I do not know what relation exists between salt water and love, but
experience has made me realize that there exists in it some mysterious
and stimulating virtue. On land I am able to control somewhat my most
vehement sentiments and conquer them. Once on board I am a lost man. The
most insignificant attraction takes on gigantic proportions and in a
little while knocks me flat. So it happened that while in Valencia I
proposed to myself to make nothing of flattering invitations, and never
again in my life to return to stand before Dona Cristina, continuing in
this commendable resolution until I left Barcelona, no sooner did I find
myself afloat than it vanished like the mist, and seemed to me a
veritable absurdity.
It was from Hamburg that I wrote to the shipping house, asking
permission to remain over one voyage at home, to arrange certain family
affairs. Meanwhile it had come about that I was not able to think of
anything but the wife of Marti. Not even in dreams did she leave my
mind; every word she had spoken sounded ceaselessly in my ears, as if I
had in my brain a phonograph charged with conversations, and in my
heart I felt every one of her gestures and movements. On returning
towards Valencia the delight of thinking that soon I was going to enjoy
a sight of my idol produced in me a sentiment of mingled shame and
remorse. I feared a disdainful reception from her, and I feared also an
affectionate and cordial one from her husband.
I did not intend to lodge in his house, to hush my noisy conscience.
After spending six days in Alicante, I went to Valencia with a friend
who chanced along, and made him an excuse for not going to the house of
Marti. I did not go directly to see him, preferring to go later. I went
out first to take a walk in the streets. But while walking through one
of the principal streets, I saw not far distant three ladies looking at
the fashions in a shop-window.
As I drew near I perceived that one of them was Cristina, and the other
two, Dona Clara and Dona Amparo. I hastened up to them, and saluted them
standing behind them. (How could I do such a thing?)
Cristina turned her head; and, as if she had seen something alarming,
she gave a cry and ran forward hastily a few steps. My astonishment was
great and the surprise of these ladies was scarcely less. Perceiving at
once the strangeness of her conduct, and as if ashamed, she turned and
came and welcomed me with unusual amiability. She explained her cry and
her flight by declaring that a few moments ago she had given a bit of
alms to a poor creature who had been a criminal, and all at once,
without knowing why, it seemed to her as if he had followed them and was
going to attack her. Dona Amparo and Dona Clara were satisfied with
this, and laid her attack of nerves to her condition; they wished her to
come into a shop and take a quieting draught, but Cristina said no.
I knew better than this, and walked on with them, saddened because I
knew.
Marti received me with lively delight, professing to be vexed with me
because I had not sought the hospitality of his house; but I, fortified
by my excuse, held fast, and would not give in. Sabas also showed
pleasure at seeing me. I could not do less than offer him my compassion
on seeing in his face traces plainer than ever of his arduous labors
beneath the sun. The result of these, by what I could gather, was the
acquisition of an amber mouthpiece with his initials engraved upon it,
of which he was so proud that it seemed as if all the vigils and
anxieties that it had cost him had been well spent.
It was not necessary to inquire what impression my arrival made upon
Castell. His cold, ceremonious courtesy made unnecessary any inquiries
of that sort. Really it seemed to me that the lightly disdainful
attitude that he held towards all the world was a little emphasized
towards me. Perhaps I was ill-tempered, but a secret instinct warned me
that this man hated me, and I paid him in his own coin.
Cristina was now quite advanced in her maternal expectations. Although
women do not consider themselves beautiful at this time, except to their
husbands, I found her more beautiful and interesting than ever, an
indubitable proof of the depth of the affection wherewith she had
inspired me. Her imaginary fears and her agitations at sight of me only
increased it, and I credited her lack of courtesy to these imaginary
fears. I noted that after the meeting she took pains not to look at me;
but the very haughtiness with which she did it showed that some
agitation ruled her spirit, and that I was not absolutely indifferent to
her. Such was at least my illusion at the time.
Although I was not lodged in his house, the cordiality of Marti and my
secret longing forced me to go every day to dine and spend some time
with them. It was impossible for me to hide my love. At the risk of
being observed (not by Marti, who was innocence personified, but by the
others), I scarcely quitted the sight of Cristina. Whenever occasion
presented, I made plain what was passing in my soul. If she dropped
anything upon the floor, I was there to hasten and pick it up. If she
glanced towards the door, I had already run to close it. If she
complained of any ill feeling, I proposed all the remedies imaginable.
In short, I showed to all concerned a lively interest and anxiety that
came from my heart. She received these attentions with a serious face,
sometimes with a certain diffidence; but I understood that she would not
permit herself to take the slightest notice, and this sufficed me.
One day I grew more daring. Showing no such intention, I went nearer and
nearer to her until my arm touched her dress. Then she got up brusquely
and placed herself elsewhere. These silent rebuffs produced a melancholy
impression upon me. But I was compensated by other enjoyments, fanciful,
perhaps, but that did not hinder their being delicious. When we were
sitting at table, although as I have said she took great pains not to
look at me face to face, she could not help glancing about, and her eyes
would meet and thrill my own. When this happened, I believed I could see
that her face colored slightly.
Love did not wholly stifle my powers of observation. I mean to say that
I loved the wife of Marti and studied her at the same time. I soon came
to see and understand that beneath her rare and gracious mingling of
timidity and ease of manner, of insistent happiness and supercilious
seriousness, there existed in her a depth of exquisite sensibility,
carefully and even ferociously guarded. The modesty of sentiment was so
strong in her that any manifestation of tenderness caused it to retreat.
She preferred to pass for hard and cold rather than that anyone should
read her soul.
Unlike her mamma, who was delighted to receive endearments, and who
kissed everybody, she never gave a caress to any member of her family,
and avoided receiving one whenever possible. Her husband himself, when
he found himself a little rebuffed, took it with his jolly shout,
accepting everything with a laugh. In spite of this they all loved her
dearly, and looked upon her coldness as a graceful oddity, with which it
pleased her at times to snub them a little.
Because of her character, the least expression of affection from her
lips had an inestimable value. But it was necessary to turn it off and
pretend that it was not noticed. If it was observed and she knew it, all
was lost. She returned at once to her brusqueness, cutting off gratitude
with some ironical or disdainful speech. She also had the spirit of
contradiction well developed; that is to say, she was wont to antagonize
other people, not from pride or ill-humor, as I was soon convinced, but
rather because of her great reserve, which made it repugnant to her to
show the real strength of her feelings.
And with all this--an extraordinary thing!--there was never a creature
whose features expressed more fully the movements and emotions of her
spirit, even to the faintest shades of thought. Whatever dominated her
for the moment, whatever stirred her, in spite of barred fortress that
she sought to guard, was revealed in her eyes, in the changeful lights
on her face, in all her gestures and movement.
Marti showed himself every day franker and more cordial towards me.
This, it may be divined, made it possible for none but a villain to
breathe in an enterprise against him. And I, who did not hold myself
that, was embarrassed and saddened. We were inseparable from the first.
Not only did we dine and take our coffee together, but he often insisted
that I should accompany him while he was attending to his business; he
soon made me his confidant and even asked me to give him advice. At
last, after I had been five or six days in Valencia, he joyously
proposed that we should thee-and-thou each other, and without waiting
for my response began to do so with a cordiality that touched me. I
experienced a mingled pride and humiliation, pleasure and pain; thinking
how the confidence of this man brought me nearer his wife, yet held me
all the more removed from her morally. I had occasion to prove this only
a few hours afterwards. When we were again at the house, I, out of
shyness, did everything possible to conceal that we had so soon adopted
a new method of addressing each other. Marti made it plain directly.
Cristina lifted her head surprised, looked at us both an instant, and
dropped her eyes again, but not before I had, I believed, surprised in
them an expression of annoyance. I guessed what passed in her soul.
Marti invited me the next day to visit his estate at Cabanal, where he
had certain orders to give about the house and garden. The family was
usually installed there by May, the present month; but this year, on
account of the happy event that was expected, the moving out had been
postponed.
We made the trip on foot, by the road and across the fields, in order to
see the farms and gardens that lie between the city and the sea. I
consented with good will, and at the hour for the promenade we started
out upon our way, walking slowly until we reached the place.
My companion never closed his mouth after we came out of the house. The
discussion of his affairs engrossed him to such an extent that he paid
no attention to the delicious country, carpeted with flowers, whose
white cottages seemed like doves alighted near us. Round about every one
of the little houses with their sharp-pointed roofs grew a grove of
orange-trees, pomegranates, and algarrobos. Beyond were cultivated
fields with flowers and vegetables, some set with roses, lilies,
carnations, gillyflowers; and others with strawberries, alfalfa, and
artichokes. Running about among them on the well-beaten paths were
beautiful brunette children, who stopped to gaze at us with their deep,
dark eyes. The father of the family, bending to his task, would always
lift his head as we passed and salute us gravely and silently, lifting
his hand to his hat of coarse straw.
Marti did not see this, and scarcely the road we were walking on.
"One of two things! Either this business of the artesian wells will turn
out well, in which case I not only hope soon to get a return on the
capital employed, but I shall also make a good income for myself and my
heirs; or it will turn out badly, and then it will look as if the
capital were lost, but it will not really be so, because of my
disposition and personal knowledge, trained and skilful in this class of
work, which I think I should immediately use in making canals from a
river in the province of Almeria, where there are great tracts of land
that might prove very productive if watered, and which need only
irrigation and ways of communication. It is a project that I have been
turning over in my head for several years. You know well how much time
and money it takes in Spain to get people together for this sort of
business. Not only are directors, capitalists, and superintendents
lacking, but even workmen who know how to carry out a certain class of
works that I undertake. Well, whether the artesian wells turn out well
or ill, I still have this knowledge ready at my command."
"That seems to me exactly the idea," I said, absorbed in the
contemplation of the beautiful, variegated floral carpet that was spread
before us.
"Yes, I think that's it!" exclaimed Marti, with emphasis. "But these
ideas, friend Ribot," he went on, gayly flinging out his arms as if to
embrace all mankind, "these ideas only come after some years of
experience, and not even then unless one has practical sense and a
vocation for business."
"Yes, aptitudes can be developed, but they cannot be acquired."
"There is my brother-in-law, Sabas. I make superhuman efforts to
discover in him some ability, something he can do, and I only succeed in
putting myself out. Whatever matter I confide to his care, even if I
give him precise and definite instructions, he manages to knock all to
pieces. It has got so tiresome that I leave him in peace and employ him
in nothing whatever."
I could not help thinking that this punishment was not found very cruel
by the brother-in-law, and yet it came into my imagination that he might
have purposely provoked it as certain naughty children provoke it from
their teachers, but I kept these and my other observations to myself.
"It is very different with my friend Castell. Of wide and penetrating
talent, with a remarkable mind, immense learning, a profound knowledge
of the sciences and arts, and even of mechanics--but from the first
moment of application he is discouraged by the least scrap of an
obstacle in his way. He is all obstacles and doubts and scruples. He
loses heart before he begins anything and he has given up business. To
carry out an industrial enterprise a knowledge of the matter is not
enough; it must be studied; it is necessary that the one who undertakes
it should possess an essentially positive mind--above all, that he
should have, like me, an iron will."
Little by little we drew nearer to Cabanal. I have already described
these shores of the sea whose great plain lies blue beneath the sun. We
walked on enveloped in its light and breathing the fragrant air. The
joyfulness of such a scene, serene and luminous as a picture by Titian,
the idyllic bits that we came upon here and there, entered into the soul
and overflowed it with a gentle felicity. In all this joy, this soft
tranquillity, Marti with his beautiful, waving locks, his great,
innocent eyes, did not seem to me so forcible a man as he wished to
appear, not altogether of iron.
Before coming to the first houses of the village we turned off to the
left. There at a distance was a white villa that Marti told me was his
property. On the way I saw a curious plot of ground whose walls were
made of perfectly symmetrical and equal-sized stones. These walls
seemed to be in ruins, and through great openings I could discern
certain structures, great iron pipes, rusted and fallen in pieces to the
ground, wheels and other portions of machinery.
"What is this?" I asked, surprised.
Marti coughed before replying, pulled a bit at his shirt cuffs, and
declared, with a gesture between peevishness and shamefacedness:
"Nothing--a factory of artificial stones."
"But it does not seem to be running."
"No."
"Whom does it belong to?"
"To me."
I shut up, because I understood how much the subject mortified him. We
went on several steps without deigning to cast another look upon the
abandoned factory, when, turning, he suddenly exclaimed:
"Don't imagine that I didn't know how to manufacture stone--all these
walls are built of the products of the factory. Take up a piece of the
stone and examine it."
I took up a piece, examined it, and saw that in fact it had, in
appearance at least, all the necessary qualities of resistance. It gave
me pleasure to say so. Marti explained that the failure of the factory
was due to the scarcity of workmen. Valencia was a province that for
centuries had neglected industrial for agricultural pursuits; it lacked
hands. Then the manager had not properly filled his place; the increase
on tariffs and freights, etc., etc.
The subject was undoubtedly vexatious to my friend. He spoke of it in a
low voice, with a frown on his forehead, and he avoided looking at the
unlucky factory. So in order to mortify him no more, I showed the least
possible interest in all the rusting machinery, and went onward without
bestowing another particle of attention upon it.
We came at last to the walls of his grounds. We entered them by a
wrought-iron gateway, and crossed a handsomely laid-out garden to
approach the house. This was a modest structure, but sufficiently
spacious, and furnished within in considerable luxury. The furniture,
suitable for the summer season, was simple and elegant. But that which
roused my enthusiasm was the extensive park that stretched beyond, whose
walls reached to the seashore, upon which it opened by a wrought-iron
gateway. Formerly this had been a productive field. But first Marti's
father and then himself had transformed it into a vast garden. Shady,
gravelled pathways were bordered by orange-trees, lemons, pomegranates,
and many other sorts of fruit-trees. Here was a little grove of laurels,
and in the middle of it was a stone table surrounded by chairs. There
was a grotto tapestried with jasmine and honeysuckle; yonder was a
thicket of cannas, or cypresses, and in the centre a statue of white
marble. And like a base for decoration, there was the azure line of the
sea, into whose waves seemed ready to fall the oranges that hung from
the boughs. The sun, that was already sinking, enveloped the garden and
the sea with a sudden blaze of illumination; its golden rays were
scattered over the white paths of the enclosure, made the whitewashed
house resplendent, penetrated the thickets of cypress and laurel,
lighting up the marble faces of the statues, and hung drooping from the
branches of the trees like threads of the gold of waving tresses. At the
right were visible over the walls the masts of little fishing boats with
their simple rigging, and yonder extended the town of Cabanal in a rare
and picturesque blending of fishermen's cots and aristocratic mansions
wherein the grandees of the city came to spend the summer. More distant
still was the port and the tall masts of steamboats.
Marti showed me all the grounds, although without much pleasure or
pride. Business, past and future, burdened him; he did not know how to
throw it off. It was only when we came to a corner next the beach that
he was enough distracted for a few moments to point out to me a
summer-house in the Greek style that was admirably introduced into this
smiling landscape. It was adorned within by carved furniture brought
from Italy, statues and vases. It had a little lookout balcony towards
the sea, and over the door was inscribed a name that caused me a slight
tremor.
"The building of this summer-house was a thing of my wife's. That is why
I had her name put over the door."
From thence we returned to the house by new and ever more beautiful and
embowered pathways. Before reaching it, we came upon a little artificial
hill, and, topping it, a bit of a castle. About it was a little pond of
water, imitating a moat. We crossed it by means of a drawbridge, and
ascended by a narrow footpath between hedges of box and orange, arriving
at the top in the time that it takes to tell of it. The path, because of
its artful windings, produced the effect of being measured by rods,
instead of by inches. Over the door of the little castle was engraved
another name that also made me tremble, although in a very different
way.
"The idea of the little artificial hill was my friend Castell's, and,
naturally, it bears his name--which is all the better that it exactly
suits it," he added, laughing.
For me the pun had much less charm. Perhaps the antipathy with which the
subject inspired me had part in this. We entered the diminutive castle
and ascended to its roof. From there were admirably revealed not only
the park, which did not seem so vast, but also a good part of the
cultivated grounds, all the harbor, and the Puerto Nuevo and the grand
expanse of the sea. Above its innumerable wavelets, above the freshness
and dark depths of the water hung the crystal vault of the sky, dappled
with delicate tints of rose. The sun flung a river of gold across the
waves. Among the flowery fields and the fields of maize shone the little
white cottages nestled among their oranges and cypresses. Beyond
Valencia was Miguelete, and in the distance the encircling mountains,
that at this hour seemed all of violet and mauve and lilac.
"What is this hut?" I asked, disagreeably impressed by the sight of an
ugly brick structure which reared itself up on the confines of the park.
"Nothing--that was an attempt at a beer manufactory," replied Marti
dryly.
And again his brow was furrowed by the frown.
"And did it not get to the making of it?"
"Yes, there was some made. It turned out badly on account of the quality
of the water. The maker, whom I got here from England, did not explain
this to me in time, and I was obliged to waste money enough uselessly."
Coughing perfunctorily, he pulled at his shirt-cuffs, ran his fingers
through his hair, and hastily descended the stair of the little castle,
followed by me. There was in every movement of this man when he
expressed pleasure or annoyance so much heartiness, such childlike
innocence, that I felt myself constantly more attracted to him. It
seemed to me that I had loved him for a great while.
When we came away from his estate the sun was already setting behind the
distant mountains. We made our way around the house, and crossed the
grounds again and through the fields of maize, the gardens and orchards.
It was the hour of stopping work, and the laborers in the fields, with
their Valencian kerchiefs about their heads, were resting at the doors
of their cottages under the sweet fresh tendrils of vine-covered arbors.
Their children were climbing upon their knees and dancing about them
while the mothers prepared the rice for supper.