WILL THERE BE DISSENSION?
A little later Pepe made his appearance in the dining-room.
“If you eat a hearty breakfast,” said Doña Perfecta to him, in
affectionate accents, “you will have no appetite for dinner. We dine
here at one. Perhaps you may not like the customs of the country.”
“I am enchanted with them, aunt.”
“Say, then, which you prefer--to eat a hearty breakfast now, or to take
something light, and keep your appetite for dinner.”
“I prefer to take something light now, in order to have the pleasure
of dining with you. But not even if I had found anything to eat in
Villahorrenda, would I have eaten any thing at this early hour.”
“Of course, I need not tell you that you are to treat us with perfect
frankness. You may give your orders here as if you were in your own
house.”
“Thanks, aunt.”
“But how like your father you are!” said the señora, regarding the young
man, as he ate, with real delight. “I can fancy I am looking now at my
dear brother Juan. He sat just as you are sitting and ate as you are
eating. In your expression, especially, you are as like as two drops of
water.”
Pepe began his frugal breakfast. The words, as well as the manner
and the expression, of his aunt and cousin inspired him with so much
confidence that he already felt as if he were in his own house.
“Do you know what Rosario was saying to me this morning?” said Doña
Perfecta, looking at her nephew. “Well, she was saying that, as a man
accustomed to the luxuries and the etiquette of the capital and to
foreign ways, you would not be able to put up with the somewhat rustic
simplicity and the lack of ceremony of our manner of life; for here
every thing is very plain.”
“What a mistake!” responded Pepe, looking at his cousin. “No one abhors
more than I do the falseness and the hypocrisy of what is called high
society. Believe me, I have long wished to give myself a complete
bath in nature, as some one has said; to live far from the turmoil
of existence in the solitude and quiet of the country. I long for
the tranquillity of a life without strife, without anxieties; neither
envying nor envied, as the poet has said. For a long time my studies at
first, and my work afterward, prevented me from taking the rest which
I need, and which my mind and my body both require; but ever since I
entered this house, my dear aunt, my dear cousin, I have felt myself
surrounded by the peaceful atmosphere which I have longed for. You must
not talk to me, then, of society, either high or low; or of the world,
either great or small, for I would willingly exchange them all for this
peaceful retreat.”
While he was thus speaking, the glass door which led from the
dining-room into the garden was obscured by the interposition between
it and the light of a dark body. The glasses of a pair of spectacles,
catching a sunbeam, sent forth a fugitive gleam; the latch creaked, the
door opened, and the Penitentiary gravely entered the room. He saluted
those present, taking off his broad-brimmed hat and bowing until its
brim touched the floor.
“It is the Señor Penitentiary, of our holy cathedral,” said Doña
Perfecta: “a person whom we all esteem greatly, and whose friend you
will, I hope, be. Take a seat, Señor Don Inocencio.”
Pepe shook hands with the venerable canon, and both sat down.
“If you are accustomed to smoke after meals, pray do so,” said Doña
Perfecta amiably; “and the Señor Penitentiary also.”
The worthy Don Inocencio drew from under his cassock a large leather
cigar-case, which showed unmistakable signs of long use, opened it, and
took from it two long cigarettes, one of which he offered to our friend.
Rosario took a match from a little leaf-shaped matchbox, which the
Spaniards ironically call a wagon, and the engineer and the canon were
soon puffing their smoke over each other.
“And what does Señor Don José think of our dear city of Orbajosa?” asked
the canon, shutting his left eye tightly, according to his habit when he
smoked.
“I have not yet been able to form an idea of the town,” said Pepe. “From
the little I have seen of it, however, I think that half a dozen large
capitalists disposed to invest their money here, a pair of intelligent
heads to direct the work of renovating the place, and a couple of
thousands of active hands to carry it out, would not be a bad thing
for Orbajosa. Coming from the entrance to the town to the door of this
house, I saw more than a hundred beggars. The greater part of them are
healthy, and even robust men. It is a pitiable army, the sight of which
oppresses the heart.”
“That is what charity is for,” declared Don Inocencio. “Apart from that,
Orbajosa is not a poor town. You are already aware that the best garlic
in all Spain is produced here. There are more than twenty rich families
living among us.”
“It is true,” said Doña Perfecta, “that the last few years have been
wretched, owing to the drought; but even so, the granaries are not
empty, and several thousands of strings of garlic were recently carried
to market.”
“During the many years that I have lived in Orbajosa,” said the priest,
with a frown, “I have seen innumerable persons come here from the
capital, some brought by the electoral hurly-burly, others to visit some
abandoned site, or to see the antiquities of the cathedral, and they
all talk to us about the English ploughs and threshing-machines and
water-power and banks, and I don’t know how many other absurdities. The
burden of their song is that this place is very backward, and that it
could be improved. Let them keep away from us, in the devil’s name!
We are well enough as we are, without the gentlemen from the capital
visiting us; a great deal better off without hearing that continual
clamor about our poverty and the grandeurs and the wonders of other
places. The fool in his own house is wiser than the wise man in
another’s. Is it not so, Señor Don José? Of course, you mustn’t imagine,
even remotely, that I say this on your account. Not at all! Of course
not! I know that we have before us one of the most eminent young men of
modern Spain, a man who would be able to transform into fertile lands
our arid wastes. And I am not at all angry because you sing us the same
old song about the English ploughs and arboriculture and silviculture.
Not in the least. Men of such great, such very great merit, may be
excused for the contempt which they manifest for our littleness. No, no,
my friend; no, no, Señor Don José! you are entitled to say any thing you
please, even to tell us that we are not much better than Kaffirs.”
This philippic, concluded in a marked tone of irony, and all of it
impertinent enough, did not please the young man; but he refrained from
manifesting the slightest annoyance and continued the conversation,
endeavoring to avoid as far as possible the subjects in which the
over-sensitive patriotism of the canon might find cause of offence. The
latter rose when Doña Perfecta began to speak to her nephew about family
matters, and took a few turns about the room.
This was a spacious and well-lighted apartment, the walls of which were
covered with an old-fashioned paper whose flowers and branches, although
faded, preserved their original pattern, thanks to the cleanliness which
reigned in each and every part of the dwelling. The clock, from the
case of which hung, uncovered, the apparently motionless weights and
the voluble pendulum, perpetually repeating No, no, occupied, with its
variegated dial, the most prominent place among the solid pieces of
furniture of the dining-room, the adornment of the walls being completed
by a series of French engravings representing the exploits of the
conqueror of Mexico, with prolix explanations at the foot of each
concerning a Ferdinand Cortez, and a Donna Marine, as little true to
nature as were the figures delineated by the ignorant artist. In the
space between the two glass doors which communicated with the garden
was an apparatus of brass, which it is not necessary to describe further
than to say that it served to support a parrot, which maintained itself
on it with the air of gravity and circumspection peculiar to those
animals, taking note of everything that went on. The hard and ironical
expression of the parrot tribe, their green coats, their red caps,
their yellow boots, and finally, the hoarse, mocking words which they
generally utter, give them a strange and repulsive aspect, half serious,
half-comic. There is in their air an indescribable something of the
stiffness of diplomats. At times they remind one of buffoons, and they
always resemble those absurdly conceited people who, in their desire to
appear very superior, look like caricatures.
The Penitentiary was very fond of the parrot. When he left Doña Perfecta
and Rosario conversing with the traveller, he went over to the bird,
and, allowing it to bite his forefinger with the greatest good humor,
said to it:
“Rascal, knave, why don’t you talk? You would be of little account if
you weren’t a prater. The world of birds, as well as men, is full of
praters.”
Then, with his own venerable hand, he took some peas from the dish
beside him, and gave them to the bird to eat. The parrot began to call
to the maid, asking her for some chocolate, and its words diverted the
two ladies and the young man from a conversation which could not have
been very engrossing.