"Down with property!"
"_Abajoooo!_"
The throng again started on its march, and in a short time Marroquin and
all his comrades had joined it, raising aloft a tremendous blue standard
on which could be read these words:--
"IMMEDIATE ABOLITION OF RELIGION AND THE CLERGY!"
All was tumult, noise, and gayety on that day, the thirtieth of
September, in the capital of Spain. Brass bands marched through the
street, playing patriotic airs; all the balconies (especial pains were
taken that there should be no exceptions) were decked with variegated
hangings; the church bells pealed forth a hypocritical jubilee;
triumphal arches were built in all haste on the principal streets to
receive the conquerors of Alcolea, the emigres and martyrs of the
revolution; numerous patriotic crowds rushed through the city, ready at
any instant to listen to the words of all the orators, more or less
improvised for the occasion.
The one which Marroquin had joined was not the least noisy and
enthusiastic.
Miguel was informed of its exploits by his ancient professor, Don Juan
Vigil, the chaplain of the Colegio de la Merced, whom he met a few days
afterwards in the street.
"You have triumphed. _Barajoles!_ God knows I am proud of you and other
good friends whom I have had in the thick of the affair. The only thing
that I regret is the excesses, don't you know? the excesses against our
Holy Mother, the Church.... In front of the house passed that hog of a
Marroquin at the head of a regular mob; I saw that you were not with
him, and I congratulate you for not being mixed up with such rude
people.... He had a card on which was printed, _Down with religion and
the clergy!_ He appeared in front of the college, and began to wave the
flag, bellowing like a calf: 'Death to the priest! Down with the
night-hawks!'"
"I was standing behind the blinds, and _barajoles_! I felt strongly like
going down into the street and giving the hog a good basting!"
Miguel could not restrain a smile as he remembered the slaps which, in
days gone by, the priest had given him, and, lest the reason for his
smile should be misinterpreted, he hastened to say:--
"Don't you remember, Don Juan, the caning which you gave me one day for
having shouted during recess time, _Viva Garibaldi_?"
"Certainly I remember. And you did not thank me for it, I wager?"
"Not at all."
"That is the way! Do your best to inculcate in your pupils sound ideas
of religion and morals, direct their steps in the path of virtue,
correct their faults with paternal hand, and then when they become men
they do not even thank you for all your vigilance!"
"Let us not dispute about that, Don Juan; for that I thank you with all
my heart; but the canings, paternal as they may seem, I shall never feel
grateful for--not a shilling's worth!"
"That is all right; I won't say anything more about the matter; the
greatest reward for my cares is to see you an earnest man, and well
received in society.... But, by the way, you can't imagine the sensation
that this devil of a Brutandor gave me the other day. I was walking
down the Calle de Alcala, with the purpose of witnessing the entrance of
the leaders of liberty (as you call them now). I was accompanied by the
mayordomo and two pupils, when I saw in the procession, lounging in a
barouche in which rode two generals in full uniform, my Brutandor,
saluting the people as though he were an emperor!... _Ave Maria
Purisima!_ I said to myself, making the sign of the cross; I could
scarcely believe the evidence of my own eyes. Of course I knew that this
clown mixed in politics, and that he had slobbered a few articles in the
papers, although I always imagine that they are about as much his as the
compositions that you used to write for him in school; but how could I
ever imagine that I should be destined to behold him transformed into a
person of importance, riding underneath the triumphal arches as though
he had just been conquering the Gauls or overcoming the Scythians? And I
declare the idiot was swelling up, swaying round in the barouche, as
though he had ridden all his life in one!"
"You have always been unjust toward Mendoza, Don Juan. More portentous
things than that remain to be seen."
"I believe you, even if you don't take your oath on it. If these are the
men by whom you expect to regenerate the country, I have no doubt that I
shall see him very soon made into mince-meat."
And cursing the glorious revolution, and scorning in the person of
Brutandor the whole confraternity, he took a most friendly farewell of
Rivera, for whom he had never ceased to feel a genuine fondness.
Little had Miguel cared for the revolutionary movement, although he
figured as one of the most earnest adepts of democratic doctrines. The
cultivation of his mind by an incessant devotion to the best reading,
and his domestic life, took too much of his attention for him to give
to politics more than a very small part of his energies; the very
journal, the management of which he had taken hold of with enthusiasm,
began to bore him; the everlasting polemics, the disgusting phraseology
of the leaders, soon wearied him, and he longed for the time to come
when he could resign his position, and give himself altogether to more
serious and useful labors.
He was happy in his home life, but not in the way that he had expected
to be. For he had imagined before he was married that love and the
joyful experiences which love would bring would be sufficient to fill
his life absolutely and entirely, without leaving him time or desire for
other things. And to discover that love occupied in his life a place
apparently accessory or secondary, and that he was constantly occupied
in other pursuits, some pertaining to his outward life, others to his
studies and thoughts; that a slight disappointment would annoy him, and
any inappropriate word vex him as much as before; that time and again he
would return home from the cafe stirred up by some discussion, and his
wife's caresses were not enough to calm him,--all this surprised him,
and he was obliged to confess that domestic life had to take a place
subordinate to other influences and pursuits.
Maximina herself had sometimes to suffer for the outside annoyances
caused by others; when he was in an irritable frame of mind, it took a
very slight annoyance to upset him; and although he was conscious of his
unfairness, he nevertheless did not fail to speak his mind to his wife
when the neatness of his room, or of his linen, or any trifling detail
was not up to the mark.
To be sure, as soon as he saw her eyes fill with tears, he was sorry,
and immediately gave her a loving embrace and many kisses. As for
Maximina, as soon as she felt her husband's lips on her face, all her
griefs would fade away as if by magic; so that their quarrels--if such a
name can be applied when one does the disputing and the other makes no
reply--never lasted more than a few minutes.
In a word, as our hero suffered from the complaint, which among children
is called _mimos_, or--what amounts to the same thing--as he was
accustomed to see his wife constantly sweet-tempered, affectionate, and
patient, it never once occurred to him that she could be anything else,
and for that very reason he could not appreciate the value of that peace
and home comfort which so many men seek in vain.
Maximina, on the other hand, enjoyed a happiness almost celestial. The
presence of her husband, with whom she each day fell deeper in love, was
sufficient to keep her in a state of felicity which shone in her eyes,
and was manifested in all her words and movements. When he was in the
house, she could scarcely take her eyes from him; she would follow him
about wherever he went; she even liked to watch him when he was washing
and dressing himself. Miguel used to make sport of her on account of
this constant pursuit; occasionally when he was in bad humor he would
say:--
"Come now, leave me, for I am going to get dressed."
And he would make believe shut the door; but she would respond with such
beseeching eyes:--
"For Heaven's sake, don't drive me out of your room, Miguel," that he
could not help smiling, and, taking her by the hand, he would put her
down in a chair as though she were a child, saying:--
"Very well; but don't you move from there."
When he was away from home, he was never for a single instant absent
from her thoughts; when she had to talk with the maid-servants, she
would always manage to refer to him directly or indirectly. If she gave
orders to have the mirrors washed, it was so that _he_ might not notice
that they were soiled; if she consulted her cook book, it was to learn
how to make some dish that _he_ liked; the clothes that she was mending
were _his_, and _his_ was the chain that she cleaned with powder, and
the silk handkerchief which she sent her maid to wash, and the shirts
which she sent out to be done up, because she did not feel that she was
able to rival the laundryman, though her will was good.
The only little clouds that crossed the horizon of her happiness was her
husband's unreasonable fretfulness, which seemed to increase. Sometimes
she would say, with tears in her eyes:--
"I was worried about to-morrow, because for the last five days you have
been scolding me!"
Miguel, grieved as always to see her weep, fondled her, and would return
to his usual serenity and content.
Nevertheless, there was one cloud larger and blacker than the others,
and the cause of it was the fact that on the second floor of the same
house lived the widowed Countess de Losilla with her two daughters of
twenty-three and twenty-four years old, six and seven years older
respectively than Maximina. Cards, bows on the stairway, and smiles from
the balcony brought about an exchange of calls, and finally there sprang
up a very cordial friendship between the young ladies and the bride.
If not exactly pretty, they were rather handsome, to say the least: the
older, Rosaura, a brunette with coarse features, and handsome though too
prominent black eyes; the other daughter, Filomena, was very slender,
and had a pale complexion, green eyes, a strange and mischievous look,
and reddish gray hair. This young lady had a certain amount of
forwardness unbecoming her sex and education, and this pleased the men
even more than her figure.
Miguel enjoyed keeping up a glib conversation with her, and it amused
him to see with what unrestraint and ease the girl slid over all
obstacles, and what skill she displayed in making retorts, and giving
her phrases the meaning that she desired.
And it must be said that when they came on dangerous ground they several
times narrowly escaped a conversation of exceedingly questionable taste.
When such a skirmish of wit began, Maximina used to walk up and down the
balcony with Rosaura; although she smiled, it was evident that she did
not approve. When she and her husband were alone afterwards, she said
nothing about it, but the way in which she spoke of Filomena showed that
she felt no great esteem for her.
"Well, in spite of her boldness and her masculine ways," Miguel used to
say, "she is a nice girl ... much better than her sister, according to
my way of thinking."
Maximina said nothing, so as not to contradict him, but she had her own
very decided opinion. A vague feeling of jealousy, for which she could
not fully account, contributed toward making her feel an antipathy to
her.
Thus matters stood, when, one morning Miguel, lying back in an
easy-chair in his study, was tranquilly listening to Maximina, who,
seated on a stool at his feet, and leaning her shoulder against his
knees, was reading aloud from _Adventures of the Squire Marcos of
Obregon_, written by Vicente Espinel. While the young wife was reading,
he was playing with the braids of her hair, which she wore loose in the
house for his special pleasure.
The reading could not have been much to Maximina's taste, judging by the
careless and inattentive way in which she modulated her voice.
The novels which she liked were not those where everything that takes
place is commonplace and prosaic, but another sort, the plot and
extraordinary action of which piqued her curiosity.
Thus almost all the books brought by her husband for her to read made
her tired and sleepy, and it surprised her that he praised these, and
called those that she liked pestiferous.
She had just finished reading one chapter, terribly heavy for her, when
suddenly, turning her head around and giving him a look which was half
innocent and half mischievous, she asked:--
"Do you like this?"
"Very much indeed."
"I thought so; when a book does not please me nowadays, I always say to
myself: 'How fine it must be!'"
She said these words with such ingenuousness and such a graceful
resignation that her husband, laughing heartily, took her head between
his hands and kissed her enthusiastically.
The young wife, encouraged by this caress, joyfully began to read
another chapter.
She must have been about half through it, when she suddenly paused and
uttered a slight _ay!_ in such a peculiar intonation that Miguel was
surprised; he started up and could see that his wife's face was flushed
and full of an almost mystic joy.
"What is the matter?"
"I just felt ... as though something ..."
"What was it?" he asked, although he knew perfectly well what it was.
"As if a little, wee foot gently touched me."
"That is nothing strange."
Maximina did not care to read more; she laid the book on a chair and
knelt down in front of her husband: they began to talk eagerly about
their child.
"See here! how do you know that it is going to be a boy, and not a
girl?"
"Because I want it to be a boy."
"But now _I_ want it to be a girl, and like you.... But do me the favor
to get up, because, if any servant should come in and surprise you in
this attitude, it would be very ridiculous...."
"No, no; I don't want ..."
At that moment steps were heard at the door, as Miguel had feared, and a
voice, that was not a servant's, called out:--
"Can I come in?"
Maximina was on her feet in a flash.
"Walk right in!"
Filomena entered in her morning gown, with her hair in studied disarray,
and her body _submerged_, if such an expression be permitted, in a
magnificent blue silk morning gown trimmed with white lace.
Miguel had never been able to persuade his wife to dress in such an
elegant and sumptuous fashion at home; the poor child did not enjoy
putting on dresses that were for ornament rather than use, because, as
she said, it made her feel bad to wear a new suit merely to go in and
out of the kitchen.
"I am afraid that I am disturbing you," said the young lady, casting a
malicious glance at Maximina's confused and blushing face.
"No, no; not at all," she replied, growing still more confused.
"One has to act with great circumspection toward newly married
people.... But then, you are not among the softest. I came in without
ringing, because the servants had left the door open. But if I am
disturbing you I will go.... I have known the eleventh commandment this
long time."
That light and slightly insolent tone amazed and wounded the little
provincial girl more and more each day.
"On the contrary, at that very moment, we were talking about you," said
Miguel, in the same light and jesting tone, perfectly intended to convey
the idea that he was prevaricating.
"Man alive! what are you telling me?" she rejoined, ironically. "Well, I
have come," she added, sitting down in an easy-chair and crossing her
legs, "to ask you if you will let Maximina go with us to the opening of
the Royal; we have a box...."
Maximina gave him a look, signifying that he should say _no_; but either
because he lacked the wish or the courage, he replied:--
"A thousand thanks.... There she is."
Filomena looked at Maximina, and she, not having the strength to refuse
or to make an excuse, made an ambiguous gesture, which the countess'
daughter interpreted as an acceptance.
"Very good; at eight sharp we will call for her. You can come to our
box, also, if you like; or, perhaps you may like to improve the
opportunity for a little dissipation."
"Filomena! for shame!"
"Yes, yes; how virtuous you are! Any one who trusts in you must be
fresh!"
And jumping up, she began to play with the paper-cutter, the
paper-weight, and all the objects that lay on the table, among others a
box of cigars.
"To see what cigars you smoke!... Man! what little bits of ones! what
cunning ones! Are they mild?"
"Rather."
"Come now, I should like to try 'em."
And without any hesitation she took a "puro," and bit off the end.
Miguel laughed, and handed her a lighted match.
"I have a very clear head," she replied, giving a bold stare at
Maximina.