Carlos Fuentes - The Campaign

Who, in fact, was holding court. Because — Julían Ríos pointed out — the rug has been swept clean of gossip by edict of the marquis himself, who was the first to mention the rumor about his wife, his life, his strife, rhymed Father Ríos irrepressibly. The marquis was talking now in an endless flow:

“Modern revolution is divided evenly between those enemy brothers, Rousseau and Voltaire. The Genevan wanted the people to act. The other wanted them to be led. But it takes a long time for the people to become educated and to act prudently, so they have to be guided at first — thence Voltaire wins the match, he can never lose it. What did that old cynic say?”

“That the light of reason falls by degrees,” quoted Julián Ríos. “The lowest level of society needs the example of its superiors. Forty thousand wise men: that’s more or less what we need.”

“Forty thousand wise men!” said the old marquis, sighing. “Include me among them. The first thing I’ll do is keep the people from ever taking my place or instructing me. All modern revolution does is create a new elite. Why? The old elite was more elegant and practiced in the very thing the new elite is going to do: mete out injustice.”

“To transfer property from a minute group of landowners to four million electors in one year does not seem so elitist to me, your lordship. There has never been a redistribution of wealth as large or as swift in all of recorded history.”

“Bah.” The marquis did not even look at the tutor. “Revolutions of interests end up costing more than revolutions of ideals. All the Jacobin terror in France seems less painful to me than the elitist injustice of the North American revolution. Some revolution, gentlemen — a revolution that not only leaves slavery intact but actually consecrates it.”

“Are we less racist than they?” asked Ríos.

“What is to be done, Mr., Mr. — ” said the Marquis haughtily, not finding the proper title for the tutor. “I mean, what is to be done when the people of color themselves come to the courts here in Lima, in Barranquilla, or in La Guaira, requesting written proof that they are white? How many venal judges have stared into the scorched face of a man whose father and grandfather were black and whose mother and grandmother were Indian, and stated: ‘He may be considered white’? Our courts are flooded with requests for certification of whiteness, Mr., Mr.—”

“Father Rivers,” the tutor supplied, smiling.

“Ah, a perfidious son of Albion…”

“No, your Lordship, merely a poor albino dazzled with admiration at your wisdom.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Rivers should flow. Or, better yet, run.”

“Having the runs is something that happens all too frequently in these parts, sir. But the way you say my name makes me think of reverse, so perhaps you would prefer me to step back.”

“I was merely commenting on the irony of the blacks submitting legal petitions so as not to be termed ‘poor black’ or ‘poor mulatto.’”

“We are all cooperating, your lordship. White families in Lima, Caracas, and Panama are also initiating legal actions to keep any family members from marrying people of color.”

“In sum, then, Mr. Reverse, I’m right to declare here, before all of you, that my only virtue has been the proper administration of injustice and that, personally, I would rather die than cease to be unjust.”

A chorus of laughter followed these lapidary witticisms of the Marquis de Cabra, a device by which he dissipated not only the attention initially focused on his wife’s affaires but also whatever attention was being paid to the poor castrato performing Palestrina. In any case, he certainly hushed the comment of the old Jesuit: “Privilege is like the robe of Nessus; when you tear it off, you also tear off the flesh under it.”

The marquis spun around like a wasp and spoke like a whip: “Go ahead and wage your war of independence. Disillusionment will soon follow. And, I assure you, I am not making idle pronouncements. I am predicting the most concrete things. A stagnant economy, without the protection of Spain and incapable of competing in world markets. A society of privilege; the mere act of casting out the Spaniards will not make the Creoles less unjust, cruel, or greedy. And dictatorship after dictatorship will be necessary to bridge the gap between the country as constituted by law and the country as reality. You will be left to the mercy of the elements, my dear patriots. You will wrench off the roof of tradition. But you do not know how to survive in the new, open air. The modern age, which for an Englishman, Father Rivers, is a breeze, will be a hurricane for a Peruvian. We who speak Spanish were not born for it.”

“We shall make our own modernity, and it will be unlike that of the English or the French, your lordship,” said young Baltasar, imagining a French roof over the head of his sister, Sabina, to protect her, after being abandoned by Spain, from the cruel elements she so feared.

The marquis stared at him curiously, as if the old man’s intelligence would never dare to reject a possible relationship, association, or contiguity, no matter how arbitrary it might seem at first glance.

“Father Rivers”—the marquis smiled—“your young disciple — that is what he is, isn’t that so? — knows that all waters ultimately flow into each other. Am I right?”

“Rivers do flow,” said the tutor.

“Rivers roll, servants serve, priests pray — or is it prey? — but castrati, fortunately, do not castrate. Yet young men with sunburned faces and newly shorn beards pique my curiosity. Do they flow, serve, pray, prey, or castrate?”

“None of those things, your lordship,” said Baltasar. “At times, they merely desire.”

“Just so long as they don’t covet that which belongs to others,” said the old man in acid tones. “In this country, the wise practice is to stick a finger up the ass of every miner as he leaves his work, to see that he isn’t stealing the gold.”

“Good heavens, your lordship! Not even I allow myself such obscenities,” cackled the balding old woman bristling with combs, “in spite of the fact that I’m older and that Viceroy Abascal isn’t listening to what I say.”

That very personage was standing behind Cabra with his solemn, Visigoth face. The marquis bowed. Everyone awaited the words of the viceroy, Don Fernando de Abascal, Marquis de Concordia, who no doubt hoped to cancel any discussion of independence or loyalty to the Crown — the only fashionable topics, since no others lent themselves so well to animated conversation — with a few words more lapidary than any the others might utter. He imagined himself captivating his audience with his eyes, which were like those of an offended codfish:

“The Americans were born to be slaves, destined by nature to vegetate in obscurity and melancholy.”

He said it out of obligation, to give offense, because he thought that under the present circumstances his obligation was to offend and that his greatest offense would be to overlook any arguments the others might propose. He was the viceroy, but not even the viceroy and his attributes could dampen — now was the time to prove it — the imagination and humor of the Marquis de Cabra, who sought thus to suggest that, more than Abascal, the man who should be viceroy was he who was speaking: Cabra himself.

He looked straight at Baltasar Bustos and commented that his tanned complexion and pale chin indicated many months in the open air and sun and a beard until recently unshaven. Baltasar nodded. This fellow looked like no one else: was he a soldier? But none of the officers present showed such a contrast, such roughness. “What campaigns were you in, Mr., Mr.—”