IN WHICH SEÑOR SABADÍA ABUSES WORDS AND WINE
Years ago in the Calle de Librerías, in a little corner near the Cuesta
de Luján, there stood a silversmith’s shop, with an awning stretched
over the doorway, a very narrow show-case in which a number of rosaries,
rings, medals, and crosses were displayed, and a miserable
half-obliterated sign with these words: “Salvador’s Shop.” From one end
of this sign, symbolically, hung a pair of pasteboard scales.
Salvador, the proprietor of this silversmith’s shop, was a wealthy
bachelor who had lived with a sister for many years before her death.
At the time of my story, Don Andrés, as the silversmith was called, was
a man of some sixty years, small, clean-shaven, with white hair, rosy
cheeks, clear eyes, and smiling lips. He resembled a silver medal.
With all his sweet, beatific countenance, Don Andrés was at heart, an
egoist. Possessing little intelligence and less courage, life made a
coward of him. He had an idea that things advanced too rapidly, and was,
therefore, an enemy to all innovations. Any change whatever, even if it
were beneficial, disturbed him profoundly.
“We have lived like this so far,” he would say, “and I can see no
necessity for any change.”
Don Andrés Salvador was equally conservative in his business: all he
had was an ability for work that required patience. Rosaries, crosses,
rings, and medals left his house by the gross, but everything
manufactured in his shop was always the same; unchanged, and
unimproved--wrought with the same old-fashioned and decadent taste.
Besides being a conservative, Don Andrés was distrust personified; he
did not want any one to see him at work. At that time, repoussé work was
still something mysterious and secret, and the silversmith, to prevent
any one from surprising his secrets, shut himself up in his own room
when he was about to make something of importance, and there worked
unseen.
One morning when Don Andrés was standing in the doorway of his shop, he
saw a girl running toward him along the Calle de la Feria, pursued by an
old woman.
His instinct as a law-abiding citizen made him go out and stop the girl.
“Let me go, Señor,” she cried.
“No. Is that your mother following you?”
“No, she isn’t my mother,” and the child began to cry disconsolately. In
a broken voice she told him how she had been ill for some time in a hut
on the Calle de la Feria, and how, when she had become well, the
mistress of the house had tried to force her to remain as her ward, and
how she had escaped.
By this time the old woman had come up behind the girl, and as a group
of children began to form around the shop door, the silversmith led the
two women inside.
He asked the old woman if what the girl had said was true, and the
Celestina in her confusion said that it was, but defended herself by
declaring that she had kept the girl because she had not paid for what
she had spent on medicines during her illness, and for dresses,
stockings, and underclothes with which to clothe her.
The silversmith realized that it was a matter of an infamous
exploitation, and whether he was indignant at this, or whether he was
touched by the girl’s appearance, the fact is, he said with more
vehemence than he was accustomed to use:
“I see, Señora Consolación, that you are trying to exploit this child in
an evil way. Leave her alone, for she will return your clothes, and go
back to your house; for if you don’t, I shall warn the authorities, and
you will rest your old bones in jail.”
The old woman, who knew the influence and prestige the silversmith
enjoyed in the district, began once more to complain of the great
prejudice they had against her, but Don Andrés cut her argument short by
saying:
“Either you get out, or I will call the alguacil.”
The Celestina said not another word, but tied her handkerchief about her
neck as if she wished to strangle herself with it, and moved off down
the street, spouting curses as she went.
The girl and the silversmith were left alone in the shop. He followed
the old woman with his eyes as she went screaming along the Calle de la
Feria among the noisy people who came running to their doorways as she
passed. When she was out of sight, he said to the girl:
“You can go now. She’s gone.”
When she heard this, the girl began to sob again.
“For God’s sake, don’t send me away, Señor! For God’s sake!”
“I’m not going to send you away. You may stay a while if you wish.”
“No. Let me stay here always. You are good. I’ll be your servant, and
you won’t have to give me a thing for it.”
“No, no--I cannot,” replied the silversmith.
Then the child knelt on the floor, and with her arms thrown wide apart,
said:
“Señor! Señor! Let me stay!”
“No, no. Get up! Don’t be silly.”
“Then if I kill myself,” she cried as she regained her feet, “it will be
your fault.”
“Not mine.”
“Yes, yours,” and the girl, changing her tone, added, “But you don’t
want me to go. You won’t throw me out; you’ll let me live here; I’ll
serve you, and take care of you; I’ll be your servant, and you needn’t
give me a thing for it; and I will thank you and pray for you.”
“But, what will people say?” murmured Don Andrés, who foresaw a
complication in his life.
“I swear to you by the Carmen Virgin,” she exclaimed, “that I won’t give
them a chance to talk, for nobody shall see me. You’ll let me live here,
won’t you?”
“How can I help it! You stick a dagger into one’s heart. We’ll give it a
try. But let me warn you about one thing: the first time I notice a
failing--even if it is only a man hanging around the house--I’ll throw
you out immediately.”
“No one will hang around.”
“Then I shall give you some old clothes this very minute, and you may
send those to Señora Consolación’s house. Then go to work in the kitchen
immediately.”
And so it was done; and Fuensanta, for the girl was Fuensanta, the
daughter of El Mojoso, entered the house of the silversmith as a
servant, and became, as she had promised, circumspect, submissive,
silent and industrious.
Little by little the silversmith grew fond of her; Don Andrés’ sister
had been a basilisk, a violent and ill-tempered old maid for whose fits
of bad temper he had always suffered. Fuensanta paid the old man
delicate attentions to which he was unaccustomed, and he looked forward
to an old age in an atmosphere of affection and respect.
“See here,” Don Andrés once said to her, “you must not be separated from
your son. Bring the boy here.”
Fuensanta went to Obejo, and returned the following day with the boy. He
was three years old, and a regular savage. Fuensanta, who realized that
such a wild creature would not please such an orderly and meticulous
person as the silversmith, always kept him segregated on the roof, where
the little lad passed the long hours in play.
After she had been in Don Andrés Salvador’s house for three years,
Fuensanta got married.
Among the agents and pedlars who were supplied in the shop, there was a
young man, Rafael by name, whom they nicknamed El Pende.
This Rafael was at that time a gracious, pleasant chap of some
twenty-odd years; he had the reputation of being lazy--firstly because
he came from the Santa Marina district, and secondly because he was the
son of Matapalos, one of the biggest loafers in Cordova.
Matapalos, a distinguished member of the Pende dynasty, was a carpenter,
and such a poor one, so they said, that the only things he could make
were wedges, and even these never came out straight.
El Pende junior, in spite of his reputation as a loafer, used to work.
He took up the business of peddling from town to town; selling necklaces
and rosaries throughout the entire highlands, and buying old gold and
lace wherever he went.
He was a gaudy and elegant lad, who spent nearly everything he earned on
jewels and good clothes.
“I’d rather wear jewels than eat,” he said.
Rafael, or El Pende, as you will, began promptly to pay court to the
girl. She duly checked his advances, but he grew stronger under
punishment, and she, seeing that the man persisted, told him the story
of her misfortune.
El Pende made light of it all. He was very much enamoured, or perhaps he
saw something in the woman that others had missed for, though she had no
money, nor any possibility of inheriting any, he did not give up trying
until he succeeded in persuading her to marry him.
“Now I’ve got to persuade the master,” said Fuensanta, after coming to
an understanding with her sweetheart. “Because, if he opposes us--I
won’t marry you.”
Slowly, insinuatingly, Fuensanta prepared the ground day by day.
Allowing herself to stumble, she suggested the idea of marriage to the
silversmith, until Don Andrés himself advised his servant to marry, and
pointed out to her the advantages she would have should she join herself
to Rafael.
They were married, and lived in an attic next the roof. The silversmith
gladly granted them the attic, for they scared away thieves, and he
liked to have a young man around to look after the house.
Fuensanta continued to serve him as before. El Pende made his trips; he
had made advantageous terms with the silversmith in his commissions, and
he and the old man understood each other admirably.
Fuensanta began to behold a useful collaborator in her husband. He was
intelligent and sagacious; he had a latent ambition which was awakened
with real violence at his marriage.
The child was an obstacle to the peace of the household. Quentin was
stupid, brutal, proud, and meddlesome.
After two years of matrimony, Fuensanta gave birth to a son whom they
called Rafael, after his father. Quentin had no use for the boy, a fact
that caused El Pende to hate his stepson.
Quentin did not go to school, so he knew nothing. He played about the
streets in rags with rowdies and toughs. One day, when El Pende saw him
with some gipsies, he seized him, carried him home, and said to his
mother:
“We’ve got to do something about this child.”
“Yes, we must do something,” she agreed.
“Why don’t you ask the master if he knows of a cheap school?”
Fuensanta spoke to the silversmith, who listened to her attentively.
“Do you know what we’ll do?” said Don Andrés.
“What?”
“We’ll find out who his father’s family are. How long ago was he
killed?”
“Seven years.”
“Good. Then I’ll find out.”
On that same street, on the corner of the Calle de la Espartería, in a
house upon whose chamfer was an iron cross, there lived a retired
captain of militia, Don Matías Echavarría. The silversmith called on
him, related what had happened in the Cross-roads Store, and asked the
captain if he remembered the affair, and if he knew the name of the
protagonist.
“Yes,” said Don Matías, “the boy who ran away and was killed on the Pozo
Blanco road, was the son of the Marquis of Tavera. When the thing
happened, they hushed it up, saying that he had met his death by a fall
from his horse, and no one ever knew anything about it.”
When the silversmith returned to his house, he said nothing to
Fuensanta, but, shut up in his room, he wrote a letter to the old
Marquis, giving him a detailed account of the facts, and telling him
that a grandson of his was living in his modest home.
He had to wait for the answer. At the end of two weeks, Don Andrés
received a message from the Marquis telling him to send Fuensanta to his
house to talk with him, and to bring the boy with her.
Fuensanta made Quentin as presentable as possible, and went with him to
the Marquis’ palace. The old man received her very pleasantly, bade her
tell him her story, caressed the child, and murmured from time to time:
“He’s just like him, just like him....” Then he added, turning to the
mother, “Are you in needy circumstances?”
“Sí, Señor Marqués.”
“Very well; take one hundred dollars for the present. We shall see what
we can do for the boy.”
Fuensanta told her husband what had happened in the Marquis’ house, and
El Pende immediately took possession of the hundred dollars.
The economical chap already had a like amount, and he believed that the
moment had arrived to realize his plans of establishing himself.
Consequently, a little later, he rented a store in the Calle de la
Zapatería.
* * * * *
“What’s the matter with you, Don Gil?” asked Quentin, as he saw the
narrator looking about for something.
“Why, you’re not pouring wine for me.”
“There’s none left.”
“Then call Señora Patrocinio.”
“What will you have, Don Gil? Falernus? Or shall we devote ourselves
this time to the vines of Calais?”
“No, no; Montilla.”
“Can’t we make a change?”
“Mix one wine with another? Never! It’s very dangerous. But are you, or
are you not going to call that old woman? If you do not, I will not go
on with my story.”
“Do go on with it, Don Gil,” said Señora Patrocinio, opening the door
and placing two bottles upon the table. “I was almost asleep out here,
and was amusing myself by listening to what you were saying.”
“Eh!” exclaimed Don Gil, “I must be a great historian if even Sister
Patrocinio listens to my tale. Allow me to wet my throat. Now for it,
ladies and gentlemen, now for it!”