Benito PErez Galdos

THE LAST ILLUSION.

The man whom we have seen in the retirement of his study, disturbed at intervals during many months by such scenes as we have described, did not, however, give up his whole time to scientific work. He, like others, was a wheel in the social machine, attached to it by his instincts, by his marriage, nay by science itself; and he was by no means one of those cobweb-spinning savants of whom we are told in romances that they are inseparable from their books and their alembics, and as ignorant of the outer world as they are of the true mysteries of science. Leon Roch went into the world, he dressed well, and indeed was not to be distinguished from the well-clothed multitude which constitutes the most important, though not the most picturesque portion of society. He never excused himself from the methodically dull routine of the life of the wealthy classes in the Spanish capital and he might be seen with his wife in the fashionable employment of “taking a drive”—a pleasure which consists in going at a fixed hour to a particular avenue and gently jolting to and fro in single file, one carriage behind another and close together, at a regular pace, so that the ladies who lounge in the landaus feel the hot breath of the horses just behind them, while the quadrupeds, mistaking the flowers in their bonnets for real ones, try to make a mouthful of them. He frequented the theatres, on the delightful system by which the subscribers share a seat and go in turns, and which has the advantage of providing them indiscriminately with emotion or amusement, quite irrespective of their frame of mind at the time. He invited a select number of friends to dinner on one day in the week, having asserted and won his right to choose his guests from among the best of the few distinguished men of whom Spain can boast. Nor did he select them by any rule of creed or opinion, but solely to suit his personal sympathies; as a consequence his weekly entertainments and his evening parties gathered together superior men; independent thinkers, staunch Catholics, politicians of the epicurean pattern, aristocrats of the most ancient coinage and nobles all hot and shining from the press, with men who had risen to social importance by their talents as omniscient gossips, or by the genuine charm of their conversation; there too were rising stars from the university—young men distinguished as professors, or who shone in the debating societies. Perfect harmony reigned however, for nothing is so soothing to the temper as a good dinner, the presence of elegant women, and the necessity for observing the laws of good breeding.

Though certain individuals, no doubt, detested each other cordially, the general atmosphere was one of mutual consideration, and the hours were passed in conversation always polite, tolerant, instructive and delightful—the happy product of this friction of various minds. Art, letters, manners, politics—all were discussed; there was a little grumbling, of course, a little scandal; one group would take up some serious question—of religion, for instance, a theme sure to occur where two or three men are gathered together, and one which has a perennial and unfailing interest. This absorbing subject, which is so constantly discussed, in the family circle, among students, and in the highest conclave—in the confessional, in the palace, in the hut—among friends and among foes—with words in every human tongue, and sometimes with the roar of cannon—with the jargon of party-spirit, the formulas of reason, the slang of flippancy—overtly or in secret; with ink often, and not seldom with blood—fills the air with an incessant murmur, that rolls its ceaseless tide from pole to pole without pause or lull. If our ears were but a little keener, we might hear the dull unceasing soliloquy of the ages.

Leon’s outward features were a clear olive complexion, expressive eyes, black hair and beard; his moral distinction was his inflexible rectitude and a firm determination never to deceive. His frank gaze captivated most people at first sight, but his uprightness of spirit was not so immediately discernible, since a man’s conscience does not lie on the surface. The place he held in the estimation of his acquaintance depended consequently on their view of things; to some he was an admirable character, to others a malignant being; and since his person was beyond question, handsome and attractive, there were plenty to say of him: “He is a very good fellow on the surface, but below that he is a monster of deformity.”

He was not one of those rationalistic bigots—for there is such a thing—who laugh the faith of others to scorn, and ridicule their pious fervour; on the contrary, he respected all who believed—nay he envied some. He had no spirit of propaganda and desired to convert no one to his own way of thinking; for though his studies had brought him great enjoyment, they had also given him many hours of isolation and bitterness, hence he had no mania for casting souls afloat from the blessed isles of the faith, only to see them land on the cold solitudes of scepticism.

He had begun by devoting himself to the natural sciences, finding in these the purest delight; then the study of philosophy had sorely vexed his spirit, and he finally returned to the pursuit of experimental science in which he had found terra firma and a familiar country. While natural history amused him, physiology fascinated him; he was fond too of astronomy, to which he was led by his taste for mathematics. “History,” he would say, “dwarfs us; physiology restores us to our natural measure; astronomy makes giants of us.”

There was in his spirit a certain aridity, the result of the small play his imagination had enjoyed in childhood and youth.

He was born in a room behind a shop, where he had trotted in and out by the side of his mother, a woman, coarse and rough by nature, of no breeding or education. She worked hard, but she could not read. In her vanity she had set her heart on her son being very precocious and she firmly believed that he would rise to be a general, a bishop, or a prime minister. After her death he had lived for some little time at Valencia with a maternal uncle, a potter, who had made money and whose opinions were thus formulated: “Learning is rubbish. A man who can make a brick is of more use to the human race than if he could write all the books that ever were printed.”

After this Leon went through a period of development utterly devoid of follies or escapades of any kind; he never fancied himself a dramatic poet; he never plotted schemes of elopement or duelling; he went through no moods of melancholy, no agitations as to the choice of a profession, no ambitious dreams. He was set to learn mathematics and told to “get on if he could.” He did get on, it is true, and then he was launched on an ocean of rocks where he had to struggle with the petrified waves that bear testimony to the Plutonic and Neptunian storms that have vexed the globe; he was thrust head foremost, as it were, into the bowels of the earth as revealed by deduction or represented in museums, and told: “All these pebbles, that look as if they had been gathered out of the roadway, form a book of marvels; each flint is a letter of it, and you must learn to read it.”

There he saw the rushing waters, roaring ere yet there were ears to hear them, and refracting rainbows ere yet there were eyes to see them; he read the pedigree of the world in the remains of Bivalves, Crustaceans and Ophidians, which had left the stamp of their forms, like the seal set by ancient dynasties to record the fact of their supremacy; he found plants that had grown before there were teeth or mills to grind them, or men to need them; he saw man himself, the latest product of creation, born when the forests had succumbed to become store-houses of fuel, before the seas and rivers had levelled the plains, while thousands of huge volcanoes were still belching fire and giving the finishing touches to the crests of the loftiest mountains. All this he saw and much more.

At a later period, when he had worked hard and found himself a rich man, when he need no longer be the slave of science but could be her master, he to some extent cultivated his imagination. He knew full well that he could never be an artist; still, he took in hand the finer chisel which is commonly given to one of the muses when they are painted on our ceilings; but his hands, which could so ably wield the lever, were too clumsy for so delicate an instrument.

“It is quite clear,” said he, “I shall always be a bumpkin!”

He had succeeded in writing in a fairly good style, clearly rather than elegantly; he spoke in public very badly, very badly indeed, though in private conversation he had a certain eloquence, especially on lofty subjects. He had a free command of similes and constantly used them, from the habit, now so largely adopted by science, of flattering rather than scaring the ear of the studious public; also because a parabolic form of speech has in all ages been congenial to superior natures. It is the instructive homage paid by Science to Art who in return borrows the radiant lamp of truth to light her on her glorious path.

This man, to whom it was a matter of absorbing interest whether one pebble were more or less silurian than another, and whether a solution crystallised in rhomboids or in prisms, had from his earliest youth cherished a dream of ideal life—a quiet and virtuous existence, soaring on love and study, the two wings of the spirit, as he used to say in his figurative jargon. The end of his career of toil was to be the beginning of such a life, secured by a marriage that should realise his dreams, and by the growth of a family. This family that he dreamed of—the one ideal family, the happy circle of souls that he could call his own—constantly occupied his thoughts. Could there be a sweeter or a brighter lot? To see himself united to a wife he adored, loving and submissive, with a sound understanding and a heart of inexhaustible goodness to watch the growth of tiny creatures who might ask him with tears for the bread of learning—to work upon them by the best methods for the development of their moral and physical nature—to live for them, and provide the necessaries of life for that beloved and ever charming group, whose crown and centre, the ideal wife, would appear as the living image of Providence, and the dispenser of its benefits; now the mother, and now the teacher—clothing them, feeding them, guiding their first tottering steps, checking their over-boldness—Ah! for such a dream it would be worth while to live! His imagination painted the joys of a rich man, who can taste all the pleasures of toil without being its slave.... A perfect life, partly given to study, partly to the cares of a family; divided in fair proportion between the country and the town, since in that way nature and society, each in turn, appears most delightful; a life neither too secluded nor too public, in a calm retreat—not dull, but far from the bustle of life, though not inaccessible to a few select friends.

Yes, this was the goal he must aim at and grasp as soon as possible, before his span was run in a ceaseless and giddy whirl. He must find, as quickly as might be, the woman who was to lay the foundation of this happiness—a dream, no doubt, but still capable of being realised. The choice would be difficult. She must be studious, prudent, and grave; was he himself qualified to make such a woman happy? Yes, he could make her happy. Was he not learned, clever, calm-tempered, judiciously critical, accustomed to analyse human nature?—And yet—and yet....