Felipe Alfau - Chromos

She was standing before an old shawl. It had little figures of Chinamen embroidered on it and their heads were made of ivory.

“That one is a real Chinese specimen. It is something like this one here. Some people consider them the best, although some might not consider them bright enough. It is strange how an industry originally Chinese has become so identified with Spain, although by the way you speak, it seems that someday it will also become part of the Opera.” She was teasing the Madame almost too pointedly.

Madame Gerard ignored the dart: “And how did you manage to make this collection?”

“Given to me at different times. Paco has given me some of the best.”

The Madame looked at her daughter: “Well, shall we join the gentlemen?”

The shooting gallery was a wide, long, threatening hall, hung with weapons of different types and periods and several hunting trophies. At the entrance were a couple of settees and some chairs as well as small tables and.

“What is the proper name for those things where they keep guns and pistols and the like, do you know?” Garcia asked me. “You must have seen them in pictures.”

“I don’t know. You see? That is the trouble when writing about things you know nothing about.”

“It is not important anyway. I can always look it up and the readers will not know the difference. Very few have been in any shooting gallery, much less own one. Excuse the interruption.”

A servant was laying dishes of sweets on the tables and uncorking some bottles. At the other end, the bull’s-eye inevitably arrested all the attention. It had a couple of holes in it. Paco and La Torre each held a pistol in his hand.

Mademoiselle Gerard entered with ankles giving way under her. A smokelike piece of fabric hung from her arms and floated down her back. Her mother and Julieta followed.

“Listen, Paco: Madame Gerard is going to revolutionize France all over again. She wants to wear a Spanish shawl to the Opera. What do you think of that for asserting one’s freedom in a republic?”

Paco was aware of the sharpness in her words and decided to smooth out the situation by taking it lightly.

“One does not have to live in a republic in order to wear what one likes where one likes. Next year, when I go to America, I will return with an Indian costume and wear it to a bullfight.”

“In any case you are a most generous husband, Señor Serrano. What a beautiful collection of shawls you have given your wife.”

“That is not the best I give her.”

“I think you men are getting more impossible every day.”

“Now, Madame Gerard,” La Torre interposed, “don’t talk badly about men. As you see, we are prepared to defend ourselves heroically,” and he pointed his pistol at her.

“Oh. Please, Señor La Torre! Not even in jest. I will faint. It might go off.”

“Don’t worry. I have perfect control.”

Julieta spoke to the young man: “Are you going to join in?”

“No. I am not good at these things. I would much rather talk to you.”

La Torre was pointing to the head of an antelope on the wall, right behind where Julieta was sitting with the young man: “I say, Serrano. You should not have this sort of thing around, being a married man.”

Paco was standing at the other end of the gallery. He had changed the bull’s-eye and was loading his pistol. He looked up and smiled. Julieta had taken a piece of candy the young man offered her. It was a dainty, long, thin bar with yellow and red stripes. She took a small bite when suddenly the young man snatched it from her and was about to put it to his mouth when a loud report was heard and the candy bar shot from his fingers. An ugly hole appeared under the antelope’s head. They all gasped and stared at Paco.

The smile was still on his face and his pistol was smoking. The young man was pale and had stood up. Julieta very quietly met her husband’s eyes.

“I am very sorry,” Paco apologized. “The darn thing just went off.”

Madame Gerard was finally able to speak: “My Lord! I nearly fainted. This is too dangerous. I think we had better find a safer place.”

“Please don’t go yet. We will be careful. Stay and see the match between La Torre and myself. This won’t happen again, I assure you.” He had come over to where they all stood and took the old lady solicitously by the arm: “Here. This will restore you.” He poured her a glass of jerez.

“Very well.” She drank the jerez with avidity. “We will stay to see you shoot once. That is enough to judge a man’s ability. But be sure that you aim in the right direction.”

“We always do. Don’t fear.”

La Torre had taken his position. He extended his arm with the pistol and then turned to the audience: “Cover your ears, please.”

They all obeyed and then, without looking, he shot.

“Bravo!” they all shouted. He ran to the bull’s-eye and then called Paco.

“What do you think of that? Only one centimeter from the center.”

Paco admitted that this was very good indeed and difficult to beat: “Let me see what I can do,” he said when he had returned to his position, and without aiming, he shot.

La Torre stepped up to the bull’s-eye again and examined it. There was but one hole.

“Say, boy! That was some shot! It went right through mine and did not even make it larger. I bet you could not repeat that,” and Paco, who had followed him, said: “Of course I can, as long as I shoot with blank cartridges. I am not really a good shot.”

La Torre whispered: “But the other one was not a blank cartridge.”

“No, that was a real bullet.”

Madame Gerard and her daughter were taking their leave. La Torre and the young man offered to accompany them. Paco and Julieta met at the door. For a moment they were alone; the others had preceded them. She looked at him with scrutiny and he returned her gaze very carefully wrapped in a cynical expression, holding the door open for her.

My applause startled Garcia and also the cashier who was the only other person besides us still in the restaurant: “I say Bravo! like your characters. You certainly got it cursi, boy! Bull’s-eye cursi.” I poured the rest of the arrack into the cups and held mine up: “To the great cursi art which in your hands becomes a science or vice versa.”

Garcia looked doubtful and then decided to take it as a compliment and wash it down with the arrack, but he said nothing. Probably he wanted to save his mind for the reading:

La Torre, the painter, was a tall, broad fellow with an abundant mane, a slightly drooping mustache and an impertinent air that verged on the obscene. He was supposed to be as skilled with the sword as with the brush, perhaps more so, and sought duels for the mere publicity of it. The elasticity of his conscience may be appreciated from the following incident.

One night at the opera, he had laid his cloak on the chair in front of his. The occupant came and claimed the chair, asking La Torre politely to remove his cloak. This occupant had had the misfortune of courting the lady who was La Torre’s model at the time.

La Torre answered something very insulting and the other man slapped his face.

La Torre scratched his cheek very ostentatiously and then selected a card with utmost care. He carried his insolence so far as wiping some imaginary dust from it and then handed it to his aggressor.

The other man knew nothing about duels and consequently, that night, he visited a fencing master. As there was no time in one lesson to teach much, the fencing master taught him only one resource pass.

La Torre entered the fencing academy right after his opponent had left and inquired from the master which pass he had taught

News like that travels fast and the master knew that La Torre was going to fight the other man next morning and said that his honor did not allow him to betray a professional secret.