Benito PErez Galdos

GUSTAVO.

He looked at him and a friendly smile lighted up his melancholy face in token of welcome; then they both gazed out—for they were sitting by the window, at the fresh and scented verdure of the garden, over which the showers from the garden hose swept like a light broom of water, laying the dust, startling the birds, frightening the butterflies, drowning the insects and caressing the plants. Skilfully directed by the gardener, it penetrated the glistening density of the euonymus shrubs, dashing off the surface of the leaves in jets of spray sparkling with miniature rainbows. The garden was a new one, one of those parterres that are turned out complete by the nurseryman as the furniture of a house is turned out by the upholsterer; methodically planted with a tiny wood, lawns, orchards, rockeries bordered with ivy, and baskets full of sweet-william and convolvulus. Conifers grew in appropriate spots, each surrounded by a formal bed in which rows of petunias crept as if on their knees, before some lordly araucaria, or the insolent loftiness of a dragon-tree all spikes and blades. It all looked as if it had just been taken out of a band-box and was the work of human industry rather than of nature; still, it was very pretty, and fresh, and gay, and nothing could be fitter to divide the road which belonged to all, from the house which belonged to one only.

After contemplating the scene for some minutes they sat down to drink their coffee.

“Before I forget it,” said Gustavo, “I want to mention my disapproval of a virtue in you, which, when not judiciously exercised, must lead to mischief: I mean your liberality, which must in the end injure you, as well as my brother who takes advantage of it. I know that you have at times given Polito money, and it annoys me, for he is a ne’er-do-weel of the very worst type. Now and here, in the strictest confidence, I may tell you exactly what I feel, and pass impartial judgment on the various members of my family. If their conduct puts me to shame it is better to blush openly than to feel it seething in my blood.”

The speaker was a young man of a very precise and rather severe expression, a good deal like his father and his brother, less handsome than MarÍa and far from the ridiculous effeteness of Polito. His face was perhaps a little hard; at any rate it indicated a firm and self-contained nature quite exceptional in the family, settled convictions and a healthy self-respect. He spoke gravely and his manners were high-bred, free alike from arrogance and from familiarity, with an equable and chilling politeness which many persons thought supreme affectation. Thoroughly honourable and gentlemanly in all the relations of life, he was also well educated, though not brilliantly talented.

Neither tall nor short, neither fat nor thin, dressed in dark colours with a calm eye behind his spectacles, free from every vice—even smoking—simple in his tastes and pitiless to the dissipation of others, Gustavo, eldest son of the Marquis TellerÍa, was generally spoken of as the best of the family, as an honour to his rank, and one of the hopes of the country. It is needless to add that he was a lawyer. His brother Leopoldo was a lawyer too; almost all young Spaniards are; but while Polito hardly knew what a book looked like, Gustavo studied every day and even found employment under the protection of one of the most eminent pleaders of Madrid. He had chosen what may be called the national career, and having left the university a nobody, he was now on the high road to becoming somebody. It should be added that he had a natural gift for oratory.

“To you, my dear Leon,” he went on, “I may confess that the conduct of every member of my family causes me many hours of bitter reflection—excepting of course the angel who is your wife and that other angel, even more perfect perhaps, who now lives so far from us. Is it not terrible to see my brother corrupted by dissipation? Wallowing in the low frivolity which debases so many individuals—I will not say of our class, for the disgrace is not ours alone, but of every class? Desiring to play a part above what our fortune warrants, he has been led away into insane extravagance, for his companions are rich and he is not. It enrages me to see Leopoldo driving carriages and riding horses which cost more than his whole year’s income; besides, his ignorance distresses me, and his idleness makes me desperate. Ah! you were quite right in what you once said; there is a great deal of truth in your remark that ‘while there is an aristocracy of nature among the lowest, there is also a low class among the aristocracy.’—However, all this is beside the mark; we will not talk any longer on a subject that is so painful to my feelings. I have, I think, made it sufficiently clear that you really ought not to encourage Polito in his recklessness.”

Leon inserted some remark but Gustavo went on: “The blame, I admit, lies with my father. Our education was very desultory. It would be absurd to try to hide the fact that my mother, much as it costs me to own it, has never succeeded in weaning herself or in preserving us from the seductions of the gay world; she has always lived more out of her home than in it. To this day—for what is the use of denying what you know as well as I do?—to this day, when our fortune is so much impaired, and when, as I believe, the little that remains will fall into the hands of our creditors, is it not preposterous that my mother should keep up the house on a footing which is so far beyond our means? It is outrageous vanity; and you may take my word, Leon, when I tell you that I pass hours of anguish in thinking of it. When I see the expensive entertainments she gives, the outlay to keep up appearances while so many—so very many—necessaries are overlooked; when I note the shameless variety of her dresses, her constant presence at the theatres, her anxiety to vie with others who have a great deal more to spend—when I see all this, Leon, I feel impelled to renounce the career of which I have dreamed in my own country, and to go and earn my bread in some foreign land.”

Leon again put in a word, but his brother-in-law replied promptly:

“I should be quite willing to go, but what would you have me do? I cannot give up my prospects when I am on the eve of success; it is cruel to abandon a position gained by so many years of hard study. And indeed, the very fact that I foresee disaster for my family makes me feel that it is my duty to stand by the wreck. We must take life as it comes, dreary as it is.

“You can know nothing of this occult disgrace, Leon; you cannot know what it is to live in a house where nothing is paid for, from the carpets on the floors to the bread we eat; nor the shudder that comes over one at the sound of that recurring knell, the front door bell, announcing some doleful or insolent creditor come to claim his dues; you can have no idea of the farces that have to be played day after day by people whose name seems a guarantee of respectability and honour; nor dream of the moments of acute misery that we, in a more than decent position, endure for want of a sum of ready money that would not spoil the night’s rest of a common workman. You who are both rich, and moderate in your requirements—and that is as good as a double fortune—cannot conceive of the anxieties of acting this bitter comedy among scenes of vanity on the boards of poverty. You—calm and content, with no passion but for your books, superior to those ambitions which scare sleep from my pillow, and free from the slips and reverses which embitter life—you are the spoilt child of Providence; here in your own house, never besieged by creditors, never molested by intruders, in the delightful society of your wife who is a perfect angel.... Poor MarÍa!”

After a brief silence, during which the young lawyer seemed to be reading something on his brother-in-law’s forehead, he went on in a bitter tone:

“And yet Leon you have not made her happy!”

Leon answered sharply, and the lawyer retorted with the brevity and vehemence of a rifle shot; at length, after a distinct assertion on Leon’s part, he began again:

“Your first duty was to avoid all scandal and not to give to the world the spectacle of a household disunited and made miserable by questions of religion. If it is your misfortune to be an infidel, you ought to have hidden the plague spot from your wife, you ought to have abstained from certain scientific publications of which you have been guilty. Atheism is hideous under every aspect, and when it has no sense of decency, when it does not even blush to show itself, it is most horrible of all. Deformity of whatever kind should be veiled, above all that of the soul, so as not to be an offence to public morality! Never hope to find me lenient on such a matter. You know what I am; you know that I never can conceal what I feel strongly. I esteem you highly, and fully recognise your fine qualities: your goodness—comparatively speaking—your quiescent morality—for the virtues and good qualities of those who deny revealed truth can rank no higher; I admit that your life is better than that of some who proclaim themselves believers, that you have all the cold and immaculate merits of a heathen philosopher, and that you carry out certain principles on the rational grounds that it is right to be virtuous, or because the performance of a duty is always advantageous in the long run: that you obey your frigid philosophical moral law just as you pay your taxes and submit to the laws of health or to the regulations of the police; I grant that you are one of the best in this mad turmoil of folly and wickedness; I esteem you—nay I have a great regard for you; I admire your talents, and in spite of all this I tell you plainly if I, Leon, if I”—and he rose, extending his arm, in an apostolic attitude. “If I had had my sister’s hand to bestow I would never, never have given it to you. Do you hear? Never!”

Leon interposed warmly, but Gustavo went on:

“Oh! I loathe and detest hypocrisy as much as you can. I admit but two alternatives: you are a Catholic or you are not? In our sacred faith there is no trimming or compromise. I—I am a Catholic, and as such I act in every phase of life; I do not carry my creed on my lips and atheism in my heart; I scorn the ridicule of the frivolous—I go to Mass, I confess, I communicate, I fast, I glory in defying the outrages of the mob that seems to direct public opinion; I face its cynicism with courage and answer its Voltairian heresies with the holy dogmas and the authority of the Church. And these ideas, this strictness of conduct, I purpose to carry with me into public life. I shall take it up with all the resolution of a soldier and a martyr, guided by the Almighty hand that will not leave me defenceless in the blood-stained arena of human passion. Though men have dared to let loose the wild beasts of infidelity and rationalism, be assured that God will not fail to send among them those who can tame them.

“You need not expect a man who can express himself so frankly and resolutely on the subject, to show you any pity, or to join issue with you on any scheme of compromise which would divide the onus of your differences equally between you and my sister. No! and a thousand times no! She is in no respect to blame. The fault is yours, entirely yours. Truth and falsehood can never effect a compromise. It is your part to give way, and she can only remain supreme and triumphant.”

Leon could have replied, but he was weary of his brother-in-law’s harangue and he turned the conversation into a channel which he judged would be more attractive to the young advocate. Gustavo gave up his didactic vein at once.

“It is true,” he said, “the votes of your tenants at Cullera have saved me, and I feel sure of success. Between you and me, in the strictest confidence, I particularly wish to be returned. It will be the high road to success for me you see—my career. When a man has fixed principles and the immovable determination to defend them against all comers, a public life is an honourable one. In the times we live in, it is a duty to fight! Do you not think so? For when all character is fast sinking into a gutter of corruption, it is well, and very profitable, to show that one has some character, so that men may say, ‘this is a man!’ When human reason and outraged truth insist that there should be some flogging, is it not a worthy and brilliant achievement to wield the lash? Christian civilisation is like a noble forest; it has taken religion centuries to produce it, and philosophy dreams of destroying it in a single day. We must stay the hand of these ruthless destroyers. The civilisation of Christianity cannot be left to perish at the mercy of a handful of theorists, aided by a mob of lost wretches who, to escape the stings of conscience, have suppressed God.” He flourished his large white hand, brandishing it like a school-master’s ferule; and as he prepared to depart he added: “My friend—almost my brother—I have the deepest regard for you, but when I think of that black spot I am anxious—very, very anxious. If the plague in your dwelling increases, beware! You will find me on the side of the victim—my poor dear sister.—Good-bye.” And he went.

As he watched him depart Leon’s soul sunk within him, and for some time he felt quite incapable of fixing his mind on anything.