det for goot, and perried too! Somedimes dose dings cooms oudt apout
right, don't id?”
Unvanquished philosopher! As we stood there looking at the flying
landscape and sinking lesser hills, one by one the great snow peaks
slowly arose behind them, lifting themselves, as if to take a last
wondering look at the man they had triumphed over, but had not subdued.
THE PASSING OF ENRIQUEZ
When Enriquez Saltillo ran away with Miss Mannersley, as already
recorded in these chronicles,* her relatives and friends found it much
easier to forgive that ill-assorted union than to understand it. For,
after all, Enriquez was the scion of an old Spanish-Californian family,
and in due time would have his share of his father's three square
leagues, whatever incongruity there was between his lively Latin
extravagance and Miss Mannersley's Puritan precision and intellectual
superiority. They had gone to Mexico; Mrs. Saltillo, as was known,
having an interest in Aztec antiquities, and he being utterly submissive
to her wishes. For myself from my knowledge of Enriquez's nature, I had
grave doubts of his entire subjugation, although I knew the prevailing
opinion was that Mrs. Saltillo's superiority would speedily tame him.
Since his brief and characteristic note apprising me of his marriage,
I had not heard from him. It was, therefore, with some surprise, a good
deal of reminiscent affection, and a slight twinge of reproach that, two
years after, I looked up from some proofs, in the sanctum of the “Daily
Excelsior,” to recognize his handwriting on a note that was handed to me
by a yellow Mexican boy.
* See “The Devotion of Enriquez,” in Selected Stories by
Bret Harte Gutenberg #1312.
A single glance at its contents showed me that Mrs. Saltillo's
correct Bostonian speech had not yet subdued Enriquez's peculiar
Spanish-American slang:--
“Here we are again,--right side up with care,--at 1110 Dupont Street,
Telegraph Hill. Second floor from top. 'Ring and push.' 'No book agents
need apply.' How's your royal nibs? I kiss your hand! Come at six,--the
band shall play at seven,--and regard your friend 'Mees Boston,' who
will tell you about the little old nigger boys, and your old Uncle
'Ennery.”
Two things struck me: Enriquez had not changed; Mrs. Saltillo had
certainly yielded up some of her peculiar prejudices. For the address
given, far from being a fashionable district, was known as the “Spanish
quarter,” which, while it still held some old Spanish families, was
chiefly given over to half-castes and obscurer foreigners. Even poverty
could not have driven Mrs. Saltillo to such a refuge against her will;
nevertheless, a good deal of concern for Enriquez's fortune mingled with
my curiosity, as I impatiently waited for six o'clock to satisfy it.
It was a breezy climb to 1110 Dupont Street; and although the street
had been graded, the houses retained their airy elevation, and were
accessible only by successive flights of wooden steps to the front door,
which still gave perilously upon the street, sixty feet below. I now
painfully appreciated Enriquez's adaptation of the time-honored joke
about the second floor. An invincible smell of garlic almost took my
remaining breath away as the door was opened to me by a swarthy Mexican
woman, whose loose camisa seemed to be slipping from her unstable bust,
and was held on only by the mantua-like shawl which supplemented it,
gripped by one brown hand. Dizzy from my ascent to that narrow perch,
which looked upon nothing but the distant bay and shores of Contra
Costa, I felt as apologetic as if I had landed from a balloon; but the
woman greeted me with a languid Spanish smile and a lazy display of
white teeth, as if my arrival was quite natural. Don Enriquez, “of a
fact,” was not himself in the casa, but was expected “on the instant.”
“Donna Urania” was at home.
“Donna Urania”? For an instant I had forgotten that Mrs. Saltillo's
first name was Urania, so pleasantly and spontaneously did it fall
from the Spanish lips. Nor was I displeased at this chance of learning
something of Don Enriquez's fortunes and the Saltillo menage before
confronting my old friend. The servant preceded me to the next floor,
and, opening a door, ushered me into the lady's presence.
I had carried with me, on that upward climb, a lively recollection of
Miss Mannersley as I had known her two years before. I remembered her
upright, almost stiff, slight figure, the graceful precision of her
poses, the faultless symmetry and taste of her dress, and the atmosphere
of a fastidious and wholesome cleanliness which exhaled from her. In the
lady I saw before me, half reclining in a rocking-chair, there was
none of the stiffness and nicety. Habited in a loose gown of some easy,
flexible, but rich material, worn with that peculiarly indolent
slouch of the Mexican woman, Mrs. Saltillo had parted with half her
individuality. Even her arched feet and thin ankles, the close-fitting
boots or small slippers of which were wont to accent their delicacy,
were now lost in a short, low-quartered kid shoe of the Spanish type,
in which they moved loosely. Her hair, which she had always worn with a
certain Greek simplicity, was parted at one side. Yet her face, with
its regularity of feature, and small, thin, red-lipped mouth, was quite
unchanged; and her velvety brown eyes were as beautiful and inscrutable
as ever.
With the same glance I had taken in her surroundings, quite as
incongruous to her former habits. The furniture, though of old and heavy
mahogany, had suffered from careless alien hands, and was interspersed
with modern and unmatchable makeshifts, yet preserving the distinctly
scant and formal attitude of furnished lodgings. It was certainly
unlike the artistic trifles and delicate refinements of her uncle's
drawing-room, which we all knew her taste had dictated and ruled. The
black and white engravings, the outlined heads of Minerva and Diana,
were excluded from the walls for two cheap colored Catholic prints,--a
soulless Virgin, and the mystery of the Bleeding Heart. Against the
wall, in one corner, hung the only object which seemed a memento of
their travels,--a singular-looking upright Indian “papoose-case” or
cradle, glaringly decorated with beads and paint, probably an Aztec
relic. On a round table, the velvet cover of which showed marks of usage
and abusage, there were scattered books and writing materials; and my
editorial instinct suddenly recognized, with a thrill of apprehension,
the loose leaves of an undoubted manuscript. This circumstance, taken
with the fact of Donna Urania's hair being parted on one side, and the
general negligee of her appearance, was a disturbing revelation.
My wandering eye apparently struck her, for after the first greeting she
pointed to the manuscript with a smile.
“Yes; that is THE manuscript. I suppose Enriquez told you all about it?
He said he had written.”
I was dumfounded. I certainly had not understood ALL of Enriquez's
slang; it was always so decidedly his own, and peculiar. Yet I could not
recall any allusion to this.
“He told me something of it, but very vaguely,” I ventured to say
deprecatingly; “but I am afraid that I thought more of seeing my old
friend again than of anything else.”
“During our stay in Mexico,” continued Mrs. Saltillo, with something of
her old precision, “I made some researches into Aztec history, a subject
always deeply interesting to me, and I thought I would utilize the
result by throwing it on paper. Of course it is better fitted for a
volume of reference than for a newspaper, but Enriquez thought you might
want to use it for your journal.”
I knew that Enriquez had no taste for literature, and had even rather
depreciated it in the old days, with his usual extravagance; but I
managed to say very pleasantly that I was delighted with his suggestion
and should be glad to read the manuscript. After all, it was not
improbable that Mrs. Saltillo, who was educated and intelligent, should
write well, if not popularly. “Then Enriquez does not begrudge you the
time that your work takes from him,” I added laughingly. “You seem to
have occupied your honeymoon practically.”
“We quite comprehend our respective duties,” said Mrs. Saltillo dryly;
“and have from the first. We have our own lives to live, independent
of my uncle and Enriquez's father. We have not only accepted the
responsibility of our own actions, but we both feel the higher
privilege of creating our own conditions without extraneous aid from our
relatives.”
It struck me that this somewhat exalted statement was decidedly a pose,
or a return of Urania Mannersley's old ironical style. I looked quietly
into her brown, near-sighted eyes; but, as once before, my glance seemed
to slip from their moist surface without penetrating the inner thought
beneath. “And what does Enriquez do for HIS part?” I asked smilingly.
I fully expected to hear that the energetic Enriquez was utilizing
his peculiar tastes and experiences by horse-breaking, stock-raising,
professional bull-fighting, or even horse-racing, but was quite
astonished when she answered quietly:--
“Enriquez is giving himself up to geology and practical metallurgy, with
a view to scientific, purely scientific, mining.”
Enriquez and geology! In that instant all I could remember of it were
his gibes at the “geologian,” as he was wont to term Professor Dobbs,
a former admirer of Miss Mannersley's. To add to my confusion Mrs.
Saltillo at the same moment absolutely voiced my thought.
“You may remember Professor Dobbs,” she went on calmly, “one of the most
eminent scientists over here, and a very old Boston friend. He has
taken Enriquez in hand. His progress is most satisfactory; we have the
greatest hopes of him.”
“And how soon do you both hope to have some practical results of his
study?” I could not help asking a little mischievously; for I somehow
resented the plural pronoun in her last sentence.
“Very soon,” said Mrs. Saltillo, ignoring everything but the question.
“You know Enriquez's sanguine temperament. Perhaps he is already given
to evolving theories without a sufficient basis of fact. Still, he has
the daring of a discoverer. His ideas of the oolitic formation are not
without originality, and Professor Dobbs says that in his conception of
the Silurian beach there are gleams that are distinctly precious.”
I looked at Mrs. Saltillo, who had reinforced her eyes with her old
piquant pince-nez, but could detect no irony in them. She was prettily
imperturbable, that was all. There was an awkward silence. Then it was
broken by a bounding step on the stairs, a wide-open fling of the door,
and Enriquez pirouetted into the room: Enriquez, as of old, unchanged
from the crown of his smooth, coal-black hair to the tips of his small,
narrow Arabian feet; Enriquez, with his thin, curling mustache, his
dancing eyes set in his immovable face, just as I had always known him!
He affected to lapse against the door for a minute, as if staggered by a
resplendent vision. Then he said:--
“What do I regard? Is it a dream, or have I again got them--thees
jimjams? My best friend and my best--I mean my ONLY--wife! Embrace me!”
He gave me an enthusiastic embrace and a wink like sheet-lightning,
passed quickly to his wife, before whom he dropped on one knee, raised
the toe of her slipper to his lips, and then sank on the sofa in
simulated collapse, murmuring, “Thees is too mooch of white stone for
one day!”
Through all this I saw his wife regarding him with exactly the same
critically amused expression with which she had looked upon him in the
days of their strange courtship. She evidently had not tired of his
extravagance, and yet I feel as puzzled by her manner as then. She rose
and said: “I suppose you have a good deal to say to each other, and I
will leave you by yourselves.” Turning to her husband, she added, “I
have already spoken about the Aztec manuscript.”
The word brought Enriquez to his feet again. “Ah! The little old
nigger--you have read?” I began to understand. “My wife, my best
friend, and the little old nigger, all in one day. Eet is perfect!”
Nevertheless, in spite of this ecstatic and overpowering combination,
he hurried to take his wife's hand; kissing it, he led her to a door
opening into another room, made her a low bow to the ground as she
passed out, and then rejoined me.
“So these are the little old niggers you spoke of in your note,” I said,
pointing to the manuscript. “Deuce take me if I understood you!”
“Ah, my leetle brother, it is YOU who have changed!” said Enriquez
dolorously. “Is it that you no more understand American, or have the
'big head' of the editor? Regard me! Of these Aztecs my wife have made
study. She have pursued the little nigger to his cave, his grotto, where
he is dead a thousand year. I have myself assist, though I like it not,
because thees mummy, look you, Pancho, is not lively. And the mummy who
is not dead, believe me! even the young lady mummy, you shall not take
to your heart. But my wife”--he stopped, and kissed his hand toward the
door whence she had flitted--“ah, SHE is wonderful! She has made the
story of them, the peecture of them, from the life and on the instant!
You shall take them, my leetle brother, for your journal; you shall
announce in the big letter: 'Mooch Importance. The Aztec, He is Found.'
'How He Look and Lif.' 'The Everlasting Nigger.' You shall sell many
paper, and Urania shall have scoop in much spondulics and rocks.
Hoop-la! For--you comprehend?--my wife and I have settled that she shall
forgif her oncle; I shall forgif my father; but from them we take no
cent, not a red, not a scad! We are independent! Of ourselves we make a
Fourth of July. United we stand; divided we shall fall over! There you
are! Bueno!”
It was impossible to resist his wild, yet perfectly sincere,
extravagance, his dancing black eyes and occasional flash of white teeth
in his otherwise immovable and serious countenance. Nevertheless, I
managed to say:--
“But how about yourself, Enriquez, and this geology, you know?”
His eyes twinkled. “Ah, you shall hear. But first you shall take a
drink. I have the very old Bourbon. He is not so old as the Aztec, but,
believe me, he is very much liflier. Attend! Hol' on!” He was already
rummaging on a shelf, but apparently without success; then he explored
a buffet, with no better results, and finally attacked a large drawer,
throwing out on the floor, with his old impetuosity, a number of
geological specimens, carefully labeled. I picked up one that had rolled
near me. It was labeled “Conglomerate sandstone.” I picked up another:
it had the same label.
“Then you are really collecting?” I said, with astonishment.
“Ciertamente,” responded Enriquez,--“what other fool shall I look? I
shall relate of this geology when I shall have found this beast of a
bottle. Ah, here he have hide!” He extracted from a drawer a bottle
nearly full of spirits,--tippling was not one of Enriquez's vices. “You
shall say 'when.' 'Ere's to our noble selfs!”
When he had drunk, I picked up another fragment of his collection. It
had the same label. “You are very rich in 'conglomerate sandstone,'” I
said. “Where do you find it?”
“In the street,” said Enriquez, with great calmness.
“In the street?” I echoed.
“Yes, my friend! He ees call the 'cobblestone,' also the
'pouding-stone,' when he ees at his home in the country. He ees also
a small 'boulder.' I pick him up; I crack him; he made three separate
piece of conglomerate sandstone. I bring him home to my wife in my
pocket. She rejoice; we are happy. When comes the efening, I sit down
and make him a label; while my wife, she sit down and write of the
Aztec. Ah, my friend, you shall say of the geology it ees a fine, a
BEAUTIFUL study; but the study of the wife, and what shall please her,
believe me, ees much finer! Believe your old Uncle 'Ennery every time!
On thees question he gets there; he gets left, nevarre!”
“But Professor Dobbs, your geologian, what does HE say to this frequent
recurrence of the conglomerate sandstone period in your study?” I asked
quickly.
“He say nothing. You comprehend? He ees a profound geologian, but he
also has the admiration excessif for my wife Urania.” He stopped to kiss
his hand again toward the door, and lighted a cigarette. “The geologian
would not that he should break up the happy efening of his friends
by thees small detail. He put aside his head--so; he say, 'A leetle
freestone, a leetle granite, now and then, for variety; they are
building in Montgomery Street.' I take the hint, like a wink to the
horse that has gone blind. I attach to myself part of the edifice that
is erecting himself in Montgomery Street. I crack him; I bring him
home. I sit again at the feet of my beautiful Urania, and I label him
'Freestone,' 'Granite;' but I do not say 'from Parrott's Bank'--eet is
not necessary for our happiness.”
“And you do this sort of thing only because you think it pleases your
wife?” I asked bluntly.
“My friend,” rejoined Enriquez, perching himself on the back of the
sofa, and caressing his knees as he puffed his cigarette meditatively,
“you have ask a conundrum. Gif to me an easier one! It is of truth that
I make much of these thing to please Urania. But I shall confess all.
Behold, I appear to you, my leetle brother, in my camisa--my shirt! I
blow on myself; I gif myself away.”
He rose gravely from the sofa, and drew a small box from one of the
drawers of the wardrobe. Opening it, he discovered several specimens of
gold-bearing quartz, and one or two scales of gold. “Thees,” he said,
“friend Pancho, is my own geology; for thees I am what you see. But I
say nothing to Urania; for she have much disgust of mere gold,--of what
she calls 'vulgar mining,'--and believe me, a fear of the effect of
'speculation' upon my temperamento--you comprehend my complexion, my
brother? Reflect upon it, Pancho! I, who am the filosofo, if that I am
anything!” He looked at me with great levity of eye and supernatural
gravity of demeanor. “But eet ees the jealous affection of the wife,
my friend, for which I make play to her with the humble leetle
pouding-stone rather than the gold quartz that affrights.”
“But what do you want with them, if you have no shares in anything and
do not speculate?” I asked.
“Pardon! That ees where you slip up, my leetle friend.” He took from the
same drawer a clasped portfolio, and unlocked it, producing half a dozen
prospectuses and certificates of mining shares. I stood aghast as I
recognized the names of one or two extravagant failures of the last ten
years,--“played-out” mines that had been galvanized into deceptive life
in London, Paris, and New York, to the grief of shareholders abroad
and the laughter of the initiated at home. I could scarcely keep my
equanimity. “You do not mean to say that you have any belief or interest
in this rubbish?” I said quickly.
“What you call 'rubbish,' my good Pancho, ees the rubbish that the
American speculator have dump himself upon them in the shaft, the
rubbish of the advertisement, of the extravagant expense, of the salary,
of the assessment, of the 'freeze-out.' For thees, look you, is the old
Mexican mine. My grandfather and hees father have both seen them work
before you were born, and the American knew not there was gold in
California.”
I knew he spoke truly. One or two were original silver mines in the
south, worked by peons and Indian slaves, a rope windlass, and a
venerable donkey.
“But those were silver mines,” I said suspiciously, “and these are gold
specimens.”
“They are from the same mother,” said the imperturbable Enriquez,--“the
same mine. The old peons worked him for SILVER, the precious dollar that
buy everything, that he send in the galleon to the Philippines for
the silk and spice! THAT is good enough for HIM! For the gold he made
nothing, even as my leetle wife Urania. And regard me here! There ees a
proverb of my father's which say that 'it shall take a gold mine to
work a silver mine,' so mooch more he cost. You work him, you are lost!
Naturalmente, if you turn him round, if it take you only a silver mine
to work a gold mine, you are gain. Thees ees logic!”
The intense gravity of his face at this extraordinary deduction upset
my own. But as I was never certain that Enriquez was not purposely
mystifying me, with some ulterior object, I could not help saying a
little wickedly:--
“Yes, I understand all that; but how about this geologian? Will he not
tell your wife? You know he was a great admirer of hers.”
“That shall show the great intelligence of him, my Pancho. He will have
the four S's,' especially the secreto!”
There could be no serious discussion in his present mood. I gathered up
the pages of his wife's manuscript, said lightly that, as she had the
first claim upon my time, I should examine the Aztec material and report
in a day or two. As I knew I had little chance in the hands of these two
incomprehensibles together, I begged him not to call his wife, but
to convey my adieus to her, and, in spite of his embraces and
protestations, I managed to get out of the room. But I had scarcely
reached the front door when I heard Enriquez's voice and his bounding
step on the stairs. In another moment his arm was round my neck.
“You must return on the instant! Mother of God! I haf forget, SHE haf
forget, WE all haf forget! But you have not seen him!”
“Seen whom?”
“El nino, the baby! You comprehend, pig! The criaturica, the leetle
child of ourselfs!”
“The baby?” I said confusedly. “IS there--is there a BABY?”
“You hear him?” said Enriquez, sending an appealing voice upward. “You
hear him, Urania? You comprehend. This beast of a leetle brother demands
if there ees one!”
“I beg your pardon,” I said, hurriedly reascending the stairs. On the
landing I met Mrs. Saltillo, but as calm, composed, and precise as
her husband was extravagant and vehement. “It was an oversight of
Enriquez's,” she said quietly, reentering the room with us; “and was all
the more strange, as the child was in the room with you all the time.”
She pointed to the corner of the wall, where hung what I had believed
to be an old Indian relic. To my consternation, it WAS a bark
“papoose-case,” occupied by a LIVING child, swathed and bandaged after
the approved Indian fashion. It was asleep, I believe, but it opened a
pair of bright huckleberry eyes, set in the smallest of features, that
were like those of a carved ivory idol, and uttered a “coo” at the sound
of its mother's voice. She stood on one side with unruffled composure,
while Enriquez threw himself into an attitude before it, with clasped
hands, as if it had been an image of the Holy Child. For myself, I was
too astounded to speak; luckily, my confusion was attributed to the
inexperience of a bachelor.
“I have adopted,” said Mrs. Saltillo, with the faintest touch of
maternal pride in her manner, “what I am convinced is the only natural
and hygienic mode of treating the human child. It may be said to be
a reversion to the aborigine, but I have yet to learn that it is not
superior to our civilized custom. By these bandages the limbs of the
infant are kept in proper position until they are strong enough to
support the body, and such a thing as malformation is unknown. It is
protected by its cradle, which takes the place of its incubating-shell,
from external injury, the injudicious coddling of nurses, the so-called
'dancings' and pernicious rockings. The supine position, as in the
adult, is imposed only at night. By the aid of this strap it may be
carried on long journeys, either by myself or by Enriquez, who thus
shares with me, as he fully recognizes, its equal responsibility and
burden.”
“It--certainly does not--cry,” I stammered.