Title: The Last Lion and Other Tales
Author: Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente, 1867-1928
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.


*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Last Lion and Other Tales" ***


produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)



INTERNATIONAL POCKET LIBRARY EDITED BY EDMUND R. BROWN



THE LAST LION AND OTHER TALES

BY VICENTE BLASCO IBÁÑEZ

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MARIANO JOAQUIN LORENTE

BOSTON INTERNATIONAL POCKET LIBRARY

_Copyright, 1919, by_ JOHN W. LUCE & COMPANY

Reprinted by arrangement with John W. Luce & Company. All Rights
Reserved.

First printing, 2,000 copies Second printing, 5,000 copies Third
printing, 10,000 copies

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE COLONIAL PRESS INC.,
CLINTON, MASS.



THE LAST LION AND OTHER TALES



VICENTE BLASCO IBÁÑEZ


Don Vicente Blasco Ibáñez was born on the 29th of January, 1867, in the
city of Valencia, that same picturesque sunshiny Valencia which was
captured from the Moors by the formidable Cid a little over eight
centuries ago. But Blasco Ibáñez is a _valenciano_ only by birth, for
his family came from the old kingdom of Aragon.

The Aragonese are a sturdy, hardworking, adventurous people, somewhat
stubborn, suicidally valorous, passionately independent, fanatically
religious, fond of music and of the honest pleasures of life. Their
adventurous spirit led them in ages gone by as far as Asia Minor, where,
with the Catalonians, they gave a good account of themselves. They
fought against the Moors as doughtily as did the Castilians, and when
their kingdom was united to that of Castile, under Isabella and
Ferdinand, Granada was conquered and Mahomedan domination in Spain
ceased for ever. The great Napoleon had no fiercer antagonists than the
Aragonese, and when, after two sieges, his troops took Saragossa, they
found in it nothing but corpses and ashes. The Aragonese were so jealous
of their liberties that when one of their kings was being crowned, the
Chief Justice of Aragon, addressing His Majesty in the familiar form,
reminded him that they, the people, were greater than their king,
"_somos más que tu_".

Of his Aragonese ancestry, we find in Blasco Ibáñez the intense love of
freedom, the adventurous spirit and the untiring energy for work.

Blasco Ibáñez was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth; his earlier
years were a continual struggle for existence in which he made a close
acquaintance with poverty and even hunger. He followed many trades and
occupied, after a hard hunt, minor clerical positions. Yet, he managed
to study law and at the age of eighteen he was a full fledged lawyer.

His studies may have impressed him with the august majesty of the law,
but did not imbue him with any respect for the then existing government,
and he proceeded to write a sonnet which gave full vent to his contempt
for it.

Considering that many sonneteers escape the gallows they so richly
deserve for their miserable productions, it was hard on Blasco Ibáñez
that he should have to go to jail for a period "not exceeding six
months," but perhaps it was just as well for him, as he no doubt has
made good use of his experience.

Jails, as we all know, are not meant to correct political ideas: they
are merely punitive institutions. Blasco Ibáñez took his punishment like
the man he is, and at the first opportunity attacked the government with
renewed vigor and was banished from Spain. During his exile, Blasco
Ibáñez lived in France and visited Italy.

Returning to Valencia after an amnesty, he founded a newspaper, "El
Pueblo" (The People) in 1891. From the columns of his paper, which he
still edits, he continued his fight "agin' the government," advocating a
republican form of government. He became a leader in the Republican
party and was elected Deputy to the Spanish Parliament, for the city of
Valencia, six consecutive times.

Though his political career has been a most strenuous one, it by no
means exhausted his tremendous energy, and he managed at the same time
to do an immense amount of literary work. As a young man, he became
secretary to Manuel Fernandez y Gonzalez, a prolific writer--he is said
to have written over three hundred novels--whose name has been almost
forgotten. Fernandez y Gonzalez was an old man when Blasco Ibáñez made
his acquaintance, and it often happened that the old man, exhausted by
age, or merely feeling heavy after a hearty meal, fell asleep while
dictating to his young secretary. Blasco Ibáñez, however, did not stop
writing; he let his own fancy do the dictating, for a change, and he
continued the novel until the old man woke up of his own accord. Then,
he read what he had written, and Fernandez y Gonzalez, who must have had
good literary taste, was generally delighted with the collaboration.

It is extremely doubtful whether Fernandez y Gonzalez had any influence
on Blasco Ibáñez as a writer. He was an excellent example of an
energetic worker ... and that is all. But Blasco Ibáñez did not need any
such examples. He is, and has always been, activity personified.

While Blasco Ibáñez was actively engaged in political warfare, editing
his own paper, contributing radical articles to other papers and
periodicals, issuing innumerable pamphlets, preparing speeches, and
addressing meetings, he still found time to write novels. Seventeen
novels, two books of short stories, and three of travels stand to his
name, as well as many uncollected critical and biographical essays.

His first novels were written at odd moments, after he had edited "El
Pueblo" and attended to political business. In later years, he has
devoted less time to politics and more to literature. Whereas his
earlier novels required little preparation, for they deal with his
native city, which he has known all his life, his later works represent
a gigantic amount of study and forethought, for Blasco Ibáñez is nothing
if not thorough. He studies his characters at first hand. When he was
preparing _Flor de Mayo_, he became one of those tobacco smugglers of
whom he speaks; he obtained his material for _La Horda_ by living with
the scum of Madrid and joining some of the poachers in their excursions
to the royal preserves at El Pardo, thereby running the risk of being
shot at sight by the guards; later on, while he was planning _Los
Muertos Mandan_, he joined the fishermen on the coast of Ibiza, in the
Balearic Islands, and having been caught in a storm, nearly lost his
life; he lived a long time among bullfighters before writing _Sangre y
Arena_ and became intimately acquainted with the famous "espada" Antonio
Fuentes.

As if all the activities we have enumerated were not enough to keep an
ordinary Hercules busy for a life-time, Blasco Ibáñez has been
interested for many years in a publishing firm which has been the means
of introducing into Spain what is more instructive or interesting in the
literatures of other countries. Some of the publications of this
firm--Prometeo, of Valencia--bear witness to the indefatigable energy of
the man. Such are the "New Universal History," by Lavisse and Rambaud,
of which ten volumes have thus far been published; the "History of the
French Revolution," by Michelet, in three volumes; the "New Universal
Geography," by Reclus; "The Thousand Nights and One Night," all of them
translated by Blasco Ibáñez. The same firm is now publishing a
monumental "History of the European War of 1914," from the pen of Blasco
Ibáñez. Six ponderous tomes of this work have already been published.

Blasco Ibáñez has travelled extensively. He has visited most of Europe,
the Near East, and Argentina. In the latter country, he has acquired
some land and has founded a colony.

There is a curious contradiction between Blasco Ibáñez' personal
appearance and his life's activities. In his younger days, when he was
more of a man of action than to-day, he wore a curly beard and a
mustache that grew untouched by scissors. They gave him an artistic
appearance and harmonized well with the rest of his features. In those
days he was a decidedly handsome man. To-day, when he is more of an
artist, perhaps, than a man of action, the beard has disappeared and the
mustache is close-cropped. The hairy camouflage, sacrificed--as we
suspect--to the goddess of Anglo-Saxon fashion, concealed a determined
chin and two deep lines, running from the base of the nose to the
corners of his mouth, that give him an energetic air. His forehead is
now larger than ever, for he is getting somewhat bald; his eyes are
piercing, with moderate eyebrows and slightly puffed lower eyelids, and
they have lost that touch of dreaminess they had in their younger days;
his nose is large and shapely modelled, his face broad and fleshy, his
ears round and big. Altogether, his head--supported by a short bullish
neck--is that of a deep thinker, a sharp observer, and active energetic
man, and withal a _bon vivant_. In other words, a true Aragonese.

_Ecce homo!_

MARIANO JOAQUIN LORENTE



CONTENTS

                 Page

The Last Lion      15

The Toad           26

Compassion         36

The Windfall       46

Luxury             56

Rabies             61



THE LAST LION


Scarcely had the meeting of the honorable guild of _blanquers_ come to
order within its chapel near the towers of Serranos, when Señor Vicente
asked for the floor. He was the oldest tanner in Valencia. Many masters
recalled their apprentice days and declared that he was the same now as
then, with his white, brush-like mustache, his face that looked like a
sun of wrinkles, his aggressive eyes and cadaverous thinness, as if all
the sap of his life had been consumed in the daily motions of his feet
and hands about the vats of the tannery.

He was the only representative of the guild's glories, the sole survivor
of those _blanquers_ who were an honor to Valencian history. The
grandchildren of his former companions had become corrupted with the
march of time; they were proprietors of large establishments, with
thousands of workmen, but they would be lost if they ever had to tan a
skin with their soft, business-man's hands. Only he could call himself a
_blanquer_ of the old school, working every day in his little hut near
the guild house; master and toiler at the same time, with no other
assistants than his sons and grandchildren; his workshop was of the old
kind, amid sweet domestic surroundings, with neither threats of strikes
nor quarrels over the day's pay.

The centuries had raised the level of the street, converting Señor
Vicente's shop into a gloomy cave. The door through which his ancestors
had entered had grown smaller and smaller from the bottom until it had
become little more than a window. Five stairs connected the street with
the damp floor of the tannery, and above, near a pointed arch, a relic
of medieval Valencia, floated like banners the skins that had been hung
up to dry, wafting about the unbearable odor of the leather. The old man
by no means envied the _moderns_, in their luxuriously appointed
business offices. Surely they blushed with shame on passing through his
lane and seeing him, at breakfast hour, taking the sun,--his sleeves and
trousers rolled up, showing his thin arms and legs, stained red,--with
the pride of a robust old age that permitted him to battle daily with
the hides.

Valencia was preparing to celebrate the centenary of one of its famous
saints, and the guild of _blanquers_, like the other historic guilds,
wished to make its contribution to the festivities. Señor Vicente, with
the prestige of his years, imposed his will upon all the masters. The
_blanquers_ should remain what they were. All the glories of the past,
long sequestrated in the chapel, must figure in the procession. And it
was high time they were displayed in public! His gaze, wandering about
the chapel, seemed to caress the guild's relics; the sixteenth century
drums, as large as jars, that preserved within their drumheads the
hoarse cries of revolutionary Germania; the great lantern of carved
wood, torn from the prow of a galley; the red silk banner of the guild,
edged with gold that had become greenish through the ages.

All this must be displayed during the celebration, shaking off the dust
of oblivion; even the famous lion of the _blanquers_!

The _moderns_ burst into impious laughter. The lion, too?... Yes, the
lion, too. To Señor Vicente it seemed a dishonor on the part of the
guild to forget that glorious beast. The ancient ballads, the accounts
of celebrations that might be read in the city archives, the old folks
who had lived in the splendid epoch of the guilds with their fraternal
camaraderie,--all spoke of the _blanquers'_ lion; but now nobody knew
the animal, and this was a shame for the trade, a loss to the city.

Their lion was as great a glory as the silk mart or the well of San
Vicente. He knew very well the reason for this opposition on the part of
the _moderns_. They feared to assume the rôle of the lion. Never fear,
my young fellows! He, with his burden of years, numbered more than
seventy, would claim his honor. It belonged to him in all justice; his
father, his grandfather, his countless ancestors, had all been lions,
and he felt equal to coming to blows with anybody who would dare dispute
his right to the rôle of the lion, traditional in his family.

With what enthusiasm Señor Vicente related the history of the lion and
the heroic _blanquers_. One day the Barbary pirates from Bujia had
landed at Torreblanca, just beyond Castellón, and sacked the church,
carrying off the Shrine. This happened a little before the time of Saint
Vicente Ferrer, for the old tanner had no other way of explaining
history than by dividing it into two periods; before and after the
Saint.... The population, which was scarcely moved by the raids of the
pirates, hearing of the abduction of pale maidens with large black eyes
and plump figures, destined for the harem, as if this were an inevitable
misfortune, broke into cries of grief upon learning of the sacrilege at
Torreblanca.

The churches of the town were draped in black; people went through the
streets wailing loudly, striking themselves as a punishment. What could
those dogs do with the blessed Host? What would become of the poor,
defenseless Shrine?... Then it was that the valiant _blanquers_ came
upon the scene. Was not the Shrine at Bujia? Then on to Bujia in quest
of it! They reasoned like heroes accustomed to beating hides all day
long, and they saw nothing formidable about beating the enemies of God.
At their own expense they fitted out a galley and the whole guild went
aboard, carrying along their beautiful banner; the other guilds, and
indeed the entire town, followed this example and chartered other
vessels.

The Justice himself cast aside his scarlet gown and covered himself with
mail from head to foot; the worthy councilmen abandoned the benches of
the Golden Chamber, shielding their paunches with scales that shone like
those of the fishes in the gulf; the hundred archers of la Pluma, who
guarded _la Señera_, filled their quivers with arrows, and the Jews from
the quarter of la Xedrea did a rushing business, selling all their old
iron, including lances, notched swords and rusty corselets, in exchange
for good, ringing pieces of silver.

And off sped the Valencian galleys, with their jib-sails spread to the
wind, convoyed by a shoal of dolphins, which sported about in the foam
of their prows!... When the Moors beheld them approaching, the infidels
began to tremble, repenting of their irreverence toward the Shrine. And
this, despite the fact that they were a set of hardened old dogs.
Valencians, headed by the valiant _blanquers_! Who, indeed, would dare
face them!

The battle raged for several days and nights, according to the tale of
Señor Vicente. Reinforcements of Moors arrived, but the Valencians,
loyal and fierce, fought to the death. And they were already beginning
to feel exhausted from the labor of disembowelling so many infidels,
when behold, from a neighboring mountain a lion comes walking down on
his hind paws, for all the world like a regular person, carrying in his
forepaws, most reverently, the Shrine,--the Shrine that had been stolen
from Torreblanca! The beast delivered it ceremoniously into the hands of
one of the guild, undoubtedly an ancestor of Señor Vicente, and hence
for centuries his family had possessed the privilege of representing
that amiable animal in the Valencian processions.

Then he shook his mane, emitted a roar, and with blows and bites in
every direction cleared the field instantly of Moors.

The Valencians sailed for home, carrying the Shrine back like a trophy.
The chief of the _blanquers_ saluted the lion, courteously offering him
the guild house, near the towers of Serranos, which he could consider as
his own. Many thanks; the beast was accustomed to the sun of Africa and
feared a change of climate.

But the trade was not ungrateful, and to perpetuate the happy
recollection of the shaggy-maned friend whom they possessed on the other
shore of the sea, every time the guild banner floated in the Valencian
celebrations, there marched behind it an ancestor of Señor Vicente, to
the sound of drums, and he was covered with hide, with a mask that was
the living image of the worthy lion, bearing in his hands a Shrine of
wood, so small and poor that it caused one to doubt the genuine value of
Torreblanca's own Shrine.

Perverse and irreverent persons even dared to affirm, to the great
indignation of Señor Vicente, that the whole story was a lie. Sheer
envy! Ill will of the other trades, which couldn't point to such a
glorious history! There was the guild chapel as proof, and in it the
lantern from the prow of the vessel, which the conscienceless wretches
declared dated from many centuries after the supposed battle; and there
were the guild drums, and the glorious banner; and the moth-eaten hide
of the lion, in which all his predecessors had encased themselves, lay
now forgotten behind the altar, covered with cobwebs and dust, but it
was none the less as authentic and worthy of reverence as the stones of
el Miguelete.[A]

[A] A belfry in Valencia.

And above all there was his faith, ardent and incontrovertible, capable
of receiving as an affront to the family the slightest irreverence
toward the African lion, the illustrious friend of the guild.

The procession took place on an afternoon in June. The sons, the
daughters-in-law, and the grandsons of Señor Vicente helped him to get
into the costume of the lion, perspiring most uncomfortably at the mere
touch of that red-stained wool. "Father, you're going to
roast."--"Grandpa, you'll melt inside of this costume."

The old man, however, deaf to the warnings of the family, shook his
moth-eaten mane with pride, thinking of his ancestors; then he tried on
the terrifying mask, a cardboard arrangement that imitated, with a faint
resemblance, the countenance of the wild beast.

What a triumphant afternoon! The streets crowded with spectators; the
balconies decorated with bunting, and upon them rows of variegated
bonnets shading fair faces from the sun; the ground covered with myrtle,
forming a green, odorous carpet whose perfume seemed to expand the
lungs.

The procession was headed by the standard-bearers, with beards of hemp,
crowns, and striped dalmatics, holding aloft the Valencian banners
adorned with enormous bats and large L's beside the coat of arms; then,
to the sound of the flageolet, the retinue of wild Indians, shepherds
from Bethlehem, Catalans and Majorcans; following these passed the
dwarfs with their monstrously huge heads, clicking the castanets to the
rhythm of a Moorish march; behind these came the giants of the Corpus
and at the end, the banners of the guilds; an endless row of red
standards, faded with the years, and so tall that their tops reached
higher than the first stories of the buildings.

Plom! Rotoplom! rolled the drums of the _blanquers_,--instruments of
barbarous sonority, so large that their weight forced the drummers to
bow their necks. Plom! Rotoplom! they resounded, hoarse and menacing,
with savage solemnity, as if they were still marking the tread of the
revolutionary guild regiments, sallying forth to the encounter with the
emperor's young leader,--that Don Juan of Aragon, duke of Segorbe, who
served Victor Hugo as the model for his romantic personage _Hernani_!
Plom! Rotoplom! The people ran for good places and jostled one another
to obtain a better view of the guild members, bursting into laughter and
shouts. What was that? A monkey?... A wild man?... Ah! The faith of the
past was truly laughable.

The young members of the trade, their shirts open at the neck and their
sleeves rolled up, took turns at carrying the heavy banner, performing
feats of jugglery, balancing it on the palms of their hands or upon
their teeth, to the rhythm of the drums.

The wealthy masters had the honor of holding the cords of the banner,
and behind them marched the lion, the glorious lion of the guild, who
was now no longer known. Nor did the lion march in careless fashion; he
was dignified, as the old traditions bade him be, and as Señor Vicente
had seen his father march, and as the latter had seen his grandfather;
he kept time with the drums, bowing at every step, to right and to left,
moving the Shrine fan-wise, like a polite and well-bred beast who knows
the respect due to the public.

The farmers who had come to the celebration opened their eyes in
amazement; the mothers pointed him out with their fingers so that the
children might see him; but the youngsters, frowning, tightened their
grasp upon their mothers' necks, hiding their faces to shed tears of
terror.

When the banner halted, the glorious lion had to defend himself with his
hind paws against the disrespectful swarm of gamins that surrounded him,
trying to tear some locks out of his moth-eaten mane. At other times the
beast looked up at the balconies to salute the pretty girls with the
Shrine; they laughed at the grotesque figure. And Señor Vicente did
wisely; however much of a lion one may be, one must be gallant toward
the fair sex.

The spectators fanned themselves, trying to find a momentary coolness in
the burning atmosphere; the _horchateros_[A] bustled among the crowds
shouting their wares, called from all directions at once and not knowing
whither to go first; the standard-bearers and the drummers wiped the
sweat off their faces at every restaurant door, and at last went inside
to seek refreshment.

[A] Vendors of "horchata," iced orgeat.

But the lion stuck to his post. His mask became soft; he walked with a
certain weariness, letting the Shrine rest upon his stomach, having by
this time lost all desire to bow to the public.

Fellow tanners approached him with jesting questions.

"How are things going, _so Visent_?"

And _so Visent_ roared indignantly from the interior of his cardboard
disguise. How should things go? Very well. He was able to keep it up,
without failing in his part, even if the parade continued for three
days. As for getting tired, leave that to the young folks. And drawing
himself proudly erect, he resumed his bows, marking time with his
swaying Shrine of wood.

The procession lasted three hours. When the guild banner returned to the
Cathedral night was beginning to fall.

Plom! Retoplom! The glorious banner of the _blanquers_ returned to its
guild house behind the drums. The myrtle on the streets had disappeared
beneath the feet of the paraders. Now the ground was covered with drops
of wax, rose leaves and strips of tinsel. The liturgic perfume of
incense floated through the air. Plom! Retoplom! The drums were tired;
the strapping youths who had carried the standards were now panting,
having lost all desire to perform balancing tricks; the rich masters
clutched the cords of the banner tightly as if the latter were towing
them along, and they complained of their new shoes and their bunions;
but the lion, the weary lion (ah, swaggering beast!) who at times seemed
on the point of falling to the ground, still had strength left to rise
on his hind paws and frighten the suburban couples, who pulled at a
string of children that had been dazzled by the sights.

A lie! Pure conceit! Señor Vicente knew what it felt like to be inside
of the lion's hide. But nobody is obliged to take the part of the lion,
and he who assumes it must stick it out to the bitter end.

Once home, he sank upon the sofa like a bundle of wool; his sons,
daughters-in-law and grandchildren hastened to remove the mask from his
face. They could scarcely recognize him, so congested and scarlet were
his features, which seemed to spurt water from every line of his
wrinkles.

They tried to remove his skins; but the beast was oppressed by a
different desire, begging in a suffocated voice. He wished a drink; he
was choking with the heat. The family, warning against illness,
protested in vain. The deuce! He desired a drink right away. And who
would dare resist an infuriated lion?...

From the nearest café they brought him some ice-cream in a blue cup; a
Valencian ice-cream, honey-sweet and grateful to the nostrils,
glistening with drops of white juice at the conical top.

But what are ice creams to a lion! _Haaam_! He swallowed it at a single
gulp, as if it were a mere trifle! His thirst and the heat assailed him
anew, and he roared for other refreshment.

The family, for reasons of economy, thought of the _horchata_ from a
near-by restaurant. They would see; let a full jar of it be brought. And
Señor Vicente drank and drank until it was unnecessary to remove the
skins from him. Why? Because an attack of double pneumonia finished him
inside of a few hours. The glorious, shaggy-haired _uniform_ of the
family served him as a shroud.

Thus died the lion of the _blanquers_,--the last lion of Valencia.

And the fact is that _horchata_ is fatal for beasts.... Pure poison!



THE TOAD


"I was spending the summer at Nazaret," said my friend Orduna, "a little
fishermen's town near Valencia. The women went to the city to sell the
fish, the men sailed about in their boats with triangular sails, or
tugged at their nets on the beach; we summer vacationists spent the day
sleeping and the night at the doors of our houses, contemplating the
phosphorescence of the waves or slapping ourselves here and there
whenever we heard the buzz of a mosquito,--that scourge of our resting
hours.

"The doctor, a hardy and genial old fellow, would come and sit down
under the bower before my door, and we'd spend the night together, with
a jar or a watermelon at our side, speaking of his patients, folks of
land or sea, credulous, rough and insolent in their manners, given over
to fishing or to the cultivation of their fields. At times we laughed as
he recalled the illness of Visanteta, the daughter of _la Soberana_, an
old fishmonger who justified her nickname of _the Queen_ by her bulk and
her stature, as well as by the arrogance with which she treated her
market companions, imposing her will upon them by right of might ... The
belle of the place was this Visanteta: tiny, malicious, with a clever
tongue, and no other good looks than that of youthful health; but she
had a pair of penetrating eyes and a trick of pretending timidity,
weakness, and interest, which simply turned the heads of the village
youths. Her sweetheart was _Carafosca_, a brave fisherman who was
capable of sailing on a stick of wood. On the sea he was admired by all
for his audacity; on land he filled everybody with fear by his provoking
silence and the facility with which he whipped out his aggressive
sailor's knife. Ugly, burly, and always ready for a fight, like the huge
creatures that from time to time showed up in the waters of Nazaret
devouring all the fish, he would walk to church on Sunday afternoons at
his sweetheart's side, and every time the maiden raised her head to
speak to him, amidst the simple talk and lisping of a delicate, pampered
child, _Carafosca_ would cast a challenging look about him with his
squinting eyes, as if defying all the folk of the fields, the beach, and
the sea to take his Visanteta away from him.

"One day the most astounding news was bruited about Nazaret. The
daughter of la _Soberana_ had an animal inside of her. Her abdomen was
swelling; the slow deformation revealed itself through her under-skirts
and her dress; her face lost color, and the fact that she had swooned
several times, vomiting painfully, upset the entire cabin and caused her
mother to burst into desperate lamentations and to run in terror for
help. Many of her neighbors smiled when they heard of this illness. Let
them tell it to _Carafosca_!... But the incredulous ones ceased their
malicious talk and their suspicions when they saw how sad and desperate
_Carafosca_ became at his sweetheart's illness, praying for her recovery
with all the fervor of a simple soul, even going so far as to enter the
little village church,--he, who had always been a pagan, a blasphemer
of God and the saints.

"Yes, it was a strange and horrible sickness. The people, in their
predisposition to believe in all sorts of extraordinary and rare
afflictions, were certain that they knew what this was. Visanteta had a
toad in her stomach. She had drunk from a certain spot of the near-by
river, and the wicked animal, small and almost unnoticeable, had gone
down into her stomach, growing fast. The good neighbors, trembling with
stupefaction, flocked to _la Soberana's_ cabin to examine the girl. All,
with a certain solemnity, felt the swelling abdomen, seeking in its
tightened surface the outlines of the hidden creature. Some of them,
older and more experienced than the rest, laughed with a triumphant
expression. There it was, right under their hand. They could feel it
stirring, moving about.... Yes, it was moving! And after grave
deliberation, they agreed upon remedies to expel the unwelcome guest.
They gave the girl spoonfuls of rosemary honey, so that the wicked
creature inside should start to eat it gluttonously, and when he was
most preoccupied in his joyous meal, whiz!--an inundation of onion juice
and vinegar that would bring him out at full gallop. At the same time
they applied to her stomach miraculous plasters, so that the toad, left
without a moment's rest, should escape in terror; there were rags soaked
in brandy and saturated with incense; tangles of hemp dipped in the
calking of the ships; mountain herbs; simple bits of paper with numbers,
crosses and Solomon's seal upon them, sold by the miracle-worker of the
city. Visanteta thought that all these remedies that were being thrust
down her throat would be the death of her. She shuddered with the
chills of nausea, she writhed in horrible contortions as if she were
about to expel her very entrails, but the odious toad did not deign to
show even one of his legs, and _la Soberana_ cried to heaven. Ah, her
daughter!... Those remedies would never succeed in casting out the
wretched animal: it was better to let it alone, and not torture the poor
girl; rather give it a great deal to eat, so that it wouldn't feed upon
the strength of Visanteta who was growing paler and weaker every day.

"And as _la Soberana_ was poor, all her friends, moved by the
compassionate solidarity of the common people, devoted themselves to the
feeding of Visanteta so that the toad should do her no harm. The
fisherwomen, upon returning from the square brought her cakes that were
purchased in city establishments, that only the upper class patronized;
on the beach, when the catch was sorted, they laid aside for her a
dainty morsel that would serve for a succulent soup; the neighbors, who
happened to be cooking in their pots over the fire would take out a
cupful of the best of the broth, carrying it slowly so that it shouldn't
spill, and bring it to _la Soberana's_ cabin; cups of chocolate arrived
one after the other every afternoon.

"Visanteta rebelled against this excessive kindness. She couldn't
swallow another drop! She was full! But her mother stuck out her hairy
nose with an imperious expression. I tell you to eat! She must remember
what she had inside of her.... And she began to feel a faint,
indefinable affection for that mysterious creature, lodged in the
entrails of her daughter. She pictured it to herself; she could see it;
it was her pride. Thanks to it, the whole town had its eyes upon the
cabin and the trail of visitors was unending, and _la Soberana_ never
passed a woman on her way without being stopped and asked for news.

"Only once had they summoned the doctor, seeing him pass by the door;
but not that they really wished him, or had any faith in him. What could
that helpless man do against such a tenacious animal!... And upon
hearing that, not content with the explanations of the mother and the
daughter and his own audacious tapping around her clothes, he
recommended an internal examination, the proud mother almost showed him
the door. The impudent wretch! Not in a hurry was he going to have the
pleasure of seeing her daughter so intimately! The poor thing, so good
and so modest, who blushed merely at the thought of such proposals!...

"On Sunday afternoons Visanteta went to church, figuring at the head of
the daughters of Mary. Her voluminous abdomen was eyed with admiration
by the girls. They all asked breathlessly after the toad, and Visanteta
replied wearily. It didn't bother her so much now. It had grown very
much because she ate so well; sometimes it moved about, but it didn't
hurt as it used to. One after the other the maidens would place their
hands upon the afflicted one and feel the movements of the invisible
creature, admiring as they did so the superiority of their friend. The
curate, a blessed chap of pious simplicity, pretended not to notice the
feminine curiosity, and thought with awe of the things done by God to
put His creatures to the test. Afterwards, when the afternoon drew to a
close, and the choir sang in gentle voice the praises of Our Lady of the
Sea, each of the virgins would fall to thinking of that mysterious
beast, praying fervently that poor Visanteta be delivered of it as soon
as possible.

"_Carafosca_, too, enjoyed a certain notoriety because of his
sweetheart's affliction. The women accosted him, the old fishermen
stopped him to inquire about the animal that was torturing the girl.
'The poor thing! The poor thing!' he would groan, in accents of amorous
commiseration. He said no more; but his eyes revealed a vehement desire
to take over as soon as possible Visanteta and her toad, since the
latter inspired a certain affection in him because of its connection
with her.

"One night, when the doctor was at my door, a woman came in search of
him, panting with dramatic horror. _La Soberana's_ daughter was very
sick; he must run to her rescue. The doctor shrugged his shoulders. 'Ah,
yes! The toad!' And he didn't seem at all anxious to stir. Then came
another woman, more agitated than the first. Poor Visanteta! She was
dying! Her shrieks could be heard all over the street. The wicked beast
was devouring her entrails....

"I followed the doctor, attracted by the curiosity that had the whole
town in a commotion. When we came to _la Soberana's_ cabin we had to
force our way through a compact group of women who obstructed the
doorway, crowding into the house. A rending shriek, a rasping wail came
from the innermost part of the dwelling, rising above the heads of the
curious or terrified women. The hoarse voice of _la Soberana_ answered
with entreating accents. Her daughter! Ah, Lord, her poor daughter....

"The arrival of the physician was received by a chorus of demands on the
part of the old women. Poor Visanteta was writhing furiously, unable to
bear such pain; her eyes bulged from their sockets and her features were
distorted. She must be operated upon; her entrails must be opened and
the green, slippery demon that was eating her alive must be expelled.

"The doctor proceeded upon his task, without paying any attention to the
advice showered upon him, and before I could reach his side his voice
resounded through the sudden silence, with ill-humored brusqueness:

"'But good Lord, the only trouble with this girl is that she's going to
...!'

"Before he could finish, all could guess from the harshness of his voice
what he was about to say. The group of women yielded before _la
Soberana's_ thrusts even as the waves of the sea under the belly of a
whale. She stuck out her big hands and her threatening nails, mumbling
insults and looking at the doctor with murder in her eyes. Bandit!
Drunkard! Out of her house!... It was the people's fault, for supporting
such an infidel. She'd eat him up! Let them make way for her!... And she
struggled violently with her friends, fighting to free herself and
scratch out the doctor's eyes. To her vindictive cries were joined the
weak bleating of Visanteta, protesting with the breath that was left her
between her groans of pain. It was a lie! Let that wicked man be gone!
What a nasty mouth he had! It was all a lie!...

"But the doctor went hither and thither, asking for water, for bandages,
snappy and imperious in his commands, paying no attention whatsoever to
the threats of the mother or the cries of the daughter, which were
becoming louder and more heart-rending than ever. Suddenly she roared
as if she were being slaughtered, and there was a bustle of curiosity
around the physician, whom I couldn't see. 'It's a lie! A lie!
Evil-tongued wretch! Slanderer!' ... But the protestations of Visanteta
were no longer unaccompanied. To her voice of an innocent victim begging
justice from heaven was added the cry of a pair of lungs that were
breathing the air for the first time.

"And now the friends of _la Soberana_ had to restrain her from falling
upon her daughter. She would kill her! The bitch! Whose child was
that?... And terrified by the threats of her mother, the sick woman, who
was still sobbing 'It's a lie! A lie!' at last spoke. It was a young
fellow of the _huerta_ whom she had never seen again ... an indiscretion
committed one evening.... She no longer remembered. No, she could not
remember!... And she insisted upon this forgetfulness as if it were an
incontrovertible excuse.

"The people now saw through it all. The women were impatient to spread
the news. As we left, _la Soberana_, humiliated and in tears, tried to
kneel before the doctor and kiss his hand. 'Ay, Don Antoni!... Don
Antoni!' She asked pardon for her insults; she despaired when she
thought of the village comments. What they would have to suffer now!...
On the following day the youths that sang as they arranged their nets
would invent new verses. The song of the toad! Her life would become
impossible!... But even more than this, the thought of _Carafosca_
terrified her. She knew very well what sort of brute that was. He would
kill poor Visanteta the first time she appeared on the street; and she
herself would meet the same fate for being her mother and not having
guarded her well. 'Ay, Don Antoni!' She begged him, upon her knees, to
see _Carafosca_. He, who was so good and who knew so much, could
convince the fellow with his reasoning, and make him swear that he would
not do the women any harm,--that he would forget them.

"The doctor received these entreaties with the same indifference as he
had received the threats, and he answered sharply. He would see about
it; it was a delicate affair. But once in the street, he shrugged his
shoulders with resignation. 'Let's go and see that animal.'

"We pulled him out of the tavern and the three of us began to walk along
the beach through the darkness. The fisherman seemed to be awed at
finding himself between two persons of such importance. Don Antonio
spoke to him of the indisputable superiority of men ever since the
earliest days of creation; of the scorn with which women should be
regarded because of their lack of seriousness; of their immense number
and the ease with which we could pick another if the one we had happened
to displease us ... and at last, with brutal directness, told what had
happened.

"_Carafosca_ hesitated, as if he had not understood the doctor's words
very well. Little by little the certainty dawned upon his dense
comprehension. 'By God! By God!' And he scratched himself fearfully
under his cap, and brought his hands to his sash as if he were seeking
his redoubtable knife.

"The physician tried to console him. He must forget Visanteta; there
would be no sense or advantage in killing her. It wasn't worth while for
a splendid chap like him to go to prison for slaying a worthless
creature like her. The real culprit was that unknown laborer; but ...
and she! And how easily she ... committed the indiscretion, not being
able to recall anything afterwards!...

"For a long time we walked along in painful silence, with no other
novelty than _Carafosca's_ scratching of his head and his sash. Suddenly
he surprised us with the roar of his voice, speaking to us in Castilian,
thus adding solemnity to what he said:

"'Do you want me to tell you something?... Do you want me to tell you
something?'

"He looked at us with hostile eyes, as if he saw before him the unknown
culprit of the _huerta_, ready to pounce upon him. It could be seen that
his sluggish brain had just adopted a very firm resolution.... What was
it? Let him speak.

"'Well, then,' he articulated slowly, as if we were enemies whom he
desired to confound, 'I tell you ... that now I love the girl more than
ever.'

"In our stupefaction, at a loss for reply, we shook hands with him."



COMPASSION


At ten o'clock in the evening Count de Sagreda walked into his club on
the Boulevard des Capucins. There was a bustle among the servants to
relieve him of his cane, his highly polished hat and his costly fur
coat, which, as it left his shoulders revealed a shirt bosom of
immaculate neatness, a gardenia in his lapel, and all the attire of
black and white, dignified yet brilliant, that belongs to a gentleman
who has just dined.

The story of his ruin was known by every member of the club. His
fortune, which fifteen years before had caused a certain commotion in
Paris, having been ostentatiously cast to the four winds, was exhausted.
The count was now living on the remains of his opulence, like those
shipwrecked seamen who live upon the debris of the vessel, postponing in
anguish the arrival of the last hour. The very servants who danced
attendance upon him like slaves in dress suits, knew of his misfortune
and discussed his shameful plight; but not even the slightest suggestion
of insolence disturbed the colorless glance of their eyes, petrified by
servitude. He was such a nobleman! He had scattered his money with such
majesty!... Besides, he was a genuine member of the nobility, a nobility
that dated back for centuries and whose musty odor inspired a certain
ceremonious gravity in many of the citizens whose forebears had helped
bring about the Revolution. He was not one of those Polish counts who
permit themselves to be entertained by women, nor an Italian marquis who
winds up by cheating at cards, nor a Russian personage of consequence
who often draws his pay from the police; he was genuine _hidalgo_, a
grandee of Spain. Perhaps one of his ancestors figured in the _Cid_, in
_Ruy Blas_ or some other of the heroic pieces in the repertory of the
Comédie Française.

The count entered the salons of the club with head erect and a proud
gait, greeting his friends with a barely discernible smile, a mixture of
hauteur and light-heartedness.

He was approaching his fortieth year, but he was still the _beau_
Sagreda, as he had long been nicknamed by the noctambulous women of
Maxim's and the early-rising Amazons of the Bois. A few gray hairs at
his temples and a triangle of faint wrinkles at the corner of his brows,
betrayed the effects of an existence that had been lived at too rapid a
pace, with the vital machinery running at full speed. But his eyes were
still youthful, intense and melancholy; eyes that caused him to be
called "the Moor" by his men and women friends. The Viscounte de la
Tresminière, crowned by the Academy as the author of a study on one of
his ancestors who had been a companion of Condé, and highly appreciated
by the antique dealers on the left bank of the Seine, who sold him all
the bad canvases they had in store, called him _Velazquez_, satisfied
that the swarthy, somewhat olive complexion of the count, his black,
heavy mustache and his grave eyes, gave him the right to display his
thorough acquaintance with Spanish art.

All the members of the club spoke of Sagreda's ruin with discreet
compassion. The poor count! Not to fall heir to some new legacy. Not to
meet some American millionairess who would be smitten with him and his
titles!... They must do something to save him.

And he walked amid this mute and smiling pity without being at all aware
of it, encased in his pride, receiving as admiration that which was
really compassionate sympathy, forced to have recourse to painful
simulations in order to surround himself with as much luxury as before,
thinking that he was deceiving others and deceiving only himself.

Sagreda cherished no illusions as to the future. All the relatives that
might come to his rescue with a timely legacy had done so many years
before, upon making their exit from the world's stage. None that might
recall his name was left beyond the mountains. In Spain he had only some
distant relatives, personages of the nobility united to him more by
historic bonds than by ties of blood. They addressed him familiarly, but
he could expect from them no help other than good advice and admonitions
against his wild extravagance ... It was all over. Fifteen years of
dazzling display had consumed the supply of wealth with which Sagreda
one day arrived in Paris. The granges of Andalusia, with their droves of
cattle and horses, had changed hands without ever having made the
acquaintance of this owner, devoted to luxury and always absent. After
them, the vast wheat fields of Castilla and the rice fields of Valencia,
and the villages of the northern provinces, had gone into strange
hands,--all the princely possessions of the ancient counts of Sagreda,
plus the inheritances from various pious aunts, and the considerable
legacies of other relatives who had died of old age in their ancient
country houses.

Paris and the elegant summer seasons had in a few years devoured this
fortune of centuries. The recollection of a few noisy love affairs with
two actresses in vogue; the nostalgic smile of a dozen costly women of
the world; the forgotten fame of several duels; a certain prestige as a
rash, calm gambler, and a reputation as a knightly swordsman,
intransigeant in matters of honor, were all that remained to the _beau_
Sagreda after his downfall.

He lived upon his past, contracting new debts with certain providers
who, recalling other financial crises, trusted to a re-establishment of
his fortune. "His fate was settled," according to the count's own words.
When he could do no more, he would resort to a final course. Kill
himself?... never. Men like him committed suicide only because of
gambling debts or debts of honor. Ancestors of his, noble and glorious,
had owed huge sums to persons who were not their equals, without for a
moment considering suicide on this account. When the creditors should
shut their doors to him, and the money-lenders should threaten him with
a public court scandal, Count de Sagreda, making a heroic effort, would
wrench himself away from the sweet Parisian life. His ancestors had been
soldiers and colonizers. He would join the foreign legion of Algeria, or
would take passage for that America which had been conquered by his
forefathers, becoming a mounted shepherd in the solitudes of Southern
Chile or upon the boundless plains of Patagonia.

Until the dreaded moment should arrive, this hazardous, cruel existence
that forced him to live a continuous lie, was the best period of his
career. From his last trip to Spain, made for the purpose of liquidating
certain remnants of his patrimony, he had returned with a woman, a
maiden of the provinces who had been captivated by the prestige of the
nobleman; in her affection, ardent and submissive at the same time,
there was almost as much admiration as love. A woman!... Sagreda for the
first time realized the full significance of this word, as if up to then
he had not understood it. His present companion was a woman; the
nervous, dissatisfied females who had filled his previous existence,
with their painted smiles and voluptuous artifices, belonged to another
species.

And now that the real woman had arrived, his money was departing
forever!... And when misfortune appeared, love came with it!... Sagreda,
lamenting his lost fortune, struggled hard to maintain his outward
pompous show. He lived as before, in the same house, without retrenching
his budget, making his companion presents of value equal to those that
he had lavished upon his former women friends, enjoying an almost
paternal satisfaction before the childish surprise and the ingenuous
happiness of the poor girl, who was overwhelmed by the brilliant life of
Paris.

Sagreda was drowning,--drowning!--but with a smile on his lips, content
with himself, with his present life, with this sweet dream, which was to
be the final one and which was lasting miraculously long. Fate, which
had maltreated him in the past few years, consuming the remainders of
his wealth at Monte Carlo, at Ostend and in the notable clubs of the
Boulevard, seemed now to stretch out a helping hand, touched by his new
existence. Every night, after dining with his companion at a fashionable
restaurant, he would leave her at the theatre and go to his club, the
only place where luck awaited him. He did not plunge heavily. Simple
games of écarté with intimate friends, chums of his youth, who continued
their happy career with the aid of great fortunes, or who had settled
down after marrying wealth, retaining among their former habits the
custom of visiting the honorable circle.

Scarcely did the count take his seat, with his cards in his hand,
opposite one of these friends, when Fortune seemed to hover over his
head, and his friends did not tire of playing, inviting him to a game
every night, as if they stood awaiting their turn. His winnings were
hardly enough to grow wealthy upon; some nights ten _louis_; others
twenty-five; on special occasions Sagreda would retire with as many as
forty gold coins in his pocket. But thanks to this almost daily gain he
was able to fill the gaps of his lordly existence, which threatened to
topple down upon his head, and he maintained his lady companion in
surroundings of loving comfort, at the same time recovering confidence
in his immediate future. Who could tell what was in store for him?...

Noticing Viscount de la Tresminière in one of the salons he smiled at
him with an expression of friendly challenge.

"What do you say to a game?"

"As you wish, my dear _Velazquez_."

"Seven francs per five points will be sufficient. I'm sure to win. Luck
is with me."

"Seven francs per five points will be sufficient. I'm sure to win. Luck
is with me."

The game commenced under the soft light of the electric bulbs, amid the
soothing silence of soft carpets and thick curtains.

Sagreda kept winning, as if his kind fate was pleased to extricate him
from the most difficult passes. He won without half trying. It made no
difference that he lacked trumps and that he held bad cards; those of
his rival were always worse, and the result would be miraculously in
harmony with his previous games.

Already, twenty-five golden _louis_ lay before him. A club companion,
who was wandering from one salon to the other with a bored expression,
stopped near the players interested in the game. At first he remained
standing near Sagreda; then he took up his position behind the viscount,
who seemed to be rendered nervous and perturbed at the fellow's
proximity.

"But that's awfully silly of you!" the inquisitive newcomer soon
exclaimed. "You're not playing a good game, my dear viscount. You're
laying aside your trumps and using only your bad cards. How stupid of
you!"

He could say no more. Sagreda threw his cards upon the table. He had
grown terribly white, with a greenish pallor. His eyes, opened
extraordinarily wide, stared at the viscount. Then he rose.

"I understand," he said coldly. "Allow me to withdraw."

Then, with a quivering hand, he thrust the heap of gold coins toward his
friend.

"This belongs to you."

"But, my dear _Velasquez_ ... Why, Sagreda!... Permit me to explain,
dear count!..."

"Enough, sir. I repeat that I understand."

His eyes flashed with a strange gleam, the selfsame gleam that his
friends had seen upon various occasions, when after a brief dispute or
an insulting word, he raised his glove in a gesture of challenge.

But this hostile glance lasted only a moment. Then he smiled with
glacial affability.

"Many thanks, Viscount. These are favors that are never forgotten ... I
repeat my gratitude."

And he saluted, like a true noble, walking off proudly erect, the same
as in the most smiling days of his opulence.

       *       *       *       *       *

With his fur coat open, displaying his immaculate shirt bosom, Count de
Sagreda promenades along the boulevard. The crowds are issuing from the
theatres; the women are crossing from one sidewalk to the other;
automobiles with lighted interiors roll by, affording a momentary
glimpse of plumes, jewels and white bosoms; the news-vendors shout their
wares; at the top of the buildings huge electrical advertisements blaze
forth and go out in rapid succession.

The Spanish grandee, the _hidalgo_, the descendant of the noble knights
of the _Cid_ and _Ruy Blas_, walks against the current, elbowing his way
through the crowd, desiring to hasten as fast as possible, without any
particular objective in view.

To contract debts!... Very well. Debts do not dishonor a nobleman. But
to receive alms?... seeing his friends desert him, of descending to the
lowest depths, being lost in the social substratum. But to arouse
compassion....

The comedy was useless. The intimate friends who smiled at him in former
times had penetrated the secret of his poverty and had been moved by
pity to get together and take turns at giving him alms under the pretext
of gambling with him. And likewise his other friends, and even the
servants who bowed to him with their accustomed respect as he passed by,
were in the secret. And he, the poor dope, was going about with his
lordly airs, stiff and solemn in his extinct grandeur, like the corpse
of the legendary chieftain, which, after his death, was mounted on
horseback and sallied forth to win battles.

Farewell, Count de Sagreda! The heir of governors and viceroys can
become a nameless soldier in a legion of desperadoes and bandits; he can
begin life anew as an adventurer in virgin lands, killing that he may
live; he can even watch with impassive countenance the wreck of his name
and his family history, before the bench of a tribunal ... But to live
upon the compassion of his friends!...

Farewell forever, final illusions! The count has forgotten his
companion, who is waiting for him at a night restaurant. He does not
think of her; it is as if he never had seen her; as if she had never
existed. He thinks not at all of that which but a few hours before had
made life worth living. He walks along, alone with his disgrace, and
each step of his seems to draw from the earth a dead thing; an ancestral
influence, a racial prejudice, a family boast, dormant hauteur, honor
and fierce pride, and as these awake, they oppress his breast and cloud
his thoughts.

How they must have laughed at him behind his back, with condescending
pity!... Now he walks along more hurriedly than ever, as if he has at
last made up his mind just where he is going, and his emotion leads him
unconsciously to murmur with irony, as if he is speaking to somebody who
is at his heels and whom he desires to flee.

"Many thanks! Many thanks!"

Just before dawn two revolver shots astound the guests of a hotel in the
vicinity of the _Gare Saint-Lazare_,--one of those ambiguous
establishments that offers a safe shelter for amorous acquaintances
begun on the thoroughfare.

The attendants find in one of the rooms a gentleman dressed in evening
clothes, with a hole in his head, through which escape bloody strips of
flesh. The man writhes like a worm upon the threadbare carpet.

His eyes, of a dull black, still glitter with life. There is nothing
left in them of the image of his sweet companion. His last thought,
interrupted by death, is of friendship, terrible in its pity; of the
fraternal insult of a generous, light-hearted compassion.



THE WINDFALL


"I, sir," said _Magdalena_, the bugler of the prison, "am no saint; I've
been jailed many times for robberies; some of them that really took
place and others that I was simply suspected of. Compared to you, who
are a gentleman, and are in prison for having written things in the
papers, I'm a mere wretch ... But take my word for it, this time I'm
here for good."

And raising one hand to his breast as he straightened his head with a
certain pride, he added, "Petty thefts, that's all ... I'm not brave; I
haven't shed a drop of blood."

At break of day, _Magdalena's_ bugle resounded through the spacious
yard, embroidering its reveille with scales and trills. During the day,
with the martial instrument hanging from his neck, or caressing it with
a corner of his smock so as to wipe off the vapor with which the
dampness of the prison covered it, he would go through the entire
edifice,--an ancient convent in whose refectories, granaries, and
garrets there were crowded, in perspiring confusion, almost a thousand
men.

He was the clock that governed the life and the activities of this mass
of male flesh perpetually seething with hatred. He made the round of the
cells to announce, with sonorous blasts, the arrival of the worthy
director, or a visit from the authorities; from the progress of the sun
along the white walls of the prison-yard he could tell the approach of
the visiting hours,--the best part of the day,--and with his tongue
stuck between his lips he would await orders impatiently, ready to burst
into the joyous signal that sent the flock of prisoners scampering over
the stairways in an anxious run toward the locutories, where a wretched
crowd of women and children buzzed in conversation; his insatiable
hunger kept him pacing back and forth in the vicinity of the old
kitchen, in which the enormous stews filled the atmosphere with a
nauseating odor, and he bemoaned the indifference of the chef, who was
always late in giving the order for the mess-call.

Those imprisoned for crimes of blood, heroes of the dagger who had
killed their man in a fierce brawl or in a dispute over a woman and who
formed an aristocracy that disdained the petty thieves, looked upon the
bugler as the butt for pranks with which to while away their boredom.

"Blow!" would come the command from some formidable fellow, proud of his
crimes and his courage.

And _Magdalena_ would draw himself up with military rigidity, close his
mouth and inflate his cheeks, momentarily expecting two blows, delivered
simultaneously by both hands, to expel the air from the ruddy globe of
his face. At other times these redoubtable personages tested the
strength of their arms upon _Magdalena's_ pate, which was bare with the
baldness of repugnant diseases, and they would howl with laughter at the
damage done to their fists by the protuberances of the hard skull. The
bugler lent himself to these tortures with the humility of a whipped
dog, and found a certain revenge in repeating, afterwards, those words
that were a solace to him:

"I'm good; I'm not a brave fellow. Petty thefts, that's all ... But as
to blood, not a single drop."

Visiting time brought his wife, the notorious _Peluchona_, a valiant
creature who inspired him with great fear. She was the mistress of one
of the most dangerous bandits in the jail. Daily she brought that fellow
food, procuring these dainties at the cost of all manner of vile labors.
The bugler, upon beholding her, would leave the lucutory, fearing the
arrogance of her bandit mate, who would take advantage of the occasion
to humiliate him before his former companion. Many times a certain
feeling of curiosity and tenderness got the better of his fear, and he
would advance timidly, looking beyond the thick bars for the head of a
child that came with _la Peluchona_.

"That's my son, sir," he said humbly. "My Tonico, who no longer knows me
or remembers me. They say that he doesn't resemble me at all. Perhaps
he's not mine.... You can imagine, with the life his mother has always
led, living near the garrisons, washing the soldiers' clothes!... But he
was born in my home; I held him in my arms when he was ill, and that's a
bond as close as ties of blood."

Then he would resume his timid lurking about the locutory, as if
preparing one of his robberies, to see his Tonico; and when he could see
him for a moment, the sight was enough to extinguish his helpless rage
before the full basket of lunch that the evil woman brought to her
lover.

_Magdalena's_ whole existence was summed up in two facts; he had robbed
and he had travelled much. The robberies were insignificant; clothes or
money snatched in the street, because he lacked courage for greater
deeds. His travels had been compulsory,--always on foot, over the roads
of Spain, marching in a chain gang of convicts, between the polished or
white three-cornered hats that guarded the prisoners.

After having been a "pupil" among the buglers of a regiment, he had
launched upon his life of continuous imprisonment, punctuated by brief
periods of freedom, in which he lost his bearings, not knowing what to
do with himself and wishing to return as soon as possible to jail. It
was the perpetual chain, but finished link by link, as he used to say.

The police never organized a round-up of dangerous persons but what
_Magdalena_ was found among them,--a timorous rat whose name the papers
mentioned like that of a terrible criminal. He was always included in
the trail of vagrant suspects who, without being charged with any
specific crime, were sent from province to province by the authorities,
in the hope that they would die of hunger along the roads, and thus he
had covered the whole peninsula on foot, from Cádiz to Santander, from
Valencia to La Coruna. With what enthusiasm he recalled his travels! He
spoke of them as if they were joyous excursions, just like a wandering
charity-student of the old _Tuna_ converting his tales into courses in
picturesque geography. With hungry delight he recollected the abundant
milk of Galicia, the red sausages of Extramadura, the Castilian bread,
the Basque apples, the wines and ciders of all the districts he had
traversed, with his luggage on his shoulder. Guards were changed every
day,--some of them kind or indifferent, others ill-humored and cruel,
who made all the prisoners fear a couple of shots fired beyond the ruts
of the road, followed by the papers justifying the killing as having
been caused by an attempt at flight. With a certain nostalgia he evoked
the memory of mountains covered with snow or reddened and striped by the
sun; the slow procession along the white road that was lost in the
horizon, like an endless ribbon; the highlands, under the trees, in the
hot noon hours; the storms that assailed them upon the highways;
inundated ravines that forced them to camp out in the open; the arrival,
late at night, at certain town prisons, old convents or abandoned
churches, in which every man hunted up a dry corner, protected from
draughts, where he could stretch his mat; the endless journey with all
the long halts in spots where life was so monotonous that the presence
of a group of prisoners was an event; the urchins would come running up
to the bars to speak with them, while the girls, impelled by morbid
curiosity, would approach within a short distance, to hear their songs
and their obscene language.

"Some mighty interesting travels, sir," continued the robber. "For those
of us who had good health and didn't drop by the roadside it was the
same as a strolling band of students. Now and then a drubbing, but who
pays any attention to such things!... They don't have these
_conductions_ now; prisoners are transported by railroad, caged up in
the cars. Besides I am held for a criminal offense, and I must live
inside the walls ... jailed for good."

And again he began to lament his bad luck, relating the final deed that
had landed him in jail.

It was a suffocating Sunday in July; an afternoon in which the streets
of Valencia seemed to be deserted, under the burning sun and a wind like
a furnace blast that came from the baked plains of the interior.
Everybody was at the bull-fight or at the sea-shore. _Magdalena_ was
approached by his friend _Chamorra_, an old prison traveling companion,
who exercised a certain influence over him. That _Chamorra_ was a bad
soul! A thief, but of the sort that go the limit, not recoiling before
the necessity of shedding blood and with his knife always handy beside
his skeleton-keys. It was a matter of cleaning out a certain house, upon
which this fearful fellow had set his eye. _Magdalena_ modestly excused
himself. He wasn't made for such things; he couldn't go so far. As for
gliding up to a roof and pulling down the clothes that had been hung out
to dry, or snatching a woman's purse with a quick pull and making off
with it ... all right. But to break into a house, and face the mystery
of a dwelling, in which the people might be at home?...

But _Chamorra's_ threatening look inspired him with greater fear than
did the anticipation of such an encounter, and he finally consented.
Very well; he would go as an assistant,--to carry the spoils, but ready
to flee at the slightest alarm. And he refused to accept an old
jack-knife that his companion offered him. He was consistent.

"Petty thefts aplenty; but as to blood, not a single drop."

Late in the afternoon they entered the narrow vestibule of a house that
had no janitor, and whose inhabitants were all away. _Chamorra_ knew his
victim; a comfortably fixed artisan who must have a neat little pile
saved up. He was surely at the beach with his wife or at the bull-fight.
Above, the door of the apartment yielded easily, and the two companions
began to work in the gloom of the shuttered windows.

_Chamorra_ forced the locks of two chiffoniers and a closet. There was
silver coin, copper coin, several bank-notes rolled up at the bottom of
a fan-case, the wedding-jewelry, a clock. Not a bad haul. His anxious
looks wandered over the place, seeking to make off with everything that
could be carried. He lamented the uselessness of _Magdalena_, who,
restless with fear and with his arms hanging limp at his sides, was
pacing to and fro without knowing what to do.

"Take the quilts," ordered _Chamorra_, "we're sure to get something for
the wool." And _Magdalena_, eager to finish the job as soon as possible,
penetrated into the dark alcove, gropingly passing a rope underneath the
quilts and the bed-sheets. Then, aided by his friend, he hurriedly made
a bundle of everything, casting the voluminous burden upon his
shoulders.

They left without being detected, and walked off in the direction of the
outskirts of the town, toward a shanty of Arrancapinos, where _Chamorra_
had his haunt. The latter walked ahead, ready to run at the first sign
of danger; _Magdalena_ followed, trotting along, almost hidden beneath
the tremendous load, fearing to feel at any moment the hand of the
police upon his neck.

Upon examining the proceeds of the robbery in the remote corral,
_Chamorra_ exhibited the arrogance of a lion, granting his accomplice a
few copper coins. This must be enough for the moment. He did this for
_Magdalena's_ own good, as _Magdalena_ was such a spendthrift. Later he
would give more.

Then they untied the bundle of quilts, and _Chamorra_ bent over, his
hands on his hips, exploding with laughter. What a find!... What a
present!

_Magdalena_ likewise burst into guffaws, for the first time that
afternoon. Upon the bed-clothes lay an infant, dressed only in a little
shirt, its eyes shut and its face purple from suffocation, but moving
its chest with difficulty at feeling the first caress of fresh air.
_Magdalena_ recalled the vague sensation he had experienced during his
journey hither,--that of something alive moving inside the thick load on
his back. A weak, suffocated whining pursued him in his flight.... The
mother had left the little one asleep in the cool darkness of the
alcove, and they, without knowing it, had carried it off together with
the bed-clothes.

_Magdalena's_ frightened eyes now looked questioningly at his companion.
What were they to do with the child?... But that evil soul was laughing
away like a very demon.

"It's yours; I present it to you.... Eat it with potatoes."

And he went off with all the spoils. _Magdalena_ was left standing in
doubt, while he cradled the child in his arms. The poor little thing!...
It looked just like his own Tono, when he was ill and leaned his little
head upon his father's bosom, while the parent wept, fearing for the
child's life. The same little soft, pink feet; the same downy flesh,
with skin as soft as silk.... The infant had ceased to cry, looking with
surprised eyes at the robber, who was caressing it like a nurse.

"Lullaby, my poor little thing! There, there, my little king ... child
Jesus! Look at me. I'm your uncle."

But _Magdalena_ stopped laughing, thinking of the mother, of her
desperate grief when she would return to the house. The loss of her
little fortune would be her least concern. The child! Where was she to
find her child?... He knew what mothers were like. _Peluchona_ was the
worst of women, yet he had seen even her weep and moan before her little
one in danger.

He gazed toward the sun, which was beginning to sink in a majestic
summer sunset. There was still time to take the infant back to the house
before its parents would return. And if he should encounter them, he
would lie, saying that he found the infant in the middle of the street;
he would extricate himself as well as he could. Forward; he had never
felt so brave.

Carrying the infant in his arms he walked at ease through the very
streets over which he had lately hastened with the anxious gait of fear.
He mounted the staircase without encountering anybody. Above, the same
solitude. The door was still open, the bolt forced. Within, the
disordered rooms, the broken furniture, the drawers upon the floor, the
overturned chairs and clothes strewn about, filled him with a sensation
of terror similar to that which assails the assassin who returns to
contemplate the corpse of his victim some time after the crime.

He gave a last fond kiss to the child and left it upon the bed.

"Good-bye, my pet!"

But as he approached the head of the staircase he heard footsteps, and
in the rectangle of light that entered through the open door there
bulked the silhouette of a corpulent man. At the same time there rang
out the shrill shriek of a female voice, trembling with fright:

"Robbers!... Help!"

_Magdalena_ tried to escape, opening a passage for himself with his head
lowered, like a cornered rat; but he felt himself seized by a pair of
Cyclopean arms, accustomed to beating iron, and with a mighty thrust he
was sent rolling down the stairs.

On his face there were still signs of the bruises he had received from
contact with the steps, and from the blows rained upon him by the
infuriated neighbors.

"In sum, sir. Breaking and entering. I'll get out in heaven knows how
many years ... All for being kind-hearted. To make matters worse, they
don't even give me any consideration, looking upon me as a clever
criminal. Everybody knows that the real thief was _Chamorra_ whom I
haven't seen since.... And they ridicule me for a silly fool."



LUXURY


"I had her on my lap," said my friend Martinez, "and the warm weight of
her healthy body was beginning to tire me.

"The scene ... same as usual in such places. Mirrors with blemished
surfaces, and names scratched across them, like spiders' webs; sofas of
discolored velvet, with springs that creaked atrociously; the bed
decorated with theatrical hangings, as clean and common as a sidewalk,
and on the walls, pictures of bull-fighters and cheap chromos of angelic
virgins smelling a rose or languorously contemplating a bold hunter.

"The scenery was that of the favorite cell in the convent of vice; an
elegant room reserved for distinguished patrons; and she was a healthy,
robust creature, who seemed to bring a whiff of the pure mountain air
into the heavy atmosphere of this closed house, saturated with cheap
cologne, rice powder and the vapor from dirty wash-basins.

"As she spoke to me she stroked the ribbons of her gown with childish
complacency; it was a fine piece of satin, of screaming yellow, somewhat
too tight for her body, a dress which I recalled having seen months
before on the delicate charms of another girl, who had since died,
according to reports, in the hospital.

"Poor girl! She had become a sight! Her coarse, abundant hair, combed in
Greek fashion, was adorned with glass beads; her cheeks, shiny from the
dew of perspiration, were covered with a thick layer of cosmetic; and as
if to reveal her origin, her arms, which were firm, swarthy and of
masculine proportions, escaped from the ample sleeves of her chorus-girl
costume.

"As she saw me follow with attentive glance all the details of her
extravagant array, she thought that I was admiring her, and threw her
head back with a petulant expression.

"And such a simple creature!... She hadn't yet become acquainted with
the customs of the house, and told the truth,--all the truth--to the men
who wished to know her history. They called her Flora; but her real name
was Mari-Pepa. She wasn't the orphan of a colonel or a magistrate, nor
did she concoct the complicated tales of love and adventure that her
companions did, in order to justify their presence in such a place. The
truth; always the truth; she would yet be hanged for her frankness. Her
parents were comfortably situated farmers in a little town of Aragón;
owned their fields, had two mules in the barn, bread, wine, and enough
potatoes for the year round; and at night the best fellows in the place
came one after the other to soften her heart with serenade upon
serenade, trying to carry off her dark, healthy person together with the
four orchards she had inherited from her grandfather.

"'But what could you expect, my dear fellow?... I couldn't bear those
people. They were too coarse for me. I was born to be a lady. And tell
me, why can't I be? Don't I look as good as any of them?...'

"And she snuggled her head against my shoulder, like the docile
sweetheart she was,--a slave subjected to all sorts of caprices in
exchange for being clothed handsomely.

"'Those fellows,' she continued, 'made me sick. I ran off with the
student,--understand?--the son of the town magistrate, and we wandered
about until he deserted me, and I landed here, waiting for something
better to turn up. You see, it's a short tale ... I don't complain of
anything. I'm satisfied.'

"And to show how happy she was, the unhappy girl rode astride my legs,
thrust her hard fingers through my hair, rumpling it, and sang a tango
in horrible fashion, in her strong, peasant voice.

"I confess that I was seized with an impulse to speak to her 'in the
name of morality,'--that hypocritical desire we all possess to propagate
virtue when we are sated and desire is dead.

"She raised her eyes, astonished to see me look so solemn, preaching to
her, like a missionary glorifying chastity with a prostitute on his
knees; her gaze wandered continually from my austere countenance to the
bed close by. Her common sense was baffled before the incongruity
between such virtue and the excesses of a moment before.

"Suddenly she seemed to understand, and an outburst of laughter swelled
her fleshy neck."

"'The deuce!... How amusing you are! And with what a face you say all
these things! Just like the priest of my home town ...'

"No, Pepa, I'm serious. I believe you're a good girl; you don't realize
what you've gone into, and I'm warning you. You've fallen very low, very
low. You're at the bottom. Even within the career of vice, the majority
of women resist and deny the caresses that are required of you in this
house. There is yet time for you to save yourself. Your parents have
enough for you to live on; you didn't come here under the necessity of
poverty. Return to your home, and the past will be forgotten; you can
tell them a lie, invent some sort of tale to justify your flight, and
who knows?... One of the fellows that used to serenade you will marry
you, you'll have children and you'll be a respectable woman.

"The girl became serious when she saw that I was speaking in earnest.
Little by little she began to slip from my knees until she was on her
feet, eyeing me fixedly, as if she saw before her some strange person
and an invisible wall had arisen between the two.

"'Go back to my home!' she exclaimed in harsh accents. 'Many thanks. I
know very well what that means. Get up before dawn, work like a slave,
go out in the fields, ruin your hands with callouses. Look, see how my
hands still show them.'

"And she made me feel the rough lumps that rose on the palms of her
strong hands.

"'And all this, in exchange for what? For being respectable?... Not a
bit of it! I'm not that crazy. So much for respectability!'

"And she accompanied these words with some indecent motions that she had
picked up from her companions.

"Afterwards, humming a tune, she went over to the mirror to survey
herself, and smilingly greeted the reflection of her powdered hair,
covered with false pearls, which shone out of the cracked mirror. She
contracted her lips, which were rouged like those of a clown.

"Growing more and more firm in my virtuous rôle, I continued to
sermonize her from my chair, enveloping this hypocritical propaganda in
sonorous words. She was making a bad choice; she must think of the
future. The present could not be worse. What was she? Less than a slave;
a piece of furniture; they exploited her, they robbed her, and
afterwards ... afterwards it would be still worse; the hospital,
repulsive diseases ...

"But again her harsh laughter interrupted me.

"'Quit it, boy. Don't bother me.'

"And planting herself before me she wrapped me in a gaze of infinite
compassion.

"'Why my dear fellow, how silly you are! Do you imagine that I can go
back to that dog's life, after having tasted this one?... No, sir! I was
born for luxury.'

"And, with devoted admiration sweeping her glance across the broken
chairs, the faded sofa, and that bed which was a public thoroughfare,
she began to walk up and down, revelling in the rustle of her train as
it dragged across the room, and caressing the folds of that gown which
seemed to preserve the warmth of the other girl's body."



RABIES


From all the countryside the neighbors of the _huerta_ flocked to
_Caldera's_ cabin, entering it with a certain meekness, a mingling of
emotion and fear.

How was the boy? Was he improving?... Uncle Pascal, surrounded by his
wife, his daughters-in-law and even the most distant relatives, who had
been gathered together by misfortune, received with melancholy
satisfaction this interest of the entire vicinity in the health of his
son. Yes, he was getting better. For two days he had not been attacked
by that horrible _thing_ which set the cabin in commotion. And
_Caldera's_ laconic farmer friends, as well as the women, who were
vociferous in the expression of their emotions, appeared at the
threshold of the room, asking timidly, "How do you feel?"

The only son of _Caldera_ was in there, sometimes in bed, in obedience
to his mother, who could conceive of no illness without the cup of hot
water and seclusion between the bed-sheets; at other times he sat up,
his jaws supported by his hands, gazing obstinately into the furthermost
corner of the room. His father, wrinkling his shaggy white brows, would
walk about when left alone, or, through force of habit, take a look at
the neighboring fields, but without any desire to bend over and pluck
out any of the weeds that were beginning to sprout in the furrows. Much
this land mattered to him now,--the earth in whose bowels he had left
the sweat of his body and the strength of his limbs!... His son was all
he had,--the fruit of a late marriage,--and he was a sturdy youth, as
industrious and taciturn as his father; a soldier of the soil, who
required neither orders nor threat to fulfil his duties; ready to awake
at midnight when it was his turn to irrigate his land and give the
fields drink under the light of the stars; quick to spring from his bed
on the hard kitchen bench, throwing off the covers and putting on his
hemp sandals at the sound of the early rooster's reveille.

Uncle Pascal had never smiled. He was the Latin type of father; the
fearful master of the house, who, on returning from his labors, ate
alone, served by his wife, who stood by with an expression of
submission. But this grave, harsh mask of an omnipotent master concealed
a boundless admiration for his son, who was his best work. How quickly
he loaded a cart! How he perspired as he managed the hoe with a vigorous
forward and backward motion that seemed to cleave him at the waist! Who
could ride a pony like him, gracefully jumping on to his back by simply
resting the toe of a sandal upon the hind legs of the animal?... He
didn't touch wine, never got mixed up in a brawl, nor was he afraid of
work. Through good luck he had pulled a high number in the military
draft, and when the feast of San Juan came around he intended to marry a
girl from a near-by farm,--a maiden that would bring with her a few
pieces of earth when she came to the cabin of her new parents.
Happiness; an honorable and peaceful continuation of the family
traditions; another _Caldera_, who, when Uncle Pascal grew old, would
continue to work the lands that had been fructified by his ancestors,
while a troop of little _Calderitas_, increasing in number each year,
would play around the nag harnessed to the plow, eyeing with a certain
awe their grandpa, his eyes watery from age and his words very concise,
as he sat in the sun at the cabin door.

Christ! And how man's illusions vanish!... One Saturday, as Pascualet
was coming home from his sweetheart's house, along one of the paths of
the _huerta_, about midnight, a dog had bitten him; a wretched, silent
animal that jumped out from behind a sluice; as the young man crouched
to throw a stone at it, the dog bit into his shoulder. His mother, who
used to wait for him on the nights when he went courting, burst into
wailing when she saw the livid semicircle, with its red stain left by
the dog's teeth, and she bustled about the hut preparing poultices and
drinks.

The youth laughed at his mother's fears. "Quiet, mother, quiet!" It
wasn't the first time that a dog had bitten him. His body still showed
faint signs of bites that he had received in childhood, when he used to
go through the _huerta_ throwing stones at the dogs. Old _Caldera_ spoke
to him from bed, without displaying any emotion. On the following day he
was to go to the veterinary and have his flesh cauterized by a burning
iron. So he ordered, and there was nothing further to be said about the
matter. The young man submitted without flinching to the operation, like
a good, brave chap of the Valencian _huerta_. He had four days' rest in
all, and even at that, his fondness for work caused him new sufferings
and he aided his father with pain-tortured arm. Saturdays, when he came
to his sweetheart's farmhouse, she always asked after his health. "How's
the bite getting along?" He would shrug his shoulders gleefully before
the eyes of the maiden and the two would finally sit down in a corner of
the kitchen, remaining in mute contemplation of each other, or speaking
of the clothes and the bed for their future home, without daring to come
close to each other; there they sat erect and solemn, leaving between
their bodies a space "wide enough for a sickle to pass through," as the
girl's father smilingly put it.

More than a month passed by. _Caldera's_ wife was the only one that did
not forget the accident. She followed her son about with anxious
glances. Ah, sovereign queen! The _huerta_ seemed to have been abandoned
by God and His holy mother. Over at Templat's cabin a child was
suffering the agonies of hell through having been bitten by a mad dog.
All the _huerta_ folk were running in terror to have a look at the poor
creature; a spectacle that she herself did not dare to gaze upon because
she was thinking of her own son. If her Pascualet, as tall and sturdy as
a tower, were to meet with the same fate as that unfortunate child!...

One day, at dawn, _Caldera's_ son was unable to arise from his kitchen
bench, and his mother helped him walk to the large nuptial bed, which
occupied a part of the _estudi_, the best room in the cabin. He was
feverish, and complained of acute pain in the spot where he had been
bitten; an awful chill ran through his whole body, making his teeth
chatter and veiling his eyes with a yellowish opacity. Don Jose, the
oldest doctor in the _huerta_, came on his ancient mare, with his
eternal recipe of purgatives for every class of illness, and bandages
soaked in salt water for wounds. Upon examining the sick man he made a
wry face. Bad! Bad! This was a more serious matter; they would have to
go to the solemn doctors in Valencia, who knew more than he. _Caldera's_
wife saw her husband harness the cart and compel Pascualet to get into
it. The boy, relieved of his pain, smiled assent, saying that now he
felt nothing more than a slight twinge. When they returned to the cabin
the father seemed to be more at ease. A doctor from the city had pricked
Pascualet's sore. He was a very serious gentleman, who gave Pascualet
courage with his kind words, looking intently at him all the while, and
expressing regret that he had waited so long before coming to him. For a
week the two men made a daily trip to Valencia, but one morning the boy
was unable to move. That crisis which made the poor mother groan with
fear had returned with greater intensity than before. The boy's teeth
knocked together, and he uttered a wail that stained the corners of his
mouth with froth; his eyes seemed to swell, becoming yellow and
protruding like huge grape seeds; he tried to pull himself together,
writhing from the internal torture, and his mother hung upon his neck,
shrieking with terror; meanwhile _Caldera_, grimly silent, seized his
son's arms with tranquil strength, struggling to prevent his violent
convulsions.

"My son! My son!" cried the mother. Ah, her son! Scarcely could she
recognize him as she saw him in this condition. He seemed like another,
as if only his former exterior had remained,--as if an infernal monster
had lodged within and was martyrizing this flesh that had come out of
her own womb, appearing at his eyes with livid flashes.

Afterwards came calm stupor, and all the women of the district gathered
in the kitchen and deliberated upon the lot of the sick youth, cursing
the city doctor and his diabolical incisions. It was his fault that the
boy now lay thus; before the boy had submitted to the cure he had felt
much better. The bandit! And the government never punished these wicked
souls!... There were no other remedies than the old, true and tried
ones,--the product of the experience of people who had lived years ago
and thus knew much more. One of the neighbors went off to hunt up a
certain witch, a miraculous doctor for dog-bites, serpent bites and
scorpion-stings. Another brought a blind old goatherd, who could cure by
the virtue of his mouth, simply by making some crosses of saliva over
the ailing flesh. The drinks made of mountain herbs and the moist signs
of the goatherd were looked upon as tokens of immediate cure, especially
when they beheld the sick youth lie silent and motionless for several
hours, looking at the ground with a certain amazement, as if he could
feel within him the progress of something strange that grew and grew,
gradually overpowering him. Then, when the crisis re-occurred, the doubt
of the women began to rise, and new remedies were discussed. The youth's
sweetheart came, with her large black eyes moistened by tears, and she
advanced timidly until she came near to the sick boy. For the first time
she dared to take his hand, blushing beneath her cinnamon-colored
complexion at this audacious act. "How do you feel?" ... And he, so
loving in other days, recoiled from her tender touch, turning his eyes
away so that he should not see her, as if ashamed of his plight. His
mother wept. Queen of heaven! He was very low; he was going to die. If
only they could find out what dog it was that had bitten him, and cut
out its tongue, using it for a miraculous plaster, as experienced
persons advised!...

Throughout the _huerta_ it seemed that God's own wrath had burst forth.
Some dogs had bitten others; now nobody knew which were the dangerous
ones and which the safe. All mad! The children were secluded in the
cabins, spying with terrified glances upon the vast fields, through the
half-open doors; mothers journeyed over the winding paths in close
groups, uneasy, trembling, hastening their step whenever a bark sounded
from behind the sluices of the canals; men eyed the domestic dogs with
fear, intently watching their slavering mouths as they gasped or their
sad eyes; the agile greyhound, their hunting companion,--the barking
cur, guardian of the home,--the ugly mastiff who walked along tied to
the cart, which he watched over during the master's absence,--all were
placed under their owners' observation or coldly sacrificed behind the
walls of the corral, without any display of emotion whatever.

"Here they come! Here they come!" was the shout passed along from cabin
to cabin, announcing the patter of a pack of dogs, howling, ravenous,
their bodies covered with mud, running about without finding rest,
driven on day and night, with the madness of persecution in their eyes.
The _huerta_ seemed to shudder, closing the doors of all the houses and
suddenly bristling with guns. Shots rang out from the sluices, from the
high corn-fields, from cabin windows, and when the wanderers, repelled
and persecuted on every side, in their mad gallop dashed toward the sea,
as if they were attracted by the moist, invigorating air that was washed
by the waves, the revenue-guards camped on the wide strip of beach
brought their mausers to their cheeks and received them with a volley.
The dogs retreated, escaping among the men who were approaching them
musket in hand, and one or another of them would be stretched out at the
edge of the canal. At night, the noisy gloom of the plain was broken by
the sight of distant flashes and the sound of discharges. Every shape
that moved in the darkness was the target for a bullet; the muffled
howls that sounded in the vicinity of the cabins were answered by shots.
The men were afraid of this common terror, and avoided meeting.

No sooner did night fall than the _huerta_ was left without a light,
without a person upon the roads, as if death had taken possession of the
dismal plain, so green and smiling under the sun. A single red spot, a
tear of light, trembled in this obscurity. It was _Caldera's_ cabin,
where the women, squatting upon the floor, around the kitchen lamp,
sighed with fright, anticipating the strident shriek of the sick
youth,--the chattering of his teeth, the violent contortions of his body
whenever he was seized with convulsions, struggling to repel the arms
that tried to quiet him.

The mother hung upon the neck of that raving patient who struck terror
to men. She scarcely knew him; he was somebody else, with those eyes
that popped out of their sockets, his livid or blackish countenance, his
writhings, like that of a tortured animal, showing his tongue as he
gasped through bubbles of froth in the agonies of an insatiable thirst.
He begged for death in heart-rending shrieks; he struck his head against
the wall; he tried to bite; but even so, he was her child and she did
not feel the fear experienced by the others. His menacing mouth withdrew
before the wan face that was moistened with tears. "Mother! Mother!" He
recognized her in his lucid moments. She need not fear him; he would
never bite her. And as if he must sink his teeth into something or other
to glut his rage, he bit into his arms until the blood came.

"My son! My son!" moaned the mother and she wiped the deadly froth from
his lips, afterwards carrying the handkerchief to her eyes, without fear
of contagion. _Caldera_, in his solemn gravity, paid no heed to the
sufferer's threatening eyes, which were fixed upon him with an impulse
of attack. The boy had lost his awe of his father.

That powerful man, however, facing the peril of his son's mouth, thrust
him back into bed whenever the madman tried to flee, as if he must
spread everywhere the horrible affliction that was devouring his
entrails.

No longer were the crises followed by extended intervals of calm. They
became almost continuous, and the victim writhed about, clawed and
bleeding from his own bites, his face almost black, his eyes tremulous
and yellow, looking like some monstrous beast set apart from all the
human species. The old doctor had stopped asking about the youth. What
was the use? It was all over. The women wept hopelessly. Death was
certain. They only bewailed the long hours, perhaps days, of horrible
torture that poor Pascualet would have to undergo.

_Caldera_ was unable to find among his relatives or friends any men
brave enough to help him restrain the sufferer in his violent moments.
They all looked with terror at the door to the _estudi_, as if behind it
were concealed the greatest of dangers. To go shooting through roads and
canals was man's work. A stab could be returned; one bullet could answer
another; but ah! that frothing mouth which killed with a bite!... that
incurable disease which made men writhe in endless agony, like a lizard
sliced by a hoe!

He no longer knew his mother. In his final moments of lucidity he had
thrust her away with loving brusqueness. She must go!... Let him not see
her again!... He feared to do her harm! The poor woman's friends dragged
her out of the room, forcing her to remain motionless, like her son, in
a corner of the kitchen. _Caldera_, with a supreme effort of his dying
will, tied the agonizing youth to the bed. His beetling brows trembled
and the tears made him blink as he tied the coarse knots of the rope,
fastening the youth to the bed upon which he had been born. He felt as
if he were preparing his son for burial and had begun to dig his grave.
The victim twisted in wild contortions under the father's strong arms;
the parent had to make a powerful effort to subdue him under the rope
that sank into his flesh.... To have lived so many years only to behold
himself at last obliged to perform such a task! To give life to a
creature, only to pray that it might be extinguished as soon as
possible, horrified by so much useless pain!... Good God in heaven! Why
not put an end to the poor boy at once, since his death was now
inevitable?...

He closed the door of the sick room, fleeing from the rasping shriek
that set everybody's hair on end; but the madman's panting continued to
sound in the silence of the cabin, accompanied by the lamentations of
the mother and the weeping of the other women grouped around the lamp
that had just been lighted.

_Caldera_ stamped upon the floor. Let the women be silent! But for the
first time he beheld himself disobeyed, and he left the cabin, fleeing
from this chorus of grief.

Night descended. His gaze wandered toward the thin yellow band that was
visible on the horizon, marking the flight of day. Above his head shone
the stars. From the other homes, which were scarcely visible, resounded
the neighing of horses, barking, and the clucking of fowl--the last
signs of animal life before it sank to rest. That primitive man felt an
impression of emptiness amid the Nature which was insensible and blind
to the sufferings of its creatures. Of what concern to the points of
light that looked down upon him from above could be that which he was
now going through?... All creatures were equal; the beasts that
disturbed the silence of dusk before falling asleep, and that poor youth
similar to him, who now lay fettered, writhing in the worst of agony.
How many illusions his life had contained!... And with a mere bite, a
wretched animal kicked about by all men could finish them all. And no
remedy existed in heaven or upon earth!...

Once again the distant shriek of the sufferer came to his ears from the
open window of the _estudi_. The tenderness of his early days of
paternity emerged from the depths of his soul. He recalled the nights he
had spent awake in that room, walking up and down, holding in his arms
the little child that was crying from the pains of infancy's illness.
Now he lay crying, too, but without hope, in the agonies of a hell that
had come before its time, and at last ... death.

His countenance grew frightened, and he raised his hands to his forehead
as if trying to drive away a troublesome thought. Then he appeared to
deliberate ... Why not?...

"To end his suffering ... to end his suffering!"

He went back to the cabin, only to come out at once with his old
double-barrelled musket, and he hastened to the little window of the
sick room as if he feared to lose his determination; he thrust the gun
through the opening.

Again he heard the agonizing panting, the chattering of teeth, the
horrible shriek, now very near, as if he were at the victim's bedside.
His eyes, accustomed to the darkness, saw the bed at the back of the
gloomy room, and the form that lay writhing in it--the pale spot of the
face, appearing and disappearing as the sick man twisted about
desperately.

The father was frightened at the trembling of his hands and the
agitation of his pulse; he, the son of the _huerta_, without any other
diversion than the hunt, accustomed to shoot down birds almost without
aiming at them.

The wailing of the poor mother brought back to his memory other groans
of long long ago--twenty-two years before--when she was giving birth to
her only son upon that same bed.

To come to such an end!... His eyes, gazing heavenward, saw a black sky,
intensely black, with not a star in sight, and obscured by his
tears....

"Lord! To end his sufferings! To end his sufferings!"

And repeating these words he pressed the musket against his shoulder,
seeking the lock with a tremulous finger.... Bang! Bang!

       *       *       *       *       *


  INTERNATIONAL: POCKET: LIBRARY


  1. MADEMOISELLE FIFI                 _Guy de Maupassant_

  Introduction by Joseph Conrad

  2. TWO TALES                           _Rudyard Kipling_

  Foreword by Wilson Follett

  3. TWO WESSEX TALES                       _Thomas Hardy_

  Introduction by Conrad Aiken

  4. MODERN RUSSIAN CLASSICS

  Stories by Andreyev, Solgub, Gorki, Tchekov,
  Babel, and Artzibashev. Foreword by Issac Goldberg

  5. CANDIDE                                    _Voltaire_

  Introduction by Andre Morize

  6. THE LAST LION                 _Vicente Blasco Ibáñez_

  Introduction by Mariano Joaquin Lorente

  7. A SHROPSHIRE LAD                      _A. E. Housman_

  Preface by William Stanley Braithwaite

  8. GITANJALI                       _Rabindranath Tagore_

  Introduction by W. B. Yeats

  9. THE BOOK OF FRANÇOIS VILLON

  Introduction by H. De Vere Stacpoole

  10. THE HOUND OF HEAVEN               _Francis Thompson_

  Introduction by G. K. Chesterton

  11. _Coloured Stars_    Edited by _Edward Powys Mathers_

  12. RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM         _Edward Fitzgerald_

  With Decorations by Elihu Vedder

  OTHER TITLES IN PREPARATION

  13. THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST        _Oscar Wilde_

  14. FIVE MODERN PLAYS     _O'Neill, Schnitzler, Dunsany,
                              Maeterlinck, Richard Hughes_

  15. THREE IRISH PLAYS       J_. M. Synge, Douglas Hyde,_
                                         and _W. B. Yeats_

  Introduction by Harrison Hale Schaff

  16. THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD     _Henry Drummond_

  Introduction by Elizabeth Towne

  17. THE SYMPOSIUM OF PLATO

  Introduction by _B. Jowett, M.A._

  18. THE WISDOM OF CONFUCIUS

  Edited by _Miles M. Dawson_

  19. ALICE IN WONDERLAND                 _Lewis Carroll_

  Illustrated by Sir John Tenniel

  20. THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS           _Lewis Carroll_

  Illustrated by Sir John Tenniel

  OTHER TITLES IN PREPARATION

       *       *       *       *       *

The following typographical errors were corrected by the etext
transcriber:

There is a curious contradition=>There is a curious contradiction

Segrada threw his cards=>Sagreda threw his cards

His eyes, opened extraordinarly=>His eyes, opened extraordinarily

flocked to _Caldera's_ cavin=>flocked to _Caldera's_ cabin





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Last Lion and Other Tales" ***

Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.