Don Platón Peribáñez’s reply was delayed longer than he had promised. No
one knew whether the Duke of Castro Duro would get married or not get
married, whether he would come out of prison or stay in.
Cæsar had nothing for it but to wait, although he was already fed up
with his stay. Alzugaray had a good time; he visited the surrounding
towns in the company of Amparito and her father. Cæsar, on the other
hand, began to be bored. Accustomed to live with the independence of a
savage, the social train of a town like Castro irritated him.
His good opinion of people was in direct ratio to the indifference
they felt for him. Amparito’s father was one of those who showed most
antipathy. Sometimes he invited him to go motoring, but only for
politeness. Cæsar used to reply to these invitations with a courteous
refusal.
Amparito, who was doubtless accustomed to seeing everybody in town
fluttering about her, was wounded at this indifference and took every
chance to see Cæsar, and then shot her wit at him and was sharply
impertinent.
The young creature was more intelligent than she had at first appeared
and she spoke very plainly.
Cæsar could not permit a young girl to make fun of him and combat his
ideas for her own amusement.
“Let’s see, Moneada,” Amparito said to him one day in the gallery at Don
Calixto’s. “What are your political plans?”
“You wouldn’t understand them,” replied Cæsar.
“Why not? Do you think I am so stupid?”
“No. It is merely that politics are not a matter for children.” “Ah! But
how old do you think I am?” she asked.
“You must be twelve or thirteen.”
“You are a malicious joker, Señor Moncada, You know that I am almost
seventeen.”
“I don’t. How should I know it?”
“Because I told your friend Alzugaray....”
“All right, but I don’t ask my friend what you have told him.”
“It doesn’t interest you? Very good. You are very polite. But your
politics do interest me. Come on, tell me. What reforms do you intend
to make in the town? What improvements are you going to give the
inhabitants? For I warn you, Señor Moncada, that they are all going to
vote against you otherwise, I will tell my father.”
“I don’t believe his political interest is so keen.”
“It is keen enough, and my father will do what I tell him. My father
says that you are ambitious.”
“If I were, I should make love to you, because you are rich.”
“And do you suppose I would respond?”
“I don’t know, but I should try it, as others do; and you can see that I
don’t try.”
Amparito bit her lips and said ironically:
“Are you reserving yourself for my cousin Adelaida?”
“I am not reserving myself for anybody.”
“We couldn’t say that you are very amiable.”
“That is true. I never have been.”
“If you keep on like that when you are a Deputy....”
“What difference is it to you whether I am a Deputy or not? Is it
because you have some beau who wants the place? If it is, tell me. I
will withdraw in his favour. You must see that I can do no more,” said
Cæsar jokingly.
“And how you would hate me then; if you had to give up being a Deputy on
my account!”
“No.”
“You hate me already.”
“No. You are mistaken.” “Yes. I believe if you could, you would strike
me.”
“No, the most I should do would be to shut you up in a dark room.”
“You are an odious, antipathetic man. I thought I rather liked you, but
I only hate you.”
“You know already, Amparito, that I am a candidate for Deputy, but not
one for you.”
“All right. All right. I don’t wish to hear any more stupid remarks.”
“The stupid remarks are those you are making.”
And Cæsar, who was beginning to feel angry, rebuked Amparito too
severely, for her coquetry, her bad intentions, and her desire to
humiliate and mortify people without any reason.
Amparito listened to him, pale and panting.
“And after all,” said Cæsar, “all this is nothing to me. If I am in
your family’s way, or even in your way, I can go away from here, and all
is ended.”
“No, do not go away,” murmured Amparito, raising her handkerchief to her
eyes and beginning to weep bitterly.
Cæsar felt deeply grieved; all his anger disappeared, and he stood
there, amazed, and not knowing what to do.
“Do not cry,” exclaimed Cæsar; “what will they think of me? Come, don’t
cry. It is childish.”
At that moment Amparito’s father entered the gallery, and he came
running to the girl’s side.
“What have you done to my daughter?” he cried, approaching Cæsar
threateningly.
“I, nothing,” he said.
“You have. What has he done to you?” screamed the father.
“Nothing, Papa. Do not shriek that way, for God’s sake,” moaned
Amparito; “I was entirely to blame.”
“If he...”
“No, I tell you he hasn’t done anything to me.”
Cæsar, who had remained motionless in face of Amparito’s father’s
threatening attitude, turned on his heel, and went slowly out. THE
ETERNAL GAME OF DISDAIN
Cæsar went back to the hotel, thinking very hard. Alzugaray asked him
what the matter was, and Cæsar told his friend what had happened in
the gallery. On hearing the story Alzugaray assumed a look of deep
desolation.
“I don’t understand what is the matter with the girl, for her to show
such antipathy for me,” Cæsar concluded.
“It is very simple,” said Alzugaray, sadly; “the girl is interested in
you. The eternal game of disdain has produced its effect. She has seen
you show yourself indifferent toward her, speak curtly to her, and she
has gone on thinking more and more about you, and now she thinks of
nothing else. That is what has happened.”
“Bah! I don’t believe it. You act as if this were in a novel.”
“It’s no novel. It’s the truth.”
The next day, when Cæsar got up, the maid handed him two letters. One
was from Don Calixto and said that Señor Peribáñez accepted him as
candidate. It had been learned that the Duke of Castro Duro had married
his landlady in England; the arrangement with the Cuban gentleman was
impossible, and the poor Duke would definitely have to winter in Paris,
in the prison, along with the distinguished apaches, Bibi de Montmartre
and the Panther of the Batignolles.
The other letter was from Amparito.
Don Calixto’s niece told him he mustn’t believe that she hated him; if
she had said anything to him, it was without bad intention; she would be
very happy if all his projects were realized.
Despite his ambitious plans and the desire he had that the question of
his candidacy should be definitely settled, Amparito’s letter interested
him much more than Don Calixto’s.
A new, disturbing element was coming into his life, without any warning
and without any reason. He said nothing about Amparito’s letter to his
friend Alzugaray. He felt him to be a rival, and in spite of having no
intentions of going further, the idea of rivalry between them troubled
him. He did not wish to offend him by taking the attitude of a lucky
man.
He went out into the street and set off for a walk on the highway.
“It is strange,” he thought, “this coarse psychology, which proves that
a man and a woman, especially a woman, are not complex beings, but
stupidly simple. The complex thing in a woman is not the intelligence or
the soul, but instinct. Why does a woman rebuff a man who pleases her?
For the same reason that the female animal repulses the male, and at the
same time calls him to her.
“And this instinctive love, this mixture of hatred and attraction, is
the curious thing, the enigmatic thing about human nature. The intellect
of each individual is, by contrast, so poor, so clear!
“This girl, rich and attractive, flattered by everybody, is bored in
this town. She sees a man that doesn’t pay attention to her, who is
after another goal, and simply for that reason she feels offended and
hunts out a way to mortify him, for her entertainment and for spite; and
when she finds that she doesn’t succeed, she gets to thinking about him
all the time.
“And this spite, this wounded vanity, is changed to an absorbing
interest. Why shouldn’t that absorbing interest be called love? Yes, she
is in love, and finds great satisfaction in thinking so.
“She is not an insignificant girl, daughter of a commonplace gentleman;
to herself, she is a romantic figure. She seems to be absorbed in
another, and what is really the case is that she is absorbed in herself.
How ridiculous this all is!... And this is life. Is the whole of life
nothing, in reality, but ridiculous?”
Cæsar returned home, and unknown to Alzugaray, wrote a letter to
Amparito. He put the letter into the box, and then went to call on Don
Calixto, and take leave of him. Don Calixto invited Cæsar and Alzugaray
to dinner the next day, and there were the same guests as the first
time.
The dinner was cold and ceremonious. Amparito was grave, like a
grown person. Scarcely speaking, she replied with discreet smiles to
Alzugaray’s occasional phrases, but she was not in a humour to tease
anybody.
The train started about the middle of the afternoon, and Don Calixto had
arranged to have the carriage got ready, and to accompany the travellers
to the station.
Cæsar was uneasy, thinking of the leave-taking. The moment for saying
good-bye to Amparito and her father, it seemed to him, would be a
difficult moment. Nevertheless, everything went off smoothly. The father
offered his hand, without grudge. Amparito blushed a little and said:
“We shall see each other again, Moncada?”
“Yes, I’m sure of it,” replied Cæsar; and the two friends and Don
Calixto took the carriage for the station.
The two friends’ return trip to Madrid was scarcely agreeable. Alzugaray
was offended at Cæsar’s personal success with Amparito; Cæsar
understood his comrade’s mental attitude and didn’t know what to say or
do.
To them both the journey seemed long and unpleasant, and when they
reached their destination, they were glad to separate.