It would be wearisome to explain how, but it came to pass that Andrés
somewhat bettered his position, and seeing that he had money in hand, he
said:
“If I only had a wife! But having a wife is very expensive. Men like me,
before choosing a bride, should have a paradise to offer her, and a
paradise in Madrid is worth as much as a man’s eye.--If I could buy a
horse! A horse! There is no animal more noble or more beautiful. How he
would love my dog! what merry times they would have with each other, and
I with both!”
One afternoon he went to the bullfight, and before the entertainment
began, he unpremeditatedly strolled out into the court-yard, where the
horses who had to take part in the contest were waiting, already
saddled.
I do not know whether my readers have ever had the curiosity to go and
see them. For myself, without claiming to be as tender-hearted as the
protagonist of this tale, I can assure you that I have often had a mind
to buy them all. So great was the pity that I felt for them.
Andrés could not fail to experience a most grievous sensation on finding
himself in this place. Some of the horses, with drooping heads,
creatures all skin and bone, their manes rough and dirty, were standing
motionless, awaiting their turn, as if they had a foreboding of the
dreadful death which would put an end, within a few hours, to that
miserable life of theirs; others, half blind, were sniffing about for
the rack and eating, or, tearing the ground with the hoof and snorting
wildly, were struggling to pull themselves loose and flee from the peril
which they scented with horror. And all those animals had been young and
beautiful. What aristocratic hands had patted their necks! What
affectionate voices had urged on their speed! And now all was blows from
one side, oaths from the other, and death at last, death in terrible
agony accompanied by jests and hisses!
“If they think at all,” said Andrés, “what will these animals think at
the core of their dim intelligence, when in the middle of the ring they
bite their tongues and expire with a frightful spasm? Truly the
ingratitude of man is sometimes inconceivable.”
He was startled out of those reflections by the rough voice of one of
the _picadores_, who was swearing and cursing while he tested the legs
of one of the horses, striking the butt-end of his lance against the
wall. The horse did not seem entirely contemptible; apparently it was
crazy or had some mortal disease.
Andrés thought of buying it. As for the cost, it ought not to cost much;
but how about its keep? The _picador_ plunged the spur into its flank
and started to ride toward the gate of the ring; our youth wavered for
an instant and then stopped him. How he did it, I do not know; but in
less than a quarter of an hour he had induced the horseman to leave the
beast behind, had hunted up the contractor, made his bargain for the
horse and taken it away.
I suppose it is superfluous to say that on that afternoon he did not see
the bullfight.
He led off the horse in triumph; but the horse, in fact, was or appeared
to be crazy.
“Use plenty of stick on him,” said one authority.
“Don’t give him much to eat,” advised a blacksmith.
The horse was still unruly. “Bah!” at last exclaimed his owner. “Let him
eat what he likes and do as he chooses.” The horse was not old, and now
began to fatten and grow more docile. It is true that he still had his
whims, and that nobody but Andrés could mount him; but his master said:
“So I shall not be teased to lend him; and as for his oddities, each of
us will get accustomed to those of the other.” And they came to such a
good understanding that Andrés knew when the horse felt like doing a
thing and when not, and as for the horse, the voice of his master was
enough to make him take a leap, stand still, or set off at a gallop,
swift as a hurricane.
Of the dog we need say nothing; he came to be so friendly with his new
comrade that neither could go out, even to drink, without the other.
From this time on, when Andrés set off at a gallop in a cloud of dust on
the Carabanchel road, with his dog frisking along beside him, dashing
ahead to turn back and hunt for him, or letting him pass to scamper up
and overtake him, he believed himself the happiest of men.
Time went by; our young man was rich, or almost rich.
One day, after a long gallop, he alighted, tired out, near a tree and
stretched himself in its shade.
It was a spring day, bright and blue,--one of those days in which men
breathe voluptuously the warm air impregnated with passion, in which the
blowing of the wind comes to the ear like distant harmonies, in which
the clear horizons are outlined in gold, and there float before our eyes
shining motes of I know not what, motes like transparent forms that
follow us, encompass us and intoxicate us with sadness and with
happiness at once.
“I dearly love these two beings,” exclaimed Andrés as he reclined there
stroking his dog with one hand and with the other giving to his horse a
handful of grass, “dearly; but yet there is a vacancy in my heart which
has never been filled; I still have it in me to lavish a love greater,
holier, purer. Decidedly I need a wife.”
At that moment there passed along the road a young girl with a water-jar
upon her head.
Andrés was not thirsty, but yet he begged a drink of water. The girl
stopped to offer it to him, and did so with such gentle grace that our
youth comprehended perfectly one of the most patriarchal episodes of the
Bible.
“What is your name?” he asked when he had drunk.
“Placida.”
“And what do you do with yourself?”
“I am the daughter of a merchant who died ruined and persecuted for his
political opinions. After his death, my mother and I retired to a
hamlet, where we get on very badly with a pension of three _reales_
[fifteen cents a day] for all our living. My mother is ill, and
everything comes on me.”
“And why haven’t you married?”
“I don’t know; in the village they say that I am good for nothing about
work, that I am very delicate, very much the _señorita_.”
The girl, with a courteous good-bye, moved away.
While she was still in sight, Andrés watched her retreating form in
silence; when she was lost to view, he said with the satisfaction of one
who solves a problem:
“This is the woman for me.”
He mounted his horse and, followed by his dog, took his way to the
village. He promptly made the acquaintance of the mother and, almost as
soon, utterly lost his heart to the daughter. When at the end of a few
months she was left an orphan, he married her, a man in love with his
wife, which is one of the greatest blessings life affords.
To marry, and to set up housekeeping in a country mansion situated in
one of the most picturesque spots of his native land, was the work of a
few days.
When he saw himself in this residence, rich, with his wife, his dog and
his horse, he had to rub his eyes; he thought he must be dreaming. So
happy, so perfectly happy was poor Andrés.