This head of the corporation used to leave home every afternoon, apparently alone, but in reality with an escort. His enormous shaven face was very red, and the color was accentuated in his huge Roman nose; his eyes, bloodshot and half closed, as if unable to bear the weight of his eyelids, looked slowly into every corner of the street with an expression of physical comfort; his ponderous, slow, vacillating step showed the sympathetic state between his psychical and physical faculties. Don Roque only had to come across some official, sweeper, watchman, or stone-breaker of the munic.i.p.ality to make his enjoyment complete.

When from afar he espied one, his eyelids were quickly raised and his nostrils quivered like those of a tiger at approach of prey. Suppose the fellow, scenting the approach of the tiger, pa.s.sed into another street or tried to hide himself! Don Roque shouted to him, with a voice of thunder:

"Juan, Juaan, Juaaan!"

The victim heard and bowed his head.

"Have you taken the message to Don Lorenzo?"

"Yes, senor."

"Have you told the secretary that he must let the matter of the cemetery stand over?"

"Yes, senor."

"Have you taken the doc.u.ments to the petty court of San Martin?"

"Yes, senor."

"Have you told Don Manuel that he must take away that rubbish in front of his house?"

In fact, he went on asking questions until the poor official came to a negative answer.

Then the loud voice of the mayor was heard all down the street, and even to the end of the town; his eyes became more inflamed, and his apoplectic face grew quite alarming. It was impossible to understand what he said. His e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns alone would have made his discourse incomprehensible, but these were enunciated in such a chaotic fashion that the "h" alone was distinguishable.

The scolding never lasted less than fifteen or twenty minutes; he required no less time to let off the superfluous spleen which had acc.u.mulated since the previous afternoon. Just as there are people who put their fingers down their throats in the morning to make themselves ill, so Don Roque was not happy until he had had this ebullition of wrath. He had only one interjection in his vocabulary, but this he used in such abundance that quant.i.ty atoned for quality.

The neighbors came out of their doors to hear him, but with a smile on their faces, as if accustomed to such scenes.

"Don Roque is giving it hot to-day," said one to another in a loud voice.

"See how Juan is behaving." In fact, every time the mayor turned his back the clerk put up his thumb and made a long nose at him.

Don Roque liked to come upon a road-sweeper or a stone-breaker at his work. For he would cautiously approach him from behind and, catching him by the collar, exclaim:

"Ah! so that's the way you sweep, is it!--ah! Do you think I pay you to leave half the dirt between the stones?--ah! Is this grat.i.tude?--ah! It is shameful!--ah!"

Once the zeal for his office led him to seize the broom and give the man an object-lesson in the art of sweeping.

The townsfolk, the few pa.s.sers-by in the street, and also some young ladies whom the noise had brought to a window went into fits of laughter. The sweeper himself, in spite of his awkward position, could not help smiling at the energy with which the figure, with its coat-tails flying, made erratic and angry dashes at the ground.

"Is that the way you sweep?--ah!" (Terrible bang with the broom.) "That is the way--ah!" (another bang). "That is the way to sweep!--ah!"

Not until worn out, heated, and nearly falling from fatigue, did the mayor hand back the broom, and take up his ta.s.seled stick again.

Having thus relieved his n.o.ble heart of the superfluous ah's which weighted it, he resumed his way, and arrived at the Club in a very happy state of body and mind.

Gabino Maza was a man of about five-and-forty years of age, a naval officer who had retired some years before from the service, his ungovernable temper being unable to brook professional discipline.

He had an olive complexion, and small bright eyes, with dark lines underneath which showed his bilious temperament. He was tall, wiry, and masculine, and his hair and beard were of a blue-black hue; his gestures were always nervous and violent; his voice was indefinable, sometimes quiet, but when he was at all agitated, which was almost always the case when he began to speak, it was loud and shrill, and of such a discordant falsetto that it was deafening.

With his little income, and a tiny pension, he was able to support his family in Sarrio with the comfort of a gentleman at ease, which in the capital of the province would have been impossible.

A born disputant, he brought into every question, trivial as it might be, an amount of pa.s.sion and violence that was truly alarming, so anxious was he to contradict whatever was said, although it might be as clear as noonday. He judged people in such a severe and pessimistic spirit that he never believed in the pure motive of a kind action, however n.o.ble and honorable it might seem; and his spite and malignity bordered on madness. Nevertheless, this man was not so much disliked by his neighbors as might have been expected. The intimacy of a village or little town gives greater scope for learning the true character of each individual than is possible in large places, where a merely superficial intercourse may permit many cold, selfish, bad-tempered men to disguise their true selves with a sympathetic veneer, and polite words, courteous manners, and an insinuating smile win the encomium, "nice, agreeable sort of a person."

But in the country that all goes for naught, and, on the contrary, excessive amiability and very sweet smiles excite distrust. The character of everybody is as ruthless and as minutely examined as if it were a bundle of nerves under the dissector's knife; so that many people are hated who seemed at first attractive; and others liked who were at first sight considered aggressive, hard, and violent.

Dissimulation, so much practised in great towns, is never tolerated in the provinces, albeit it is the prevailing vice of all social relationships. Quick tempers and excitable natures do not arouse mistrust, as they are at least "clear and aboveboard." There is always a sense of justice in such people which, distorted and overbalanced by pa.s.sion as it may be, does not make them disliked. Besides, as quick temper and excitability are a constant cause of self-suffering and discomfort, both physical and moral, it is justly considered that men of this temperament reap their own retribution.

Gabino Maza was neither disliked nor very much liked; those who were offended by him grumbled at him and kept him at a distance, terming him a malignant, sharp-tongued fellow; and the others laughed at his exaggerated style, and enjoyed a conversation with him without professing any great regard for him.

Another of the characters frequenting this cafe was Don Feliciano Gomez, a retail merchant in ultramarine goods, and also the owner of three or four vessels and several smacks which traded along the Biscayan coast, the largest sometimes going even as far as Seville. He was of middle height; his head, dest.i.tute of hair, was pyramidal in form; his waxed mustaches were turned up to his nose, and his voice was almost always hoa.r.s.e. He was a cheerful, kind, optimistic sort of fellow; he was a confirmed bachelor, and lived with his three elder sisters, whom he had made real "senoras" by dint of his own hard work and economy. The reward they gave him, according to public report, was to keep him in hand like a child, admonish his slightest faults, and worry and torment him in every imaginable way. Nevertheless, he was never heard to utter a single word of complaint against them.

M. Delaunay, the Belgian engineer, arrived at Sarrio a few years before our story opens, with the object of managing a mining district for an imposing English company. The working was a failure, and the company deprived him of his post and his pay. But Delaunay, who was a born speculator, undertook seven or eight other commercial enterprises. First he started a manufactory of paper, then one of French nails, then he conceived the idea of cultivating oysters, then he tried a cheese factory, and ice factory; and finally he thought of turning to account some large, uncultivated tracts of land near Sarrio.

All the enterprises had failed without anybody knowing why. Delaunay was certainly intelligent, clear-headed, and industrious. He was complete master of every trade that he entered into; he ordered all the apparatus from England, set it up, and it worked well and produced very satisfactory results. He attributed his failures to the lack of means of transport. The last of his famous enterprises, which died before it came into practise, brought more discredit on him than any other.

In one of his excursions in the environs of the town he noticed close to a little river some uncultivated land, which he thought could easily, with a little trouble, be cultivated; he computed its value, drew out a plan, and when, a few months later, he found himself compelled to close the ice factory and to dismiss the workmen, he recollected this low land and mentioned it to Don Rosendo Belinchon, Don Feliciano Gomez, and two West Indians, so that they might aid him in his grand scheme. They replied that it would be necessary to see the district, and an expedition was arranged. One morning they set off on horseback, and took the direction of the river Orleo, six miles from Sarrio. Arriving there, they left the horses and ascended the hill on foot, from whence they could see the marsh land.

What was Delaunay's shame and confusion, when he saw the tract that he intended to cultivate covered with maize, beautifully green and flourishing. In fact, it had been under cultivation for more than six years; and his mistake arose from having seen it in December, when it dies down.

The party returned to the town, and one can imagine what a joke was made of the incident.

He was ruined at last, and he found himself obliged to live in a wretched fashion.

But his rage for speculation increased instead of being dampened by failure, and this to such a degree that there was not a single capitalist in Sarrio whom he had not tried to inveigle into some of his enterprises.

At one time it was a road to the capital, another a port of refuge, or stone moles, and another time a grand hotel. Some West Indians, certainly only a few, fell victims to his persuasions, and paid for their innocence with the loss of some thousands of pesetas.

However, Delaunay was a man of talent, and studious, and he was well informed in all the improvements of science, so to depreciate him would be injustice.

The harbor-master, Alvaro Pena, a young fellow thirty years of age, dark, with large black eyes, and a mustache like King Victor Emmanuel's, was noted for his profound, implacable hatred against the ecclesiastical profession, and all who represented it, even to his own brother.

Without any taste for science or literature, he owned a rather extensive library, consisting exclusively of books against religion and its ministers. He was a contributor to two or three periodicals, known by their anti-clerical opinions; and it was said that he had been occupying himself for some years past collecting data for a book that he thought of publishing under the t.i.tle "Religion, the Most Retrograde of Sciences," of which several of his acquaintances had been introduced to different portions. He was cheerful and straightforward, and loved stories and jokes in which some priest or monk played the chief part.

Don Jaime Marin, the owner of four hundred acres of land which, with the tax, realized six thousand pesetas, would have been a great scoundrel, a fast, bad man, if he had not had Dona Brigida for a wife. This important lady managed, with laudable energy, to prevent her husband ruining the whole family, and being turned out of doors. Before he finished making ducks and drakes of the property she succeeded in depriving him judicially of its control, and having it made over to her.

It is not easy to describe the firmness with which Dona Brigida took the reins of management. No Roman patrician was ever imbued with a greater sense of the _sui juris_ of the sacred rights with which "the city" had invested her. From the time of this occurrence Don Jaime, who was then over fifty years of age, dropped into being a mere _thing_ in her hands, according to the law's decree. In his character of _alieni juris_ he had to submit to the direct and constant sway of his lord and master, and to bow in all ways to her universal will.

Farewell to sumptuous suppers of sh.e.l.lfish and Rueda wine in the Cafe de la Marina! Farewell to hunting the hare with Fermo the butcher and Mercelino the engraver! Farewell to delightful nights of tresillo!

Farewell to afternoons of peace and happiness on the lake of Sebastian de la Puente! Farewell! The obdurate lady put three pesetas in his hand every Sunday, neither more nor less. It was all the pocket money he had to spend on his pleasures for the week, with the exception of smoking, which she took in hand herself, buying the cigars and all. When he required a hat, she bought it for him; when he needed a suit of clothes, or a pair of boots, she told the tailor or shoemaker to call and measure him. She even prevented his going to the barber's for fear he should spend the two reales, and so the barber came on Sat.u.r.days to shave him. It sometimes happened that the barber came when Don Jaime was still asleep.

"What am I to do?" he asked of Dona Brigida.

"Shave him," returned the inexorable senora.

Obedient to the command, the barber approached the bedside, covered the face with soap and quietly shaved Don Jaime while still half asleep, and on his finally rousing himself, he said to the servant who brought him his chocolate:

"To-day is Sat.u.r.day; let the barber be brought."