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THE ENEMIES OF WOMEN
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
THE FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE
MARE NOSTRUM (OUR SEA)
BLOOD AND SAND
LA BODEGA (THE FRUIT OF THE VINE)
THE SHADOW OF THE CATHEDRAL
WOMAN TRIUMPHANT
MEXICO IN REVOLUTION
_In Preparation_
THE ARGONAUTS
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
THE ENEMIES
OF WOMEN
_(LOS ENEMIGOS DE LA MUJER)_
BY
VICENTE BLASCO IBANEZ
TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH
BY
IRVING BROWN
[Illustration: colophon]
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
681 FIFTH AVENUE
Copyright, 1918, by
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
_All Rights Reserved_
_First printing Oct., 1920_
_Second printing Oct., 1920_
_Third printing Oct., 1920_
_Fourth printing Oct., 1920_
_Fifth printing Oct., 1920_
_Sixth printing Oct., 1920_
_Seventh printing Oct., 1920_
_Eighth printing Oct., 1920_
_Ninth printing Oct., 1920_
_Tenth printing Oct., 1920_
Printed in the United States of America
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. 1
II. 28
III. 71
IV. 103
V. 151
VI. 189
VII. 260
VIII. 324
IX. 371
X. 450
XI. 499
XII. 512
THE ENEMIES OF WOMEN
CHAPTER I
The Prince repeated his statement:
"Man's greatest wisdom consists in getting along without women."
He intended to go on but was interrupted. There was a slight stir of the
heavy window curtains. Through their parting was seen below, as in a
frame, the intense azure of the Mediterranean. A dull roar reached the
dining-room. It seemed to come from the side of the house facing the
Alps. It was a faint vibration, deadened by the walls, the curtains, and
the carpets, distant, like the working of some underground monster; but
there rose above the sound of revolving steel and the puffing of steam a
clamor of human beings, a sudden burst of shouts and whistling.
"A train full of soldiers!" exclaimed Don Marcos Toledo, leaving his
chair.
"The Colonel is at it again, always the hero, always enthusiastic about
everything that has to do with his profession," said Atilio Castro, with
a smile of amusement.
In spite of his years, the man whom they called the Colonel sprang to
the nearest window. Above the foliage of the sloping garden, he could
see a small section of the Corniche railroad, swallowed up in the smoky
entrance of a tunnel, and reappearing farther on, beyond the hill,
among the groves and rose colored villas of Cap-Martin. Under the
mid-day sun the rails quivered like rills of molten steel. Although the
train had not yet reached this side of the tunnel, the whole
country-side was filled with the ever-increasing roar. The windows,
terraces, and gardens of the villas were dotted black with people who
were leaving their luncheon tables to see the train pass. From the
mountain slope to the seashore, from walls and buildings on both sides
of the track, flags of all colors began to wave.
Don Marcos ran to the opposite window overlooking the city. All he could
see was an expanse of roofs with no trace of Nature's touch save here
and there the feathery green of the gardens against the red of the
tiles. It was like a stage setting broken into a succession of wings: in
the foreground, amid trees, isolated villas with green balustrades and
flower-strewn walls; next, the mass of Monte Carlo, its huge hotels
bristling with pointed turrets and cupolas; and hazy in the background,
as though floating in golden dust, the rocky cliffs of Monaco, with its
promenades; the enormous pile of the Oceanographic Museum; the New
Cathedral, a glaring white; and the square crested tower of the palace
of the Prince. Buildings stretched from the edge of the sea halfway up
the mountains. It was a country without fields, with no open land,
covered completely with houses, from one frontier to the other.
But Don Marcos had known the view for years, and at once detected the
unfamiliar detail. A long, interminable train was moving slowly along
the hillside. He counted aloud more than forty cars, without coming to
the rear coaches still hidden in a hollow.
"It must be a battalion ... a whole battalion on a war footing. More
than a thousand soldiers," he said in an authoritative manner, pleased
at showing off his keen professional judgment before his fellow guests,
who, for that matter, were not listening.
The train was filled with men, tiny yellowish gray figures, that
gathered at the car windows, doors, and on the running-boards with their
feet hanging over the track. Others were crowded in cattle pens or stood
on the open flat-cars, among the tanks and crated machine guns. A great
many had climbed to the roofs and were greeting the crowds with arms and
legs extended in the shape of a letter X. Almost all of them had their
shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, like sailors preparing to
maneuver.
"They are English!" exclaimed Don Marcos. "English soldiers on their way
to Italy!"
But this information seemed to irritate the Prince, who always spoke to
him in familiar language, in spite of the difference in their ages.
"Don't be absurd, Colonel. Anybody would know that. They are the only
ones who whistle."
The men still seated at the table nodded. Military trains passed every
day, and from a distance it was possible to guess the nationality of the
passengers. "The French," said Castro, "go past silently. They have had
a little over three years of fighting on their own soil. They are as
silent and gloomy as their duty is monotonous and endless. The Italians
coming from the French front sing, and decorate their trains with green
branches. The English shout like a lot of boys, just out of school, and
in their enthusiasm, whistle all the time. They are the real children in
this war; they go with a sort of boyish glee to their death."
The whistling sound drew nearer, shrill as the howling of a witches'
Sabbath. It passed between the mountains and the gardens of Villa
Sirena; and then went on in the other direction, toward Italy, gradually
growing fainter as it disappeared in the tunnel. Toledo, who was the
only one in the room to watch the train pass, noticed how the houses,
gardens, and _potagers_ on both sides of the track were alive with
people, waving handkerchiefs and flags in reply to the whistling of the
English. Even along the seashore the fishermen stood up on the seats of
their boats and waved their caps at a distant train. The quick ear of
Don Marcos distinguished a sound of footsteps on the floor above. The
servants doubtless were opening the windows to join with silent
enthusiasm in that farewell.
When only a few coaches were still visible at the mouth of the tunnel,
the Colonel came back to his place at the table.
"More meat for the slaughter house!" exclaimed Atilio Castro, looking at
the Prince. "The racket is over. Go on, Michael."
Under Toledo's watchful eye, two beardless Italian boys, unprepossessing
in appearance, were serving the dessert at the luncheon.
The Colonel kept glancing over the table and at the faces of his three
guests, as though he were afraid of suddenly noticing something that
would show the lunch had been hastily arranged. It was the first that
had been given at Villa Sirena for two years.
The master of the house, Prince Michael Fedor Lubimoff, who sat at the
head of the table, had arrived from Paris the evening before.
The Prince was a man still in his youth, fresh with the well controlled
vigor that is furnished by a life of physical exercise. He was tall,
robust, and supple, of dark complexion, with large gray eyes, and a
massive face, clean shaven. The scattered gray hairs at his temples
seemed even more numerous in contrast with the blue-black of the rest.
A number of premature wrinkles around the eyes, and two deep furrows
running from his wide nostrils to the corners of his mouth, were the
first indication of weariness in a powerful organism that seemed to have
lived too intensely, in the mistaken confidence that its reserve of
strength was endless.
The Colonel called him "Your Highness," as if Michael Fedor were a
member of a ruling house, instead of a mere Russian prince. But this was
when some one was present. It was a habit Don Marcos had adopted in the
days of the late Princess Lubimoff, to maintain the prestige of the son,
whom he had known since the latter was a child. In their intimate
relations, when they were alone, he preferred to call him "Marquis,"
Marquis de Villablanca, and the Prince was never successful in
disturbing, by his witticisms on the subject, the precedence thus
established by Don Marcos in his terms of respect. The title of Russian
Prince was for those who are dazzled by the lofty sound of titles,
without being able to appreciate their respective merits, and origins;
as for himself, the Colonel preferred something nobler, the title of
Spanish Marquis, in spite of the fact that that title for Lubimoff was
quite unknown in Spain, and lacked official recognition.
Toledo was well acquainted with Prince Michael's three guests.
Atilio Castro was a fellow countryman, a Spaniard who had spent the
greater part of his life outside his own country. He affected great
intimacy with the Prince and, on the grounds of a distant blood
relationship between them, even spoke to him with some familiarity. Don
Marcos had a vague idea that the young Spaniard had been a consul
somewhere for a short time. Atilio was continually poking fun at him
without his being always immediately aware of it. But the Colonel,
seeing that it pleased "His Highness" greatly, felt no ill-will on that
account.
"A fine fellow, good hearted!" the Colonel often said, in speaking of
Castro. "He hasn't led a model life, he's a terrible gambler--but a
gentleman. Yes, sir, a real gentleman!"
Michael Fedor defined his relative in other terms.
"He has all the vices, and no defects."
Don Marcos could never quite understand what that meant, but
nevertheless it increased his esteem for Castro.
The Prince was only two or three years older than Atilio, and yet their
ages seemed much farther apart. Castro was over thirty-five, and some
people thought him twenty-four. His face had an ingenuous, rather
child-like expression, and it acquired a certain character of manliness,
thanks solely to a dark red mustache, closely cropped. This tiny
mustache, and his glossy hair parted squarely in the middle, were the
most prominent details of his features, except when he became excited.
If his humor changed--which happened very rarely--the luster in his
eyes, the contraction of his mouth, and the premature wrinkles in his
forehead gave him an almost ominous expression, and suddenly he seemed
to age by ten years.
"A bad man to have for an enemy!" affirmed the Colonel. "It wouldn't do
to get in his way."
And not out of fear, but rather out of sincere admiration did the
Colonel speak admiringly of Castro's talents. He wrote poetry, painted
in water color, improvised songs at the piano, gave advice in matters of
furniture and clothes, and was well versed in antiquities, and matters
of taste. Don Marcos knew no limits to that intelligence.
"He knows everything," he would say. "If he would only stick to one
thing! If he would only work!"
Castro was always elegantly dressed, and lived in expensive hotels; but
he had no regular income so far as was known. The Colonel suspected a
series of friendly little loans from the Prince. But the latter had
remained away from Monte Carlo almost since the beginning of the war,
and Don Marcos used to meet Castro every winter living at the Hotel de
Paris, playing at the Casino, and associating with people of wealth.
From time to time, on encountering the Colonel in the gaming rooms,
Castro had asked him for a loan of "ten louis," an absolute necessity
for a gambler who had just lost his last stake and was anxious to
recoup. But with more or less delay he had always returned the money.
There was something mysterious about his life, according to Don Marcos.
The two other guests seemed to him to live much less complex lives. The
one who had frequented the house for the longest period, was a dark
young man, with a skin that was almost copper colored, a slight build,
and long, straight hair. He was Teofilo Spadoni, a famous pianist.
Spadoni's parents were Italian--this much was sure. No one could quite
make out where he had been born. At times he mentioned his birthplace as
Cairo, at other times, as Athens, or Constantinople, all the places
where his father, a poor Neapolitan tailor, had lived. No one was
astonished by such vagaries and absent-minded discrepancies on the part
of the extraordinary virtuoso, who, the moment he left the piano, seemed
to move in a world of dreams and to be quite incapable of adapting
himself to any regular mode of life. After giving concerts in the large
capitals of Europe and South America, he had settled down at Monte
Carlo, explaining his residence there by the war, while Don Marcos
imputed it to his love of gambling. The Prince knew him through having
engaged him as a member of the orchestra on board his large yacht, the
Gaviota II, for a voyage around the world.
Sitting beside the host was the last guest, the latest to frequent the
house, a pale young man, tall, thin, and nearsighted, who was always
looking timidly around as though ill at ease. He was a professor from
Spain, a Doctor of Science, Carlos Novoa, who received a subsidy from
the Spanish government to make certain studies in ocean fauna at the
Oceanographic Museum. The Colonel who had spent many years at Monte
Carlo without running across any of his compatriots, other than those
whom he saw around the roulette tables, had expressed a certain
patriotic pride in meeting this professor two months previously.
"A man of learning! A famous scientist!" he exclaimed in speaking of his
new friend. "They can say all they want now about us Spaniards being
ignoramuses."
He had only the vaguest notion of the nature of his fellow countryman's
learning. What is more: from his earliest conversations he had guessed
that the professor's ideas were directly opposed to his own. "One of
those heretics with no other God than matter," he said to himself. But
he added by way of consolation: "All those learned men are like that:
liberals and free-thinkers. What of it...." As for the professor's fame,
in the opinion of Don Marcos it was unquestionable. Otherwise why would
they have sent him to the Oceanographic Museum, large and white as a
temple, whose halls he had visited only once, with a feeling of awe that
had prevented him from ever going back again.
On the occasional evenings when the professor would go to Monte Carlo
and chance to meet Don Marcos, the latter would present him to his
friends as a national celebrity. In this fashion Novoa had made the
acquaintance of Castro and Spadoni, who never asked him more than how
his luck was going.
When the coming of the Prince was announced, Toledo insisted that his
illustrious friend the Professor should accompany him to the station in
order to lose no time in introducing him to "His Highness."
"One of our country's prides.... Your Highness is so fond of everything
Spanish."
Michael Fedor had spent a considerable portion of his life on the sea,
and felt a certain sympathy for the modest young man, on learning of the
studies in which he specialized.
They talked for a long time about oceanography, and the following day
Prince Michael, who was in the habit of entertaining elaborately at his
table the most divergent kinds of guests, said to his "chamberlain":
"Your scholar is a very fine fellow. Invite him to luncheon."
The guests all spoke Spanish. Spadoni was able to follow the
conversation, with the little he had picked up while giving piano
recitals in Buenos Ayres, Santiago, and other South American capitals.
He had been there with an impresario, who finally got tired of backing
him, and struggling with his childish irresponsibility.
As they were sitting down at the table, the Colonel noticed that the
Prince seemed preoccupied with some absorbing meditation. He made a
point of talking with Professor Novoa, expressing his surprise at the
slight compensation the scientist received for his studies.
Castro and Spadoni gave their whole attention to their food. The days of
the famous chef, to whom Prince Michael gave a salary worthy of a Prime
Minister, were over. The "master" had been mobilized and at that moment
was cooking for a general on the French front. However, Toledo had
managed to discover a woman of some fifty years, whose combinations
were less varied, perhaps, than those of the artist whom the war had
snatched away, but more "classical," more solid and substantial--and the
two men ate with the delight of people who, forever obliged to eat in
restaurants and hotels, at last find themselves at a table where no
economy or falsifications are practised.
About dessert time the conversation, becoming general, turned, as always
happens when men are dining alone, to the subject of women. Toledo had a
feeling that the Prince had gently steered the guests' talk in this
direction. Suddenly Michael summed up his whole argument by declaring a
second time:
"Man's greatest wisdom consists in getting along without women."
And then had followed the long interruption as the train of English
soldiers, in a whirl of shouts, whistling and hissing, had gone by.
Atilio Castro waited until the last car had disappeared in the tunnel,
and said with a subtle and somewhat ironical smile:
"The shouting and whistling sound like a mixture of applause and scorn
for your profound remark. However, please don't bother with such
inexpert opinion. What you said interests me. You abominate women, you
who have had thousands of them!... Go on, Michael!"
But the Prince changed the conversation. He spoke of his impressions on
returning to Villa Sirena after a long absence. Nothing remained to
recall the former days, before the war, save the building and the
gardens. All the men servants were mobilized: some in the French army,
others in the Italian. The day after his arrival he had asked, as a
matter of course, for an auto to go to Monte Carlo. There was no lack of
machines. Three, of the best make, were lying as though forgotten, in
the garage. But the chauffeurs too were at the front; and moreover
there was no gasoline; and a permit was necessary to use the roads....
In short, he had been obliged to stand at the iron gate of the garden
and wait for the Manton electric. It was a novelty for him, an
interesting means of locomotion. It seemed as if he had suddenly been
transported into a world he had forgotten, as he found himself among the
common people on the car. The general curiosity annoyed him. Everyone
was whispering his name: and even the conductor showed a certain emotion
on seeing the owner of Villa Sirena among his passengers.
"And the worst of it all, my friends, is that I'm ruined!"
Spadoni stared with wide opened eyes as though hearing something
extraordinary and absurd. Castro smiled incredulously.
"You ruined?... I'd be satisfied with a tenth of the remains."
The Prince nodded. He reminded one of those great transatlantic liners
which, when they are wrecked, make the fortune of a whole population of
poverty stricken people along the shore. Wealth was of course a relative
thing. He might still have more than many people; but ruin it was for
him, nevertheless.
"In view of what I am going to say later, I must not conceal from you
the situation I am in. A few weeks ago I sold my Paris residence which
my mother built. It was bought by a 'newly rich.' With this war, I'm
going to become a 'newly poor.' You know, Atilio, how things have gone
with me, since this row among the nations started. From the time they
fired the first cannon they sent me from Russia only an eighth of what I
received in times of peace; later much less. The revolution came and cut
down my income still more. And, now under Comrade Lenin and the red
flag, there is nothing coming through at all, absolutely nothing. I have
no idea whatsoever of the fate of my houses, my fields, my mines ... I
don't know even what has become of those who were looking after my
fortune there. They have probably all been killed."
The Colonel raised his eyes to the ceiling: "The revolution!... What
they need is a master."
"But a rich man like you with reserve funds in the bank all the time,
can always find some one to make him a loan until times are better."
"Perhaps; but it means practically poverty for me. My administrator told
me when I was leaving Paris, that I ought to limit my expenses, live
according to my present income. How much have I?... I don't know. He
doesn't even know himself. He is balancing my accounts, collecting from
some people and paying others--I had a lot of debts, it seems.
Millionaires are never asked to pay their bills promptly.... In short, I
shall have to live, like a ruined prince, on some sixty thousand dollars
a year; perhaps more, perhaps less. I really don't know."
Castro and Spadoni seemed to be stirred with longing at the mention of
such a sum. Novoa looked with an air of respect at this man who called
himself his friend and thought himself poor with sixty thousand dollars
a year.
"My administrator spoke to me of selling Villa Sirena as well as the
Paris residence. It seems that the newly rich would like to get
everything I have. A complete liquidation.... But I wouldn't listen to
it. This is my own little nook; I made it what it is myself. Besides,
life is impossible out in the world. The war has filled it with
bitterness. Living in Paris is very gloomy. There is no one there. The
streets are dark. The 'Gothas' make the people of our class worried and
nervous. It is much better to leave. I thought I would settle down here
and wait till this world madness is over."
"It is going to be a long wait," remarked Castro.
"I'm afraid so. However, this is an agreeable spot, a pleasant refuge,
all the more delightful because of the selfish feeling that at this very
moment millions of men are suffering every sort of hardship, and
thousands are dying every day.... But after all, it isn't the same as it
used to be. Even the Mediterranean is different. The minute the sun goes
down, my good Colonel has to mask with black curtains the windows and
doors looking out on the sea, so that the German submarines cannot guide
themselves by our lights.... Dear me! Where are those wonderful days we
spent here in time of peace, the festivals we used to have, those nights
on the Gaviotta II when she anchored in the harbor of Monaco?"
A far away look came into Castro's eyes, as though he were in a dream.
In his imaginings he saw the gardens of Villa Sirena, softly lighted,
wrapped in a milky haze that settled on the invisible waves like rays of
reflected moonlight.
The window curtains were crimson, and from them, drifting through the
warm darkness of the night, came the sound of laughter, cries, the
sighing of violins, amorous love songs, that told of women's throats,
white and voluptuous, swelling with desire and the rapture of the music.
The stars, specks of light lost in the infinite, twinkled in answer to
the electric stars, hidden in the dark foliage. Walking slowly, couples
arm in arm disappeared amid the deep shadows of the garden. All the
women of the day had turned up there sooner or later: famous actresses
from Paris, London, and Vienna; beauties of the smart cliques of two
hemispheres, women of high society, smiling the smile of slaves before
the potentate who could banish their debts with the stroke of a pen.
Oh, the Pompeian nights of Villa Sirena!...
Spadoni saw, rather, the Gaviotta II, a palace with propellers, which,
when anchored in the small harbor of La Condamine, seemed to fill it
completely and to make the yachts of the American millionaires and the
Prince of Monaco look like tiny things indeed. It was an alcazar, a
palace of the Arabian Nights, topped off with two smoke stacks, and
parading over every sea of the planet, its private parlors adorned with
fountains and statues, its enormous library, its ball room with a raised
platform, from which fifty musicians, many of them celebrated, gave
concerts for a single visible auditor, Prince Michael, who half reclined
on a divan, while the tropical breeze came through the high windows,
caressing the heads of the officers and chief functionaries of the
steamer crowding about the openings. The pianist could see once more the
lonely harbors of dead historic countries, with flights of seagulls
wheeling against the quiet azure vault; the mighty bays, filled with the
smoke and bustle of North America; the coasts of the Antilles with
groves of cocoanut palms, black at sunset against the reddish sky; the
islands of the Pacific, of hard coral, forming a ring about an inner
lake.... And that omnipotent magician confessed the loss of his
wealth!...
The Prince, as though he guessed their thoughts, added:
"It's the end of all that: I don't know whether forever or for many
years.... And even if things should be the same some day as they were
before the war, what a long time we shall have to wait!... I may die
before then.... That is why I am going to make a proposal to you."
He paused a moment, to enjoy the curiosity he read in the eyes of his
auditors.
Then he asked Castro:
"Are you satisfied with your present life?"
In spite of Castro's good natured, smiling placidity, he started in
surprise as if indignant at such a question. His life was unbearable.
The war had upset his habits and pleasures, scattering his friendships
to the four winds. He did not know the fate of hundreds of persons of
various nationalities, who had filled his life before the war, and
without whom he would then have thought it impossible to live.
"Besides, I have less money than ever. I am staying at Monte Carlo just
for the gambling; and even if I always lose in the end, like everyone
else, I always keep a tight grip on a little something to live on!...
But what a life!"
He glanced at Novoa as though the recency of his acquaintance inspired a
certain suspicion, but immediately he went on, with an air of assurance:
"There is no reason why I should not speak quite plainly. A little while
ago the Professor told us how much he earned: some hundred dollars a
month; less than any employee at the Casino. I am going to be as frank
as he. I live in the Hotel de Paris: Atilio Castro cannot afford to live
anywhere else; he must keep up his connections. But there are many weeks
when I have the greatest difficulty in paying for my room, and I eat in
cheap restaurants and Italian wine shops, when no one invites me out to
dine. I pay three or four times as much for my bed as I do for my board.
Evenings when luck is against me, and I lose everything to the last
chip, I get along with a ham sandwich at the Casino bar. I belong to the
same school as the Madrid gambler we nicknamed the 'Master,' and who
used to say to us: 'Boys, money was made for gambling; and what's left,
for eating.'"
"And in spite of that, you like good food," said the Prince.
Castro's laments took on a comical seriousness. With the war the good
old customs had been forgotten. No one kept house; everyone lived in
hotels, and the proprietors of the luxurious palaces took the scarcity
of food as a pretext to serve the sort of meals one gets in third rate
restaurants, scanty and poor. An invitation merely gave one a chance to
fool one's hunger.
"It has been months, maybe years, since I've eaten as I have to-day, and
I've sat at the tables of all the big hotels on the Riviera. I had
ceased to believe that such chicken as you have just served existed in
the world any longer. I imagined they were dream birds, mythological
fowl."
The Colonel smiled, bowing as if that were a tribute to him.
"And you, Spadoni?" the Prince went on inquiringly. "How are you
enjoying life?"
"Your Highness--I--I," stammered the musician, at the sudden question.
Castro intervened, coming to his rescue.
"Our friend Spadoni can always get a free meal at the villas of a number
of invalid ladies, who live at Cap-Martin and who are mad about music.
Besides some English people at Nice often invite him. He doesn't need to
bother about paying hotel bills either. He has at his disposal a whole
big villa, large and well-furnished: it goes with his job, as watchman
over a corpse."
Novoa started with surprise at the news.
"Don't be astonished," continued Atilio. "He has the benefit of a
magnificent house in exchange for looking after a tomb."
"Oh, Professor!... Don't mind him," groaned the musician with the air of
a martyr.
"But with all these advantages," Castro went on saying, "there is one
terrible drawback: he is a worse gambler than I. He has a nickname in
the Casino 'the number five gentleman.' He never plays any other number.
Anything he can get hold of he puts on five, and loses it. I am the
'number seventeen gentleman' and it turns out as badly with me as with
him.... Besides, he has his English friends. Queer ducks! They come from
Nice every day in a two horse landau, and just as if they didn't get
enough gambling with the Casino, they set up a green table on their
knees and take out a deck of cards. They play poker with the Corniche
landscape, that people come from all over the world to see, right before
their eyes. And our artist, when he takes a fourth hand with the two
Englishmen and an old maid, there within the sight of the Mediterranean,
golden in the setting sun, loses everything he took in at some concert
at Cannes or Monte Carlo."
Spadoni started to say something, but stopped, seeing that the Prince
turned to Novoa:
"I shan't ask you," said the Prince; "I know your situation. You live in
the old part of Monaco, in the house of an employee of the Museum; and
his lodgings can't be much. Besides, as Atilio was saying, you receive
much less than a croupier at the Casino."
And looking at his guests he added:
"What I want to propose to you is that you live with me. The invitation
is a selfish one on my part; I'm not denying that. I intend to stay here
until the world quiets down, and life is pleasant once more. If my
Colonel and I were here alone we would end by hating each other. You
will keep me company in my retreat."
All three remained dumbfounded at such an unexpected proposal. Novoa was
the first to regain the use of his tongue.
"Prince, you scarcely know me. We saw each other for the first time
three days ago.... I don't know whether I ought...."
The Prince interrupted him with the sharp tone and imperious manner of a
man who is not accustomed to considering objections.
"We have known each other for many years; we have known each other all
our lives." Then he added soothingly:
"It isn't much that I'm offering you. Servants are scarce. There are no
men except my old valet and those two Italian monkeys that the Colonel
managed to recruit somewhere. The rest of the service is done by
women.... But even so, our life will be pleasant. We shall isolate
ourselves from a world gone crazy. We will not mention this war. We
shall lead a comfortable existence, as the monks did in the monasteries
of the Middle Ages, which were refreshing oases of tranquillity in the
midst of violence and massacres. We shall eat well; the Colonel
guarantees me that. The Library from the yacht is here. When I sold the
boat, I had Don Marcos install all my books on the top floor. Our friend
Novoa will find some volumes there which perhaps he does not know.
Everyone will do what he pleases; free monks all of us, with no other
obligation than to repair to the refectory at the proper hour. And if
the 'number five gentleman' and the 'number seventeen gentleman' want to
drop in at the Casino, they can do so, and someone will see to it that
their pockets are kept filled. We must give something to vice, what the
devil! Without vices, life wouldn't be worth living."
A silent approbation greeted these words of the master of Villa Sirena.
"The one thing I insist on," continued the Prince after a long pause,
"is that we live alone, as men among men. No women! Women must be
excluded from our life in common."
The pianist opened his eyes in astonishment; Castro stirred in his
chair; Novoa removed his glasses with a mechanical gesture of surprise,
immediately adjusting them once more to his nose.
There was another silence.
"What you propose," said Atilio, at last, with a smile, "reminds me of a
comedy of Shakespeare. No women! And the hero in the end gets married."
"I know that play," replied the Prince, "but I am not in the habit of
governing my life according to comedies, and I don't believe in their
teachings. You can rest assured that I shan't marry, even if it gives
the lie to Shakespeare and the French king from whose chronicle he got
the material for his work."
"But what you're attempting is absurd," Castro went on: "I don't know
what the rest think, but prevent me from...!"
With a gesture he ended his protest.
Then seeing that the Prince had remained thoughtful, he added:
"It is quite evident that you have had your fill!... You have gotten all
you wanted, and now you want to force on us...."
The Prince, although absorbed in his own train of thought, he had not
heard him, interrupted.
"Seeing that you can't get along without it.... All right! I have no
fixed intention of making a martyr of you. Go on being a slave to a
necessity that is a result more of the imagination than of desire. Now
that I really know life, I am astonished that men do so many foolish
things for the sake of a passing pleasure. While you are here you may
satisfy your whims whenever you like ... but no women."
The three listeners looked at one another in astonishment; and even the
Colonel, who never betrayed his feeling when his "lord" was speaking,
showed a certain surprise on his countenance. What did the Prince mean?
"You are not ignorant, Atilio, of what a woman is. In the great majority
of peoples on this earth there are only females. There are young females
and old females; but there are no 'women.' Woman, as we understand the
word, is the artificial product of civilizations which, somewhat like
hot-house flowers, have reached their maturity with a complex perverse
beauty. Only in the large cities that have come to be decadent because
they have reached their limits, do you find 'women.' Not being mothers
like the poor females, they give up all their time to love, prolong
their youth marvelously, and scheme to inspire passions at an age when
the others live like grandmothers. There you have the creatures that,
personally, I am afraid of! If they come in here, it's the end of our
society, our tranquil, even life."
The Prince arose from the table, and they all followed suit. Lunch being
over they all passed into the great hall adjoining, where coffee was
served. The Colonel looked about anxiously, examining the boxes of
Havanas, and the large liquor chest with its varied cut glass and
colored flasks, placed in a row.
While cutting the tip of his cigar, the Prince continued, speaking all
the while to Castro:
"When you want ... anything like that, all you need do is to choose in
the vicinity of the Casino. A hundred or two francs; and then,
good-by!... But the other ones! The women! They work their way into our
lives, and finally dominate us, and want to mold our ways to suit their
own. Their love for us after all is merely vanity, like that of the
conqueror who loves the land that he has conquered with violence. They
have all read books--nearly always stupidly and without understanding,
to be sure, but they have read books--and such reading leaves them
determined to satisfy all sorts of vague desires, and absurd whims, that
succeed only in making slaves of us, and in moving us to act on impulses
we have acquired in our own early romantic readings.... I know them. I
have met too many of them in my life. If women from our social sphere
mingle with us here, it means an end to peace. They will seek me out
through curiosity on remembering my past life, or greed in thinking of
my wealth; as for you men, they will come between you, making you
jealous of one another and the life that I desire here will be
impossible.... Besides, we are poor."
Atilio protested, smilingly: "Oh! poor!"
"Poor when it comes to the follies of the old days," continued the
Prince, "and for love one needs money. All that talk about love being a
disinterested thing was made up by poor people, who are satisfied with
imitations. There is a glitter of gold at the bottom of every passion.
At first we don't think of such things; desire blinds us. All we see is
the immediate domination of the person so sweetly our adversary. But
love invariably ends by giving or taking money."
"Take money from a woman!... Never!" said Castro, losing his ironic
smile.
"You will end by taking it, if you are poor, and frequent the society of
women. Those of our times think of nothing but money. When their love is
a rich man, they ask him for it, even if they have a large fortune of
their own. They feel less worthy if they don't ask. When they are fond
of a poor man, they force him to receive gifts from them. They dominate
him better by degrading him. Besides, in doing so they feel the selfish
satisfaction of the person who gives alms. Woman, having always been
forced to beg from man, has the greatest sensation of pride, and thinks
she in turn can give money to some one of the sex that has always
supported her."
Novoa, cup in hand, listened attentively to the Prince. Lubimoff was
speaking of a world quite unknown to him. Spadoni, as he sipped his
coffee, with a vague look in his eyes, was thinking of something far
away.
"Now you know the worst, Atilio," the Prince went on. "No women!... That
way we will lead a great life. All the morning, free! We shan't see one
another until lunch time. Down below is the cove, there are still a
number of boats. We can fish, while it's sunny; we can go rowing. In the
afternoon you will go to the Casino; occasionally I shall go, too, to
hear some concert. Spring is drawing near. At night, sitting on the
terrace, watching the stars, our friend Novoa, the man of learning of
our monastery, will expound the music of the spheres; and Spadoni, our
musician, will sit down at the piano, and delight us with terrestrial
music."
"Splendid!" exclaimed Castro. "You are almost a poet in describing our
future life, and you have persuaded me. We are going to be happy. But
don't forget your permission for the 'female,' and your prohibition of
'women.' No skirts in Villa Sirena! Nothing but men; monks in trousers,
selfish and tolerant, coming together to live a pleasant life, while the
world is aflame."
Atilio remained thoughtful a few moments, and continued:
"We need a name; our community must have a title. We shall call
ourselves 'the enemies of women'."
The Prince smiled.
"The name mustn't go any farther than ourselves. If people outside
learned of it, they might think it meant something else."
Novoa, feeling honored by his new intimacy with men so different from
those with whom he had previously associated, accepted the name with
enthusiasm.
"I confess, gentlemen, that according to the distinction made by the
Prince, I have never known a 'woman'. Females ... poor ones, to be sure,
a very few perhaps! But I like the name, and agree to join the 'enemies
of women' even though a woman is never to enter my life."
Spadoni, as though suddenly awakening, turned to Castro, and continued
his thought aloud.
"It's a system of stakes invented by an English lord, now dead, who won
millions by it. They explained it to me yesterday. First you place...."
"No, no, you satanic pianist!" exclaimed Atilio. "You can explain it to
me in the Casino, providing I have the curiosity to listen. You've made
me lose a lot, with all your systems. I had better go on playing your
'number five.'"
The Colonel, who had listened in silence to the conversation in regard
to women, seemed to recall something when Castro mentioned gambling.
"Last evening," he said to the Prince, in a mysterious voice, "I met the
Duchess in the Casino"....
A look of silent questioning halted his words.
"What Duchess is that?"
"The question is quite in point, Michael," said Atilio. "Your
'chamberlain' is better acquainted in society than any man on the
Riviera. He knows princesses and duchesses by the dozen. I have seen him
dining in the Hotel de Paris with all the ancient French nobility, who
come here to console themselves for the long time it takes to bring back
their former kings. In the private rooms in the Casino, he is always
kissing wrinkled hands and bowing to some group of disgusting mummies
loaded down with the oldest and most famous names. Some of them call
him simply 'Colonel'; others introduce him with the title of 'aide de
camp of Prince Lubimoff'."
Don Marcos stiffened, offended by the waggish tone in which his high
estate was being mentioned, and said haughtily:
"Senor de Castro, I am a soldier grown old in defense of Legitimacy; I
shed my blood for the sacred tradition, and there is nothing remarkable
about my association with...."
The Prince knowing by experience that the Colonel did not know what time
was, when once he began to talk about "legitimacy" and the blood he had
shed, hastened to interrupt him.
"All right; we know that very well already. But who was this Duchess you
met?"
"The Duchess de Delille. She often asks about your Highness, and upon
hearing that you had just arrived, she gave me to understand that she
intended paying you a call."
The Prince replied with a simple exclamation, and then remained silent.
"We are starting well," said Castro, laughing. "'No women!' And
immediately the Colonel announces a visit from one of them, one of the
most dangerous.... For you will admit that a Duchess like that is one of
the 'women' you described to us."
"I won't receive her," said the Prince resolutely.
"I have an idea that this Duchess is a cousin of yours."
"There is no such relationship. Her father was the brother of my
mother's second husband. But we have known each other since childhood,
and we each have a most unpleasant memory of one another. When I was
living in Russia she married a French Duke. She had the same desire as
the majority of wealthy American girls: a great title of nobility in
order to make her friends among the fair sex jealous and to shine in
European circles. A few months later she left the Duke, assigning him a
certain income, which is just what her noble husband wanted perhaps.
This woman Alicia never appealed to me particularly.... Besides, she has
lived life just as she pleased.... She has seen almost as much of it as
I have. She has as much of a reputation as I. They even accuse her, just
as they do me, of love affairs with people she has never seen.... They
tell me that in recent years she has been parading around with a young
lad, almost a child ... dear me! We are getting old!"
"I saw her with him in Paris," said Castro. "It was before the war.
Later in Monte Carlo I met her, all by herself, without being able to
find a trace of her young chap anywhere. He must have been a passing
fancy of hers.... She has been here three years now. When summer comes
she moves to Aix-les-Bains, or to Biarritz, but as soon as the Casino is
gay and fashionable again, she is one of the first to return."
"Does she play?"
"Desperately. She plays high stakes and plays them badly, although we
who think we play well always lose just the same, in the end. I mean,
she puts her money on the table without thinking, in several places at a
time, and then even forgets where she placed it. The 'leveurs des morts'
are always hanging around to pick up the pieces that no one claims and
when she wins, they always manage to get something of it. She gambled
for two years with nothing less than chips of five hundred and a
thousand francs. At present her chips are never for more than a hundred.
It won't be long before she is using the red ones, the twenties, the
favorites of your humble servant."
"I shall refuse to receive her," affirmed the Prince.
And doubtless in order not to talk any more about the Duchess de
Delille, he suddenly left his friends, and walked out of the room.
Atilio, in a conversational mood, turned and asked a question of Don
Marcos, who was speaking with Novoa, while Spadoni went on dreaming,
with eyes wide open, of the English lord's system.
"Have you seen Dona Enriqueta lately?"
"Are you asking me about the Infanta?" replied the Colonel gravely.
"Yes, I met her yesterday, in the courtyards of the Casino. Poor lady!
If it isn't a shame! The daughter of a king.... She told me that her
sons haven't anything to wear. She owes two hundred francs for
cigarettes, at the bar of the private play rooms. She can't find anyone
who will lend her money. Besides, she has frightful bad luck; she loses
everything. These are fatal days for people of royal blood. I almost
wept when I heard all her poverty and troubles, and felt that I couldn't
give her anything more. The daughter of a king?"
"But her father disowned her, when she eloped with some unknown artist,"
said Atilio. "And besides, Don Carlos wasn't a king anywhere."
"Senor de Castro," replied the Colonel, drawing himself up, like a
rooster, "let's not spoil the party. You know my ideas: I have shed my
blood in the cause of Legitimacy, and the respect that I have for you
should not...."
Novoa, wishing to calm Don Marcos, intervened in the conversation.
"Monte Carlo here is like a beach, where all sorts of wreckage, living
and dead, is washed up sooner or later. In the Hotel de Paris there is
another member of the family, but of the successful branch, the one that
is ruling and taking in the money."
"I know him," said Atilio, laughing. "He's a young man of calipigous
exuberance and wherever he goes his handsome gentleman secretary goes
with him. He always meets some venerable old lady who, dazzled by his
royal kinship, takes it upon herself to keep up his extravagant mode of
living.... Don't know what the devil he can possibly give her in return!
As for the secretary, he gives him a slap from time to time just to
assert his ancient rights."
Don Marcos remained silent. He was not interested in the members of that
branch, not he.
"Also," Castro continued mischievously, "in the Casino before the war, I
met Don Jaime, your own king at present. A great fellow for gambling! He
risked thousand franc chips by the handful. He had a lot of money coming
from somewhere. In the Casino they all used to say that it was sent him
from Madrid, on condition that he should have no children and allow his
claims to the throne to die out with him."
"And just to think," murmured Novoa, without realizing that he was
speaking aloud, "that for both of these families, back there, so many
men have killed one another. To think, that for a question of
inheritance among people like that we have gone back a century in
European life!"
"You too!" exclaimed the Colonel, provoked again. "A scholar, saying a
thing like that! I can hardly believe my ears!"