E-text prepared by Chuck Greif, Brett Fishburne, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
THE DEAD COMMAND
by
VICENTE BLASCO IBANEZ
Author of "Sonnica"
From the Spanish LOS MUERTOS MANDAN
Translation by Frances Douglas
[Illustration]
New York
Duffield & Company
1919
PART FIRST
THE DEAD COMMAND
CHAPTER I
A MAJORCAN PALACE
Jaime Febrer arose at nine o'clock. Old Antonia, the faithful servant
who cherished the memory of the past glories of the family, and who had
attended upon Jaime from the day of his birth, had been bustling about
the room since eight o'clock in the hope of awakening him. As the light
filtering through the transom of a broad window seemed too dim, she
flung open the worm-eaten blinds. Then she raised the gold-fringed, red,
damask drapery which hung like an awning over the ample couch, the
ancient, lordly, and majestic couch in which many generations of Febrers
had been born and in which they had died.
The night before, on returning from the Casino, Jaime had charged her
most earnestly to arouse him early, as he was invited to breakfast at
Valldemosa. Time to get up! It was the finest of spring mornings; in the
garden birds were singing in the flowery branches swayed by the breeze
that blew over the wall from the sea.
The old servant, seeing that her master had at last decided to get out
of bed, retreated to the kitchen. Jaime Febrer strolled about the room
before the open window almost nude. There was no danger of his being
seen. The dwelling opposite was an old palace like his own, a great
house with few windows. From his room he could see a wall of indefinite
color, with deep scars, and faint traces of ancient frescoes. It was so
near, the street being extremely narrow, that it seemed as if he might
touch it with his hand.
Nervous on account of an important event which was to take place in the
morning, he had passed a restless night, and the heaviness following the
short and indifferent sleep led him to seek eagerly the invigorating
effect of cold water. Febrer made a sorry grimace as he bathed in the
primitive, narrow, and uncomfortable tub. Ah poverty! His home was
devoid of even the most essential conveniences despite its air of
stately luxury, a stateliness which modern wealth can never emulate.
Poverty with all its annoyances stalked forth to meet him at every turn
in these halls which reminded him of splendidly decorated theaters he
had seen in his European travels.
Febrer glanced over the grandiose room with its lofty ceiling as if he
were a stranger entering the apartment for the first time. His powerful
ancestors had built for giants. Each room in the palace was as large as
a modern house. The windows were without glass all over the house and in
winter they had to be closed by wooden shutters which admitted no light
except that entering through the transoms, and these were studded with
crystals cracked and dimmed by time. Lack of carpets disclosed floors of
soft Majorcan sandstone cut in small rectangles like wooden blocks. The
rooms still boasted the old-time splendor of vaulted ceilings, some
dark, with skilfully fitted paneling, others with a faded and venerable
gilding forming a background for the colored escutcheons which were
emblazoned with the coat of arms of the house. In some rooms the high
walls, simply whitewashed, were covered by rows of ancient paintings,
and in others were concealed by rich hangings of gay colors which time
had failed to destroy. The sleeping room was decorated with eight
enormous tapestries of a shade of dull green leaves representing
gardens, broad avenues of trees in autumnal foliage leading to a small
park where deer were frisking, or where solitary fountains dripped into
triple basins. Above the doors hung old Italian paintings in soft brown
tones representing nude, amber-hued babes fondling curly lambs. The arch
dividing the alcove from the rest of the apartment suggested the
triumphal order, its fluted columns sustaining a scroll-work of carved
foliage with the softened luster of faded gilding, as if it were an
ancient altar. Upon an eighteenth century table stood a polychrome
statue of Saint George treading Moors beneath his charger; and beyond
was the bed, the imposing bed, a venerable family monument. Antique
chairs with curved arms, the red velvet so worn and threadbare as to
disclose the white woof, jostled against modern cane-bottomed chairs and
the wretched bathtub.
"Ah, poverty!" sighed the heir of the estate.
The old Febrer mansion, with its beautiful unglazed casements, its
tapestry-filled halls, its carpetless floors, its venerable furniture
jumbled with the meanest of chattels, reminded him of a poverty-stricken
prince wearing his brilliant mantle and his glittering crown, but
barefooted and destitute of underclothing.
Febrer himself was like this palace--this imposing and empty frame which
in happier times had sheltered the glory and wealth of his ancestors.
Some had been merchants, others soldiers, navigators all. The Febrer
arms had floated on pennants and flags over more than fifty full-rigged
ships, the pride of the Majorcan marine, which, after clearing from
Puerto Pi, used to sail away to sell the oil of the island in
Alexandria, taking on cargoes of spices, silks, and perfumes of the
Orient in the ports of Asia Minor, trading in Venice, Pisa, and Genoa,
or, passing the Pillars of Hercules, plunging into the fogs of Northern
seas to carry to Flanders and the Hanseatic Republics the pottery of the
Valencian Moors called majolica by foreigners because of its Majorcan
origin. These voyages over pirate-infested seas had converted this
family of rich merchants into a tribe of valorous warriors. The Febrers
had now fought, now entered into alliances with Turkish corsairs, with
Greeks, and with Algerines; they had sailed their fleets through
Northern seas to face the English pirates, and, on one occasion, at the
entrance of the Bosphorus, their galleys had rammed the vessels of
Genoese merchants who were trying to monopolize the commerce of
Byzantium. Finally, this family of soldiers of the sea, on retiring from
maritime commerce, had rendered tribute of blood in the defense of
Christian kingdoms and the Catholic faith by enlisting some of its
scions in the holy Order of the Knights of Malta. The second sons of the
house of Febrer, at the very moment of receiving the water of baptism,
had the eight-pointed white cross, symbolizing the eight beatitudes,
sewed to their swaddling-bands, and on reaching manhood they became
captains of galleys of the warlike Order, and ended their days as
opulent knights commanders of Malta recounting their deeds of prowess to
the children of their nieces, being tended in their illnesses and having
their wounds dressed by the slave women with whom they lived despite
their vows of chastity. Renowned monarchs passing through Majorca would
leave their sumptuous quarters in the Almudaina to visit the Febrers in
their palace. Some members of this great family had been admirals in the
king's armada; others governors of far distant lands; some slept the
eternal sleep in the Cathedral of La Valette beside other illustrious
Majorcans, and Jaime had done homage at their tombs during one of his
visits to Malta.
La Lonja, the graceful Gothic structure near the sea at Palma, had been
for centuries a feudal possession of his forefathers. Everything was for
the Febrers which was flung upon the mole from the high-forecastled
galleons, from Oriental cocas with their massive hulls, from fragile
lighters, lateen-sailed settees, flat-bottomed tafureas, and other
vessels of the epoch; and in the great columnar hall of La Lonja, near
the Solomonic pillars which disappeared within the shadows of the
vaulted ceilings, his ancestors in regal majesty used to receive
voyagers from the Orient who came clad in wide breeches and red fezzes;
Genoese and Provencals wearing capes with monkish hoods; and the valiant
native captains of the island covered with their red Catalonian helmets.
Venetian merchants sent their Majorcan friends ebony furniture
delicately inlaid with ivory and lapis lazuli, or enormous, heavy
plate-glass mirrors with bevelled edges. Seafarers returning from Africa
brought ostrich feathers and tusks of ivory; and these treasures and
countless others added to the decoration of the halls, perfumed by
mysterious essences, the gifts of Asiatic correspondents.
For centuries the Febrers had been intermediaries between the Orient and
the Occident, making of Majorca a depository for exotic products which
their ships afterward scattered throughout Spain, France, and Holland.
Riches flowed in fabulous abundance to the house. On some occasions the
Febrers had made loans to their sovereigns, but this did not prevent
Jaime, the last of the family, after losing in the Casino the night
before everything which he possessed--some hundreds of pesetas--from
borrowing money for a journey to Valldemosa on the following morning
from Toni Clapes, the smuggler, a rough fellow of keen intelligence, the
most faithful and disinterested of his friends.
While Jaime stood combing his hair he intently studied his image in an
antique mirror, cracked and dimmed. Thirty-six! He could not complain of
his looks. He was ugly, but it was a grandiose ugliness, to adopt the
expression of a woman who had exercised a peculiar influence over his
life. This ugliness had yielded him some satisfactory adventures. Miss
Mary Gordon, a blonde-haired idealist, daughter of the governor of an
English archipelago in Oceanica, traveling through Europe accompanied
only by a maid, had met him one summer in a hotel at Munich. She it was
who first became impressed, and it was she who took the first steps.
According to the young lady, the Spaniard was the living picture of
Wagner in his youth. Smiling at the pleasant memory, Febrer contemplated
the prominent brow which seemed to oppress his imperious, small, ironic
eyes. His nose was sharp and aquiline, the nose common to all the
Febrers, those daring birds of prey who haunted the solitudes of the
sea. His mouth was scornful and receding, his lips and chin prominent
and covered by the soft growth of the beard and mustache, thin and fine.
Ah, delicious Miss Mary! Their happy pilgrimage through Europe had
lasted almost a year. She was madly enamored on account of his
resemblance to a genius, and wished to marry him; she told him of the
governor's millions, mingling her romantic enthusiasm with the practical
tendencies of her race; but Febrer ran away at last, before the English
woman should in her turn leave him for some orchestra director or other
Who might be an even more striking double of her idol.
Ah, women!... Jaime straightened his figure which was manly, though the
shoulders bent somewhat from his excessive stature. It had been some
time since he had taken interest in women. A few gray hairs in his
beard, a slight wrinkling around the eyes, revealed the fatigues of a
life which, as he said, had whirled "at full speed." But even so he was
popular, and it was love that should lift him out of his pressing
situation.
Having finished his toilette he left the dormitory. He crossed a vast
salon lighted by the sunshine filtering through shutters in the windows.
The floor lay in shadow and the walls shone like a brilliant garden,
covered as they were by interminable tapestries with figures of heroic
size. They represented mythological and biblical scenes; arrogant dames
with full pink flesh standing before red and green warriors; imposing
colonnades; palaces hung with garlands; scimitars aloft, heads strewed
over the ground, troops of big-bellied horses with one foot lifted; a
whole world of ancient legends, but with colors fresh and vernal,
despite their centuries, bordered with apples and foliage.
As Febrer passed through the stately hall he glanced ironically at these
treasures, the inheritance from his ancestors. Not one of them was his!
For more than a year these tapestries, and also those in the dormitory,
and throughout the house, had been the property of certain usurers of
Palma who had chosen to leave them hanging in their places. They were
awaiting the chance visit of some wealthy collector who would pay more
royally believing them to be purchased direct from their owner. Jaime
was only their custodian, in danger of imprisonment should he prove
false to his trust.
Reaching the center of the salon, he turned aside, impelled by habit,
but seeing nothing to obstruct his passage, he burst into a laugh. A
month ago a choice Italian marble table which the famous knight
commander, Don Priamo Febrer, had brought back from one of his
privateering expeditions had still stood here. Neither was there
anything for him to stumble against farther on; the enormous hammered
silver brazier resting on a support of the same metal, upheld by a
circular row of cupids, Febrer had also converted into cash, selling it
by weight! The brazier reminded him of a gold chain presented by the
Emperor Charles V to one of his ancestors which he had sold in Madrid
years ago, also by weight, with the addition of two ounces of gold on
account of its artistic finish and its antiquity. Afterward he had heard
a vague rumor that the chain had been re-sold in Paris for a hundred
thousand francs. Ah, poverty! Gentlemen could no longer exist in these
times!
His gaze was drawn by the glitter of some enormous writing desks of
Venetian workmanship, mounted upon antique tables sustained by lions.
They seemed to have been made for giants; their innumerable deep drawers
were inlaid in bright colors with representations of mythological
scenes. They were four magnificent museum pieces, a feeble reminder of
the ancient splendors of the house. Neither did these belong to him.
They had shared the fate of the tapestries, and were here awaiting a
purchaser. Febrer was merely the concierge of his own house. The Italian
and Spanish paintings hanging on the walls of two adjoining rooms, the
handsomely carved antique furniture, its silk upholstery now threadbare
and torn, also belonged to his creditors--in fact, whatever there had
been of value in his venerable heritage!
He passed into the reception hall, a cold, spacious room with elevated
ceiling, in the center of the palace, which connected with the stairway.
The years had tinged the white walls with the creamy shade of ivory. One
must throw his head well back to see the black paneling of the ceiling.
Casements near the cornice together with the lower windows lighted this
immense, austere apartment. The furnishings were few and of romantic
severity; broad armchairs with seats and backs of leather studded with
nails; oak tables with twisted legs; dark chests with iron locks showing
against upholstery of moth-eaten green cloth. The yellowish-white walls
were only visible, as a sort of grill-work, between rows of canvases,
many of them unframed. There were hundreds of paintings, all badly done,
and yet interesting pictures painted for the perpetuation of the glories
of the family, executed by old Italian and Spanish artists who chanced
to be passing through Majorca. A traditional charm seemed to emanate
from the portraits. Here was the history of the Mediterranean, traced by
crude and ingenuous brushes; sea fights between galleys, assaults upon
fortresses, naval battles enveloped in smoke. Above the clouds floated
the pennants of the ships and rose the tower-like poops with flags
bearing the Maltese cross or the crescents crinkling from the rail. Men
were fighting on the decks of the ships or in small boats which floated
near; the sea, reddened by blood and lurid from the flames of the
burning vessels, was dotted with hundreds of little heads of men still
fighting upon the waves. A mass of helmets and three-cornered Schomber
hats mingled upon two vessels which grappled another where swarmed white
and red turbans, and above them all rose hands grasping pikes,
scimitars, and boarding-axes. Shots from cannons and blunderbusses rent
the smoke of battle with long red tongues. In other canvases, no less
dark, could be seen castles hurling firebrands from their embrasures,
and at their bases warriors almost as big as the towers, distinguished
by eight-pointed white crosses upon their cuirasses, were setting their
ladders against the walls to clamber to the assault.
The paintings bore on one side white scrolls with the ends folded about
coats of arms, on each of which was written in ill-formed capital
letters, the story of the event; victorious encounters with the galleys
of the Grand Turk or with privates from Pisa, Genoa and Vizcaya; wars in
Sardinia, assaults on Bujia and on Tedeliz, and in every one of these
enterprises a Febrer was leading the combatants or distinguishing
himself for his heroism, the knight commander Don Priamo towering above
them all, he who had been both the glory and the shame of the house.
Alternating with these warlike scenes were the family portraits. On the
topmost row, crowding a line of old canvases depicting evangelists and
martyrs in semblance of a frieze, were the most ancient Febrers,
venerable merchants of Majorca, painted some centuries after their
death, grave men with Jewish noses and piercing eyes, with jewels on
their breasts, and wearing tall Oriental caps. Next came the men of
arms, the sword-bearing navigators with short cropped hair and profiles
like birds of prey, all clad in dark steel armor, and some displaying
the white Maltese cross. From portrait to portrait the countenances grew
more refined, but without losing the prominent forehead and the
imperious family nose. The wide, soft collar of the homespun shirt
became transformed into starched folds of plaited ruffs; the cuirasses
softened into jackets of velvet or silk; the stiff broad beards in
imperial style changed to sharp goatees and to pointed mustaches, which,
with the soft locks falling over the temples, served as a frame for the
face. Among the rude men of war and the elegant caballeros, a few
ecclesiastics with mustaches and small beards, wearing tasseled clerical
hats, stood out conspicuously. Some were religious dignitaries of Malta,
to judge by the white insignia adorning their breasts; others, venerable
inquisitors of Majorca, according to the inscription which extolled
their zeal for the spread of the faith. After all these dark gentlemen
of imposing presence and metallic eyes, followed the procession of white
wigs and of countenances rendered youthful by shaving; of coats
resplendent with silk and gold, showy with sashes and decorations of
honor. They were perpetual magistrates of the city of Palma; marquises
whose marquisate the family had lost through matrimonial complications,
their titles becoming merged with others pertaining to the nobility of
the Peninsula; governors, captain generals, and viceroys of American and
Oceanian countries, whose names evoked visions of fantastic riches;
enthusiastic "botiflers," partisans of the Bourbons from the start, who
had been compelled to flee from Majorca, that final support of the house
of Austria, and they boasted as a supreme title of nobility the nickname
of butifarras, which had been given them by the hostile populace.
Closing the glorious procession, hanging almost on a level with the
furniture of the room, were the last Febrers of the early nineteenth
century, officers of the Armada, with short whiskers, curls over their
foreheads, high collars with anchors embroidered in gold, and black
stocks, men who had fought off Cape Saint Vincent and Trafalgar; and
after them Jaime's great grandfather, an old man with large eyes and
disdainful mouth, who, when Ferdinand VII returned from his captivity in
France, had sailed for Valencia to prostrate himself at his feet,
beseeching, along with other great hidalgos, that he reestablish the
ancient customs and crush the growing scourge of liberalism. He was a
prolific patriarch, who had lavished his blood in various districts of
the island in pursuit of peasant girls, without ever sacrificing his
dignity; and as he offered his hand to be kissed by some one of his sons
who lived in the house and bore his name, he would say with a solemn
voice: "May God make you a good inquisitor!"
Among these portraits of the illustrious Febrers were a number of women,
grand senoras with great hoops filling the whole canvas, like those
painted by Valasquez. One of them, whose slender bust emerged from her
flowered bell-like skirts with pale and pointed face, a faded knot of
ribbon in her short hair, was the notable woman of the family, she who
had been called "La Greca" on account of her knowledge of Hellenic
letters. Her uncle, Fray Espiridion Febrer, prior of Santo Domingo, a
great luminary of his epoch, had been her teacher, and the "Greek woman"
could write in their own language to correspondents in the Orient who
still maintained a dwindling commerce with Majorca.
Jaime's glance fell upon some canvases farther down (the distance
representing the passing of a century) where hung the portrait of
another famous woman of the family, a girl in a little white wig,
dressed like a woman in the full skirt and great hoops of the ladies of
the eighteenth century. She was standing beside a table, near a vase of
flowers, holding in her bloodless right hand a rose as large as a
tomato, looking straight before her with the little porcelain-like eyes
of a doll. This woman had been styled "La Latina." In the pompous style
of the epoch the lettering on the canvas told of her knowledge and
wisdom, and lamented her death at the tender age of eleven years. The
women were as dry shoots upon the vigorous trunk of the soldierly and
exuberant Febrer stock. Scholarship quickly withered in this family of
seamen and soldiers, like a plant which springs up by mistake in an
adverse clime.
Preoccupied with his thoughts of the night before and of the
contemplated trip to Valldemosa, Jaime stood in the reception hall
gazing at the pictures of his forefathers. How much glory, and how much
dust! It had been twenty years, perhaps, since a merciful cloth had
passed over the illustrious family to furbish it up a little. The more
remote grandfathers and the famous battles were covered with cobwebs...
and to think that the pawnbrokers had declined to acquire this museum of
glories under the pretext that the paintings were poor! Jaime was
surprised that it should be difficult to turn these relics over to
wealthy people anxious to pretend an illustrious origin for themselves.
He crossed the reception hall and entered the apartments in the opposite
wing. They were rooms with lower ceilings; above them was a second story
occupied in other times by Febrer's grandfather; relatively modern
rooms, with old furniture in the style of the Empire, and on the walls
illuminated prints of the romantic period, representing the misfortunes
of Atala, the love affairs of Matilde, and the achievements of Hernan
Cortez. Upon the swelling dressing tables were polychrome saints and
ivory crucifixes, together with dusty artificial flowers beneath
crystal bells. A collection of cross-bows, arrows, and knives recalled a
Febrer, captain of a corvette belonging to the king, who made a voyage
around the world near the close of the eighteenth century. Purplish
bivalves and enormous nacre-lined conch shells lay upon the tables.
Following a corridor on the way to the kitchen he left on one side the
chapel which had been closed for many years, and on the other the door
of the archives, a huge apartment with windows opening upon the garden,
where Jaime on his return from trips had spent many afternoons poring
over bundles of papers kept behind the metal grating of many series of
ancient bookshelves.
He peeped into the kitchen, an immense place where anciently were
prepared the sumptuous banquets of the Febrers, who fed a swarm of
parasites, and lavished generosity on all their friends who visited the
island. Antonia looked dwarfed in this high-ceiled, spacious room,
standing near a great fireplace which would hold an enormous pile of
wood and was capable of roasting several animals at once. The ranks of
ovens might serve for an entire community. The chill cleanliness of this
adjunct of the palace showed lack of use. On the walls great iron hooks
called attention to the absence of the copper vessels which used to be
the splendrous glory of this conventional kitchen. The old servant did
her cooking at a small hearth beside the trough where she kneaded her
bread.
Jaime called to Antonia, to announce his presence and entered the
adjoining room, the small dining room which had been utilized by the
last of the Febrers, who, being in reduced circumstances, had abandoned
the great hall where the old-time banquets used to take place.
Here, also, the presence of poverty was noticeable. The long table was
covered with a cracked oil-cloth of blemished whiteness. The sideboards
were almost empty. The ancient china, when it became broken, had been
replaced by coarse platters and jars. Two open windows at the lower end
of the room framed bits of sea, of intense and restless blue,
palpitating beneath the fire of the sun. Near them swayed rhythmically
the branches of palm trees. Out at sea the white wings of a schooner
approaching Palma, slowly, like a wearied gull, broke the horizon line.
Mammy Antonia came in, setting upon the table a steaming bowl of coffee
and milk and a great slice of buttered bread. Jaime attacked the
breakfast with avidity, but as he bit into the bread he made a gesture
of displeasure. Antonia assented with a nod of her head, breaking into
speech in her Majorcan dialect.
"It is hard, isn't it? No doubt the bread does not compare with the
tender little rolls the senor eats at the casino, but it is not my
fault. I wanted to make bread yesterday, but I was out of flour, and I
was expecting that the 'payes' of Son Febrer would come and bring his
tribute. Ungrateful and forgetful people!"
The old servant persisted in her scorn of the peasant farmer of Son
Febrer, the piece of land which constituted the remaining fortune of the
house. The rustic owed all he had to the benevolence of the Febrer
family, and now in these hard times he forgot his kind masters.
Jaime continued chewing, his thought centered upon Son Febrer. That was
not his either, although he posed as owner. The farm, situated in the
middle of the island, the choicest property inherited from his parents,
that which bore the family name, he had heavily mortgaged, and he was
about to lose it. The rent, paltry and mean, according to traditional
custom, enabled him to pay off only a part of the interest on his loans;
the rest of the interest due served to swell the amount of the debt.
There were still the tributes, the payments in specie which the payes
had to make to him, according to ancient usage, and with these he and
Mammy Antonia had managed to exist, almost lost in the immensity of the
house which had been built to shelter a tribe. At Christmas and at
Easter he always received a brace of lambs accompanied by a dozen fowl;
in the autumn two well-fattened pigs ready to kill, and every month eggs
and a certain amount of flour, as well as fruits in their season. With
these contributions, partly consumed in the house, and in part sold by
the servant, Jaime and Mammy Antonia managed to live in the solitude of
the palace, isolated from public gaze, like castaways. The offerings in
money were continually becoming more belated. The payes, with that
rustic egoism which shuns misfortune, became indolent in fulfilling his
obligations. He knew that the nominal possessor of the estate was not
the real owner of Son Febrer, and frequently, on arriving at the city
with his gifts, he changed his route and left them at the houses of his
creditors, awe-inspiring personages whom he desired to propitiate.
Jaime glanced sadly at the servant who remained standing before him. She
was an old payesa who still kept to the ancient style of dress peculiar
to her people--a dark doublet with two rows of buttons on the sleeves, a
light, full skirt, and the rebocillo covering her head, the white veil
caught at the neck and at the bust, below which hung the heavy braid,
which was false and very black, tied with long velvet bows.
"Poverty, Mammy Antonia," said the master in the same dialect.
"Everybody shuns the poor, and some fine day if that rascal does not
bring us what he owes us, we shall have to fall to and eat each other
like shipwrecked mariners on a desert island."
The old woman smiled; the master was always merry. In this he was just
like his grandfather, Don Horacio, ever solemn, with a face which
frightened one, and yet always saying such jolly things!
"This will have to stop," continued Jaime, paying no heed to the
servant's levity. "This must stop this very day. I have made up my mind.
Let me tell you, Antonia, before the news gets abroad: I'm going to be
married."
The servant clasped her hands in an attitude of devotion to express her
astonishment, and turned her eyes toward the ceiling. "Santisimo Cristo
de la sangre!" It was high time!... He should have done it long ago, and
then the house would have been in a very different condition. Her
curiosity was stirred, and she asked with the eagerness of a rustic:
"Is she rich?"
The master's affirmative gesture did not surprise her. Of course she
must be rich. Only a woman who brought a great fortune with her could
aspire to unite with the last of the Febrers, who had been the most
noted men of the island, and perhaps of the whole world. Poor Antonia
thought of her kitchen, instantly furnishing it in her imagination with
copper vessels gleaming like gold, dreaming of its hearths all ablaze,
the room filled with girls with rolled up sleeves, their rebocillos
thrown back, their braids floating behind, and she in the center, seated
in a great chair, giving orders and breathing in the savory odors from
the casseroles.
"She must be young!" declared the old woman, trying to worm more news
out of her master.
"Yes, much younger than I; too young; about twenty-two. I could almost
be her father."
Antonia made a gesture of protest. Don Jaime was the finest man on the
island. She said so, she who had worshipped him ever since she led him
by the hand, in his short trousers, walking among the pines near the
castle of Bellver. He was one of the family--of that family of arrogant
grand seigniors, and no more could be said.
"And is she of good family?" she questioned in an effort to force her
master's reticence. "Of a family of caballeros; undoubtedly the very
best in the island--but no--from Madrid, perhaps. Some sweetheart you
found when you lived there."
Jaime hesitated an instant, turned pale, and then said with rude energy
to conceal his perturbation:
"No, Antonia--she's a--Chueta."
Antonia started to clasp her hands, as she had done a few moments
before, invoking again the blood of Christ, so venerated in Palma, but
suddenly the wrinkles of her brown face broadened, and she burst out
laughing. What a jolly master! Just like his grandfather; he used to say
the most stupendous and incredible things so seriously that he deceived
everybody. "And I, poor fool, was ready to believe your nonsense!
Perhaps it was also a joke that you were going to get married!"
"No, Antonia, I am going to marry a Chueta. I am going to marry the
daughter of Benito Valls. That is why I am going to Valldemosa."
The stifled voice in which Jaime spoke, his lowered eyes, the timid
accent with which he murmured these words, removed all doubt. The old
servant stood open-mouthed, her arms fallen, without strength to raise
either her hands or her eyes.
"Senor!... Senor!... Senor!"
She could say no more. She felt as if a thunderbolt had crashed upon the
house, shaking it to its foundations; as if a dark cloud had swept
before the sun obscuring the light; as if the sea had become a leaden
mass dashing against the castle wall. Then she saw that everything
remained as usual, that she alone had been stirred by this stupendous
news, so startling as to change the order of all existence.
"Senor!... Senor!... Senor! A Chueta! An apostate Jewess!"
She grasped the empty cup and the remnants of the bread, and ran to take
refuge in the kitchen. After hearing such horrors in this house she felt
afraid. She imagined that someone must be stalking through the venerable
halls at the other end of the palace; someone--she could not explain to
herself who it might be--someone who had been aroused from the sleep of
centuries! This palace undoubtedly possessed a soul. When the old woman
was alone in it the furniture creaked as if people were moving about and
conversing; the tapestries swayed as if stirred by invisible faces, a
gilded harp which had belonged to Don Jaime's grandmother vibrated in
its corner, yet she never felt terror, because the Febrers had been good
people, simple and kind to their servants; but now, after hearing such
things----! She thought uneasily of the portraits hanging on the walls
of the reception hall. How severe those senores would look if the words
of their descendant should reach their ears! How fiercely their eyes
would flame!
Mammy Antonia finally grew calm and drank the coffee left by her master.
She had laid fear aside, but she felt profound sorrow over the fate of
Don Jaime, as if he were in peril of death. To bring the house of the
Febrers to this! Could God tolerate such things? Then scorn for her
master momentarily overcame her old-time affection. After all he was
nothing but a wild fellow, heedless of religion, and destitute of good
habits, who had squandered what had been left of the fortune of his
house. What would his illustrious relatives have to say? How ashamed his
aunt Juana would be--that noble lady, the most pious and aristocratic
woman in the island, called by some in jest and by others in an excess
of veneration, la Papisa--the Pope-ess!
"Good-bye, Mammy. I'll be back about sunset."
The old woman grunted a farewell to Jaime, who peeped into the kitchen
before leaving. Then, finding herself alone, she raised her clasped
hands invoking the aid of the Sangre de Cristo, of the Virgin of Lluch,
patron saint of the island, and of the powerful San Vicente Ferrer, who
had wrought so many miracles when he ministered in Majorca--a final and
prodigious saint, who might avert the monstrosity her master
contemplated! Let a rock from the mountains fall and forever close the
way to Valldemosa; let the carriage upset, and let Don Jaime be carried
home on a stretcher by four men--anything rather than that disgrace!
Febrer crossed the reception hall, opened the door to the stairway, and
began to descend the worn steps. His forefathers, like all the nobles of
the island, had builded on a grand scale. The stairway and the zaguan
occupied a third of the lower story. A kind of loggia in Italian style,
with five arches sustained by slender columns, extended to the foot of
the stairway, the doors of which gave access to the two upper wings of
the building opening at either end. Above the center of the stairway,
facing the street door, were the Febrer arms cut in the stone, and a
great lantern of wrought iron.
On his way down Jaime's cane struck against the sandstone steps, or
touched the great glazed amphorae decorating the landings which responded
to the blow with the sonorous ring of a bell. The iron balustrade,
oxidized by time and crumbling into scales of rust almost shook from its
sockets with the jar of his footsteps.
As he reached the zaguan Febrer stood still. The extreme resolution
which he had adopted, and which would forever cast its influence on the
destiny of his name, caused him to look curiously at the very places
which he had so often passed with indifference.
In no other part of the building was the old-time prosperity so evident
as here. The zaguan, enormous as a plaza, could admit a dozen carriages
and an entire squadron of horsemen. Twelve columns, somewhat bulging, of
the nut-brown marble of the island, sustained the arches of cut
undressed stone over which extended the roof of black rafters. The
paving was of cobbles between which grew dank moss. A vault-like chill
pervaded this gigantic and solitary ruin. A cat slunk through the
zaguan, making its exit through a hole in a worm-eaten door of the old
stables, disappearing into the deserted cellars which had held the
harvests of former days. On one side was a well dating from the epoch
when the palace was constructed, a hole sunk through rock, with a
time-worn stone curb and a wrought-iron spout. Ivy was growing in fresh
clusters between the crevices of the polished rock. Often as a child
Jaime had peered over the curb at his reflection in the luminous round
pupil of the sleeping waters.
The street was deserted. Down at its end, near the walls of the Febrer
garden, was the city rampart, pierced by a broad gateway, with wooden
bars in the arch like the teeth in the mouth of an enormous fish.
Through this the waters of the bay trembled green and luminous with
reflections of gold.
Jaime walked a short distance over the blue stones of the street which
was destitute of sidewalks, and then turned to contemplate his house. It
was but a small remnant of the past. The ancient palace of the Febrers
occupied a whole square, but it had dwindled with the passing of the
centuries and with the exigencies of the family. Now a part of it had
become a residence for nuns, and other parts had been acquired by
certain rich people who disfigured with modern balconies the original
unity of the design, which was still suggested by the regular line of
eaves and tile-covered roofs. The Febrers themselves who were living in
that portion of the great house which looked upon the garden and the
sea, had been compelled to let the lower stories to warehousemen and
small shopkeepers, in order to augment their rents. Near the lordly
portal, inside the glass windows, some girls who greeted Don Jaime with
a respectful smile were busy ironing linen. He stood motionless
contemplating the ancient house. How beautiful it was still in spite of
its amputations and its age!
The foundation wall, perforated and worn by people and carriages, was
cleft by several windows with grilles on a level with the ground. The
lower story of the palace was worn, lacerated, and dusty, like feet
which had been plodding for centuries.
As it rose above the mezzanine, a story with an independent entrance
which had been rented to a druggist, the lordly splendor of the facade
developed. Three rows of windows on a level with the arch of the portal,
divided by double columns, had frames of black marble delicately carved.
Stone thistles climbed over the columns which sustained the cornices,
while above them were three great medallions--that in the center being
the bust of the Emperor with the inscription DOMINUS CAROLUS IMPERATOR,
1541, in memory of his passing through Majorca on the unfortunate
expedition against Algiers; those on either side bore the Febrer arms
held by fish with bearded heads of men. Above the jambs and cornices of
the great windows of the first story were wreaths formed of anchors and
dolphins, testifying to the glories of a family of navigators. On their
finials were enormous shells. Along the upper portion of the facade was
a compact row of small windows with Gothic decorations, some plastered
over, others open to admit light to the garrets, and above them the
monumental eaves, such as are found only in Majorcan palaces, their
masses of carved timbers blackened by time and supported by sturdy
gargoyles projecting as far as the middle of the street.
Over the entire facade extended cleats of worm-eaten wood with nails and
bands of rusted iron. They were the remains of the grand illuminations
with which the household had commemorated certain feasts in its times of
splendor.
Jaime seemed satisfied with this examination. The palace of his
ancestors was still beautiful despite the broken panes in the windows,
the dust and cobwebs gathered in the crevices, the cracks which
centuries had opened in its plaster. When he should marry, and old
Valls' fortune should pass into his hands, everyone would be astounded
at the magnificent resurrection of the Febrers. And yet, would some
people be scandalized at his decision, and did he himself not feel
certain scruples? Courage, forward!
He turned in the direction of El Borne, a broad avenue which is the
center of Palma, a stream bed which in ancient times divided the city
into two villages and into two hostile factions--Can Amunt and Can
Avall. There he would find a carriage to take him to Valldemosa.
As he entered the Paseo del Borne his attention was attracted by a group
of people standing in the shade of the dense-crowned trees staring at a
peasant family which had stopped before the display windows of a shop.
Febrer recognized their dress, different from that worn by the peasants
on the island. They were Ivizans. Ah, Iviza! The name of this island
recalled the memory of a year he had spent there long ago in his youth.
Seeing these people who caused the Majorcans to grin as if they were
foreigners, Jaime smiled also, looking with interest at their dress and
figures.
They were, undoubtedly, father, son and daughter. The elder rustic wore
white hempen sandals, above which hung the broad bell of a pair of blue
trousers. His jacket-blouse was caught across his breast by a clasp,
affording glimpses of his shirt and belt. A dark mantle hung over his
shoulders like a woman's shawl, and to complete this feminine garb,
which contrasted strongly with his hard, brown, Moorish features, he
wore a handkerchief knotted across his forehead beneath his hat, with
the ends hanging down behind. The boy, who was about fourteen, was
dressed like the father, with the same style of trousers, narrow in
the leg and bell-shaped over the foot, but without the kerchief and
mantle. A pink ribbon hung down his breast like a cravat, a spray
of flowers peeped from behind one of his ears, and his hat with a
flower-embroidered band, thrust back on his head, allowed a wave of
curls to fall around his face, brown, spare and mischievous, animated by
African eyes of intense lustrous black.
The girl it was who attracted the greatest attention with her
accordeon-plaited green skirt beneath which the presence of other skirts
could be divined, forming an inflated globe of several layers which
seemed to make still smaller her fine and graceful feet encased in white
sandals. The prominent curves of her breast were concealed beneath a
small yellow jacket with red flowers. It had velvet sleeves of a
different color decorated with a double row of filigree buttons, the
work of the Chueta silversmiths. A triple shining gold chain, terminated
by a cross, hung over her breast, but so enormous were the links, that,
had they not been hollow, they must have borne her down by their weight.
Her black and glossy hair was parted over her forehead and concealed
beneath a white kerchief tied under her chin, appearing again behind in
long heavy braids tied with multi-colored ribbons falling to the hem of
her skirt.
The girl, with her basket over her arm, stood looking at the strange
sights, admiring the tall houses and the terraces of the cafes. She was
pink and white, without the hard coppery roughness of the country women.
Her features had the delicacy of an aristocratic and well cared for nun,
the pale texture of milk and roses, lightened by the luminous reflection
of her teeth and the timid glow of her eyes, under a kerchief resembling
a monastic head-dress.
Impelled by curiosity Jaime approached the father and son whose backs
were turned to the girl and who were absorbed in contemplation of the
show window. It was a gun store. The two Ivizans were examining the
weapons exposed with ardent eyes and gestures of adoration, as if
worshipping miraculous idols. The boy pressed his eager, Moorish face
against the glass as if he would thrust it through the pane.
"Fluxas--pa're, fluxas!" he cried with the excitement of one who meets
an unexpected friend, calling his father's attention to the display of
huge Lefaucheux pistols.
The admiration of the two was concentrated upon the unfamiliar weapons,
which seemed to them marvelous works of art--the guns with invisible
locks, repeating rifles, pistols with magazines which could hurl shot
after shot. What wonderful things men invent! What treasures the rich
enjoy! These lifeless weapons seemed to them animate creatures with
malignant souls and limitless power. Doubtless such as these could kill
automatically, without giving their owner the trouble of taking aim!
The image of Febrer, reflected in the glass, caused the father to turn
suddenly.
"Don Jaime! Ah, Don Jaime!"
Such was his astonishment and surprise, and so great his joy, that,
grasping Febrer's hands, he almost knelt before him, while he spoke in a
tremulous voice. He had been killing time along the Paseo del Borne so
as to reach Don Jaime's house about the time he should arise. Of course
he knew that gentlemen always retire late! What a joy to see him! Here
were his children--let them take a good look at the Senor! This was Don
Jaime; this was the master! He had not seen him for ten years, but he
would have recognized him among a thousand.
Febrer, disconcerted by the peasant and by the deferential curiosity of
the two children who stood planted before him, could not recall his
name. The worthy fellow guessed this slip of memory from Jaime's
hesitant glance. Truly did he not recognize him? Pep Arabi, from Iviza!
Even this did not tell much, because on that little island there were
but six or seven surnames, and Arabi was borne by a fourth part of the
inhabitants. He would explain more clearly--Pep of Can Mallorqui.
Febrer smiled. Ah, Can Mallorqui! A poor predio in Iviza, a farm where
he had passed a year when he was a boy, his sole inheritance from his
mother. Can Mallorqui had not belonged to him for twelve years. He had
sold it to Pep, whose fathers and grandfathers had cultivated it. That
was during the time when he still had money; but of what use was that
land on a separate island to which he would never return? So with the
geniality of a benevolent gran senor he had sold it to Pep at a low
figure, valuing it in accord with the traditional rents; and conceding
easy terms for payment, sums which, when hard times pressed upon him,
had often come as an unexpected joy. Years had passed since Pep had
satisfied the debt, and yet the good souls continued calling him master,
and as they saw him now they experienced the sensation of one who is in
the presence of a superior being.
Pep Arabi introduced his family. The girl was the elder, and was called
Margalida; quite a little woman, although but seventeen! The boy, who
was almost a man, was thirteen. He wished to be a farmer like his father
and grandfathers, but Pep had determined that the boy should enter the
Seminary at Iviza since he was clever at his letters. His lands he would
hold for some good hard-working youth who might marry Margalida. Many
young men of the island were already chasing after her, and as soon as
they returned the season for the festeigs, the traditional courtship,
would begin, so that she could choose a husband. Pepet was destined for
a higher calling; he would become a priest and after singing his first
mass he would join a regiment or embark for America, as had done many
other Ivizans who made much money and sent it home to their fathers with
which to buy lands on the island. Ah, Don Jaime, and how time passes!
He had seen the senor, still a mere child, when he spent that summer
with his mother at Can Mallorqui. Pep had taught him to use the gun, and
to shoot his first birds. "Does your lordship remember?" It was about
the time that Pep married, while his parents were still alive. Since
then they had only met once in Palma, when they arranged the sale of the
property (a great favor which he would never forget) and now, when he
presented himself again, he was almost an old man, with children as tall
as himself.
As he talked of his journey the rustic displayed his strong teeth in
mischievous smiles. It was a wild adventure of which his friends there
in Iviza would talk a long time! He had always been of a roving and
venturesome disposition--a vicious habit formed when he was a soldier.
The master of a small trading vessel, a great friend of his, had picked
up a cargo for Majorca, and had invited him just for a joke to come
along. But it was risky to joke with him. As soon as the idea was
suggested he accepted. The youngsters had never been in Majorca; in the
entire parish of San Jose, in which he lived, there were not a dozen
persons who had seen the capital. Many of them had visited America; one
had been to Australia; some neighbor women talked of their trips to
Algeria with smugglers in their feluccas; but no one ever came to
Majorca, and with good reason! "They don't like us here, Don Jaime; they
stare at us as if we were strange animals; they think we are savages, as
if we are not all the children of God." And here he and his children had
been subjected to the gaze of the curious throughout the whole morning
just as if they were Moors. Ten hours of sailing on a magnificent sea!
The girl had a basket of lunch for the three of them! They would return
tomorrow at break of day, but before sailing he wished to speak to the
master on a matter of business.
Jaime made a gesture of surprise, and listened more attentively. Pep
expressed himself with a certain timidity, stumbling over his words. The
almond trees were the greatest source of wealth on Can Mallorqui. Last
year the crop had been good, and this year it did not look unpromising.
It was being sold to the padrones, who were bringing it to Palma and
Barcelona. He had planted nearly all his fields to almonds, and now he
was thinking of clearing and cleaning off the stones from certain lands
belonging to the senor, and of raising wheat on them--no more than
enough for the use of his own family.
Febrer did not conceal his surprise. What lands did he mean? Did he
really have anything left in Iviza? Pep smiled. They were not lands
exactly; it was a stony hill, a rocky promontory overhanging the sea,
but he might cultivate it by terracing the steep slopes. On its crest
was the Pirate's Tower--did not the senor remember? It was a
fortification dating from the time of the corsairs. Don Jaime had
scrambled up to it many times when a child, shouting like a young
warrior, flourishing a cudgel of juniper wood, giving orders for the
assault upon an imaginary army.
The senor, who had hoped for an instant in the discovery of a forgotten
estate, the last one of which he might be the real owner, smiled sadly.
Ah! the Pirate's Tower! He remembered it. A bold limestone cliff, in the
crevices of which sprung up bushes and shrubs, the refuge and sustenance
of rabbits. The old stone fortress was a ruin, now slowly crumbling
under the stress of time and wind. The stones were falling from their
places, the corners of the merlons were wearing away. When Can Mallorqui
was sold the tower had not been included in the contract, possibly
through oversight because it seemed worthless. Pep could do as he liked
with it, Don Jaime assured him. Probably he would never return to the
place, forgotten since the days of his youth.
When the peasant spoke of future remuneration, Don Jaime silenced him
with the gesture of a gran senor. Then he glanced at the girl. She was
very pretty; she looked like a senorita in disguise; the young fellows
on the island must be wild over her. The father smiled, proud, yet
disturbed by this praise. "Come, girl, what should you say to the
master?" He spoke to her as if she were a child, and she, with lowered
eyes, her face flushed, fingering a corner of her apron, stammered a few
words in the Ivizan dialect: "No, I am not pretty. I am at your
lordship's service."
Febrer brought the interview to a close, telling Pep and his children to
go to his house. The peasant knew Antonia, and the old woman would be
very glad to see him. They must eat with her whatever--whatever there
was to be had. He would see them again about sunset when he returned
from Valldemosa. "Good-bye, Pep! Good-bye, children!"
He made a signal with his cane to a driver seated on the box of a
Majorcan carriage, a light vehicle mounted upon four slender wheels,
with a cheerful canopy of white canvas, and drove toward Valldemosa and
the wealthy Jewess whose dowry was to recoup his fortune.