GUSTAVO.
He looked at him and a friendly smile lighted up his melancholy face
in token of welcome; then they both gazed out--for they were sitting
by the window, at the fresh and scented verdure of the garden, over
which the showers from the garden hose swept like a light broom
of water, laying the dust, startling the birds, frightening the
butterflies, drowning the insects and caressing the plants. Skilfully
directed by the gardener, it penetrated the glistening density of the
euonymus shrubs, dashing off the surface of the leaves in jets of
spray sparkling with miniature rainbows. The garden was a new one,
one of those parterres that are turned out complete by the nurseryman
as the furniture of a house is turned out by the upholsterer;
methodically planted with a tiny wood, lawns, orchards, rockeries
bordered with ivy, and baskets full of sweet-william and convolvulus.
Conifers grew in appropriate spots, each surrounded by a formal bed
in which rows of petunias crept as if on their knees, before some
lordly araucaria, or the insolent loftiness of a dragon-tree all
spikes and blades. It all looked as if it had just been taken out of
a band-box and was the work of human industry rather than of nature;
still, it was very pretty, and fresh, and gay, and nothing could be
fitter to divide the road which belonged to all, from the house which
belonged to one only.
After contemplating the scene for some minutes they sat down to drink
their coffee.
“Before I forget it,” said Gustavo, “I want to mention my disapproval
of a virtue in you, which, when not judiciously exercised, must lead
to mischief: I mean your liberality, which must in the end injure
you, as well as my brother who takes advantage of it. I know that
you have at times given Polito money, and it annoys me, for he is a
ne’er-do-weel of the very worst type. Now and here, in the strictest
confidence, I may tell you exactly what I feel, and pass impartial
judgment on the various members of my family. If their conduct puts
me to shame it is better to blush openly than to feel it seething in
my blood.”
The speaker was a young man of a very precise and rather severe
expression, a good deal like his father and his brother, less
handsome than María and far from the ridiculous effeteness of
Polito. His face was perhaps a little hard; at any rate it indicated
a firm and self-contained nature quite exceptional in the family,
settled convictions and a healthy self-respect. He spoke gravely
and his manners were high-bred, free alike from arrogance and from
familiarity, with an equable and chilling politeness which many
persons thought supreme affectation. Thoroughly honourable and
gentlemanly in all the relations of life, he was also well educated,
though not brilliantly talented.
Neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin, dressed in dark colours
with a calm eye behind his spectacles, free from every vice--even
smoking--simple in his tastes and pitiless to the dissipation of
others, Gustavo, eldest son of the Marquis Tellería, was generally
spoken of as the best of the family, as an honour to his rank, and
one of the hopes of the country. It is needless to add that he was
a lawyer. His brother Leopoldo was a lawyer too; almost all young
Spaniards are; but while Polito hardly knew what a book looked
like, Gustavo studied every day and even found employment under
the protection of one of the most eminent pleaders of Madrid. He
had chosen what may be called the national career, and having left
the university a nobody, he was now on the high road to becoming
somebody. It should be added that he had a natural gift for oratory.
“To you, my dear Leon,” he went on, “I may confess that the conduct
of every member of my family causes me many hours of bitter
reflection--excepting of course the angel who is your wife and that
other angel, even more perfect perhaps, who now lives so far from
us. Is it not terrible to see my brother corrupted by dissipation?
Wallowing in the low frivolity which debases so many individuals--I
will not say of our class, for the disgrace is not ours alone, but
of every class? Desiring to play a part above what our fortune
warrants, he has been led away into insane extravagance, for his
companions are rich and he is not. It enrages me to see Leopoldo
driving carriages and riding horses which cost more than his whole
year’s income; besides, his ignorance distresses me, and his idleness
makes me desperate. Ah! you were quite right in what you once said;
there is a great deal of truth in your remark that ‘while there
is an aristocracy of nature among the lowest, there is also a low
class among the aristocracy.’--However, all this is beside the mark;
we will not talk any longer on a subject that is so painful to my
feelings. I have, I think, made it sufficiently clear that you really
ought not to encourage Polito in his recklessness.”
Leon inserted some remark but Gustavo went on: “The blame, I admit,
lies with my father. Our education was very desultory. It would be
absurd to try to hide the fact that my mother, much as it costs me to
own it, has never succeeded in weaning herself or in preserving us
from the seductions of the gay world; she has always lived more out
of her home than in it. To this day--for what is the use of denying
what you know as well as I do?--to this day, when our fortune is so
much impaired, and when, as I believe, the little that remains will
fall into the hands of our creditors, is it not preposterous that my
mother should keep up the house on a footing which is so far beyond
our means? It is outrageous vanity; and you may take my word, Leon,
when I tell you that I pass hours of anguish in thinking of it. When
I see the expensive entertainments she gives, the outlay to keep up
appearances while so many--so very many--necessaries are overlooked;
when I note the shameless variety of her dresses, her constant
presence at the theatres, her anxiety to vie with others who have a
great deal more to spend--when I see all this, Leon, I feel impelled
to renounce the career of which I have dreamed in my own country, and
to go and earn my bread in some foreign land.”
Leon again put in a word, but his brother-in-law replied promptly:
“I should be quite willing to go, but what would you have me do? I
cannot give up my prospects when I am on the eve of success; it is
cruel to abandon a position gained by so many years of hard study.
And indeed, the very fact that I foresee disaster for my family
makes me feel that it is my duty to stand by the wreck. We must take
life as it comes, dreary as it is.
“You can know nothing of this occult disgrace, Leon; you cannot
know what it is to live in a house where nothing is paid for, from
the carpets on the floors to the bread we eat; nor the shudder that
comes over one at the sound of that recurring knell, the front door
bell, announcing some doleful or insolent creditor come to claim his
dues; you can have no idea of the farces that have to be played day
after day by people whose name seems a guarantee of respectability
and honour; nor dream of the moments of acute misery that we, in a
more than decent position, endure for want of a sum of ready money
that would not spoil the night’s rest of a common workman. You who
are both rich, and moderate in your requirements--and that is as
good as a double fortune--cannot conceive of the anxieties of acting
this bitter comedy among scenes of vanity on the boards of poverty.
You--calm and content, with no passion but for your books, superior
to those ambitions which scare sleep from my pillow, and free from
the slips and reverses which embitter life--you are the spoilt child
of Providence; here in your own house, never besieged by creditors,
never molested by intruders, in the delightful society of your wife
who is a perfect angel.... Poor María!”
After a brief silence, during which the young lawyer seemed to be
reading something on his brother-in-law’s forehead, he went on in a
bitter tone:
“And yet Leon you have not made her happy!”
Leon answered sharply, and the lawyer retorted with the brevity and
vehemence of a rifle shot; at length, after a distinct assertion on
Leon’s part, he began again:
“Your first duty was to avoid all scandal and not to give to the
world the spectacle of a household disunited and made miserable by
questions of religion. If it is your misfortune to be an infidel, you
ought to have hidden the plague spot from your wife, you ought to
have abstained from certain scientific publications of which you have
been guilty. Atheism is hideous under every aspect, and when it has
no sense of decency, when it does not even blush to show itself, it
is most horrible of all. Deformity of whatever kind should be veiled,
above all that of the soul, so as not to be an offence to public
morality! Never hope to find me lenient on such a matter. You know
what I am; you know that I never can conceal what I feel strongly.
I esteem you highly, and fully recognise your fine qualities: your
goodness--comparatively speaking--your quiescent morality--for the
virtues and good qualities of those who deny revealed truth can
rank no higher; I admit that your life is better than that of some
who proclaim themselves believers, that you have all the cold and
immaculate merits of a heathen philosopher, and that you carry out
certain principles on the rational grounds that it is right to be
virtuous, or because the performance of a duty is always advantageous
in the long run: that you obey your frigid philosophical moral law
just as you pay your taxes and submit to the laws of health or to the
regulations of the police; I grant that you are one of the best in
this mad turmoil of folly and wickedness; I esteem you--nay I have a
great regard for you; I admire your talents, and in spite of all this
I tell you plainly if I, Leon, if I”--and he rose, extending his arm,
in an apostolic attitude. “If I had had my sister’s hand to bestow I
would never, never have given it to you. Do you hear? Never!”
Leon interposed warmly, but Gustavo went on:
“Oh! I loathe and detest hypocrisy as much as you can. I admit but
two alternatives: you are a Catholic or you are not? In our sacred
faith there is no trimming or compromise. I--I am a Catholic, and as
such I act in every phase of life; I do not carry my creed on my lips
and atheism in my heart; I scorn the ridicule of the frivolous--I go
to Mass, I confess, I communicate, I fast, I glory in defying the
outrages of the mob that seems to direct public opinion; I face its
cynicism with courage and answer its Voltairian heresies with the
holy dogmas and the authority of the Church. And these ideas, this
strictness of conduct, I purpose to carry with me into public life. I
shall take it up with all the resolution of a soldier and a martyr,
guided by the Almighty hand that will not leave me defenceless in the
blood-stained arena of human passion. Though men have dared to let
loose the wild beasts of infidelity and rationalism, be assured that
God will not fail to send among them those who can tame them.
“You need not expect a man who can express himself so frankly and
resolutely on the subject, to show you any pity, or to join issue
with you on any scheme of compromise which would divide the onus
of your differences equally between you and my sister. No! and a
thousand times no! She is in no respect to blame. The fault is yours,
entirely yours. Truth and falsehood can never effect a compromise.
It is your part to give way, and she can only remain supreme and
triumphant.”
Leon could have replied, but he was weary of his brother-in-law’s
harangue and he turned the conversation into a channel which he
judged would be more attractive to the young advocate. Gustavo gave
up his didactic vein at once.
“It is true,” he said, “the votes of your tenants at Cullera have
saved me, and I feel sure of success. Between you and me, in the
strictest confidence, I particularly wish to be returned. It will
be the high road to success for me you see--my career. When a man
has fixed principles and the immovable determination to defend them
against all comers, a public life is an honourable one. In the times
we live in, it is a duty to fight! Do you not think so? For when
all character is fast sinking into a gutter of corruption, it is
well, and very profitable, to show that one has some character, so
that men may say, ‘this is a man!’ When human reason and outraged
truth insist that there should be some flogging, is it not a worthy
and brilliant achievement to wield the lash? Christian civilisation
is like a noble forest; it has taken religion centuries to produce
it, and philosophy dreams of destroying it in a single day. We
must stay the hand of these ruthless destroyers. The civilisation
of Christianity cannot be left to perish at the mercy of a handful
of theorists, aided by a mob of lost wretches who, to escape the
stings of conscience, have suppressed God.” He flourished his large
white hand, brandishing it like a school-master’s ferule; and as he
prepared to depart he added: “My friend--almost my brother--I have
the deepest regard for you, but when I think of that black spot
I am anxious--very, very anxious. If the plague in your dwelling
increases, beware! You will find me on the side of the victim--my
poor dear sister.--Good-bye.” And he went.
As he watched him depart Leon’s soul sunk within him, and for some
time he felt quite incapable of fixing his mind on anything.