The next morning Strawbridge awoke with a brisk feeling that some
important and happy event was pressing into his life. The sight of his
roll of canvas, packed and ready to go, and the bundle of cassava bread
gave substance to his mood. He felt stronger than he had since his
sickness. No doubt the caresses of the Spanish girl had infused vigor
into his big body. He sat up on the side of his bed, pushed his feet
into alpargatas, and then got up and went flapping into his bath-room.
He got out of his pajamas and walked carefully down the slippery steps
of his marble bath, turned the key in the silver nozzle overhead,
and stood gratefully in the faintly cool shower. It was his first
self-performed ablution since his sickness, and when he had finished he
set about the ticklish experiment of toweling himself with the aid of
his wounded hand. He managed a very light friction without pain, and
this pleased him keenly. His big body was growing softly pinkish again.
He ran his good hand along the slight growth of hair on his chest
and down the curve of his abdomen with the frank narcissism most men
possess and which the thought of marriage enhances.
To-night he and the señora would embark on the most tinglingly romantic
adventure of their lives. At the thought his heart began to beat. She
was only a little way from him at that moment, only a few doors distant.
He went back into his room and began touchy efforts to dress himself.
He did his underclothes well enough, but his socks were troublesome
because his feet were still faintly damp. Suddenly, through some
compulsion, he dropped this task midway, jabbed his feet into
alpargatas again, stood up, and looked out the window. He did not know
what had prompted him. In the gray light he saw the slender figure of a
nun passing from the palace to the cathedral.
The sight filled the drummer with an extraordinary turbulence. He made
a step toward the window and called to her sotto voce. She did not
hear, and he drew an intake of breath on the verge of calling more
loudly, but the caution of lovers silenced him. After all, why should
he call her? He stood watching her, repressing the imperative which
had moved him to attract her attention. He did not even know what he
had meant to say. His excitement calmed him a little, and even amused
him. He pressed his face against the window bars and watched her as far
as he possibly could, until the ornamental evergreen with its tassels
concealed her from his eyes. Then he turned back to his toilet, with a
faint sense of deprivation.
Only then did the drummer think definitely that the señora was going to
early mass and confession. In a few minutes she would enter the little
double stall in the cathedral and would whisper through the aperture,
into the ear of a priest.
The thought brought him a pang, and that, perhaps, was the reason of
his distress at her going. He had instinctively wanted her not to go.
In the confessional Dolores would whisper of their passionate moment
in the music-room; she would lay bare every nook and corner of her
heart. The thought of any other human being knowing what was in her
heart filled him with a vague jealousy. The idea grew into a mysterious
and painful emotion. He could not get rid of it. The priest would
explore the señora's heart more intimately than he. And he saw no end
to such conditions. He could never get as close to Dolores as could
her spiritual adviser. One day, no doubt, she would hold him in her
arms, she would give him all that she was, and yet somewhere within
the woman's soul would remain privacies which he, her wistful and
passionate lover, could never know. Such a reservation filled him with
a kind of despair. He felt that in the holiest places of her soul he
must remain a stranger. The man's self-torture brought sweat to his
face.
He went back to his dressing, but kept glancing through the window,
watching for the girl's return. He recalled that he had set his watch
with the señora's. He got it from under his pillow and looked at
it. The hour was eleven minutes after five. In seventeen hours and
forty-nine minutes he and Dolores would be out on the rapids in the
night. It seemed to him as if everything were waiting for that hour to
come. The whole mechanism of day and night tapered to this event. A
little quiver went through him.
In the east the sun must have cut the horizon, for behind the cathedral
and the prison spread a pale-gold fan. From the top of the prison came
the flash of a cannon dimly picked out, like the flare of a firefly
against the light. Two seconds later came the flat crash as if some
power had delivered a terrific blow and had lapsed instantly into
silence. It advertised the dictator's will over the llanos. The drummer
looked at the prison against the east, with his old feeling of dismay.
The stir and rattle of early morning brushed away this unhappy
impression. Came a tap at his door, and the _griffe_ girl brought in
his coffee. She still wore her air of suppressed but joyous excitement,
and presently volunteered the whispered information that the señora had
not as yet returned from early mass.
"She is usually back by this time." She nodded.
"Wonder what's keeping her," said Strawbridge, as naturally as he could.
"I do wonder," echoed the maid, turning, with her silver urn in her
hand, to look through the window.
The drummer felt an impulse to talk to the girl about his coming
adventure. It was clear that she knew all about it, but he decided
regretfully not to. It would be imprudent. The maid stood close to the
window now, looking at an angle into the plaza. Suddenly she began
jiggling up and down.
"Oh, there she is! I see her black gown coming through the shrubs!"
Strawbridge knew that he ought to remain sipping his coffee, but he
jumped up and strode over to the girl's side. The two stood with their
heads almost together, getting glimpses of the black gown through
the shrubbery. The little maid unconsciously caught and squeezed
Strawbridge's arm.
"Oh, isn't she the sweetest, dearest señora! Oh señor, isn't she lovely
and beautiful and just too sweet!" The little servant was caught
up in a paroxysm of a woman's love for lovers. She might have been
Strawbridge himself glowing over his sweetheart; or perhaps it is truer
to say that she was glowing toward him through the vicarious love of
her mistress. In the midst of it her spirits suddenly fell.
"_Cá!_" she pouted. "It's Father Benicio!"
Her disappointment was so intense that the drummer laughed. He patted
her rubbery shoulder.
"Oh, well, that doesn't destroy the señora completely," and in good
spirits he finished his thimbleful of coffee.
The maid went out with the coffee things and left Strawbridge standing
at the window with a feeling of well-being. The romance surrounding
the way he would gain his wife moved him pleasantly. It reminded him
somewhat of the film he had seen in Keokuk called "Maid in Mexico."
At the time he had thought such a romance impossible, and yet he had
vaguely wished that some such thing might happen to him. And now that
the fact that his own life had fallen into lines rather resembling that
cheap melodrama, profoundly increased his pleasure in this passing
moment at the window. So, American slap-stick movies found a remote
justification.
The drummer was brought out of his reverie by a rustling of skirts in
the passageway and a tap at his door. His thoughts instantly warmed to
the señora and in a low tone he called to her to enter. He moved toward
the door, with a fancy to take her into his arms and kiss her. When the
door opened, Father Benicio entered. Then the American recalled that
Dolores was still at the cathedral.
Strawbridge, rather curious as to what had brought the priest here,
pushed forward a chair, and chose one for himself. He pulled his around
so he could see out at the window. Then he drew his cigar-case and
offered it. The father accepted a cigar and rolled it gently between
his thin fingers.
"How is your business, Señor Strawbridge?" he inquired casually.
The drummer was surprised. This was the first time a Venezuelan had
ever volunteered the topic of business. He lighted a wax match and held
it to his cigar.
"Why, ... so-so," he answered in a muffled voice, out of the corner of
his mouth. And he got his cigar going.
"Will you sell as many rifles as you hoped?"
Strawbridge looked at the end of his weed to see if it was burning
smoothly.
"Think not. You see, the capture of San Geronimo has given the general
a large number of rifles. They're out of date, of course, but then ...
you know this country."
Father Benicio nodded paternally.
"A little behind the times in warfare, as in everything else. However,
Señor Strawbridge, if I can bring my influence to bear in any way to
promote your interest, I hope you will not hesitate to call on me."
The drummer was genuinely touched.
"Why, thanks, Father Benicio; I appreciate that."
The priest gave a rather bloodless smile.
"I am glad to assist you because, if you will allow me to say it, your
sincerity of purpose deserves assistance. I have always admired the
enterprise you North Americans exhibit. For instance, I cannot think of
any other man than a North American who would have the moral courage
to put by every incentive to misuse his position for his own personal
advancement, and remain true to his employers."
The American blew out a puff of smoke, removed and looked at his cigar,
and said in a tone that varied by a hair from his normal hearty voice:
"That's a very nice compliment, Father; I hope I am worthy of it."
"I am sure you are. You know there are so many temptations, in
this country, into which a man can fall and forsake his business
obligations."
Strawbridge drew thoughtfully at his cigar.
"Well, ... yes, probably so." Back of this by-play he felt a little
uncomfortable with the suspicion that Dolores had told the priest
of their proposed flight. If so, here was still another person in
Canalejos who knew of it.
Father Benicio did not answer at once, but sat for perhaps half a
minute gazing out into the plaza; his silence showed the priest did
mean something very personal and intimate in his general remarks.
Presently he began again:
"Your company sends you out at a great deal of expense, Señor
Strawbridge. Your employers place high confidence in you. In fact,
have you ever stopped to think that the commanding position of
Anglo-Saxon commerce in the world is founded directly upon the devoted
self-sacrifice of its agents, just such men as you? There is a moral
solidarity among the English peoples, Señor Strawbridge, which I should
like very well indeed to see in my own people."
It was very evident to the drummer that he was about to receive what
traveling salesmen call a "bawling out." He knew the priest meant to
"bawl him out" about Dolores. And he considered quickly what line of
resistance to take. In the meantime the father talked on, smoothly and
sympathetically:
"And, Señor Strawbridge, I am a priest. I am, I trust, a vicar of God
to all mankind." He crossed himself. "And if I, as a priest, could help
you over any little obstacle in your path, I should be deeply pleased.
If you could frankly discuss with me any little difficulty that may
have come into your life--I mean ethical difficulty; some clash between
your private desires, for instance, and the duty you owe to the company
which sent you here...."
Strawbridge reddened at this very clear statement that the priest
knew everything, and he answered in the rather flat tones of nascent
irritation:
"Really, Father Benicio, there is no clash whatever between ... er ...
anything I propose to do and my business duties."
"I am glad to hear you say that, my son?" But the sentence was an
interrogation.
The drummer remained silent. He did not mean to discuss with Father
Benicio his affairs with the señora. He smoked stolidly, staring into
the green and gold of the plaza. The early morning sunshine gave it a
tender glow. The cleric placed his unlighted cigar gently on the edge
of the table, and did not pick it up any more.
"Whom I am really thinking about, Señor Strawbridge, is my daughter,
Dolores Avilon Fombombo."
Strawbridge frowned slightly as if at some disagreeable flavor in his
tobacco.
"Did she go and tell you everything?"
"Naturally, señor. What else could she do?"
The drummer flung his head about and looked at the father.
"Good Lord! in a case like this--" He broke off abruptly. "Well, what
are you going to do about it?"
"I? Nothing. I advised my daughter not to do this rash thing which you
and she contemplate."
"Rash! After six years of insult and abuse!"
The priest bent his head gravely.
"_Sí_, señor, very rash and very wicked."
The big salesman straightened in his chair and with outraged eyes
regarded the cleric.
"Wicked! How do you get that answer? Wicked to get rid of an empty
marriage? Call that wicked? For Dolores to leave a man who shows by
every move he makes that he doesn't give a damn about her! Don't your
reason tell you it would be damn sight wickeder for her to remain in
such a shameful connection with a man she detests?"
Father Benicio sat measuring the salesman, with small black eyes.
"Do you gauge shame and honor and duty purely by the personal pleasure
one receives in obeying one's vows and obligations, Señor Strawbridge?"
"I'm not measuring anything. I'm stating facts."
"Does it cease to be your duty to attend to the business of your
company, merely because it would be pleasanter to run off with your
customer's wife?"
The drummer lifted a hand and laid it flat on the table.
"Look here, you can cut out that line of talk. She's not his wife. He's
given her up. And, besides, folks do marry to make life pleasanter on
the whole. Yes, they do. You know they do. And if their life on the
whole is unpleasanter after marriage than before, why, then they've
failed. They are not a going concern. They are not declaring any
dividends, and the only thing to do is to quit; to get a divorce and
quit."
Father Benicio sat reflecting on this to such an extent that
Strawbridge thought he had convinced him, by mere power of argument;
however, at last the priest began again:
"But, Señor Strawbridge, there are some duties which you will always
perform at great inconvenience and even pain to yourself. These duties
are not what you could call dividend-bearing duties. They will never
pay you anything; they will always bring loss and pain and yet ... you
do them."
"What sort of duties are you talking about?" asked the drummer,
suspiciously.
"Well, ... your business obligations to your house."
"But I tell you that isn't in this. The order's gone--"
"But if it were, and in the midst of your enterprise you were moved
to desert your firm by some sharp and sudden passion, which, if you
resisted, would cause you pain as long as your memory held its seat,
still ... would you not stand by your obligations? My son, when I look
at you, I believe you would."
Strawbridge started to speak, then paused to clear his throat.
"Look here, Father, that's different. When it comes to business--"
"But business is only a duty, an obligation among other obligations."
"Yes, I know; but you see, business depends on team-work. A hundred, a
thousand, a million other men are in the game with you. You can't lay
down on your own crowd. Why--good Lord!--if we all got to laying down
when we liked, the whole commerce of America would go bluey!"
The priest smiled faintly and kindly.
"So you will stand by business coöperation at expense to yourself, but
not social coöperation, or spiritual coöperation?"
"About the last two--" the drummer shook a finger--"I don't know."
"Now let us see," said the priest, evidently becoming more
comfortable. "You owed your time to your company. Why did you not spend
your time with the general, trying to get an order, instead of with the
general's wife?"
"I did try to, but he wouldn't talk business, and that's the only kind
of talk I can talk with a man. When I talk anything besides business
or politics, it's got to be with a woman. Then when I saw how badly
treated the señora was--why, any man with a spark of manhood--"
"Would assist her," finished the priest. "But do you think it fair or
honest to your employers to give up their business in order to rectify
wrongs which don't concern you? And was there as much suffering as
you fancied? You found things here exactly as they had been for six
years. It was a status quo, a method of existence, and then you came in
and broke it all up. You persuaded a frail girl into the belief that
happiness lies not in following the law of God but in yielding to her
impulses and passion."
"Well, she will probably get happiness that way. Most women do. At
least, she'll have a chance. If a woman's first marriage is a failure,
maybe she'll have better luck next time."
"But you say, yourself, one ought not to break business obligations."
"Sure not!"
"Don't you think vows taken before God are as binding as a trade
between an employer and a salesman?"
Strawbridge shook his shoulders in irritation.
"Oh, damn it! you twist everything to suit yourself! I don't know
anything about this vow-to-God stuff. Business is business. As to
marriage vows, we go before a justice of the peace at home and we don't
vow to God.... Well, now, anyway, you come right down to it and, don't
you know, business _is_ the most important! You know not a thing in the
world depends on your religion. Your house doesn't depend on it for
their sales; your national trade balance stays right where it belongs,
no matter who's got religion and who hasn't. But all that sort of thing
slumps the minute you neglect business. Now, you'll excuse me for
putting the plain dope to you. I know you are a priest and all that,
and it's very seldom anybody talks plain horse-sense to a preacher. But
instead of anything depending on religion, you know and I know that if
the business interests of America should neglect the church for just
six months, why--bluey!" Mr. Strawbridge snapped his fingers, waved his
hands, and nodded, then concluded in an ordinary tone: "So it is very
important that business comes first, and then ... other things."
The priest arose slowly, turned toward the door, and then hesitated.
"Señor Strawbridge," he asked carefully, "what would you do if your
order for rifles really did depend upon your going back to New York and
leaving this unfortunate girl in peace?"
"Well, since the order has gone to the bowwows, that is out of the
question."
"But what would you do?"
"Hell! there wouldn't be but one thing to do! What makes you ask?" He
turned around and looked at the father.
The black-robed figure reached inside his cassock and drew out a
legal-sized document. It was dignified with a big red government seal.
The priest opened it with a crisp rattling and spread it on the table
before Strawbridge. It began with a sounding preamble:
By order of his Excellency, el General Adriano Caspiano Guillermo
Fombombo y Herrara, Constitutional President of the Free and
Independent State of Rio Negro, Señor Don Tomas Strawbridge,
representative of a corporation bearing the name of Orion Arms
Corporation, located and doing business in the City of New York,
State of New York, is hereby empowered to purchase from his said
Company fifty thousand rifles of the caliber and specifications
stated in the attached sheet of specifications, and a million and
a quarter rounds of cartridges for said rifles. The same to be
delivered f.o.b., at the steamer in the harbor of New York and to
be billed to Senhor Dom Sebastiano Carupano in Rio de Janeiro,
Brazil, not later than six months from the date of this order.
JUAN DELGOA,
_Minister of War_.
The drummer stared, open-mouthed, at the order. He licked his lips and
with a sick face looked up at the priest. His voice came thickly:
"H-how came you with this, Father?"
"I asked for it, my son."
"Does he ... does the general know ... everything?"
"I suppose so, Señor Strawbridge," said the priest, drily; "he has a
fairly competent intelligence department, and you were right here in
the _palacio_."
Strawbridge nodded numbly.
"Did ... you tell him why you wanted this?" he asked in a strained
voice.
"The general has confidence in me, señor; I simply requested the order,
and received it. You, yourself, would have received it in due time if
... you had been available."
The salesman's shoulders felt heavy. Perspiration broke out over his
face.
"Well, ... after all ... I can't accept this."
"What do you mean?"
"You kept it too long: I can't break my word to the señora."
"But it is a duty you owe your company."
"No, we made arrangements when I thought the trade was off. That
finishes this." He pushed the contract away.
The father walked over to the big drummer and laid a translucent hand
on his shoulder.
"You seem unhappy over this, Señor Strawbridge."
"My old man will think I double-crossed him--for a woman. He'll never
believe the real facts."
"My son--" Father Benicio's voice softened--"Dolores is just as
unhappy as you are. She feels just as keenly the vows which you do not
comprehend, as you feel the duties which she cannot understand. She
still says she will fly with you, even after I have reminded her of the
holy commands of the church; she will still fly with you because of her
promise; but she is very unhappy about it."
Strawbridge looked up.
"Is Dolores unhappy about ... eloping?"
"Very."
"Why--Good God!--I don't want to make her unhappy!"
"I know you don't, my son; I think there is something very high and
fine in both of you. Suppose we walk over and see Dolores, and talk it
over with her."
"Where to, Father?"
"To the cathedral. Dolores is still in the cathedral. You can have
privacy there."
The salesman got up unsteadily. The priest took his arm, and together
the two men walked out of the palace. As they passed out at the east
entrance, Strawbridge glanced down at the river. Just beneath the
piazza a little fish-boat lay moored to the bank. It had been scrubbed
and sanded until it gleamed in the sunshine, as white as a bone.
An intermezzo of thoughts danced through the drummer's head as he
accompanied the priest, for his final talk with Dolores. He began to
suspect that Father Benicio had used the order for the rifles quite as
adroitly, to separate him from the señora, as he had used the nun's
gown to withdraw the Spanish girl from the bed of General Fombombo. It
was the same kind of stratagem, the same kind of hateful cleverness in
pulling just the right strings in human beings to move them toward his
own ends.
As the two men walked toward the cathedral, Strawbridge looked at the
ascetic face of the father, the precise stock about his neck, and
his delicate fingers smoothing down the girdle of his cassock. The
drummer studied him angrily, and made mental surges to shake loose
from this order for rifles and recover his moral right to Dolores
again. Moreover, he was uneasy about the approaching interview with
the Spanish girl. He began thinking what he would say. He massed his
arguments for elopement just as he always massed his selling points
before calling on a prospective buyer. He would bring her to his side
by the verve and swing of his attack.
In the entrance of the cathedral, the priest dipped his finger in the
shell font and crossed himself. Then both men reduced their footfalls
almost to silence and moved along the left aisle in front of a row of
chapels. The drummer could half see their crosses and passions in the
dusky light of the church. Here and there, over the shadowy building,
knelt men and women at their devotions. The pleasant smell of incense
filled nave and aisles. From the high altar came the monotone of a
priest at his prayers. The ensemble softened the drummer's mood.
Involuntarily his thoughts began to throw out those filaments of
sentiment toward the past, toward the future, which religious buildings
invariably evoke. It loosened his self-centeredness. It tended to strew
his entity through time and eternity. It whispered to him that he
had not always been what he was, nor would he always be. His excited
nerves felt this influence, and he tried to resist it. He tried to
brace himself against it. He swore mentally and told himself that he
ought to stop where he was, that he ought to go no farther into this
softening, deorienting building. He tried to re-collect his arguments
for elopement.
Father Benicio was pointing.
"She is there, in the chapel of the Last Supper."
The altar of the chapel of the Last Supper was a rich dull sheen of
gold from carpet to ceiling. Strawbridge was dimly aware of a soft
harmony of color on the left wall leading to this altar. It was the
great picture which illustrates the chapel, but the drummer did not
observe this. His whole attention was concentrated on a slender black
figure which knelt before the center of the huge altar. The golden
background seemed to set forth with an exquisite pathos her sadness and
sweetness and trustfulness. Strawbridge felt a profound impulse to stop
and pick her up in his arms and bring all of her unhappiness to an end.
She had been so miserable in her loveless marriage, her lonely life in
the palace, the savage and cruel milieu into which she had been cast;
and now, just as love and opportunity had come into her life, for the
church, the church which she had clung to for succor, through all these
years--for this church to lift its hand and forbid her--that was too
much; that was more than human nature could endure!
The drummer caught the priest's arm.
"Look here, Father Benicio," he whispered shakily, "this don't go. I'm
going to take her out of here! You needn't talk. I don't give a damn
what you say; not a damn! Not a damn!" He accented each oath with a
grip in the tender place inside the priest's upper arm. Tears stung the
drummer's eyes.
Hearing the murmur, the girl turned. Her face was tremulous, and, at
the sight of the priest her poor composure gave way. She stretched out
her arms.
"Oh, Father, I ... I can't do it! Oh, kind Father, forgive me this one
great and mortal sin and I will be the meanest servant of our holy
church all the rest of my life! Good Father Benicio, you know I am no
wife! Sweet Father, do pray for me and let me go!" She caught the
priest's hand, kissing it over and over and wetting it with her tears.
"Listen here!" gulped Strawbridge. "Just go, Dolores! Why--God damn
it!--just get up and go!"
The priest made a gesture.
"Listen, my children. Let us think seriously. You are passion-torn
now, but have you not heard that he that loseth his life shall find
it? Neither of you came into the world of your own will, nor for your
own pleasure. You came in God's good time, to serve His ends for His
glory." The father crossed himself with his right hand while his left
retained the fingers of the kneeling girl.
"My dear daughter Dolores, have I not explained to you time on time the
depth and sweetness of renunciation? Only that which you renounce shall
you preserve.
"We Spaniards, my child, have always lived by a great mystical
apprehension of God through the spirit of renunciation. It is the
life-breath of the greatest nation in the world. You, my daughter, are
a Spanish woman and a Catholic communicant. It is impossible for you
to act in any other way and gain happiness. The anguish which you feel
this moment is nothing to the lifelong fires of remorse which would
burn in your heart. This moment is the parting of the ways in your
life. It is impossible for you to do aught but remain pure and faithful
and loyal."
The father paused a moment and continued:
"And this good youth who loves you, Dolores--he comes from a distant
people, and the teachings of his people are very like our own. They
instill into the hearts of their men their duty to support one another
in the market-place, just as it is the precept of us Spanish to
support one another in the temple. But with him, as with us, this is a
religion. It is the object of our renunciations. It is that for which
we deny ourselves, for which we would give our strength, our patience,
our sacrifices, our lives. If you cause this boy to break faith
with his market-place, Dolores, you will have destroyed the man you
worship. And, my dear son Tomas, if you take away from Dolores the holy
sacraments which support her life, you can never have one unsullied
caress from the woman you adore. How well I know it is not in your
hearts to blast and destroy each other!"
Father Benicio looked with sad eyes at the lovers. Then he lifted the
cross which hung about his neck, and concluded solemnly:
"Now may the Holy Saints guard and direct you, my most dear children,
and lead you into paths of final peace and happiness." He made the sign
of the cross above their heads, turned, and moved silently from the
chapel.
The drummer stood mute near the altar where the girl knelt. In his
heart he acknowledged the rightness of the priest. He essayed some
clumsy words to express what he felt.
"Dolores," he whispered, "do you think?... Is what the father said?...
I don't mean myself; I mean you.... It doesn't make any difference
about me, but ... oh, Dolores!..."
The girl was pallid but quite composed. She seemed to be staring into
some far distance with her slightly unfocused eyes.
"_Sí_, señor," she whispered, with a long exhalation, "Father Benicio
is a very wise man."
Above the two on the left wall of the chapel shone the sad radiance
of Michelena's "Last Supper." In the center of the picture stands the
Christ, and behind him, seen through the archway of an open window,
gleams the soft radiance of a moonlit landscape. The rising moon forms
a halo for his head. He is breaking the bread and giving it to his
apostles to eat; to James and Jude, to Peter and Thomas, and to John,
his beloved. And as he giveth it he sayeth unto them, "This is my body
which ye eat, and this cup, which I give ye to drink, is my blood."