Benito PErez Galdos

LEOPOLDO.

One morning when Leon Roch was sitting at work in his study he was suddenly interrupted; raising his eyes and looking in the large mirror that hung over the chimney opposite to him, he saw a lean, tall figure surmounted by a death’s-head, on which the grave seemed to have spared little but the skin; eyes that looked starting from their sockets, like those of a delirious creature; a long, thin neck, all red and scarred; a nose, also purple, finely-cut, though its extreme sharpness gave it the aspect of a beak and lent the face a bird-like expression; a meagre crop of yellow hairs that straggled round the cheeks and chin, forming a narrow line that irresistibly recalled the band tied round the face of a dead man; a low forehead, on which his hat had stamped a livid line, like a streak of blood; a flat head with the red hair parted into two elegant wings; a face in short which seemed the transfiguration or parody of a handsome countenance, the caricature of the family type; and at the same time he saw a man with his hands in his pockets, feet like a woman’s of which the toes were scarcely visible below the loose trousers that covered them, and a body devoid of roundness, of modelling or of grace, like a lay figure made to wear a coat. His dress was a morning suit, striped from head to foot, with an elegantly-knotted cravat; a stick that he held in one hand stuck out on a level with his pocket-hole, and a gorgeous flower blazed in his breast like the blood-stained handle of an assassin’s knife. As he caught sight of this personage Leon exclaimed with frank good-nature:

“Ah! Polito, sit down.... What brought you here?”

The young man let himself sink into an arm-chair and stretched his legs with demonstrations of fatigue. He spoke, and his voice, which one would have expected to be thin and effeminate, was hoarse and rasping, a sort of articulate cough or choke, like those voices which, in the lowest social grade, are formed by crying out wares in the streets, and which grow harsh under the influence of the morning air and the nightly dram. After making some brief remark he paused to put a lozenge or pill into his mouth.

“I cannot do without my tar,” he said, “not for an instant.—The moment I stop it I feel as if I were choking.—And what are you doing, Leon? Always at your books? How I envy you your peaceful life!—No, thanks, I dare not smoke, it is quite forbidden. We must try to conquer these epileptic attacks, just now I am very well. I am going to Seville do you know? All the fellows are going away and I cannot stay here; we are a party of four: Manolo Grandezas, the Count, Higadillos and I. Higadillos means to do bull-fighting during the three days of Easter—Why do not you do something! MarÍa would like immensely to see the fÊtes.”

“If she wishes to go I am quite ready to take her.”

“She does not wish to go, and that is the fact,” said the hoarse-voiced youth. “By-the-bye, my dear Leon, I hear people say that you and she are very unhappy, that you do not get on together in the least, and that your infidelity is a constant torment to my poor sister. I, of course, laugh at such nonsense. ‘I tell you he is the best soul living, a thorough gentleman as you will find.’ That is what I answer, and by Jove, you know I do not say a thing unless I mean it. Last night the RosafrÍas were saying that they could not imagine—What simpletons!—They could not imagine how my sister could have married you. ‘But, ladies, be reasonable,’ said I, ‘consider....’ It was of no use, they were utterly out of humour. I heard one lady whom we all know—I give no names—I heard her say in so many words: ‘I would rather see my daughter in her grave than married to a man like that....’ Of course you had plenty of defenders, even of the fair sex—‘Oh! but he is so clever, such a gentleman!’ But she cast you off by word and gesture.... ‘There are things that are impossible, quite impossible,’ said she. At last, I really did not dare put in a word for you. What I advise, by Jove, is that you should cease to go to certain houses; you will only expose yourself to insult or to a snubbing. There is that little SeÑora Borellano who speaks of you as the bÊte noire, still, she allows that you are very attractive. Pepe FontÁn said a sharp thing apropos of that woman’s aversion for you. ‘It is all vexation,’ she said, ‘because Leon is the only man she knows who never made love to her.’ You know she has had an admirer at her heels for this year past, and Cimarra says she cannot conceal her age. Poor Federico! They say he has quarrelled with his wife and his father-in-law—he forged some letters it would seem. I suppose they will send him to Havana. What is the time? Eleven! And MarÍa is not home from church? You must allow that it is rather too much of a good thing. Oh! I know; she and my mother will have staid to chat with Padre Paoletti—an Italian dyed black, as dark as a negro! By Jove! if I were married I would not be henpecked, I know. My wife should go my way or I would know the reason why. MarÍa is as good as gold; but when she has got a thing into her head!—You may not believe it but I myself have spoken to her roundly before now for her nonsense.—Why, my dear fellow, it is intolerable to have a wife who is perpetually at you with her one tune: ‘Go and confess: go to communion: go to Mass.’ By Jove! it is enough to make you go and shoot yourself! Since you leave her free to go her own way she ought to know better. You are wrong to take such folly so much to heart. Look here: I should never forbid my wife attending four hundred and twenty-six Masses a day and undergoing penance from every confessor; but by setting a limit to her spending my money on processions I would soon cure her of her fancy. If she tried to talk to me about religious matters I should say to her: ‘Very good, my child, just as you please; I quite agree to all you say.’ In short, we should never quarrel over a dogma more or less; and meanwhile, my dear Leon, I should amuse myself to the top of my bent. Why, my good fellow, on your plan we should go to the devil without having any fun first; there can be no greater folly! You bury yourself among your books in this world, to be damned in the next. For that is what you will come to as well as I, we are all in the same boat!” And he laughed as loudly as his short breath would allow.

Then, rising from his seat, and leaning on the table with both hands, as though his body could not remain upright without support, he went on:

“Do you know, my dear fellow, that you are going to lend me four thousand reales?”

Leon opened a drawer; he smiled—why, it is hard to say, but of all the members of his wife’s family, this inoffensive creature was the one who filled him with the deepest pity, for which reason perhaps, he loosened his purse-strings for him from time to time, not merely with patience but with a vague kindliness, not to grieve so hapless and frail a being. Or perhaps Leon approved of the system of the Vicar of Wakefield who, when he wanted to rid himself of some importunate relative, would lend him some money, a coat, or a horse of no value, “and never,” said he, “did it occur that he came again to my house to return it to me.”

“Thanks, best of beaux frÈres!” said the young man, not attempting to hide the pleasure that every human being feels at the acquisition of cash; “I will repay you next month with the rest. Not all at once, I tell you frankly that I cannot pay it all in a lump, but in instalments. It is really frightful! If there were three Easter-tides in the year every Spaniard would be reduced to beggary. By Jove! it all goes in charity; the other night those RosafrÍa girls coaxed me into giving a thousand reales for the Pope. Now if the world were properly constituted the Pope would give to us.—Here, you little villain! Lady Bull, come here this minute when I call you.”

The last words were addressed to a small dog that had come into the room at the same time as its master and that had immediately settled itself into an attitude of respectful patience. It was an odious little brute, of the King Charles breed, of the colour of a rat and the shape of a porcupine, with a monkey’s muzzle between long dappled ears, and a bloated body feebly supported on four tiny paws. Towards the end of the conversation, the creature’s little bell, till then silent, began to tinkle energetically and Polito found the dog rummaging among the books that lay piled on the floor.

“Come along, this minute!” said he, taking it up in his arms.

At this instant they heard a noise of wheels and the tramp of one of those wonderful Spanish horses which seem to us as indefatigable as the bronze steed of an equestrian statue that trots perpetually without ever descending from its pedestal.

“Ah! there they are!” cried Leopoldo going to the window. “Higadillos on horseback, the Count in his break. I told them to come round this way to pick me up—I am coming, I am coming!”

From where he sat Leon could see the carriage drawn up by the gate, and the bull-fighter on horseback; a huge young fellow with his legs swathed and a voluminous scarf—a supple figure, not wanting in sculpturesque beauty, crowned with a head of vulgar Spanish type, of the hue of tobacco, under a wide sombrero. His horse snorted and pawed, and the count had his hands full with those in the break, a fiery pair of a cross-breed between the Bearnais and Andalusian. Polito was soon seated in the carriage with Lady Bull, and the jolly party set out down the street, Higadillos leading the way, and cheered by the jingle of the horses’ bells. Leon looked after them with some curiosity; it was a small but significant fragment of contemporary Spanish history.