One morning, or, rather, afternoon, almost at the end of the term, we rushed out of school, almost running from Turco Street to Clavel Street. You must remember that from eight o’clock, when we took our muddy chocolate, until half-past one, the hour when our drawing-class closed, our recitations came along one after the other; and we had nothing to sustain our strength, but now and then a sausage which we would surreptitiously purchase from the janitor, or some scrap which we would filch at the boarding-house and carry along. Smelling our lunch from afar, we mounted two steps at a time, and on entering the dining-room, I came face to face with my Uncle Felipe, who said to me, abruptly, “You must lunch with me to-day at Fornos’s. I imagine that eatables are scarce here.”

“I should be glad to go, but I have so much studying to do just now,” I answered, affecting reluctance.

“Bah, you’ll not lose a year’s time if you don’t study to-day. Come along, for we must have a talk—a talk about a great many things,” he added, with an air of mystery.

The truth is—and it would do no good to conceal it, because it will be made very evident in the course of this story—that I had not merely no affection or respect for my Uncle Felipe, but not even any sort of attachment or as much as gratitude for the favors he was conferring upon me. Quite the contrary. I know it does me no credit to say so, and that ingratitude is the ugliest of faults; but I know, also, that I am not naturally ungrateful, and in order to justify, or at least explain myself, I will sketch in silhouette my Uncle Felipe’s physical and moral characteristics, to do which I must allude to some matters that are of the nature of family secrets.

My baptismal name is Salustio, my paternal surnames are MelÉndez Ramos, my maternal, Unceta Cardoso. That name Unceta indicates plainly that my mother’s father was a Basque, and came from Guipuzcoa, to be more exact; and Cardoso—that’s where the mischief comes in. It seems that the Cardosos of MarÍn—I was born in Pontevedra, and my mother’s family came from the little seaport of MarÍn—were a broken branch of the Portuguese trunk of Cardoso Pereira, a Jewish trunk, if there is such a thing. How did the fact come to my knowledge that my mother’s ancestors were Jews? Just find out if you can who tells these things to children. One day when I was nine or ten, unable to restrain my curiosity any longer, I asked my mother:

“Mamma, is it true that we belong to the Jewish race?”

With fire flashing from her eyes, she lifted her hand and cuffed my ears soundly, crying:

“If you say that again, I’ll break all the bones in your body!”

That chastisement left the impression in my mind that to be a Jew was a sore disgrace; and two or three years later, when one of my school-mates at Pontevedra threw it in my face, calling out,

I seized my slate and broke it over his skull.

I cannot be sure when I reached the religious crisis, or that period in which boys scrutinize their beliefs, sift them and finally discard them, feeling a pain from the loss of their faith like that caused by the pulling of a double-tooth. I do not think I ever experienced such a change, or felt such agonizing doubts, or such remorse and longing when looking upon a Gothic church. I was naturally skeptical and took up, if not with atheism, at least with religious indifference, as if it were something perfectly congenial to me.

I had never been “perverted” by reading any particular book, nor by hearing a person of “dangerous ideas” discourse upon religion; nobody “opened my eyes,” for I believe that I came into the world with them wide open. As many young men cannot say exactly how and when they lost the innocence of childhood in matters relating to the sexes, so I cannot fix the precise time when my faith began to waver, for, indeed, I do not recall that it was ever very steadfast. I believe that I was born a rationalist.

But it is singular that in spite of that, the insult, “tricky Jew,” always clung to my mind like a poisoned dart. My fellow-students never dared repeat it before me, but notwithstanding, I never could forget it for a single day. When I was about to graduate, quite a tall, shapely fellow by that time, I became acquainted with Don Wenceslao ViÑal, a queer individual, but a good deal of a scholar, mousing around in libraries, filled with all sorts of strange learned trifles, and very well informed in regard to Galician archÆology and history. He used to lend me old books, and sometimes carry me off to walk in the vicinity of Pontevedra in search of beautiful views and ruined buildings. I used to torment him with questions, to keep up my reputation as a studious youngster.

One day I got it into my head that ViÑal might clear up my doubts in regard to the Jewish question, so I boldly said:

“See here, Don Wenceslao, is it true that there are families living in MarÍn, who are of Jewish descent, and that the Cardoso family is one?”

“Yes, indeed,” answered the bibliomaniac quietly, without noticing the great eagerness of my question. “They are of Portuguese origin; that is so certain that there is much antipathy shown them in MarÍn. It is said that they have not abjured their faith, and that they still keep up their Jewish rites; that they change their linen on Saturdays instead of Sundays, and that they will not eat a bit of pork for love or money.”

“And do you believe all that?”

“For my part, I think it is all tittle-tattle and old woman’s gossip—I mean in regard to their observing the Jewish rites; but that they are of Jewish origin, cannot be denied. Furthermore, if I have time, I’ll rummage through some old papers I know of, and we’ll disinter a certain Juan Manuel Cardoso MuiÑo, a native of MarÍn, whom the Inquisition of Santiago tortured and flogged, on the ground that he was a Judaizer. He was besides an incurable leper. So you see I know all about it, you curious fellow. I’ll look up the papers.”

“No, no, it’s not necessary. I only wanted to find out—mere idle curiosity. Don’t trouble yourself about it, Don Wenceslao.”

For a month I was sorely afraid that the fellow actually would look the matter up, or perhaps even send an absurd communication to some wretched sheet in Pontevedra, as he used to do every two years, whenever he imagined that he had discovered some important and unpublished data which might serve as an historical key to the ancient kingdom of Galicia. I therefore carefully avoided recurring to the conversation about the Judaizers of MarÍn. This very precaution indicated that I was not quite reconciled to the drubbing which had been inflicted upon Juan Manuel Cardoso MuiÑo.

Later on, when I left Pontevedra for Madrid to begin my studies preparatory to the School of Engineering, I often recalled that stigma, and tried to view it in a sensible light. It seemed to me absurd to place so much importance upon a thing that, in our present social state, has none whatever in the light of good judgment and the philosophy of history. The Jews are, in fact, a people of noble origin, who have given us “the religious conception”—a conception to which, viewed either as a sublime product of the mind or as a lofty flight of the imagination, I attributed great importance.

In another point of view, also, that of social standing, it no longer seemed right to me to despise Hebrews. The stigma of the Middle Ages has been so far obliterated that wealthy Jewish capitalists intermarry with the most aristocratic families in France, and give splendid receptions and banquets at which the Spanish aristocracy deigns to appear. Aside from these outward considerations, I used to fix my thought on others, higher and deeper, and remembered that great thinker Baruch Spinosa, who was of Jewish race; as were also Meyerbeer and Heine.

In fact, as I assured myself again and again, there was not the slightest reason for feeling so sore at having descended from the Jews, except the unreason of an instinctive aversion, born of sentimental hereditary prejudice. There was no doubt about it; the blood of the old Christians which flowed in my veins, shrank with horror from intermingling with that of the Jewish race. It is very singular, I thought, that the inmost part of our being thus resists our will and reason, and that, in spite of ourselves, there exists within us a rebellious and self-governed something, over which our own convictions have no control whatever, but which is only affected by those of past generations.

And here my Uncle Felipe again appears on the scene. I do not know whether I remarked before that he was my mother’s brother, somewhat younger than she was. He was about forty-two or forty-three at the time our story commences, and was considered “quite good-looking;” perhaps because he was tall, well-formed, and somewhat stout, with thick hair and whiskers. But at the first glance my uncle showed all the unmistakable traces of a Jewish origin. He certainly did not look like the images of Christ, but resembled, rather, another Semitic type, that of the sensual Jews, such as the scribes, Pharisees and doctors of the law, as they appear in pictures and sculptures representing scenes in the Crucifixion.

The first time I ever visited the Prado Museum I was struck by the great number of faces resembling my Uncle Felipe’s. Above all was this the case in Rubens’s paintings, in those big, fat, florid Jews, with their hooked noses and gluttonous, sensual lips, hard, suspicious gaze, and with profiles like a bird of prey. Some of them, exaggerated by the Flemish master’s heavy strokes, were caricatures of my uncle, but most faithful ones. His red beard and curly hair made my uncle look precisely like the figure of one of the executioners carried in the processions of Holy Week. And to me it was very plain, it was my uncle’s deicide face which from childhood inspired me with that stolid, sullen, insuperable aversion, like that we feel for a reptile though it does us no harm. Not even my rationalistic ideas, nor my scientific positivism, nor the knowledge that I was supported and protected by that hated being, could rid me of this aversion.

“These are the tricks of art,” I reflected. “For five hundred years past the painters have endeavored to bring together in half a dozen faces the expression of avarice, of gluttony, cruelty, selfishness, and hypocrisy, and so have succeeded in making the Jewish type so repugnant. Luis is right. Tradition, that binding cement, that mold which gathers in our very souls, is stronger than culture or progress. Instead of reflecting, we feel; and not even that, because it is the dead who feel for us.”

Sometimes, in order not to acknowledge myself guilty of fear or childishness, I sought other reasons for the antipathy I felt toward my uncle. I make a great point of personal neatness, while my uncle, without being careless in his dress, was not very cleanly in his person; his nails were sometimes not immaculate, and his teeth betrayed a tinge of green. My dislike for my uncle was also stimulated by my seeing that he, without any desert whatever, as the result of no moral or intellectual qualities, had yet been able to secure a good position. I do not mean to say that he was wicked or stupid, but that he was one of those intermediate hybrid creatures, of whom we can never quite discover, whether they are bright or stupid, good or knavish, although they are strongly inclined to be the latter. A mushroom springing up in the corruption of our politics, and growing rank in the deadly shade of electoral intrigue, he was condemned by my puritanical and radical ideas, with all the rigid inflexibility of youth, to the punishment of general contempt. Although he was not as high in power as some of his fellow-bosses, his unjustifiable prosperity sufficed to stir all my youthful indignation against him.

When my uncle was licensed to practice law, he owned some land and a house or two in Pontevedra, which he had inherited from his father. This property would not yield him an income of $1000 annually, at five per cent. How it happened that this meager fortune was more than doubled in bank stocks and four per cent. government bonds a few years later, let any one explain who understands how such miracles are worked; so common nowadays that they no longer surprise anybody. My uncle did not practice his profession; the law was for him, what it usually is for Spaniards in political life—an avocation, a passport. He went into politics cautiously, swimming, but keeping an eye on his clothes. He was elected provincial deputy several times, and picked away at his pleasure in the fig-basket of offices. In order not to waste his money in electoral campaigns, he contented himself with going to the Cortes only once, standing for one of those vacancies which occur on the eve of a general election, and which usually go to the benefit of journalists. My uncle, by the favor of Don Vicente SotopeÑa, the all-powerful “boss” of Galicia, carried off the prize without spending a single penny; and took the oath the very day before the House was dissolved, leaving the way open to become a Governor, and later on—who can tell?—a Councilor of State or Minister of Public Instruction. Governor he was very quickly, sometimes as acting head of the province, sometimes as executive in his own right.

From time to time some good thing fell mysteriously into his lap; and they had a great deal to say in Pontevedra about the expropriation of some of my uncle’s property, which the city council bought at a fabulous price. But it is neither pleasant nor profitable to recount these transactions. My uncle was one of the petty third-rate politicians who never dip into the dish without bringing out a fat slice. His method consisted in cutting down expenses and adding up profits, without despising the most insignificant.

They used to say in his praise that he was long-headed. Now such a trait appeared to me only another symptom of Judaism, though, perhaps I was unjust in this, because many bosses in my part of the country, though of the purest Aryan extraction, are not behind Uncle Felipe in that respect.

Sometimes I felt conscience-stricken on account of my dislike toward my nearest relative. I accused myself of being without proper feeling, because I was returning only hatred for favors. If my uncle were mean and stingy, he deserved all the more credit for meeting a good part of the expenses of my education. And I could not deny that my uncle showed a liking for me, in his own fashion. When he was in Madrid, he used to give me an occasional quarter to go to the theater; and two or three times during his stay he would invite me to breakfast or dine with him at Fornos’s; and he was never strict with me. He used to treat me like a pleasure-loving young lad of not much consequence, questioning me about my tricks and frolics, about my fellow-boarders’ pranks, and about the girls over the way, who were amusing.

Sometimes he even dropped into worse talk, boasting that he was an expert in all matters relating to licentious amours. After dinner, when the wine, the coffee and the liquors had flushed his cheeks, he would display his expertness, treating of dubious subjects which sometimes nauseated me. I did not dare to protest, for we men are ashamed to appear innocent; but the truth is, my youthful palate refused that spicy, too-highly-seasoned dish. Sometimes it happened, also, that at night the indecent images called up by his conversation would assault and excite me, until I would freely bathe the back of my head and neck with cold water out of the pitcher. In winter as well as in summer this proceeding would refresh my brain and enable me to forget myself in my books again.

Aversion, or rather antipathy, is as powerful a motive force as love, and I was looking forward to the end of my studies as the close of a patronage which I felt to be unbearable. To be my own master, to earn enough money to live on, to pay back to my uncle what he had given me—that was my dream; and I clung to its wings in order to reach the top of the dry hill of machinery, construction and topography.

Now that I have drawn my Uncle Felipe’s portrait, I will add, that when we found ourselves in the little, dark, low room in Fornos’s, seated at the table where the waiter was placing a dish of radishes, Vienna rolls, butter, and the rest of the lunch; after making several remarks on various unimportant subjects, he said, clapping me on the shoulder, but without looking me in the face, “Guess what I have to tell you.”

“How can I?”

“Well, what use is it for you to study so hard, if you cannot?”—said he, making an effort to appear jocose.

I shrugged my shoulders, and my uncle added:

“I am going to get married.”