welfare. I should like to see you at my house, tomorrow.”
“I will be there, madam,” Anton answered respectfully. And slipping,
timidly, through the crowd of guests, directing a furtive glance at
Rosalba, he went to his work at the humble desk in Ajágan’s shop.
But he could not keep track of the figures; sums and differences came
out badly; everything was topsy-turvy; seven times six was forty-eight
and five would not contain three. His head was in a whirl. That night he
could not sleep.
In the morning, he performed his usual duties and at midday, his heart
high with vague, happy hopes, he went to his appointment with Doña
Socorro.
He was expected. The lady received him with expressive signs of
affection, and seating him, said:
“I have invited you here for your own good. You are poor; I wish to aid
you. Do not be ashamed; speak to me frankly. What are your resources for
living? Go into full particulars.”
Antón lowered his eyes and turned his hat around and around in his
hands, until the lady again encouraged him:
“Go on; don’t be brief. Speak! boy.”
“Well then, lady,” answered the young man, hesitatingly, “I can’t say
that it is so bad; I earn my twenty-five pesos a month.”
“And from whom?”
“From what persons, you mean”--continued Antón, with somewhat greater
frankness,--“why then, Don Ascencio Ajágan gives me ten pesos because,
every night, I go there for a little while to make up his accounts and
to write a letter or two. Master Collado pays me five pesos for the
class in arithmetic, which I teach in the public school; another five,
the receiver of taxes, who scarcely knows how to sign his name, pays me
for balancing his accounts at the end of the month; and the other five
the town treasurer gives me for doing the same.”
“That is not bad; but Collado and the collector pay you a miserable
price.”
“The latter, perhaps, yes; but the other, no--he receives a salary of
barely twenty-five. As much as I earn.”
“Ah, well! bid farewell to Master Collado and Ajágan, and the collector
and the town treasurer, and enter my employ. _La Ermita_ is wretchedly
cared for; mayorsdomos succeed one another and all rob me. You shall go
to _La Ermita_ as manager, with house and table, horses for your use,
servants to do your bidding--that is to say, as master, because you will
command there; the twenty-five pesos per month, which you now earn by
your varied labors, will continue to be paid you and in addition fifteen
per cent of the annual income of the place. I am making you not a bad
offer!”[22]
“No, indeed, lady! I appreciate that it is more than liberal; but, I
cannot accept it.”
“Why not?” asked Doña Socorro, thoroughly vexed.
“Because, I must not abandon my good aunts.”
“You need not do so. _La Ermita_ is only three leagues from here; a mere
nothing. You can come here in the evenings, Saturdays, to spend Sundays,
and Mondays you are at your duties again. Finally, in case they are not
satisfied, take them out to the place.”
“They were not made for country life; still, for my good, they would
make the sacrifice. But there is another--an insuperable--difficulty.”
“What?”
“I do not understand rural affairs and one who controls should know what
he commands. I would not know where to begin; there would be neither
head nor foot, and you would gain nothing, with your unhappy
administrator.”
“What I gain or do not gain, does not concern you; it is not your
affair. If you do not know rural affairs, I will instruct you, and, as
you are not stupid, you will be, within two months, more dexterous than
San Ysidro[23] himself. When shall we begin, come now?”
“But, lady, I am sorry; I believe I will not go. Agriculture does not
attract me. The few studies I have made do not tend thither.”
“Ah! You aim at a literary career, to some public office!” replied Doña
Socorro, sneeringly.
“Do not make sport of me, lady; I know right well, that I shall never
fill the position of a general or a magistrate. You asked me to be
frank, and I frankly admit that I have my aspirations.”
“Very good--what difficulty is that. Better and better. Go and fill this
position, save money, put yourself in contact with people of
consequence, and from _La Ermita_, you may go to be Regidor, or
something higher. You know well that Alcaldes, and even Jefes Politicos,
come from the country-places. What hinders?”
“Really, lady, speaking plainly, the position does not attract me in the
least.”
“H’m!--You are not telling me the truth; at least, you are concealing
something from me--something--what is the real cause of your refusal?”
Antón maintained silence: the lady urged him.
“Why are you not frank with me--who care so much for you?”
“It is”--he stammered--“the truth is that just now, less than ever, do I
care to leave the town.”
“Come, come, tell it all”--insisted the lady, piqued with lively
curiosity--“who is your sweetheart?”
“Sweetheart?--No; indeed I would rather----”
“Yes, indeed; who?”
“I say she is not my sweetheart--Perhaps----”
“Finish, man--perhaps what?”
“She may come to be----”
“And, who is the girl? Do I know her?”
“Very well.”
While Antón was silent, Doña Socorro thought over the riddle, and, after
some minutes, declared:
“I’m sure I don’t know, child; give me a clew.”
“She is your relative.”
The lady passed over in her thought, to whom Antón could allude, and
could not imagine which one of her relatives, the poor and obscure youth
presumed to win. Suddenly, like a flash, came the remembrance of the
words, which he had pronounced when she invited him to remain at the
party; but it was a thing so unheard of, so unthinkable, that she dared
not mention the name, but desired to assure herself, indirectly, that
she was not on a false trail.
“Was she at the party last night?” she asked.
Antón replied by a nod of his head. The lady was confounded; her face
lengthened, her eyes rounded, her mouth opened, and she exclaimed:
“Rosalba!--well, but, you are a fool!”
Antón was stupefied; it seemed as if the ground sank under him and he
was raised into the air. Why, was he a fool?
Doña Socorro saw the boy’s emotion and something like pity stirred
within her. Certain that, later, this senseless delirium would vanish,
she said to him:
“Poor child! You will get over it. When you decide to accept my offer,
you know that I am here. Think well over it. I wish only your own good.”
Antón, overwhelmed, could scarcely murmur a “thank you, madam,” rose
half tremblingly and walked away, with bowed head.
Doña Socorro remained absorbed in reflection. “To think of it--but the
child aims high--to aspire to Rosalba--he is handsome--who would have
thought it--decidedly, he is a fool.”
* * * * *
Doña Socorro, attentive to what was passing in the Republican ranks,
prompt to aid the triumph of her cause, had displayed all the resources
of her astuteness to complete the demoralization of the remnants of the
brigade and to foment desertion. Her efforts were meeting abundant
success and in seeing the resources of war which had been grouped around
Dueñas, completely disorganized, she was greatly rejoiced. Not content,
however, with such signal successes, when she saw the companies of the
coast guard,--the most loyal to the Republic--evacuate the villa, to the
loyalty of which the Méndez brothers entrusted themselves for some
hours, she had an inspiration, truly worthy of her brain. She conceived
the idea of capturing the two officers, to offer to Arévalo, as a prized
trophy. How to realize it? It was not beyond her power--capable as she
was, of all in the domain of evil.
There was Antón Pérez; Rosalba would be the incentive.
“Paulina! Paulina!” she called, and a servant appeared.
“Run, at once, to the barracks; ask for Lieutenant Pérez, and urge him,
from me, to come here immediately.”
Pauline departed, encountered Antón, and gave the message; the
lieutenant shrugged his shoulders and replied, with evident dislike:
“I will come presently: I am busy, now.”
No more than five minutes had elapsed, when the servant returned with
new and more urgent summons to Antón, who displayed no more interest
than before, responding abruptly:
“I will come.”
Doña Socorro was dying with impatience; the moments seemed like hours to
her and she paced restlessly to and from the door anxious for Antón’s
coming; but, he came not.
Tired of waiting, she resolutely entered her room, threw a _rebozo_ over
her shoulders, and went directly to the door of the barracks. Without
her having to announce herself, a soldier ran to give notice to the
lieutenant of the presence of the lady; this time, unable to escape, he
advanced to the encounter.
Doña Socorro, plainly desirous of losing no time, threw aside her
natural pride, and without a word of reproach to Antón, said, with
affected surprise:
“But, what are you doing! child? Now is your time.”
“I do not understand, madam.”
“Then you are not in this world. If you let this chance escape, farewell
to your hopes.”
“But, I do not understand, madam.”
“Ah! come now! then you no longer think of Rosalba----”
“As God is my witness, madam; with greater desperation, now, than ever.”
“Then, today is when you ought not to despair; today your hopes are
realized. Your fate is in your own hands.”
“In my hands?” exclaimed the astonished youth.
“In your own hands, boy; Rosalba will be yours.”
“Where is she?” he asked yet more surprised.
“Here in your barracks.”
Antón believed Doña Socorro was trifling with him, but she, without
giving time for further surprises, hastened to explain herself.
“You know that our party, the Imperialist, is composed of the best
people of the country. If you join it, you will come into contact with
the most elevated classes. Rosalba does not respond to your love for
sheer pride, not because she is not interested in you, not because she
does not love you--it is _I_, who tell this to you,--when she sees that
you are not the insignificant ‘_pardo_’ of the village but a personage
of consequence, or even of importance, she will herself make the
advances and will surrender herself to you. I tell you true. Come--now
or never! Place yourself in the first line, become the chief authority
in the town, and who knows what more.--Your happiness depends upon
yourself; it is in your own hands. Enter your barracks, ‘pronounce’
yourself and your soldiers for the Empire, and that the blow may be
decisive, that you may at a single bound reach the greatest height, go
and seize the two Méndez brothers, who are breakfasting at the house of
Sánchez, make them prisoners, and you will gain the full favor and
protection of General Arévolo. Go! do not hesitate.”
Doña Socorro had launched this speech at one breath, accompanying her
words with gestures and posturings which the most consummate
elocutionist might envy.
Poor Antón felt his head whirl; he was taken by surprise and only
ventured this one objection:
“Pronounce myself, yes; but capture my old chief, who has loved me well,
madam, that is too much! I have not the bravado for such a thing.”
“But what harm are you going to do to him, innocent? Do you think he
runs any danger with Arévalo?”
“Who can say that he does not?”
“No one; no one. Perhaps he will catch them in arms on the field? No; on
the contrary, they will become great friends, and the two Méndez will
join our party also. Above all, it is to your interest to raise yourself
as nearly to Rosalba’s level as possible, to dazzle her----”
“Very well, madam,” murmured Antón, with a trembling voice.
Without further hesitation, he entered the barracks, spoke with the two
sergeants of the dwindled company, bade them form it, rapidly exchanged
words with his men, and, then, drawing his sword and facing the files,
cried out--his voice still trembling:
“Boys! _viva el Imperio!_” (May the Empire live).
“Viva!” (may it live)--one soldier answered.
“Sergeant Beltran,” said Antón, “fifteen men with you to guard the
barracks; twenty-five, with Sergeant Federico, may follow me.”
The order was carried out to the letter, and at the head of his
twenty-five men, Antón marched to the house, where the two Méndez
brothers were gaily breakfasting.
At the moment when the colonel exclaimed, “Impossible,” denying Don
Vencho’s report, there was heard, on the walk in front, the sound of
guns, on falling to rest.
“Sergeant Federico!” ordered Antón, “advance and order Colonel Méndez
and the officers who accompany him to yield themselves prisoners.”
There was no necessity for the sergeant to enter, since Captain Méndez
rushed out at once, and standing, from the opposite sidewalk, with hair
bristling and eyes flashing, as if he were the personification of
indignation, burst forth in these cries, which issued in a torrent from
his frothing lips:
“Bravo! Lieutenant Pérez! Thus you fulfil the oath of fealty, which you
swore to your flag! thus do you employ the arms which your country
placed in your hands for her defence! Traitors! traitors to your native
land! What do you seek here? What wish you, of us? Assassinate us! We
shall not defend ourselves. Lieutenant Pérez, complete your crime,
fulfil your part as assassins! Here, am I! let them kill,” and, saying
this, he stepped forward and drawing back the lapel of his coat, bared
his breast. “What delays them? Traitors! Assassins!”
At that moment a soldier among those who heard the violent and insulting
reproach raised his gun. Antón Pérez saw it and drawing his sword, threw
himself upon the soldier, crying:
“Lower that gun! The first man who attempts to aim, I will run him
through.”
Captain Méndez continued:
“I prefer death to the ignominy of finding myself in your company.
Traitors! Assassins!”
“Assassins, we are not, my captain, that you have already seen,” replied
Antón.
“I am not the captain of bandit-traitors, ex-Lieutenant Pérez.”
“We are not traitors,” returned Pérez, “we desire to save our country,
from Yankee usurpation.”
“To save it indeed! and give it over to the foreigner! noble patriots!
famous Mexicans!” continued Méndez. “Would that I had no eyes to behold
you! Would that I were a lightning-stroke to destroy you. Cursed race!
race of scorpions, who repay our country, our sacred motherland, by
stinging her to the heart. One last word, Lieutenant Pérez; in the name
of our native land, in the name of that oath of fealty, which you swore
to the flag, in the name of a man’s sacred duty, I implore you to fulfil
your obligations as a soldier, as a Mexican, as a man. Lay down those
arms which you are converting from sacred to infamous. Lieutenant Pérez;
worthy fellows of Cunduacán, _Viva la Republica_.”
No one responded.
* * * * *
The moon, in its second quarter, shed a yellowing light through the
trees and impressed upon the night an infinite sadness. When the beams
of dawn came, that funereal light paled, until completely extinguished,
and the sky became tinted with a rosy flush, which kindled in measure as
the new day neared. A trembling of leaves agitated the branches at the
awakening of the birds, which after shaking themselves, took silently to
flight. Suddenly earth and trees appeared enveloped in dense fog, as if
a night of whiteness had substituted itself for that, which had just
ended. The fog, thinned little by little, until it seemed like heaps of
spider webs, piled one on another, through the elastic meshes of which
was seen a sun of polished silver. Suddenly the spider webs broke into a
thousand tatters, falling to the ground, converted into a tenuous rain,
and the day shone forth in full splendor. The trees gleamed in their
beauteous verdure, the flowers of vines and the morningglories opened
their chalices, sprinkled with dew drops, to the glowing and incestuous
kisses of their father and lover, the regal star of day. Meantime Antón
Pérez, in an agony, which seemed endless, lay at the foot of the
oak-tree, which, indifferent, spread forth its broad and abundant leaves
to the solar heat.
In fact, Antón Pérez, braced between the roots of the tree, in the
immovableness of death, the life concentrated in his eyes, participated
in his own torture, like those guilty immortals, whom Alighieri’s
pitiless fancy created. Bloodless, annihilated, yet he felt himself
living. Who ever had seen the gleam of his eyes, would have known that
his conscience was accusing him. What implacable moral law had he
broken, that his punishment should be so horribly prolonged, by his
marvelous vitality? Was it because he had loved madly? that he had
aspired to raise himself to a sphere higher than that, in which he had
been born? that he had endured, perhaps disgracefully, the scorn and the
disdain of the human being whom he had worshiped? Why had he not
deserved Rosalba? Why had God made her so bewitching? _Where_ was his
sin? Perhaps that he had passed from the flag of the Republic to the
Imperial standards? And was he, perchance, the only one? Were not a
thousand distinguished Mexicans aiding and defending the new cause,
shown to be pleasing to Heaven, by the rapidity with which it had spread
and gained proselytes? Did not God’s ministers suggest it in the
confessional and, even, preach it in the pulpit? Was not that cause,
indeed, to be the savior of Mexico?--Where was his sin? Thus, in his
moments of lucidity, the unhappy condemned being thought, and then fell
into lethargies from which he again, presently, aroused himself. How
slow and tedious the passage of the hours! And the sun continued to
mount at its accustomed speed and, now, gained its greatest height.
Piercing through the leafy branches, its rays designed odd patches of
sunlight on the ground which every breeze complicated into fantastic
deformations. The nymph of light amused herself at her fancy, with such
sports.
At one moment, Antón raised his gaze, and before him, perched upon the
pointed leaf of a _cocoyol_, found that he, at last, had a companion in
that loneliness; it was a buzzard, which looked at him fixedly, moving
his neck regularly, up and down, as one who meditates. The presence of
that living being caused Antón a vague sensation of comfort; that, even,
was much, at the end of so long and complete abandonment, to see in his
last moments that he was not alone in the world. He then fell into a
syncope,--condition which now came on more frequently and lasted, each
time longer, sign that his agony was nearing its end. On returning to
himself, he mechanically turned his gaze to the palm-tree and saw that
now there was not only one, but three, of the buzzards, which with the
same nodding movement of the neck, and with no less attention, looked at
him. A sinister and dreadful thought shot through his sluggish brain;
those birds were there, in expectation of his death, to devour him.
Then, a horror of death seized him; a shudder of dread passed through
his nerves, and he longed that his miserable existence might be
prolonged, with the hope that some human being might draw near and
discover him. The nervous disturbance, which that idea produced,
provoked a new unconsciousness. On recovery, he could see that not
three, but a considerable number of vultures had settled on the palm and
on the neighboring trees. He believed they might take him for already
dead, and to let them see that he was not, he attempted to raise and
move his left arm, which, with enormous effort, he succeeded in doing.
The scavengers seemed to understand their error since they looked at one
another, exchanging guttural croakings. But night,--last refuge to which
Antón trusted against the danger of being torn to pieces, while yet
alive,--showed no signs of approach. It was now his duty to preserve the
little remaining life. The vultures, on the contrary, ought to be
impatient to gorge themselves with the banquet which they had before
them, since others were constantly arriving, hovering, and settling, on
the neighboring tree-tops, where they formed moving spots of black.
One, bolder than the rest, descended from the branch, on which he
rested, to the ground and, like an explorer, was cautiously approaching
Antón, who, divining, in his last gleams of lucidity, the purpose of the
bird, renewed the effort, which he had made before, and continued to
raise and, even, shake, his arm and to bend his undamaged leg, at the
moments, when the buzzard stretched out his neck to give the first peck.
The carrion-eater drew back his head and retreated a few steps, but did
not take to flight. Encouraged by this his companions descended, one by
one, from the tree and took possession of the space around, forming a
semi-circle at the foot of the oak-tree.
Perhaps, through an instinctive respect to man’s superiority, felt by
other animals, even though seeing him helpless, the line of vultures
remained at a considerable distance from Antón and limited themselves to
contemplating him, nodding and stretching out their heads, and
repeatedly croaking. A Hoffmanesque fancy would have seen, in them, a
group of zealots in prayer, making reverence.
But this did not last long. One of the vultures ventured to dash at the
head of Antón, who still had enough energy to guard himself against the
attack, raising his arm and striking the bird with his fist, so that it
returned to stand on the ground again, though without any sign of fear.
The effort Antón had made was so great that he fell into a new stupor.
The same vulture again raised himself, but not to dash directly upon the
dying man; he hovered a moment over his head and, then, hurling himself
upon Antón’s face, tore out, at a single clutch, his right eye. The pain
was so intense that the victim not only returned to consciousness but
gave a cry of agony, which echoed like the last shriek of one who dies
exhausted under torture. Yet, he could, by an instinctive sentiment of
preservation, turn his head, so that the left eye was protected by the
tree trunk. Then he felt that the crowd of vultures fell to tearing his
clothing, doubtless to discover his wounds, to commence there with
devouring him. So it happened. The shattered leg was the first to suffer
tearing by the beaks, which tugged at the already lifeless tendons and
muscles; his arm, though somewhat protected by the astrakan, which,
finally, with no little difficulty, the vultures ripped open, was not
long in suffering the same fate. Suddenly, Antón turned his face, which
bore a frightful expression of pain, for which he had no sounds to
express. A powerful beak had seized the anterior, branchial, muscle and
was pulling furiously at it. The involuntary movement was fatal to
Antón. Other vultures cast themselves upon the exposed face and dragged
out the left eye. The last suffering of the unfortunate was only
indicated by a convulsive trembling of all his members. He felt as if a
black pall, very black, heavy, very heavy, fell upon him and then there
came over him a sentiment of the profoundest joy--perhaps, that his
nerves could no longer carry a sensation to his brain. The mouth opened,
closed, and he lost himself, forever, in the night without end, in the
loving bosom of Mother Nature, who received the remains of that
organism, her creation, to decompose it into its component elements, and
then to distribute these, as the materials of other organisms, in the
endless chain of life.
Meantime, that other night, which with the sun engenders time and, with
him, divides it, began to envelop the earth, and the carrion-eaters,
not accustomed to eat in darkness, abandoned Antón’s corpse and perched
themselves on the neighboring branches, to await the feast until the
following day.
PORFIRIO PARRA.
[Illustration]
Porfirio Parra was born in the State of Chihuahua. In 1869, when he was
scarcely fourteen years of age, he was voted a sum of money by the State
Legislature, to take him to the City of Mexico for purposes of study.
From 1870 to 1872, he attended the _Escuela Nacional Preparatoria_
(National Preparatory School), where he stood first in his classes and
where his conduct was so exemplary, as to gain him state aid until the
time of his graduation. In 1871, entering the competition for the
Professorship of History in the Girls High School, he gained the second
grade, although three eminent historians were among the contestants.
Entering the _Escuela Nacional de Medicina_ (National Medical School),
in 1873, he maintained high rank there and took his degree in February,
1878. In March of that year, he was appointed Professor of Logic in the
_Escuela Nacional Preparatoria_. In 1879, by competition, he received
the Professorship of Physiology in the National School of Medicine, with
which he has been associated in some capacity ever since. In 1880, by
competition, he became Surgeon and Physician of the Juarez Hospital. In
1886, after a brilliant examination, he became a member of the _Academia
de Medicina de México_ (Academy of Medicine). In the _Escuela Nacional
de Agricultura y Veterinaria_ (National Agricultural and Veterinary
School), he has held chairs of mathematics and zootechnology.
An alternate Deputy in 1882, he was in 1898 elected Deputy of the
Federal Congress, and has been re-elected until the present time. He was
made chairman of the House Committee on Public Instruction. In 1902 he
was named Secretary of the Upper Council of Education. Dr. Parra has
participated, officially, in several of the most important medical
congresses held in Europe during recent years, sometimes as a delegate
from his native State of Chihuahua, at others as delegate from the
Mexican nation. In 1892, he was elected a member of the Mexican Academy.
Dr. Parra has written both in poetry and prose. Most of what he writes
is in scientific lines. Even in poetry he is a scientist, and in a
volume of his poems, we find odes to the mathematics and to medicine, a
sonnet to a skull, and poems on the Death of Pasteur, Night, Water. Of
very great importance is his _Nueva Sistema de Logica, inductiva y
deductiva_ (New System of Logic, Inductive and Deductive). He has
written one novel, _Pacotillas_, in which the life of the medical
student is depicted. It is from this work that we have drawn our
selections.
López (Santa Anna), Robles (El Chango--“the monkey”), Albarez
(Patillitas) and Tellez (Pacotillas), are fellow-students in the School
of Medicine. They are friends but present four quite different types of
character. Santa Anna figures least in the story and attends most
strictly to business; Patillitas is a dandy, anxious to make feminine
conquests; El Chango drops out of school before he has completed his
course, toadies in politics, rapidly rising to importance as the private
secretary of a departmental minister, and marries great wealth.
Pacotillas, the hero, is an astonishing combination of strong and weak
qualities. Of lofty ideals, of great firmness in announcing and
supporting them, and of brilliant intellectual powers, he is cold,
morose, lacking in initiative, easily depressed, and procrastinating.
He smokes constantly and excessively and readily yields to drink. He
loves a beautiful and amiable girl and lives with her without marriage;
though he realizes the injustice this is to her, the injustice--excused
at the time by poverty--is never atoned for in his days of comparative
prosperity. Pacotillas and his beautiful Amalia suffer enormous trials
of poverty; Paco finally secures a position on the force of an
opposition paper. He antagonizes the government, is arrested and thrown
in jail, where he dies of typhus. The book is an interesting picture of
Mexican life, but it is a particularly difficult task to make brief
selections from it for translation.
EXTRACTS FROM PACOTILLAS.
The next day the vigilant argus, accompanied by a faithful friend, was
at his post from nine o’clock in the morning. He was not on beat but he
warned his fellow policeman to pay no attention to what was about to
take place at the house, since it concerned a personage of consequence,
closely connected with the official world, whose plans it were best not
to disturb; that the gentleman did not ask something for nothing and
would not fail to reward him; that everything would go on behind closed
doors, and was really no more than a joke; that it concerned a private
matter, with no political bearings; that the woman living in the house
badly repaid him who supported her, and that he merely wished to scare
her and put her to shame.
The policeman on the beat permitted himself to be convinced by Pablo’s
diplomatic arguments; he demanded, indeed, a guarantee that nothing
serious should take place, that there should be no fight, wounds, shots,
or other scandal.
No, comrade, answered Pablo, it only concerns giving a thrashing to a
young fellow who is accustomed to enjoy women, whom other men support.
Put yourself in the place of the deceived man; what would you do? What
would any other decent man do, in such a case? Just what he is going to
do. I shall not compromise you. You see that I am also one of the
police-force. Further, this may help you, the gentleman we are helping
is in with the government, and he does not expect service for nothing.
Completely convinced, the policeman agreed that, at a signal from Pablo,
he would walk slowly toward the Plazuela del Carmen, to see what was
going on there.
The astute Pablo had arranged for two stout fellows of evil mien to meet
him at the corner _pulqueria_; they arrived at the place appointed at
half-past-nine carrying heavy cudgels as walking sticks.
A little before ten the servant of Mercedes left the house; Pablo, who
had already made her acquaintance, overtook her and said:
“Where are you going so fast, my dear?”
“I am going far; I am taking a message to the Arcade of Belem and from
there to Sapo street, to the _socursal_.”
“Does not my pretty one want a drop?”
The pretty one did want a drop, entered the _pulqueria_, drank,
submitted to various pinches, and left. Pablo at once said to his
friend: “Run and call the General,” and he planted himself where he
could see the house.
A little later poor Mercedes, who suspected nought of what was plotting
for her undoing, opened the windows and looked out. It was the signal,
arranged between her and Patillitas, indicating that there were no Moors
on the coast and that the happy lover might enter. He was not slow in
appearing, strutting pompously as if enjoying in anticipation the
pleasure he was about to have. He caught sight of his sweetheart, which
was equal to seeing the gates of paradise opening, saluted her with much
elegance and cautiously entered the doors of the court-yard, which were
ajar.
“The fish falls into the net! how easy! how easy!”[24] murmured the
malicious Pablo, humming the accompanying tune in a low voice.
A quarter of an hour had passed when, by San Pedro y San Pablo St., the
General was seen approaching, as grave, as correct, and as arrogant as
ever, smoking his unfailing cigar, without hastening his pace or
displaying the least emotion.
As soon as Pablo saw him, he spoke to the policeman on the beat, who at
once walked slowly in the direction of the Plazuela, as he had promised.
Then Pablo summoned his assistants from the _pulqueria_ and all three
joined the messenger, who had been sent to call the General and who had
now returned; the whole party stopped on the sidewalk opposite Mercedes’
house.
The General, without quickening his pace, without looking at the men,
nor making any signal to them, had already arrived before the house.
When he had almost reached the gateway, the four men crossed the street
and, when he entered, they cautiously followed.
López, with measured tread, crossed the court, followed by his men; he
turned to the left and knocked at the house-door, which was fastened. No
one responded, but noises of alarm were heard within, a sound as of a
person running and finding some piece of furniture in his way, a stifled
cry, and the murmur of troubled voices.
The General knocked a second, and a third time with briefer interval and
with greater force. No one replied and now nothing was heard. The
General knocked for the fourth time and said, in his stentorian voice,
though without displaying anger or emotion: “Open, Mercedes, it is I.”
“I am coming,” shrilly answered a woman’s voice, “I am dressing; I was
ill and had not yet risen.”
The General waited with the utmost calm. No escape was possible; from
the hall one passed directly into the room, which was the scene of the
guilty love and which received light by a grated window, that opened
onto the _patio_ of the next house. The General, who knew all the hiding
places and the location of the pieces of furniture in the room, was
delighted, imagining the little agreeable plight of the student, who had
already, tremblingly, hidden himself under the bed.
After ten minutes waiting, Mercedes, visibly pale with _chiquedores_[25]
on her temples, her head tied up in a handkerchief, and covered with a
loose gown, which she was still hooking, finally opened the door, smiled
at the General, and attempting to overcome her manifest uneasiness,
said: “Ah, sir! what a surprise!”
“Good morning, madam,” said the General, abruptly entering the hall and
then the inner room, followed by his four men, and paying no attention
to Mercedes, who, following them all, exclaimed, each time more
afflicted:
“What do you wish, sir? What are you looking for? Why have these men
come here?”
Once in the room, the General stopped near the door, and, as he
expected, saw under the bed the coiled up body of the student who would
gladly have given his whiskers to be elsewhere.
“Drag out that shameless fellow,” said the General to his men, “and beat
him for me.”
“Señor, for God’s sake!” cried Mercedes.
The four men obeyed the order. The unhappy student did not even try to
escape. One took him by the feet and dragged him out into the middle of
the room; the others began to discharge a hail of blows upon him,
distributing them evenly over the shoulders, back, seat, and legs of
that unfortunate, who squirmed upon the floor like an epileptic,
writhing, screaming, and howling, with a choked voice:
“Ay! ay! they are killing me! ay! ay! help! Ay! ay! infamous fellows!
assassins!”
Meantime the General looked on at that calamitous spectacle, without a
word; when the flogging seemed to him sufficient he exclaimed--“Hold!”
and then, addressing the man who had been flogged, added: “Be warned by
this experience and let the women of other men alone.”
The maltreated Patillitas arose, hurled some insolence at the General,
and threw himself upon him with his fists clenched; the floggers started
to seize him, but the General said, “Leave him to me.” And, with the
greatest calmness, he allowed him to deal his inoffensive blow, and,
then, seizing his wrist, gave it such a wrench that the poor fellow
suffered more than from the beating, and, notwithstanding all his
efforts to the contrary, fell upon his knees before his conqueror,
howling with pain.
“Listen well, jackanapes,” said the General, without loosening his hold,
“get away from here at once; and, if you prefer the least complaint or
cause the least scandal, I will put you into jail and afterwards send
you into the army as a vagabond and mischief-maker.”
He loosed his prisoner who rose uttering suffocated groans and muttering
inarticulate insolences. Limping, and with his dress disordered, he
started to walk away; he took his hat, which one of the floggers, at a
signal from the General, handed him. Pablo followed him and at reaching
the hall door gave him a kick behind, saying with a hoarse laugh:
“There! take your deserts, you!”
“Now,” said the General, addressing Mercedes, who, huddled on the sofa,
with her kerchief thrown over her head and covering her face, was
sobbing violently, “indicate what you wish to take with you and get out
into the street.”
“Keep it all, horrible old man, monster without heart or entrails of
pity,” said the unhappy woman, drying her eyes; and, arranging her dress
as best she could and wrapping up her head, she left.
When she had disappeared, the General, as pleased as if he had
consummated some great act of justice, dismissed the floggers, after
paying them; then, he went out onto the street with a lofty air, and,
smoking his ever-present cigar, closed the gate of the court, put the
key into his pocket, and walked away.
* * * * *
The Chango did not pronounce this long discourse at one breath, but
interrupted himself from time to time to sip coffee or to ask Pacotillas
incident questions, which he answered in his usual laconic style. He
expressed himself somewhat more upon his matrimonial troubles and the
faults of his wife’s parents. Then, changing his tone, he said:
“Now I have tired you in speaking of myself and my affairs; now you must
reciprocate, as a good friend, and tell me all about yourself.”
“I can do that in a few words: I am slowly continuing my course of study
and with more or less of difficulty and labor gain my bread.”
“Spartan! You do wrong not to confide in me. Am I to understand that you
desire nothing? that you do not care to better your condition?”
“I do not say so; I desire many things; I desire to escape from poverty;
but, I am content with my situation.”
“What a fool you are! I could do much for you, because I love you well,
and I would willingly offer you more than one chance of improving your
condition.”
“I thank you for your good will but I see no means of taking advantage
of it.”
“See Paco, let us speak frankly; notwithstanding your assertion that you
are content with your situation, I cannot believe it; the fact is that
you are very proud, that you do not care to ask anything from anyone;
that is all right with strangers, but when I, your school-fellow and
friend, anticipate your desires and offer----”
“I thank you and beg you to respect my freedom of action.”
“What a hard-shell you are! Come, consent to this anyway--separate
yourself from the _Independiente_; I promise to supply resources for you
to found a paper of your own, which will bring you at least double what
Don Marcos can pay you, and also to secure you a grant to aid you in
your studies, and, if you desire more, you shall have more.”
“But, truly, I desire nothing; I owe consideration to Don Marcos and
cannot treat him cavalierly,” said Paco, at the same time saying to
himself, “Oho, now I see!”
“You are fearfully stubborn,” said the Chango, “but you are your own
master and I will not insist further; but, now, I come to one favor,
begging you affectionately, in the name of our old friendship, to grant
it; do not continue to discuss, in your bulletins, the objectionable
question upon which you have been writing.”
“In my soul, I regret that I cannot gratify you, since I have resolved
to examine that matter in all its aspects.”
“You are more tenacious than a Biscayan! Don’t you understand that in
this you do me a personal injury and expose me to public criticism?”
“I do not see why? I have never mentioned your name, nor shall I mention
it; nor are you responsible for that contract.”
“Don’t be a ninny; although you do not mention me by name; although,
legally, you do not treat of me; yet the odium of the transaction falls
on me.”
“Whether the part you play is odious or not, I am not to blame; you have
chosen it freely. You act, and I judge. We are both within our rights.”
“In fine, Paco, if you continue to write as heretofore, you do me an
injury, you attack me.”
“That is not my intention, nor do I believe it the necessary result of
my procedure.”
“Of course, if you attack me, you give me the right to defend myself.”
“Granted,” answered Paco, coldly.
“And you know that I have many means of doing it?”
“I know it and they have no terrors for me.”
“Paco, you despise me,” said the Chango with annoyance.
“No, I merely answer you,” replied Paco, coldly.
“For the last time I will sum up the situation. If you consent to
withdraw from the _Independiente_ you shall have whatever advantages you
desire that I can give you; you shall have the same if you consent, at
least, to speak no more of the contract. Do you agree?”
“I have already said no,” replied Paco with dignity.
“Very well; it is hard for me to proceed against a fellow-student, whom
I have always esteemed for his talents and his brilliant promise; for
that reason, I desired to speak with you beforehand and give you proofs
of my friendship, but since you are obstinate, I warn you that I shall
prosecute you criminally.”
“Thanks for the warning.”
“Do you reflect that you will be proceeded against, that you will be
sent to jail, that you will be sentenced?”
“Yes, I consider all, and I am prepared for all; you will allow me to
say that I appreciate the kindness and politeness, with which you have
treated me; but now, as it seems your wish to induce me to maintain
silence and to separate myself from the _Independiente_, and as I will
never agree to this, I judge my further presence here to be useless and,
with your permission, will leave.”
And the young man at once rose and left; the Chango followed him without
a word; they went down the stairway, crossed the corridor, Pacotillas
took his hat in the hall, and on saying adieu to Robles, the latter
involuntarily moved by the dignity of Pacotillas, said to him: “Think
yet, Paco.”
“I need not think; neither threats nor bribes can swerve me from what I
believe to be my duty.”
EMILIO RABASA.
[Illustration]
Emilio Rabasa was born in the pueblo of Ocozautla, State of Chiapas, on
May 22, 1856. He studied law in the City of Oaxaca, being licensed to
practice on April 4, 1878. He returned to his native State, where he was
a Deputy to Congress and Director of the Institute during the years 1881
and 1882. He then removed to Oaxaca, where he was Judge of the Civil
Court, Deputy to the State Legislature and Secretary to Governor Mier y
Teran, during 1885 and 1886. Removing to the City of Mexico in 1886, he
there filled various judicial and other offices. In 1891, he was elected
Governor of Chiapas, which office he filled for two years, particularly
interesting himself in improving the financial condition of the State.
In 1894, he was elected Senator from the State of Sinaloa, an office
which he still fills. He resides in the City of Mexico, where he is
engaged in legal practice.
The work which has given him literary fame is a four volume novel,
written under the _nom-de-plume_ of Sancho Polo. These volumes bear
special titles--_La Bola_ (The Local Outbreak), _La gran Ciencia_ (The
Grand Science), _El cuarto Poder_ (The Fourth Power), and _Moneda falsa_
(False Money). These novels have their importance in Mexican literature.
Victoriano Salado Álbarez, speaking of the notable advancement of the
Mexican novel in recent years, says: “The works of Sancho Polo, precious
studies,--initiated this truly fecund and permanent movement.” Luis
Gonzáles Obregón says of these books: “These are notable for the
correctness of their style, for masterly skill in description, most rich
in precious details, for the perfect way in which those who figure in
them are characterized, for the natural and unexpected development, as
well as for many other beauties, which we regret not being able to
enumerate here.” Emilio Rabasa’s active public life has prevented his
following up his early success in literature. Since the Sancho Polo
series, he has written but one brief novel, _La Guerra de tres años_
(The Three Years War). In 1888, in connection with the well-known
publisher, Reyes Spindola, he founded _El Universal_ (The Universal),
which is still published, and which really initiated a new era in
Mexican journalism.
The hero in the Sancho Polo novels is a youth named Juan Quiñones. Born
and reared in an obscure village, he loves a pretty girl who lives with
her uncle, a man of common origin and mediocre attainments. Don Mateo
is, however, a rising man, and, as he mounts, his ambitions for his
niece mount also. The boy has real ability, but is petulant and
precipitate, throwing himself into positions from which there should be
no escape, and learning nothing by experience. He passes through a
series of remarkable experiences--a local outbreak, a State revolution,
anti-governmental journalism in the capital city, a discreditable love
affair--finally, of course, gaining the girl.
THE DAY OF BATTLE.
I attempted in vain to restrain and reduce the uneasiness and
disquietude, by which I was possessed and which Minga and her mother but
increased, now dragging me away from the window, now preventing me from
drawing the bolt to open the door, now bringing me back from the
courtyard whither I had desired to go to escape their oversight.
“What a Don Abundio!” said Minga, jeeringly. “Trust him! But have no
fear; he will not now let the girl go.”
Nevertheless, I sent the old woman back to see Felicia, to beg her, if
preparations for the journey were not immediately discontinued, to send
me word by her servant. And the good old woman, who was brave and
fearless, started out again, cautioning her daughter not to allow me to
commit any imprudence.
What a day was that for me. The sun ran its course with desperate
slowness, but finally stood in mid-heaven. The old woman had not yet
returned, nor had Don Mateo made his attack, nor had I news of any one.
I do not understand how I could remain shut up all those hours, without
breaking out and letting myself be killed.
While thus chafing, and more often than ever peeping from the window to
catch a distant glimpse of the old woman, a choked and panting voice, at
my shoulder, cried:
“They are coming.”
It was ‘Uncle Lucas,’ who seemed in that one day to exhaust all his
remaining life’s force. He seated himself on Minga’s bed, with his
mouth open, his chest puffing like a blacksmith’s bellows, his head
nodding in time to his heavy breathing.
In spite of his breathlessness, I made him speak, although his words
were broken by his gasps for air. Don Mateo and his force were
organizing at half a league’s distance. Uncle Lucas had told the Colonel
all that the Sindico[26] had said and had returned with the order to
unite as many men as possible from our quarter of the town, in order to
impede and disconcert Coderas’s force, when it should return to town, as
probably it would only skirmish in the open field. Just as he arrived at
the creek, Uncle Lucas saw five men on horseback, the advance guard of
Coderas, descend from the terrace.
In fact, while he was speaking we heard the noise of horses running
through the street and the clank of swords against the stirrups. Almost
at the same moment the door opened and Minga’s mother burst into the
room, her face pale, her eyes flashing fire.
“A little more and those dogs had had me!” she cried angrily and hurled
forth a tirade which I cannot repeat.
“What is the matter?” I asked, agitated.
“What is it! If it were not for my nephew Matias, who was in the
trenches by the church, they would not have let me go. Cursed wolves.
When Pedro comes I will tell him that they would not let me go and the
foul words they said to me. As I told you, were it not for Matias, I
would still be there in the Plaza.”
“And what did Felicia say?” I interrupted, impatiently.
“The horses are all ready; but Don Abundio told her to tell you to have
no concern; Remedios need not go. But remember, Juanito, this man has no
shame.”
Keeping her to the point, I made her tell me all that could concern us.
Coderas and Soria had agreed upon a plan of defense, believing that Don
Mateo could not take the Plaza in several days; meantime the auxiliaries
from the next district, whose Jefe politico was in communication with
San Martin, could arrive. At the last moment, it had been decided that
Coderas should sally with two hundred men, for a skirmish just outside
the town, falling back upon the hundred, who remained in the Plaza with
Soria; if fortune should prove averse to them, which the intrepid leader
did not believe, they would withdraw to the best entrenchments, in order
to force Don Mateo to attack them there.
“Now for the main thing,” said the old woman to me. “Remedios told me to
say that they plan to take the prisoners from the jail and put them in
the trenches, to terrify the other party, who cannot fire without
killing their own friends and relatives.”
My hair stood on end, I felt a giddiness and almost fell, with my face
convulsed with emotion and with shortened breath, I could scarcely turn
to Uncle Lucas. Terrified, he rose and tried to detain me; but I
promptly regained my self-control and assumed the voice of command
which, in such cases, constitutes me a leader of those about me.
“Run!” I said to him quickly. “Immediately collect all those who last
night promised to follow us and bring them here at once.”
My voice was so authoritative and commanding that I scarce awaited a
reply. The old man made none and directed his way to the door; on
opening it, he started violently.
“There they come! they come!” he said in a whisper.
Minga drew me violently back from the window, and Coderas and his force
galloped down the road from the creek.
Some villagers followed the force from curiosity, others appeared in
their doorways, and some few shut themselves in, cautiously barring
their doors.
My wisdom and patience were now completely exhausted, and, my excitement
depriving me of all prudence, I rushed forth with Uncle Lucas, ordering
him to promptly meet me at that spot.
With no attempt at concealment, without precaution and without fear, I
ran to Bermejo’s house, to the houses of the imprisoned regidors, to
the houses of all those who were suffering in jail, alarming all with
the terrible notice which I had received. In this house, I secured a
man; in that one, some weapon; from here I led forth a terrified son;
from there, a half-crazed father. Everywhere I carried terror and
awakened the most violent manifestations of hatred and affliction.
Half an hour later, in Pedro Martin’s _patio_, I had collected some
thirty men, who, worthy followers of a leader such as I, would fight
like tigers and would not be sated with three hundred victims. One
proposed hanging the wife and children of Coderas; another proposed
dragging Soria through the streets and casting his lifeless body on the
dungheap; another suggested sacking of the house of the Gonzagas, and
another, cutting the throats of all who lived in the ward of Las Lomas,
with a few exceptions. To me, this all appeared excellent and I
energetically approved these savage propositions, while I distributed
arms to those who had none and issued my orders to Uncle Lucas.
At that moment, the first discharge of the battle was heard; a cold
chill ran through my body, mixture of terror and of impatience for the
combat. I felt myself impelled toward the Plaza, and from my lips issued
a torrent of foul words, which I was astonished at myself for knowing.
Evil predominated in me; under the kindled passions of the _bola_, I was
unconsciously transformed, my nature becoming that of the mass around
me.
In such moments I had no idea of forming a plan of campaign. I only knew
that I was going in defence of my mother, whose life was gravely
imperilled, and that I ought to hasten to achieve my object. I did not
think how I should attain it, nor did it occur to me to think. Uncle
Lucas ventured to remind me that the Colonel’s plan was for us to hamper
the enemy in his retreat.
“All follow me!” I cried with authority.
And all, with resolution equal to my own, followed me.
Passing behind Minga’s house, to the edge of the village, we took the
road to the right and marched at quickstep up the street parallel to
that which led to the Plaza. On arriving in front of this we halted, to
the terror of the neighbors, and then cautiously advanced until the jail
was in sight.
Not dreaming of enemies so near, the soldiers in the Plaza were
listening to the fusillade which was taking place, almost on the banks
of the creek. In front of us was a gentle slope, from the gully up to
the Plaza and the prison door; at that place, which could scarcely be
seen, because of the village corral which intervened, a sentinel was
visible.
“They have not yet taken out the prisoners,” I said to my companions;
“we will wait here until we see some movement showing that they are
about to remove them.”
Among our arms was a single gun; the rest were machetes, darts, or
knives tied to the end of staves. I nevertheless believed myself
invincible.
The distant noise of musketry, which, to tell the truth, was not great
or terrible, consequent on the small number of the combatants and the
still smaller number of the firearms, became less at the end of a few
minutes, and the few shots heard seemed to me to be already discharged
within San Martin. I ordered my party to approach the foot of the slope,
I myself remaining where I was so as not to lose sight of the jail; and
I ran to join them, when the discharges from the entrenchments showed me
that Soria had entered the Plaza and that Don Mateo was in front of it.
We mounted to the jail, before the sentinel could give the alarm and at
the moment when Coderas and Soria repulsed Don Mateo in his first
assault. Taken by surprise, the sentinel fled to the Plaza, and we,
without thought of the imprudence of our hasty action, hurled ourselves
against the prison door, and, after a few efforts, burst it in, broken
into fragments.
LA BOLA.
How many then, as I, wept orphaned and cursed the _bola_! In that
miserable village, which scarcely had enough men to till its soil, and
in which the loftiness of citizenship was unknown, its victims had
floods of tears and despair, instead of laurels, the reward of right.
Here the father, love and support of the family, was mourned; there, a
son, hope and stay of aged parents; there, again, a husband, torn from
the fireside to be borne to a field of battle, which had not even tragic
grandeur, but only the caricaturing ridiculousness of a low comedy.
And all that was called in San Martin a revolution! No! Let us not
disgrace the Spanish language nor human progress. It is indeed time for
some one of the learned correspondents of the Royal Academy to send for
its dictionary, this fruit harvested from the rich soil of American
lands. We, the inventors of the thing itself, have given it a name
without having recourse to Greek or Latin roots, and we have called it
_bola_. We hold the copyright; because, while revolution, as an
inexorable law, is known in all the world, the _bola_ can only be
developed, like the yellow fever, in certain latitudes. Revolution grows
out of an idea, it moves nations, modifies institutions, demands
citizens; the _bola_ requires no principles, and has none, it is born
and dies within short space, and demands ignorant persons. In a word,
the revolution is a daughter of the world’s progress and of an
inexorable law of humanity; the _bola_ is daughter of ignorance and the
inevitable scourge of backward populations.
We know revolutions well, and there are many who stigmatize and
calumniate them; but, to them we owe the rapid transformation of
society and of institutions. They would be veritable baptisms of
regeneration and advancement, if within them did not grow the weed of
the miserable _bola_. Miserable _bola_? Yes! There operate in it as many
passions as there are men and leaders engaged; in the one it is avenging
ruin; in the other a mean ambition; in this one the desire to figure; in
that one to gain a victory over an enemy. And there is not a single
common thought, not a principle which gives strength to consciences. Its
theatre is the corner of some outlying district; its heroes, men who
perhaps at first accepting it in good faith, permit that which they had
to be torn to tatters on the briers of the forest. Honorable labor is
suspended, the fields are laid waste, the groves are set on fire, homes
are despoiled, at the mere dictate of some brutal petty leader; tears,
despair, and famine are the final harvest. And yet the population, when
this favorite monster, to which it has given birth, appears, rushes
after it, crying enthusiastically and insanely, _bola! bola!_
THE INDEPENDENT PRESS.
Albar came down into the editorial room and, approaching me, picked up,
one by one, the yet fresh sheets. He was satisfied, extremely so.
“Very good,” he said to me, “this will cause a sensation, and will exalt
your name yet more. Attack fearlessly.”
At twelve, he called me up to his writing-room, not without my feeling a
strange fear, presentiment of danger.
“I want you to take one matter on yourself,” he said, “because this
Escorroza is of no use sometimes. Besides, I know you are from the State
of X---- and I suppose you know its men, its history, its conditions,
better than anyone else on the force.”
“I think so,” I replied, trembling.
“It is so,” affirmed Albar. “Put special care on the articles relative
to the matter, to which I refer; because it is of importance to me and I
entrust it to you because you are the best man on the staff.”
“You are very kind----”
“Not at all; it is mere justice----”
“And the matter----”
“In a moment, in a moment; you shall hear.”
The interest of the Director must indeed be great, when he was so
friendly and courteous with me. His dark skin wrinkled more violently
and a forced smile incessantly contracted his lips, separating yet more
widely from each other, the two halves of his typically Indian
moustache.
We heard, sounding in the patio, the footsteps of several persons. My
suspicions had grown with Albar’s words, my fears increased, and that
noise caused me such disturbance that I was forced to rise from the sofa
to conceal it.
In spite of my efforts to control myself, I felt that I turned pale,
when Don Mateo entered the room, accompanied by Bueso and Escorroza.
Instinctively, I stepped back a step or two and appeared to occupy
myself with something lying on the table.
Don Mateo awkwardly saluted Albar, with scant courtesy, and passed with
him and Bueso into an adjoining room. As he passed near me, I noticed
that the General looked at me and hesitated a moment as if he wished to
stop. Albar, who went last, indicated to Escorroza, by a sign, that he
might retire, and when he, in turn, repeated the signal to me, Albar
said, shortly, “Wait here; I will call you.”
Escorroza withdrew, casting at me a glance of terrible hatred, which in
some degree compensated me for my anxieties, by the vain satisfaction it
caused me; but, hearing the first phrases exchanged between the three
men, I understood at once that Pepe was right in telling me that I had
lost my cause. I should have fled from the place, on feeling myself so
completely routed, at comprehending the event and its significance to
me; but, I know not what painful desire to know the end, held me, as if
bound, to the chair in which I had seated myself near the door.
At first Don Mateo himself desired to present the matter; but his rustic
awkwardness, little suited to the presentation of so difficult a matter,
overcame him, and it was necessary that Bueso should take up the
conversation for him.
For some minutes his tranquil, unvarying, and unemotional voice was
heard; for him, no matter was difficult of presentation, no
circumlocutions were necessary to express the most delicate affairs. The
General had seen, with surprise, a paragraph in _El Cuarto Poder_ which
demanded evidence proving what _El Labaro_ had stated concerning him;
that his surprise was the greater from the fact that he had before
considered Albar as his friend, although they had had merely business
relations through correspondence. All that was printed in _El Labaro_,
and much more, was true, as could be testified by thousands of persons,
who knew the General as their own hands. It could be proved (indeed it
could!) with documents from State and Federal governments; with
periodicals of different epochs which he had preserved; with this and
with that----
But, why? Albar could not doubt the word of a gentleman. The important
matter now is that the eminent Director should recognize in the General
a good friend, and in place of raising doubts in regard to his glorious
past, should strive, as a good friend, to make it well known,
appreciated, and recompensed by the applause to which a man so
distinguished as the General is entitled. While he understood this
involved considerable expense, that was no obstacle.
At this critical point Albar interrupted Bueso with a grunt, which said
neither yes nor no. It is not necessary to mention that; no, sir. The
unlucky paragraph in question had crept into the paper, without the
Director’s knowledge; but, as soon as he discovered it, he determined to
apply the remedy; which would consist in publishing a complete biography
of the General, stating that it had been written after inspection of
convincing and authentic documents; and, even, that the portrait of the
General should be printed in the paper, if he would have the kindness to
furnish a photograph.
Clouds of blood, blinding me, passed before my eyes; my whole body
trembled convulsively; with my contracted fingers I clutched the arms of
the chair and dug my nails into the velvet upholstery. In the fury of my
rage and anger, I scarcely heard some words about thirty subscriptions,
which Don Mateo would send the following day, to be mailed to his
friends in the State. Bueso asserted that this was important for the
General, because the General was a man with a great political future,
that he ought, therefore, to act promptly and vigorously, to augment his
prestige and propagate his renown everywhere.
To me, nailed to my chair, that scene appeared for some minutes the
horrible illusion of a cruel nightmare. I was perspiring and choked.
The door suddenly opened and the three actors in the comedy entered the
writing-room. Trying to compose myself, and rising, I heard Albar, who,
pointing at me, said:
“Here is the best pen on my staff; this young man will be charged with
writing all relative to your life.”
Don Mateo and I faced each other, exchanging a glance of profound
hatred; hatred, kneaded with the passion of purest love, as mud is
kneaded with water from the skies.
I knew not what to say, much as I desired to speak, but Don Mateo,
incapable of controlling himself, said insultingly:
“This young man going to write? And what does _he_ know?”
And, filled with rage, he turned his back on me, pretending to despise
me.
“I know more than will suit you, for writing your biography,” I replied,
“but I warn Señor Albar that my pen shall never be employed in the
service of a man like you.”
Don Mateo made a motion as if he would throw himself upon me, and I made
one as if seizing a bust of bronze to hurl at him.
Albar leaped between us.
“What is this?” he cried, in terror.
“You are a miserable puppet,” thundered Don Mateo, shaking his fists at
me above Albar’s head. “When I meet you in the street I will pull your
ears.”
“We shall see,” I replied.
“Wretched, insignificant boy.”
“Stop! enough of this,” cried Albar, with all the force of his lungs.
“What is the matter?”
“Señor Albar,” I said, “I heard all that was said. I can write nothing
about this man; not a word.”
“Nor will I permit that he shall write,” bellowed Don Mateo, choked with
rage; “I will not consent to it.”
“Then he shall not write; enough said,” replied Albar.
Bueso stood before me undisturbed; with his hands in his pockets he
looked me over with an air of curiosity.
“That means that Javier will write it,” he said completing Don Pablo’s
thought.
Escorroza, at the sound of voices, had come upstairs and, at this
moment, arrived.
“Very well,” said the Director, “let it be so. As Quiñones refuses and
the General does not consent, Escorroza will be charged with writing all
relative to----”
“To the Señor General? With the greatest pleasure,” broke in Don Javier.
“And he will do it much better,” said Bueso.
Don Mateo looked at me with an air of triumph and derision.
“The Señor Director may order what seems best to him,” I said,
restraining myself with difficulty, “but I ought to inform him that I
withdraw from the staff, the moment when the paper publishes the least
eulogy of this man.”
And without saluting, with clenched fists and gritted teeth, I left the
room. While in the corridor I heard the voices of Cabezudo, Bueso, and
Escorroza, who cried at once:
“Canasto! this puppet----”
“Talked to you, in that manner!”
“How can you permit----”
The noise of the loud voices reached the editorial room. Pepe and
Carrasco asked me what had happened, but I simply shrugged my shoulders
and the two became discreetly silent.
The noise continued for half an hour. At the end of that time the
footsteps of the three men were heard in the _patio_, and their yet
angry voices. As they passed the doorway I heard them saying:
“Astonishing how much Don Pablo thinks this boy to be!”
“Canasto! recanasto! this I will never forgive.”
Elevated pride, satisfied hatred, gratified and exalted vanity, almost
choked me and I had to rise for breath. Pepe and Sabas looked at me
astonished, and I, my face twitching and working with a nervous smile,
threw my pen upon the table.
“This pen is worth more than most persons imagine.”
RAFAEL DELGADO.
[Illustration]
Rafael Delgado was born in Cordoba, State of Vera Cruz, August 20, 1853,
of a highly honorable and respected family. His father was for many
years the Jefe politico of Cordoba, but at the close of his service
retired to Orizaba. This removal was made when Rafael was but two months
old, and it was in Orizaba that he was reared and has spent most of his
life. After receiving his earlier instruction in the _Colegio de Nuestra
Senora de Guadalupe_, he was sent, in 1865, to the City of Mexico,
where, however, on account of the turbulence of that time, he spent but
one year. On account of the disturbances due to civil war his father
lost the greater part of his fortune. In May, 1868, Rafael entered the
_Colegio Nacional de Orizaba_, then just organized, where he completed
his studies. From 1875 on, for a space of eighteen years, he was teacher
of geography and history in that institution. The salary was so small
and irregular that, at times, he was compelled to give elementary
instruction in other schools in order to meet expenses. In his own
personal studies, outside of his professional work, he was especially
interested in the drama, and he carefully read and studied the Greek,
Latin, French and Italian dramatists, as well as the Spanish. In 1878 he
wrote two dramas, _La caja de dulces_ (The Box of Sweets), prose in
three acts, and _Una taza de te_ (A Cup of Tea) in verse in a single
act. These were staged and met a good reception. At a banquet tendered
to the author after the first rendering of _La caja de dulces_, his
friends presented him a silver crown and a gold pen. In 1879, Rafael
Delgado published a translation of Octave Feuillet’s _A Case of
Conscience_ and later an original monologue--_Antes de la boda_ (Before
the Wedding).
Between the ages of sixteen and thirty years, Delgado wrote much lyric
poetry. Francisco Sosa compares his work in this field with that of
Pesado, and adds: “Greater commendation cannot be given.” From the time
when he was a student in the _Colegio Nacional_ at Orizaba, Delgado
always received the helpful encouragement of his old teacher, the head
of that school, Silvestre Moreno Cora. It was due to this truly great
man’s efforts that the _Sociedad Sánchez Oropeza_ was founded in
Orizaba, in the literary section of which Rafael Delgado was active. At
this society he gave a series of brilliant _Conversaciones_ and to its
Bulletin he contributed both prose and verse. He has written _Cuentos_
(Tales) of excellence, showing the influence of Daudet. More important,
however, than his lyric poems and his stories, are Delgado’s novels,
three in number, _La Calandria_, _Angelina_, _Los parientes ricos_ (Rich
Relations). In fiction he is a realist. He prefers to deal with the
common people; he is ever a poet in form and spirit; his satire is never
bitter; beauty in nature ever appeals strongly to him. Without being a
servile imitator, he has been influenced by Daudet and the Goncourts.
His plots are simple--almost nothing. In regard to this, he himself, in
speaking of _Los parientes ricos_, says: “Plot does not enter much into
my plan. It is true that it gives interest to a novel, but it usually
distracts the mind from the truth. For me the novel is history, and thus
does not always have the machinery and arrangement of the spectacular
drama. In my judgment it ought to be the artistic copy of the truth;
somewhat, that is, as history, a fine art. I have desired that _Los
parientes ricos_ should be something of that sort; an exact page from
Mexican life.”
In _Calandria_, the story opens with the death of Guadalupe, an
abandoned woman, poor and consumptive. The man of wealth, who betrayed
her, has a lovely home and a beautiful daughter. Carmen, “the
Calandria,” as she is nicknamed by those about her on account of her
singing, the illegitimate daughter of Don Eduardo by Guadalupe, is left
in poverty. An appeal, made in her behalf, by a priest to Don Eduardo
fails to secure her full recognition and reception into his home, but
leads to his arranging for her care in the tenement where she lives and
where Guadalupe died. An old woman, Doña Pancha, who had been kind to
her mother, receives the orphan into her home. Her son, Gabriel, an
excellent young man, a cabinet-maker by trade, loves her, and she
reciprocates his love. A neighbor in the tenement, Magdalena, exerts an
unhappy influence upon Carmen, leading to estrangement between her and
Doña Pancha. Magdalena encourages her to receive the attentions of a
worthless and vicious, wealthy youth named Rosas. At a dance given in
Magdalena’s room, Rosas is attentive, and Carmen, flattered and dazzled,
is guilty of some indiscretions. This leads to a rupture between her and
Gabriel. To escape the persecutions of Rosas, Carmen goes with the
friendly priest to a retreat at some little distance. The troubles
between the lovers approach adjustment, but at the critical moment Rosas
appears upon the scene, and the girl, though she rejects him, is
compromised. Gabriel stifles his love and actually casts her off. In
despair, the girl yields to the appeals of Rosas, who promises marriage.
He is false, and soon tiring, abandons her. From then her downward
career is rapid and soon ends in suicide.
EXTRACTS FROM CALANDRIA.
And she sighed and spent long hours in gazing at the landscape;
attentive to the rustling of the trees, to the flitting to and fro of
the butterflies, to the echoes of the valley, which repeated,
sonorously, the regular stroke of the woodman’s axe, to the rushing of
the neighboring stream, to the cooing of the turtle-dove living in the
neighboring cottonwood.
I need to be loved and Gabriel has despised me. I need to be happy and
cannot because Gabriel, my Gabriel, is offended. He has repulsed me, he
has refused my caresses, he has not cared for my kisses. I desire to be
happy as this sparrow, graceful and coquettish, which nests in this
orange tree. How she chirps and flutters her wings when she sees her
mate coming. I cannot forget what took place that night. Never did I
love him more, never! I was going to confess all to him, repentant,
resolved to end completely with Alberto, to say to Gabriel: “I did this;
pardon me! Are you noble, generous, do you love me? Pardon me! I do not
covet riches, nor conveniences, nor elegance. Are you poor? Poor, I love
you. Are you of humble birth? So, I love you! Pardon me, Gabriel! See
how I adore you! I have erred--I have offended you--I forgot that my
heart was yours. Take pity on this poor orphan, who has no one to
counsel her. Pardon me! You are good, very good, are you not? Forget
all, forget it, Gabriel. See, I am worthy of you. I do not love this
man; I do not love him. I told him I loved him because I did not know
what to do. I let him give me a kiss because I could not prevent it.
Forgive me! And he appears to be of iron. He showed himself haughty,
proud, and cruel as a tiger. But, he was right; he loved me, and I had
offended him. One kiss? Yes--and what is a kiss? Air, nothing! I wanted
to calm his annoyance, sweetly, with my caresses, and I could not.
Weeping, I begged him to pardon me, and he refused. I said to
him--resolved to all--what more could I do?--I said to him, here you
have me--I am yours--do with me what you will! And, he remained mute,
reserved, did not look at me. He did not see me; he did not speak to me,
but I read distrust, contempt, restrained rage, in his face. He almost
insulted me. If he had not loved me so much, I believe he would have
killed me! Again I tried to conquer him with my caresses. I wished to
give him a kiss--and he repulsed me! Ah, Gabriel! How much you deceive
yourself! How self-satisfied you are! You are poor, of humble birth, an
artisan--and you have the pride of a king! Thus I love you, thus I have
loved you. Haughty, proud, indomitable, thus I would wish you for my
love! I would have softened your character; I would have dominated your
pride; I would have conquered you with my kisses. You love me, but my
tears have not moved you! You are strong and boast of your strength, for
which I adore you! You are generous, and yet you do not know how to
pardon a weak woman! And we would have been happy. One word from you and
nothing more! If it were still possible--and--why not?”
* * * * *
But, when he heard from the mouth of Angelito that Carmen had responded
to the gallantries of Rosas, when the boy described the scene which he
had witnessed, and in which, yielding to the desires of Alberto, the
orphan had permitted herself to be kissed, the very heavens seemed to
fall; he raged at seeing his love mocked and dragged in the mud, and
promptly told Doña Pancha all he had learned. The old woman strove to
calm him; made just remarks about Carmen’s origin, telling him that she
might have inherited the tendency to evil from her mother and the desire
for luxury, which had been _her_ perdition; she begged him to cut
completely loose from the orphan, and, fearful that he might, after the
first impression caused by what Angelito described had passed, involve
himself in humiliating love entanglements, appealed to her son’s
generous sentiments, not to again think of the girl. And she succeeded.
Gabriel armed himself with courage and fulfilled his promise. Hard, most
cruel, was the interview; his heart said: _pardon her_. Offended dignity
cried: _despise her_. Love repeated: _she loves you; is repentant, have
pity on her; see how you are trifling with your dearest illusions, with
all your hopes_; but in his ears resounded his mother’s voice, tender,
trembling with sympathy, supplicating, sad, _Gabriel, my boy, if you
love me, if you wish to repay me for all my cares, if you are a good
son, forget her!_ He loved her and he ought not to love her. He wanted
to despise her, to offend her, to outrage her, but he could not. He
loved her so much! Wounded self-esteem said with stern and imperious
accent: _leave her_.
When the cabinetmaker left his home that night, wishing to escape from
his grief, almost repenting what he had done, wandering aimlessly, he
journeyed through street after street, without note of distance. The
main street of the city, broad and endless, lay before him, with its
crooked line of lamps on either side, obscure and dismal in the
distance. So the future looks to us, when we are victims of some
unhappy disappointment, which shakes the soul as a cataclysm,--with not
a light of counsel, not a ray of hope on the horizon.
He arrived at the end of the city and on seeing the broad cart-road that
began there, passed a bridge, at the foot of a historic hill; he felt
tempted to undertake an endless journey to distant lands, where no one
knew him; to flee from Pluviosilla, that city fatal to his happiness,
forever. But, he thought--my mother?
The river flowed serene, silent. The cabinet-maker, with his elbow on
the hand-rail of the bridge, contemplated the black current of the
river; the great plain which lost itself in the frightful shadow of the
open country. A sentiment of gentle melancholy, consoling and soothing,
came over his soul. Meantime, the more he dwelt on his misfortune, the
more desolate appeared his life’s horizon, and something akin to that
sad homesickness, which he experienced in his soul, when the maiden
first said to him, _I love you_, passed like a refreshing wave through
his soul. The abyss at his feet attracted him, called him. What did
Gabriel think in those moments? Who can know? “No!” he murmured, turning
and taking his way to the city.
The next day, he told Doña Pancha in a few words what had happened and
then said no more of the matter. In vain Tacho, Solis, and López
questioned him, on various occasions. He did not again mention Carmen.
He learned that she had left Pluviosilla, but made no effort to learn
where she had gone; and, not because he had forgotten her, but because
he had resolved never to speak of her again. The journeyman and Doña
Pancha repeated to him the conversation of Alberto and his friends, what
they said of the planned elopement, but he scarcely deigned to listen,
and answered with a scornful and profoundly sad smile.
When Angelito found him and told him that Carmen was at Xochiapan,
repeating all that she had said, he hung his head as if he sought his
answer on the ground, and exclaimed:
“Say you have not seen me. No--tell her that I beg she will not think of
me again.”
And he turned away, disdainful and sad.
* * * * *
The young man placed himself in a good position, resolved to hear the
mass with the utmost devotion; but he could not do it. There, near by,
was Carmen; there was the woman for whom he would have given all that he
had, even to his life. He did not wish to see her, and yet did nothing
else. He turned his face toward the altar, and without knowing how, when
he least expected it, found his eyes fixed upon the maiden, whose
graceful head, covered with a rebozo, did not remain still an instant,
turning to all sides, in search of him. Gabriel remained concealed
behind the statue of San Ysidro which, placed on a table, surrounded by
candles and great sprays of paper roses, served him as a screen.
Why had he come? Was he determined to reunite the interrupted loves?
Would he yield to Carmen’s wishes? He had come to look at her, not
desiring to see her; he had come to Xochiapan dragged by an irresistible
power, but he would not yield. How could he blot out of his memory that
kiss, that thundered kiss, which he had not heard but, which,
nevertheless resounded for him like an injury, like an insulting word
which demands blood? And yet he had seen her; there she was, near him,
never so beautiful.
At the close of the service, at the _ite misa est_, Gabriel left
promptly, so that when the faithful flocked out to the market-place, he
was mounting his horse. On crossing the _plaza_, he met some
_rancheros_, his friends, who invited him to drink a cup and then to eat
at the ranch, which was not far distant. He accepted; it was necessary
to distract himself. To leave the _plaza_, on the way to the house of
his friends, it was necessary to pass along one side of the church;
almost between the lines of vendors.
The Cura, Doña Mercedes, Angelito and Carmen were in the graveyard.
Gabriel did not wish nor dare to greet his love; he turned his face
away, but could see and feel the gaze of those dark eyes fixed upon
him, a gaze profoundly sad which pierced his heart.
After dinner he returned to the town to take the road to Pluviosilla.
His friends proposed to accompany him, but he refused their offer. He
wished to be alone, alone, to meditate upon the thought which for hours
had pursued him.
She loves me--he was thinking as he entered the town.--She loves me!
Poor child! I have been cruel to her.--I ought to forgive her.--Why not?
I will be generous. I will forgive all.
The energetic resolutions of the young man became a sentiment of tender
compassion. His dignity and pride, of which he gave such grand examples
a month before, yielded now to the impulses of his heart. He could
resist no longer. Carmen triumphed; love triumphed.
I will speak with her; yes, I will speak with her; I will tell her that
I love her with all my soul; that I cannot forget her; that I cannot
live without her! I will tell her that I pardon; that we shall again be
happy. Poor child! She is pale, ill----. I do not wish to increase her
unhappiness.
At the end of the street, through which at the moment he was passing,
the cabinet-maker saw two men on horseback, one on an English, the other
on a Mexican saddle. Apparently, people of Pluviosilla.
The riders stopped a square away from the Curacy. The one dressed in
_charro_, dismounted and cautiously advanced along the hedge. A terrible
suspicion flashed through the young man’s mind. He quickly recognized
the cautious individual. While this person was going along on tiptoe, as
if awaiting a signal to approach, Gabriel took the lane to the right,
then turned to the left and passed slowly in front of the window of the
Curacy, at the moment when Rosas was speaking with Carmen at the
grating.
His first idea was to kill his rival like a dog and then the infamous
woman who was thus deceiving him--but--he was unarmed. He cursed his bad
luck, hesitated a moment, between remaining and going, and, at last,
whipping up his horse, went almost at a gallop, by the Pluviosilla
road.
FEDERICO GAMBOA.
[Illustration]
Federico Gamboa was born in the City of Mexico, December 22, 1864. After
his elementary studies he attended the _Escuela Nacional Preparatoria_
(National Preparatory School), for five years, and the _Escuela de
Jurisprudencia_ (Law School) for three more. After an examination, he
entered the Mexican Diplomatic Corps, October 9, 1888, and was sent to
Guatemala in the capacity of Second Secretary of the Mexican Legation in
Central America. In 1890, he was appointed First Secretary of the
Mexican Legation to Argentina and Brazil. In 1896, he returned to
Mexico, where he remained until the end of 1898, as Chief of the
Division of Chancery of the Department of Foreign Affairs. He was then
sent again to Guatemala, as _Charge-d’affaires_. In December, 1902, he
was appointed Secretary of the Mexican Embassy at Washington, which
position he now holds.
Through the year 1898, Señor Gamboa was Lecturer on the History of
Geographical Discovery in the _Escuela Nacional Preparatoria_. From 1886
to 1888, inclusive, he was engaged in newspaper work in the City of
Mexico. In June, 1888, he presented on the Mexican stage a Spanish
translation of the Parisian operetta, _Mam’selle Nitouche_, under the
title, _La Señorita Inocencia_ (Miss Innocence). In 1889, he presented a
translation _La Moral Electrica_ (Electric morality) of a French
vaudeville. Besides these translations, Señor Gamboa has produced
original dramatic compositions--_La Ultima Campaña_ (The Last Campaign),
a three act drama, and _Divertirse_ (To amuse oneself), a monologue;
these appeared in 1894. Señor Gamboa has written several books. _Del
Natural--Esbozos Contemporáneos_ (Contemporary Sketches: from nature)
was published when he was first in Guatemala and has gone through three
editions. _Apariencias_ (Appearances), a novel, was published while he
was at Buenos Ayres, in 1892. _Impresiones y Recuerdos_ (Impressions
and Recollections) appeared in 1894. Three novels, which have been well
received are _Suprema Ley_ (The Supreme Law), 1895, _Metamorfosis_
(Metamorphosis), 1899, and _Santa_, 1900. At present Señor Gamboa is
writing a new novel _Reconquista_ (Reconquest), and his biographical _Mi
Diario_ (My Journal), the latter in three volumes.
As may be seen from this brief sketch Señor Gamboa has been a
considerable traveler. He has made two European journeys, has twice
visited Africa, and has traveled over America from Canada to Argentina.
He lived in New York in 1880 and 1881 and holds a city schools
certificate for elementary teaching. He was elected a Corresponding
Member of the Royal Spanish Academy in 1889, an officer of the French
Academy in 1900, and a Knight Commander of Carlos III in 1901.
In _Suprema Ley_ we have a tale of common life. Julio Ortegal is a poor
court clerk, of good ideals, decent, married, and the father of six
children. His wife Carmen is hard-working, a good wife and a devoted
mother. Clothilde, well-born and well-bred is a native of Mazatlan,
where she becomes infatuated with a young man named Alberto; they live
together and, on the discovery of dishonest dealings on his part, flee
to the interior and to the City of Mexico, where he suicides. Clothilde,
suspected of his murder, is thrown into jail; there she meets Julio, in
the discharge of his duties, whose kindness awakens her gratitude.
After her acquittal, her father, who does not wish her return to
Mazatlan, arranges, through Julio, for her support in Mexico. She goes
first to Julio’s home and, later, to a hired house. Julio’s love for her
is kindled; it grows during the time she lives in his house and is the
real cause of her removal. He finally abandons wife and children
although he still turns over his regular earnings at court to their
support, working nights at a theatre for his own necessities. Meantime,
consumption, from which he has long suffered, continues its ravages.
Clothilde’s parents, who can no longer endure her absence, finally send
her aunt to bear their pardon and implore her return. Clothilde,
repentant, casts off Julio and returns to Mazatlan. He is furious,
crushed; but repentant he determines to rejoin his abandoned wife and
family; his old and normal love revives, but in that moment, he dies.
EXTRACTS FROM SUPREMA LEY.
Julito no longer resisted and he also lay down to sleep; he would make
his aunt’s acquaintance in the morning. Carmen, sitting by the spread
table, solitary and silent, after the fatiguing day, could not sleep.
She was thinking----.
Through her thoughts passed vague fears of coming misfortunes and
dangers; of a radical change in her existence. Her poor brain, of a
vulgar and unintellectual woman, performed prodigies in analyzing the
unfounded presentiments; what did she fear? On what did she base these
fears? While she attempted to define them they weakened, though they
still persisted. She reviewed her whole life of hard struggle and scanty
rewards; she examined her conduct as an honorable wife and a decent
mother of a family, and neither the one nor the other, justified her
fear. This stranger woman, this stranger who was about to come; would
she rob her of something? Of what? Her children? Surely, no. Of her
husband, perhaps? Her presentiment was founded in this doubt; yes, it
was only of her husband that she could rob her. And her humble idyl of
love, which she had cherished among the ancient things of her memory, as
she cherished in her clothes-press some few artificial flowers,
shriveled and yellowed, from her bridal crown, her idyl revived,
shriveled and yellowed also, but demanding an absolute fidelity in
Julio; not equal to her own; no, Julio’s fidelity had to be different,
but it must be; but, however much Carmen assured herself, with the mute
assurances of her will, that Julio was faithful, she continued to be
possessed by the idea that he would sometime prove unfaithful, just
because of the long period of their marriage, that cruel irony of the
years which respect nothing, neither a loving marriage nor the hearth
which belonged to us in infancy; the marital affection is choked by the
ivy of disgust and the bind-weed of custom; the home disappears covered
by the weeds, which grow and grow until they overtop the very pinnacle
of the façade. Carmen then appreciated some things before not
understood; all the little repugnances and the shrinking apart of two
bodies, which had long lived in contact and no longer have surprises to
exchange, no new sensations to offer, no curves that are not known, no
kisses that are unlike those other kisses, those of sweethearts and the
newly-wed, then novel and celestial, afterward repeated without
enthusiasm as a faint memory of those gone never to return. Believing
that Julio was yet in word and deed her own, she resolved to carry on a
slow reconquest, displaying the charms of a chaste coquetry; her
instincts of a woman, assuring her that this was the infallible mode of
salvation.
But on considering her attractions marred by child-bearing; her features
sharpened by vicissitude; her hands, the innocent pride of her girlhood,
deformed by cooking and washing; she felt two tears burn her eyeballs
and, unable to gain in a contest of graces and attractions, her face
fell upon the table, supported by her arms, in silent grief for her lost
youth and her perished beauty.
* * * * *
At two o’clock in the morning there was a knocking at the gate and then
at her door. It was they, Clothilde and Julio.
“Carmen, the Señora Granada.”
They embraced, without speaking; Clothilde, because gratitude sealed her
lips; Carmen, because she could not.
The supper was disagreeable; the dishes were cold, the servant sleepy,
those at the table watching one another.
When, in the silence of the night and of the sleeping house, Julio
realized the magnitude of what he had done, he read, yes, he read in the
darkness of the room, the fatal and human biblical sentence, and began
to understand its meaning:
“The woman shall draw thee, where she will, with only a hair of her
head.”
* * * * *
Clothilde’s first impulse was to conceal herself; to tell her servant
that she was not accustomed to receive evening visits; but, besides the
fact that Julio had certainly already seen her, the truth is that she
felt pleasure, a sort of consolation and discreet satisfaction. Thank
God the test was about to commence; she was about to prove to herself
the strength of her resolution.
Julio, now nearer, saluted, lifting his hat; Clothilde answered with a
wave of the hand, in all confidence, as two friends ought to salute. She
waited for him smilingly, without changing her place or posture,
determined not only to show a lack of love but even of undue
friendliness. Julio, paler than usual, crossed the threshold.
“Bravo, Señor Ortegal, this is friendly; come in and I will give you a
cup of coffee.”
Julio gave her his hand with extraordinary emotion and looked
searchingly into her eyes as if to read her thoughts. Clothilde,
scenting danger, led the way to the dining-room. How were they all at
home? Carmen and the children? Do they miss her a little?
Julio promptly answered that all were well, all well but himself, and
that is her fault, Clothilde’s.
“My fault?”
“Yes, your fault. And I ought to have spoken with you alone, long ago.”
And, saying this he covered his face with his hands.
The coffee-pot boiled noisily; the servant placed two cups upon the
table and Clothilde, not entirely prepared, because she had not counted
upon so abrupt an attack, betook herself to her armory of prayers. She
served the coffee with a trembling hand, putting in two lumps of sugar,
which she remembered Ortegal always took.
“Will you tell me the truth?” he burst out.
“Certainly.”
Ortegal collected all his nervous energy and without taking his hands
from his face, as if he did not desire to look at Clothilde, and poured
out his words in a torrent:
“Clothilde, I am a wretch to offend you; to dare to speak to you as I
do, but I can endure it no longer; I adore you, Clothilde, I adore you
and you know it! You have known it---- Pardon me, I beg you; and love me
just a little--nothing more,” he added, sobbing, “have pity on my life
and soul. Do you love me sometimes?”
“No,” replied Clothilde, closing her eyes, with a transport of cruelty
and the consciousness that she caused immense suffering, and terrified
at having caused such a passion. “I can never love you because I idolize
and will ever idolize the memory of Alberto.”
When he heard the sentence, Julio bowed his head upon his arm as it
rested on the table; pushed back the coffee without tasting it and rose.
“You forgive me?”
“Yes,” said Clothilde, “and I pray God to cure you.”
“Will you not come to my house? Will I not see you again?” exclaimed
Julio with a sweeping gesture of his arm that indicated that his
suffering was incurable.
“Yes, yes, but the least possible.”
The two felt that the interview was ended; and Julio believed himself
finally cast off. As in all critical situations, there was a tragic
silence; Clothilde looked at the floor; Julio gazed at her with the
yearning love, with which the dying look for the last time upon the
familiar objects and the dear faces, never so beautiful as in that
awful moment. Thus he gazed, long, long, taking her hand and kissing it
with the respect of a priest for a holy thing. Then he passed the wicket
of the little garden, and departed without once turning his head,
staggering like a drunken man; he was lost on the broad pavement, his
worn garments of the poor office hack, hanging in the sunlight in such
folds as to throw into relief the narrow shoulders of the consumptive.
I am dismissed, he thought, and I am glad that it was with a “no.” What
folly to think that a woman like Clothilde could ever care for a man
like me! What can I offer her?--A worthless trifle, an illegal love, a
legitimate wife, children, poverties! How could I pay her house rent,
the most necessary expenses, the most trifling luxuries? Better, much
better, that they despise me, the more I will occupy myself with my wife
and my children, what is earned they will have; I will return to the
path of rectitude, to my old companion; I will cure myself of this
attack of love. And walking, walking, he reached the Alameda, seated
himself in the Glorieta of San Diego, on a deserted bench, in front of
two students, who were reading aloud.
* * * * *
“But what has happened to you, Señorita?” and the lie presenting itself
for sole response; the lie which augments the crime and the risks of
what is foreseen. Her situation was not new; the eternal sufferings, one
day a little worse than another. Then, in the little alcove, where she
had thought herself strong enough to resist, the encounter with
Alberto’s portrait, a life-size bust photograph, in a plain frame, with
an oil lamp and two bunches of violets on the bureau, upon which it
stood. It was there waiting for her, as it waited for her every night,
to watch her undressing as he had in life, seated on the edge of the bed
or on a low chair, mute with idolatrous admiration, until she had
completed her preparations, and, coquettish and submissive, came to him,
who, with open arms and waiting lips embraced her closely, closely,
saying, between kisses, “How much I love you.”
Clothilde remained leaning against the bureau, unable to withdraw her
gaze from the portrait or her thought from what had just happened. Why
had she yielded? Why had she not screamed, or drawn the cord of the
coach, or called the passersby or the police? Scarcely a year a widow,
because she _was_ a widow although the marriage ceremony had not been
performed, and she had already forgotten her vows and promises, and had
already enshrined within her heart another man, who was not the dead,
her dead, her poor dear dead, lying yonder in his grave between two
strangers, without protest or opposition to infidelity and perjury;
enclosed in the narrow confines of the grave, without light, nor air,
nor love, nor life; lost among so many tombs, among so many faded
flowers, among so many lies written in marbles and bronzes. She could
redeem her fault with nothing, not only was she not content to dwell at
the graveside, but she had given herself to another and still dared to
present herself before his portrait, defying its wrath. Trembling with
terror she recalled a mutual oath sworn in those happy times, when in
their flight across half the Republic, they enjoyed a relative calm in
hotels and wayside inns. The sight of a country graveyard, peculiarly
situated, had saddened them; with hands clasped, they were walking after
supper before the inn, when Alberto, affected by one of those
presentiments which so often appear in the midst of joy, as if to remind
us that no happiness is lasting, clasped her to his bosom, and stroking
her hair, had asked her: “What would you do, if I should die?”
She had answered him with tears, shuddering; had stopped his mouth with
her hand; had promised him, sincerely, with all her loving heart and her
voice broken with sobs, that she would die also, but Alberto had
insisted, who can say whether already possessed with his coming suicide,
had begged her to make him an answer.
“Come tell me what you will do, since that will not cause it to happen,
and I will tell you what I would do if you should prove false.”
“Why do you say such things? Why do you invoke death?” And Alberto,
with solemn face had replied, what she had never since forgotten.
“Because disillusionment and death are the two irreconcilable enemies of
life and one ought ever to reckon with them.”
As Clothilde remained silent, Alberto, after drying her eyes, which were
immediately again filled with tears, demanded a solemn oath from her,
not of the many with which sweethearts constantly regale each other, but
of those which fix themselves forever, which impress us by their very
solemnity; would she swear it by her mother? Would she fulfil it
whatever happens? Truly--? If--?
“Then swear to me, that only in honest wedlock will you ever belong to
another man!”
And Clothilde swore; and now, before that portrait and that scene as it
rose in her memory, she felt herself criminal, very criminal, lost, and
unhappy. She did not leave the bureau; she could see the road, obscure
in the night; she could see the little inn; some muleteers, the
tavernkeeper, who spoke of robbers, ghosts, crops, and horses; she could
see Alberto and now she dared not raise her eyes to look at his face in
the plain frame. Turning her back to it, she lay down in the bed, buried
her head among the pillows, and closed her eyes; but instead of
conciliating sleep, there presented themselves before her, pictures of
her brief domestic life with Alberto; and, worst of all, amid these
pictures, the figure of Julio, of Julio supplicating and ill, of Julio
wearied and weighed down with cares, was not hateful to her.
* * * * *
“Here is the fortnight’s pay, do me the favor of handling it.”
In the handling the cashier came out bankrupt, but could never make up
her mind to tell Julio that to meet necessities she was forced to take
in sewing, at night, while others slept and her loneliness was
emphasized. The little Julio kept her company, studying his lessons or
reading aloud one of those continued stories, which delight women and
children by the complexity of their plot and by the happy exit, which
ever favors virtue. Sometimes, the romantic history contrasted with her
own, so mean and prosaic, and a tear or two, unnoticed by the reader
absorbed in the story, fell upon the white stuff of the sewing and
expanded in it as in a proper handkerchief. But if Julito learned of the
tears, he stopped his reading and kneeling before his mother dried them,
more by the loving words with which he overwhelmed her, than with his
coarse schoolboy’s kerchief.
“Come, foolish mama; why are you crying? Don’t you know it isn’t true?
The whole book is made up.”
He never added that he knew well that she was not weeping for the
characters of the story, but for the neglect of her husband; but, as her
husband was also his father, he employed this pretext in order not to
condemn Julio, openly and aloud, to Carmen. Thus, there happened, what
was to be expected, that between Carmen and Julito there grew up love in
one of its sublimest forms, the love of mother and son, with open
caresses, but caresses the most pure, with no touch of sin; and ideal
love which illumines our spirit and assures us that we would have loved
our mother so, had we not lost her too early.
Julito’s fifteen years spent in tenements and public schools, had
acquired for him an undesirable stock of had habits, of which perhaps
the least was smoking, inveterate, demanding his withdrawal at the end
of each chapter, to the corridor to smoke a cigarette in the open air.
One night Carmen, who knew not how to show him the extreme affection,
which by his treatment of her he had gained, said, unexpectedly: “If you
wish to smoke, you may do it before me.” And the boy, who, on the
streets, at school, and in the neighborhood, was a positive terror,
could not smoke near Carmen, look you! He could not; he loved her too
much to be willing to puff smoke from mouth and nostrils in her
presence. He did not smoke secretly, but as before, in the corridor,
after each chapter.
How sadly beautiful was the sight of these two in the dismantled dining
room of their miserable tenement! The immense house, the squalid
quarter, so noisy and turbulent during the day, presented the silence
of the tomb in the late hours of the night. Carmen and Julito, separated
by a corner of the table with its tattered cover of oil-cloth, and a
tallow dip, which needed snuffing every little while; Julito greatly
interested in his reading and Carmen, sewing at her fastest,
contemplating, with infinite love the black and curly head of her son,
when she stopped a moment to thread her needle. Now and again, the
coughing of the other children came to them from the adjoining room, and
Julito exclaimed: “Listen to my brothers.”
“Yes, I hear them; poor little things.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The word used is _espejismo_, literally, mirroring.
[2] There is a hard drive here upon the old teacher, which will be
understood only by those who have seen him.
[3] The second is, it will be costly.
[4] Little Chavero: half-affectionate, half-jocular diminutive of
Chavero.
[5] This and the following Aztec terms are either actually fictitious
or have meanings which are ridiculous in the connections given.
[6] Public granary.
[7] A scourge.
[8] A band or strip of wire netting with sharp points, to be bound
upon the body for self-torture.
[9] Mas solemne culto.
[10] A pretty mestizo girl, of the common people.
[11] Seller of fruit waters, including one made with _chia_.
[12] Night watchman.
[13] Soldier police.
[14] Street cars.
[15] Regular frequenters of _tertulias_--i. e., social, literary
gatherings.
[16] A holy Christ, two candle bearers, and three gawks.
[17] Village Christ.
[18] Tolsa.
[19] There is here a play on words not easy to render well.
_Pero_--but: _pera_--pear; _aguacate_ is a sort of fruit. The text
runs:
“Pero--señor Don Raimundo”
“No hay peros, ni aguacates que valgan.”
The exact translation is:
“But--señor Don Raimundo----“
There are no pears, nor aguacates, which avail.
[20] Here again is a _double-entendre_. The same word _dueno_, owner,
is here translated as self-controlled, and master. The young man is
master (of himself), the old man is master of his daughter’s lot.
[21] Market for raw stuffs or materials.
[22] _Moco de pavo_; literally, a turkey’s crest.
[23] The patron of agricultural labor.
[24]
Cayo el pez en la remanga:
Qué ganga! qué ganga!
[25] Small round plasters stuck upon the temples for the relief of
headache.
[26] Town treasurer.