THE BROTHERS GOLFIN.
Teodoro Golfin did not waste his time at Socartes. The first day
after his arrival he spent several hours in his brother’s laboratory,
and during the following days he went from one part of the mines to
another, examining and admiring all he saw--here the awful might of
natural forces, and there the power and enterprise of human skill. At
night, when all was still in the busy village, and nothing was awake
but the snorting furnaces, the worthy doctor, who was an enthusiastic
musician, listened with delight to his sister-in-law’s piano; Señora
Sofía, was Don Cárlos’ wife, but their children were all dead.
The two brothers were devotedly attached to each other. Born in the
humblest rank of life, they had struggled hard in early youth to rise
above ignorance and poverty, often on the point of giving way to the
difficulties that beset them; but the impetus of manly determination
was so strong in them, that at length, gasping for breath, they
reached the longed-for land, rising superior to the beating waves
in which vulgar souls splash and struggle in a perpetual state of
shipwreck.
Teodoro, who was the eldest, was a medical man before Cárlos was
qualified as an engineer, and he helped him to the utmost so long as
the younger brother needed it, and when he saw him fairly started, he
took the step to which his enterprising spirit had long aspired, and
set out for South America. There he practised with other celebrated
physicians, gaining fame and wealth. After a short visit at home, in
Spain, he returned to the New World, and even after a second voyage
home he went back again; but during each of these expeditions he
made a short tour in Europe to avail himself of the advances made in
ophthalmic science which he particularly cultivated.
He was a man of unpolished manners, dark and with an expression at
once intelligent and sensual; his lips were thick, his skin opaque
and hairy, his eyes bright and keen; his frame was robust and his
constitution sound, though somewhat injured by the South American
climate. His large, round face, his prominent brow, his short,
rebellious hair, the flash of his eyes and his thick, square hands, had
led to his being spoken of as “the black lion.” In truth, he was like
a lion, and like the king of beasts, he never lost an opportunity of
asserting the estimation in which he held himself. However, this vanity
of a really distinguished man was the most pardonable of vanities,
for it consisted chiefly in his persistently displaying his two great
titles of fame and honor, namely: his devotion to surgery and the
lowness of his origin. He spoke incorrectly, from his utter inability
to elaborate phrases with ease and elegance. His rapid and broken
sentences followed the course of his ideas, which were as swift as the
electric spark.
“We,” Teodoro would say, “although we have sprung from the grass by
the way-side, which is the lowest origin conceivable, have grown into
stalwart trees. Long live labor and human enterprise! I cannot but
think that we Golfins, though Heaven knows where we came from, must
have some English blood in our veins. Even our name seems to me to be
of purely Saxon origin. I give it this etymology, _Gold-find_, or, as
you may say, Gold-finders. Well, and my brother finds it in the bowels
of the earth, while I find it in that marvellous miniature universe:
the human eye.”
At the period of our story he had just arrived via New York and
Liverpool, and, as he declared, he now meant to remain at home; but no
one believed it, for he had said so many times before and had not kept
his word.
His brother Cárlos was a gentler being, placid, studious, a slave to
his duties, and devoted to mineralogy and metallurgy to the point of
caring far more for these two branches of learning than for his wife’s
society. But the couple lived, nevertheless, in perfect harmony; or,
as Teodoro said, in an isomorphous state, crystallizing on the same
system. As for himself, when matrimony was spoken of, he would say:
“To me, marriage would be an epigenesis, a pseudo-morphous
crystallization, that is to say, a mode of crystallization which would
not harmonize with my nature.”
Sofía was a very good woman, who had been very handsome, but whose
beauty was daily losing character and expression from her unfortunate
tendency to stoutness. She had been told that an atmosphere charged
with coal smoke had a tendency to reduce fat, and for this reason she
had come to live at the mines, without ever leaving them the whole
year through. The horrible air, charged with dust, calamine and smoke,
annoyed her much however. She had no child alive, and her principal
occupation consisted in playing the piano and in organizing societies
of benevolent ladies for giving the poor help in their homes, and for
maintaining hospitals and schools.
At Madrid, for many years her energy had been prodigious, a real model
for all who feel prompted to acts of charity. With the help of two or
three ladies of rank, equally devoted to their humble and suffering
neighbors, she had organized more than twenty dramatic performances,
and as many fancy balls, six bull-fights and two cock-fights, all for
the benefit of the poor.
Among her other manias, which were apt to be but transient, however,
was one which perhaps is less commendable than that for helping the
needy, and which consisted in surrounding herself with dogs and cats,
devoting herself to these animals with an affection really worthy to be
called love. Lately, since she had lived at Socartes, she had kept a
toy-terrier which had been brought to her as a commission from England
by Ulises Buli, the head of the machinery department. This was a
delicate and slender creature, as tricky and amusing as a child. It was
called Líli, and had cost a small fortune in London--as dogs go.
On fine days the trio walked out together; when it was wet they played
and sang, for Sofía had a modest pipe which, at Socartes, passed
for singing. The deputy engineer had a deep bass voice, and Teodoro
likewise was _basso profondo_. Cárlos could sing but a little higher,
so that the whole effect was somewhat like a priestly choir, in which
Sofía’s treble came out as if she were a priestess being carried off
to be immolated. All the pieces they sang were--or at any rate sounded
like--priests offering a sacrifice, and a priestess being sacrificed.
On the days when they walked far they took with them a sort of picnic
afternoon meal. One evening--it was at the end of September, and six
days after the doctor’s arrival at the mines--the party were returning
homewards in the following order: Líli, Sofía, Teodoro, Cárlos. The
path was too narrow to allow of their walking two and two. Líli wore a
little sky-blue coat or gaberdine with his mistress’s initials worked
upon it; Sofía carried her parasol like a gun over her shoulder, and
Teodoro had his stick in precisely the same position with his hat
hanging on the end of it; it was one of his favorite whims to walk out
bare-headed. They were passing above La Trascava when Líli, leaving the
path, with his elastic little legs like springs, began to run on the
turf that covered the slope to the chasm. First he ran, but then he
slipped on the grass. Sofía gave a cry of terror. Her first impulse,
prompted by an almost maternal feeling, was to run after the little
beast that was in no real danger; but her husband stopped her, saying:
“The devil may have Líli if he wants him--but he will come back. It is
impossible to go down, the turf here is so slippery.”
“Líli, Líli,” cried Sofía, hoping that her touching appeal would arrest
the creature on the road to perdition, and bring him back to the path
of virtue and duty. But the tenderest adjurations had no effect on the
rebellious soul of Líli, who went lower and lower. From time to time he
looked up at his mistress with his bright, black eyes, which seemed to
say: “For mercy’s sake do not be so foolish.”
At the large, moss-grown, white rock, which lay like a lid at the
very mouth of the chasm, Líli stopped. All stood with their eyes
fixed on the spot, and they at once perceived something moving there.
They supposed it to be some beast of prey hiding behind the rock; but
Sofía gave another shriek of astonishment rather than of terror, and
exclaimed:
“It is Nela.--Nela what are you doing there?”
On hearing her name called, the girl appeared greatly disturbed, and
colored deeply.
“What are you doing there, mad child?” repeated the lady. “Take up Líli
and bring him back to me. Heaven have mercy on us! but what next will
that creature be doing? Just look at the place she has put herself in!
It is all your fault that Líli went down there--what an example to set
the poor little animal. It is all your fault that he behaved in this
naughty, wilful way.”
“That child is a perfect limb of mischief,” said Don Cárlos to his
brother. “Only look at the place she has got to.”
While, on the top of the slope, they were thus discussing her, Nela,
down at the bottom, was trying to catch Líli, who, more wilful and
daring than he had ever been before in the whole course of his
monotonous existence, constantly eluded her grasp. His mistress shouted
to him in vain to “be good and behave himself,” while he, ignoring
the most elementary principles of duty, went on leaping and frisking,
looking up at her, from time to time, with consummate impudence, as
though to say: “My good lady, just go on with your walk and leave me in
peace.”
At last, however, the sportive little beast got entangled among the
briars which grew in the hollow, and there his little great-coat got
him into dire trouble; the poor dog, finding it impossible to escape
from the brushwood, began to bark lamentably for help.
“He will be lost, he will be killed!” wailed the Señora. “Nela, Nela,
if you will only save him, I will give you a fine, big dog. Save
him--go carefully--hold fast.”
Nela went boldly to the rescue; setting her foot on the brambles and
stout-stemmed creepers that grew over the rift, and holding on by one
hand to the rock, she put out the other to take hold of Líli’s tail,
by which she pulled him out of the tangle in which he had been caught.
Then, patting and coaxing him, she mounted in triumph to the top of the
slope.
“It is your fault, all your fault,” said Sofía crossly, and boxing
the dog’s ears very gently. “What on earth made you go down into that
hole--you know he goes after you wherever he finds you--hussy that you
are!”
And then she kissed her recovered treasure and gave him one or two mild
slaps, and after having assured herself that his precious skin was
whole, she pulled his little coat straight, which had got dragged over
his head, and gave him to Nela, saying:
“Take him, and carry him in your arms, for he must be tired, and
such a long scamper may do him harm. But take care of him--go on in
front.--Take great care of him--you see I am close behind to keep an
eye on you.”
The family party set out again, with Nela leading the way. Líli looked
at his mistress over Nela’s shoulder, and seemed to say: “My good
mistress, what a simpleton you are!”
Teodoro Golfin had said not a word during the whole of Líli’s agitating
escapade, but when they had started on their way once more and were
crossing the fields, where the three could walk abreast without
inconvenience, the doctor said to his brother’s wife:
“I cannot but think, dear Sofía, that you are unreasonably devoted to
the little dog. To be sure a dog that cost two hundred _duros_, is
indeed a dog among dogs. Still, I cannot but ask myself how it is that
you have spent time and money in making a great-coat for his highness
the terrier, while it has never occurred to you to buy a pair of shoes
for Nela.”
“Shoes for Nela!” exclaimed Sofía laughing. “What for, I should like
to know. She would have worn them through in two days. You may laugh
at me as much as you please--well, I admit that my affection for Líli
amounts to an extravagance; still, you cannot accuse me of want of
charity.--Nor indeed, I must say, should I ever allow you to take
such a liberty,” and as she spoke she drew herself up with a solemn
look of offended dignity. “As to knowing how to exercise charity
with due prudence and judgment, I believe I may hold my own with
any one, be it whom it may--for charity does not consist merely in
giving without rhyme or reason, not knowing whether your alms are well
or ill-bestowed. Do you suppose you can teach me anything? My dear
Teodoro, I am quite as experienced in such matters as you are in the
treatment of eyes.”
“I know, I know, my dear.--You have done wonders. You need not tell me
for the fiftieth time of all the dramatic entertainments, balls and
bull-fights, you have got up for the benefit of the poor, nor of the
lotteries, which have brought in large sums; though, after providing
food for any number of idle vagabonds, there has been but a small
fraction left for the sick and suffering! All these facts only go to
prove to my mind the singular state of a society, which cannot be
charitable without dancing, bull-fights or lottery tickets.--No, we
need not discuss all that; I know and admire those heroic achievements;
they have their good side, and that not a small one. But you and your
gay friends very rarely put yourself in connection with any poor soul,
to learn from his own lips the cause and history of his misery, or to
discern what kind of wretchedness it is that oppresses him--for there
are, actually, some troubles so extraordinary that the gift of a few
coppers can do nothing to alleviate them, no, nor even a morsel of
bread.”
“Here we have our philosopher well astride on his hobby,” said Sofía
spitefully. “Pray how do you know what I have ever done, or what I
ought to do?”
“Nay, do not be vexed,” said Golfin; “for all my discourse tends to a
single point, and that is that Nela should have shoes.”
“Very well, then to-morrow morning I will buy her a pair.”
“No--for I will buy them myself this evening. Do not poach on my
preserves, Señora.”
“Here--Nela,” cried the lady, seeing that she had gone some distance
ahead. “Do not go so fast; keep in sight that I may see what you are
about.”
“Poor little creature!” said her husband. “Who could guess she was
sixteen years old!”
“She is dreadfully stunted, miserable little thing!” exclaimed
Sofía. “I cannot help asking, why God should permit such creatures to
live? And again I ask myself, what in the world can be done for her?
Nothing--nothing, but to feed and clothe her after a fashion--but you
see, she tears everything she puts on. She cannot labor because she
faints away--she has not strength enough to do any kind of work. She
skips from stone to stone, or climbs the trees, playing and chattering
the whole day long and singing like the birds; what clothes she has are
soon reduced to rags....”
“And yet,” said Cárlos, “I have noticed that she is very intelligent.
There is a great deal of acuteness and cleverness under that simple
exterior and wild rusticity. No, no, Nela is no fool by a long way.
If any one had taken the trouble to teach her anything, she would
have learnt it better, perhaps, than most children. Would you believe
it? Nela has a great imagination; but lacking, as she does, the most
rudimentary knowledge, it has of course, made her sentimental and
superstitious.”
“In point of fact she is in the condition of all primitive races,” said
Teodoro. “She is at the pastoral stage of civilization.”
“Only yesterday,” Cárlos went on, “I was passing by La Trascava and I
saw her sitting exactly where we found her again just now. I called her
and made her come to me, and I asked her what she was doing there; and
with the most perfect simplicity she told me she was talking with her
mother.--You know, perhaps, that Nela’s mother threw herself into that
chasm.”
“That is to say that she killed herself,” said Sofía. “She was a
woman of bad character and worse feeling, from all I have heard of
her. Cárlos was not living here then, but they say she drank like a
stoker. And I ask you: Do these vile creatures, who end a life of sin
by committing the greatest crime of all--Suicide--deserve any pity from
the human race? There are things too horrible to contemplate--wretches
that ought never to have been born. Teodoro may argue as much as he
likes, but I cannot help asking you....”
“Ask nothing, my dear sister,” said Teodoro warmly. “For I could only
reply that the suicide deserves our deepest and fullest pity. So far as
abuse goes, heap it on her by all means, and as much as you please; but
at the same time it might be as well to enquire what were the causes
that brought her to such a fearful extremity of desperation--and I may
add that if society had not wholly abandoned her and left her no way
out but the yawning door of that hideous abyss which seemed to invite
her....”
“Abandoned by society! Well, some must be ...” said Sofía flippantly.
“Society cannot take care of every one. Look at the statistics of
population--only look, and you will see how many poor there are to
provide for. Besides, supposing society does overlook some--what is
religion for?”
“I am speaking of those poor wretches who add to all their other
miseries, ignorance, which is the greatest of all. An ignorant soul,
debased and superstitious, has none but the vaguest and absurdest
ideas of God. The sense of something Great and Unknown, instead of
withholding him, impels him to crime. It is rarely indeed that the
thought of religion is of any good to those who vegetate in stolid
ignorance. No intelligent friend ever goes near them, neither master
nor priest; the only superior they ever come into contact with, is the
judge who tries them.
“It is strange to see how inexorably you condemn what, after all, is
your own work!” he went on, twisting the stick on which his hat was
still mounted. “You stand looking straight before you, seeing at the
very threshold of your own comfortable homes a crowd of neglected
creatures, deprived of everything that childhood needs, from parents
to playthings--you see them, I say, without its ever occurring to you
to raise them an inch in the world, by telling them that they too are
human beings, and giving them some of the ideas they so deplorably
lack, without ever dreaming of ennobling them by lifting them out of
their brutalizing, mechanical toil, to some intelligent work; you see
them dwelling in filthy hovels, ill-fed, sinking lower day by day in
their savage squalor, and it never occurs to you to spare for them a
little of the comfort and luxury that surround you! You save all your
energies to declaim against murder, robbery and suicide, without ever
reflecting that you are, in fact, keeping open school for these three
crimes.”
“You seem to forget that there are houses of refuge, hospitals,
asylums ...” said Sofía tartly. “Read statistics, Teodoro, and you will
see the number of miserable creatures.... Read statistics.”
“I do not read statistics, my dear sister, and your statistics count
for nothing with me. Asylums are good--not that they can ever solve the
great problem of orphanage. A hapless orphan, dropped in the streets
or in the fields, bereft of all personal affection, and cared for only
by a town council--rarely, indeed, is the vacuum filled which yawns
in his soul for the love of a parent--not to speak of the vacuum where
self-respect, honor, and responsibility ought to be, and so rarely are
found. And on that point I have an idea of my own--but, perhaps, it
will appear to you absurd....”
“Tell us, at any rate.”
“The problem of orphanhood, and the miseries of infancy, will never
be completely and finally solved, any more than the rest of our great
social problems; still, it will be lightened when custom, supported by
law--yes, by law, you see I am in earnest--when custom and law insist
that every orphan, whatever its birth--do not laugh--has a right to
claim adoption by some married couple in easy circumstances, and who
have no children. By this plan, there will be no childless parents, and
no fatherless children.”
“Yes, by this plan,” retorted Sofía, “we should be parents to Nela!”
“And why not?” said Teodoro. “At the same time you would not waste
two hundred _duros_ in buying a dog, nor the livelong blessed day in
talking nonsense to his highness, Master Líli.”
“And why are rich bachelors to be exempt under this delightful law? Why
should not they also be burthened, each with his orphan?”
“I have no objection ...” said the doctor; he was looking at the
ground. “But what is this? Blood?”
They all looked down, and at regular intervals they saw small spots of
blood.
“Mercy!” cried Sofía, covering her eyes. “It is Nela--see, it is where
she has trodden; these are her footmarks.”
“Oh yes! I see. It was when she went into the brambles to fetch your
precious dog. Nela, come here.”
Nela, whose right foot was bleeding a good deal, came hobbling back
again.
“Give me my poor Líli,” said the lady, taking the dog out of the ragged
child’s arms. “Do not hurt him; does it hurt you much? Poor little
thing.--Oh! how it is bleeding.--I cannot bear to look at it.” And
Sofía turned her back to spare her sensitive nerves, hugging Líli more
closely.
“Let us see what has happened,” said Teodoro, lifting Nela up and
seating her on a high stone that was at hand. Then, putting on his
spectacles, he said: “It is quite a trifle, only a few scratches; there
is a thorn in here I rather think.--That hurts you? Yes, just so, here
is the villain.--Wait a minute. Now, Sofía if you cannot look on at a
surgical operation, you had better walk on.”
While his sister went slowly forward to save her nervous system this
terrible shock, Golfin took a small case out of his pocket and a pair
of tweezers out of the case, and in less than a winking the thorn was
extracted.
“That is a brave little woman,” he said to Nela, who had not even
winced. “Now we will tie this foot up.” And he bound it round with his
handkerchief. Marianela jumped down to walk and Cárlos offered her his
hand.
“No, no--come here,” said Teodoro. He took the little girl under the
arms, and with a rapid and dexterous twist perched her on his right
shoulder.
“If you do not feel safe hold on to my hair,” he said. “It will not
come off. Now, you must carry the stick with the hat.”
“What a ridiculous sight!” said Sofía, in fits of laughter as they came
up with her. “Teodoro, with Nela on his shoulder, and then the stick
and Gessler’s hat on the top....”