Part 4
"But don't you see.... I am not a lady! and you are my husband!"
"You are right, ..." said he, kissing her; ... "you are right in all that you say. Always do what your heart prompts you to do, as just now, and you need not fear of making any mistake."
The bluish flames danced gayly over the top of the coals, rising and disappearing every instant, as though they were listening to the words spoken by the young couple, and then hurrying off to report them to some gnome of the fire.
From time to time a bit of burning cinder would break off from the glowing mass, fall through the grate, and come rolling down at their feet. Then Maximina would wait till it had cooled a little, pick it up in her fingers, and toss it into the coal-hod. The only sound to be heard was the heavy rumble of carriages driving to the theatre. The conversation between husband and wife kept growing more and more lively and free. Maximina gradually lost her feeling of timidity, through the effect of Miguel's constant endeavors, and she summoned up her courage to ask him about his past life. The young man answered some of her questions frankly; others he did not hesitate to parry. Nevertheless, the young woman gathered that her husband had not been altogether what he should have been, and she was terrified.
"Ay, Miguel! how could you ever have been audacious enough to kiss a married woman? Aren't you afraid that God will punish you?"
The young man's face instantly darkened; a deep, ugly frown furrowed his brow, and for some time he remained lost in thought.
Maximina looked at him, with her eyes opened wide, and could not understand the reason for such a change in his expression.
At last, looking at the fire, he said, in a rather hoarse voice:--
"If such a thing happened in my case, and I knew of it, I am certain what I should do.... The first thing would be to turn my wife out of doors, whether it were night or day, the moment I found it out...."
Poor Maximina was startled at such an outburst, as brutal as it was unexpected, and she exclaimed:--
"You would do well. Heavens! how shameful for a woman to be so brazen!... How much better it would be for her to die!"
The frown vanished from Miguel's brow; he looked tenderly at his wife, and feeling that such a talk was both useless and out of place, he kissed her hand, and said:--
"Why should we need to talk about the evil things that are done in the world? Fortunately, I have found a means of salvation: it is this hand; I will cling hold of it and be sure of being true and pure all my life long."
"You ought to ask forgiveness of God."
"I ask forgiveness of God and you, too?"
"As for me, I freely grant it."
"Then God will, also."
"How can you know that?... Ah, how foolish I am! I had forgotten that you went to confession only a few days ago."
"Yes; that was the way," said Miguel, who had likewise forgotten about it.
Afterwards, they talked about their domestic arrangement, their furniture, and the servants that they needed to hire.
Maximina argued that Juana and a cook would be sufficient. Miguel wanted another girl to do the sewing and laundry work. It was for this reason that he explained to his wife the extent of their resources.
"I have four thousand _duros_[10] income, but I want to let my sister and mamma have a thousand, so that they may live decently; ... with three thousand _duros_ a year we can get along first-rate."
"Oh! indeed we can.... Why don't you let your mamma and sister have half? Just think; they are used to luxury, and I am not.... I can get along with any kind of clothes."
"It is because I do not wish you to get along with any kind of clothes, but I want you to dress suitably."
"If you only knew how much it would please me to have you give half to your sister."
"It is impossible.... We must remember the possibility of children."
"Still, you would have a good deal left."
"You don't realize how much it costs to live in Madrid, dear."
After a moment of reflection he added:--
"On the whole, we won't do either; we will split the difference. I will allow them thirty thousand _reales_, and we will content ourselves with fifty thousand. What I am afraid of is, that I shall get a rascally brother-in-law who will run through the property."
Thus chatting, they spent the time till ten o'clock, and then they decided to go to bed. Miguel arose first and helped his wife to her feet; they lighted the candle and went to their room.
Maximina, according to custom, "blessed" the chamber, repeating a number of prayers which she had learned in the convent. Then they tranquilly went to sleep.
Just before dawn Miguel thought that he heard a singular noise at his side, and woke up. Instantly he was aware that his wife was kissing him on the neck, again and again, very gently, evidently with the idea of not disturbing his slumber; then, in an instant, he heard a sob.
"What is it, Maximina?" he asked, quickly turning over.
The girl's only answer was to throw her arms around him, and burst into a passion of tears.
"But what is it? Tell me quick! What is the matter?"
Choking with sobs, she managed to say:--
"Oh! I just had such bad dreams!... I dreamed that you turned me out of the house."
"Poor little darling!" exclaimed Miguel, fondling her tenderly; "your mind was impressed by what I said last evening.... I was a stupid blunderer!"
"I did not--know ... what it was--How I suffered, _virgen mia_! I thought I should die! If I had not waked up I should have died!... But you are not stupid.... I am, though!"
"Well, we both are; but calm yourself," he said, kissing her.
In a few moments both were sound asleep again.
IV.
Unusual silence reigned in the editorial rooms. Nothing was heard except the scratching of steel pens on paper. The editors were seated around a great table covered with oil-cloth; two or three, however, were writing at small pine tables, set in the corners of the room.
By and by one who had a beard just beginning to turn gray, raised his head, and said:--
"Tell me, Senor de Rivera, was not the motion determined upon for the eighteenth?"
Miguel, who was writing at one of the special tables, replied without lifting his head:--
"Senor Marroquin, I can't advise you too often to be more discreet. Try to realize that all our heads are in danger, from the humblest, like Senor Merelo y Garcia's, up to the most stately and glorious, like our very worthy chief's."
The editors smiled. One of them inquired:--
"And what has become of Merelo? He has not been here at all yet."
"He can't come till twelve," replied Rivera. "From ten till twelve he is always engaged in plotting against institutions in the Cafe del Siglo."
"I thought that he was in Levante."
"No; he goes there last from two till three."
The first speaker was the very same Senor Marroquin of perpetual memory, Miguel's professor in the Colegio de la Merced, a born enemy of the Supreme Creator and a man as hirsute as a biped can possibly be. This was how he happened to be here:--
One day when Miguel was just finishing his breakfast, word was brought to him that a gentleman was waiting to see him in the library. This gentleman was Marroquin, who in his appearance resembled a beggar; he was so poor, dirty, and disreputable. When he saw his old pupil, he was deeply moved, strange as it may appear, and then told him with genuine eloquence that he had not a shilling, and that he and his children were starving to death, and at the end he begged him to find a place for him on the staff of _La Independencia_.
"I am not the owner of the journal, my dear Marroquin. The only thing that I can do for you is to give you a letter to General Count de Rios."
He gave him the letter, and Marroquin presented himself with it at the general's house; but he had the ill fortune to go at a most inopportune moment when the general was raging up and down through the corridors of his house, like one possessed, and calling up the repertoire of objurgations for which he had been so distinguished when he was a sergeant.
The reason was that one of his little ones had drunk up a bottle of ink, under the impression that it was Valdepenas. Whether oaths and invectives have any decisive influence upon events or not, we are unable to state; but the general used them with as much faith as though they had been a powerful antidote.
The victim was leaning his poor little head against the partition, shedding a copious flood of tears.
"What have you brought?" roared the count, casting a wrathful look upon Marroquin.
"This letter," replied the poor man, offering it with trembling hand.
"Vomit!" roared the general, with flaming eyes.
"What?" asked the professor, timidly.
"Vomit, child, vomit! or I will shake you out of your skin!" bellowed the illustrious chief of Torrelodones, seizing his son by the neck.... "And what does the letter say?"
"It is from Senor Rivera, asking a position on _La Independencia_ for one who admires you."
"Can't you? Then put your fingers in your mouth!.... Senor Rivera knows perfectly well that there is no position vacant; everything is full, and I am tormented to death with applications.... Let me see you stuff your fingers in, you little rascal, or I will do it myself!"
Marroquin acted prudently, by quietly opening the door and slipping out. Afterward Miguel spoke to the general at a more propitious moment and succeeded in getting Marroquin a place on the staff at a monthly salary of five hundred reales.[11]
Among the other editors of _La Independencia_ was an apostate and liberal priest who had let his beard grow long, and used to tell his friends secrets of the confessional when he had been drinking. He was one of Marroquin's intimates: both had the same grudge against the Divinity, and both were working enthusiastically to free humanity from its yoke. Nevertheless, one day he actually became ready to quarrel with the hirsute professor for turning the Eucharist into ridicule, which confirmed the former in his idea that "the priest was changing his views."
His name was Don Cayetano.
One other of the editors was a light-haired, handsome, and bashful young man, whose seat was in one of the corners of the room, and he lifted his head only when he overheard some brilliant sentence, for such things aroused his frantic admiration. His articles were always a mosaic of sonorous, titillating euphemisms, and adjectives, which formed a large proportion of Gomez de la Floresta's repertory: he played with them like a juggler; if any one desired to make him happy, he could find no easier way than by inventing some metaphor or making use of some harmonious adjective. Rivera, who knew this weakness of his, used to indulge him in it.
"This afternoon, gentlemen, I saw a woman whose glance was as bright as a Damascus blade."
Gomez de la Floresta's face would flush with pleasure, and he would look up with a smile of congratulation:--
"That means that it was a cold and cutting glance!"
"Her skin was smooth and brilliant with marble lines; her hair fell like a golden cataract upon her swan-like neck, which was bound around with a diamond necklace, brilliant as drops of light...."
"Drops of light! How felicitous that is, Rivera! how felicitous!"
"She was a woman capable of making life Oriental for a time."
"That is it! Taking refuge with her in a minaret, breathing the perfumes of Persia, letting her pearly fingers caress our locks, drinking from her mouth the nectar of delight!"
"I am delighted, Senor de Floresta, to see that you are consistent. Let us put a stop to it, nevertheless. You have been having an attack of phrases on the brain, and I fear a fatal termination."
The editor smiled in mortification and went on with his work.
A slender young man, with prominent cheek bones, almond-shaped eyes, and awkward gait, came in, making a great confusion, and humming a few strains of a waltz; he went up to the table where Miguel was writing, and giving him a slap on the shoulder, said, with a jolly tone:--
"_Hola_, friend Rivera!"
Miguel, without looking up, replied very solemnly:--
"Gently, gently, Senor Merelo! gently, we are not all on a level!"
The editors roared with laughter.
Merelo, a little touched, exclaimed:--
"This Rivera is always making jokes.... Now, senor, ..." he went on to say, flinging his sombrero on the table.... "I have just this moment come from the tariff meeting at the Teatro del Circo...."
"Who spoke?... Who spoke?" was asked from various parts of the room.
"Well, Don Gabriel Rodriguez, Moret y Prendergast, Figuerola, and our chief; but the one who made the best speech was Don Felix Bona."
"Man alive! and what did he say?"
"Well, he began by saying that he ... the most insignificant of all that were there...."
"Senor Merelo! and is it possible that you did not protest against such a statement?" asked Miguel from his table.
Merelo looked at him without seeing the force of his remark; but finally feeling the hidden prick of sarcasm, he made up a disgusted face and went on, affecting to scorn it:--
" ... That he had come there to speak in the name of Commerce at least...."
"But, friend Merelo," interrupted the ex-curate, who greatly delighted in poking fun at the reporter, ... "you surely ought to have protested against his claim to humility."
Merelo could to a certain point put up with Rivera's raillery, since he recognized his superiority, but the priest's went against his nerves. And so, full of wrath, he put his hands together after the manner of priests during mass, and intoned:--
"_Dominus vobiscum!_"
A general laugh went round among the editors. The cure flushed up to his ears, and, greatly disgusted, tried to shoot the same jest again, only winging it with a sharper point; but the reporter, who was not remarkable for his ingenuity, kept replying:--
"_Dominus vobiscum!_" And his intonation was so comical and clerical that the newspaper men had to hold their sides with laughter.
The priest finally became so irritated that instead of jests he actually heaped insults on him. One of them was so outrageous and shameful that the latter felt called upon to raise his hand and give the priest a tremendous slap.
A scene of confusion and tumult arose in the office, lasting several moments. A number of men laid hold of Don Cayetano, who, with the exchange scissors in his hand, declared in an angry voice his intention of ripping Merelo open.
The latter, who did not care a rap for such a threat, roared to his companions to let him go: he would not put up with such blackguard language from any one. But his friends knew well that this was sheer rhetoric, and they clung to him all the more watchfully.
At last they succeeded in calming down the angry disputants, and the storm was followed by a calm that lasted for a quarter of an hour, during which all silently gave themselves up to their writing. At last Miguel looked up and asked:--
"See here, Senor Merelo, when do you expect to go to Rome?"
"To Rome?... What for?"
"To obtain pardon for the sin of having laid hands on a sacred person. You can't get absolution here."
A new shout of laughter ran through the office. The priest, in a fury, flung down his pen, took his hat, and left the room.
The editors of _La Independencia_ lost much time in such skirmishes of wit, and our friend Rivera was almost always at the bottom of them.
Beside the men already mentioned, there were three or four of less distinction, and a throng of occasional contributors who came anxiously every night to bring the editor-in-chief their offering of articles, which, for the most part, were rejected.
Among all these, most attention was attracted by a young man, not as yet regularly attached to the staff, hideous, rickety, but well dressed, who was accustomed to write papers on literary criticism, always signed with the pseudonym _Rosa de te_, or Tea Rose. He was very severe on authors, and always felt it his duty to give them sound advice about the art which they practised. Time and again he assured them that this thing was not human, that was not like life, and the other was not in good form. He had a great deal to say about life, which, in his opinion, no author knew anything about, nor about women either. Only _Rosa de te_ had a correct notion of the world and of woman's heart.
From the very beginning of his criticisms, he endeavored to put the author in the prisoner's box, while he himself mounted the judge's bench, wherefrom he would ask questions, administer blame, lay down the law, and make sarcastic and humorous flings.
"Where did Don Fulano[12] ever know of a young girl exclaiming, 'ah!' when she had the tooth-ache?... It is evident that Don Fulano has not often set foot in the salons of the aristocracy!... Life, Don Fulano, is not as you paint it; it is necessary to have lived within the charmed circle of society if one aspire to give a correct picture of it.... What we fail to find in Don Fulano's work is the plot.... And the plot, Don Fulano, the plot?... What kind of a character is the hero of his work? In one chapter he says that he has a tremendous appetite, and liked nothing better than to eat a box of Nantes sardines, and a few chapters further on he declares that he detests sardines! What kind of logic is that? Characters in art must be clearly defined, logical, not a patchwork. Don Fulano's _protagonista_ here alone in the course of the work, according to our count, makes nineteen resolutions. Does Don Fulano think that nineteen resolutions are sufficient for a hero? Our opinion would be that it was not enough for even a subordinate character.... And so there is no way of preventing the character from being bungling, colorless, lacking in life and energy. Energy in the characters of novels and dramas I cannot weary of recommending to our authors.... Besides, you ought to endeavor, Don Fulano, to be more original. That remark made by Richard to the countess in the sixth chapter, where he says, ... 'Senora, I shall never again set foot in this house,' we have read before in Walter Scott."
This young man had greatly pleased Miguel, who always called him the priest (_sacerdote_), because he had many times in his articles made use of the expression "the priesthood of criticism."
_Rosa de te_, so bold and scornful in his treatment of poets and novelists, was a very Job in the patience with which he bore the raillery of Miguel and the other editors.
One day, however, he had the misfortune to write a biting review of a poet who was one of Rivera's friends. Rivera was angry, and called him an ignoramus and a stupid lout to his face, and the poor _Rosa_ could not get up to defend himself. When Mendoza came, Miguel, still vexed, said to him:--
"Now, see here, Perico, why do you allow this stupid baby to write literary reviews, and all the time make the paper ridiculous?"
Mendoza, as usual, made no answer. But Miguel insisted.
"I want you to explain to me why it is...."
"We don't have to pay anything for his articles," replied the other, in a low voice.
"Then they are very dear!"
Although Miguel did not care much for politics, he worked diligently on the paper. The revolutionary atmosphere had sufficiently condensed itself, and no young man could escape its feverish and disturbing influence.
The Conde de Rios was at last banished to the Balearic Islands. Mendoza suddenly disappeared from Madrid, leaving a letter to his friend Miguel, telling him that he had made his escape because he had been informed that the police were going to arrest him, and asking him to take charge of the paper.
Such a letter as that caused the brigadier's son no little amusement, because he was convinced that the administration had no thought of troubling the poor Brutandor.
Nevertheless, he actually took the chief editorship of _La Independencia_, the nominal direction of it being, as always in such calamitous times of persecution, under the name of a silent partner.
And, in order satisfactorily to fulfil his trust, he began to attend the so-called _circulos politicos_, and above all the committee-room of the Congress of Deputies, which was then, is now, and ever will be, probably, the workshop where the happiness of the country is devised. So when he went there for the first time, he could not overcome a feeling of respect and veneration.
At the sight of the stir and agitation which reigned there, our hero could not help comparing that chamber and the corridors around it to a great factory.
A host of laborers, in high hats, were going and coming, entering and bowing, and elbowing each other; their faces bore the imprint of the deep cares that agitated them. Some were sitting in front of desks and feverishly writing letters and more letters; from time to time they would pass their hands over their foreheads and draw a sigh of weariness, and, perhaps, of pain at finding themselves obliged, on the altars of the country's interest, to deny a meeting with some influential elector who did not deserve such treatment.
Others would come out of the chamber of sessions and sit down on a sofa to think over the speech which they had just heard, or would join some group of members warmly discussing some question which, owing to a modesty that did them honor, they had not cared to take part in during the session.
Others would cluster around the entrance and anxiously wait for some minister to pass, so as to recommend to his attention some matter of general interest to his family.
All this reminded Miguel of the bustle, the noise, and the tremendous activity that he had witnessed in an iron foundry at Vizcaya. There as well as here men were moving in opposite directions, each one attending to his task; they were a little less respectably dressed, and their necks and breasts were somewhat more tanned than was the case with the representatives of their country; but this was because there was rather more heat in the foundry than in the _salon de conferencias_. In place of letters and other documents, the men there were lugging bars of red-hot iron in their hands, and they passed them on from one to the other just as the deputies passed on their papers.
It must not be supposed that it was cool in the _salon de conferencias_. In each one of its four angles there was a great fireplace where were burning ancient and well-dried logs, which the thoughtful country provides her representatives lest they should freeze. Besides, there are furnaces in the cellar which send up columns of hot air through the open registers; the carpets, the curtains, the ventilators, and the screens also cause the temperature to be neither cold nor hot beyond endurance.
Unquestionably the system of heating is better understood in the _salon de conferencias_ than in the foundry at Vizcaya.
Along its walls are large and comfortable sofas where the deputies and the newspaper men, who help them in the laborious task of saving the country, can rest for a few moments. And if they wish to refresh or restore their failing strength, there is, also, a lunch-room where the nation furnishes its managers, gratis, with water and _azucarillos_[13] in great abundance, and where, for a moderate price, they can get ham, turkey, pies, sherry, and Manzanilla, and other foods and drinks.
Intelligent and zealous waiters, as soon as they come in, relieve them of their overcoats, which they guard with care, and return after they have lunched, lest in any way they should catch cold.
Miguel was greatly impressed, when he first attended a meeting of the Congress, by the humility and deep respect shown by a waiter taking a fur overcoat from a gentleman with a long white goatee, who allowed him to do so, with a solemn and peevish expression, moving his head from one side to the other as though he could not hold it up with the weight of thoughts that filled it.