IN WHICH A COUNTESS, A PROFESSIONAL BANDIT, AND A MAN OF ACTION HAVE A TALK

ONE afternoon a few days later, Quentin knocked at the Countess’ door.

“May I come in?”

“Come!”

Quentin opened the door and entered. The room was large, whitewashed, with a very small window divided into four panes, the floor paved with red bricks, and blue rafters in the ceiling. Everything was as clean as silver; in the centre was a table covered with white oil-cloth, upon which was a glass bottle converted by the Countess into a flower stand full of wild flowers.

“My lady,” announced Quentin, “I came to find out if you wanted anything in Cordova.”

“Are you going there?”

“Yes, my lady. If you are bored, we’ll take you in the carriage whenever you wish.”

“No, I’m not bored. To the contrary.”

“Then, why don’t you stay here?”

“No, I cannot.—When do you go?”

“I was thinking of going today, but if you want me to go with you, I’ll wait until tomorrow.”

“Very well, we’ll wait until tomorrow.”

The Countess had made friends at the farm. Late in the afternoon she would take her sewing to the door, and, sitting in the shade, would work among the women[274] of the house. They told her about their lives and their troubles, and she listened with great interest. Quentin and Pacheco used to join the group and chat until the farm bell signalled the labourers, and night fell, and the flocks of goats returned with a great tinkling of bells.

The labourers’ children used to play in front of the doorway; three of them had made friends with the Countess. They were three children who had been left motherless; Miguel, the eldest, was seven, Dolores, the second, was five, and Carmen, the third, was three.

The eldest was very lively, already a little rascal; the second had a tangled mass of blond hair, sad, blue eyes, and a sun-burned face; she wore one of her father’s vests, a dirty apron, stockings around her ankles, and a pair of huge shoes. The littlest one spent hour after hour with her finger thrust into her mouth.

These three children, accustomed to being alone, were content to play with each other; they played around, striking and throwing each other about the ground, and never cried.

“She bosses ’em all,” said one of the old wives to the Countess, pointing to the second child.

“Poor girl. What is your name?”

“Dolores.”

The Countess looked at the child, who lowered her eyes.

“Would you like to come with me, Dolores?” she asked.

“No.”

“I’ll give you pretty dresses, dolls—Will you come?”

“No.”

The Countess kissed the girl, and every afternoon the[275] three children came, waiting for her to give them some money....

“Look there,” said the Countess to Quentin, pointing to a hen that was strutting along the barnyard with her still featherless chicks—“I envy her.”

“Do you?” asked Quentin. “You are more romantic than I thought you were.”

“Romantic, my friend? Why? That is Truth, Nature.”

“Ah! But do you believe in the goodness of Nature?”

“Don’t you?”

“No, I do not. Nature is a farce.”

“You are the farce!” said the Countess. “I could never live with a man like you, Quentin.”

“Couldn’t you?”

“No. If I had married you, we would have ended badly.”

“Would we have beaten each other?”

“Probably.”

“Look here; two things would have pleased me,” replied Quentin. “To allow myself to be struck by you would have been magnificent, but to give you a drubbing would also have been good.”

“Would you have dared?” said the Countess with a slight flush in her cheeks, and her eyes shining.

“Yes, if I were your husband,” answered Quentin calmly.

“Don’t pay any attention to this fellow,” said Pacheco, “for all that is just idle fancy.”

Pacheco manifested a respectful enthusiasm toward the Countess, but at times he wondered if Quentin, with his wild ideas and outbursts, might not interest the Countess more....[276]

... And as they chatted, the afternoon advanced; the sun poured down, its reflected rays were blinding as they fell on stones and bushes; and the air, quivering in the heat, made the outlines of the mountain and the distant landscape tremble.

“Would you like to take a ride, my lady?” said Pacheco.

“Yes, indeed.”

“Shall I saddle your horse?”

“Fine!”

The Countess mounted, followed by Pacheco and Quentin, and the three made their way toward the top of the mountain by a broad path that ran between stout evergreens.

It was late Autumn; the days were sweltering, but as soon as the sun set, the air became very refreshing.

The mountain was splendid that afternoon. The dry, clean air was so transparent that it made even the most distant objects seem near; the trees were turning yellow and shedding their dried leaves; the harvested meadows had not yet begun to turn green. In the highways and byways, brambles displayed their black fruit, and the dog-rose bushes their carmine berries among their thorny branches.

“What are you thinking of doing, Quentin? What have you up your sleeve?” asked the Countess suddenly.

“Everybody knows,” replied Pacheco—“that he’s a lively fish.”

“Ca, man,” answered Quentin. “Why, I’m an unhappy wretch. Just now, I admit, I am capable of doing anything to get money and live well.”

“He contradicts himself at every turn!” exclaimed[277] the Countess, somewhat irritated. “I’m beginning to disbelieve everything he says; whether he tells me that he is bad, or whether he assures me that he is unhappy.”

“You see I’m not to be classified by common standards. One half of me is good, and the other half bad. Sometimes it seems as if I were a demagogue, and I turn out to be a reactionary. I have all sorts of humility and all sorts of arrogance within me. For example, if you were to say to me tomorrow: ‘By selling all the inhabitants of Cordova into slavery, you can make a fortune,’ I would sell them.”

“A lie!” replied the Countess. “You would not sell them.”

“No, I would not sell them if you told me not to.”

“Really, now!”

“Do you know what I used to think of doing when I was in England?” said Quentin.

“What?” asked Pacheco.

“Of putting up a money box. You must have seen one of them in Madrid, I think in the Calle del Fuencarral; people throw lots of money into it. Well, I saw it on my way through the city, and in school I was always thinking: ‘When I get to Spain, I’m going to set up four or five money boxes, and take all the money that’s thrown into them.’”

“What ideas you do have!” said the Countess.

“I have always thought that the first thing to do was to get rich.”

“Why not work?”

“One can never make one’s self rich by working. I have two aphorisms that rule my life; they are: first, be it yours or another’s, you will never get on without[278] money; second, laziness has always its reward, and work its punishment.”

“You are a faker, and one cannot talk to you,” said the Countess. “What about you, Pacheco?”

“He? Why, he’s another romanticist,” replied Quentin.

“Really?” asked the woman.

“Yes, somewhat,” replied the bandit with a sigh.

“Some fine day,” added Quentin, “you will hear that Pacheco has done something either very foolish, or very heroic.”

“May God hear you,” murmured the bandit.

“Do you see?”

“Isn’t it better to do something famous, than to live in a hole like a toad all your life?”

“What would you like to do?” asked the Countess with curiosity.

“I?—Take part in a battle; lead it if possible.”

“Then you want to be a soldier.”

“You mean a general,” interrupted Quentin with a laugh.

“And why not, if he has good luck?”

“What does one need to be a general?” asked Pacheco. “To have a soul, to be valiant, and to be ready to give up your life every minute.”

“And fu............