THE MARQUIS.
He was a little man, with delicate and effeminate features, on which
he wore a look of assumed gravity, at first carefully cultivated,
but now as much a matter of habit as though it had been a cosmetic
applied daily out of a gallipot in his old dandy’s dressing-case.
His eyes, nose and mouth were, like his daughter’s, perfectly well
shaped, but what in her was charming, in him was ridiculous, and what
was beautiful in her, in him was purely comical; for there is nothing
more preposterous than the face of a pretty woman hung on, like a
mask, to the figure and manners of a pottering old man.
His fashionable dress, his easy demeanour, his refined and frigid
courtesy, which masked a total absence of kindliness or intelligence,
decorated his exterior as a gorgeous binding covers a book that
is destitute of rational contents. He was not a vicious man; he
was equally incapable of wilful evil or intentional good; he was a
vacuous compound of weakness and dissipation, corrupt rather from
“evil communications” than from inherent wickedness; one of so many!
a creature so hard to be distinguished from the rest of his species,
since absence of character has reduced certain groups of the upper
classes--as well as of the lower--with a few notable exceptions, to
a common type which will lack a generic name till the advance of
terminology allows us to speak of them as “the masses of the upper
class.” Still, this empty-headed and unenlightened mortal had a
great command of words in no respect deficient in meaning, and was
an admired master of all the commonplace of the press and the law;
he added nothing to be sure, but, on the other hand, he deprived
them of nothing. He was, in short, always prepared with a perfect
thesaurus of those ready-made phrases which to many people form the
Alpha and Omega of learning and wisdom. He was constantly insisting
that “administration rather than legislation was what was needed;”
he was convinced that “Spain is a nation past all government;” he
was for “upholding the venerable creeds of the past so that we may
once more become a terror to our foes at home and abroad;” he was
convinced that nothing of native origin could be good for anything;
that Spain is a ruined country, notwithstanding the fertility of her
soil; and at the same time he maintained with punctilious exactitude
the immovable dogmas of Castilian Nobility, of the Faith abandoned by
the modern populace, of the materialistic tendencies of the age and
so forth; he had a sacred horror of “Utopian dreams”--and anything he
did not at once grasp was to him an Utopian dream. In short, not a
string was wanting to his inexhaustible fiddle.
“In here as usual, always in this blessed study of yours, which
is as dark and as small as a prior’s cell and might be a prince’s
boudoir for the treasures it contains!... Here as usual Leon! I
never meet you anywhere. And María? She was with us last evening ...
tears and lamentations as usual; her mother tried to comfort her,
and they sat whispering and talking--between them I suspect, they
made things pleasant for you. They have nothing to think about but
their subscription to the theatres, and the festival-services at San
Prudencio’s; and after Mass they lay their heads together to talk of
the fashions.... But you, are you ill? You look pale, what is the
matter?”
“I?” said Leon, looking at his father-in-law like a man who suddenly
wakes face to face with a stranger, “what were you saying?”
“That you look ill. We were talking of you last evening at the
Fúcars’. Since Pepa married Cimarra, poor Don Pedro’s life is a
bitter one--Poor Pepa! I hear dreadful things of Federico ... and
what a sweet child that is of Pepa’s! Have you seen it? Do you never
go there?... Your cigars are first-rate.”
The smoke of their Havanas mingled as it curled up to the ceiling,
and for a minute or two there was silence in the pretty little room;
nothing was to be heard but the bubbling trickle of the water in the
hose with which the gardener was sprinkling the shrubs outside, and
the twitter of caged birds in a window near, whose chirruping song
sounded like a piping medley of musical notes trying to agree as to
the best way of producing a Wagnerian symphony. In the study, on a
book-stand as large as a pulpit, a huge geological atlas lay open,
showing the successive ages of the globe. On the table were flowers,
dissected so as to show their inmost mysteries; insects undergoing
autopsy; shells sawn down the middle, revealing their secret chambers
of enamel and pearl; prints, displaying eggs at the various stages
of incubation; a model in papier-maché of the human eye of the size
of a coconut; and in the midst of all this paraphernalia stood a
microscope, the lens reflecting a sunbeam on to the marquis’ head
which, being perfectly bald, offered a convenient subject for the
study of craniology.
“So you are studying natural history now?” said Tellería with an air
of condescending tolerance. “Well, it seems to be the science of the
day--the science of materialism. Much good you are doing the human
race by depriving it of its time-honoured beliefs and giving it in
exchange ... what?--The precious discovery that we are first cousins
to the apes of Retiro.” And he laughed with childish glee at his own
idea as he cast his eye on the litter of books.
“You know,” he said suddenly, “that I am on the commission to report
on the law concerning vagrants.”
“You will make a brilliant report.”
“It is a delicate matter,” added the marquis, throwing himself back
in his chair so that he sat with his eyes fixed on the ceiling and
his feet in the air. “It is the question of the day. I have said
again and again to the president of the council: ‘so long as we have
no good vagrancy law legislation is impossible.’ We must go to the
root of the matter, to the foundation of things, do not you see? It
is the immense number of idle and disreputable souls, the starving
and thieving classes, who count on a revolution to make their
harvest, who are the festering cause of the ferment in which we live.
Sweep away all this low filth and I will be responsible for social
good order.”
“Very true,” said Leon. “Sweep them away--a clean sweep, that is what
is wanted.”
“But the worst of it is that I cannot give as much time as I could
wish to the commission; I am so much occupied. And that reminds me,
Leon, I had some business to discuss with you.”
He had in fact reached the point which was the object of his visit;
but though he approached the matter with a degree of anxiety that
made his heart beat, he contrived to conceal his agitation. The
man was too weak not to suffer from such qualms, but too highly
artificial to betray them.
“You are aware that I am one of the directors on the board of
administration of the Bank of Agriculture. It is a grand national
undertaking; our function is to raise the credit of landed property
from the abyss into which it has sunk.” Such phrases of financial
cant were a frequent garnish to the marquis’ conversation, and he
went on to deliver himself of a variety of novel ideas: as for
instance, that Spain is essentially an agricultural country; that
its territorial wealth cannot be developed for want of capital; that
the capital nevertheless exists--why should it not?... That all that
is needed is to concentrate it, to secure it, and to redistribute
it, so as to enable it to fertilise--to benefit--to fructify--and
the marquis, having lost his thread, could not finish the sentence,
which he was improvising instead of repeating by heart. He stopped
short. The Bank of Agriculture was closely connected with a great
English company, “The Spanish Phosphate Company, Limited,” which was
destined to effect a complete transformation in the country; it was
a magnificent scheme. “Funds, subscribers--these were the two poles
of the axis on which the regeneration of Spain was to turn.” This,
again, was borrowed from the company’s prospectus, and the marquis
wound up his harangue by saying with apparent indifference: “Well,
what do you think of it? Will you invest some of your capital in our
shares.”
“I must save my capital to secure my income,” said Leon with feigned
simplicity.
“What, man!”
And then Leon went on to tell him such plain truths about certain
companies that his father-in-law suddenly lost the delicate hue that
his complexion usually wore and a deep purple tinge, like mulberry
stain, flushed his cheek and betrayed his indignation. After a short
pause, during which he devoted himself to twirling the waxed ends of
his grizzled moustache till they looked as formidable as bull-darts,
he rose and began to examine the objects of natural history.
“Well, there is nothing more to be said on the subject,” he muttered.
He touched and turned over everything, taking up this thing or that
to inspect it more closely and then peeped through the microscope.
“But I cannot see anything,” he said, with that odd pride of
ignorance that is occasionally to be met with. “I am no good at all
at such things ... thanks.... How much your microscope helps you!
Now, do tell me--can they see the soul with this? Or is it because
they cannot see it that they maintain that it has no existence?”
And before his son-in-law could reply he went close up to him,
and, standing in front of him, looked at him for a minute or two;
then shaking his head he said: “I cannot help thinking that my
poor daughter has very good reasons for complaining.... I do not
mean that you are not a thorough good fellow, Leon; but really if
you think of it ... she has her beliefs, you have yours--or, to be
accurate, you have none. Your lack of religion and your contempt
for the time-honoured beliefs of the Spanish People grieve and
offend her deeply. My dear fellow,” he added, laying his hand on his
son-in-law’s head with an affectionate gesture. “You must remember
that the Spanish People are above everything religious, and you know
Leon that we are not in Germany here--that land of Utopian dreams.”
Leon attempted some explanation. “No, no, to leave her at liberty
is not enough,” Tellería began again with some vehemence. “You must
take some definite step. You have a reputation for atheism that is
really appalling. I am frank with you, and for my part I would rather
lose my position and my name in the world than have such a character
for atheism as you have gained. I quite enter into María’s feelings;
she is deeply religious--she and her twin brother were born to be
saints--and in the end she will hold you in horror; she will fear
and detest you, and be unable to live with you ... and if it comes
to that, the fault will be yours for having expressed yourself so
extravagantly in your works. Of course we all have our leaven, more
or less, of heresy ... that is to say, I have not; I am orthodox to
the bone, I do not meddle with philosophies ... however, we all,
even the firmest believers, fail in our duties and neglect them; but
at any rate we exercise some caution, we have some tact, we keep up
appearances, we remember that we live among an eminently religious
nation and that we must set an example to the lower classes or they
will kick over the traces. This is not Germany. There is nothing I
hate more than a Utopia. The Spanish People have many faults but they
will never outrage the sentiments which have formed the foundation of
their country’s glory and of the respect it commands both at home and
abroad. To crown our misfortunes the aristocracy of Castile....” But
the worthy gentleman did not succeed in finishing his sentence, for
Leon interrupted him with some energy.
For a long time their voices could be heard alternately even in the
distant room where the birds were singing. María and her brother
paused in their conversation to listen to the parliamentary muttering
that reached them from the study.
“Those tiresome birds do not allow us to hear a single word,” said
the young man. “Listen María, papa and your lord and master are
disputing over something. What a waste of time!”
“Be quiet, you little plagues,” said María impatiently to the birds
and she tried to hear what was going on. Presently the curtain over
the door was hastily jerked open and revealed the pointed horns of
the marquis’ moustache and his face, in which solemnity was now
tempered by affability as though nature had intended it as a living
symbol of the eternal and supreme duplicity of the human species.
“Well, you know,” he said in a bitter-sweet tone between grave and
gay. “I am a hypocrite, and tact is my profession.... Your amiable
wife has told me so in so many words.... A humbug, a hypocrite--yes,
that is what she calls me....” And he kissed his daughter. “Do you
know I really think Leon is a little weak in his mind,” he went on.
“It is a pity, for he is such a clever fellow.... Oh! those dreadful
birds will not let one speak.”
“Be quiet you little torments,” said María.
What a wonderful interest they take in the affairs and disputes of
their masters; between the sentences of the conversation their shrill
notes try to drown the differences of humanity in a flood of rapture.
The party sat talking for some time longer, but the birds prevented
their being overheard, and the reader must have patience till the
birds have ceased singing.