CHAPTER XI.

I thought this matter over, and my purpose became fixed during my voyage. I found that, although not rich, I had enough to live comfortably on; and when I returned to Barcelona I offered my resignation to the shipping house.

I cannot clearly explain the sentiments whose tumult at that time filled my soul. Confusion reigned therein. Intense love for Cristina, the angelic beauty and innocence of Retamoso's girl, the desire for repose and for a comfortable and tranquil life that all men feel on arriving at a certain state, and the sharp prickings of conscience that questioned my right to obtain it under such conditions, struggled together within me. But there was one sentiment which, however silenced, was stronger than the others--the ardent desire to be near Cristina, to live in her intimate circle, and never to lose sight of her charming face. I held no thoughts against the peace of her heart or the honor of her husband, but only to be happy enjoying her presence all of my life.

In this mind, neither saint-like nor criminal, I took the train for Valencia two months after I had left it. In a train that passed mine in a station on the way, I caught a glimpse, through a window, of the silhouette of Sabas, and near it the red head of a woman who was not Matilde.

"Sabas, Sabas!" I called.

When he saw me, he saluted me affectionately with his hand. The lady who was beside him also smiled cordially; I did not see why, for I did not know her. I remained puzzled. I was doubtful if I had not been mistaken. Was it really Matilde? I was not long in finding out.

I reached Valencia before dark. After leaving my things at the inn, I hired a conveyance to take me out to Cabanal, where I knew that Marti was now installed. I was anxious to consult with him about my plans. As I drew near the country house I felt my heart beating violently. This roused anew my sentiment of honor. "Are we like this?" I said to myself scornfully. "While thinking of binding yourself by a sacred fetter, of offering yourself to an innocent young girl, you cannot control your impulses! You are going to press the hand of a friend, to make him your confidant, your kinsman, while still your spirit is not cleansed of traitorous thoughts!"

The family was assembled in the dining-room. I observed at once a certain sadness and unusual gravity on their faces. They all wore long faces, filled with a consternation that alarmed me excessively. Marti embraced me, however, with his accustomed cordiality, showing sincere delight at my arrival. I gave my hand to the others and, coming to Matilde, I said to her, without stopping to think:

"So you are a widow? I saw your husband in a station. We had no chance to speak, but we greeted each other."

I had not finished uttering these words before I was stupefied by her beginning to weep bitterly. She pressed my hand convulsively and, between the sobs that rent her breast, said:

"Thanks, Ribot! Many thanks! My husband was running away with the young lady."

"I saw a red-headed lady beside him, but I did not think--" I stammered, abashed.

"Yes, yes, the young lady," she sobbed.

"Forgive me, but what has been said can't be unsaid; but, yes, she seemed young to me."

"She would like to seem young! She is more than thirty years old!" she cried angrily; "more painted and bedizzened than a doll in a bazaar. You should see her mornings on her balcony!"

Marti came to my aid, saying in low tones:

"She was the young lady in the company acting at the theatre."

"Ah!"

Everybody kept still and looked at the floor as one does when paying a visit of condolence. Nothing could be heard in the room but the increasingly poignant sobs of the outraged wife. The situation was trying, agonizing in the highest degree. Fortunately Dona Amparo had the happy inspiration to faint away, and this accident introduced an element of variety into the scene which we immediately improved. We ran to her aid. We opened flasks with shining stoppers. The dining-room was filled with the penetrating fragrances of the apothecary's shop. Tears, embraces, sighs, kisses. At last her equilibrium was restored, and she came to herself.

I thought I would lose my head in the odor of ether; but before this could happen Marti drew me from the room, and carried me off to his office.

"Did you ever see such a wretched affair?" he cried, shaking his head in immense annoyance.

"But what is it all?"

"Nothing; the other night he won three or four thousand pesetas at play, and he has gone gayly off to spend them with an actress."

"What madness! But he will come back!"

"I believe you; he'll come back when he has run through with every dollar, as he did the other time."

"The other time?"

"Yes; three or four years ago he eloped with a circus-rider. But then he carried off more money than this time."

I had no wish to seek for more details, for I saw that Marti was going to break down. There is nothing sadder than the sadness of a happy man. To distract him, I turned the conversation, and talked of myself and the projects I had under way. His face changed at once, and a cheerful smile played about his mouth.

"Bravo, Captain! At last you are going to be our own," he cried, hugging me until he choked me.

We talked the matter over carefully. At last we decided that, considering my age and character, I must not conduct myself like a youth, but with all due formality. After gaining the consent of Isabelita, which Marti seemed to think already assured, I must, before entering upon our relations, visit her people and talk seriously with them. This plan captured his imagination and he drove along assuredly. He cheered me, embraced me several times, calling me cousin, and promising me to help me all that he could, and promised, too, that Cristina would do the same.

We returned to the dining-room. Our cheerful countenances were in great contrast to the solemn and dejected ones there. Dona Amparo's eyes still showed the water-marks of their recent flood. Matilde--there is no saying how she was. Isabelita, who was staying with her cousins, received me with the same blushes, but without any great signs of rejoicing, which I attributed to the trouble her family was in. Castell was, as always, cold and disdainful. Cristina--I cannot express how I found Cristina. Her eyes had a strange sadness, which impressed me painfully. I at once imagined that she found herself bowed beneath the burden of some great wrong, and that this could be nothing else but the infamous gallantry of Castell. Perhaps he had narrowed the circle. Perhaps--oh, what a thought!

All at once I saw her eyes brighten with delight at the entrance of the nurse with my god-daughter in her arms. She was a beautiful rosebud, fresh, sweet, delicate, and probably, as that is the rule, dowered with marvellous intelligence. Marti would have testified to that with his blood.

To carry conviction to our minds, he found no more adequate means than to enter upon a series of mimic representations, certain of which had a surprising success. First he intoned a hymn of the Church with the voice of a precentor. The little girl at once began to put up her lips and burst out crying. Then he sang some _sequidillas_, and the youngster at once cheered up and began to bounce, trying to get down on the floor, doubtless to run away on all fours. He barked, he mewed, he crowed like a cock, and we understood at once that the little one had no lack of zoological notions, but had an idea of the classifications introduced in the animal kingdom.

Marti demonstrated the thesis in a way which left no room for doubt, and proud of the impression on the assemblage that his notable experiments succeeded in making, he considered it proper next to take the child from her nurse's arms and toss her up and down in his own like a bottle of ink. Maybe he imagined that by this method of concentration he would invigorate still more her psychic faculties. But he did not go on with this long enough to make her black. The little creature, not familiarized with his novel method, objected to it with loud screams and all the indignation of her soul. Cristina took her, did all that she could to hush her, and gave her again to the nurse, who was the one who really brought calm into her outraged heart.

Before we went in to supper, they obliged me to dismiss my cab. Castell would take me back in his own. I tried to get out of this, because the company of this gentleman grew constantly more distasteful to me; but it was not possible. Emilio, with his characteristic impetuosity and slight knowledge of men, gave the order to the coachman to depart.

They placed me beside Isabelita. Everybody would say that that was perfectly natural, and that I ought to have been whispering to her all the evening. Of this I have nothing to say. Perchance, if they had been asked if I should touch her foot gently with my own and fondle her hand underneath the table, some of them would have held a contrary opinion and would have discussed it more or less at length. But I, deciding that the majority would finally decide in favor of it, did not hesitate in anticipating the decisions of such a tribunal.

At twenty minutes after ten I settled down in a corner of the dining-room where Retamoso's girl was, and where I could chat freely with her. I told her first that she was the only woman in the world who could make me happy; second, that by my frank and sympathetic character, and by my honorable intentions--and because of the voice I said it in--I deserved what would make me happy. In accordance with these things I was resolved that on the following day I would give an account of this matter to Senor and Senora Retamoso. It was then twenty-five minutes after ten.

Our deliberations continued a little longer. Castell was accustomed to depart at eleven, and he asked me politely if I wished to do the same. I agreed, as was proper, since the family would wish to retire, and we betook ourselves to the city. During the ride I had occasion to think once more that it was an error of nature that I had hair on my face, and that instead of a hat I should have covered my childish thoughts with a thick hood. That gentleman, penetrating into the secret laboratory of life, arranged the facts of being in his mind, taking pains to pit his ideas against my inexperienced reasonings; sometimes yawning, again smilingly pardoning my puerilities. Take it all together, he handled me so well that, in consequence, I could feel a real hood on my head. But that which stirred me up most was his gracious manner of considering me a man; and the recognition of this attitude towards me irritated me more than ever, and I swore between my teeth that I would never ride again in his cab, but would, instead, go on my own feet.

Next day, solemnly attired in a coat which had made the voyage to America eleven times and to Hamburg thirty-seven, I presented myself at the Retamoso house. It was situated on the Plaza del Mercado, not far from the Lorija, and was more substantial than beautiful, of modern construction, only one floor above the business rooms, with a plain front destitute of ornamental carvings, with three large doors and three little stone balconies. But it was much more spacious than its exterior promised. Its warerooms, occupying the corner part, were large and high as the salons of a palace. Great piles of codfish, barrels of flour and of alcohol, cases of sugar and cocoa filled it, forming narrow and intricate passages. Through these I went, half-suffocated by the distasteful odors of these products of overseas, and preceded by a clerk with a pen behind his ear, until I reached the back of the room, where there were three glass doors, giving upon a _patio_. Near one of these was a low railing of pine, painted green; in the middle, a single table and a big desk; and behind the table and the desk, a little man with an embroidered velvet skull-cap. It was himself, Senor Retamoso.

"Senor de Ribot! What good fortune is this?" he exclaimed, rising to come out of the enclosure, making numberless bows, and lifting his hand as many times more to his skull-cap. "To what do we owe the honor?"

"I wish to speak a few words to you," I answered, casting a significant glance at the clerk, who, understanding, disappeared in the zigzag passages.

The face of Senor Retamoso underwent an enormous change. The delight that had overspread it was swiftly succeeded by a deep sadness. It was as if a cloud had intercepted in an unexpected fashion the rays of life and warmth, withering and drying up that which a moment before had been joyous welcome.

"Very well. I will be with you in a moment," he murmured, re-entering the enclosure, carefully locking the safe and putting the key in his trousers pocket.

This done, he came out and, facing me, said in a glacial way:

"I am at your service."

"This good man thinks I have come to beg money," I said to myself, surprised at this change.

"The occasion of this visit," I said with hesitation, "is a little delicate. It is possible that you know."

"I know nothing," he declared, resolutely cutting me short.

"I meant to say it is possible that you have suspected----"

"I have suspected nothing," he said in turn, more dryly still.

A little irritated by these interruptions, I said with spirit:

"It is all the same. You are going to know now. It has to do with a certain sympathetic understanding established between your daughter Isabelita and me. As this sympathy might in time be transformed into affection, and be carried to the point of loving relations, I thought that I ought to consult the will of her parents. My age forbids flirtations or a clandestine courtship. Further, the friendship that binds me to Marti, in whose house I had the honor of meeting your daughter, and the kindness, however unmerited, with which your wife and you have honored me, oblige me to conduct myself frankly and loyally."

The round face of Uncle Diego resumed its first expression. The cloud that intercepted the rays of delight had been chased away.

"Oh, Senor de Ribot! What do I hear? I knew nothing. I had heard nothing. I am a poor man. Why not go to my wife, who understands it much better, and will know what I ought to answer?" he exclaimed smiling, all honey, lifting his hand to his embroidered skull-cap, and throwing back his leg so as to make a deeper bow.

"I thought of seeing both of you."

"Oh, Senor de Ribot! But why? Come, come with me. I will take you to the place where you can adjust this account. I know nothing about these experiences, but there is one in the house who knows more than Merlin. Take care, Senor de Ribot, take good care. Keep your stirrups. Whoever has to come to an understanding with my lady needs the use of his head."

Going on like this, he conducted me to a staircase, and by it we ascended to the principal story. Once arrived, he squeezed my hand hard between his own, and, in a falsetto voice, recommended me to look out for myself when talking before his wife, and not be disconcerted in her presence. He promised that he would help me all that he was able, but that I must not expect much, as he also felt constraint before Dona Clara.

"She is a deep woman, Senor de Ribot. When I say this, I say all."

Without freeing me, he led me to the door of a parlor, and gave two knocks upon it with his knuckles; the voice of Dona Clara was heard, saying:

"Enter."

Retamoso again squeezed my hand to encourage me, and we entered the apartment.

Dona Clara was discovered dressed in black, as correct and elegant as ever, seated in a leather chair, with a book in her hands. She took from her aquiline nose her gold-bowed glasses and let them hang suspended over her breast by their golden chain. She gave me her hand, at the same time casting upon me a look so imposing that, in spite of the valor wherewith her spouse had inspired me, I could do no less than tremble. Then she took her tragic figure up out of her chair and went and sat down in the middle of a sofa of green velvet, inviting us by a gesture to place ourselves in the arm-chairs that were on either side. We obeyed orders, and Retamoso, finding no more excellent resource as a preparation for the session than to rub his knees with the palms of his hands, looked at me meanwhile sadly and anxiously.

"Senor de Ribot," he said at last, "I beg you to tell my wife what you have just had the kindness to tell me."

"It has to do, senora," I said in a trembling voice, "with a delicate matter that I desire to submit to the approval of you both. So if I take the liberty of speaking of it to you, it is solely that, no matter what, it cannot be said that I lacked in showing the respect and esteem with which you inspire me. Between Isabelita and me an especial friendship, is beginning to take shape----"

"I know it," interrupted Dona Clara solemnly.

There followed a moment of suspense, then I went on:

"Isabelita, because of the gifts of character, innocence, and modesty which adorn her, deserves not only affection, but hearty admiration. I cannot, naturally, explain all the charm that she has for me since I have felt myself attracted towards her. I found courage to give her to understand this, and I flatter myself to think that she did not take it