LEOPOLDO.
One morning when Leon Roch was sitting at work in his study he was
suddenly interrupted; raising his eyes and looking in the large
mirror that hung over the chimney opposite to him, he saw a lean,
tall figure surmounted by a death’s-head, on which the grave seemed
to have spared little but the skin; eyes that looked starting from
their sockets, like those of a delirious creature; a long, thin neck,
all red and scarred; a nose, also purple, finely-cut, though its
extreme sharpness gave it the aspect of a beak and lent the face a
bird-like expression; a meagre crop of yellow hairs that straggled
round the cheeks and chin, forming a narrow line that irresistibly
recalled the band tied round the face of a dead man; a low forehead,
on which his hat had stamped a livid line, like a streak of blood;
a flat head with the red hair parted into two elegant wings; a face
in short which seemed the transfiguration or parody of a handsome
countenance, the caricature of the family type; and at the same time
he saw a man with his hands in his pockets, feet like a woman’s
of which the toes were scarcely visible below the loose trousers
that covered them, and a body devoid of roundness, of modelling or
of grace, like a lay figure made to wear a coat. His dress was a
morning suit, striped from head to foot, with an elegantly-knotted
cravat; a stick that he held in one hand stuck out on a level with
his pocket-hole, and a gorgeous flower blazed in his breast like the
blood-stained handle of an assassin’s knife. As he caught sight of
this personage Leon exclaimed with frank good-nature:
“Ah! Polito, sit down.... What brought you here?”
The young man let himself sink into an arm-chair and stretched his
legs with demonstrations of fatigue. He spoke, and his voice, which
one would have expected to be thin and effeminate, was hoarse and
rasping, a sort of articulate cough or choke, like those voices
which, in the lowest social grade, are formed by crying out wares in
the streets, and which grow harsh under the influence of the morning
air and the nightly dram. After making some brief remark he paused to
put a lozenge or pill into his mouth.
“I cannot do without my tar,” he said, “not for an instant.--The
moment I stop it I feel as if I were choking.--And what are you
doing, Leon? Always at your books? How I envy you your peaceful
life!--No, thanks, I dare not smoke, it is quite forbidden. We must
try to conquer these epileptic attacks, just now I am very well. I
am going to Seville do you know? All the fellows are going away and
I cannot stay here; we are a party of four: Manolo Grandezas, the
Count, Higadillos and I. Higadillos means to do bull-fighting during
the three days of Easter--Why do not you do something! María would
like immensely to see the fêtes.”
“If she wishes to go I am quite ready to take her.”
“She does not wish to go, and that is the fact,” said the
hoarse-voiced youth. “By-the-bye, my dear Leon, I hear people say
that you and she are very unhappy, that you do not get on together
in the least, and that your infidelity is a constant torment to my
poor sister. I, of course, laugh at such nonsense. ‘I tell you he
is the best soul living, a thorough gentleman as you will find.’
That is what I answer, and by Jove, you know I do not say a thing
unless I mean it. Last night the Rosafrías were saying that they
could not imagine--What simpletons!--They could not imagine how my
sister could have married you. ‘But, ladies, be reasonable,’ said I,
‘consider....’ It was of no use, they were utterly out of humour.
I heard one lady whom we all know--I give no names--I heard her
say in so many words: ‘I would rather see my daughter in her grave
than married to a man like that....’ Of course you had plenty of
defenders, even of the fair sex--‘Oh! but he is so clever, such a
gentleman!’ But she cast you off by word and gesture.... ‘There are
things that are impossible, quite impossible,’ said she. At last, I
really did not dare put in a word for you. What I advise, by Jove, is
that you should cease to go to certain houses; you will only expose
yourself to insult or to a snubbing. There is that little Señora
Borellano who speaks of you as the _bête noire_, still, she allows
that you are very attractive. Pepe Fontán said a sharp thing apropos
of that woman’s aversion for you. ‘It is all vexation,’ she said,
‘because Leon is the only man she knows who never made love to her.’
You know she has had an admirer at her heels for this year past, and
Cimarra says she cannot conceal her age. Poor Federico! They say he
has quarrelled with his wife and his father-in-law--he forged some
letters it would seem. I suppose they will send him to Havana. What
is the time? Eleven! And María is not home from church? You must
allow that it is rather too much of a good thing. Oh! I know; she and
my mother will have staid to chat with Padre Paoletti--an Italian
dyed black, as dark as a negro! By Jove! if I were married I would
not be henpecked, I know. My wife should go my way or I would know
the reason why. María is as good as gold; but when she has got a
thing into her head!--You may not believe it but I myself have spoken
to her roundly before now for her nonsense.--Why, my dear fellow, it
is intolerable to have a wife who is perpetually at you with her one
tune: ‘Go and confess: go to communion: go to Mass.’ By Jove! it is
enough to make you go and shoot yourself! Since you leave her free
to go her own way she ought to know better. You are wrong to take
such folly so much to heart. Look here: I should never forbid my wife
attending four hundred and twenty-six Masses a day and undergoing
penance from every confessor; but by setting a limit to her spending
my money on processions I would soon cure her of her fancy. If she
tried to talk to me about religious matters I should say to her:
‘Very good, my child, just as you please; I quite agree to all you
say.’ In short, we should never quarrel over a dogma more or less;
and meanwhile, my dear Leon, I should amuse myself to the top of my
bent. Why, my good fellow, on your plan we should go to the devil
without having any fun first; there can be no greater folly! You bury
yourself among your books in this world, to be damned in the next.
For that is what you will come to as well as I, we are all in the
same boat!” And he laughed as loudly as his short breath would allow.
Then, rising from his seat, and leaning on the table with both hands,
as though his body could not remain upright without support, he went
on:
“Do you know, my dear fellow, that you are going to lend me four
thousand reales?”
Leon opened a drawer; he smiled--why, it is hard to say, but of
all the members of his wife’s family, this inoffensive creature
was the one who filled him with the deepest pity, for which reason
perhaps, he loosened his purse-strings for him from time to time,
not merely with patience but with a vague kindliness, not to grieve
so hapless and frail a being. Or perhaps Leon approved of the system
of the Vicar of Wakefield who, when he wanted to rid himself of some
importunate relative, would lend him some money, a coat, or a horse
of no value, “and never,” said he, “did it occur that he came again
to my house to return it to me.”
“Thanks, best of _beaux frères_!” said the young man, not attempting
to hide the pleasure that every human being feels at the acquisition
of cash; “I will repay you next month with the rest. Not all at
once, I tell you frankly that I cannot pay it all in a lump, but in
instalments. It is really frightful! If there were three Easter-tides
in the year every Spaniard would be reduced to beggary. By Jove! it
all goes in charity; the other night those Rosafría girls coaxed me
into giving a thousand reales for the Pope. Now if the world were
properly constituted the Pope would give to us.--Here, you little
villain! Lady Bull, come here this minute when I call you.”
The last words were addressed to a small dog that had come into the
room at the same time as its master and that had immediately settled
itself into an attitude of respectful patience. It was an odious
little brute, of the King Charles breed, of the colour of a rat
and the shape of a porcupine, with a monkey’s muzzle between long
dappled ears, and a bloated body feebly supported on four tiny paws.
Towards the end of the conversation, the creature’s little bell, till
then silent, began to tinkle energetically and Polito found the dog
rummaging among the books that lay piled on the floor.
“Come along, this minute!” said he, taking it up in his arms.
At this instant they heard a noise of wheels and the tramp of one
of those wonderful Spanish horses which seem to us as indefatigable
as the bronze steed of an equestrian statue that trots perpetually
without ever descending from its pedestal.
“Ah! there they are!” cried Leopoldo going to the window.
“Higadillos on horseback, the Count in his break. I told them to come
round this way to pick me up--I am coming, I am coming!”
From where he sat Leon could see the carriage drawn up by the gate,
and the bull-fighter on horseback; a huge young fellow with his legs
swathed and a voluminous scarf--a supple figure, not wanting in
sculpturesque beauty, crowned with a head of vulgar Spanish type,
of the hue of tobacco, under a wide sombrero. His horse snorted and
pawed, and the count had his hands full with those in the break, a
fiery pair of a cross-breed between the Bearnais and Andalusian.
Polito was soon seated in the carriage with Lady Bull, and the
jolly party set out down the street, Higadillos leading the way,
and cheered by the jingle of the horses’ bells. Leon looked after
them with some curiosity; it was a small but significant fragment of
contemporary Spanish history.