Emilia Pardo Bazán - The Swan of Vilamorta

Segundo composed his first verses, cynical and pessimistic in intention, ingenuous in reality, before he had reached the age of seventeen. His classmates applauded him to the echo. He acquired in their eyes a certain prestige, and when the first fruits of his muse appeared in a periodical he had, without going beyond the narrow circle of the college, admirers and detractors. Thenceforth he acquired the right to indulge in solitary walks, to laugh rarely, to surround his adventures with mystery, and not to play or take a drink for good-fellowship's sake except when he felt in the humor.

And he seldom felt in the humor. Excitation of the senses, of a purely physical nature, possessed no attraction for him; if he drank at times through bravado, the spectacle of drunkenness, the winding-up of student orgies—the soiled tablecloth, the maudlin disputes, his companions lying under the table or stretched on the sofa, the shamelessness and heartlessness of venal women—repelled him and he came away from such scenes filled with disgust and contempt, and at times a reaction proper to his complex character sent him, a sincere admirer of Proudhon, Quinet, and Renan, to the precincts of some solitary church, where he drew in with delight long breaths of the incense-laden air.

The lawyer García made no protest against his son's literary inclinations because he regarded them as a passing amusement proper to his age, a youthful folly, like dancing at a village feast. He began to grow uneasy when he saw that Segundo, after graduation, showed no inclination to help him in the conduct of his tortuous law-suits. Was the boy, then, going to turn out good for nothing but to string rhymes together? It was no crime to do this, but—when there was not a pile of law-papers to go through and stratagems to think of to circumvent the opposing party. Since the lawyer had observed this inclination of his son he had treated him with more persistent harshness and coldness than before. Every day at table or whenever the occasion offered, he made cutting speeches to him about the necessity of earning one's own bread by assiduous labor, instead of depending upon others for it. These continual sermons, in which he displayed the same captious and harassing obstinacy as in the conduct of his law-suits, frightened Segundo from the house. In Leocadia's house he found a place of refuge, and he submitted passively to be adored; flattered in the first place by the triumph his verses had obtained, awakening admiration so evidently sincere and ardent, and in the second place attracted by the moral well-being engendered by unquestioning approval and unmeasured complacency. His idle, dreamy brain reposed on the soft cushions which affection smoothes for the beloved head; Leocadia sympathized with all his plans for the future, developing and enlarging them; she encouraged him to write and to publish his verses; she praised him without reserve and without hypocrisy, for, for her, whose critical faculty was situated in her cardiac cavities, Segundo was the most melodious singer in the universe.

Gradually the loving prevision of the schoolmistress extended to other departments of Segundo's existence. Neither the lawyer García nor Aunt Gáspara supposed that a young man, once his education was finished, needed a penny for any extraordinary expense. Aunt Gáspara, in particular, protested loudly at every fresh outlay—after filling her nephew's trunk one year she thought he was provided with shirts for at least ten years to come: clothes had no right to tear or to wear out, without any consideration, in that way. Leocadia took note of the wants of her idol; one day she observed that he was not well supplied with handkerchiefs and she hemmed and marked a dozen for him; the next day she noticed that he was expected to keep himself in cigars for a year on half a dollar, and she took upon herself the task of making them for him, furnishing the material herself gratis. She heard the fruit-women criticising Aunt Gáspara's stinginess; she inferred from this that Segundo had a poor table, and she set herself to the task of devising appetizing and nutritious dishes for him; in addition to all which she ordered books from Orense, mended his clothes, and sewed on his buttons.

All this she did with inexpressible delight, going about the house with a light, almost youthful step, rejuvenated by the sweet maternity of love, and so happy that she forgot to scold the school-children, thinking only of shortening their tasks that she might be all the sooner with Segundo. There was in her affection much that was generous and spiritual, and her happiest moments were those in which, as they sat side by side at the window, his head resting on her shoulder, she listened, while her imagination transformed the pots of carnations and sweet basil into a virgin forest, to the verses which he recited in a well-modulated voice, verses that seemed to Leocadia celestial music.

The medal had its obverse side, however. The mornings were full of bitterness when Flores would come with an angry and frowning face, her woolen shawl twisted and wrinkled and falling over her eyes, to say in short, abrupt phrases:

"The eggs are all used; shall I get more? There is no sugar; which kind shall I buy—that dear loaf sugar that we bought last week? To-day I got coffee, two pounds of coffee, as if we had a gold mine. I won't buy any more cordial—you can go for it yourself—I won't."

"What are you talking about, Flores? What is the matter with you?"

"I say that if you like to give Ramon, the confectioner, twenty-four reals a bottle for anisette, when it is to be had for eight at the apothecary's, you can do so, but that I am not going to put the money in that thief's hand; he will be asking you five dollars a bottle for it next."

Leocadia would come out of her reverie with a sigh, and go to the bureau drawer for the money, not without thinking that Flores was only too right; her savings, her couple of thousand reals laid by for an emergency, must be almost gone; it was better not to examine into the condition of the purse; better put off annoyances as long as possible. God would provide. And she would scold the old woman with feigned anger.

"Go for the bottle; go—and don't make me angry. At eight the children will be here and I have my petticoat to iron yet. Make Minguitos his chocolate; you would be better employed in seeing that he has something to eat. And give him some cake."

"Yes. I'll give him some, I'll give him some. If I didn't give the poor child something——" grumbled the servant, who at Minguitos' name felt her anger increase. In the kitchen could be heard the furious knock given to the chocolate-pot to settle it on the fire and the angry sound of the mill, afterward, beating the chocolate into froth. Flores would enter the room of the deformed boy, who had not yet left his bed, and taking his hand in hers, say:

"Are you warm, child? I have brought you your chocolate; do you hear?"

"Will mamma give it to me?"

"I will give it to you."

"And mamma—what is she doing?"

"Ironing some petticoats."

The little humpback would fix his eyes on Flores, raising his head with difficulty from between the double arch of the breast and back. His eyes were deep set, with large pupils; on his mouth, with its prominent jaws, rested a melancholy and distorted smile. Throwing his arms around the neck of Flores, and putting his lips close to her ear:

"Did the other one come yesterday?" he asked.

"Yes, child, yes."

"Will he come again to-day?"

"He'll come. Of course he'll come! Stop talking, fillino, stop talking and take your chocolate. It's as you like it—thin and with froth."

"I don't think I have any appetite for it. Put it there beside me."

In Vilamorta there was a Casino, a real Casino, small indeed, and shabby, besides, but with its billiard-table, bought at second-hand, and its boy, an old man of seventy, who once a year dusted and brushed the green cover. For the only reunions in the Casino of Vilamorta were those of the rats and the moths who assembled daily, to amuse themselves by eating away the woodwork. The chief centers of reunion were the two apothecaries' shops, that of Doña Eufrasia, fronting the Plaza and that of Agonde in the high street. Doña Eufrasia's shop, nestling in the shadowy corner of an archway, was dark; in the hours of meeting it was lighted by a smoky kerosene lamp; its furniture consisted of four grimy chairs and a bench.