They seated themselves near the window in the pa rlor in a couple
of rocking-chairs brought from Orense. The garden and the vineyard
breathed a lazy tranquillity, a silence so profound that the dull
sound of the ripe peaches breaking from the branch and falling on the
dry ground could be plainly heard. Through the open window came odors
of fruit and honey. In the house unbroken silence reigned.
"Will you have a cigar?"
"Thanks."
The cigars were lighted and Segundo, following Don Victoriano's
example, began to rock himself. The rhythmical movement of the
rocking-chairs, the drowsy quiet of the place, invited to a serious
and confidential conversation.
"And you, what do you do in Vilamorta? You are a lawyer, are you
not. I think I have heard that it is your intention to succeed your
father in his practice--a very intelligent man."
Segundo felt that the occasion was propitious. The smoke of the
cigars, diffusing itself through the atmosphere, softened the light,
disposing him to confidence and dispelling his habitual reserve.
"The thought of beginning now the career my father is just ending
horrifies me," he said, in answer to the ex-Minister's question.
"That sordid struggle to gain a little money, more or less, those
village intrigues, that miserable plotting and planning, that
drawing-up of documents--I was made for none of those things, Señor
Don Victoriano. It is not that I could not practice. I have been a
fair student and my good memory always brought me safely through in
the examinations. But for what does the profession of law serve? For
a foundation, nothing more. It is a passport, a card of admission to
some office."
"Well----" said Don Victoriano, shaking the ashes from his cigar,
"what you say is true, very true. What is learned at the University
is of scarcely any use afterward. As for me, if it had not been for
my apprenticeship with Don Juan Antonio Prado, who taught me to make
a practical use of my legal knowledge and to know how many teeth
there are in a comb, I should not have distinguished myself greatly
by my Compostelan learning. My friend, what makes a man of one, what
really profits one is this terrible apprenticeship, the position in
which a boy finds himself when a pile of papers is set before him,
and a pompous gentleman says to him, 'Study this question to-day and
have ready for me by to-morrow a formulated opinion on it.' There is
the rub! That is what makes you sweat and bite your nails! There
neither laziness nor ignorance will avail you. The thing must be
done, and as it cannot be done by magic----"
"Even in Madrid and on a large scale the practice of the law has
no attractions for me. I have other aspirations."
"Let us hear what they are."
Segundo hesitated, restrained by a feeling of shyness, as if he
had been going to narrate a dream or to descant on the delights of
love. He followed with his eyes for a few moments the blue smoke
curling upward and finally, the semi-obscurity of the room, secluded
as a confessional, dissipated his reserve.
"I wish to follow the profession of literature," he returned.
The statesman stopped rocking himself and took his cigar from his
mouth.
"But my boy, literature is not a profession!" he said. "There is
no such thing as the profession of literature! Let us understand each
other--have you ever been out of Vilamorta? I mean beyond Santiago
and the neighboring towns?"
"No, Señor."
"Then I can understand those illusions and those childish
notions. They still believe here that a writer or a poet, from the
mere fact of his being such, may aspire to--and what do you write?"
"Poetry."
"You don't write prose at all?"
"An occasional essay or newspaper article. Very little."
"Bravo! Well, if you trust to poetry to make your way in the
world--I have remarked something curious in this place and I am going
to tell you what it is. Verses are still read here with interest, and
it seems the girls learn them by heart. But in the capital I assure
you there is scarcely anyone who cares for poetry. You are twenty or
thirty years behind the age here--at the height of the romantic
period."
Segundo, annoyed, said with some vehemence:
"And Campoamor? And Nuñez de Arce? And Grilo? Are they not famous
poets? Are they not popular?"
"Campoamor? They read him because he is very witty, and he sets
the girls thinking and he makes the men laugh. He has his merit, and
he amuses while he philosophizes. But remember that neither he nor
Nuñez de Arce lives by writing verses. Much prosperity that would
bring them! As to Grilo--well, he has his admirers among ladies of
rank, and the Queen Mother publishes his poems, and as far as we can
judge he has plenty of money. But convince yourself that no one will
ever grow rich by following the road that leads to Parnassus. And
this is when masters are in question, for of poets of a secondary
rank, young men who string rhymes together with more or less
facility, there are probably now in Madrid some two or three hundred.
Have you ever heard of any of them? No; nor I either. A few friends
praise them when they publish anything in some insignificant review.
But there is no need to go on. In plain words, it is time lost."
Segundo silently vented his anger on his cigar.
"Don't take what I say as an offense," continued Don Victoriano.
"I know little about literature, although in my youthful days I wrote
_quintillas_, like everybody else. Besides, I have seen nothing of
what you have written, so that my opinion is impartial and my advice
sincere."
"My ambition," began Segundo at last, "is not confined
exclusively to lyric poetry. Perhaps later I might prefer the
drama--or prose. Who knows? I only want to try my fortune."
Don Victoriano rose and stepped out into the balcony. Suddenly he
returned, placed both hands on Segundo's shoulders, and putting his
clean-shaven face close to the face of the poet, said with a pity
which was not feigned:
"Poor boy! How many, many disappointments are in store for you!"
And as Segundo, astonished at this sudden effusion, remained
silent, he continued:
"Novice as you are, you have no means of knowing what you are
doing. I am sorry for you. You are deluding yourself. In the present
state of society, in order to attain eminence in anything, you must
sweat blood like Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. If it is lyric
poetry that is in question, God help you! If you write comedies or
farces, you have an enviable fate before you--to flatter the actors,
to have your manuscript lie neglected in the corner of a drawer, to
have half an act cut out at a stroke; and then the dread of the first
night, and of what comes after it--which may be the worst of all. If
you become a journalist, you will not have ten minutes in the day to
yourself, you will make the reputation of others, and you will never
see even so much as the shadow of your own. If you write books--but
who reads in Spain? And if you throw yourself into politics--ah, then
indeed!"
Segundo, his eyes cast down, his gaze wandering over the pine
knots in the boarded floor, listened without opening his lips to
those convincing accents that seemed to tear away one by one the
rose-leaves of his illusions, with the same strident sound with which
the nail of the speaker flicked away the ash of his cigar. At last he
raised his contracted face and looking at the statesman said, not
without a touch of sarcasm in his voice:
"As for politics, Señor Don Victoriano, it seems to me that you
ought not to speak ill of that. It has treated you well; you have no
cause of complaint against it. For you politics has not been a
stepmother."
Don Victoriano's countenance changed, showing plainly the ravages
disease had made in his organism; and rising to his feet a second
time, he threw away his cigar and, walking up and down the room with
hasty steps, he burst forth passionately, in words that rushed from
his lips in a sudden flood, in an impetuous and unequal stream, like
the stream of blood gushing from a severed artery:
"Don't touch that point. Be silent about that, boy. How do you,
how does anybody know what those things are until he has thrown
himself headlong into them and is caught fast and cannot escape! If I
were to tell you--but it is impossible to tell one's whole life, day
by day, to describe a battle which has lasted for years, without rest
or respite. To struggle in order to make one's self known, to go on
struggling to keep one's self from being forgotten, to pass from law
to politics, from a wheel set with knives to a bed of live coals, to
fight in Congress without faith, without conviction, because one must
fight to keep the place one has won; and with all this not to have a
free hour, not a tranquil moment, not have time for anything. One
achieves fortune when one no longer has the inclination to enjoy it;
one marries and has a family and--one has hardly liberty to accompany
one's wife to the theater. Don't talk to me. A hell, a hell upon
earth is what politics is. Would you believe" (and here he uttered a
round oath) "that when my little girl was beginning to walk, I
proposed to myself one day to have the pleasure of taking her out
walking--a caprice, a whim. Well, I was going downstairs with the
child in my arms, very contented, when lo, I found myself face to
face with the Marquis of Cameros, a candidate for representative from
Galicia, who had come to ask me for fifteen or twenty
letters--written in my own hand so that they might prove more
efficacious. And I was such a fool, man, I was such a fool, that
instead of throwing the Marquis down the stairs, as I ought to have
done, I walked back my two flights, gave the child to her nurse, and
shut myself up in my office to prepare the election. And it was the
same thing always; tell me, then, have I reason or not to abominate
such folly, such humbug? Ah, what pains we are at to make ourselves
miserable!"
There could be no doubt of it; in the voice of the statesman
there was the sound of repressed tears; in his throat smothered
curses and blasphemies struggled for utterance. Segundo, to do
something, threw open the window leading to the balcony. The sun was
low in the heavens; the heat had grown less intense.
"And worst of all--the consequences!" continued Don Victoriano,
pausing in his walk. "You strive and struggle without pausing to
reflect what will be the effect upon your health. You fight, like the
knights of old, with visor down. But as you are not made of iron, but
only of flesh and blood, when you least expect it, you find yourself
sick, sick, wounded, without knowing where. You do not lose blood,
but you lose the sap of life, like a lemon that is squeezed." And the
ex-Minister laughed bitterly. "And you want to stop, to rest, to get
back health at any cost, and you find that it is too late; you have
not a drop of moisture left in your body. Well, keep on until there
is an end to you. Much your labors and your triumphs have profited
you! You have drawn down on yourself a doom from which there is no
escape!"
He spoke with gesticulations, thrusting his hands into his
trousers pockets in an outburst of confidence, expressing himself
with as little reserve as if he had been alone. And in reality he was
talking to himself. His words were a monologue, the spoken utterance
of the gloomy thoughts which Don Victoriano, thanks to heroic
efforts, had hitherto been able to conceal in his own breast. The
strange malady from which he suffered gave rise to horrible
nightmares; he dreamed that he was turning into a loaf of sugar and
that his intellect, his blood, his life, were flowing away from him,
through a deep, deep channel, converted into syrup. In his waking
moments his mind refused to accept, as one refused to accept a
humiliation, so strange a malady. Sanchez del Abrojo must be
mistaken; his was some functional, transitory disorder, an ordinary
ailment, the result of his sedentary life, and Tropiezo's
old-fashioned remedies would perhaps after all prove more efficacious
than those of science. And if they did not? The statesman felt a cold
chill run through him that made his hair stand on end and constricted
his heart. To die when he was scarcely past forty, with his mental
powers unimpaired, with so many things begun, so many accomplished!
And no doubt this consuming thirst, this insatiable voracity, this
debilitating sensation of melting away, of fusion, of dissolving,
were all fatal symptoms.
Suddenly Don Victoriano remembered the presence of Segundo, which
he had almost forgotten. And laying both hands on his shoulders a
second time, and fixing on the poet's eyes, his dry eyes, scorched by
repressed tears, he cried:
"Do you wish to hear the truth, and to receive good advice? Have
you ambitions, aspirations, hopes? Well, I have had disappointments,
and I desire to do you a service by recounting them to you now. Don't
be a fool; stay here all your life; help your father, take up his
practice when he lays it down, and marry that blooming daughter of
Agonde. Never leave this land of fruits, of vines, whose climate is
so delightful. What would I not give now never to have left it! No,
my boy, remain quietly here; end a long life here surrounded by a
numerous progeny. Have you observed how healthy your father is? It is
a pleasure to see him, with his teeth so sound and perfect. I have
not a single tooth that is not decayed; they say that it is one of
the symptoms of my malady. Why, if your mother were living now you
would be having little brothers and sisters."
Segundo smiled.
"But, Señor Don Victoriano," he said, "to act out your ideas
would be to vegetate, not to live."
"And what greater happiness than to vegetate," responded the
statesman, looking out of the window. "Do you think those trees there
are not to be envied?"
The garden, indeed, seen in the light of the setting sun, had a
certain air of voluptuous bliss, as if it were enjoying a happy
dream.
The lustrous leaves of the lemon trees and the camellias, the
gummy trunks of the fruit trees, seemed to drink in with delight the
fresh evening breeze, precursor of the vivifying dews of night. The
golden atmosphere took on in the distance faint lilac tints.
Innumerable noises began to make themselves heard, preludes to songs
of insects, to the concerts of the frogs and toads.
The pensive tranquillity of the scene was broken in upon by the
quick trot of a mule, and Clodio Genday, out of breath, flung himself
out of his saddle, and reeled into the garden. Gesticulating with his
hands, with his head, with his whole body, he called, screamed,
vociferated:
"Oh, I have a nice piece of news for you, a nice piece of news! I
will be there directly, I will be there directly!"
They went to the head of the stairs leading to the garden, to
meet him, and when he rushed upon them, like an arrow shot from a
bow, they saw that he wore neither collar nor cravat, and that his
dress was in the utmost disorder.
"A mere bagatelle, Señor Don Victoriano--that they are playing a
trick upon us; that they have played it already, that unless we take
prompt measures we shall lose the district. You would not believe it,
if I were to tell you of all the plans they have been laying, for a
long time past, at Doña Eufrasia's shop. And we simpletons suspecting
nothing. And all the priests are in the plot; the parish priests of
Lubrego, of Boan, of Naya, and of Cebre. They have set up as a
candidate Señorito de Romero of Orense, who is willing to loosen his
purse-strings. But where is Primo, that good-for-nothing, that
scarecrow, who never found out a word of all this?"
"We will look for him, man. What do you tell me, what do you tell
me? I never thought they would have dared----"
And Don Victoriano, animated and excited, followed Clodio, who
went shouting through the parlor:
"Primo! Primo!"
A little later Segundo saw the two brothers and the ex-Minister
going through the garden disputing and gesticulating violently.
Clodio was making charges against Primo, who tried to defend himself,
while Don Victoriano acted as peacemaker. In his fury Clodio shook
his clenched fist in Primo's face, almost laying violent hands upon
him, while the culprit stammered, crossing himself hastily:
"Mercy, mercy, mercy! Ave Maria!"
The poet watched them as they passed by, remarking the
transformation that had taken place in Don Victoriano. As he turned
away from the window he saw Nieves standing before him.
"And those gentlemen," she said to him graciously, "have they
left you all alone? The pines must at this time be singing. There is
a breeze stirring."
"Undoubtedly they will be singing now," returned the poet. "I
shall hear them as I ride back to Vilamorta."
Nieves' movement of surprise did not pass unnoticed by Segundo,
who, looking her steadily in the face, added coldly and proudly:
"Unless you should command me to remain."
Nieves was silent. She felt that courtesy required that she
should make some effort to detain her guest, while at the same time
to ask him to remain, they two being alone, seemed to her inexpedient
and liable to misconstruction. At last she took a middle course,
saying with a forced smile:
"But why are you in such a hurry? And will you make us another
visit?"
"We shall see each other later in Vilamorta. Good-by, Nieves, I
will not disturb Don Victoriano. Say good-by to him for me and tell
him he may count upon my father's services and upon mine."
Without taking Nieves' outstretched hand or looking at her he
descended into the courtyard. He was settling his feet in the
stirrups when he saw a little figure appear close beside him. It was
Victorina, with her hands full of lumps of sugar, which she offered
the nag. The animal eagerly pushed out its under lip, which moved
with the intelligent undulations of an elephant's trunk.
Segundo interposed:
"Child, he will bite you; he bites."
Then he added gayly:
"Do you want me to lift you up here? You don't? I wager I can
lift you!"
He lifted her up and seated her on the saddle-cloth, before him.
She struggled to free herself and in her struggles her beautiful hair
fell over the face and shoulders of Segundo, who was holding her
tightly around the waist. He observed with some surprise that the
girl's heart was beating tumultuously. Turning very pale Victorina
cried:
"Mamma, mamma!"
At last she succeeded in releasing herself and ran toward Nieves,
who was laughing merrily at the incident. Half-way she stopped,
retraced her steps, threw her arms around the horse's neck and
pressed on his nose a warm kiss.