One morning, or, rather, afternoon, almost at the end of the term, we
rushed out of school, almost running from Turco Street to Clavel Street.
You must remember that from eight o’clock, when we took our muddy
chocolate, until half-past one, the hour when our drawing-class closed,
our recitations came along one after the other; and we had nothing to
sustain our strength, but now and then a sausage which we would
surreptitiously purchase from the janitor, or some scrap which we would
filch at the boarding-house and carry along. Smelling our lunch from
afar, we mounted two steps at a time, and on entering the dining-room, I
came face to face with my Uncle Felipe, who said to me, abruptly, “You
must lunch with me to-day at Fornos’s. I imagine that eatables are
scarce here.”
“I should be glad to go, but I have so much studying to do just now,” I
answered, affecting reluctance.
“Bah, you’ll not lose a year’s time if you don’t study to-day. Come
along, for we must have a talk--a talk about a great many things,” he
added, with an air of mystery.
The truth is--and it would do no good to conceal it, because it will be
made very evident in the course of this story--that I had not merely no
affection or respect for my Uncle Felipe, but not even any sort of
attachment or as much as gratitude for the favors he was conferring upon
me. Quite the contrary. I know it does me no credit to say so, and that
ingratitude is the ugliest of faults; but I know, also, that I am not
naturally ungrateful, and in order to justify, or at least explain
myself, I will sketch in silhouette my Uncle Felipe’s physical and moral
characteristics, to do which I must allude to some matters that are of
the nature of family secrets.
My baptismal name is Salustio, my paternal surnames are Meléndez Ramos,
my maternal, Unceta Cardoso. That name Unceta indicates plainly that my
mother’s father was a Basque, and came from Guipuzcoa, to be more exact;
and Cardoso--that’s where the mischief comes in. It seems that the
Cardosos of Marín--I was born in Pontevedra, and my mother’s family came
from the little seaport of Marín--were a broken branch of the Portuguese
trunk of Cardoso Pereira, a Jewish trunk, if there is such a thing. How
did the fact come to my knowledge that my mother’s ancestors were Jews?
Just find out if you can who tells these things to children. One day
when I was nine or ten, unable to restrain my curiosity any longer, I
asked my mother:
“Mamma, is it true that we belong to the Jewish race?”
With fire flashing from her eyes, she lifted her hand and cuffed my ears
soundly, crying:
“If you say that again, I’ll break all the bones in your body!”
That chastisement left the impression in my mind that to be a Jew was a
sore disgrace; and two or three years later, when one of my
school-mates at Pontevedra threw it in my face, calling out,
Cardoso’s a Jew,
And a tricky one, too!
I seized my slate and broke it over his skull.
I cannot be sure when I reached the religious crisis, or that period in
which boys scrutinize their beliefs, sift them and finally discard them,
feeling a pain from the loss of their faith like that caused by the
pulling of a double-tooth. I do not think I ever experienced such a
change, or felt such agonizing doubts, or such remorse and longing when
looking upon a Gothic church. I was naturally skeptical and took up, if
not with atheism, at least with religious indifference, as if it were
something perfectly congenial to me.
I had never been “perverted” by reading any particular book, nor by
hearing a person of “dangerous ideas” discourse upon religion; nobody
“opened my eyes,” for I believe that I came into the world with them
wide open. As many young men cannot say exactly how and when they lost
the innocence of childhood in matters relating to the sexes, so I
cannot fix the precise time when my faith began to waver, for, indeed, I
do not recall that it was ever very steadfast. I believe that I was born
a rationalist.
But it is singular that in spite of that, the insult, “tricky Jew,”
always clung to my mind like a poisoned dart. My fellow-students never
dared repeat it before me, but notwithstanding, I never could forget it
for a single day. When I was about to graduate, quite a tall, shapely
fellow by that time, I became acquainted with Don Wenceslao Viñal, a
queer individual, but a good deal of a scholar, mousing around in
libraries, filled with all sorts of strange learned trifles, and very
well informed in regard to Galician archæology and history. He used to
lend me old books, and sometimes carry me off to walk in the vicinity of
Pontevedra in search of beautiful views and ruined buildings. I used to
torment him with questions, to keep up my reputation as a studious
youngster.
One day I got it into my head that Viñal might clear up my doubts in
regard to the Jewish question, so I boldly said:
“See here, Don Wenceslao, is it true that there are families living in
Marín, who are of Jewish descent, and that the Cardoso family is one?”
“Yes, indeed,” answered the bibliomaniac quietly, without noticing the
great eagerness of my question. “They are of Portuguese origin; that is
so certain that there is much antipathy shown them in Marín. It is said
that they have not abjured their faith, and that they still keep up
their Jewish rites; that they change their linen on Saturdays instead of
Sundays, and that they will not eat a bit of pork for love or money.”
“And do you believe all that?”
“For my part, I think it is all tittle-tattle and old woman’s gossip--I
mean in regard to their observing the Jewish rites; but that they are of
Jewish origin, cannot be denied. Furthermore, if I have time, I’ll
rummage through some old papers I know of, and we’ll disinter a certain
Juan Manuel Cardoso Muiño, a native of Marín, whom the Inquisition of
Santiago tortured and flogged, on the ground that he was a Judaizer. He
was besides an incurable leper. So you see I know all about it, you
curious fellow. I’ll look up the papers.”
“No, no, it’s not necessary. I only wanted to find out--mere idle
curiosity. Don’t trouble yourself about it, Don Wenceslao.”
For a month I was sorely afraid that the fellow actually would look the
matter up, or perhaps even send an absurd communication to some wretched
sheet in Pontevedra, as he used to do every two years, whenever he
imagined that he had discovered some important and unpublished data
which might serve as an historical key to the ancient kingdom of
Galicia. I therefore carefully avoided recurring to the conversation
about the Judaizers of Marín. This very precaution indicated that I was
not quite reconciled to the drubbing which had been inflicted upon Juan
Manuel Cardoso Muiño.
Later on, when I left Pontevedra for Madrid to begin my studies
preparatory to the School of Engineering, I often recalled that stigma,
and tried to view it in a sensible light. It seemed to me absurd to
place so much importance upon a thing that, in our present social
state, has none whatever in the light of good judgment and the
philosophy of history. The Jews are, in fact, a people of noble origin,
who have given us “the religious conception”--a conception to which,
viewed either as a sublime product of the mind or as a lofty flight of
the imagination, I attributed great importance.
In another point of view, also, that of social standing, it no longer
seemed right to me to despise Hebrews. The stigma of the Middle Ages has
been so far obliterated that wealthy Jewish capitalists intermarry with
the most aristocratic families in France, and give splendid receptions
and banquets at which the Spanish aristocracy deigns to appear. Aside
from these outward considerations, I used to fix my thought on others,
higher and deeper, and remembered that great thinker Baruch Spinosa, who
was of Jewish race; as were also Meyerbeer and Heine.
In fact, as I assured myself again and again, there was not the
slightest reason for feeling so sore at having descended from the Jews,
except the unreason of an instinctive aversion, born of sentimental
hereditary prejudice. There was no doubt about it; the blood of the old
Christians which flowed in my veins, shrank with horror from
intermingling with that of the Jewish race. It is very singular, I
thought, that the inmost part of our being thus resists our will and
reason, and that, in spite of ourselves, there exists within us a
rebellious and self-governed something, over which our own convictions
have no control whatever, but which is only affected by those of past
generations.
And here my Uncle Felipe again appears on the scene. I do not know
whether I remarked before that he was my mother’s brother, somewhat
younger than she was. He was about forty-two or forty-three at the time
our story commences, and was considered “quite good-looking;” perhaps
because he was tall, well-formed, and somewhat stout, with thick hair
and whiskers. But at the first glance my uncle showed all the
unmistakable traces of a Jewish origin. He certainly did not look like
the images of Christ, but resembled, rather, another Semitic type, that
of the sensual Jews, such as the scribes, Pharisees and doctors of the
law, as they appear in pictures and sculptures representing scenes in
the Crucifixion.
The first time I ever visited the Prado Museum I was struck by the great
number of faces resembling my Uncle Felipe’s. Above all was this the
case in Rubens’s paintings, in those big, fat, florid Jews, with their
hooked noses and gluttonous, sensual lips, hard, suspicious gaze, and
with profiles like a bird of prey. Some of them, exaggerated by the
Flemish master’s heavy strokes, were caricatures of my uncle, but most
faithful ones. His red beard and curly hair made my uncle look precisely
like the figure of one of the executioners carried in the processions of
Holy Week. And to me it was very plain, it was my uncle’s deicide face
which from childhood inspired me with that stolid, sullen, insuperable
aversion, like that we feel for a reptile though it does us no harm. Not
even my rationalistic ideas, nor my scientific positivism, nor the
knowledge that I was supported and protected by that hated being, could
rid me of this aversion.
“These are the tricks of art,” I reflected. “For five hundred years past
the painters have endeavored to bring together in half a dozen faces the
expression of avarice, of gluttony, cruelty, selfishness, and hypocrisy,
and so have succeeded in making the Jewish type so repugnant. Luis is
right. Tradition, that binding cement, that mold which gathers in our
very souls, is stronger than culture or progress. Instead of reflecting,
we feel; and not even that, because it is the dead who feel for us.”
Sometimes, in order not to acknowledge myself guilty of fear or
childishness, I sought other reasons for the antipathy I felt toward my
uncle. I make a great point of personal neatness, while my uncle,
without being careless in his dress, was not very cleanly in his person;
his nails were sometimes not immaculate, and his teeth betrayed a tinge
of green. My dislike for my uncle was also stimulated by my seeing that
he, without any desert whatever, as the result of no moral or
intellectual qualities, had yet been able to secure a good position. I
do not mean to say that he was wicked or stupid, but that he was one of
those intermediate hybrid creatures, of whom we can never quite
discover, whether they are bright or stupid, good or knavish, although
they are strongly inclined to be the latter. A mushroom springing up in
the corruption of our politics, and growing rank in the deadly shade of
electoral intrigue, he was condemned by my puritanical and radical
ideas, with all the rigid inflexibility of youth, to the punishment of
general contempt. Although he was not as high in power as some of his
fellow-bosses, his unjustifiable prosperity sufficed to stir all my
youthful indignation against him.
When my uncle was licensed to practice law, he owned some land and a
house or two in Pontevedra, which he had inherited from his father. This
property would not yield him an income of $1000 annually, at five per
cent. How it happened that this meager fortune was more than doubled in
bank stocks and four per cent. government bonds a few years later, let
any one explain who understands how such miracles are worked; so common
nowadays that they no longer surprise anybody. My uncle did not
practice his profession; the law was for him, what it usually is for
Spaniards in political life--an avocation, a passport. He went into
politics cautiously, swimming, but keeping an eye on his clothes. He was
elected provincial deputy several times, and picked away at his pleasure
in the fig-basket of offices. In order not to waste his money in
electoral campaigns, he contented himself with going to the Cortes only
once, standing for one of those vacancies which occur on the eve of a
general election, and which usually go to the benefit of journalists. My
uncle, by the favor of Don Vicente Sotopeña, the all-powerful “boss” of
Galicia, carried off the prize without spending a single penny; and took
the oath the very day before the House was dissolved, leaving the way
open to become a Governor, and later on--who can tell?--a Councilor of
State or Minister of Public Instruction. Governor he was very quickly,
sometimes as acting head of the province, sometimes as executive in his
own right.
From time to time some good thing fell mysteriously into his lap; and
they had a great deal to say in Pontevedra about the expropriation of
some of my uncle’s property, which the city council bought at a fabulous
price. But it is neither pleasant nor profitable to recount these
transactions. My uncle was one of the petty third-rate politicians who
never dip into the dish without bringing out a fat slice. His method
consisted in cutting down expenses and adding up profits, without
despising the most insignificant.
They used to say in his praise that he was long-headed. Now such a trait
appeared to me only another symptom of Judaism, though, perhaps I was
unjust in this, because many bosses in my part of the country, though of
the purest Aryan extraction, are not behind Uncle Felipe in that
respect.
Sometimes I felt conscience-stricken on account of my dislike toward my
nearest relative. I accused myself of being without proper feeling,
because I was returning only hatred for favors. If my uncle were mean
and stingy, he deserved all the more credit for meeting a good part of
the expenses of my education. And I could not deny that my uncle showed
a liking for me, in his own fashion. When he was in Madrid, he used to
give me an occasional quarter to go to the theater; and two or three
times during his stay he would invite me to breakfast or dine with him
at Fornos’s; and he was never strict with me. He used to treat me like a
pleasure-loving young lad of not much consequence, questioning me about
my tricks and frolics, about my fellow-boarders’ pranks, and about the
girls over the way, who were amusing.
Sometimes he even dropped into worse talk, boasting that he was an
expert in all matters relating to licentious amours. After dinner, when
the wine, the coffee and the liquors had flushed his cheeks, he would
display his expertness, treating of dubious subjects which sometimes
nauseated me. I did not dare to protest, for we men are ashamed to
appear innocent; but the truth is, my youthful palate refused that
spicy, too-highly-seasoned dish. Sometimes it happened, also, that at
night the indecent images called up by his conversation would assault
and excite me, until I would freely bathe the back of my head and neck
with cold water out of the pitcher. In winter as well as in summer this
proceeding would refresh my brain and enable me to forget myself in my
books again.
Aversion, or rather antipathy, is as powerful a motive force as love,
and I was looking forward to the end of my studies as the close of a
patronage which I felt to be unbearable. To be my own master, to earn
enough money to live on, to pay back to my uncle what he had given
me--that was my dream; and I clung to its wings in order to reach the
top of the dry hill of machinery, construction and topography.
Now that I have drawn my Uncle Felipe’s portrait, I will add, that when
we found ourselves in the little, dark, low room in Fornos’s, seated at
the table where the waiter was placing a dish of radishes, Vienna rolls,
butter, and the rest of the lunch; after making several remarks on
various unimportant subjects, he said, clapping me on the shoulder, but
without looking me in the face, “Guess what I have to tell you.”
“How can I?”
“Well, what use is it for you to study so hard, if you cannot?”--said
he, making an effort to appear jocose.
I shrugged my shoulders, and my uncle added:
“I am going to get married.”