Out of his pocket he drew "The Faith Triumphant," a small book bound in parchment, of antique and reddish print, which he fondled with a ferocious grip.
"Blessed Father Garau! Placed in charge of exhorting and encouraging the criminals, he had seen it all at close range, and he told of the thousands and thousands of spectators who flocked from many towns on the island to witness the festival, of the solemn masses attended by the thirty-eight criminals destined for the burning, of the luxurious trappings of caballeros and alguaciles mounted on prancing chargers at the head of the procession, and of the 'piety of the multitude, which burst into cries of pity when a highwayman was led to the gallows, but which remained dumb in the presence of these God-forgotten reprobates.' On that day, according to the learned Jesuit, the temper of soul of those who believe in God and of those who do not was displayed. The priests marched courageously, uttering shouts of exhortation unceasingly, while the miserable criminals were pale, exhausted and fainting. It was easy enough to see on which side lay celestial aid!
"The condemned were conducted to the foot of the Castle of Bellver for the final burning. The Marquis of Leganes, Governor of the Milanesado, chancing to be in Majorca with his fleet, took pity on the youth and beauty of a girl sentenced to the flames, and sued for her pardon. The tribunal praised the marquis for his Christian sentiments, but would not grant his petition.
"Father Garau was the one in charge of the conversion of Rafael Valls, 'a man of some letters, but one in whom the devil inspired an immeasurable pride, impelling him to curse those who condemned him to death, and refusing to reconcile himself with the Church.' But, as the Jesuit said, such boastfulness, the work of the Evil One, fails in the presence of danger, and cannot compare to the serenity of the priest who exhorts the criminal.
"The Jesuit father was a hero far from the flames! Now you shall hear with what evangelical pity he relates the details of the death of my ancestor."
Opening the book at a marked page, he read impressively: "'As long as nothing but the smoke reached him, he stood like a statue; when the flames came, he defended himself, he tried to shield himself, he resisted until he could bear no more. He was as fat as a sucking pig, and, being on fire inside in such a way that even before the flames reached him, his flesh was becoming consumed like half-burnt wood, and bursting in his middle, his entrails fell out like a Judas. Crepuit medius difusa sunt oninia viscera ejus.'"
This barbaric description always produced an effect. The laughter ceased, countenances darkened, and Captain Valls looked around with his amber-colored eyes, breathing satisfaction, as if he had achieved a triumph, while the small volume slipped back into his pocket.
Once when Febrer figured among his hearers, the sailor said to him rancorously, "You were there, too; that is, not yourself, but one of your ancestors, one of the Febrers, who carried the green flag as the chief ensign of the Tribunal; and the ladies of your family were in a carriage at the foot of the castle to witness the burning."
Jaime, annoyed by this reminder, shrugged his shoulders.
"Things of the past! Who ever remembers what is dead and gone? No one but some crazy fellow like you! Come, Pablo, tell us something about your travels—about your conquests of women."
The captain growled. Things of the past! The soul of the Roqueta was still the same as in those olden times. Odium of the Jewish religion and race still endured. For a good reason they dwelt apart, on this bit of ground isolated by the sea.
But Valls soon recovered his good humor, and, like all men who have knocked about the world, he could not resist the invitation to relate his past.
Febrer, another vagabond like himself, enjoyed listening to him. They both had led a turbulent, cosmopolitan existence, different from the monotonous life of the islanders; they both had squandered money prodigally, but Valls, with the active genius of his race, had known how to earn as much as he had spent, and now, ten years older than Jaime, he had enough to amply supply his modest bachelor needs. He still engaged in commerce occasionally, and he carried out commissions for friends who wrote to him from distant ports.
Of his eventful history as a mariner, Febrer disregarded the stories of hunger and storms, and only felt curiosity over his escapades in the great cosmopolitan ports where congregated the exotic vices and the women of all races. Valls, in his youth, when he was in command of his father's ships, had known women of every class and color, often finding himself involved in sailors' orgies, which ended in floods of whisky and stabbing affrays.
"Pablo, tell us of your love affairs in Jaffa, when the Moors came near killing you."
Listening to him Febrer laughed loudly, while the sailor said that Jaime was a good boy, worthy of a better fate, with no defect other than that of being a butifarra somewhat given to the family prejudices.
When he stepped into Febrer's carriage on the road to Valldemosa, ordering his own to return to Palma, he pushed back the soft felt hat which he wore on all occasions, the crown crushed in, and the brim tilted up in front and down in the back.
"Here we are! Really, didn't you expect me? I heard the news. I've been told all about it, and since there is to be a family gathering, let it be complete."
Febrer pretended not to understand. The carriage entered Valldemosa, stopping in the vicinity of La Cartuja before a dwelling of modern construction. When the two friends opened the garden gate they saw approaching them a gentleman with white whiskers, leaning on a cane. It was Don Benito Valls. He greeted Febrer with a weak, hollow voice, cutting short his words at intervals to gasp for air. He spoke humbly, laying great stress upon the honor which Febrer showed him by accepting his invitation.
"And how about me?" asked the captain, with a malicious smile. "Am I nobody? Aren't you glad to see me?"
Don Benito was glad to see him. He said so several times, but his eyes revealed uneasiness. His brother inspired him with a certain fear. What a tongue he had! It were better that they should not meet.
"We came together," continued the mariner. "Hearing that Jaime was breakfasting here, I invited myself, sure of giving you a great joy. These family reunions are delightful."
They had entered the house. It was simply decorated. The furniture was modern and vulgar. Some chromos and a few hideous paintings representing scenes in Valldemosa and Miramar hung on the walls.
Catalina, Don Benito's daughter, came down hurriedly. Her bosom was besprinkled with rice powder, revealing the haste with which she had given the last touch to her toilette on seeing the carriage arrive.
Jaime had opportunity to study her appearance for the first time. He had not been mistaken in his conjecture. She was tall, with pale brown coloring, black eyebrows, eyes like drops of ink, and a light down on her lip and on her temples. Her youthful figure was full and firm, announcing a greater expansion for the future, as in all the women of her race. She seemed of a sweet and gentle disposition, a good companion, not likely to be in the way during the journey of a common life. She kept her eyes lowered, and her face flushed as she greeted Jaime. Her manner, her furtive glances, revealed the respect, the adoration of one who is abashed in the presence of a being whom she considers her superior.
The captain caressed his niece with a certain familiar-it, adopting that air of a gay old man with which he spoke to the common girls of Palma in the small hours of the night in some restaurant on the Paseo del Borne. Ah! A smart girl! And how pretty she was! It seemed incredible that she came of a family of homely people!
Don Benito directed them all into the dining-room. Breakfast had been waiting for some time; in this house old customs were kept up; twelve o'clock sharp! They took their seats around the table, and Febrer, who sat next to the host, was annoyed by his heaving respiration, by the sharp gasps which interrupted his words.
In the silence which often reigns at the beginning of a dinner the wheezing of his unsound lungs was painfully noticeable. The rich Chueta pursed his lips, rounding them like the mouth of a trumpet, and drew in the air with a disagreeable rattle. Like all sick people he was eager to talk, and his sentences were long drawn out from a combination of stammering and pauses which left him with palpitating chest and eyes aloft, as if he were about to die of asphyxia. An atmosphere of uneasiness pervaded the dining-room. Febrer glanced at Don Benito in alarm, as if expecting to see him fall dead from his chair. His daughter and the captain, more accustomed to the spectacle, displayed indifference.
"It is asthma—Don Jaime," laboriously explained the sick man. "In Valldemosa—I am better—In Palma—I would die."
The daughter took advantage of the opportunity to put in her voice, which was like that of a timid little nun, contrasting strangely with her ardent, oriental eyes.
"Yes, papa is better here."
"You are more quiet in Valldemosa," added the captain, "and you commit fewer sins."
Febrer pictured to himself the torment of spending his life near that broken bellows. By good luck he might die soon. An annoyance of some months, but it did not alter his resolution of becoming one of the family. Courage!
The asthmatic, in his verbose mania, spoke of Jaime's ancestors, of the illustrious Febrers, the finest and noblest caballeros of the island.
"I had the honor—of being a great friend—of your—grandfather, Don Horacio."
Febrer looked at him in astonishment. It was a lie! Everyone in the island knew his grandfather, and he exchanged a few words with them all, but ever maintaining a gravity which imposed respect in others without alienating them; but as for being his friend! Don Horacio may have had business relations with the Chueta relating to loans needed for propping up his fortune in its decline.
"I also knew—your father—very well," continued Don Benito, encouraged by Febrer's silence. "I worked for him—when he was running—for deputy. Those were—different times—from these! I was young—and had not—the fortune which I have now. Then I figured—among the 'reds.'"
Captain Vails interrupted him with a laugh. His brother was a conservative now and a member of all the societies in Palma.
"Yes, I am," shouted the sick man, choking. "I like order—I like the old customs—and I think it right—for those who have—something to lose to be—in command. As for religion? Ah, religion! For that I would—give my life."
He pressed a hand against his breast, breathing painfully, as if choking with enthusiasm. He fixed aloft his pain-clouded eyes, adoring with a respect inspired by fear the sacred institution which had burned his forefathers alive.
"Pay no attention—to Pablo," he gasped, turning to Febrer when he had recovered breath. "You know him—a wild-headed fellow—a republican; a man who might be rich—but he won't have two pesetas—in his pocket—in his old age."
"Why not? Because you'll get them away from me?"
After this rude interruption by the sailor silence fell. Catalina looked alarmed, as if she feared that the noisy scenes which she had often witnessed when the two brothers fell into an argument would be reproduced in Febrer's presence.
Don Benito shrugged his shoulders and addressed his conversation to Jaime. His brother was crazy; he had a good head, a heart of gold, but he was mad, stark mad! With his exalted ideas, and his loud talk in the cafés, it was largely his fault that decent people felt a certain prejudice against—that they spoke ill of——
The old man accompanied his mutilated expressions with gestures of humility, avoiding the word Chueta and refusing to name the famous street.
The captain, flushing with contrition for his violence, desired his hasty words to be forgotten, and he ate voraciously, keeping his head lowered.
His niece smiled at his good appetite. Whenever he ate at their table he amazed them with the capacity of his stomach.
"It is because I know what hunger is," said the sailor with a kind of pride. "I have suffered real hunger, the kind of hunger that makes men think of the flesh of their companions."
This reminiscence spurred him on to a vivid relation of his maritime adventures, telling of his younger days when he had been a supernumerary aboard a frigate which sailed to the coasts of the Pacific. When he insisted upon being a sailor, his father, the elder Valls, originator of the fortune of the house, had shipped him in a galley of his own which freighted sugar from Havana, but that was not a sailor's life because the cook reserved the best dishes for him; the captain dared not give him an order, seeing in him the son of the ship-owner. At this rate he would never have become a real sailor, rugged and expert. With the tenacious energy of his race he had taken passage unknown to his father on a frigate bound for the Chinchas Islands for a cargo of guano, manned by a crew of many races—deserters from the English navy, bargemen from Valparaiso, Peruvian Indians, black sheep of every family, all under command of a Catalonian, a niggardly ruffian, more prodigal with blows than with the mess. The outbound trip was uneventful, but on the return voyage, after passing the Straits of Magellan, they ran into the calms, and the frigate lay motionless in the Atlantic almost a month, and the store of provisions soon ran low. The miser of a ship-owner had victualled the vessel with scandalous parsimony, and the captain, in his turn, had sailed with a scanty supply, appropriating to his own uses part of the money intended for stores.
"He gave us two sea biscuits a day, and those were full of worms. At first I used to busy myself scrupulously, like a well brought up boy, carefully picking out the little beasts, but after the housecleaning, there was nothing left except bits of crust as thin as wafers, and I was starving. Then——"
"Oh, uncle!" protested Catalina, guessing what he was going to say, and pushing away her plate and fork with a gesture of repugnance.
"Then," continued the impassive sailor, "I gave up cleaning them out, and I swallowed them whole. It is true I ate at night—I've eaten lots of them, girl! Finally he only gave us one a day, and when I got back to Cadiz I had to go on a broth diet to get my stomach straightened out again."
Breakfast being over, Catalina and Jaime strolled out to the garden. Don Benito, with the air of a kindly patriarch, told his daughter to take Señor Febrer and show him some exotic rose bushes which he had recently planted. The two brothers remained in the room, which served as an office, watching the couple as they sauntered through the garden and finally seated themselves in the shade of a tree on two willow seats.
Catalina replied to her companion's questions with the timidity of a Christian maiden, piously educated, guessing the purpose concealed in his brusque gallantry. This man had come on her account, and her father was the first to welcome the suggestion. A settled affair! He was a Febrer, and she was going to tell him "yes." She thought of her youthful days in the college surrounded by poorer girls who took advantage of every opportunity to tease her, through envy of her wealth and hatred learned from their parents. She was a Chueta. She could only mingle with those of her own race, and even they, eager to ingratiate themselves with the enemy, played false to their own kind, lacking energy and cohesion for a common defense. When school let out the Chuetas marched in advance, by order of the nuns, to avoid insults and attacks from the other pupils out on the street. Even the servants who accompanied the girls quarreled among themselves, assuming the odium and prejudices of their masters. In the boys' school also the Chuetas were dismissed first to escape the stonings and whippings of those who had longer been Christians.
The daughter of Valls had suffered the torments of the treacherous pin-prick, of the stealthy scratching, of the scissors in her braids, and then, on becoming a woman, the odium and scorn of her old-time companions had followed her, embittering the pleasures of the young woman despite her riches. What was the use of being elegant? On the avenues none but her father's friends bowed to her; in the theater her box was visited only by people proceeding from "the street." At last she must marry one of them, as her mother and her grandmothers had done.
The despondency and mysticism of adolescence had urged her toward a monastic life. Her father almost choked with sorrow at the idea, but it was the call of religion, that religion to which she longed to devote her life! Don Benito consented to her entering a monastery in Majorca, where he could see his daughter every day, but not a convent would open its doors to her. The Superiors, tempted by the father's fortune, which would in the end revert to the order, showed themselves favorably disposed, but the monastic flock rebelled at receiving into its bosom a girl from "the street," and especially one who was not meek and resigned enough to submit to the superciliousness of the others, but rich and proud.
When she was left thus in the world by the resistance of the nuns, she did not know how to plan her future, and she spent her life near her father, like a nurse, ignorant of what was to be her fate, turning her back upon the young Chuetas who fluttered about her, attracted by Don Benito's millions, until the noble Febrer presented himself, like a fairy prince, to make her his wife. How good God is! She fancied herself in that palace near the Cathedral, in the ward of the nobles, along whose silent, narrow, blue-paved streets grave canons passed during the dreamy afternoon hours, summoned by the chime of bells.
She imagined herself in a luxurious carriage among the pines on the mountain of Bellver, or along the jetty, with Jaime at her side, and she revelled in the thought of the envious glances of her former companions, who would envy her, not only her wealth and her new position, but her possession of that man whom far-away adventures and a turbulent life had endowed with a certain halo of terrible seduction, dazzling and fatal to the quiet island señoritas. Jaime Febrer! Catalina had always seen him at a distance, but when she whiled away her monotonous hours with incessant novel reading, certain characters, the most interesting on account of their adventures and daring, always reminded her of that noble from the ward of the Cathedral who dashed about the world with elegant women dissipating his fortune. Then, suddenly, her father had spoken of this remarkable personage, giving her to understand that he was going to offer her his name, and with it the glory of his ancestors, who had been friends of kings! She did not know whether it were love or gratitude, but a wave of tenderness which dimmed her eyes drew her to the man. Ah! How she would love him! She listened to his words as to a sweet melody, not knowing what to say, intoxicated by its music, thinking at the same time of the future which he had suddenly opened to her, a rising sun bursting through the clouds.
Then, making an effort, she concentrated her mind and listened to Febrer, who was telling her about great foreign cities, of rows of luxurious carriages filled with women arrayed in the latest fashions, of broad stone steps in front of theaters down which came cascades of diamonds, ostrich plumes and nude shoulders, trying to place himself on a level of thought with the girl to allure her with these descriptions of feminine glory.
Jaime said no more, but Catalina guessed the purpose which had inspired these words. She, the unhappy girl from "the street," the Chueta, accustomed to seeing her people cringing and trembling beneath the weight of traditional odium, would visit these cities, would figure in the procession of riches, would have opened to her doors which she had always found closed, and she would pass through them leaning on the arm of a man who had ever seemed to her the personification of all terrestrial grandeur.
"When shall I see all that?" murmured Catalina with hypocritical humility. "I am condemned to live on the island, I am a poor girl who has never harmed anybody, and yet I have suffered great annoyances—I must be repulsive!"
Febrer rushed down the pathway which this feminine cleverness had opened for him. "Repulsive! No, Catalina." He had come to Valldemosa solely to see her, to speak to her. He offered her a new life. All these things at which she marveled she could experience and taste with but a word. Would she marry him?
Catalina, who had been waiting for an hour for this proposal, turned pale, tremulous with emotion. To hear it from his lips! She sat still for some time without answering, and at last stammered out a few words. It was a joy, the greatest she had ever known, but a well-educated girl like herself must not answer at once.
"I? Oh, I must have time! This is such a surprise!"
Jaime wished to insist, but at that very instant Captain Valls appeared in the garden, calling him vociferously. They must return to Palma; he had already given the driver orders to hitch up. Febrer protested stubbornly. But by what right did that busybody mix into his affairs?
Don Benito's presence cut off his protest. He was puffing painfully, with his face congested. The captain stirred about with nervous hostility, protesting at the coachman's delay. It was evident the brothers had been having a violent discussion. The elder one looked at his daughter, he looked at Jaime, and he seemed content in the belief that the two had reached an understanding.
Don Benito and Catalina accompanied them as far as the carriage. The asthmatic clasped Febrer's hand between his own with a vehement pressure. This was his house, and he himself a true friend desirous of serving him. If he needed his assistance he could dispose of him as he wished, just as if he were one of the family! He mentioned Don Horacio once again, recalling their former friendship. Then he invited Febrer to breakfast with them two days afterward, without remembering to include his brother.
"Yes, I will be here," said Jaime, giving Catalina a look which made her redden.
When the garden gate, behind which stood the father and daughter waving their hands, was lost to view, Captain Valls burst into a noisy laugh.
"So it seems that you would like to have me for an uncle of yours?" he questioned, ironically.
Febrer, who was furious at the intervention of his friend and the rudeness with which he had forced him to leave the house, gave expression to his choler. What business was it of his? By what right did he venture to meddle in his affairs? He was old enough not to need advisers.
"Halt!" said the sailor, leaning back in his seat and extending his hands near the musketeer's hat thrust on the back of his head. "Halt! my young gallant! I meddle in the affair because I am one of the family. I believe this concerns my niece; at least, so it looks to me."
"And what if I wished to marry her? Perhaps Catalina would think well of it; perhaps her father would consent."
"I don't say that he would not, but I am her uncle, and her uncle protests, and he says that this marriage is an absurdity."
Jaime looked at him in astonishment. An absurdity to marry a Febrer! Possibly he aspired to more for his niece?
"An absurdity for them and an absurdity for you," declared Valls. "Have you forgotten where you live? You can be my friend, the friend of the Chueta, Pablo Valls, he whom you see in the café, in the Casino, and whom folks consider half crazy, but as for marrying a woman of my family!"
The sailor laughed as he thought of this union. Jaime's relatives would be furious with him, and would never speak to him again. They would be more tolerant with him if he were to commit a murder. His aunt, the Popess Juana, would scream as if she had witnessed a sacrilege. He would lose everything, and his niece, forgotten and tranquil until then, would give up the tediousness of her home, monotonous and sad, for an infernal life of misery, humiliation, and scorn.
"No, I say again; her uncle opposes it."
Even the people of the lower classes who declared themselves enemies of the rich would be indignant at seeing a butifarra marry a Chueta. The traditional atmosphere of the island must be respected, under penalty of death, as his brother Benito would die, for lack of air. It was dangerous to try to change all at once the work of centuries. Even those who came from outside, free of prejudices, after a short time suffered this repulsion of race, which seemed to permeate the very atmosphere.
"Once," continued Valls, "a Belgian couple came and established themselves on the island, bearing letters to me from a friend in Antwerp. I was attentive to them. I did all manner of favors for them. 'Be careful,' I told them; 'remember that I am a Chueta, and the Chuetas are very bad people.' The woman laughed. What barbarity! What out-of-date notions prevail here on the island! There were Jews everywhere and they were people like any other. After a while we met less frequently, they saw more of other people; at the end of a year they met me on the street and they glanced about in every direction before bowing to me; and now when they see me they always turn away their faces if they can, just the same as if they were Majorcans!"
Marriage! That was for a whole lifetime. In the first few months Jaime would try to face the murmurings and the scorn, but time runs on, and an odium dating from centuries does not wear out in the course of a few years, and finally Febrer would regret his ostracism, he would realize his mistake in running counter to the traditions of the grand majority, and the one to suffer the consequences would be Catalina, looked upon in her own house as a type of ignominy. No; in matrimony no chances must be taken. In Spain it is indissoluble, there is no divorce, and making experiments results dear. That was why he had remained a bachelor.
Febrer, irritated at these words, reminded Pablo of his vigorous propagandas against the enemies of the Chuetas.
"But don't you desire the elevation of your people? Doesn't it make you furious to have the people from 'the street' looked upon as different from ordinary human beings? What could there be better than this marriage to combat the prejudice?"
The captain waved his hands in sign of doubt. Ta! Ta! Such a marriage would accomplish nothing. During several epochs of tolerance and momentary forgetfulness some of the old-time Christians had married into the families of the people from "the street." There were many on the island who revealed this mixture by their surnames. And what was the result? Odium and separation continued the same. No, not the same; a little more tempered than in other days, but latent still. The things which would end this situation were the culture of the people, new customs, and this would be the work of years, and would not be accomplished by a marriage. Besides, experiments were dangerous and caused victims. If Jaime were eager to make the test let him choose someone besides his niece.
Valls smiled sarcastically on seeing Jaime's negative gestures.
"Are you enamored of Catalina?" he asked.
The captain's amber-colored eyes, malicious and focused steadily on Jaime, would not permit him to lie. Enamored?... No, not enamored; but love was not indispensable to marriage. Catalina was agreeable, she would make an excellent wife, a pleasant companion.
Pablo grinned even more widely.
"Let us talk like good friends, like men who know life. My brother is even more agreeable to you. No doubt he will set himself to arranging your business affairs. He will shed tears when he sees how much money you will cost him, but he has a mania for name; he respects and adores the past, and he will put up with anything. But don't trust him, Jaime. He is the type of those Jews represented in plays, with a fat pocketbook, helping people out in an hour of stress, but squeezing them afterward. They are the ones that discredit us; I am different. When he gets you into his power you will regret the business deal you have made."
Febrer looked at his friend with hostile eyes. The best thing he could do was to have no more to say about this matter. Pablo was a crazy fellow accustomed to saying whatever he thought, but he was not going to put up with it forever. If they were to continue friends, he must keep still.
"Well, we'll keep still," said Valls. "But understand once and for all that the girl's uncle opposes you, and that he does it for your sake and for hers."
They rode in silence the rest of the way. They separated on the Paseo del Borne with a frigid bow, without a handclasp.
Jaime returned to his house at dusk. Mammy Antonia had placed upon a table in the reception hall an oil lamp whose flame seemed to make the darkness of the vast room even more dense.
The Ivizans had just left. After breakfasting with her, and wandering about the city, they had waited until nightfall for the señor. They must spend the night on the boat; the master of the vessel wished to set sail before sunrise. Mammy spoke with kindly interest of these people who seemed to her to have come from another side of the world. "How they marveled at everything! They went about the island as if frightened; and Margalida! What a beautiful girl!"
Good old Mammy Antonia gave expression to one idea, but another persisted in her mind, and while she followed her master to his dormitory she looked him over with unconcealed curiosity, eager to read something in his face. What had taken place in Valldemosa, Virgin del Lluch? What had become of that absurd plan of which the señor had told her during breakfast?
But her master was in an ill humor, and he responded to her questions with brief words. He was not going to remain in the house; he would dine at the Casino. By the light of a lamp which but dimly illuminated his vast apartment, he changed his suit and brushed himself up a bit, taking an enormous key from Mammy's hands in order to open the door when he returned late at night.
At nine o'clock, on his way to the Casino, he saw his friend Toni Clapés, the smuggler, standing in the doorway of an inn. He was a large man with a round, shaven face, in peasant garb. He looked like a country curate dressed as a farmer to spend the night in Palma. With his white hempen sandals, his collar minus a cravat, and his hat thrust back, he entered the cafés and clubs, being received with profuse manifestations of friendship. In the Casino the men respected him for the calm way in which he drew handfuls of bank notes from his pockets. A native of a town in the interior, he had, by force of courage and dangers, become chief of a mysterious industry of which everyone had heard, but whose secret operations remained in shadow. He had hundreds of accomplices ready to die for him, and an unseen fleet which sailed by night, unafraid of storms, putting into port at inaccessible places. The worry and risk of these enterprises were never reflected in his jovial countenance nor in his generous impulses. He only seemed downcast when several weeks passed without news of some vessel which had sailed from Algiers in stormy weather.
"Lost!" he would say to his friends. "The bark and the cargo don't matter so much, but there were seven men in her; I've sailed that way myself—I must see to it that their families don't lack bread."
On other occasions his gloom was only pretended, with an ironic wrinkling of his lips. A government craft had just seized one of his vessels; and everyone laughed, knowing that nearly every month Toni allowed some old boat carrying a few bales of tobacco to be captured, to satisfy his pursuers by letting them boast of a triumph. When there was an epidemic in African ports the authorities of the island, powerless to guard so extensive a coastline, sent for Toni, appealing to his patriotism as a Majorcan, and the contrabandist promised to cease his navigation for the time, or he loaded at another point to avoid spreading the contagion.
Febrer had in this rough man, lighthearted and generous, a fraternal confidence. He had often told him his troubles, seeking the advice of his rustic astuteness. He, who would never dream of soliciting a loan from his friends in the Casino, in moments of stress accepted money from Toni which the contrabandist seemed to think no more about.
They shook hands when they met. Had Febrer been at Valldemosa? Toni had already heard about his trip, thanks to the facility with which the most insignificant news circulates through the calm, monotonous atmosphere of a Biscayan city open-mouthed for gossip.
"They are saying something more," said Toni in his provincial Majorcan dialect, "something that I can't believe. They say you're going to marry the atlota of Don Benito Valls!"
Febrer, surprised that the news had circulated so quickly, dared not deny it. Yes, it was true. He would acknowledge it to no one but Toni.
The smuggler made a gesture of repulsion, while his eyes, accustomed to the greatest surprises, revealed astonishment.
"You are making a mistake, Jaime, a serious mistake."
He spoke gravely, as if dealing with a solemn matter.
The butifarra maintained with this friend a confidence which he would not have risked with any one else. But he was ruined, dear Toni! Nothing that remained in his house was his! His creditors only respected him in the expectation of this marriage!
Toni shook his head with a negative expression. The rude native, the contrabandist who mocked at laws seemed stupefied by the news.
"Any way you look at it, you are making a mistake. You should get out of your money troubles any way you can, but not this way. We, your friends, will help you. You marry a Chueta?"
He took leave of Febrer with a vigorous handclasp, as if he imagined him in danger of death.
"You are making a mistake, think it over," he said with a reproachful expression. "You are making a mistake, Jaime!"
THE TYRANNY OF THE DEAD
When Jaime got into bed three hours after midnight, he fancied he saw in the obscurity of his dormitory the faces of Captain Valls and Toni Clapés.
They seemed to be speaking to him as they had been doing the afternoon before.
"I oppose it," repeated the seaman with an ironic laugh.
"Don't do it," counseled the smuggler with a grave gesture.
He had spent the evening at the Casino, silent and ill humored under the obsession of these protests. What was there so strange and absurd about his plan that it should be rejected by that Chueta, notwithstanding that it would be an honor to his family, and by that peasant, rude and unscrupulous, who lived almost beyond the pale of the law?
It was true that this marriage would arouse scandal and protest on the island; but, what of that? Had he not a right to seek his salvation by any means? Was it perhaps a new idea for people of his class to try to reëstablish their fortune by means of matrimony? How about the dukes and high born princes who sought gold in America, giving their hand to daughters of millionaires of origin more censurable than that of Don Benito?
Ah, that crazy Pablo Valls was right in a way! These alliances might be made in the rest of the world, but Majorca, the beloved Roqueta, still possessed a living soul, the soul of former centuries, filled with odium and prejudice. The people were such as they were born, such as their fathers had been, and thus they must continue to be here in this calm atmosphere of the island which was unstirred by new thoughts slowly wafted from the outside world.
Jaime tossed restlessly in his couch. He was not sleepy. He thought of the Febrers, and of their glorious past! How it weighed upon him, like a chain of slavery which made his misery keener!
He had spent many afternoons in the archives of his house, in the apartment next to the dining-room opening the bronze doors of the cabinets and poring over the bundles of papers by the soft light filtering through the Persian blinds, dusty old papers which had to be shaken to keep them from being devoured by moths! Barbarous letters of marque with erroneous and capricious profiles which had served the Febrers in their early commercial campaigns. The whole array of them would barely bring in enough to eat for two days; and yet, the family had fought for centuries to make itself worthy this trust. How much dead glory!
The true fame of his family, spreading beyond the borders of the island, began in 1541 with the arrival of the great Emperor. An armada of three hundred ships manned by eighteen thousand marines assembled in the bay on their way to the conquest of Algiers. Here were the Spanish infantry commanded by Gonzaga, the Germans under the Duke of Alva, the Italians led by Colonna, two hundred knights of Malta at whose head marched the knight commander Don Priamo Febrer, the hero of the family, while the whole fleet sailed under the orders of the famous admiral Andrea Doria.
With festivities in representation of mythologic scenes, Majorca welcomed the Lord of Spain and the Indies, of Germany and of Italy, who now happened to be suffering from gout and other infirmities. The flower of Castilian nobility followed the Emperor on this holy enterprise and was duly lodged in the dwellings of the Majorcan caballeros. The house of Febrer received as guest a parvenu noble, but recently risen from obscurity, whose achievements in a far off country, and whose visible riches, aroused both enthusiasm and criticism. It was the Marquis del Valle de Huaxaca, Hernando Cortés, who, having just conquered Mexico, had come with the expedition in a galley equipped at his own expense, accompanied by his sons Don Martin and Don Luis, eager to figure now among the ancient nobles of the reconquest as an equal.
A royal magnificence distinguished this conqueror from distant lands, this possessor of fabulous wealth. Three enormous emeralds valued at over a hundred thousand ducats decorated the bridge of his galley; one was cut in the form of a flower, another in the figure of a bird, and another was shaped like a bell, with an enormous pearl serving as a clapper. He was attended by persons who had been his companions overseas, and who had adopted exotic customs; slender hidalgos of sickly color who silently whiled away the time lighting bundles of herbs resembling pieces of rope, and puffing smoke out of their mouths like demons who were on fire within.
The long line of Febrer's grandmothers had handed down from generation to generation a great uncut diamond, a souvenir from the heroic captain given in return for their gracious hospitality. The precious stone was described in the family documents, but Don Horacio's grandfather had not had the pleasure of seeing it, since it had disappeared during the course of centuries, as had so many riches swept away by the financial troubles of an ostentatious house.
The Febrers prepared refreshments for the armada, in the name of Majorca, defraying most of the expenses themselves. In order to arouse the Emperor's appreciation of the abundance and productiveness of the island, this "refreshment" included a hundred beeves, two hundred sheep, hundreds of pairs of chicken and peacocks, hundreds of cuarteras of oil and flour, hundreds of cuarterones of wine, more hundreds of cuarterolas of cheese, capers, olives, twenty bottles of arrayan, and four quintales of white wax. Moreover, the Febrers resident on the island and not members of the Order of Malta, embarked in the squadron with two hundred Majorcan gentlemen, eager to conquer Algiers, that nest of pirates. The three hundred galleys sailed out of the bay, their pennants streaming, accompanied by salutes discharged from cannons and bombards, cheered by the multitude crowded upon the walls. Never had the Emperor gathered together so imposing a fleet.
It was October. The able Doria was in bad humor. According to him there existed no other safe ports in the Mediterranean than "June, July, August and—Mahon." The Emperor had delayed too long in Tyrol and Italy. The Pope, Paul III, when he came out to meet him at Lucca, had prophesied misfortunes due to the lateness of the season. The expedition disembarked on the shore of Hama. The knight commander Febrer, with his caballeros of Malta marched in the vanguard, sustaining incessant onslaughts from the Turks. The army took possession of the heights surrounding Algiers and began the siege. Then Doria's predictions were fulfilled. A frightful storm arose with all the violence of the African winter. The troops, without shelter, drenched to the bone during the night of the torrential rain, were stiff with cold. A furious wind compelled the men to lie flat upon the ground. At sunrise, the Turks, taking advantage of this situation, fell suddenly upon the army, which became demoralized and scattered, but the knight commander Priamo, a demon of war, insensible alike to either cold or fire, vigorous, aggressive and untiring, restrained the advance with a handful of his caballeros. Spaniards and Germans rallied. Pursued by the besiegers the Turks had to fall back to the very walls of Algiers, and Don Priamo Febrer, wounded in the face and in the leg, dragged himself to the city gates and thrust his dagger deep into one of its panels in testimony of his attack.
In another sally against the Moors, the onset was so furious that the Italians were driven back, the Germans following their example, and the Emperor, flaming with fury at seeing his favorite soldiers in retreat, unsheathed his sword, called for his colors, set spurs to his war-horse, and shouted to the brilliant retinue of caballeros that followed him: "Forward, gentlemen! If you see me fall with the flag, save it before you do me!" The Turks fled before the charge of this squadron of iron. A Febrer from the island, entitled "the rich," a remote ancestor of Jaime's, had twice rushed in between the Emperor and the enemy, saving his life. At the exit of a narrow defile the fire from the Turkish culverins decimated the cavalry. The Duke of Alva grasped the bridle of his monarch's horse. "Sire, your life is more important than a victory!" and the Emperor, growing calmer, turned back, and with a stately gesture of gratitude re moved the gold chain from about his neck and hung it upon the shoulders of Febrer.
Meanwhile, the storm wrecked one hundred and sixty vessels, and the remainder of the fleet was forced to take refuge behind Cape Matifou. The majority of the nobles agreed upon an immediate retreat. Hernando Cortés, the Count of Alcaudete, governor of Oran, and the Majorcan gentlemen, with the Febrers at their head, begged the Emperor to save himself and to let the army carry forward the expedition alone. At last a retreat was decided upon, and over mountain summits and through rain-swollen streams, they achieved their sorrowful purpose, continually accosted by the enemy, leaving killed and prisoners in their wake. In the teeth of the storm those who were able boarded the ship; the raging sea swallowed up nine more vessels, and the Majorcan galleys sailed mournfully into the bay of Palma convoying the Emperor who left for the Peninsula without landing in Majorca. The Febrers returned to their house covered with renown even in defeat; one bearing the golden testimonial of the Cæsar's friendship; the other, the knight commander, lying on a litter, cursing like a pagan because the blockading of Algiers had been discontinued.
Priamo Febrer! Jaime could not think of him without sympathy and curiosity aroused by the tales he had heard in his youth. His was the heroic, and also the unconventional soul of the family. The ancient dames of the house never mentioned his name. On hearing it they lowered their eyes and blushed. Although a soldier of the church, a holy knight who had taken the vow of chastity on entering the Order, he always carried women in his galley—Christian women ransomed from the Mussulman, who were in no haste to return to their homes, or else infidels captured on his audacious buccaneering expeditions.
When it came to a division of the booty, he looked with indifference upon the pile of riches, leaving them for the Grand Master of the Order; he was only interested in appropriating the women. If threatened with excommunication, he laughed impishly in the faces of the ecclesiastics of the Order. If the Grand Master sent for him to administer a reproof for his carnality, Febrer would straighten himself arrogantly, reminding him of the glorious victories on the sea which the Cross of Malta owed to him.
Some of his letters, bundles of yellow paper with reddish characters, faded and indistinct, were written in a style which revealed the knight commander's lack of learning. He expressed himself with soldierly fluency, mixing religious phrases with the most shameless expressions.
His name was known along the whole Mediterranean coast where dwelt the infidels. The Mohammedans feared him as they feared the devil; Moorish mothers hushed their babes with threat of the knight commander Febrer. Dragut, the great Turkish corsair, considered him the only rival worthy of his valor. Each feared and respected the other, and, after several engagements in which both were wounded, they endeavored to avoid meeting, either on land or sea.
One day Dragut, on visiting a galley of his fleet anchored off Algiers, found Priamo Febrer, half naked, chained to a seat with an oar in his hands.
"Casualties of war!" exclaimed Dragut.
"Casualties of fortune!" replied the knight commander.
They clasped hands and said no more. One did not offer favor, nor did the other ask for mercy. The people of Algiers flocked to see the "Maltese Demon," now become a slave and fastened to a bench, but when they beheld him as fierce and glowering as a captive eaglet they dared not insult him. The Order paid as ransom for its heroic warrior hundreds of slaves, ships, and cargoes, as if he were a prince. Years afterward, Don Priamo, upon entering a Maltese galley found the intrepid Dragut in turn chained to a rower's seat. The scene was repeated in reverse, with no sign of surprise from either, as if the event were perfectly normal. They clasped hands.
"Casualties of war!" said Febrer.
"Casualties of fortune!" replied the other.
Jaime liked the knight commander because he had represented in the bosom of the noble family lawlessness, license, scorn of convention. What cared he for difference of race and religion when he fancied a woman?
When this noble ancestor had come to middle life he retired to Tunis among his good friends the rich corsairs, who, once hating and fighting him, now at last became his comrades. Of this period of his existence little was known. Some thought that he had become a renegade, and that as a diversion he even gave chase on the sea to the galleys from Malta. Enemies of his, gentlemen of the Order, swore to having seen him during a battle, dressed as a Turk, in the forecastle of a hostile ship. The only positive fact was that he lived in Tunis in a palace on the seashore with a Moorish woman of splendid beauty, a relative of his friend the Bey. Two letters in the archives testified to this incomprehensible liaison. When the Moslem woman died Don Priamo returned to Malta, deeming his career ended. The highest dignitaries of the Order desired to favor him if he would amend his conduct, and they talked of appointing him Commander of the Order of Malta at Negroponte, or else Great Castellan at Amposta, but the incorrigible Don Priamo would not better his ways, and continued a libertine, crusty, fickle in disposition toward his companions, but a beloved hero to his brothers in arms, men of the ranks belonging to the Order, mere soldiers who could display over their cuirasses no other decoration than that of the half cross.
Scorn for their intrigues, and the hatred of his enemies, caused him to abandon the archipelago of the Order, the Islands of Malta and Gozo, ceded by the Emperor to the warrior friars for no other price than the annual tribute of a goshawk such as are native to the island. Old and worn he retired to Majorca, living off the products of the estates belonging to his commandery situated in Catalonia. The impiety and the vices of the hero horrified the family and scandalized the island. Three young Moorish girls and a Jewess of great beauty were his companions in the guise of servants where they occupied a whole wing of the Febrer mansion, which was much larger at that time than today. Moreover, he kept several male slaves; some were Turks; others Tartars; these shook with fear whenever they saw him. He had dealings with old women who were held to be witches; he consulted Hebraic healers; he shut himself up in his dormitory with these suspicious characters, and the neighbors trembled at seeing his windows glow with an infernal fire in the small hours of the night. Some of his male slaves grew pale and languid as if their lives were being sucked away. The people whispered that the knight commander was using their blood for magic drinks. Don Priamo wished to renew his youth; he was eager to reanimate his body with vital fires. The Grand Inquisitor of Majorca hinted at the possibility of paying a visit, with familiars and alguazils, to the apartments of the knight commander, but the latter who was a cousin of the Inquisitor, communicated by letter his intention of knocking open his head with a boarding pike if he ventured to so much as set foot on the first step of his stairway.
Don Priamo died, or rather he burst under pressure of his diabolical beverages, leaving as a testimonial of his freedom from bias a will, the copy of which Jaime had read. The warrior of the church willed the main portion of his property, as well as his weapons and trophies, to his elder brother's children, as had likewise done all the second sons of the house; but in continuation there figured a long list of legacies, all for children of his whom he declared begotten of Moorish slave women or of Jewess friends, Armenians and Greeks, vegetating, wrinkled, and decrepit, in some port of the Levant; an offspring like that of a patriarch of the Bible, but all irregular, hybrid, the product of the crossing of hostile blood of antagonistic races. Famous knight commander! It seemed as if on breaking his vows he tried to minimize the offense by always choosing infidel women. To his sins of carnality was added the shame of traffic with females hostile to the true God.
Jaime looked upon him as a precursor who cleared away his doubts. What was strange about his marrying a Chueta, a woman like others in her customs, beliefs, and education, since the most famous of the Febrers in an epoch of intolerance had lived beyond the pale of the law with infidel women? Suddenly, however, family prejudices provoked in Jaime a twinge of remorse, causing him to recall a clause in the knight commander's will. He left legacies to the children of his slave women, hybrids of other races, because they were of his blood and he wished to shield them from the sufferings of poverty, but he prohibited them from using their father's name, the name of the Febrers which had always been kept legally free from degrading admixtures in their Majorcan house.
Recalling this, Jaime smiled in the darkness. Who could answer for the past? What mysteries might not be hidden at the roots of the trunk of his origin, back in the medieval times, when the Febrers and the rich of the Balearic synagogue trafficked together and loaded their ships in Puerto Pi? Many of his family, and even he himself, with other members of the ancient Majorcan nobility, had something Jewish in their faces. Purity of race was an illusion. The life of nations depends upon constant change, the great producer of mixtures and assimilations. But, ah, the proud family scruples! The dividing lines created by custom!
He himself, though pretending to jest at the prejudices of the past, experienced an irresistible feeling of haughtiness in the presence of Don Benito who was to become his father-in-law. He considered himself superior; he tolerated him with condescending courtesy; he had mentally revolted when the rich Chueta spoke of his pretended friendship for Don Horacio. No, the Febrers had never mingled with these people. When his ancestors were in Algiers with the Emperor, Catalina's forefathers were probably shut up in the ward of Calatrava, making objects of silver, trembling at the thought that peasant-farmers might descend upon Palma under pretext of war, groveling, white with terror, before the Great Inquisitor, undoubtedly some Febrer, to gain his protection.
Outside, in the reception hall, hung the portrait of one of his less remote ancestors, a señor with shaven face, fine colorless lips, white wig, and red silk coat, who, according to a memorandum on the canvas, had been perpetual governor of the city of Palma. King Carlos III sent a royal ordinance to the island prohibiting the insulting of the old-time Jews, "an industrious and honorable people," threatening with penalty of imprisonment whosoever should call them "Chuetas." The island council sniffed at this absurd order of the too kind monarch, and Governor Febrer settled the matter with the authority of his name. "File the ordinance; it will be noted, but it will not be complied with. Why should the Chuetas be given respect like any one of us? They are content so long as their pockets and their women are not touched." Then they all laughed, saying that Febrer spoke from experience, for he was extremely fond of visiting "the street," giving work to the silversmiths so as to be able to talk to their women.
In the reception room there was also another ancestral portrait—that of the Inquisitor Don Jaime Febrer, whose name he bore. In the garrets of the house he had found several visiting cards yellowed by time, bearing the name of the rich priest; cards engraved with emblems such as came into use in the Eighteenth Century. In the center of the card appeared a wooden cross, with a sword and an olive branch; on both sides two pasteboard coronets worn as a mark of infamy by those on whom punishment was to be inflicted, one with the cross of the Sacred Office, another with dragons and Medusa heads. Manacles, whips, rosaries, and candles completed the decoration. Below burned a bonfire around a post with a large iron ring, and there figured a conical hat decorated with serpents, toads, and horned heads. A sort of sarcophagus rose between these decorations, and on it was inscribed in ancient Spanish lettering: "The Senior Inquisitor, Don Jaime Febrer." The peaceful Majorcan who, on returning to his house, found this visiting card, must have felt his hair rise in terror.
Another of his ancestors came into his mind, the one mentioned by the choleric Pablo Valls when he recalled the burning of the Chuetas and Father Garau's little book. He was an elegant and gallant Febrer, who had kindled enthusiasm among the ladies of Palma at the famous auto de fe, with his new suit of Florentine cloth, embroidered in gold, mounted upon a charger as sightly as his master, carrying the standard of the Sacred Tribunal. In flights of lyric rapture the Jesuit described his genteel bearing. At sundown the knight had seen, there near the foot of the castle of Bellver, how the corpulent bulk of Rafael Valls had burned, and how his entrails had burst out and fallen into the coals, a spectacle from which the presence of ladies distracted his attention, making his horse caracole near the doors of their carriages. Captain Valls was right; it was barbarous; but the Febrers were his kindred; his name and the fortune he had squandered he had owed to them. Now he, the last descendant of a family proud of its history, was about to marry Catalina Valls, the offspring of the executed Jew!
The old wives' tales he had heard in childhood, the simple stories with which Mammy Antonia used to entertain him, now surged through his mind like dreams of the past, which had made a deep impression. He thought of the Chuetas, who, according to popular opinion, were not the same as other people; reputed to be creatures of sordid poverty and slimy to the touch, who, no doubt, concealed terrible deformities. Who could say that Catalina was like other women?
Then his thoughts turned to Pablo Valls, so merry and generous, the superior of nearly every other friend Jaime possessed on the island, but Pablo had lived little in Majorca; he had traveled widely; he was not like those of his race, working stationary like automatons in the same posture for centuries, reproducing themselves in their cowardice, lacking courage and unity to compel respect.
Jaime knew rich Jewish families in Paris and in Berlin. He had even solicited loans from the lofty barons of Israel, but as he came into contact with these true Hebrews who clung to their religion and their independence, he did not feel that instinctive repugnance aroused by the devout Don Benito and other Chuetas of Majorca. Was it atmosphere which influenced him? Was it that centuries of submission, and fear, and the habit of cringing, had made of the Jews of Majorca a different race?
Febrer at last sank into the darkness of sleep, with these thoughts whirling through his troubled mind.
While dressing next morning, he decided, by a great effort of the will, to make a certain call. This marriage was something extraordinary and risky, which demanded long reflection, as his friend the smuggler had pointed out.
"Before taking the step I must play my last card," thought Jaime. "I'll go and see the Popess Juana. I haven't seen her for many years, but she is my aunt, my nearest relative. In justice, I ought to be her heir. Ah, if only that idea would occur to her! If she would only bestir herself all my troubles would be over."
Jaime decided upon the most advantageous hour to visit the great lady. In the afternoon she held her famous salon of canons and austere gentlemen whom she received with the airs of a sovereign. These were to be the inheritors of her money, as agents and representatives of various corporations of a religious character. He must visit her immediately; surprise her in her solitude after mass and morning prayers.
Doña Juana lived in a palace near the Cathedral. She had remained unmarried, abominating the world after certain deceptions in her youth for which Jaime's father had been responsible. All the combativeness of her irrascible disposition, and the zeal of her cold and haughty faith, she had dedicated to politics and religion. "For God and for the King," Febrer had heard her say, on visiting her once when he was a boy. In her youth she had dreamed of the heroines of Vendée, she had been aroused by the heroic deeds and sufferings of the Duchess of Berry, and was eager, like those forceful women, devoted to their legitimate rulers and to religion, to mount a war horse, wearing an image of Christ on her breast, with a sabre hanging by her side. This desire, however, did not pass beyond vague dreams. In reality she had been on no other expedition than a trip to Catalonia, during the last Carlist war, to see at closer range the sacred enterprise which was absorbing a great part of her wealth.
The enemies of the Popess Juana declared that the young woman had kept concealed in her palace the Count of Montemolín, a pretender to the crown, and that she had drawn him into conspiracy with General Ortega, Captain General of the islands. To these rumors were added tales of the romantic love of Doña Juana for the pretender. Jaime smiled on hearing this gossip. It was all a lie; Don Horacio's grandfather, who had known the whole story, often mentioned these matters to his grandson. The Popess Juana had loved no other than Jaime's father. General Ortega was a deluded person whom Doña Juana received with extraordinary show of mystery, gowned in white, in a darkened salon, talking in a sweet voice which seemed to come from beyond the tomb, as if she were an angel of the past, concerning the necessity of turning Spain back to its ancient customs, sweeping away the liberals, and reëstablishing the government of caballeros. "For God and for the King!" Ortega was shot on the coast of Catalonia when his Carlist expedition failed, and the Popess remained in Majorca, ready to bestow her money upon new pious enterprises.
Many thought that she was ruined after her prodigality during the last civil war, but Jaime knew what a fortune the devout lady possessed. She lived as simply as a peasant; she still owned extensive estates, and the money she had saved by her economies went in the form of gifts to churches and convents and in donations to Saint Peter's treasury. Her old time motto, "For God and for the King!" had suffered mutilation. She no longer thought of the king. Nothing was left of her former enthusiasm for the exiled pretender except a great daguerreotype with a dedication adorning the darker part of her salon.
"A fine young man," she used to say, "but like all liberals! Ah, life in a foreign land! How it changes men! What sins——!"
Now her enthusiasm was only for God, and her money made its way to Rome. One supreme hope dominated her life. Would not the Holy Father send her the "Golden Rose" before she died? It was a gift originally intended for none but queens, but some pious rich women of South America had received this distinction, and Juana gave a detailed account of her liberalities, living in holy poverty so that she might send still more money. The "Golden Rose," and then she would be ready to die!
Febrer arrived at the dwelling of the Popess: a zaguán resembling his own, but better kept, cleaner, with no grass between the paving stones, no cracks nor broken places in the wall, but all in monastic pulchritude! The door was opened to him by a servant, young and pale, dressed in a blue habit with a white cord, who made a gesture of surprise on recognizing Jaime.
She left him in the reception hall among a concourse of portraits, such as that in the house of the Febrers, and she ran with a light, rat-like trot to the interior rooms to announce this extraordinary visit which disturbed the monastic peace of the palace.
Long moments of silence followed. Jaime heard furtive footsteps in the adjoining apartments; he saw curtains which swayed lightly, as if moved by a gentle zephyr; he felt lurking forms behind them, unseen eyes spying upon him. The servant reappeared, bowing low to Jaime with grave courtesy, for was he not the señora's nephew? She left the great salon and disappeared.
Febrer amused himself while waiting by looking over the vast room, with its archaic luxury. His own house had been like this in his grandfather's time. The walls were covered with rich crimson damask forming a background for the ancient religious paintings in soft, Italian style. The furniture was of white and gilded wood, with voluptuous curves, upholstered in heavy embroidered silk. Polychrome figures of saints and Eighteenth Century hangings with mythological scenes were reflected in the deep azure mirrors above the consoles. The vaulted ceiling was painted in fresco, with an assemblage of gods and goddesses seated on clouds, whose rosy nudity and bold gestures contrasted sharply with the dolorous visage of a great Christ which seemed to preside over the salon, occupying a wide space on the wall between two doors. The Popess recognized the sinfulness of these mythological decorations, but as they were reminiscent of a happy epoch, of a time when the caballeros ruled, she respected them, and tried not to see them.
A damask curtain parted, and a woman who looked like an old servant entered the salon, dressed in black, wearing a plain skirt and a poor jacket, after the manner of a peasant woman. Her gray hair was partly concealed by a dark shawl to which time and grease had imparted a reddish tint. Beneath her skirt peeped forth feet shod in hempen sandals, with coarse white stockings. Jaime hastily arose. That old servant was the Popess!
The chairs were arranged in a certain disorder, which suggested the coterie which gathered there every afternoon. Each seat belonged by right of habit to a certain grave person, and stood motionless in its own particular place. Doña Juana occupied a great throne-like chair, from which seat she presided every afternoon over her faithful reunion of canons, old woman friends, and señoras of wholesome ideas, like a queen receiving her court.
"Sit down," she said to her nephew curtly.
She extended her hands, in the automatism of custom, across a monumental empty silver brazier, and stared at Jaime fixedly with her piercing gray eyes so accustomed to commanding respect. This authoritative stare gradually began to soften until it weakened in tears of emotion. She had not seen her nephew for nearly ten years.
"You are a true Febrer. You look like your grandfather—like all of the men of your family."
She concealed her real thoughts; she kept silent about the only resemblance which moved her, his likeness to his father. Jaime was the young naval officer, just as he used to come to see her in the old days! He lacked nothing but the uniform and the eyeglasses. Ah, that monster of liberalism and of ingratitude!
Soon her eyes recovered their accustomed hardness; her features became more dry, more pale and angular.
"What do you wish?" she said rudely; "because you certainly have not come merely for the pleasure of seeing me!"
The moment had arrived! Jaime lowered his eyes with childish hypocrisy, and, afraid of broaching his actual desires, he began his attack in a roundabout manner. He explained that he was good, that he believed in all the old ideals, that he desired to maintain the prestige of his family and to add to it. He had not been a saint; he confessed it; a wild life had consumed his wealth—but the honor of the house remained intact! This life of sin and wickedness had given him two things, experience, and the firm intention to mend his ways.
"Aunt, I want to change my way of living; I want to become a different man."
The aunt assented with an enigmatic gesture. Very well; thus Saint Augustine and other holy men who had spent their early lives in licentiousness, changed their ways and had become luminaries of the church.
Jaime felt encouraged by these words. He certainly would never figure as a luminary of anything, but he desired to be a good Christian gentleman; he would marry, he would educate his children to carry on the traditions of the house—a beautiful future! But, alas! lives as irregular as his were difficult to patch up when the moment came to direct them toward virtuous ends. He needed help. He was ruined; his lands were almost in the hands of his creditors; his house was a desert; he had protected himself by selling the mementoes of the past. He, a Febrer, was about to be thrust into the street, unless some merciful hand should assist him; and he had thought of his aunt, who, when all was said and done, was his nearest relative, almost like a mother, in whom he trusted to save him.
The imaginary motherhood caused Doña Juana to flush slightly, and augmented the hard glitter in her eyes. Ah, memory, with its haunting visions!
"And is it from me you hope for salvation?" slowly replied the Popess in a voice that hissed between the yellow rows of her parted teeth. "You are wasting your time, Jaime. I am poor. I have almost nothing—barely enough to live on and to make a few gifts to charity."
She said it with such an accent of firmness that Febrer lost hope and realized that it would be useless to insist. The Popess would not help him.
"Very well," said Jaime with visible discouragement. "But, lacking your assistance, I must seek another solution for my troubles, and I have one in view. You are now the head of my family, and it is right for me to seek your advice. I am considering a marriage which can save me; an alliance with a rich woman, but one who does not belong to our class; one of low origin. What ought I to do?"
He expected in his aunt a movement of surprise, of curiosity. Perhaps the announcement of his marriage would soften her. It was almost certain that, terrified at this great danger to the honor of her house and of her blood, she would smooth the way for him by conceding assistance, but the one to be surprised, to be dismayed, was Jaime as he saw the pale lips of the old woman part in a cold smile.
"I have heard," she said. "I was told all about it this morning in Santa Eulalia as I was coming away from mass. You were at Valldemosa yesterday. You are going to marry—you are going to marry—a Chueta!"
It cost her an effort to pronounce the word; she shuddered as she spoke it. After this a long silence reigned, one of those tragic and absolute silences which follow great catastrophes, as if the house had just tumbled down, and the echo of the last toppled wall had died away.
"And what do you think of it?" Jaime ventured to ask timidly.
"Do as you wish," said the Popess with frigidity. "You remember that we have lived many years without seeing each other, and we can go on in the same way for the rest of our lives. Do as you please. Henceforward you and I will be like people of different blood; we think along different lines; we cannot understand each other."
"So I ought not to marry?" he insisted.
"Ask yourself that question. For many years the Febrers have wandered on such crooked paths that nothing they do surprises me."
Jaime detected in his aunt's eyes and noted in her voice a repressed joy, a reveling in vengeance, the satisfaction of seeing her enemies fall into what she considered a dishonor, and this irritated him.
"But if I marry," he said, imitating Doña Juana's frigid manner, "will you come to my wedding?"
This put an end to the tranquillity of the Popess, who drew herself up haughtily. The romantic books of her youth rushed through her mind; she spoke like an injured queen at the end of a chapter of a historic novel.
"Caballero! I am a Genovart on my father's side. My mother was a Febrer, but one family is as good as the other. I renounce the blood that is to be mixed with a vile people, Christ killers, and I remain true to my own, to that of my father which will end with me pure and honorable!"
She pointed toward the door with arrogant mien, bringing the interview to a close, but soon she seemed to realize how abrupt and theatrical her protest had been, and she lowered her eyes; she grew more human, assuming an air of Christian meekness.
"Good-bye, Jaime; may the Lord enlighten you!"
"Good-bye, Aunt."
Impelled by custom he extended his hand, but she drew hers back, concealing it behind her. Febrer smiled as he recalled certain tales told by the gossips. It was not scorn nor hatred. The Popess had made a vow that as long as she lived she would touch the hand of no man except those of the priests.
When he found himself again on the street, he began to curse mentally, looking at the swelling balconies of the rococo mansion. Rattlesnake! How she rejoiced at his marriage! When it had become a fact she would pretend indignation and scandal before her coterie; perhaps she would get sick so that all the islanders would sympathize with her, and yet, her joy would be great, the joy of a vengeance nourished for many years, on seeing a Febrer, the son of the man she hated, submerged in what she considered the most ignominious of dishonors. Urged on by the certainty of ruin, he must give her this joy by carrying into effect his union with the daughter of Valls! Ah, poverty!
He wandered along the solitary streets near the Almudaina and the Cathedral until past midday. At last hunger instinctively turned his steps homeward. He ate in silence, without knowing what was put before him, not even seeing Mammy, who, worried and restless since the previous day, was eager to start a conversation in order to learn more news.
After luncheon he stepped out upon a small gallery with a crumbling balustrade crowned by three Roman busts which looked into the garden. At his feet spread the foliage of the figs, the varnished leaves of the magnolias, the green balls on the orange trees. Before him the trunks of the palms shut off the blue of space, and, farther away, the sharp-pointed merlons of the wall extended to the sea, the luminous, immense sea, trembling with life as if the barkentines with their wind-filled sails were tickling its greenish surface. At his right lay the port crowded with masts and surrounded with yellow chimneys; beyond, striding into the waters of the bay, the dark mass of the pines of Bellver, and on the summit the circular castle like a bull-ring, with its Torre de Homenaje apart, isolated, with no other link than a graceful bridge. Below lay the modern red houses of Terreno, and beyond, at the end of the cape, the ancient Puerto Pi with its signal towers and the batteries of Don Carlos.