Part 52 (1/2)
”Don Calixto came back; he asked me if I was tired, and I told him no, and when we had crossed the whole width of the house, which is huge, he showed me the garden. My boy, what a wonderful spot! It hangs over the river and it is a marvel. The highest part, which is the part they keep up, isn't worth much; it is in lamentable style; just imagine, there is a fountain which is a tin negro that spurts out water from all parts.
”However, the old part of the garden, the lower part, is lovely. There is a big tower standing guard over the river, now converted into a belvedere, with pomegranates, rose-bushes, and climbing plants all around it, and above all, there is an oleander that is a marvel...; it looks like a fire-work castle or a shower of flowers.”
”Leave that point,” said Alzugaray. ”You are talking like a poor disciple of Ruskin's.”
”You are right. But when you see those gardens, you will be enthusiastic, too.”
”Get ahead.”
THE POLITICAL POWERS OF CASTRO
”During our promenade Don Calixto talked to me of the immense good he has done for the town and of the ingrat.i.tude he constantly receives for it.
”While I listened, I recalled a little periodical in Madrid which had no other object than to furnish bombs at reasonable prices, and which said, speaking of a manufacturer in Catalonia: 'Senor So-and-so is the most powerful boss in the province of Tarragona, and even at that there are those who dispute his bossdom.'
”Don Calixto is astonished that when he has done the Castrians the honour to make them loans at eighty or ninety percent, they are not fond of him. After the garden we saw the house; I won't tell you anything about it, I don't want you to accuse me again of being a Ruskinian.
”When we reached the dining-room Don Calixto said: 'I am going to present you to my family.'
”Thereupon, entrance, ceremonies, bows on my part, smiles... _toute la lyre_. Don Calixto's wife is an insignificant fat woman; the two daughters insipid, ungainly, not at all pretty; and with them was a little girl of about fifteen or sixteen, a niece of Don Calixto's, a veritable little devil, named Amparo. This Amparo is a tiny, flat-faced creature, with black eyes, and extraordinarily vivacious and mischievous. During dinner I succeeded in irritating the child.
”I talked gravely with Don Calixto and his wife and daughters about Madrid, about the theatrical companies that come to this town, about their acquaintances at the Capital.
”The child interrupted us, bringing us the cat and putting a little bow on him, and then making him walk on the key-board of the piano.
”At half-past one we went to the dining-room. Dinner was kilometres long; and the conversation turned on Rome and Paris. Don Calixto drank more and more, I, too; and at the end of the meal there was a bit of toasting, from which my political intentions were made manifest.
”The elder daughter, whose name is Adela, asked me if I liked music. I told her yes, almost closing my eyes, as if deliriously, and we went into the drawing-room. Without paying attention, I listened, during the horrors of digestion, to a number of sonatas, now and then saying: 'Magnificent! How wonderful that is!'
”The father was enchanted, the mother enchanted, the sister likewise; the little girl was the one who stared at me with questioning black eyes. She must have been thinking: 'What species of bird is this?' I believe the d.a.m.ned child realized that I was acting a comedy.
”About four the ladies and I went out into the garden. Don Calixto has the habit of taking an afternoon nap, and he left us. I succeeded in bringing myself to, in the open air. Don Calixto's wife showed me over an abandoned part of the house, in which there is an old kitchen as big as a cathedral, with a stone chimney like a high altar, with the arms of the Dukes of Castro. We chatted, I was very pleasant to the mother, courteous to the daughters, and coldly indifferent with the little niece. I was bored, after having exhausted all subjects of conversation, when Don Calixto reappeared and carried me off to his office.
”The conference was important; he explained the situation of the Conservative forces of the district to me. These forces are represented, princ.i.p.ally, by three men: Don Calixto, a Senor Don Platon, and a friar.
Don Calixto represents the modern Conservative tendency and is, let us say, the Canovas of the district; with him are the rich members of the Casino, the superior judge, the doctors, the great proprietors, etc.
Don Platon Peribanez, a silversmith in the Calle Mayor, represents the middle-cla.s.s Conservatives; his people are less showy, but more in earnest and better disciplined; this Platonian or Platonic party is made up of chandlers, silversmiths, small merchants, and the poor priests.
The friar, who represents the third Conservative nucleus, is Father Martin Lafuerza. Father Martin is prior of the Franciscan monastery, which was established here after the Order was expelled from Filinas.
”Father Martin is an Ultramontanist up to the eyes. He directs priests, friars, nuns, sisters, and is the absolute master of a town nearby called Cidones, where the women are very pious.
”Despite their piety, the reputation of those ladies cannot be very good, because there is a proverb, certainly not very gallant: 'Don't get either a wife or a mule at Cidones; neither a wife nor a mule nor a pig at Grinon.'
”Opposed to these three Conservative nuclei are the friends of the present Deputy, who amount to no more than the official element, which is always on the ruling side, and a small guerilla band that meets in the Workingmen's Casino, and is composed princ.i.p.ally of a Republican bookseller, an apothecary who invents explosives, also Republican, an anarchist doctor, a free-thinking weaver, and an innkeeper whom they call Furibis, who is also a smuggler and a man with hair on his chest.”
_DON PLAToN PERIBanEZ_