paper in his
hand:
"What spite, Caracoles; what spite!"
This liking, or, rather, passion for the press, was not fruitless, as we
have said. Even in his youth he had sent two letters to a weekly paper
published in Lancia, called "Autumn," describing the annual festivities
that took place in Sarrio in the month of September. These letters were
read with profit and no little pleasure in the town, which encouraged
him to write three more the following year, giving an account of the
marvelous number of rockets that were sent off in Sarrio on the 13th,
14th, and 15th of the month, the beautiful illumination of the 16th, and
the magnificent ball given at the Lyceum on the night of the 17th.
After tasting the sweets of publicity, Don Rosendo could not do less
than indulge in them from time to time.
The least pretext sufficed for him to send a letter or a communication
to the papers.
Sometimes he signed them with his name, at other times with some pretty
pseudonym or anagram.
If the fisher-folk had a festival in honor of St. Telmo, Don Rosendo
immediately wrote his letter to the "Progress of Lancia" or to the
"Bee," describing the decorations, the bonfires, the mass, the
procession, etc. If a banquet were given in the new school buildings on
their inauguration, three or four days later the Lancian paper contained
a letter publishing the speeches and improvised sonnets. If a bricklayer
fell from a scaffolding, there was a communication from Don Rosendo
asking for better protection for bricklayers who have to go on
scaffoldings. If the son of Don Aquilino sang at a mass, there would be
a letter from Don Rosendo describing the touching ceremony and praising
the clear, musical voice and the serene appearance of the young priest.
If the tides were high and strong and broke away some stones from the
end of the pier, a letter; if the boats from Bilbao declined to take on
board the pilots of Sarrio, a communication; if a harvest of maize were
lost by the drought, a letter; if the prevailing winds were from the
northeast, a letter.
In short, nothing happened on terra firma or in the atmosphere of the
town worthy of mention without its being tackled by the clever, flowing
pen of our merchant. How much work will the future historians of Sarrio
be saved by this valuable material, accumulated by one of its most
enlightened sons!
With advancing years Don Rosendo Belinchon's letters assumed a character
less romantic, we won't say frivolous (for it would not be either
correct or respectful to apply such a term to that estimable gentleman);
but it was noticeable that the subject-matter was not so much the
junketings and recreations of the townsfolk, but something that would
tend, directly or indirectly, to forward their moral and material
interests. The trades, the schools, the salvage from shipwrecks, the
building of a church or a prison, were the matters that he now most
frequently treated to his own glory and to that of his birthplace.
One of them, of vital interest for Sarrio, as he maintained, was the
slaughter-house. He had not hitherto approached this question, because
he knew that his opinion was at variance with that of a large number of
his fellow-townsmen. But he considered "that the time had now come to
express it without any perambulation or circumlocution."
The letter he now read, the first he had written on the subject, was
addressed to the "Progress of Lancia," and it ran thus:
"THE SENOR DIRECTOR OF THE 'PROGRESS OF LANCIA.'
"_Dear_ Sir--The attention now accorded to natural physical science, and
especially to the science of hygiene, as the health of places as well as
people depends upon it, in view of its great practical utility, the
timidity of those who, influenced by an education as erroneous as it was
deficient, condemned the study of these great problems, being cumbered
with antiquated, dull ideas, is now happily vanishing under the powerful
movement of the nineteenth century, rightly called the century of
enlightenment."
* * * * *
Don Rosendo's style was always involved. He continued:
* * * * *
"Now that civilization, released from the obstacles that crippled the
conscience and the mind, opens a vast field to all, by means of the
press, to express our independent ideas and give them forth to the
world, trusting in the friendship that you have always accorded me, and
in the kindness with which the public has hitherto received the humble
efforts of the pen," etc., etc.
* * * * *
After three or four more paragraphs in this perambulatory style (which
the editor of the "Progress" always had to curtail) Don Rosendo went
into the question, putting forward the slaughter-house, or, as he termed
it, "the public massacre-hall," in all its bearings, so as to condemn
its establishment on the Plaza de las Meanas in terms that left no room
for doubt. The reasons given for the opposition were obvious. For one
thing, the southeast winds, prevalent during the greater part of the
year, would carry miasmic smells, etc.
For another thing, the difficulty of reaching solid ground for the
cementing would cause an enormous expense, etc. The necessity of passing
through the town with the cattle, etc. For another thing, the proximity
of the houses, the bad effect on the mineral springs, etc.
In fact, Don Rosendo having given more than twenty reasons, in what he
termed "a clear, succinct style," he added that they would be given more
fully in the forthcoming letters with which he purposed "troubling the
readers of the illustrious periodical."
When the reading was over, Gonzalo pronounced the reasoning
incontrovertible, and Don Rosendo (with his spectacles on his nose)
declared that there was no gainsaying it.
Having arrived at such a perfect understanding, they separated in a
befittingly cheerful spirit. Don Rosendo remained in the library to copy
his letter, and Gonzalo was about to return to the workroom; but before
he left the apartment his future father-in-law called him back to say:
"Mind, not a word to anybody of this."
"Don Rosendo, I swear!" returned the young man, raising his hand in sign
of protest.
The merchant, in an expansive frame of mind, continued:
"You will soon know something else which will be a pleasant surprise to
you. It is an idea which came to me two months ago, and which I hope to
carry out, God willing, very soon. Oh! it is a brilliant idea! It will
make a radical change in Sarrio, you know!"
The mysterious manner, the serious, agitated tone of his voice, the look
of triumph which fulminated from his eyes as he spoke, surprised Gonzalo
not a little. Nevertheless, he did not dare to ask for explanations, and
his future father-in-law let him go with a vacant smile.