The whole street--shopkeepers, peddlers, servants, and inhabitants--all
knew Rogelio; as the saying is, every one had some account to settle
with him. He was familiar with all the establishments, or rather, the
modest little shops for the sale of crockery, imported provisions,
novelties, cordage and periodicals, interspersed among the ancient and
imposing ancestral houses of the Calle Ancha, which was animated by the
presence of the students and by the passing up and down of the street
cars.
But those with whom Rogelio was most intimate were the drivers of the
hackney coaches, of which there was a stand in the little square of
Santo Domingo. Doña Aurora seldom went out that a twinge of her
rheumatism or the cold or the heat did not decide her to send for one of
those vehicles, so shabby in appearance but so comfortable and
convenient. She called them, emphatically, her “equipages,” and declared
laughingly that her coach stood always waiting at the door with so
punctual a driver that he had never once kept her waiting. Rogelio, as
the only son of wealthy parents, indulged in a more luxurious mode of
conveyance; his mother allowed him to keep a dashing brougham and a pair
of spirited horses at the livery stable of Augustin Cuero, so that on
feast days he might drive in the Retiro, or wherever he might like. She
would not consent to his keeping a saddle horse, through fear of an
accident. But nothing in the world would have induced Señora Pardiñas
herself to make use of that toy equipage. She was perfectly satisfied
with her quiet hacks. Except on some special occasion--to make visits
of ceremony or the like--she cared not a jot whether her carriage had a
little extra varnish or her coachman wore gloves or a goat-skin cape.
Owing to the frequency with which she employed them and to judicious
tips all the drivers of the square were devoted to Doña Aurora, as well
as greatly attached to the Señorito, though he loved to torment them,
especially his compatriots, the Galicians, whom he was never tired of
teasing. He ridiculed their native land, he sang the _Muñeira_ for them,
he spoke to them in the Galician dialect, like the servants in Ayála’s
comedies, and if by a miracle they were vexed, he would say:
“I too, swift charioteer, am a Galician, a Galician of the Galicians.”
To which they would answer:
“What a droll señorito!”
Whenever he went to engage a carriage for his mother the moment they
caught sight of him, if he was a league away, they would laugh and
lower the sign. And he would appear upon the scene addressing them
something in this fashion:
“Winged Automedon, touch your fiery courser with the whip that he may
fly to my enchanted palace. Already the generous steed, impatient,
champs the golden bit. Behold him flecked with snowy foam. _Buloniu_, of
what were you thinking, that you did not perceive my approach?”
“I was reading _La Correspondencia_, Señorito.”
“_La Correspondencia!_ What name have thy sacrilegious lips pronounced?
_La Correspondencia!_ By the tail of Satan! A revolutionary, an
anarchical, a nihilistic sheet. Quick! Cast away that venom before thou
comest near the honorable dwelling of peaceful citizens. Hasten, run,
fly, coachman! Hurrah, Cossack of the desert! On, drunkard, demagogue!”
The more extravagant the absurdities he strung together the more
delighted were the drivers.
One morning Rogelio left the house wrapped up to the eyes in his cloak,
for these closing days of October were bitterly cold, although the
bright Madrid sun was shining in all its splendor. As usual, his errand
was to go in search of a carriage for Doña Aurora. On reaching the
corner of the square he caught sight of one of his favorite equipages--a
landau whose lining of Abellano shagreen was less soiled and worn than
that of the generality of those vehicles. The driver, a stout man, fair
and ruddy, answering to the name of Martin, was a Galician. Rogelio made
signs to him as he approached, crying:
“Martin, Martin of the cape! Ho, with the imperial chariot!”
The driver was conversing with a woman whose face was hidden from the
student, but at the sound of Rogelio’s voice she turned around and he
saw that she was young and not ill-looking, of humble appearance and
dressed in mourning.
“Señorito, what a coincidence!” exclaimed Martin, as he recognized
Rogelio. “This young girl is looking for the señorito’s house and she
was just asking me the way there. She is a country-woman of ours. She
brings a letter----”
“Will you let me look at the direction?” said the student, changing his
manner and the tone of his voice completely, as he addressed the young
girl.
The girl handed him the note, for it was only a note.
“Why, it is for mamma!” he said, as he looked at the superscription.
“Come with me; I will show you where the house is. Do you, driver,
follow in our resplendent wake with your imperial chariot, drawn by
that stately swan.”
“Many thanks, Señorito,” said the girl in a sweet and well modulated
voice, and with the sing-song accent peculiar to the Galicians of the
coast. “There is no need for you to trouble yourself. I can see the door
of the house from here; the driver pointed it out to me.”
[Illustration: “Will you let me look at the direction?”]
“It is no trouble; I am going that way,” replied the young man.
Without offering any further objection the girl walked with him in the
direction of the house. Rogelio instinctively took her left as he would
have done with a lady. He had not gone a dozen steps, however, before he
repented of his gallantry. In the first place, his companions would
ridicule him unmercifully if they should chance to meet him accompanying
so politely a girl wearing a shawl over her head and dressed in a plain
merino skirt. In the second place, Rogelio was at the age when a boy
brought up under maternal influence in the pure atmosphere of home
cannot avoid a feeling of painful shyness when brought in contact with
persons of the other sex with whom he is unacquainted. It is true that
women of an inferior station did not confuse him so much; young ladies
were like death to him; he always fancied they were making fun of him,
that everything they said to him was only in sport; to draw him out,
enjoy his confusion, and ridicule him afterward among themselves with
malicious and pitiless irony. Walking at the side of this girl dressed
in mourning, however, he experienced the same sort of confusion, for,
notwithstanding her humble dress, neither in her manner nor in her
appearance was there a trace of vulgarity. “Shall I speak to her?” he
said to himself. “Will she laugh at me? She will laugh at me more if I
say nothing. No, I must say something to her.” What he said--and with
the utmost seriousness, was:
“Do you know whom that letter is from that you are taking to mamma?”
“Why, certainly;” she replied; “it is from the young ladies at General
Romera’s. Don’t you know them?”
“Of course I do. General Romera was a friend of papa’s. We have not seen
them for a long time.”
“Doña Pascuala, the elder, has been sick. She had something they call
_tonsilitis_. Ah, she was very ill!”
“And is she better now?” asked Rogelio, for the sake of saying
something, for anxiety for Doña Pascuala’s tonsils would never have
deprived him of his sleep.
“She is entirely well now. If she was not well I should not have left
her.”
“Were you--living there?” (Rogelio did not venture to say _at service_.)
“Yes, Señor, ever since I came from the old land.”
“Ah, you are a Galician, then?”
“There is no reason why I should be ashamed of it.”
“Nor I either, _caramba_!”
“No, Señor, no indeed. It is a very good country, better than Madrid or
than any other place in the world.”
Rogelio smiled, pleased with the girl’s patriotism, and beginning to
feel at home with her, for she seemed to him incapable of ridiculing
any one. They were now near the house; Martin, who had gone on in
advance, stopped his hack, a task which was easier than to make him
start, and at the door stood Doña Aurora, making signs to her son.