The Baroness de Aynant, Her Dogs and Her Mulattress Companion—Wherein is Prepared a Farce
Little work, little to eat and clean clothes: these were the conditions that Manuel found in the home of the baroness, and they were unsurpassable.
In the morning his duty was to take the baroness’s dogs out for a stroll; in the afternoon he had to run a few errands. At times, during the first days, he felt homesick for his wandering existence. Several issues of huge novels published in serial form, which Chucha lent him, allayed his passion for tramping about the streets and transported him, in company of Fernández y González and Tárrago y Mateos, to the life of the XVIIth century, with its braggart knights and its lovelorn ladies.
Ni?a Chucha, an eternal chatterbox, recounted to Manuel, in several instalments, the tale of her dear friend, as she called the baroness.
The Baroness de Aynant, Paquita Figueroa, was a queer woman. Her father, a wealthy Cuban gentleman, sent her at the age of eighteen, accompanied by an aunt, on a trip to Europe. On the steamer a young Flemish gentleman, fair and blond, as elegant as a Van Dyck portrait, had paid her much attention;[55] the girl had responded with all the ardent enthusiasm of the tropics, and within a month after their arrival in Spain, the Cuban miss was named the Baroness de Aynant, and left with her husband to take up their residence in Antwerp.
The honeymoon waned, and both the Flemish gentleman and the Cuban wife, once they had settled down again to a tranquil existence, agreed that they were not a congenial, well-matched couple. He was devoted to the simple, methodical life, to the music of Beethoven and to meals prepared with cows’ butter; she, on the other hand, was fond of a wild time, of gadding about the fashionable promenades; she loved a dry, hot climate, the music of Chueca, light meals and dishes made with oil.
These divergencies of taste in small matters, piling up, thickening, in time clouded completely the love of the baron and his wife. She could not let pass calmly the cold, tranquilly ironic remarks that her husband made concerning the sweet-potatoes, the oil and the accent of the southern peoples. The baron, in turn, was piqued to hear his wife speak scornfully of the greasy women who devote themselves to cramming down butter. The rivalry between oil and butter, embroiling itself, interweaving itself with their other affairs of greater importance, assumed such proportions that the couple reached the point of excitement and hatred leading to a separation. The baron remained in Antwerp dedicating himself to his artistic predilections and to his buttered toast, while the baroness came to Madrid,[56] where she could give free rein to her fondness for fruit and oily food.
In Madrid the baroness committed a thousand follies. She tried to procure a divorce, that she might marry a ruined aristocrat. But when her bill of divorcement was all prepared for filing, she learned that her husband was seriously ill, and no sooner did she get the news than she left Madrid, hurried to Antwerp, nursed the baron, saved his life, fell in love all over again and presented him with a baby girl.
During this second epoch of their love the couple threw a dense veil over the great question that had formerly divided them. The baroness and the baron made mutual concessions, and the baroness was well on the way to becoming an excellent Flemish dame when she was left a widow.
She returned to Madrid with her daughter, and soon her Levantine instincts reawakened. Her brother-in-law, uncle and guardian of the child, helped her out with a monthly stipend, but this was not enough. A friend of her father’s,—a certain Don Sergio Redondo, a very wealthy merchant,—offered her his hand; but the baroness did not accept, and preferred his patronage to being his wife. Soon she deceived him with another, and for twelve years she continued this duplicity.
In the midst of this squandering, this madness and surrender to caprice, the baroness preserved a moral background, and withdrew her daughter completely from the world in which the mother dwelt. She placed her child in a convent school and every[57] month, the first money that she laid hands upon was used to pay for the girl’s tuition. When she had completed her education, the baroness intended to take her off to Antwerp and live there with her, resigning herself to the career of a respectable woman.
Ni?a Chucha would grumble and protest at her good friend’s whims, but she always ended by obeying them.
Manuel found the house a paradise; he had nothing to do and would spend his idle hours smoking, if there were anything to smoke, or walking along the Moncloa, accompanied by the baroness’s three dogs.
In the meantime Mingote was hard at work. His plan was to exploit Don Sergio Redondo, friend of the baroness’s father and former protector of the lady. The latter, with the instincts of an intriguing, deceitful wench, had informed her former protector that their relations had produced a boy; then she had told him that the boy had died, and afterward, that the boy was still alive.
All these affirmations and denials the lady accompanied with a request for money, to which Don Sergio acceded; until the victim, rendered suspicious, notified the baroness that he did not believe in the existence of that son. The baroness upbraided him as a miserable wretch and Don Sergio answered, pretending not to understand, and keeping a tight lock on his money-chest.
How had Mingote discovered these facts? Undoubtedly it had not been the baroness who told[58] him, but he ferreted them out none the less. And as his imagination was fertile, it occurred to him to propose to the baroness that she hunt up some boy, provide him with false documents and pass him off as Don Sergio’s son.
The baroness, who knew nothing whatever about the law and considered the Penal Code a net spread to catch vagabonds, seized upon the suggestion as a most excellent and fruitful plan. Mingote demanded a share in the profits and the baroness promised him all he should desire. From that moment Mingote set about searching for a youngster who would fulfill the conditions necessary to the deception of Don Sergio, and when he came upon Manuel, he brought him at once to the home of the baroness.
After he had been there a week, Manuel was already provided with the papers that identified him as Sergio Figueroa. Between Mingote, Don Pelayo the amanuensis, and a friend of theirs called Pe?alar, they forged them with most exquisite skill.
“And now what shall we do?” asked the baroness.
Mingote stood wrapped in thought. If the baroness were to write to Don Sergio, that old fellow, in all probability, since he was now suspicious, might take the whole matter sceptically. They must, therefore, discover some indirect procedure,—they must let him get the news from a third party.
“Suppose it were to be from a confessor? What do you think of that?” asked Mingote.
“A confessor?”
“Yes. A priest who would present himself in[59] Don Sergio’s home and inform him that, under the seal of confession, you had told him....”
“No, no,” interrupted the baroness. “And where is this priest?”
“Pe?alar will go, in disguise.”
“No. Besides, Don Sergio knows that I’m not very religious.”
“Then perhaps a schoolmaster would be better.”
“But do you imagine that he’s going to believe I confess to a schoolmaster?”
“No. We’ll have to alter the plan. The master will go to see Don Sergio and tell him that he has a boy in his school, a young prodigy, who is sadly neglected by his mother. One day he asks the prodigy: ‘What’s your father’s and mother’s name, my boy?’ And the boy replies: ‘I haven’t any father or mother; my step-mother is the Baroness de Aynant.’ Then he, the teacher, comes to see you and you tell him that you’re badly off and that you can’t pay the child’s tuition fee, and that his father, a wealthy gentleman, does not even care to know him. The evangelical master asks you several times for the name of this inhuman parent; you refuse to divulge it; but at last he wrests from your lips the name of that cruel creature. The sublime pedagogue then says: ‘I cannot permit the abandonment of this child, of this extraordinary child,’ and he determines to go to see the father of the child.... Well, what do you think of that?”
“Not a badly woven plot. But who’s going to play the schoolmaster? You?”
“No, Pe?alar. He was simply made for the[60] part. He was a tutor in a college; you’ll see. This very day I’ll hunt him up and bring him here. In the meantime, you prepare Manuel. Let him look somewhat like a schoolboy. While I’m out looking for Pe?alar, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to teach him a little,—the first questions and answers of the catechism, for example.”
In accordance with Mingote’s instructions, the baroness ordered Manuel to comb his hair and spruce up; then she fished out for him a sailor suit with a large white collar. Yet however much they might adorn him and ply their arts upon his person, it was impossible to make him look like a respectable youngster; his indifferent, roguish eyes and his smile, which was half bitter and half sarcastic, betrayed the ragamuffin.
At two o’clock Mingote was back at the baroness’s home, with a dark man of clerical aspect. The man, named Pe?alar, spoke with great emphasis; then, when Mingote stated his proposition, Pe?alar, abandoning his emphatic tone, discussed the conditions of payment and the percentage due him.
He hesitated about accepting the commission, in order to see whether he could get more favourable terms, but, finding Mingote unyielding, he accepted.
“Let the boy come along with me this very minute.”
Pe?alar brushed the sleeves of his black frock coat, combed his hair back, and taking Manuel by the hand, said to him in a truly evangelical voice:
“Come, my child.”
[61]
Don Sergio Redondo had a flour shop on the Plaza del Progreso.
They reached the square and walked into the shop.
“Don Sergio Redondo?” asked Pe?alar of an old man in a flat, woolen cap.
“He hasn’t come down to the office yet.”
“I’ll wait. Tell him that there’s a gentleman here who would like to see him.”
“Very well. And who shall I say is waiting for him?”
“No, he doesn’t know me. Just tell him that it’s a family matter. Sit down, my boy,” added Pe?alar, turning to Manuel, with a voice and a smile of purely evangelical unction.
Manuel took a seat, and Pe?alar let his gaze wander about the shop with the calmness and ease of one who is fully confident and aware of just what he is about.
The old man in the woolen cap soon reappeared.
“Step into the office,” and he pushed back a black screen set with striped panes. “The master will be in presently.”
Pe?alar and Manuel entered a room lighted by a grated window, and sat down upon a green sofa. Opposite them rose a mahogany closet lined with business books; in the middle stood a writing desk with many drawers, and to one side of this, a safe with gilt knobs.
The room exhaled the spirit of an implacable merchant. One readily saw that this cage held an ugly bird. Manuel was terrified. Pe?alar himself,[62] perhaps, experienced a moment of weakness, but he swelled up with importance, twirled his moustaches, carefully adjusted his spectacles upon his nose and smiled.
Don Sergio did not keep them waiting long. He was a tall old fellow, with white moustaches, and a suspicious glance which he shot obliquely over the rim of his glasses. He wore a long frock coat, bright-coloured trousers, a skull cap of green velvet with a long tassel that hung down one side. He strode in without a greeting, and eyed the man and the boy with evident displeasure. They arose. Perhaps he even thought that he had divined the reason of the Visit, for in a dry, authoritarian voice, and without bidding them be seated, he asked Pe?alar:
“What do you wish, sir? Was it you who had something to say to me with reference to a family matter? You?”
Any other person would have been seized with a desire to strangle the old man. Not Pe?alar, however; difficult situations were his forte, and most to his taste. He began to speak, unabashed by the inquisitorial glances of the merchant.
Manuel listened to him with a mingling of admiration and terror. He could see that the old man was growing angrier every second. Pe?alar spoke on unperturbed.
He was a poor captive soul, a sentimentalist, an idealist—ah!—devoted to the instruction of youth,—that youth in whose bosom repose the seeds of[63] the nation’s regeneration. He had suffered a great deal,—a great deal. He had been in the hospital. A man such as he, who knew French, English, German, who played the piano,—a man of his stamp, related to the entire aristocracy of the kingdom of León, a man who knew more theology and theodocy than all the priests rolled into one.
Ah! He did not say all this out of vainglory; but he had a right to life. Gómez Sánchez, the illustrious histologist, had once said to him:
“You ought not to work.”
“But I’m hungry.”
“Then beg.”
Wherefore sometimes he did beg.
Don Sergio, utterly astounded before this avalanche of words, made no attempt to interrupt Pe?alar. The latter paused, smiled unctuously, noted that the force of habit had carried him on to his everlasting theme of the reason for his sponging on folks, and realizing that his eloquence was leading him astray, lowered his voice, continuing in a confidential tone:
“This our life is, despite all its drawbacks, so attractive,—is it not so, Don Sergio?—that one cannot leave it with indifference. And yet I believe that death is liberation. Yes, I believe in the immortality of the soul, in the absolute dominion of spirit over matter. Not so in previous years. No, I must confess,” and he smiled more benignly than ever, “I was formerly a pantheist, and I still preserve, from that period, perhaps, an enthusiasm for[64] nature. Ah, the country! The country is my delight! Many a time I recall those verses of the Mantuan:
Te, dulcis conjux, te solo in litore secum
te veniente die, te decedente canebat.
“Are you fond of the country, Don Sergio? You really should be, with all the gifts you possess.”
Don Sergio’s anger, which had been rising together with Pe?alar’s incoherent verbosity, exploded into one curt sentence:
“I abominate the country.”
Pe?alar stopped short with mouth agape.
“Sir, my dear sir,” added the merchant, raising his furious voice, “if you have plenty of time to waste, I haven’t.”
“I haven’t yet told you the reason for my visit,” said Pe?alar, removing his glasses and preparing to wipe them with his handkerchief.
“No, and it isn’t necessary. I can imagine it very well. I give no charity.”
“My worthy Se?or Don Sergio,” and Pe?alar arose, spectacles in hand, turning his short-sighted glances about the room, “you have made a grievous mistake. I have not come to ask alms nor is that a habit of mine. No one may contradict that statement. I have come,” and he placed his glasses resolutely in their position, “to fulfil a sacred duty.”
“Let’s be done with this. What sacred duty are you talking about? To the point! Enough of the farce. I hate charlatanry.”
[65]
“Allow me to have a seat. I am weary,” murmured Pe?alar in a frail voice. “Is any one within hearing?”
Don Sergio glared at him like a hyena. Pe?alar passed his riddled handkerchief across his broad forehead; then, turning to Manuel, who was still regarding the scene in complete amazement, he said to him:
“Please, my dear child, leave us alone for a moment and wait for me outside.”
Manuel opened the office door and walked out into the shop. This man?uvre caused Don Sergio to start back in bewilderment.
“I, my worthy sir,” said Pe?alar, as soon as he found himself alone with the merchant, “am dedicated to the education of youth.”
“You’re a schoolmaster? So I’ve already heard.”
“I was acting as examiner in the Colegio del Espíritu Santo, when it occurred to me to go into business on my own account.”
“And you lost money. Very well. But how does all this concern me?” shrilled Don Sergio, pounding upon the table with a book.
“I crave your pardon. Among my pupils I have this boy who has just left us. He is a prodigy, a youngster of extraordinary talents. When I saw how bright he was, how determined, I conceived an interest in him; I inquired about his family, and was told that he had neither father nor mother, and had been taken into a certain lady’s home.”
“Well, what has all this got to do with me?”
“Patience, Don Sergio. I went to see this kind[66] lady, who is a baroness, and I said to her, ‘The boy whom you have taken into your home is worthy of the utmost encouragement. Something should be done for his education.’
“‘His mother has no means and his father, who is very wealthy, does nothing for him,’ was the baroness’s reply.
“‘Tell me who his father is, and I’ll go to see him,’ I said.
“‘It’s no use,’ she answered, ‘for you’ll get nothing out of him. His name is Don Sergio Redondo.’”
As he pronounced these words, Pe?alar got up, and with his head thrown back contemplated Don Sergio, even as the exterminating angel glances upon a poor reprobate. Don Sergio turned frightfully pale, pulled out his handkerchief, rubbed his lips, hawked. It was easily to be seen that he was perturbed.
Pe?alar scrutinized the old man keenly, and noting that his arrogance was abating, became more evangelical and moral than ever.
“The baroness,” he added, “said to me,—and you must pardon my undeviating sincerity—she said to me that you were an egotist and a heartless creature. But despite this,” and he smiled sweetly, feeling himself by now quite supermoral and superevangelic, “I thought: My duty is to go to see that gentleman. That is why I have come. Now you will do as your conscience dictates. I have followed the dictates of mine.”
After this little speech Pe?alar had nothing more to add, and with the smile of the entire martyrology[67] upon his lips he took his hat, saluted most ceremoniously and drew near to the door.
“And that youngster is the boy who was here?” asked Don Sergio in a low, hesitant voice.
“That is he.”
“And where does this woman live,—this baroness?” exclaimed the merchant.
“I cannot tell you. I shall ask her first. If she authorizes me to tell, I will return with the answer.”
And Pe?alar left the office.
“Come along, my boy,” he said to Manuel.
And with proud, noble demeanour, head erect, he left the place, leading his beloved pupil by the hand,—that portentous child so little appreciated by his parents.