Six months after, the Countess de Algar was in her saloon with the
marchioness, her mother, occupied in putting a ribbon on her son’s straw
hat, when General Santa-Maria entered.
“See, general, how well a straw hat becomes a boy at that age.”
“You spoil this child.”
“What matters it?” said the marchioness. “Do not we all spoil our
children, who nevertheless become serious men? Our mother spoilt you
also, my brother, and that did not prevent you from becoming what you
are.”
“Mamma,” said the child, “wilt thou give me a biscuit?”
“What is this?” cried the general. “Your child _tutear’s_ you? You adopt
then, after the French fashion, this _te_ and _tu_, which corrupts our
manners. The grandees of Spain formerly obliged their children to call
them ‘excellency.’ It was in the good old time. The _tutear_, in
imitation of the French _tutoies_, makes children lose the respect they
owe to their parents.”
“Eh! general--this innocent creature! Can he distinguish between _thou_
and _you_?”
“It is taught him.”
“I acknowledge that my children _tutear_ me; and if I had done the same
to my mother, I had not less respected nor less loved her.”
“You have always been a good daughter; but the exception proves
nothing.”
“General, in spite of your severity, your countenance seems joyous.”
“It is because I have a good piece of news to announce to you. The
corvette _Iberia_, from Havana, has arrived at Cadiz, and to-morrow
morning, most probably, we will embrace Raphael. He is fortunate, this
Raphael! Hardly had he written us that he desired to revisit Spain, when
a magnificent occasion presents itself, and he comes home charged with
important dispatches confided to him by the captain-general of Cuba.”
The marchioness and the countess had scarcely time to rejoice at this
good news, and to give expression to their happiness, when the door
opened, and Raphael threw himself into their arms.
“How happy I am again to see you, my good, dear Raphael!” said the
countess to him.
“Jesus!” added the marchioness, “thanks to our lady of Carmen, you are
here returned to us. But what idea have you had, you who are rich, to
travel by sea, as if it were but a river? I bet you have been sea-sick.”
“That is the least of it; it is nothing but an unpleasant voyage, and I
have suffered more from delay and my uneasiness for those I love. I do
not know if it be because Spain is a good mother, or because we
Spaniards are good sons, but we cannot live far away from our country.”
“It is for both reasons, my dear nephew; it is for both,” repeated the
general with ardent satisfaction.
“Cuba is a rich country, is it not, Raphael?” demanded the countess.
“Yes, cousin. Cuba is rich, and it knows how to be so, like a great
lady, who has always been one, without ostentation, and parading
everywhere its benefits.”
“And the women, do they please you?”
“As a general rule, all women please me: the young, because they are so;
the old, because they have been so; and the little girls, because they
will be so.”
“Do not generalize so; be more precise.”
“Cousin, the Cuban ladies are charming feminine _lazzaroni_, covered
with muslins and lace, and whose little satin shoes are useless
ornaments for the little feet they are destined for, as I have never
seen an Havana lady on foot. They speak like nightingale’s singing, live
on sugar like bees, and smoke like the chimneys of a steamboat. Their
eyes are poems, and their hearts mirrors, without tin-foil. The doleful
drama is not written for this country, where the women pass their life
lying in a hammock balanced amidst flowers, and fanned by their slaves
with fans fringed with flowers of a thousand colors.”
“Do you know that public rumor announces your marriage?”
“Dame Rumor, my dear Gracia, arrogates to herself the royal buffooneries
of the olden time. Like them, she tells all that passes in her head
without inquiry into the truth. But public rumor has told a lie.”
“They add, that your future wife brings you a fortune of two millions of
_duros_.”
Raphael burst into a fit of laughter.
“Indeed, I remember that the captain-general wished to make me indorse
this bill of exchange.”
“And who was to be my future cousin?”
“She was ugly as mortal sin: her left shoulder approached too
conspicuously the ear on the same side, while the right shoulder was
separated from the ear, its neighbor, by a distance too marked. I
therefore refused the indorsement.”
“You were wrong,” said the countess, “above all, knowing that--” She
did not finish. She had seen pass over the frank and open countenance of
her cousin the expression of a bitter recollection.
“Is she happy?” he demanded.
“As much as one can be in this world. She lives very retired, since
above all she expects soon to be a mother.”
“And he?”
“Entirely changed, since the marriage. He is a model of a husband. The
family have received him as a returned prodigal son.”
“And Eloisita?”
“Hers is a lamentable history. She secretly espoused a French
adventurer, who called himself cousin of the Prince of Rohan, coadjutor
of Alexander Dumas, and sent by the Baron Taylor to purchase artistic
curiosities, and who, unfortunately, is called Abelard. She saw in the
name of her beloved and in her own the decree of destiny commanding
their union; and in this man, at the same time literary, artistic, and
of princely family, she believed she saw the ideal being who had
appeared to her in her beautiful dreams of gold, and a happy future. She
regarded her parents, who opposed this union, as the tyrants of a
melodrama, of ideas retrograde, and filled with obscurity.”
“And of _Spainishism_,” added the general, ironically. “And the learned
señorita, nourished by novels and poetic flowers, united herself to this
grand swindler, already twice married, as we learned later. After the
lapse of some months, after having dissipated the money she had given
him, he abandoned her at Valence, where her unfortunate father went to
seek her, and to take her back, dishonored, but neither married, nor
widow, nor maid. You see, my nephew, to what leads this mad love of
_strangerism_.”
“And our A. Polo, our eternal point of exclamation, what has become of
him?”
“He has become a political man,” replied Gracia.
“I know it,” replied Raphael; “I know also that he has written an ode
against the throne, under the pseudo name of _Tyranny_.”
“Poor tyranny,” said the general, “all the world make fagots of the
fallen tree.”
“I know, besides,” pursued Raphael, “that he wrote another poem against
Prejudice, in which he comprehended the fatal presage of the number
thirteen, the infallibility of the Pope, the upsetting of a salt-cellar,
and conjugal fidelity. If I do not cite the text, I cite at least the
spirit of this _chef-d’œuvre_ which public opinion will class
among--”
“Among?”
“We will see, when they have destroyed this society, with what they will
replace it.”
“I know indeed that our A. Polo has composed a satire (he felt himself
carried towards this point, and for a long time he has felt growing on
his forehead the horns of Marsias), a satire, I say, he declares it to
be an act of hypocrisy, all claims of tithes, or the rights of
convents.”
“Eh! Well, my dear nephew,” said the general, “these lucubrations will
give him sufficient merit to be received in an opposition journal.”
“I understand that much, general, and I can imagine what will happen; it
is a comedy played every day: he made of his pen the jaw-bone of an ass,
and, armed with this jaw-bone, he will bravely attack the Philistines of
power.”
“You have been a good prophet,” affirmed the general; “I do not know how
he will get on. But at present he is a personage; he has money, he
gives the _ton_, he is strong.”
“And the duke, will I meet him at Madrid?”
“No, but you may see him, on your way, at Cordoval, where he is at this
moment with his family.”
“The duke has finished by following my advice,” said the general; “he
has abandoned public life. Everybody of slight importance ought to-day,
like Achilles, to retire within their tents.”
“But, my uncle, is it then the fashion to retire?”
“They say that the duke,” interrupted the countess, “is entirely devoted
to literature. He writes for the theatre.”
“I bet that the title of his first piece will be, ‘The goat returns
always to the mountain,’” said Raphael, in the ear of his cousin,
alluding to the loves of Maria and Pepe Vera, which everybody knew.
“Hold your tongue, Raphael,” said the countess, “we ought to act with
our friends as the sons of Noah did with their father.”
“And Marisalada, has she mounted to the capitol in a chariot of gold,
drawn by her fanatical admirers?”
“She has lost her voice, caused by a severe attack of pleurisy; did you
not know that?”
“I was so far from knowing it that I bring her magnificent offers from
Havana. What does she do?”
“Now, when she can no longer sing,” replied the general, “she will
follow without doubt the counsels of the ant: she will learn to dance.”
“But where is she?” repeated Raphael, insisting; “I have a letter to
deliver to her from her husband.”
“From her husband!” cried at once the marchioness, the countess, and the
general.
“Have you seen him?” demanded the marchioness, with interest.
“He embarked in the same vessel with us for Havana. How he was changed!
how sad he was! you would not have recognized him. A little time after
our arrival he died of yellow fever.”
“He died! poor Stein!” said the countess.
“The death of this good man,” said the general, “will fall entirely on
the conscience of this accursed singer.”
“I, who believe myself invulnerable,” replied Raphael, “and without ever
having had the epidemic, I went to see him so soon as I learned he was
ill. The attack was so violent that I found him almost at his last
extremity; always calm, always filled with serene goodness, he thanked
me for my visit, and said to me that he was happy in seeing, before he
died, a loved face. He asked me for paper and a pen, and, almost dying,
he traced some lines which he asked me, as the last request of a dying
man, to convey to his wife. The vomiting soon followed, and he died with
one hand clasped in those of the priest, the other in mine. I confide to
you this letter, my dear Gracia; send it by a trusty man to Villamar,
where, I suppose, Marisalada will have retired near to her father. Here
is this letter, which I have often read, as one reads a holy hymn.”
The countess opened the paper, and read--
“Maria, thou whom I have loved, and who I love still; if my pardon
can save you from remorse, if my benediction can render you happy,
receive them both. I send them to you from my death-bed.
“FRITZEN STEIN.”