Benito PErez Galdos

IN THE DOG-DAYS.

The season of exodus and dispersion had arrived. Madrid was swarming and bustling like an ant-hill, every one exhausted by the heat and eagerly seeking money. The price of gold went up as though war were impending, and transactions in small shares were as lively as though there were some real increase of business. Many a family drew the rope that the extravagances of the past winter had tied round its neck, yet a little tighter; while others, not owning even a rope to pull, consoled themselves by singing the praises of the Madrid Summer, and declaring the charms of its promenades and its beautiful nights to be far superior to the solitude and dulness of the country. A summer at Pinto or Getafe was as bad as a winter at El Escudo or Pajares!

The TellerÍas were among the number of those who would not for worlds have stayed in town. They too were off in defiance of all the laws and logic of arithmetic and economy. The marquesa, however, stretched out the spring to its utmost span, saying that the heat was still very endurable and that in the north the weather was rainy and cold. Leon, having no motive for deferring his departure, but, on the contrary, every reason for hastening it, fixed it for the first week in July. But the day before they started an unexpected event upset every body’s plans. The sons of the marquis had long known that their brother, Luis Gonzaga, was out of health; Gustavo and Leon knew more indeed—they knew that he was suffering from a painful and lingering complaint, that scourge of the young, consumption, which frequently attacks a delicate constitution or one that has been undermined by dissipation or study. As the fathers of the seminary where the young man was living pronounced his malady to be only at its incipient stage, nothing had been said to his mother, with the idea that it would come quite soon enough to her knowledge when, in the course of the summer, she should go to see her son. But now, suddenly, like a bolt of wrath from Heaven, came a letter from the Principal, announcing that Luis Gonzaga’s disease had assumed an aggravated form and that “as the young man was anxious to see his family he would travel to Madrid next day by the express train.”

They were all startled and dismayed at the news and still more so when, on the following day, the poor lad appeared, so surely stamped with the marks of suffering that he looked like a spectre in a priest’s gown. Though his features were shrunk under the cold kiss of Death, they had a strong resemblance to the bright and lovely face of his sister. As has been said they were twins, and were as much alike as a man and woman can be, but that the girl, full of health and vigour, had always had the advantage in strength and beauty over her brother, who had been frail from infancy. Delicate and beardless, he had believed himself destined by Nature for the priesthood and had accepted his vocation to prayer and devotion. His eyes, which in form and colour were the very duplicates of MarÍa’s were set in dark circles; he had even in childhood always had the hectic flush of fever which had lurked in his veins as though it were part of his temperament, and now, when the end was drawing near, it was an internal fire, consuming his existence. The flowing black robe revealed every angle of his emaciated frame as he sat or walked; his voice was that of a man speaking in some deep, invisible airless pit, where the sound dies away in dull vibrations like the dropping of hidden waters.

Leaning back in an easy-chair, he responded to the warm and loving greetings of his family with short sentences, in which intensity of feeling made up for brevity of expression, pressing their hands and gazing at them with tender and hungry eyes. His mother, in utter despair, could not control her grief, though her lamentations always ended in schemes for giving her son change of air—pure, country air—the air of cowsheds, or for taking him to some health-giving waters. The first thing decided on was a medical consultation; the sick man smiled incredulously, but he offered no opposition; the long habit of obedience in which he had been so severely trained, gave him strength to endure to be tormented even in his suffering.

Leon had never yet seen him. When he came in the marquesa introduced them:

“Here,” she said, “is a brother you do not know.”

“Yes—I know him,” said Luis Gonzaga, placing his thin, damp, burning hand in Leon’s strong one, while he fixed on him a steady, piercing gaze for so long, that his mother, alarmed by his mute examination, added anxiously:

“You know how good he is?”

“Yes—I know, I know,” and he turned to look at his sister. “You are leaving Madrid?”

“Nay—how could we go and leave you?” said MarÍa with tears in her eyes.

“But your husband will not like to be detained.”

“We shall stay at home now,” said Leon sitting down with the group that had gathered round the newcomer. “MarÍa will not wish to part from a brother whom she has not seen for so long, nor can I wish that she should.”

“Nor would you like to leave her,” added the marquesa. “You are a model of kindness and amiability.—Perhaps we may all go together.”

“When Luis is better,” said Leon. “And meanwhile we will put off our journey.”

The same, or the following day, Leon found himself alone with his mother-in-law, and witnessed one of her most violent fits of grief, expressed in sighs and lamentations over her miserable fate, and remorseful protestations of economy and moderation for the future. The good lady shed a few tears, pressing her son-in-law’s hand with the fondest display of maternal affection and endless terms of endearment.

The TellerÍa family, she explained, were in financial difficulties; the illness of her youngest son required immediate and considerable outlay; she really could not find it in her heart to treat a party of physicians as her husband treated his back-stairs creditors—his extravagance indeed was positively scandalous; for her part she was weary of the life of superficial display which her husband and sons insisted on keeping up out of sheer pride, and in spite of all she could say. She was sick to death of balls and parties, and could only endure in silence the hidden misery and incessant care which made a hell of her wretched home. Oh! her education, her birth, her principles, her best feelings were all in revolt against the hideous farce; but she was weak—she was led by her affections, and even though she found no return, she loved the authors of her wretchedness—she could not break them of the habits they had acquired. However, now she was resolved to be firm and energetic; to put an end to the malpractices of her household; to check the marquis in his recklessness; to speak plainly—very plainly—to her sons, to institute a strict—an excessively strict rÉgime; to live on their regular income, and to renounce delusive splendour and ridiculous pretentions in favour of a respectable sufficiency. Then she sat bathed in tears, praying God to spare her daughter such woes as had fallen on her parents’ hearth—a mercy which indeed He seemed disposed to grant, since he had blessed her with so exemplary a husband—a wise, a model husband—a man of a thousand—worthy to be a saint, if he were so happy as to win the absolution of the Church.

The same day, or the next, the marquis caught Leon and shut himself up with him in his study, where in pathetic accents, he unfolded the tale of his troubles and drew a picture of his present position with highly effective touches—grouping the shadows, and giving relief to the most immediately important feature: the sickness, namely, of the best and dearest of his children. This misfortune was the final blow to the house of TellerÍa, weak as it was already and tottering to ruin, though dressed out with tinsel, gilding and useless frippery. He—the illustrious but unfortunate speaker—must face a terrible problem, his honour as a public official and his dignity as the father of a family, were alike in jeopardy. The hardest thing was that the fault was not his but his wife’s; she was the instrument of the filtration—a word he greatly affected—the constant filtration which was draining away his fortune.—At the same time he was, he admitted, also to blame; he had liked to keep up an unnecessarily handsome appearance, he had owed it to his name, to his party, to his country—he had counted on the success of operations in the money-market, on the advancement and prosperity of his sons. Alas! in vain; he was deceived and disappointed. He could not wholly exonerate himself to be sure; he had been weak, foolishly weak with regard to the reckless luxury in which his wife had chosen to live; he ought never to have sanctioned with his presence all the luncheons, tea-drinkings, balls and routs which, on fixed days of the week had filled his house with turmoil, and gossip, with pretentiousness and vanity; he ought to have resisted—to have protested; no doubt of that. He had not done so, he had made himself her accomplice; he had been false to the sound conservative principles which were the pole-star and beacon of his life. But now he was determined to stop these abuses, to introduce a radical reform of his household, to insist on economy, to maintain domestic order, which was the basis of all virtue, public or private.

Nor was his son-in-law to suppose that he had discussed this painful subject with the object of obtaining any assistance to get him out of his difficulties; no—this would ill become his dignity, which was extremely susceptible on such matters—his only purpose was to let Leon know, once for all, the painful truth, so that he might use his influence in the family and point out the abyss that lay at their feet. The illness of his favourite son was a great grief to him, and he cared for nothing now in this world; he was the victim of a fatality, of all the desperate ills that weighed on his ungovernable country—a poverty-stricken land in spite of its fertility. How was a man to make headway against the difficulties of such a state of things? Why, he himself—the marquis—ought to take sulphur baths for his rheumatism, but he could not, he did not care to undertake the journey. Duty kept him in Madrid by the side of his invalid son and prohibited his spending on himself the money which was needed to prolong that precious life—a young man of a thousand, almost a priest, and quite a saint sent down from heaven!—But the marquis knew where his duty lay and was prepared to fulfil it. His rank as a Spanish nobleman required it; still he craved the advice of a sympathetic and disinterested friend, who might encourage him with brave words and help him by spirited example; he needed an upright, judicious and outspoken man who hated all shams; he wanted moral support, purely moral support.

“Moral support and nothing more,” he repeated with a deep sigh, as he wrung Leon’s hand.

If praise, well-merited praise, could have made Leon vain, he must have been elated when a few days later his mother-in-law said with an accent of perfect sincerity:

“It is strange but very certain, my dear son, that a man may have a warm good heart with a head absolutely devoid of religious notions.” And when the marquis added:

“I believe you are the best man alive. You are good enough to make me believe in a Utopia—and you know I am not apt to believe in Utopias. I cannot tell you all I feel when I think of the interest you take in the credit of the family. You appreciate the fact that even in the storm and deluge of passions the Family must be respected! Yes—society is being submerged in a universal flood, but the Family will float—the Ark!”

Truth to tell, Leon cared less for the safety of his wife’s family, which the marquis had so elegantly compared to that of Noah, than for the melancholy state of her twin-brother and for MarÍa’s distress at seeing how ill-prepared her parents were to face the sorrow and the expenses which were gathering round them.