Benito PErez Galdos

AN IRRUPTION OF THE BARBARIANS; ALARIC, ATTILA, AND OMAR.

“Now then, Facunda, make haste, SeÑor Don Leon will be in soon from his ride and he will be put out if his room is not done. Though, Lord knows, he is never put out! A better man never was born. ‘Good day, Facunda; have you fed your poultry? And SeÑor Trompeta, how is he?’—‘Pretty well, thank you SeÑor Don Leon!’—And that is all we have to say to each other. Well, well ... and only yesterday Trompeta was saying there must be two hundred books here; more like two thousand! SeÑor Don Leon Roch—it is a queer common sort of name—as common as ours.—Every time he goes to Madrid, he brings back a whole carriage full of books and then he makes these pictures. SeÑor Don Leon, I wish you would tell me what is the use of them? They are pretty too. Red and green lines, and spots, and splashes of every colour. Now if I could only read I might know all about it, for here, at the edge, there are letters and words scribbled....

“But come, woman! What are you about Facunda, gaping and dawdling like a booby? Make haste and sweep and clear up before the master comes. Then you can go down to the kitchen and eat the slice of ham that is frizzling in the pan; and then take a turn in the sun!”

The speaker was Dame Facunda Trompeta, whose habit it was to talk to herself whenever she was alone, addressing herself by name and praising or scolding herself in turns. Even when she did not actually express herself in words she did by gesture and grimace. She was the happy wife of JosÉ Trompeta, a worthy coal merchant of Madrid, who, having made a humble fortune by his trade, had retired to Carabanchel to spend the rest of his days in peace. No life could in fact be more peaceful and quiet than that of these two childless old folks. They were both easy-tempered creatures and took affectionate care of each other in their old age, with a kindly and respectful tenderness that defied the chill of advancing years. They had bought the little house of which they occupied the ground floor, letting the upper part at a fair profit to some of the swarming families of the city who fled from the whooping-cough or the measles.

In the beginning of April these rooms had been taken by a gentleman, who had previously been very often to the great house of Suertebella and who seemed to be a man of distinguished education, though he hardly ever laughed and spoke as rarely as possible. The room Leon had taken was spacious but bare; it might have been a prior’s cell, lofty, airy and old-fashioned. From the windows to the east the trees of Vista Alegre were visible in the distance, and in the foreground the park of Suertebella; between this and the Trompeta’s little court-yard, there was a gate in the wall, which almost always stood open. To the west lay the picturesque road through Upper Carabanchel with the park of La Montija, and the blue undulations and green levels of a country which, from March till the beginning of June, is not without a charm of its own. Out of this large room, which served as drawing-room, dining-room and study, opened a bed-room and two other tiny rooms, in one of which his servant slept. A few articles of furniture brought from Madrid, with books, geological specimens, prints, maps, an easel with paints and portfolios, a microscope, some geological hammers, a simple chemical apparatus for analysis by evaporation and the blow-pipe, filled the large room.

“There, now your room is ready and you can come in as soon as you like,” said Facunda dropping into the student’s arm-chair; “you cannot complain of my having turned your things topsy-turvy.” For the worthy woman not only talked to herself, but addressed remarks to the absent. “And tell me, SeÑor Don Leon, if you please, is it true that formerly you used to go to dine frequently at Suertebella? Though you now go there very seldom it strikes me that you admire the SeÑorita Marquesa more than enough. She is so rich that her not being handsome does not matter. You keep away from the great house at present because she is in mourning. I know, I know what you fine folks are!...” And Facunda paused, for she not only addressed her invisible interlocutors but imagined their answers. It was not a harangue but a discussion.

“What do you say? I am talking nonsense? Is it not a fact that you are sweet upon the lady? All that courting of the child, what does that mean; you may talk—San Blas! but if you were not a married man.... However, you fine gentlemen are not so very particular. Don’t talk to me; I was in service for twenty years with a countess, and I could tell you things!... But come, come, Facunda, what are you doing idling here? Stir about, woman, trot round. You have not got the puchero on yet.... Hark! what is that? What a noise, who can it be?”

On the stairs there was a clatter of baby laughter and the busy patter of little feet. Monina, Tachana and Guru, after playing in the grounds, had wandered into the cow-yard and through the gate into the Trompetas’ little plot, and finding themselves there they had set their hearts on a regular exploration of the house, Monina’s nurse following in their wake.

We have already made acquaintance with Monina, but Tachana and Guru are strangers. Tachana, a young person of three, was the daughter of the bailiff at Suertebella, Catalina by name, with a sweet little face and a shy, quiet manner; she was Ramona’s companion in all her games, and though they quarrelled on an average three times an hour—not unfrequently fighting like infant furies—they were the best friends in the world, and either of them would cry bitterly if the other were threatened with punishment. It is easy to understand how, by the process of transformation that words undergo in baby mouths, Catalina or Catana had become Tachana, what is less intelligible is how a boy christened Lorenzo, came to be called Guru; but so it was, and even stranger travesties of names have been known. Guru, who was Tachana’s brother, was nearly six, he was as grave and demure as his sister, an unusually thoughtful but a fine, handsome boy, and the pride of his father—with a sweetheart, and a watch, and a little great coat, and a stick—and he always spoke of the two younger children as ‘the girls.’

“Facunda,” said the voice of the nurse from below, “the locusts are upon you. Mind, they do no mischief.”

They rushed up in a crowd, Monina skipping and dancing, Tachana walking with much dignity with a shawl tied round her waist for a train, while Guru gave himself the airs of the father of a family, warning them to be careful and well behaved.

“Why here is my little day-star!” cried Facunda, snatching up Monina and covering her with kisses. Ramona kicked with all the strength of her little legs, crying:

“No, no, ugly old woman!”

“Bless her, the darling! You, Catana, don’t get into mischief or I will be after you.... Lorenzo, let Monina alone. Naughty boy, what are you doing to the child? Let her be, poor little thing.”

Monina and Tachana trotted all round the rooms. They were already tired with playing in the garden, and their faces were hot and their eyes bright. Monina had dimples that an angel might have coveted at the corners of her mouth when she laughed, and Tachana’s dark curls fell over her forehead so that she had to push them out of her eyes, which she was constantly blinking as though the light hurt them. Monina, on the contrary, kept hers wide open with a keen, restless, investigating glance, the expression of insatiable curiosity and ambition which wanted first to examine and then to have everything that came within her ken.

Facunda told them to be very good and to touch nothing, and she would have been more precise in her injunctions but that she heard the voice of the nurse down-stairs gossiping with Casiana, the wife of one of the game-keepers. It is within the limits of possibility—happily an infinitely remote possibility—that the earth, rebelling against the laws of attraction, might quit its orbit and perish in flames from dashing against some other globe; but under no conceivable theory could it have been possible that Facunda, hearing the voices of two other women, should resist the attraction and not run to hear what they were talking about. Consequently she left the children, creeping silently and cautiously half way down the stairs. Monina and Tachana meanwhile had come to a standstill in front of the table on which lay the geological plates, and drawings finished or in progress. A smile of triumph, such as might light up the countenance of the discoverer of a new world, shone on each little face. What pretty things! What bright colours! They had no idea of what the pictures meant, but they admired them none the less for that; indeed, they were almost like one of their own works of art, when a kind hand supplied them with paper and pencils. Guru, who had a paint box, could certainly have produced works in this style. These were not mere pictures of babies and houses and horses; they were a gorgeous blaze of colour and splendour!

Now it is a well-known fact that when a child sees a thing it admires, be it what it may, it never takes it for granted that it is finished. It always wishes to add some embellishments of its own handiwork. Children have, no doubt, a loftier ideal of art than their elders, and from their point of view every work of art will bear touching up. This was Monina’s opinion, at any rate, who discovering on the table and close at hand an ink-stand, dipped her small finger in and drew a broad black line across the drawing. Enchanted with the marked effect of the experiment she laughed with glee, looking round at her companions who laughed too, and Monina, encouraged by success put her whole little hand into the ink and daubed the paper from end to end. The result was sublime. Over the strata, carefully washed in with various tints, lay heavy black clouds, charged, it would seem, with thunder and rain.

Tachana was much too dainty to put her fingers into the ink; on the other hand, she was great at pencil effects. Happy opportunity! On the table lay a blue chalk pencil and on a portfolio stand, close by, a fine geological atlas—a master-piece of German lithography—was lying open. These delightful gaudy pages wanted improving; who could doubt it; an industrious hand might draw a bold line round the margin of each. What could be better? This was Tachana’s idea and she was a Raphael in strong lines which she executed with unhesitating dash.

Guru knew that their efforts might end in a whipping and he bid the little girls cease their mischief; but at the same time he felt that it was a grand opportunity for him—he, who had a paint box, and really knew how to “do pictures” almost as good as those of Velasquez. Monina’s was horrid daubing! What was the meaning of the black blotches and crosses with which her dirty little fingers had marked the margin of the print? Appearances might be saved if only he were to embellish the picture with a house in one corner of it—a house with two windows like eyes, a chimney at the top, and a dog in front of the door. No sooner thought of than done. He selected a red chalk pencil that there might be no mistaking his work for Monina’s, he took another plate and began his house. In less than five minutes he had added a horse with a man riding on it and smoking a pipe bigger than the house.

Three artists can never work in one studio without occasional outbreaks of temper. Monina wanted to add a touch to Guru’s house, and he shoved her off with his elbow. Monina snatched away the sheet saying: “Mine, mine!”

Then Tachana echoed the cry: “Mine!”

The plate, which was of folio size, fell off the table, Tachana and Monina each seized one end and—crash. The two babies shouted with glee as it tore across and Monina clapped her inky little paws.

“Oh! you naughty girls, now see what you have done!” said Guru, turning pale with horror. But Monina’s only reply was to snatch down another print and tear a piece out of it. Then she clutched the pencil from Tachana and across the long lines that she had so gravely drawn, Monina scribbled a perfect spider’s net of flourishes, holding the pencil by the middle and scratching with all her might and main. Guru at last succeeded in putting a stop to her Vandalic energy, and threatened to slap her; but the little imp escaped, skipping about the room and wiping her grimy little fingers on the silk cushions.

In the course of her peregrinations her eye fell on the table on which stood the microscope and she stopped short to stare at it, standing on tiptoe with her hands on the edge of the table. Then she tried to reach it exclaiming:

“My! pretty, pretty!” which being interpreted, meant to convey the idea that she supposed it to be a new toy and intended for her.

“Look at her! naughty, naughty,” said Guru, “now she wants the eye-glass.”

And Guru himself, anxious to prove his superior knowledge, drew the instrument within reach and applied his right eye to the top of the tube.

“In this glass I can see Paris,” he announced.

Tachana had pulled a chair to the table that she might see too; but Monina had gotten ahead of her; she climbed up on the chair, and from thence, on all fours, on to the table, sending the microscope and the rest of the apparatus crashing to the floor.

At this moment a man entered the room. The three little Vandals were turned to stone; Monina on the table, not in the least abashed but very grave and her eyes very wide open; Tachana on the chair, her finger in her mouth and her eyes downcast; Guru looking for a corner where he might hide himself.

“What have these brats been doing?—San Blas! What a mess!” cried Facunda, who came in at the master’s heels.

Leon cast a despairing glance at the torn prints, the scribbled atlas, the microscope on the floor; that one glance was enough to reveal the extent of the disaster.

“You little wretches, what have you done?” he exclaimed, going up to the table. “And you, Facunda, what were you thinking of to leave them alone here? What were you about? Listening to gossip no doubt—You are a worse baby than they are!”

He stamped his feet angrily. Then he heard a piteous cry from Tachana—a cry from her baby heart.

“Was it you, Monina?” said Leon, looking at the child with grave displeasure. Monina shook her head in denial till it seemed as though she would shake it off; at the same time her conscience no doubt pricked her, for she looked at her hands like a second Lady Macbeth.

“But it was you ... look at your hands. You little wretch!”

Monina looked up in his face, imploring mercy; two large tears rolled down her cheeks, and her face was puckered up for a whimper when Tachana’s lamentations suddenly filled the house; she was a perfect Magdalen; there was nothing for it but to believe in the sincerity of such noisy repentance.

“There, there,” said Leon, kissing the two little sinners and taking Monina in his arms, “do not cry any more. What a pretty pair of hands! What would Mamma say? Come and wash them—you dirty little creature!”

“The nurse let them come up alone, that she might stay down-stairs and gossip and chatter,” said Facunda, following with the water jug, “I cannot be everywhere at once; it is all her fault.”

Monina’s hands were washed; then Leon, seating himself, took a young lady on each knee.

“Look, what a lot of mischief you have done,” he said, “and Guru, where is Guru?”

Lorenzo had vanished. “He is at the bottom of it all,” said Facunda. “These poor little dears would have done no harm if he had not led them into it.”

“Guru, Guru,” cried the two babies in a duet, laying the burthen of the crime on the shoulders of their absent accomplice.

“That monkey of a boy! If I catch him here....”

Monina, whose alarm had given place to sauciness, was pulling Leon’s beard.

“Stop! little lady, you hurt,” he exclaimed.

“Tachana say,” babbled Monina. “Tachana say....”

“Well, what does Tachana say?”

“Tachana say ... you am my papa.”

“No, no,” said Leon, looking at Tachana who was sucking her fingers. “I am not your papa. Take your hand out of your mouth and tell me why you say I am your papa.”

Very slowly, and in low tones Tachana made answer:

“My mamma say you am.”

Monina, who was a merry little soul and who when she had got an idea into her head stuck to it and repeated it, burst into shouts of laughter, clapping her hands and kicking with delight as if her feet had a language of their own, and repeated again twenty or thirty times:

“You am my papa. You am my papa....”

Facunda turned to leave the room saying to herself:

“Why, it is as clear as day; I did not need the child to tell me that.”

“SeÑora Facunda,” said Leon. “The nurse may leave the children. I will take them home.”