My homesickness did not last as long as I feared. Everybody prefers his
natural element, and I did not find mine in the confusion and rollicking
ways of the Bohemian boarding-house.
My new abode was in Clavel Street. It was in a suite on the fourth
floor, with plenty of sunshine; the rooms there were not so small as
those which are usually furnished for six shillings a day. Our landlady
was also a native of Biscay, for half of the boarding-house keepers in
Spain come from that province. But she was very unlike Pepa Urrutia. She
was as neat as wax, and could make most delicious stews of codfish and
tomatoes, as well as stewed tripe and vegetable soup, and other savory
messes of our national cuisine, and she had no wastefulness apparently;
consequently all the boarders had either to settle their bills in due
time, or to leave the house. In Doña Jesusa’s abode--we called her Doña
because she was middle-aged--the beds were scrupulously clean, though
hard and narrow. She kept the maid scrubbing and cleaning all the time.
A caged linnet sang merrily in the passageway in front of the kitchen.
On Christmas Eve she regaled us with almond pottage and sea-bream, and
there was some kind of humble comfort and domestic peace to be enjoyed
there. It is true that everything was scrimped and scanty; and, as our
rations were so meager, the five or six students of us who usually dined
there, ordinarily left the table unsatisfied. I don’t wish to complain
of the chocolate, which was pasty stuff of the color of a brick, nor of
the leathery corn-cakes, nor of our dessert of apples and pears, which
seemed like wax counterfeits to judge by the way we refrained from
touching them.
“At least they ought to give us the dessert of raisins and almonds,
which they give to criminals condemned to death,” said Luis Portal, a
fellow from my province, who was of a humorous vein.
I will not say much about the maccaroni soup, which Luis classified as
“alphabetical” or “astronomical,” according as the paste was cut in the
shape of letters or of stars; I will not dwell on the wretched pieces of
boiled meat, with a bit of bacon hidden behind a pea, and already served
out in portions, so that no boarder should take more than his share; nor
will I betray the flabbiness of the beef, nor the maggots we used to
find in the fish. At my age it is seldom that one bothers himself much
about the pleasures of the palate. Besides, on any boarder’s birthday,
or on any great holiday, Doña Jesusa would regale us with some rural
dish, upon which she had lavished all her skill, and we would then take
our revenge. Doña Jesusa always celebrated the principal holidays, and
observed them by having an extra dish on the table; so these
extraordinary occasions helped us to put up with her usual
parsimony--after the manner of the pleasing alternations between want
and plenty in our homes.
Luis Portal was the son of a coffee-merchant in Orense, and as he was
very ingenious as well as fond of good living, he conceived the idea
that we might enjoy a cup of coffee, mornings and afternoons, without
great cost. So he purchased a second-hand coffee-pot in the _Rastro_,
which held enough for six cups; he also bought a second-hand
coffee-mill, got some of the best coffee, and two pounds of brown sugar;
and, when the cost was divided between us, we found that we had the most
delicious coffee at a very low price. If we could only afford half a
wineglass of champagne or of brandy! But we were brought to a
stand-still there. Our means would not reach thus far, for brandy was
ruinously expensive. Portal had a bottle in his trunk which he had
brought from home, so we made up our minds to make the most of that by
taking only one swallow at a time; and we kept to our resolution so well
that in two days we drank it all up.
In fact, one could study in Doña Jesusa’s house. It was quiet and
orderly, and there were regular hours for everything. Sometimes the
landlady would fall to scolding the maid; but this familiar and expected
noise did not disturb us at all. So we all ground away to the best of
our powers, trying not to have to say “not prepared” when the professors
questioned us. The professor, who taught the principles of machinery,
used to frighten us a little by his habit of _going a-fishing_, that is,
asking questions out of the regular order.
I have already said that I was not one of the most diligent in my
studies, nor was Luis Portal, either. We both used to fall back on
general knowledge, letting our wits float easily unburdened by a great
load in the memory, because we feared the particular exhaustion which
those arid and hard studies cause in weak brains, and which Luis called
“The mathematical topsy-turviness.”
On the other hand, two lads who lived with us were so completely worn
out that we were afraid that by the time they finished their course--if
they ever did finish it--they would be ready for a lunatic asylum. One
of them, a Cuban, was gifted with a prodigious memory. With the aid of
this inferior but indispensable faculty, which can so deftly cover the
weakness of the intellect, he would fairly devour text-books, and as
long as it was not necessary to enlarge upon a subject, nor to add a
single word to the text, nor take one away, he would come off with
flying colors. But the slightest objection, or the gentlest
interruption, anything, in fact, which called for the exercise of mind,
would crush him; he would get completely addled, and could not give a
straight answer to the simplest question.
Portal used to call him the little parrot, and make sport of his
serenity and his languid air; and laughed to see him always shivering,
even when close to the fire. When he put away his books, the West Indian
was like a bird released from his cage. At such times, in place of the
mental vigor to handle the heavy iron weights of science skillfully, the
poor exile would display the riches of a brilliant imagination, all
light and colors; or to be more exact, all spangles and phosphorescent
gleams. The commonest phrase, on issuing from his lips, took on a
poetic form; he could make rhymes as unconsciously as a mocking-bird
sings, and could talk in rhythmical and harmonious verse an hour at a
time.
But the sarcastic Portal used to say that the Cuban’s poetry had
precisely the same artistic value as the tunes we compose and hum while
we are lathering our faces preparatory to shaving, and had as much
meaning read from the bottom up as from the top down.
“We’ll call him the mocking-bird instead of parrot,” he would say every
time that the Cuban would display for us his poetical string of
glass-beads which usually occurred after he had filled himself with
coffee.
The other assiduous student came from Zamora; he had a narrow forehead
and an obtuse mind. He had neither father nor mother, and the cost of
his education was met by his octogenarian and paralyzed grandmother, who
used to say: “I don’t want to die until you are a man, and have finished
your studies, and can see your future secure.”
It was but a slight thread which bound the poor old woman to this world,
and the lad knew it; so he displayed a silent and savage determination.
As the Cuban studied with his memory, the Zamoran studied with his will,
always kept tense. His poor mental endowments obliged him to work
doubly. He neither took nights off on Saturdays nor had holidays on
Sundays, nor any excursions whatever. No correspondence with a
sweetheart for him; no--nothing but his books, his everlasting books,
from morning till night; an equation here and a problem there, without
relaxing his assiduity for a single moment, without being absent for a
single day, and never saying “not prepared.”
“Have you ever seen such a fellow? He is always on the stretch,” my
friend Luis Portal would say; “why, he’ll be a civil engineer before we
are, if he does not burst his skin. How thin he is, and his hands are
very feverish at times. His breath is very bad; his digestion must
surely be out of order. No wonder it is, for he does not take any
exercise nor any recreation whatever. Salustiño, it is all right to get
ahead, but one must look out for his health!”
I got along well with Luis Portal, and we became fast friends, although
our ideas and aspirations were so entirely different. Portal used to
like to show himself a sagacious, practical person, or, at least, gave
indications that he would be when he arrived at the age when a person’s
moral nature becomes well-defined and unified.
We did not differ totally in our views; we had some opinions in common.
Portal, like me, was a champion of self-help, and despised restraint or
tutelage. He thought that a man should be self-sufficient, and should
take advantage of his earlier years, in order to secure freedom or
comfort for his manhood.
“We don’t appear like Galicians,” he sometimes used to say, “for we are
so energetic in everything.”
I did not agree with him on this point, and bade him remember the
adventurous and enterprising spirit the Galicians had displayed within a
short time past.
“There’s no doubt about it,” he would say, obstinately, “we are more
like Catalans than Galicians, my dear fellow.”
If we were much alike in our ideas of the way to order our lives, we
differed greatly in our estimate of the principal aim of life.
Portal used to say:
“Look here, sonny, I am not going to waste my time catching flies nor in
trifling pursuits. I’ll try to get money so as to set the world at
defiance. It is but a sorry joke to pass one’s life grubbing and in
want. My father is an awful miser; he will not shell out a cent, and as
yet I know nothing at all about many fine things there are going. I
don’t know whether by following my profession I shall ever succeed in
obtaining them; I believe that politicians and tradespeople know how to
make money better than professional men. It is true the two things are
not incompatible, and that Sagasta himself is a civil engineer. Anyway,
just let them give me free swing and I shall know how to fix things. If
I don’t get rich, put me down for a fool.”
While I applauded his valiant resolution, yet I knew that my dreams of
the future differed from his. By “fine things” Portal meant to live
well, to drink good wines, to smoke good cigars, and perhaps marry some
beautiful, rich girl; while I, without despising all these good things
of the earth, did not long for any one of them in particular. I only
desired my freedom. I foresaw that with that I might obtain something
very noble, and worthy of being tasted and enjoyed; but not in a
material or prosaic sense; something like renown, celebrity, passion,
adventures, wealth, authority, home, children, travels, combats, even
misfortune. At any rate, it would be life--life rich, and worthy of a
rational being--who is not content simply to vegetate nor to gloat over
pleasures, but who must run over the whole scale of thought, of feeling,
and of action. I could not clearly define in what my hopes consisted,
but I thought that it would be degrading to lower them to Portal’s
material and sensuous level.
Nor did I consider myself a visionary, or an enthusiast, or a dreamer.
On the contrary, I knew that if sometimes my head did lift itself toward
the clouds, my feet still remained firmly planted on the earth; and
that all my actions were those of a man fully determined to make his way
in the world, without being distracted by the siren of enthusiasm.
If our creed for the individual had certain points in common, in our
creed for the nation, Portal and I utterly disagreed. We were both
Republicans; but he belonged to Castelar’s party, was a cautious
opportunist, and almost a monarchist by force of concessions; while I
was a radical, one of Pi’s followers, and firmly believed that we ought
not to carry out a conciliatory policy in Spain, nor accommodate
ourselves to old traditions in any respect whatever; but that, on the
contrary, we ought to press on resolutely and uncompromisingly in the
path of thorough and progressive change.
“These concessions are ruinous and fatal to our country,” I would say,
“and by concessions in this case I mean something equivalent to
cheating. They say ‘concessions’ so as not to say capitulation or
defeat. If our forefathers, those upright men of 1812 to 1840, had
accepted a compromise and walked softly about absorbed in thought, a
pretty fix we should be in now! It hurts to cut out a cancer, and
causes disturbance in the system; but the cancer is destroyed. I can’t
understand this mania for compromising with the past, with absolute and
fanatic Spain. Your illustrious Chief--for thus we styled Castelar--is a
man of the world, fond of making himself agreeable to duchesses and to
crowned heads; and that’s what he calls holding to old traditions. Empty
words! Fortunately, the French in 1793 did not adopt that method, nor
did we in later times. Don’t talk to me. At the rate we are going,
within a few years Spain will be crowded with convents again. It is
absurd to tolerate such craftiness, and even protect it, as our most
liberal government does now. The Jesuits have again spread their net,
and every once in a while draw it in a little more. Some day they will
catch the whole of us. Of course, when such big bugs as they gain their
ends, they don’t care what comes after. ‘After me the deluge,’ as that
old scamp, Louis XV., used to say. No well-balanced mind can think that
in order to weaken and uproot an institution like Monarchy, you must
begin by strengthening and coddling it, and quietly implanting it in
the hearts of the people. I don’t swallow that ‘concession’ hook; don’t
let them try that business on me.”
Portal would then get excited and answer me with equal energy: “Well,
you are simple, to say the least. Those who think as you do are in a
fool’s paradise. With your system, we would have an outbreak of the
Carlists in the twinkling of an eye, and Spain would be plunged in petty
civil war. I don’t like to think, either, what would happen on the
establishment of your famous federation. Within two months after the
establishment of the Galician canton, there wouldn’t be a rag left. All
would want to command, and none to obey. If you begin by wounding and
outraging the susceptibilities of a nation, it will surely result in
demoralization like that which followed the Revolution of September.
Rest assured, Castelar has a long head. It is the republic that is not
yet of age, not the king. Let the republic fall of its own weight, like
a ripe pear.”
“Try some other dog with that bone. What they all want here is to be
chief. Sonny, there are no ideals; all that has collapsed and we must
bring them to life, believe me.”
“Don’t spin me great yarns about your ideals,” Portal would reply,
getting angry. “Ideals are the cause of all our troubles. There is no
other ideal but peace, and to bring order into all this chaos, little by
little.”
Another subject of dispute was local government. I was not at all modest
in my demands. I wanted the independence of Galicia. In regard to our
annexation to Portugal, we might discuss that later. We would see what
was most expedient. But it would be well for Portugal, also, to shake
off her ancient and fantastic monarchical yoke, and assent to the
Iberian Federation.
“I don’t know what I’d give just to see your swinish ideal realized for
about twenty-four hours,” Luis would exclaim. “If Galicia should declare
itself a canton, not even the evil one would stay there. Make up your
mind to one thing: in Spain, the smaller the governing entities--is that
the right word?--the worse they are. The central government, as you call
it, makes a thousand blunders; but the provincial legislature would
make two thousand, the county justices three thousand, and the village
authorities a million. Fortunately, to talk about Galician independence
is as idle as to ask the fish and the sands what they know about the
sea.”
“So you think that the provinces have no right to say, like individuals,
‘each one for himself.’”
“Look here, don’t say anything about their rights. To talk about their
rights, is running off on a tangent. By rights and technicalities, I can
prove to you that Isabella the Second is to-day the rightful Queen of
Spain, and that her grandson is only a usurper. In rational politics no
rights nor mummeries exist. There is only what is advantageous or
otherwise, what is successful or unsuccessful. There is a sense of smell
and of touch, and although I can’t explain to you in what it consists,
yet it shows itself in the result. Radical ideas lead on to logical
absurdities. You can’t apply algebra to politics. And say no more about
independence. Our Spanish nation is an indisputable reality, even if
you do not believe it.”
Irritated by his opposition, I would exclaim: “What a musty idea that
love of country is! The great thinkers laugh at the idea of patriotism;
you can’t deny that.”
“Tell your great thinkers to go think in a stable. If they suppress the
springs of action, little by little, because humanity has always
progressed, we’ll no longer have any pretext for so much as living. You
know that I am not at all sentimental, but our country is like our
family, and there’s no need of poetry or sentimentalism to make us love
it and defend it with our lives. You think you settle everything by
dragging out that about old-fashioned notions. Well, old-fashioned
notions are inevitable and necessary and proper. We live on them. And
that old idea about our love of country is not the only one bred in our
bones. There are a great many others, my dear fellow, which we’ll not
give up for twenty centuries. I believe that in this country, in order
to foster the ideas which are to replace the old-fashioned ones, what we
must do is to be crossed with other races. All of us who are a bit
enlightened--why, let us marry foreign wives!”
Sometimes we got to quarreling over these profundities, and would roar
at each other while loitering at the table or even while eating. These
disputes usually gave us the greatest eagerness in the play of mind on
mind; and even in the midst of our hottest arguments we felt drawn
toward each other by the conviction that though our opinions were so
antagonistic, we were able to understand each other and to spur each
other on.
We had come to be inseparable. We helped each other in our studies; we
used to go to walk together, even when Luis was going to promenade
before the house of a certain outlandish sweetheart he had discovered;
we used to sit at the same table in the Levante Café; when we had a
little spare cash we would go together to our favorite resort--the
gallery in the Teatro Real. All of us students at Doña Jesusa’s were
musical; we were all ready to die for “L’Africaine,” and “Les
Huguenots,” especially the Cuban, who had a musical craze. His retentive
memory would store up not only the music but the words as well, and we
used to amuse ourselves on getting home by making him sing over the
whole opera.
“Trinidad,” we would say, for that was his name, “Come now, sing the
love duet between _Vasco_ and _Selika_.” “Trinidad, there now, the
poniard scene.” “Come, Triny, sing that about _O paradiso_. Now about
_Copre fuoco_.” “Triny, sing the Protestant psalm. Now, the violins
start in--now come the oboe’s notes, when _Marcelo_ appears.” The
mocking-bird would sing all we called for, reproducing with astonishing
exactness the slightest details of the instrumentation, until at length
fairly worn out, he would exclaim, beseechingly:
“Let me go to bed. I see you are making a fool of me.”