When General Barrios stopped to address Mrs. Gould, Antonia raised
negligently her hand holding an open fan, as if to shade from the sun
her head, wrapped in a light lace shawl. The clear gleam of her blue
eyes gliding behind the black fringe of eyelashes paused for a moment
upon her father, then travelled further to the figure of a young man
of thirty at most, of medium height, rather thick-set, wearing a light
overcoat. Bearing down with the open palm of his hand upon the knob of
a flexible cane, he had been looking on from a distance; but directly
he saw himself noticed, he approached quietly and put his elbow over the
door of the landau.
The shirt collar, cut low in the neck, the big bow of his cravat,
the style of his clothing, from the round hat to the varnished shoes,
suggested an idea of French elegance; but otherwise he was the very type
of a fair Spanish creole. The fluffy moustache and the short, curly,
golden beard did not conceal his lips, rosy, fresh, almost pouting in
expression. His full, round face was of that warm, healthy creole white
which is never tanned by its native sunshine. Martin Decoud was seldom
exposed to the Costaguana sun under which he was born. His people had
been long settled in Paris, where he had studied law, had dabbled in
literature, had hoped now and then in moments of exaltation to become a
poet like that other foreigner of Spanish blood, Jose Maria Heredia. In
other moments he had, to pass the time, condescended to write articles
on European affairs for the Semenario, the principal newspaper in
Sta. Marta, which printed them under the heading “From our special
correspondent,” though the authorship was an open secret. Everybody in
Costaguana, where the tale of compatriots in Europe is jealously kept,
knew that it was “the son Decoud,” a talented young man, supposed to be
moving in the higher spheres of Society. As a matter of fact, he was an
idle boulevardier, in touch with some smart journalists, made free of a
few newspaper offices, and welcomed in the pleasure haunts of pressmen.
This life, whose dreary superficiality is covered by the glitter
of universal blague, like the stupid clowning of a harlequin by the
spangles of a motley costume, induced in him a Frenchified--but most
un-French--cosmopolitanism, in reality a mere barren indifferentism
posing as intellectual superiority. Of his own country he used to say to
his French associates: “Imagine an atmosphere of opera-bouffe in which
all the comic business of stage statesmen, brigands, etc., etc., all
their farcical stealing, intriguing, and stabbing is done in dead
earnest. It is screamingly funny, the blood flows all the time, and the
actors believe themselves to be influencing the fate of the universe.
Of course, government in general, any government anywhere, is a thing
of exquisite comicality to a discerning mind; but really we
Spanish-Americans do overstep the bounds. No man of ordinary
intelligence can take part in the intrigues of une farce macabre.
However, these Ribierists, of whom we hear so much just now, are really
trying in their own comical way to make the country habitable, and even
to pay some of its debts. My friends, you had better write up Senor
Ribiera all you can in kindness to your own bondholders. Really, if what
I am told in my letters is true, there is some chance for them at last.”
And he would explain with railing verve what Don Vincente Ribiera stood
for--a mournful little man oppressed by his own good intentions, the
significance of battles won, who Montero was (_un grotesque vaniteux
et feroce_), and the manner of the new loan connected with railway
development, and the colonization of vast tracts of land in one great
financial scheme.
And his French friends would remark that evidently this little fellow
_Decoud connaissait la question a fond_. An important Parisian review
asked him for an article on the situation. It was composed in a
serious tone and in a spirit of levity. Afterwards he asked one of his
intimates--
“Have you read my thing about the regeneration of Costaguana--_une bonne
blague, hein_?”
He imagined himself Parisian to the tips of his fingers. But far
from being that he was in danger of remaining a sort of nondescript
dilettante all his life. He had pushed the habit of universal raillery
to a point where it blinded him to the genuine impulses of his own
nature. To be suddenly selected for the executive member of the
patriotic small-arms committee of Sulaco seemed to him the height of
the unexpected, one of those fantastic moves of which only his “dear
countrymen” were capable.
“It’s like a tile falling on my head. I--I--executive member! It’s
the first I hear of it! What do I know of military rifles? _C’est
funambulesque!_” he had exclaimed to his favourite sister; for the Decoud
family--except the old father and mother--used the French language
amongst themselves. “And you should see the explanatory and confidential
letter! Eight pages of it--no less!”
This letter, in Antonia’s handwriting, was signed by Don Jose, who
appealed to the “young and gifted Costaguanero” on public grounds, and
privately opened his heart to his talented god-son, a man of wealth
and leisure, with wide relations, and by his parentage and bringing-up
worthy of all confidence.
“Which means,” Martin commented, cynically, to his sister, “that I am
not likely to misappropriate the funds, or go blabbing to our _Charge
d’Affaires_ here.”
The whole thing was being carried out behind the back of the War
Minister, Montero, a mistrusted member of the Ribiera Government, but
difficult to get rid of at once. He was not to know anything of it till
the troops under Barrios’s command had the new rifle in their hands. The
President-Dictator, whose position was very difficult, was alone in the
secret.
“How funny!” commented Martin’s sister and confidante; to which the
brother, with an air of best Parisian blague, had retorted:
“It’s immense! The idea of that Chief of the State engaged, with the
help of private citizens, in digging a mine under his own indispensable
War Minister. No! We are unapproachable!” And he laughed immoderately.
Afterwards his sister was surprised at the earnestness and ability
he displayed in carrying out his mission, which circumstances made
delicate, and his want of special knowledge rendered difficult. She had
never seen Martin take so much trouble about anything in his whole life.
“It amuses me,” he had explained, briefly. “I am beset by a lot
of swindlers trying to sell all sorts of gaspipe weapons. They are
charming; they invite me to expensive luncheons; I keep up their hopes;
it’s extremely entertaining. Meanwhile, the real affair is being carried
through in quite another quarter.”
When the business was concluded he declared suddenly his intention of
seeing the precious consignment delivered safely in Sulaco. The whole
burlesque business, he thought, was worth following up to the end. He
mumbled his excuses, tugging at his golden beard, before the acute young
lady who (after the first wide stare of astonishment) looked at him with
narrowed eyes, and pronounced slowly--
“I believe you want to see Antonia.”
“What Antonia?” asked the Costaguana boulevardier, in a vexed and
disdainful tone. He shrugged his shoulders, and spun round on his heel.
His sister called out after him joyously--
“The Antonia you used to know when she wore her hair in two plaits down
her back.”
He had known her some eight years since, shortly before the Avellanos
had left Europe for good, as a tall girl of sixteen, youthfully
austere, and of a character already so formed that she ventured to treat
slightingly his pose of disabused wisdom. On one occasion, as though she
had lost all patience, she flew out at him about the aimlessness of his
life and the levity of his opinions. He was twenty then, an only son,
spoiled by his adoring family. This attack disconcerted him so greatly
that he had faltered in his affectation of amused superiority before
that insignificant chit of a school-girl. But the impression left was so
strong that ever since all the girl friends of his sisters recalled to
him Antonia Avellanos by some faint resemblance, or by the great force
of contrast. It was, he told himself, like a ridiculous fatality. And,
of course, in the news the Decouds received regularly from Costaguana,
the name of their friends, the Avellanos, cropped up frequently--the
arrest and the abominable treatment of the ex-Minister, the dangers and
hardships endured by the family, its withdrawal in poverty to Sulaco,
the death of the mother.
The Monterist pronunciamento had taken place before Martin Decoud
reached Costaguana. He came out in a roundabout way, through Magellan’s
Straits by the main line and the West Coast Service of the O.S.N.
Company. His precious consignment arrived just in time to convert the
first feelings of consternation into a mood of hope and resolution.
Publicly he was made much of by the _familias principales_. Privately Don
Jose, still shaken and weak, embraced him with tears in his eyes.
“You have come out yourself! No less could be expected from a Decoud.
Alas! our worst fears have been realized,” he moaned, affectionately.
And again he hugged his god-son. This was indeed the time for men of
intellect and conscience to rally round the endangered cause.
It was then that Martin Decoud, the adopted child of Western Europe,
felt the absolute change of atmosphere. He submitted to being embraced
and talked to without a word. He was moved in spite of himself by that
note of passion and sorrow unknown on the more refined stage of European
politics. But when the tall Antonia, advancing with her light step in
the dimness of the big bare Sala of the Avellanos house, offered him her
hand (in her emancipated way), and murmured, “I am glad to see you here,
Don Martin,” he felt how impossible it would be to tell these two people
that he had intended to go away by the next month’s packet. Don Jose,
meantime, continued his praises. Every accession added to public
confidence, and, besides, what an example to the young men at home
from the brilliant defender of the country’s regeneration, the worthy
expounder of the party’s political faith before the world! Everybody had
read the magnificent article in the famous Parisian Review. The world
was now informed: and the author’s appearance at this moment was like
a public act of faith. Young Decoud felt overcome by a feeling of
impatient confusion. His plan had been to return by way of the United
States through California, visit Yellowstone Park, see Chicago, Niagara,
have a look at Canada, perhaps make a short stay in New York, a longer
one in Newport, use his letters of introduction. The pressure of
Antonia’s hand was so frank, the tone of her voice was so unexpectedly
unchanged in its approving warmth, that all he found to say after his
low bow was--
“I am inexpressibly grateful for your welcome; but why need a man be
thanked for returning to his native country? I am sure Dona Antonia does
not think so.”
“Certainly not, senor,” she said, with that perfectly calm openness of
manner which characterized all her utterances. “But when he returns, as
you return, one may be glad--for the sake of both.”
Martin Decoud said nothing of his plans. He not only never breathed a
word of them to any one, but only a fortnight later asked the mistress
of the Casa Gould (where he had of course obtained admission at once),
leaning forward in his chair with an air of well-bred familiarity,
whether she could not detect in him that day a marked change--an air, he
explained, of more excellent gravity. At this Mrs. Gould turned her face
full towards him with the silent inquiry of slightly widened eyes and
the merest ghost of a smile, an habitual movement with her, which
was very fascinating to men by something subtly devoted, finely
self-forgetful in its lively readiness of attention. Because, Decoud
continued imperturbably, he felt no longer an idle cumberer of the
earth. She was, he assured her, actually beholding at that moment the
Journalist of Sulaco. At once Mrs. Gould glanced towards Antonia, posed
upright in the corner of a high, straight-backed Spanish sofa, a large
black fan waving slowly against the curves of her fine figure, the tips
of crossed feet peeping from under the hem of the black skirt. Decoud’s
eyes also remained fixed there, while in an undertone he added that Miss
Avellanos was quite aware of his new and unexpected vocation, which in
Costaguana was generally the speciality of half-educated negroes and
wholly penniless lawyers. Then, confronting with a sort of urbane
effrontery Mrs. Gould’s gaze, now turned sympathetically upon himself,
he breathed out the words, “_Pro Patria!_”
What had happened was that he had all at once yielded to Don Jose’s
pressing entreaties to take the direction of a newspaper that would
“voice the aspirations of the province.” It had been Don Jose’s old
and cherished idea. The necessary plant (on a modest scale) and a large
consignment of paper had been received from America some time before;
the right man alone was wanted. Even Senor Moraga in Sta. Marta had not
been able to find one, and the matter was now becoming pressing;
some organ was absolutely needed to counteract the effect of the lies
disseminated by the Monterist press: the atrocious calumnies, the
appeals to the people calling upon them to rise with their knives in
their hands and put an end once for all to the Blancos, to these Gothic
remnants, to these sinister mummies, these impotent paraliticos, who
plotted with foreigners for the surrender of the lands and the slavery
of the people.
The clamour of this Negro Liberalism frightened Senor Avellanos. A
newspaper was the only remedy. And now that the right man had been found
in Decoud, great black letters appeared painted between the windows
above the arcaded ground floor of a house on the Plaza. It was next to
Anzani’s great emporium of boots, silks, ironware, muslins, wooden toys,
tiny silver arms, legs, heads, hearts (for ex-voto offerings), rosaries,
champagne, women’s hats, patent medicines, even a few dusty books in
paper covers and mostly in the French language. The big black letters
formed the words, “Offices of the Porvenir.” From these offices a single
folded sheet of Martin’s journalism issued three times a week; and
the sleek yellow Anzani prowling in a suit of ample black and carpet
slippers, before the many doors of his establishment, greeted by a deep,
side-long inclination of his body the Journalist of Sulaco going to and
fro on the business of his august calling.