CHAPTER VI

THE CHIEF RESIDENTS OF SARRIO AT THEIR CLUB

Don Melchor de Las Cuevas rose from the table, lighted a cigar and, offering one to his nephew, said:

"Let us go and have coffee."

Gonzalo was about to put the cigar in his pocket, not having hitherto been permitted to smoke in his uncle's presence; but the old man touched his arm, saying:

"Light it, my boy, light it; you are not a yunker now."

So the young fellow took out a match and began puffing at the Havana with enjoyment, and the men then left the house together, and proceeded slowly down the street with the air of utter comfort worn by powerful-looking men after a heavy meal. They were as silent and majestic as two magnificent cedars unrustled by a breeze. The women at work in their doorways looked after them with interest and admiration.

"Who's the young man with Don Melchor?"

"What! don't you know? 'Tis his nephew, Señor Gonzalo, who arrived last night in the 'Bella Paula.'"

"He is a fine, strapping fellow."

"Like his father, Don Martos, God rest his soul."

"And like his grandfather, Don Benito," added an old woman. "What a noble, fine-looking family they are!"

At the top of a street which commanded a view to the sea, Señor de las Cuevas stopped a minute to cast his eye over the waters.

"Fine weather at sea! a slight breeze coming up! Do you see them?" he added, with an expression of triumph after a minute.

"What?"

"The launches, man, the launches. Don't you see them?"

"I see nothing," returned Gonzalo, fixing his eyes on the horizon.

"You are just as you were; you see nothing but the soup in your plate," said the uncle, with a sarcastic smile.

The Café de la Marina was already full of people. The clatter of conversation and disputes, the clink of the glasses, the ring of the domino pieces on the marble table, made a deafening noise. The place was situated in the small square formed by the junction of the Rua Nueva with the harbor, and one side of the house looked on to the sea. Most of the captains and pilots who stopped at Sarrio on their cruises resorted thither, as did the majority of the residents, who, without being sailors, had a partiality for what was maritime.

The entrance of our friends was hailed with delight from different tables. Don Melchor was the most popular and the most highly respected frequenter of the café.

He had to greet all the assembled company, and take Gonzalo up to each of them.

The jolly fellows were all delighted with the young man, and wrung his hand almost to dislocation, while they were eager and hearty in their offers of a glass of wine or maraschino; and when this was refused on the plea of taking coffee upstairs, a profound gloom overspread their countenances.

As a matter of fact, Don Melchor was accustomed to have his coffee in the small saloon, which was a room on the first floor of the house, communicating with the café by an iron staircase, which the uncle and nephew finally ascended.

There the chief residents of the town were congregated, seated on a circular sofa, with little Japanese tables in front of them, on all of which coffee was served.

Through one of the doors, which was generally left open, could be seen the billiard room, where the same people always played, with the same on-lookers. When Don Melchor and his nephew entered a project was in course of discussion for keeping the poor women who sell vegetables and milk from intemperance.

And Gonzalo recollected that on a certain occasion, when he came thither to see his uncle before going to England, the same matter was then under discussion. The themes varied little in that assembly. The town continued its tranquil even course in the midst of its daily work. The only events that occasionally shook it from its lethargy were the arrival or departure of some important ship, the death of a well-known person, a dishonored bill, the paving of some street, the tax on some merchandise, the lightering of contraband goods, or the bad state of the harbor.

The women and young people were too much taken up with their own affairs to trouble about outside matters. But the arrival of any handsome young stranger caused a great sensation among the marriageable girls; and if any young man walked for the first time with Margarita at the Promenade, it was looked upon as a settled affair; if Severino of the ironmongery administered a beating to his wife, what could she expect after marrying such a drunken fellow? and the dress that a certain young girl wore on the Day of Our Lady made quite an excitement.

"You say it came from Madrid! What Madrid? Why, I saw it cut out at Martina's myself!"

The subscription dance announced at the Lyceum formed a great topic of discussion.

"I don't believe there will be a ball; the young men fight too shy of expense."

But the grave elders who frequented the Club despised these themes, albeit they sometimes condescended to touch upon them.

Gonzalo had seen Don Rosendo, Don Mateo, Don Pedro Miranda, and the mayor the previous evening. But Gabino Maza, Don Feliciano Gomez, M. Delaunay, the French engineer, Alvaro Peña, Marin, Don Lorenzo, Don Agapito, and five or six other men whom he had not yet seen, were there, and they all rose to embrace the young man.

Don Pedro Miranda, whom we have already mentioned, was a man considerably past seventy, small and insignificant looking, with a smooth bald head, large solemn eyes, and of a retiring disposition.

He was the richest landowner in the place, and no titled person in the town could have been a better representative of the aristocracy, in virtue of his own descent from an old family of landowners.

To this distinction, however, he attached but small importance. He was an unpretentious, courteous man, who consorted with all his neighbors regardless of his superior rank; and he was always extremely particular not to allude to money, or to be in any wise dictatorial or antagonistic to anybody.

But if he entirely waived the respect due to his birth, he was very jealous of his rights as a landowner.

Never was there a proprietor more proprietary than Don Pedro Miranda.

The institutions of ancient as well as modern law, the universities, the army and navy, the political constitution, and religion itself had no other excuse for existence in his eyes but that of contributing, directly or indirectly, to the preservation of his seignorial rights.

The marvelous microcosm of the universe was designed for the support of his indisputable claim to the full possession of Praducos, a hamlet two miles from the town, and to his right of an annual fee of a hundred and fifty ducats in consideration of his title to the land at the mouth of the river.

This very clear sense of his rights engendered, from very excess of clearness, several disputes. A laborer would come to him and say:

"Señor, Joaquim the martin-breeder cut to-day some of the branches of your walnut tree which hung over into his garden."

"But the walnut tree was mine," exclaimed Don Pedro, crimson with rage and surprise.

"Yes, señor, but it hung over into his garden."

"What! The fellow dared to touch anything which is _mine_--_mine_!"

Thereupon a little lawsuit ensued, which, of course, he lost. He lost dozens of these lawsuits in the course of his life, without growing any wiser on the subject.

Don Roque de la Riva, the mayor of Sarrio, whom we had the honor of comparing, when we first saw him at the theatre, to a courtier of the time of Louis XV, or a coachman of some great house, was not distinguished for clearness of speech, for it was so indistinct and confused that his interlocutors had great difficulty in understanding him. We do not know whether the mutilation of his words took place in his mouth, throat, or nose, but it is a fact that they usually came forth transformed into such mysterious, vague, chaotic utterances that they were completely unintelligible. More especially was it impossible to talk with him after dinner, and this for no other reason, according to report, than because Don Roque would insist on patronizing a wine called Rivero, so strong that nobody could touch it without fear of getting intoxicated.

This head of the corporation used to leave home every afternoon, apparently alone, but in reality with an escort. His enormous shaven face was very red, and the color was accentuated in his huge Roman nose; his eyes, bloodshot and half closed, as if unable to bear the weight of his eyelids, looked slowly into every corner of the street with an expression of physical comfort; his ponderous, slow, vacillating step showed the sympathetic state between his psychical and physical faculties. Don Roque only had to come across some official, sweeper, watchman, or stone-breaker of the municipality to make his enjoyment complete.

When from afar he espied one, his eyelids were quickly raised and his nostrils quivered like those of a tiger at approach of prey. Suppose the fellow, scenting the approach of the tiger, passed into another street or tried to hide himself! Don Roque shouted to him, with a voice of thunder:

"Juan, Juaan, Juaaan!"

The victim heard and bowed his head.

"Have you taken the message to Don Lorenzo?"

"Yes, señor."

"Have you told the secretary that he must let the matter of the cemetery stand over?"

"Yes, señor."

"Have you taken the documents to the petty court of San Martin?"

"Yes, señor."

"Have you told Don Manuel that he must take away that rubbish in front of his house?"

In fact, he went on asking questions until the poor official came to a negative answer.

Then the loud voice of the mayor was heard all down the street, and even to the end of the town; his eyes became more inflamed, and his apoplectic face grew quite alarming. It was impossible to understand what he said. His ejaculations alone would have made his discourse incomprehensible, but these were enunciated in such a chaotic fashion that the "h" alone was distinguishable.

The scolding never lasted less than fifteen or twenty minutes; he required no less time to let off the superfluous spleen which had accumulated since the previous afternoon. Just as there are people who put their fingers down their throats in the morning to make themselves ill, so Don Roque was not happy until he had had this ebullition of wrath. He had only one interjection in his vocabulary, but this he used in such abundance that quantity atoned for quality.

The neighbors came out of their doors to hear him, but with a smile on their faces, as if accustomed to such scenes.

"Don Roque is giving it hot to-day," said one to another in a loud voice.

"See how Juan is behaving." In fact, every time the mayor turned his back the clerk put up his thumb and made a long nose at him.

Don Roque liked to come upon a road-sweeper or a stone-breaker at his work. For he would cautiously approach him from behind and, catching him by the collar, exclaim:

"Ah! so that's the way you sweep, is it!--ah! Do you think I pay you to leave half the dirt between the stones?--ah! Is this gratitude?--ah! It is shameful!--ah!"

Once the zeal for his office led him to seize the broom and give the man an object-lesson in the art of sweeping.

The townsfolk, the few passers-by in the street, and also some young ladies whom the noise had brought to a window went into fits of laughter. The sweeper himself, in spite of his awkward position, could not help smiling at the energy with which the figure, with its coat-tails flying, made erratic and angry dashes at the ground.

"Is that the way you sweep?--ah!" (Terrible bang with the broom.) "That is the way--ah!" (another bang). "That is the way to sweep!--ah!"

Not until worn out, heated, and nearly falling from fatigue, did the mayor hand back the broom, and take up his tasseled stick again.

Having thus relieved his noble heart of the superfluous ah's which weighted it, he resumed his way, and arrived at the Club in a very happy state of body and mind.

Gabino Maza was a man of about five-and-forty years of age, a naval officer who had retired some years before from the service, his ungovernable temper being unable to brook professional discipline.

He had an olive complexion, and small bright eyes, with dark lines underneath which showed his bilious temperament. He was tall, wiry, and masculine, and his hair and beard were of a blue-black hue; his gestures were always nervous and violent; his voice was indefinable, sometimes quiet, but when he was at all agitated, which was almost always the case when he began to speak, it was loud and shrill, and of such a discordant falsetto that it was deafening.

With his little income, and a tiny pension, he was able to support his family in Sarrio with the comfort of a gentleman at ease, which in the capital of the province would have been impossible.

A born disputant, he brought into every question, trivial as it might be, an amount of passion and violence that was truly alarming, so anxious was he to contradict whatever was said, although it might be as clear as noonday. He judged people in such a severe and pessimistic spirit that he never believed in the pure motive of a kind action, however noble and honorable it might seem; and his spite and malignity bordered on madness. Nevertheless, this man was not so much disliked by his neighbors as might have been expected. The intimacy of a village or little town gives greater scope for learning the true character of each individual than is possible in large places, where a merely superficial intercourse may permit many cold, selfish, bad-tempered men to disguise their true selves with a sympathetic veneer, and polite words, courteous manners, and an insinuating smile win the encomium, "nice, agreeable sort of a person."

But in the country that all goes for naught, and, on the contrary, excessive amiability and very sweet smiles excite distrust. The character of everybody is as ruthless and as minutely examined as if it were a bundle of nerves under the dissector's knife; so that many people are hated who seemed at first attractive; and others liked who were at first sight considered aggressive, hard, and violent.

Dissimulation, so much practised in great towns, is never tolerated in the provinces, albeit it is the prevailing vice of all social relationships. Quick tempers and excitable natures do not arouse mistrust, as they are at least "clear and aboveboard." There is always a sense of justice in such people which, distorted and overbalanced by passion as it may be, does not make them disliked. Besides, as quick temper and excitability are a constant cause of self-suffering and discomfort, both physical and moral, it is justly considered that men of this temperament reap their own retribution.

Gabino Maza was neither disliked nor very much liked; those who were offended by him grumbled at him and kept him at a distance, terming him a malignant, sharp-tongued fellow; and the others laughed at his exaggerated style, and enjoyed a conversation with him without professing any great regard for him.

Another of the characters frequenting this café was Don Feliciano Gomez, a retail merchant in ultramarine goods, and also the owner of three or four vessels and several smacks which traded along the Biscayan coast, the largest sometimes going even as far as Seville. He was of middle height; his head, destitute of hair, was pyramidal in form; his waxed mustaches were turned up to his nose, and his voice was almost always hoarse. He was a cheerful, kind, optimistic sort of fellow; he was a confirmed bachelor, and lived with his three elder sisters, whom he had made real "señoras" by dint of his own hard work and economy. The reward they gave him, according to public report, was to keep him in hand like a child, admonish his slightest faults, and worry and torment him in every imaginable way. Nevertheless, he was never heard to utter a single word of complaint against them.

M. Delaunay, the Belgian engineer, arrived at Sarrio a few years before our story opens, with the object of managing a mining district for an imposing English company. The working was a failure, and the company deprived him of his post and his pay. But Delaunay, who was a born speculator, undertook seven or eight other commercial enterprises. First he started a manufactory of paper, then one of French nails, then he conceived the idea of cultivating oysters, then he tried a cheese factory, and ice factory; and finally he thought of turning to account some large, uncultivated tracts of land near Sarrio.

All the enterprises had failed without anybody knowing why. Delaunay was certainly intelligent, clear-headed, and industrious. He was complete master of every trade that he entered into; he ordered all the apparatus from England, set it up, and it worked well and produced very satisfactory results. He attributed his failures to the lack of means of transport. The last of his famous enterprises, which died before it came into practise, brought more discredit on him than any other.

In one of his excursions in the environs of the town he noticed close to a little river some uncultivated land, which he thought could easily, with a little trouble, be cultivated; he computed its value, drew out a plan, and when, a few months later, he found himself compelled to close the ice factory and to dismiss the workmen, he recollected this low land and mentioned it to Don Rosendo Belinchon, Don Feliciano Gomez, and two West Indians, so that they might aid him in his grand scheme. They replied that it would be necessary to see the district, and an expedition was arranged. One morning they set off on horseback, and took the direction of the river Orleo, six miles from Sarrio. Arriving there, they left the horses and ascended the hill on foot, from whence they could see the marsh land.

What was Delaunay's shame and confusion, when he saw the tract that he intended to cultivate covered with maize, beautifully green and flourishing. In fact, it had been under cultivation for more than six years; and his mistake arose from having seen it in December, when it dies down.

The party returned to the town, and one can imagine what a joke was made of the incident.

He was ruined at last, and he found himself obliged to live in a wretched fashion.

But his rage for speculation increased instead of being dampened by failure, and this to such a degree that there was not a single capitalist in Sarrio whom he had not tried to inveigle into some of his enterprises.

At one time it was a road to the capital, another a port of refuge, or stone moles, and another time a grand hotel. Some West Indians, certainly only a few, fell victims to his persuasions, and paid for their innocence with the loss of some thousands of pesetas.

However, Delaunay was a man of talent, and studious, and he was well informed in all the improvements of science, so to depreciate him would be injustice.

The harbor-master, Alvaro Peña, a young fellow thirty years of age, dark, with large black eyes, and a mustache like King Victor Emmanuel's, was noted for his profound, implacable hatred against the ecclesiastical profession, and all who represented it, even to his own brother.

Without any taste for science or literature, he owned a rather extensive library, consisting exclusively of books against religion and its ministers. He was a contributor to two or three periodicals, known by their anti-clerical opinions; and it was said that he had been occupying himself for some years past collecting data for a book that he thought of publishing under the title "Religion, the Most Retrograde of Sciences," of which several of his acquaintances had been introduced to different portions. He was cheerful and straightforward, and loved stories and jokes in which some priest or monk played the chief part.

Don Jaime Marin, the owner of four hundred acres of land which, with the tax, realized six thousand pesetas, would have been a great scoundrel, a fast, bad man, if he had not had Doña Brigida for a wife. This important lady managed, with laudable energy, to prevent her husband ruining the whole family, and being turned out of doors. Before he finished making ducks and drakes of the property she succeeded in depriving him judicially of its control, and having it made over to her.

It is not easy to describe the firmness with which Doña Brigida took the reins of management. No Roman patrician was ever imbued with a greater sense of the _sui juris_ of the sacred rights with which "the city" had invested her. From the time of this occurrence Don Jaime, who was then over fifty years of age, dropped into being a mere _thing_ in her hands, according to the law's decree. In his character of _alieni juris_ he had to submit to the direct and constant sway of his lord and master, and to bow in all ways to her universal will.

Farewell to sumptuous suppers of shellfish and Rueda wine in the Café de la Marina! Farewell to hunting the hare with Fermo the butcher and Mercelino the engraver! Farewell to delightful nights of tresillo! Farewell to afternoons of peace and happiness on the lake of Sebastian de la Puente! Farewell! The obdurate lady put three pesetas in his hand every Sunday, neither more nor less. It was all the pocket money he had to spend on his pleasures for the week, with the exception of smoking, which she took in hand herself, buying the cigars and all. When he required a hat, she bought it for him; when he needed a suit of clothes, or a pair of boots, she told the tailor or shoemaker to call and measure him. She even prevented his going to the barber's for fear he should spend the two reales, and so the barber came on Saturdays to shave him. It sometimes happened that the barber came when Don Jaime was still asleep.

"What am I to do?" he asked of Doña Brigida.

"Shave him," returned the inexorable señora.

Obedient to the command, the barber approached the bedside, covered the face with soap and quietly shaved Don Jaime while still half asleep, and on his finally rousing himself, he said to the servant who brought him his chocolate:

"To-day is Saturday; let the barber be brought."

"You ass, you silly, that no priest can shrive," replied his sweet consort from her room, "don't you see you are shaved already?"

"Ah so I am," returned the good señor, feeling his face.

At first he asked his friends or acquaintances at the café for money with which to play tresillo, and he drank coffee on trust at the café. But the friends soon left off obliging him, and the proprietor of the establishment declined to even trust him for a peseta, for Doña Brigida almost knocked him downstairs when he one day brought her a bill for a hundred and twenty reales.

So Don Jaime was reduced to spending hours in watching the game of tresillo and in giving advice to the players, which was not wanted. The winners sometimes rewarded him with a glass of rum.

He occasionally played drafts with Don Lorenzo, but as the latter declined to play "for love," Marin had to find something to play for which was not money. He finally decided to have for a stake one of the cigars that his wife gave him in the morning; when he lost it, he had to spend the evening without smoking; sometimes, trying to get his revenge, he lost two or three more, and so he had to hand them over to his opponent on the ensuing days. In the meanwhile he went from friend to friend begging a little tobacco to appease his insufferable longing for a smoke. Poor Marin!

Doña Brigida could never succeed in making him retire to rest early. He had spent so many years in being up till four or five in the morning that it was now impossible to break the habit. As, when he was kept at home, he never went to bed until dawn, and as he spent the night in wandering about the rooms, and the bad habit of being up at night by one's self is very inexpensive, the ingenious señora let him retire to rest at what hour he liked. He remained at the Café de la Marina with the latest customers, and when these had gone he waited while the servants put away the china and glass, and the proprietor was ready to shut up. When he was literally sent off from the establishment, he withdrew to the Rua Nueva, where he sat with his friend the watchman, and, chatting with him, passed the hours before dawn.

Don Lorenzo, Don Agapito, Don Pancho, Don Aquilino, Don German, and Don Justo were _Indians_. That is to say, they were people who had been sent as children to the West Indians by their parents to earn their living, and they had returned between fifty and sixty years of age with fortunes varying from one hundred and fifty to half a million pesetas. There were more than fifty of these Indians in Sarrio. The hard work and the long state of self-suppression in which they had lived made their ideas of happiness quite different to ours. We find pleasure in a constant change of amusement, in going about and traveling, and enjoying with both body and mind the beautiful variety of things of nature.

But these West Indians looked for nothing more than exemption from the hard law imposed by God on Adam after his fall; and, in truth, they gave themselves up to this peculiar delight. The majority of them had their money invested in government funds, so they had their incomes without any trouble. They were early risers from force of habit, and they paraded the streets or the mole every morning in parties of six or eight. They watched the arrival and departure of boats, and the loading and unloading of cargoes. After dinner, they retired to the Café de la Marina, or to that of La Amistad, and spent three or four hours watching or joining in the game of billiards.

"Go, little ivory ball, go into that pocket! See, see, Don Pancho, it has cannoned." "Come out, my little dear, come out of that pocket." "Ah! ah! well played, Don Lorenzo!" "Did it not go well, Pancho?"

The game was always seasoned with these remarks, which went on without pause.

When the days were long, these West Indians were seen in parties about the environs of the town, either walking, or seated on the grass on the banks of a stream. That was the hour of reminiscences of the tropics.

"Do you recollect, Don Agapito, do you recollect that little dark creature who came to you for a place in the shop?"

"And how well she sang, the little rogue!"

"They said you were smitten with her, quite smitten, Don Agapito."

"How now, Don Pancho--why, she only went to the blacks' ball with the negro of my partner, Don Justo?"

"Get along, man, don't annoy me; the one who went to the ball was yourself; I saw you sportive enough with her in the country dance."

There was no counting on this West Indian clique for subscriptions for the orchestra, theatre, or any public amusement. The young people of the town had to apply to the purses of their fathers, for they knew it was useless to expect American money to be forthcoming, which roused such indignation among the young people that they called them stingy fellows, boors, and money-laden asses to their faces as well as behind their backs. But the Indians were thick-skinned, and treated such terms with contempt. The one who professed an open aversion to them (and for whom did he not entertain it?) was Gabino Maza.

Why should these fifty idlers spend their days dawdling about the streets? If they would only devote their money to some industry profitable to the place!

When Don Melchor de las Cuevas and his nephew entered the saloon, the only person standing and gesticulating in the middle of the place was this same Gabino Maza.

He could not remain seated two minutes; the excitement of his nervous system, the vehemence with which he tried to convince his audience, obliged him to jump from his seat and dash into the centre of the room, where he shouted and gesticulated until he had exhausted his breath and his strength. He was talking of the theatrical company, which had announced its departure on account of having lost in the receipts of thirty performances.

Maza was trying to prove that there had not been such losses and it was all make-up.

"It is not true; it is not true. He who says he has lost a copper, lies!" (Then lowering his voice and giving his hand to Gonzalo.) "How are you, Gonzalo? Yes, I know you arrived yesterday. You are all right. I am glad of it. I repeat, that he lies! Why, they don't dare to tell me so!"

"They have lost six thousand reals in the thirty performances, according to the account that the baritone has given me," said Don Mateo.

Maza ground his teeth. His indignation impeded his speech. At last he burst out:

"And you listen to that drunkard, Don Mateo? Get along! get along!" (With assumed disdain.) "By dint of consorting with comic players you have lost your head for business. You have got rusty."

"Listen to me, you blusterer. I did not say I believed him. I said that was what the baritone's calculations came to."

Maza leaped up, and returned to the centre of the room, tore his hat violently from his head with both hands, and, waving it frantically, he vociferated:

"But, señor; but, señor! We seem to be made fools of here! Well, you tell me what has become of twenty thousand and more reals which the receipts came to, and almost as much again for admissions paid at the door?"

"The salaries have very much increased," said the harbor-master.

"You are not drunk, by Gad, Alvaro! You are not drunk--I will tell you in a minute what the salaries are" (counting on his fingers.) "The tenor, six crowns; the treble, another six; that's twelve; the bass, four; that's sixteen; the contralto, three; that's nineteen; the baritone, four--"

"The baritone, five," interrupted Peña.

"The baritone, four," persisted Maza in a rage.

"I am certain it is five."

"The baritone, four!" roared Maza again.

Alvaro Peña now rose in his turn, fired with the noble desire of getting the better of his opponent, and then ensued a hot and furious dispute, which lasted about an hour, and all, or nearly all, the members of that gathering of celebrities joined in. Such a battle resembled the famous engagements that took place between the Greeks before the walls of Troy; there was the same fury and heat, the same primitive simplicity in the arguments, and the same candid, rough violence in the invectives.

"You are an addle-headed blunderer!"

"Hold your tongue; you are a ruffian!" "You are a bellowing ox!" "I tell you it is not true, and if you want it plainer, you lie!" "Goodness, what a goose! You are like a silly woman."

These altercations were very frequent, almost daily incidents at the Club. As all those who took part in them had a straightforward, perfectly primitive way of dealing with questions, similar, not to say equal, to that adopted by the heroes of Homer, the argument started at the beginning of the dispute continued until the end. There was a man who would spend an hour incessantly saying: "One has no right to meddle with anybody's private life!" or "That may do in Germany, but not here in Spain!"

Then cries briefer, and more to the point, such as "windbags!" "windbags!" filled the air until the crier collapsed on the sofa with exhaustion.

But what the arguments lost in variety they gained in intensity, for they were expressed with great and forcible energy, and in tones raised to such a pitch that some of the voices became quite hoarse, which was generally the case with Alvaro Peña and Don Feliciano, who had the loudest voices, but the weakest throats. When the Corporation had the trees of the Promenade de Riego trimmed, it caused a commotion in the Club; when the clerk of the House of Gonzalez and Sons decamped with fourteen thousand reals, it caused another heated discussion; when the parish priest declined to give a certificate of good conduct to the pilot Velasco, Alvaro Peña burst a blood vessel in his excitement. But no bad feeling remained after these violent scenes were over, neither were the personal remarks recollected that the discussions gave rise to.

How could it be otherwise, since there seemed to be a tacit understanding that none of the ungracious epithets were to be resented? The local character of the subjects was unique. Politics were little studied in Sarrio; it was only when the papers noticed some event of great importance that the inhabitants of the place took a passing interest in them.

Twenty years ago the rich banker, Rojas Salcedo, was elected representative of the place in Parliament, and he paid one visit to Sarrio to make himself acquainted with the town. Nobody thought of disputing his election. The presidents and secretaries of the colleges generally met together, and computed from the Acts the number of votes that he was entitled to. The reason of this was that Sarrio had always been a commercial town, where everybody could gain a living without having recourse to Madrid for government appointments.

The majority of the young men, after having passed two or three years in some college in England or Belgium, took their places in their fathers' offices as their future successors; the others, the minority, followed some military or civil career with a fixed income, and only came occasionally to pass a few days with their families.

It must, in one word, be confessed that Sarrio was a sleepy place, dormant amid all the great manifestations of mind, amid all the regenerating lights of contemporary society; nobody studied the profound problems of politics, and the terrible controversies engaged in by the different parties in other places, to gain victory and power, left them utterly unmoved. In short, in the year of grace, 1860, there was no public life in Sarrio. They ate, they slept, they worked, they danced, they played, they paid their taxes, but they were absolutely wanting in public spirit.

When that evening at the club the dispute had utterly worn them out and spoiled their digestions, Don Mateo, beaming with delight, announced to the company that he did not mind about the departure of the dramatic company, for he had for some days past been arranging a surprise for the Sarrienses; and after a great deal of trouble the matter was concluded.

He was in treaty with the celebrated Marabini, the phrenologist, the prestidigitator; probably Tuesday, yes, Tuesday or Wednesday, they would moreover be able to admire his wonderful skill at the theatre; he would, moreover, bring with him some dissolving views and a tame wolf.

Gonzalo meanwhile had left the billiard-room and was looking at half a dozen West Indians playing at chapo. When they struck the ball all the gold seals that hung from their enormous gold chains rang like bells. These chains and these seals were the greatest inducement and the chief bait that the artisans of Sarrio used to persuade their sons to go to Cuba.

"Fool! and you could come back in a few years with a fine cloth coat, a well-got-up shirt-front, patent boots, and a watch-chain like Don Pancho's!"

This last inducement was too much for any lad.

"Will it go seven times round my neck, dear father?"

"Yes, boy, yes; and you will have pencil cases and seals hanging on to it."

And so with their heads full of the prize the poor fellows went off on the "Bella Paula," the "Carmen," the "Villa de Sarrio," or any other sailing vessel, to perish with yellow fever or hunger, lured to destruction by the glitter of the trumpery jewelry like the voices of the terrible Lorelei.

The gestures of the Indians while at billiards being those of people unaccustomed to restrain and compose their feelings, were strange and funny, and a source of delight to the young men of the place, whose antipathy to the West Indians was always shown in making fun of them. Who tapped upon the floor while the balls were running like Don Benito? Who bent from one side to another, and twisted and contorted himself as if the destination of the ball depended upon his movements, like Don Lorenzo? And who could equal Don Pancho, who was little and fat, almost square, in his way of sinking in a heap on the sofa after having struck a ball, to better see the havoc he had made on the table? Occasionally one of them addressed a word of impatience to the fellow: "Get up, my boy; don't excite yourself!"

Don Feliciano Gomez took a seat by Gonzalo, who soon wearied of his good-tempered, superficial conversation, which he always accompanied by an affectionate poke in the ribs at every instant.

"When is the great day to be, Gonzalino? Soon, eh? You know I am longing to see you with your young lady on your arm, going to high mass! All right, my dear; all right; go and be happy. At home, the girls [it was thus he always termed his old sisters] don't leave me a moment's peace; since yesterday it is: 'When is Gonzalino going to be married? Don't forget to ask him!' Well, the poor things have known you ever since you were born. There is nothing like matrimony for a peaceful, contented life. You will say, 'That being so, why have you not married yourself, Don Feliciano?' Listen my boy, why should I marry, when I can live happy as a bachelor? What do I want? I have a home, with two dear girls who take the utmost care of me, whom I adore----

(Poor fellow! report in the place gave quite another version.)

"And so I have nothing to complain of--is it not so, my boy? Certainly, when I was young I had other ideas, but, as years go by, one ceases to think of them. Look here, if any one said to me now: 'Feliciano, would you like to go back twenty years?' Bah! let another dog have that bone. The best age for a man is fifty. Don't you doubt it, Gonzalino. It is then that one can eat and sleep in peace. Is there a young woman that is worth a dish of sardines freshly fried?

"But they have to be fried just before they are eaten; if fried during the soup, they are not worth a brass farthing. Or a lobster with fresh draft cider? Doesn't it make your mouth water, my boy? And now you are going to be married, and there will be a kissing and 'my darling' here and 'my love' there--is it not so? Well, well, as things go it is a good thing. The girl is of good family. Don Rosendo is rich--you are doing well, doing well, my boy. But, I say, why don't you marry the little one, Venturita, who is pretty? I don't say that the elder one is ugly, but there is no doubt that the younger one is more attractive; she is just like a rosebud. What roguish eyes! what teeth! what gracefulness! But if you are engaged to the other sister, I have nothing to say. But what comes up to prettiness! And it would be the same family--"

These remarks made a strange impression upon Gonzalo. It was the formulation of what he had vaguely felt in an uncomfortable way ever since the previous evening. Yes, it was quite true, what beautiful eyes, how mischievous, and yet how candid! What an alabaster skin! What lips, what teeth, what golden hair! Cecilia, poor thing, was plainer than when he went away and less attractive. How was it possible that she had taken his fancy? Gonzalo had, in fact, to confess to himself that she had never taken his fancy as Venturita certainly now had. Why then--?

Well, it was no use asking questions. He was only a lad at the time; he had not been accustomed to seeing ladies; Cecilia's kindness had impressed him. Then there was a certain satisfaction in being engaged. Then the distance which enhances the beauty and increases the value of things. In fact, everything had combined to bind him to that girl. But, if only he had seen Venturita sooner! It was better not to think of that. The affair was too far gone to be retracted. Unlike himself, he remained a good quarter of an hour pensively looking at the marble balls without seeing them. Don Feliciano had gone.

At last his healthy, sanguine temperament asserted itself over the ridiculous fancies that threatened to disturb him. He rose from his seat, the frown which had momentarily darkened his brow was soon banished by the genial smile which was his particular attraction. He shrugged his shoulders with contempt, and that gesture seemed to say: "I am going to marry the plainer of the De Belinchon girls. Well, and what then? In any case it would have been with one or the other, unless I married no one. I want to be happy. It is not necessary for happiness to come from without; I have it within, in the even temper God has given me, in the money left me by my parents, in this marvelous health, and in this ox-like strength."

When he returned to the sitting-room, he found that all the habitués had been thrown into great perturbation by the news just brought in by Severino, of the ironmongery shop.

"Don't you know what has happened, sirs?" They all left their seats and surrounded the store-keeper, who spoke with visible agitation.

"Don Laureano was robbed and assassinated last night."

"What! Don Laureano, who lives in the country house?"

"Yes; he of Las Acenas. They say that, at half past two, or thereabout, nine masked men entered the house; they knocked the servant down with sticks, they tied up the señora and the maid-servant, and they killed Don Laureano. What they must have made them suffer before they gave up the money! The good man only had twelve thousand reales, and those he had hidden away, but they tortured the women until they made them disclose the hiding-place." A shudder of horror went through the notabilities of Sarrio. They turned as pale as if they had assisted at that fearful scene.

The house of Las Acenas was a mile from the town, in the solitude of a pine forest, but nobody took that into account; they imagined themselves assaulted in their houses in la Rua Nueva or de Caborana and cruelly assassinated. Oh! what acts of violence! Santo Cristo, what atrocities!

The first moments of surprise that elapsed were followed by remarks in low voices. The robbers could not be very far off. Such a thing had never happened before in Sarrio, or its suburbs, in anybody's recollection. Marin asserted that he had seen some suspicious-looking men about for some days past. This news gave rise to an inward panic among the bystanders. They all determined not to go out any more at night, but this determination they kept to themselves.

The mayor said that, in his opinion, the robbers must have come from Castile.

"From Castile?"

"Yes, señor; from Castile."

"I have heard my father (who is now in glory) say that in the year 1805, seventeen men, armed, and on horseback, appeared in Sariego. They prowled round the place, and finally robbed Don Jose Maria Herrero of seventy thousand crowns that he had hidden under one of the bricks of the hearth."

At any other time, the customers of the café would have said that because such an event had happened in the year five, it did not necessarily imply that the same thing should occur in Las Acenas in the year sixty, but just then no one felt equal to controverting the statement.

Then they continued to talk of the event of Las Acenas in subdued tones, and they seemed all to concur in the wildest, most extravagant ideas. But as Gabino Maza was never known to agree for more than ten minutes together to what was said in his presence, he suddenly seized the opportunity of some very silly remark, made by Don Feliciano Gomez with the perfect naturalness and modesty that characterized the conversation of this distinguished merchant, to pounce upon him in a manner as violent as it was unjustifiable.

"What ridiculous thing will you think of next? What is the good of a house-to-house visitation? Do you think you are going to find Don Laureano's money in a heap there?"

"If the money is not found, some trace might be discovered."

"Of what, you dunderhead, of what?"

Then the dispute had full swing. The cries and noise were indescribable. At last, as usual, nobody could hear anything, nobody could understand anything. The voices were perfectly audible over the whole Plaza de la Marina, but the people were so used to it that they did not stop to listen.