Part 33

"Is my husband--I will be his wife, protected by the law. You are not a woman! Why do you look at me in that way? You make me tremble. Mother, mother, do not condemn me!"

"You have already condemned yourself--that is enough. Obey me, and I will forgive you. Answer me--when did you receive letters from that man?"

"To-day."

"What treachery! what infamy!" cried her mother, roaring rather than speaking. "Had you appointed a meeting?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"To-night."

"Where?"

"Here, here! I will confess everything, everything! I know it is a crime. I am a wretch; but you, my mother, will take me out of this hell. Give your consent. Say one word to me, only one word!"

"That man here in my house!" cried Dona Perfecta, springing back several paces from her daughter.

Rosario followed her on her knees.

At the same instant three blows were heard, three crashes, three explosions. [Maria Remedios had spied upon Pepe Rey, the lover; shown Caballuco, a brutal servant and ally, how to follow him stealthily into the garden; and had then come to arouse the house.] It was the heart of Maria Remedios knocking at the door through the knocker. The house trembled with an awful dread. Mother and daughter stood as motionless as statues.

A servant went down-stairs to open the door, and shortly afterward Maria Remedios, who was not now a woman but a basilisk enveloped in a mantle, entered Dona Perfecta's room. Her face, flushed with anxiety, exhaled fire.

"He is there, he is there," she said, as she entered. "He got into the garden through the condemned door." She paused for breath at every syllable.

"I know already," returned Dona Perfecta, with a sort of bellow.

Rosario fell senseless to the floor.

"Let us go down-stairs," said Dona Perfecta, without paying any attention to her daughter's swoon.

The two women glided down-stairs like two snakes. The maids and the man-servant were in the hall, not knowing what to do. Dona Perfecta passed through the dining-room into the garden, followed by Maria Remedios.

"Fortunately we have Ca-Ca-Ca-balluco there," said the canon's niece.

"Where?"

"In the garden, also. He cli-cli-climbed over the wall."

Dona Perfecta explored the darkness with her wrathful eyes. Rage gave them the singular power of seeing in the dark that is peculiar to the feline race.

"I see a figure there," she said. "It is going towards the oleanders."

"It is he," cried Remedios. "But there comes Ramos--Ramos!" [Cristobal Ramos, or "Cabulluco."]

The colossal figure of the Centaur was plainly distinguishable.

"Towards the oleanders, Ramos! Towards the oleanders!"

Dona Perfecta took a few steps forward. Her hoarse voice, vibrating with a terrible accent, hissed forth these words:--

"Cristobal, Cristobal,--kill him!"

A shot was heard. Then another.

Translation of Mary J. Serrano.

A FAMILY OF OFFICE-HOLDERS

Don Francisco de Bringas y Caballero had a second-class clerkship in one of the most ancient of the royal bureaus. He belonged to a family which had held just such offices for time out of mind. "Government employees were his parents and his grandparents, and it is believed that his great-grandparents, and even the ancestors of these, served in one way and another in the administration of the two worlds." His wife Dona Rosalia Pipaon was equally connected with the official class, and particularly with that which had to do with the domestic service of the royal abodes. Thus, "on producing her family tree, this was found to show not so much glorious deeds of war and statesmanship as those humbler doings belonging to a long and intimate association with the royal person. Her mother had been lady of the queen's wardrobe, her uncle a halberdier of the royal guard, her grandfather keeper of the buttery, other uncles at various removes, equerries, pages, dispatch-bearers, huntsmen, and managers of the royal farm at Aranjuez, and so forth and so on.... For this dame there existed two things wholly Divine; namely, heaven and that almost equally desirable dwelling-place for the elect which we indicate by the mere laconic word 'the Palace.' In the Palace were her family history and her ideal; her aspiration was that Bringas might obtain a superior post in the royal exchequer, and that then they should go and take up their abode in one of the apartments of the second story of the great mansion which were conceded to such tenants." The above is from 'Tormento.' In the next succeeding novel, 'La de Bringas,' this aspiration is gratified; the Bringas family are installed in the Palace, in the quarters assigned to the employees of the royal household. The efforts of two of their acquaintances to find them, in the puzzling intricacies of the place, are thus amusingly described.

ABOVE-STAIRS IN A ROYAL PALACE

From 'La de Bringas'

Well, this is about the way it was. We threw ourselves bravely into the interminable corridor, a veritable street, or alley at least, paved with red tiles, feebly lighted with gas jets, and full of doublings and twistings. Now and then it spread out into broad openings like little plazas, inundated with sunlight which entered through large openings from the main court-yard. This illumination penetrated lengthwise along the white walls of the narrow passageways, alleys, or tunnels, or whatever they may be called, growing ever feebler and more uncertain as it went, till finally it fainted away entirely at sight of the fan-shaped yellow gas flames, smoking little circlets upon their protecting metal disks. There were uncounted paneled doors with numbers on them, some newly painted and others moldering and weather-stained, but not one displaying the figure we were seeking. At this one you would see a rich silken bell cord, some happy find in the royal upholstery shop, while the next had nothing more than a poor frayed rope's-end; and these were an indication of what was likely to be found within, as to order and neatness or disarray and squalor. So, too, the mats or bits of carpet laid before the doors threw a useful light upon the character of the lodgings. We came upon vacant apartments with cobwebs spun across the openings, and the door gratings thick with dust, and through broken transoms, drew chill drafts that conveyed the breath of silence and desolation. Even whole precincts were abandoned, and the vaultings, of unequal height, returned the sound of our footsteps hollowly to our ears. We passed up one stairway, then down another, and then, as likely as not, we would ascend again.... The labyrinthine maze led us on and ever onward....

"It is useless to come here," at length said Pez, decidedly losing patience, "without charts and a mariner's compass. I suppose we are now in the south wing of the palace. The roofs down there must be those of the Hall of Columns and the outer stairway, are they not? What a huge mass of a place!" The roofs of which he spoke were great pyramidal shapes protected with lead, and they covered in the ceilings on which Bayeu's frescoed cherubs cut their lively pigeon-wings and pirouettes.

Still going on and on and onward without pause, we found ourselves shut up in a place without exit, a considerable inclosure lighted from the top, and we had to turn round and beat a retreat by the way we had entered. Any one who knows the palace and its symmetrical grandeur only from without could never divine all these irregularities that constitute a veritable small town in its upper regions. In truth, for an entire century there has been but one continual modifying of the original plan, a stopping up here and an opening there, a condemning of staircases, a widening of some rooms at the expense of others, a changing of corridors into living-rooms and of living-rooms into corridors, and a cutting through of partitions and a shutting up of windows. You fall in with stairways that begin but never arrive anywhere, and with balconies that are but the made-over roof coverings of dwelling-places below. These dove-cotes were once stately drawing-rooms, and on the other hand, these fine salons have been made out of the inclosing space of a grand staircase. Then again winding stairs are frequent; but if you should take them, Heaven knows what would become of you; and frequent, too, are glazed doors permanently closed, with naught behind them but silence, dust, and darkness....

"We are looking for the apartment of Don Francisco Bringas."

"Bringas? yes, yes," said an old woman; "you're close to it. All you have got to do is, go down the first circular stairway you come to, and then make a half-turn. Bringas? yes to be sure; he's sacristan of the chapel."

"Sacristan,--he? What is the matter with you? He is head clerk of the Administrative Department."

"Oh, then he must be lower down, just off the terrace. I suppose you know your way to the fountain?"

"No, not we."

"You know the stairs called the Caceres Staircase?"

"No, not that either."

"At any rate, you know where the Oratory is?"

"We know nothing about it."

"But the choir of the Oratory? but the dove-cotes?"--

Sum total, we had not the slightest acquaintance with any of that congeries of winding turns, sudden tricks, and baffling surprises. The architectural arrangement was a mad caprice, a mocking jest at all plan and symmetry. Nevertheless, despite our notable lack of experience we stuck to our quest, and even carried our infatuation so far as to reject the services of a boy who offered himself as our guide.

"We are now in the wing facing on the Plaza de Oriente," said Pez; "that is to say, at exactly the opposite extreme from the wing in which our friend resides." His geographical notions were delivered with the gravity and conviction of some character in Jules Verne. "Hence, the problem now demanding our attention is by what route to get from here to the western wing. In the first place, the cupola of the chapel and the grand stairway roof-covering furnish us with a certain basis; we should take our bearings from them. I assume that, having once arrived in the western wing, we shall be numskulls indeed if we do not strike Bringas's abode. All the same, I for one will never return to these outlandish regions without a pocket compass, and what is more, without a good supply of provender too, against such emergencies as this."

Before striking out on the new stage of our explorations, as thus projected, we paused to look down from the window. The Plaza de Oriente lay below us in a beautiful panorama, and beyond it a portion of Madrid crested with at least fifty cupolas, steeples, and bell towers. The equestrian Philip IV. appeared a mere toy, and the Royal Theatre a paltry shed.... The doves had their nests far below where we stood, and we saw them, by pairs or larger groups, plunge headlong downward into the dizzy abyss, and then presently come whirling upward again, with swift and graceful motion, and settle on the carved capitals and moldings. It is credibly stated that all the political revolutions do not matter a jot to these doves, and there is nothing either in the ancient pile they inhabit or in the free realms of air around it, to limit their sway. They remain undisputed masters of the place.

Away we go once more. Pez begins to put the geographical notions he has acquired from the books of Jules Verne yet further into practice. At every step he stops to say to me, "Now we are making our way northward.--We shall undoubtedly soon find a road or trail on our right, leading to the west.--There is no cause to be alarmed in descending this winding stairway to the second story.--Good, it is done! Well, bless me! where are we now? I don't see the main dome any longer, not so much as a lightning-rod of it.--We are in the realms of the feebly flickering gas once more.--Suppose we ascend again by this other stairway luckily just at hand. What now? Well, here we are back again in the eastward wing and nothing else, just where we were before. Are we? no, yes; see, down there in the court the big dome is still on our right. There's a regular grove of chimney stacks. You may believe it or not, but this sort of thing begins to make my head swim; it seems as if the whole place gave a lurch now and then, like a ship at sea.--The fountain must be over that way, do you see? for the maids are coming and going from there with their pitchers.--Oh well, I for one give the whole thing up. We want a guide, and an expert, or we'll never get out of this. I can't take another step; we've walked miles and I can't stand on my legs.--Hey, there, halloo! send us a guide!--Oh for a guide! Get me out of this infernal tangle quickly!"...

We came at last to Bringas's apartment. When we got there, we understood how we must have passed it, earlier, without knowing it, for its number was quite rubbed out and invisible.

Translation of William Henry Bishop.

FRANCIS GALTON

(1822-)

The modern doctrine of heredity regards man less as an individual than as a link in a series, involuntarily inheriting and transmitting a number of peculiarities, physical and mental. The general acceptance of this doctrine would necessitate a modification of popular ethical conceptions, and consequently of social conditions. Except Darwin, probably no one has done so much to place the doctrine on a scientific basis as Francis Galton, whose brilliant researches have sought to establish the hereditary nature of psychical as well as physical qualities.

Mr. Galton first took up the subject of the transmissibility of intellectual gifts in his 'Hereditary Genius' (1869). An examination of the relationships of the judges of England for a period of two hundred years, of the statesmen of the time of George III., of the premiers of the last one hundred years, and of a certain selection of divines and modern scholars, together with the kindred of the most illustrious commanders, men of letters and science, poets, painters, and musicians of all times and nations, resulted in his conclusion that man's mental abilities are derived by inheritance under exactly the same limitations as are the forms and features of the whole organic world. Mr. Galton argued that, as it is practicable to produce a highly gifted race of men by judicious marriages during several consecutive generations, the State ought to encourage by dowries and other artificial means such marriages as make for the elevation of the race.

Having set forth the hereditary nature of general intellectual ability, he attempts to discover what particular qualities commonly combine to form genius, and whether they also are transmissible. 'English Men of Science: Their Nature and Nurture' (1874) was a summary of the results obtained from inquiries addressed to the most eminent scientific men of England, respecting the circumstances of heredity and environment which might have been influential in directing them toward their careers. One hundred and eighty persons were questioned. From the replies it appeared that in the order of their prevalence, the chief qualities that commonly unite to form scientific genius are energy both of body and mind; good health; great independence of character; tenacity of purpose; practical business habits; and strong innate tastes for science generally, or for some branch of it. The replies indicated the hereditary character of the qualities in question, showing incidentally that in the matter of heredity the influence of the father is greater than that of the mother. It would have been interesting to have had the results of similar inquiries in the case of other classes of eminent persons,--statesmen, lawyers, poets, divines, etc. However, it is problematical whether other classes would have entered so heartily into the spirit of the inquiry, and given such full and frank replies.

Large variation in individuals from their parents is, he argues, not only not incompatible with the strict doctrine of heredity, but is a consequence of it wherever the breed is impure. Likewise, abnormal attributes of individual parents are less transmissible than the general characteristics of the family. Both these influences operate to deprive the science of heredity of the certainty of prediction in individual cases. The latter influence--_i. e._, the law of reversion--is made the subject of a separate inquiry in the volume entitled 'Natural Inheritance' (1889).

In 'Inquiries into the Human Faculty and its Development' (1883), he described a method of accurately measuring mental processes, such as sensation, volition, the formation of elementary judgments, and the estimation of numbers; suggested composite photography as a means of studying the physiognomy of criminal and other classes; treated the subject of heredity in crime; and discussed the mental process of visualizing.

'Finger Prints' (1892) is a study from the point of view of heredity of the patterns observed in the skin of finger-tips. These patterns are not only hereditary, but also furnish a certain means of identification--an idea improved in Mark Twain's story of 'Pudd'nhead Wilson.'

Mr. Galton is himself an example of the heredity of genius, being a grandson of Erasmus Darwin, the author of 'Zoonomia,' and a cousin of Charles Darwin. Born near Birmingham in 1822, he studied some time at Birmingham Hospital and at King's College, London, with the intention of entering the medical profession; but abandoned this design, and was graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1844. He soon after made two journeys of exploration in Africa, the latter of which is described in his 'Narrative of an Explorer in South Africa' (1853). An indirect result of these journeys was 'The Art of Travel; or Shifts and Contrivances in Wild Countries' (1855).

'Meteorographica' (1863) is noteworthy as the first attempt ever made to represent in charts on a large scale the progress of the weather, and on account of the theory of anti-cyclones which Mr. Galton advances in it.

Although strictly scientific in aim and method, Mr. Galton's writings, particularly those on heredity, appeal to all classes of readers and possess a distinct literary value. One may admire in them simplicity and purity of diction, animation of style, fertility in the construction of theory, resourcefulness in the search for proof, and a fine enthusiasm for the subject under consideration.

THE COMPARATIVE WORTH OF DIFFERENT RACES

From 'Hereditary Genius'

Every long-established race has necessarily its peculiar fitness for the conditions under which it has lived, owing to the sure operation of Darwin's law of natural selection. However, I am not much concerned for the present with the greater part of those aptitudes, but only with such as are available in some form or other of high civilization. We may reckon upon the advent of a time when civilization, which is now sparse and feeble and far more superficial than it is vaunted to be, shall overspread the globe. Ultimately it is sure to do so, because civilization is the necessary fruit of high intelligence when found in a social animal, and there is no plainer lesson to be read off the face of Nature than that the result of the operation of her laws is to evoke intelligence in connection with sociability. Intelligence is as much an advantage to an animal as physical strength or any other natural gift; and therefore, out of two varieties of any race of animal who are equally endowed in other respects, the most intelligent variety is sure to prevail in the battle of life. Similarly, among animals as intelligent as man, the most social race is sure to prevail, other qualities being equal.

Under even a very moderate form of material civilization, a vast number of aptitudes acquired through the "survivorship of the fittest" and the unsparing destruction of the unfit, for hundreds of generations, have become as obsolete as the old mail-coach habits and customs since the establishment of railroads, and there is not the slightest use in attempting to preserve them; they are hindrances, and not gains, to civilization. I shall refer to some of these a little further on, but I will first speak of the qualities needed in civilized society. They are, speaking generally, such as will enable a race to supply a large contingent to the various groups of eminent men of whom I have treated in my several chapters. Without going so far as to say that this very convenient test is perfectly fair, we are at all events justified in making considerable use of it, as I will do in the estimates I am about to give.

In comparing the worth of different races, I shall make frequent use of the law of deviation from an average, to which I have already been much beholden; and to save the reader's time and patience, I propose to act upon an assumption that would require a good deal of discussion to limit, and to which the reader may at first demur, but which cannot lead to any error of importance in a rough provisional inquiry. I shall assume that the _intervals_ between the grades of ability are the _same_ in all the races.... I know this cannot be strictly true, for it would be in defiance of analogy if the variability of all races were precisely the same; but on the other hand, there is good reason to expect that the error introduced by the assumption cannot sensibly affect the off-hand results for which alone I propose to employ it; moreover, the rough data I shall adduce will go far to show the justice of this expectation.

Let us then compare the negro race with the Anglo-Saxon, with respect to those qualities alone which are capable of producing judges, statesmen, commanders, men of literature and science, poets, artists, and divines. If the negro race in America had been affected by no social disabilities, a comparison of their achievements with those of the whites in their several branches of intellectual effort, having regard to the total number of their respective populations, would give the necessary information. As matters stand, we must be content with much rougher data.

First, the negro race has occasionally, but very rarely, produced such men as Toussaint L'Ouverture....

Secondly, the negro race is by no means wholly deficient in men capable of becoming good factors, thriving merchants, and otherwise considerably raised above the average of whites....

Thirdly, we may compare, but with much caution, the relative position of negroes in their native country with that of the travelers who visit them. The latter no doubt bring with them the knowledge current in civilized lands, but that is an advantage of less importance than we are apt to suppose. The native chief has as good an education in the art of ruling men as can be desired; he is continually exercised in personal government, and usually maintains his place by the ascendency of his character, shown every day over his subjects and rivals. A traveler in wild countries also fills to a certain degree the position of a commander, and has to confront native chiefs at every inhabited place. The result is familiar enough--the white traveler almost invariably holds his own in their presence. It is seldom that we hear of a white traveler meeting with a black chief whom he feels to be the better man. I have often discussed this subject with competent persons, and can only recall a few cases of the inferiority of the white man,--certainly not more than might be ascribed to an average actual difference of three grades, of which one may be due to the relative demerits of native education, and the remaining two to a difference in natural gifts.