LOCAL POLITICS
Senor Anselmo, the conductor of the band of Sarrio, came to tell the
President of the Academy that the mayor threatened to stop the orchestra
supplies if it attended St. Anthony's fair that afternoon.
"How is that?" asked Don Mateo, raising himself up in bed, where he
still was, and stretching out his hand for his spectacles on a little
table by his side. "Stop supplies! Why should he stop the supplies?"
"I don't know. Prospero has just sent to tell me so."
"What has the band's going to St. Anthony's fair to do with him?" he
returned in a tone of irritation.
"I think it is because a gentleman is arriving to-day at Don Rosendo's,
and as the fair will block the road--"
"Ah, yes, the Duke of Tornos; but what has that to do with it? Come,
they are mad--Look here, leave me an instant. I am going to dress, and
then I will go and see Maza. I dare say we shall be able to arrange
matters. Leave me."
Senor Anselmo left the room, and quicker than could have been expected
from his years and infirmities, Don Mateo appeared, ready to go out. His
wife and his daughter were, as usual, at church. He asked for some
breakfast.
"I can not give it to you, sir. The senora has the keys, and there is no
chocolate out."
"Always the same!" grumbled the old man, not so vexed as he ought to
have been. "I don't know why she can't leave out what is necessary. It
is true that I generally get up late, but there may be cases of
important business, like to-day."
"Shall I go and ask for an ounce of chocolate from a neighbor?"
"No, there is no need. I am sure Matilda would be vexed. Is there
nothing to eat handy?"
The servant did not answer for some seconds.
"No, senor; there is nothing. You know that the senora----"
"Yes, yes, I know."
Don Mateo went to the sideboard and began pulling open the drawers.
Nothing--there was nothing but the table utensils: spoons, forks,
corkscrew, etc.; but some chocolate drops and a plate of biscuits could
be seen through the glass cupboard door.
"Caramba! if there were only a key," and drawing out his own bunch he
proceeded to try the lock with each key on the ring, but his efforts
were fruitless. At last in despair he readjusted his spectacles, put on
his hat, and was starting off on his expedition, saying:
"Well, well, we will fast to-day."
But before arriving at the door he turned round and said abruptly to the
maid:
"Is there any bread about?"
"The baker has not come yet, but you can have some of mine," returned
the girl, smiling.
"All right; let me see this bread of yours."
So they repaired to the kitchen, and the servant lifting the lid from
the bread-pan, Don Mateo took out a moderate-sized piece of almost black
rye bread.
"All right; I don't object to your black bread," he said, cutting
himself a piece. "Health to the darkies," he then added, with a
jocoseness he had not ventured to display for years, as he swallowed a
mouthful. The servant smiled, astonished at his good humor.
"It has more flavor than ours. If it were not quite so hard!"
He then brushed away the crumbs with his hand, readjusted his
spectacles, and after taking a draft of water--for the wine was also
locked up--he sallied forth in the direction of the Town Hall. The clock
of the building was striking ten. He passed through the great portico,
mounted the wide, stone staircase, and arriving at the corridor, where
the dust was more than an inch thick, he asked Marcones, who came
forward, for Don Gabino.
"The mayor is sitting."
"Sitting! The deuce he is! At this hour?"
It was, in fact, a rare occurrence. Two years had elapsed since the
death of Don Roque, and those of the Club who then took office at the
Town Hall with Don Rufo as mayor for more than a year and a half were
now reaping the consequences of subsequent defeat. They were still in
the majority in the municipal corporation, but the Cabin party finally
worked so effectually in Madrid that Gabino Maza was elected mayor. It
was said that this was due to the hateful treachery of Rojas Salcedo,
who, noting at the previous municipal elections that the power of the
Cabin party was on the increase, now went over to that side. Thus the
storm of hatred and abuse passed upon him by the supporters of Don
Belinchon was indescribable.
A fierce struggle ensued. Each sitting of the Town Council was a
disgrace. The Maza party sued the ex-corporation for the depreciation of
the funds, demanding reimbursement of the same.
The members of the Belinchon party were quite sure that justice would be
accorded them in the Audience Chamber, but on the principle that God
helps those who help themselves they brought all possible influence to
bear in their favor, and letters went to and from Madrid. The Cabin
party was not, however, remiss in opposition on its side, and Maza made
his opponents feel the force of his rod of power. As Don Rosendo's
majority consisted only of two votes, Gabino spared no pains to rob him
of them. Sometimes he convoked a special meeting when it was impossible
for any one of them to come; at other times he sent false notices to
certain councilors, saying that the session was postponed; at other
times, when a measure was to be put to the vote, he, by common consent
with his friends, made it in such an ambiguous way that it confounded
Don Rosendo's supporters, and as it happened on more than one occasion,
they voted against themselves. Moreover, he once had some councilors
locked in the office and took away the key. After the dignitaries of the
corporation were weary of calling out and hammering at the door, an
official came and opened it, but the voting had taken place without
them.
Thanks to these and other tactics, and countless acts of arbitrariness,
the choleric ex-naval officer achieved his great object of avenging
himself on his enemies. His strategy was chiefly exhibited in attacks
where it hurt the most; that is to say, on their house property. If any
member of the Club owned one or more houses in a street in which no
friend of his own had any property, he ordered the architect of the
corporation to level the road and make it lower, by which course the
foundations of the houses were laid bare and the buildings were in
danger of falling to the ground, to say nothing of the inconvenience of
having to put ladders for ingress. Thus during the few months of his
mayoralty there were more than twenty houses in Sarrio with the
foundations exposed, and at other times he had the roads raised so that
the houses were flooded when it rained.
Such freaks naturally excited a great commotion among Don Belinchon's
partizans. Rabid diatribes appeared in "The Light," and incessant scenes
took place at the municipal sessions. But Maza took it all quite
quietly, and calmly pursued his urban reforms, receiving meanwhile the
complaints of his victims with a cruel smile, and giving fierce,
sarcastic replies to the speeches of the opposite party.
Marcones took Don Mateo into a room adjoining the sessional chamber. The
people's gallery was too small to admit more than one decent-sized
person; and, moreover, the disputes of those fighting cocks were of
little interest to outsiders. The two notaries of the place were in
friendly converse in the same room, Don Victor Varela and Sanjurjo; the
first was a little old man, with prominent eyes and such a coarsely made
wig that it looked like straw, and the other was a man of middle age
with a grayish mustache, afflicted with lameness from his birth. They
greeted our old man like a great friend, and after the manner of people
who see each other every day. Indeed, there was nobody in the town who
could help greeting Don Mateo.
"You are waiting for the meeting to be over, eh?"
"Yes, senor," returned one of the two men, in so abrupt and cold a tone
that the old gentleman felt no desire to pursue the subject further.
He sought for another topic, and hit upon sport as one more congenial to
the tastes of the depositaries of public trust. Both were ardent
sportsmen after quails, woodcock, etc., but their love of coursing was
extreme. Directly any leisure time was at their disposal the swift,
innocent animals were subjected to a fearful martyrdom at the hands of
these notaries of the corporation, actively seconded by half a dozen
greyhounds, kept half starved to quicken their pace.
To talk of hares was next door to heaven to Don Victor; as for Sanjurjo,
to stand up to his waist in brambles and to start one was heaven itself.
"What a pity to lose such a day!" exclaimed Don Victor with a sigh as he
looked through the window covered with dust.
"True," returned Sanjurjo with another sigh, "but I dare say the ground
at Maribona is rather soft; there has been a good deal of rain the last
few days."
"What does that matter?" said Don Mateo. "Now in this summer weather it
soon gets dry, as the ground so readily absorbs the damp."
The lawyers looked at each other in dismay.
"Pepe la Esquila told me," he continued, "that the peasant folk have
seen hares jumping about in Ladreda."
"Yes, we know," said Sanjurjo. "If it were not for some trifle to-day we
should have gone off there," and he gave a sign of intelligence to Don
Victor.
"Well, Pepe is going this morning with Fermo; I heard so yesterday
evening."
The notaries looked at each other in alarm.
"What did I tell you, Sanjurjo?" exclaimed Don Victor.
"Well, I must confess the rogue has taken me in. Never mind, there will
be some left. We will go to-morrow, you and I, Don Victor."
But the news had saddened them, and they preserved an obstinate silence.
Excited voices and loud noises were audible in the chamber, while the
sharp ting of the president's bell was constantly heard calling to
order.
Don Mateo, feeling quite depressed at his inability to sustain the
conversation, made another attempt with Sanjurjo.
"Well, man, I should not have thought you would have cared for sport
with your lame leg."
"What, how? What are you thinking of? He runs like a greyhound,"
exclaimed Don Victor, with affectionate enthusiasm. "Directly he is on
the track of a hare he ceases to be lame. And I say that he invented his
lameness to excite pity. He is no more lame than you or I."
"If you could only make me well," returned Sanjurjo, smiling resignedly.
The joke put them all in good spirits. Don Victor recounted the feats of
his friend on various occasions:
"One day he went on all fours so as to run better. That was a sight."
"What," queried Don Mateo in astonishment, "on all fours?"
"Yes, it is a fact," returned Sanjurjo, laughing, and adding that he had
learned to run like that as a child, when his lameness was more
pronounced, and prevented him being a match for his playfellows. Then
he, on his side, spoke of Don Victor as a lazy fellow, who would scan
every blade of grass to avoid taking an unnecessary step, whereupon Don
Victor joined in the laugh against himself, saying that hares were not
only started with the legs, but with the eyes as well.
"How many times has your obstinacy ended in failure? Do you recollect
that St. Peter's Day three years ago, when you left me alone near
Arceanes? Who started the hare then--you, who went off like the wind,
or I, who remained quietly behind?"
The conversation now became more and more animated, to the great delight
of Don Mateo, who could never bear to see any one look bored in his
presence. When their cheerful talk made them oblivious to the shouts and
ringing of the bell going on in the other room, the door was thrown
open, and the majestic figure of Don Belinchon appeared in a state of
excitement difficult to describe. His hair was disordered, some locks
hanging about his face damp with sweat, his cheeks were aflame, his eyes
glassy, and the bow of his cravat was undone.
"Sanjurjo, Sanjurjo, come here!" he said in a strange voice, without
greeting or even seeing Don Mateo. The notary rose quietly from his
seat, and entered the large room with him. Don Victor made no allusion
to the sudden exit, but continued quietly talking on the same subject
with Don Mateo, who did not dare to ask any questions. At the end of
some time Sanjurjo reappeared, shut the door behind him, took his seat
again, and continued his interrupted conversation.
But not many minutes elapsed before the door was again roughly opened,
and the short, stout form of Don Pedro Miranda appeared in the same
state of excitement as that of the former arrival.
"Don Victor, Don Victor, come here!"
He also neither greeted nor saw Don Mateo.
The notary quietly rose from his seat and followed him.
"What the devil does this mean?" asked Don Mateo of Sanjurjo when the
door was closed.
The only reply was a scornful shrug of the shoulders.
"What foolery!" grumbled Don Mateo. "Belinchon and Miranda never used to
get so excited about these affairs of the corporation, and want to be
mayor!"
Things had indeed changed. The violent party feeling that both sides
brought to bear in every province was in fuller force in the municipal
corporation than anywhere. Maza's tyranny had so infuriated Don
Rosendo's friends that they spared no means to contravene it. They
wished at all costs to bring an action against him for his abuse of
authority. To this end Belinchon had secured the services of the lawyer
Sanjurjo, who constantly attended him at the sittings, and drew up
statements and statements of the arbitrary conduct of the mayor, all of
which were sent to the courts of justice, but there they were blocked,
thanks to the ill-will of the judge.
Then the Cabin party employed the other lawyer, who also drew up
documents complaining of the insubordination of the majority, and of its
carrying resolutions on subjects of which it knew nothing. When the
sitting was over Mateo was taken into the mayor's room. He was found
sipping a refreshing concoction which was considered good for the bile,
but his system was greatly tried by his daily resort to this remedy for
his disorder. He was in an excited, agitated state, for the sardonic
smile and scornful calm adopted at the sittings were merely assumed,
while his very vitals were consumed with rage, which seemed to turn his
blood to gall. What trouble it cost him to repress those wild, blind
outbursts of passion which assailed him at every step!
Two of his friends were discussing the meeting, while he, silent and
livid, with dark circles under his eyes, stirred his concoction with a
spoon. Don Mateo, as one of the very few persons who remained neutral in
Sarrio, was received with frankness and affability.
"Take a seat, Don Mateo. What good news brings you here?"
The old man replied that he came to know if the report were true that
the band would be put down if it attended the St. Anthony fair that
afternoon. The face of Maza darkened. It was quite true that it could no
longer count upon any support from the corporation if the instruments
were taken out that afternoon from the Academy. Don Mateo asked:
"But why?"
After grinding his teeth as a preface to his remark, Maza replied that
he did not wish to celebrate the arrival of a person who was coming that
afternoon on a visit to Belinchon, for, he added: "Don Quixote would be
quite capable of thinking that the band had attended in honor of his
guest."
"But, Gabino, as it has attended every year, nobody could think any such
thing. You must bear in mind that this is the chief fair of the town,
and that it will be very sad for the young people not to have a little
dancing and amusement just then."
"They must do without it to-day. I am very sorry. If the band likes to
go it can go, but it knows what it has to expect."
It was impossible to turn him from his decision. At first Don Mateo used
persuasion, and then he grew angry, and with the privilege of his years
and his unfailing good intentions, which nobody in the town could doubt,
he told Maza and his two councilors present a few home truths, which
neither they nor the choleric mayor could deny.
"Perhaps you are right, Don Mateo; but what am I to do? A feud is a
feud. Our self-respect is at stake. If we don't keep these rascals down
they will have us down."
The old man left the consistorial building more sad than angry. The
vexations and worries he had suffered of the kind during the last three
years were innumerable. He could count on nobody to second him in any
plan for festivities. In vain did he exert himself to get any operatic
or dramatic company for the theatre; it soon fell to the ground, for if
the Club element prevailed the Cabin party withdrew, and _vice versa_.
And as a general gathering is necessary for a theatrical performance,
the actors went off half dead with hunger.
When Don Mateo went about begging for subscriptions, the first thing
asked was:
"Has So-and-so subscribed, and So-and-so, and So-and-so?" And if he
answered in the affirmative, the reply would be:
"Then do not count upon us."
Our good friend tried at last to win them over by diplomacy, but the
implacable townsfolk were too sharp for him, and they would not let him
escape telling them who were going. And if this was so with regard to
the theatre, it was much worse in the case of any artists pitching their
tents in the town.
There was a famous violinist, a man who played admirably on an
instrument of wood and straw; four bell-ringers, brothers; a Moor, who
exhibited two wise cows; an English scientist with a microscope; a
celebrated Chinese giant, and a sea-calf that said "papa," "mama," etc.
Don Mateo had patronized them all, but his canvassing campaigns on their
behalf did not prove successful. All the curiosities, Spanish as well as
foreign, knew by report our retired colonel, and directly they set foot
in Sarrio they went to call at his house. He went with them to see the
mayor, introduced them at the Club, recommended them to the owner of the
storehouse where they thought of exhibiting, and he nearly always headed
the subscription to pay their journey, and not one of them left the town
in former days without being pleased and satisfied; but now they all
said their receipts did not pay for the flagstaffs.
Don Mateo's right hand in all these festivities was Severino, of the
ironmongery shop. Nobody in the province could equal him in the
manufacture of beautiful, elegant, well-arranged decorations, nor in the
difficult art of putting up green arches with lamps for the night, nor
in his power of sending off rockets swiftly and perpendicularly. Well,
this ingenious fellow, who had so delighted the town with his various
inventions, had now been idle for some time.
"Severino, we must think of arranging something for the eve of St.
Anthony."
"What, Don Mateo, what?" returned the shop-keeper in a depressed tone.
"An illumination of two hundred lamps, an orb, and a few rockets."
"Do you wish us to pay the expense, as we did at the festival of Santa
Engracia?"
"Perhaps the West Indians will pay this time," muttered Don Mateo.
"No; don't be so simple; you seem to forget what they are. Pay, indeed!
Precious little will they pay!"
Everybody was rather unjust to the West Indians. They simply maintained
a strict neutrality, and wondered that worthy men like Belinchon,
Miranda, and others should excite themselves so much about things
outside their respective occupations and businesses. That handful of
calm people in the midst of the fierce contest which waged continually
would have been like the chorus of Greek tragedies if only they had not
been wanting in any exhibition of either joy or sorrow to either the
successes or the reverses of the actors in question. The West Indians of
Sarrio were utterly apathetic, dulled by their idle, monotonous life, in
which the recollections of their quondam hard work and trials in Cuba
sometimes filled them with horror, and added to their sense of comfort
at their present circumstances. What did they care for the resolutions
carried by the corporation, the attacks made in "The Light" and "The
Youth of Sarrio," or the schisms with which the town was continually
rent! While they were left quiet to take a turn in the morning on the
Mole (and there was no fear of that being disturbed), to play billiards
or _tresillo_ after dinner, and to take those famous walks in parties in
the picturesque suburbs, they did not care for anything. So little
interest did they take that they hardly ever mentioned the episodes of
the feud when they were together. The only thing that could disturb them
was the telegraphic notification of the rise and fall of the public
funds in which their capital was placed.
Otherwise they were model citizens, they gave no offense to anybody, and
they only enjoyed what they had worked hard for with their hands. They
did not give money to entertainments and performances. But this was not
a grave offense, for they saw no necessity for such festivities. What in
the world did people want more than to live in a pleasant climate and
quietly to eat, work, and sleep the hours away? Besides, they had
conferred a benefit on the town by conducting to the altar a number of
ladies between the years of twenty-five and thirty, who without this
unexpected deliverance would have been left to wither away on the stalk.
Now they were almost all stout, quiet matrons, mothers of happy
families, and managers of well-ordered houses.
These West Indians were the only people who escaped the incessant
attacks of the press, for whatever antipathy was nourished by both
parties against them, they did not dare make any public allusion to
them, as they had no ground for doing so. They therefore had to content
themselves with grumbling and calling them money-laden asses behind
their backs.
Thus in the course of three years Sarrio attained the height of
perfection that had been the dream of Don Rosendo; that is to say, there
was no longer any private life. The deeds of the townsfolk, were they of
the most private or the most insignificant character, came to light in
the press, and were the subject of censure, comment, and ridicule.
Nobody was safe, even in the sanctuary of his home. If rather ugly words
passed between a man and his wife, if he chastised his children with
more or less severity, if he were short of money, if he were at all
dissipated, if he dropped the c's in the middle of words and said _reto_
and _pato_ instead of _recto_ (straight) and _pacto_ (agreement), if he
ate with his fingers or snored loudly: all these interesting details
were recorded for the benefit of the public in "The Light" and "The
Youth of Sarrio," sometimes directly, and other times by means of the
famous Oriental stories already mentioned.
From the municipal chamber Don Mateo repaired to the Academy, where
Senor Anselmo was waiting for him, and it was with great tact that he
told him that the band was not to go out that afternoon.
By dint of negotiations and diplomacy he had so far managed to keep it
going as well as the Lyceum, although no theatrical performances were
now given there, neither was there any dancing, excepting on particular
days, such as those of Candlemas, Carnival, and Santa Engracia; but by
force of tact and energy Don Mateo had succeeded in making the majority
of the members continue their monthly subscription of two pesetas. All
the other places of recreation in which the town had been so rich had
disappeared. The cause of all the excitement at the present time was the
arrival of the Duke of Tornos.