Dona Perfecta

  CHAPTER XII

  HERE WAS TROY

  Love, friendship, a wholesome moral atmosphere, spiritual light,sympathy, an easy interchange of ideas and feelings, these were whatPepe Rey's nature imperatively demanded. Deprived of them, the darknessthat shrouded his soul grew deeper, and his inward gloom imparted atinge of bitterness and discontent to his manner. On the day followingthe scenes described in the last chapter, what vexed him more than anything was the already prolonged and mysterious seclusion of his cousin,accounted for at first by a trifling indisposition and then by capricesand nervous feelings difficult of explanation.

  Rey was surprised by conduct so contrary to the idea which he had formedof Rosarito. Four days had passed during which he had not seen her; andcertainly it was not because he did not desire to be at her side; andhis situation threatened soon to become humiliating and ridiculous, if,by boldly taking the initiative, he did not at once put an end to it.

  "Shall I not see my cousin to-day, either?" he said to his aunt, withmanifest ill-humor, when they had finished dining.

  "No, not to-day, either. Heaven knows how sorry I am for it. I gave hera good talking to this morning. This afternoon we will see what can bedone."

  The suspicion that in this unreasonable seclusion his adorable cousinwas rather the helpless victim than the free and willing agent, inducedhim to control himself and to wait. Had it not been for this suspicionhe would have left Orbajosa that very day. He had no doubt whatever thatRosario loved him, but it was evident that some unknown influence wasat work to separate them, and it seemed to him to be the part of anhonorable man to discover whence that malign influence proceeded and tooppose it, as far as it was in his power to do so.

  "I hope that Rosarito's obstinacy will not continue long," he said toDona Perfecta, disguising his real sentiments.

  On this day he received a letter from his father in which the lattercomplained of having received none from Orbajosa, a circumstance whichincreased the engineer's disquietude, perplexing him still further.Finally, after wandering about alone in the garden for a long time, heleft the house and went to the Casino. He entered it with the desperateair of a man about to throw himself into the sea.

  In the principal rooms he found various people talking and discussingdifferent subjects. In one group they were solving with subtle logicdifficult problems relating to bulls; in another, they were discussingthe relative merits of different breeds of donkeys of Orbajosa andVillahorrenda. Bored to the last degree, Pepe Rey turned away from thesediscussions and directed his steps toward the reading-room, where helooked through various reviews without finding any distraction in thereading, and a little later, passing from room to room, he stopped,without knowing why, at the gaming-table. For nearly two hours heremained in the clutches of the horrible yellow demon, whose shiningeyes of gold at once torture and charm. But not even the excitement ofplay had power to lighten the gloom of his soul, and the same tediumwhich had impelled him toward the green cloth sent him away fromit. Shunning the noise, he found himself in an apartment used as anassembly-room, in which at the time there was not a living soul, andhere he seated himself wearily at a window overlooking the street.

  This was very narrow, with more corners and salient angles than houses,and was overshaded throughout its whole extent by the imposing mass ofthe cathedral that lifted its dark and time-corroded walls at one endof it. Pepe Rey looked up and down and in every direction; no signof life--not a footstep, not a voice, not a glance, disturbed thestillness, peaceful as that of a tomb, that reigned everywhere. Suddenlystrange sounds, like the whispering of feminine voices, fell on his ear,and then the rustling of curtains that were being drawn, a few words,and finally the humming of a song, the bark of a lap-dog, and othersigns of social life, which seemed very strange in such a place.Observing attentively, Pepe Rey perceived that these noises proceededfrom an enormous balcony with blinds which displayed its corpulent bulkin front of the window at which he was sitting. Before he had concludedhis observations, a member of the Casino suddenly appeared beside him,and accosted him laughingly in this manner:

  "Ah, Senor Don Pepe! what a rogue you are! So you have shut yourself inhere to ogle the girls, eh?"

  The speaker was Don Juan Tafetan, a very amiable man, and one of the fewmembers of the Casino who had manifested for Pepe Rey cordial friendshipand genuine admiration. With his red cheeks, his little dyed mustache,his restless laughing eyes, his insignificant figure, his hair carefullycombed to hide his baldness, Don Juan Tafetan was far from being anAntinous in appearance, but he was very witty and very agreeable andhe had a happy gift for telling a good story. He was much given tolaughter, and when he laughed his face, from his forehead to his chin,became one mass of grotesque wrinkles. In spite of these qualities, andof the applause which might have stimulated his taste for spicy jokes,he was not a scandal-monger. Every one liked him, and Pepe Rey spentwith him many pleasant hours. Poor Tafetan, formerly an employe in thecivil department of the government of the capital of the province, nowlived modestly on his salary as a clerk in the bureau of charities;eking out his income by gallantly playing the clarionet in theprocessions, in the solemnities of the cathedral, and in the theatre,whenever some desperate company of players made their appearance inthose parts with the perfidious design of giving representations inOrbajosa.

  But the most curious thing about Don Juan Tafetan was his liking forpretty girls. He himself, in the days when he did not hide his baldnesswith half a dozen hairs plastered down with pomade, when he did notdye his mustache, when, in the freedom from care of youthful years, hewalked with shoulders unstooped and head erect, had been a formidable_Tenorio_. To hear him recount his conquests was something to make onedie laughing; for there are _Tenorios_ and _Tenorios_, and he was one ofthe most original.

  "What girls? I don't see any girls," responded Pepe Rey.

  "Yes, play the anchorite!"

  One of the blinds of the balcony was opened, giving a glimpse of ayouthful face, lovely and smiling, that disappeared instantly, like alight extinguished by the wind.

  "Yes, I see now."

  "Don't you know them?"

  "On my life I do not."

  "They are the Troyas--the Troya girls. Then you don't know somethinggood. Three lovely girls, the daughters of a colonel of staff, who diedin the streets of Madrid in '54."

  The blind opened again, and two faces appeared.

  "They are laughing at me," said Tafetan, making a friendly sign to thegirls.

  "Do you know them?"

  "Why, of course I know them. The poor things are in the greatest want.I don't know how they manage to live. When Don Francisco Troya died asubscription was raised for them, but that did not last very long."

  "Poor girls! I imagine they are not models of virtue."

  "And why not? I do not believe what they say in the town about them."

  Once more the blinds opened.

  "Good-afternoon, girls!" cried Don Juan Tafetan to the three girls, whoappeared, artistically grouped, at the window. "This gentleman says thatgood things ought not to hide themselves, and that you should throw openthe blinds."

  But the blind was closed and a joyous concert of laughter diffused astrange gayety through the gloomy street. One might have fancied that aflock of birds was passing.

  "Shall we go there?" said Tafetan suddenly.

  His eyes sparkled and a roguish smile played on his discolored lips.

  "But what sort of people are they, then?"

  "Don't be afraid, Senor de Rey. The poor things are honest. Bah! Why,they live upon air, like the chameleons. Tell me, can any one whodoesn't eat sin? The poor girls are virtuous enough. And even if theydid sin, they fast enough to make up for it."

  "Let us go, then."

  A moment later Don Juan Tafetan and Pepe Rey were entering the parlor ofthe Troyas. The poverty he saw, that struggled desperately to disguiseitself, afflicted the young man. The three girls were very lovely,especially the two younger ones, who were pale
and dark, with largeblack eyes and slender figures. Well-dressed and well shod they wouldhave seemed the daughters of a duchess, and worthy to ally themselveswith princes.

  When the visitors entered, the three girls were for a moment abashed:but very soon their naturally gay and frivolous dispositions becameapparent. They lived in poverty, as birds live in confinement, singingbehind iron bars as they would sing in the midst of the abundance ofthe forest. They spent the day sewing, which showed at least honorableprinciples; but no one in Orbajosa, of their own station in life, heldany intercourse with them. They were, to a certain extent, proscribed,looked down upon, avoided, which also showed that there existed somecause for scandal. But, to be just, it must be said that the badreputation of the Troyas consisted, more than in any thing else, inthe name they had of being gossips and mischief-makers, fond ofplaying practical jokes, and bold and free in their manners. They wroteanonymous letters to grave personages; they gave nicknames to everyliving being in Orbajosa, from the bishop down to the lowest vagabond;they threw pebbles at the passers-by; they hissed behind the windowbars, in order to amuse themselves with the perplexity and annoyance ofthe startled passer-by; they found out every thing that occurred in theneighborhood; to which end they made constant use of every window andaperture in the upper part of the house; they sang at night in thebalcony; they masked themselves during the Carnival, in order to obtainentrance into the houses of the highest families; and they played manyother mischievous pranks peculiar to small towns. But whatever itscause, the fact was that on the Troya triumvirate rested one of thosestigmas that, once affixed on any one by a susceptible community,accompanies that person implacably even beyond the tomb.

  "This is the gentleman they say has come to discover the gold-mines?"said one of the girls.

  "And to do away with the cultivation of garlic in Orbajosa to plantcotton or cinnamon trees in its stead?"

  Pepe could not help laughing at these absurdities.

  "All he has come for is to make a collection of pretty girls to takeback with him to Madrid," said Tafetan.

  "Ah! I'll be very glad to go!" cried one.

  "I will take the three of you with me," said Pepe. "But I want to knowone thing; why were you laughing at me when I was at the window of theCasino?"

  These words were the signal for fresh bursts of laughter.

  "These girls are silly things," said the eldest.

  "It was because we said you deserved something better than DonaPerfecta's daughter."

  "It was because this one said that you are only losing your time, forRosarito cares only for people connected with the Church."

  "How absurd you are! I said nothing of the kind! It was you who saidthat the gentleman was a Lutheran atheist, and that he enters thecathedral smoking and with his hat on."

  "Well, I didn't invent it; that is what Suspiritos told me yesterday."

  "And who is this Suspiritos who says such absurd things about me?"

  "Suspiritos is--Suspiritos."

  "Girls," said Tafetan, with smiling countenance, "there goes theorange-vender. Call him; I want to invite you to eat oranges."

  One of the girls called the orange-vender.

  The conversation started by the Troyas displeased Pepe Rey not a little,dispelling the slight feeling of contentment which he had experiencedat finding himself in such gay and communicative company. He could not,however, refrain from smiling when he saw Don Juan Tafetan take downa guitar and begin to play upon it with all the grace and skill of hisyouthful years.

  "I have been told that you sing beautifully," said Rey to the girls.

  "Let Don Juan Tafetan sing."

  "I don't sing."

  "Nor I," said the second of the girls, offering the engineer some piecesof the skin of the orange she had just peeled.

  "Maria Juana, don't leave your sewing," said the eldest of the Troyas."It is late, and the cassock must be finished to-night."

  "There is to be no work to-day. To the devil with the needles!"exclaimed Tafetan.

  And he began to sing a song.

  "The people are stopping in the street," said the second of the girls,going out on the balcony. "Don Juan Tafetan's shouts can be heard in thePlaza--Juana, Juana!"

  "Well?"

  "Suspiritos is walking down the street."

  "Throw a piece of orange-peel at her."

  Pepe Rey looked out also; he saw a lady walking down the street at whomthe youngest of the Troyas, taking a skilful aim, threw a large pieceof orange-peel, which struck her straight on the back of the head. Thenthey hastily closed the blinds, and the three girls tried to stifletheir laughter so that it might not be heard in the street.

  "There is no work to-day," cried one, overturning the sewing-basket withthe tip of her shoe.

  "That is the same as saying, to-morrow there is to be no eating," saidthe eldest, gathering up the sewing implements.

  Pepe Rey instinctively put his hand into his pocket. He would gladlyhave given them an alms. The spectacle of these poor orphans, condemnedby the world because of their frivolity, saddened him beyond measure.If the only sin of the Troyas, if the only pleasure which they hadto compensate them for solitude, poverty, and neglect, was to throworange-peels at the passers-by, they might well be excused for doingit. The austere customs of the town in which they lived had perhapspreserved them from vice, but the unfortunate girls lacked decorum andgood-breeding, the common and most visible signs of modesty, andit might easily be supposed that they had thrown out of the windowsomething more than orange-peels. Pepe Rey felt profound pity forthem. He noted their shabby dresses, made over, mended, trimmed, andretrimmed, to make them look like new; he noted their broken shoes--andonce more he put his hand in his pocket.

  "Vice may reign here," he said to himself, "but the faces, thefurniture, all show that this is the wreck of a respectable family. Ifthese poor girls were as bad as it is said they are, they would notlive in such poverty and they would not work. In Orbajosa there are richmen."

  The three girls went back and forward between him and the window,keeping up a gay and sprightly conversation, which indicated, it mustbe said, a species of innocence in the midst of all their frivolity andunconventionality.

  "Senor Don Jose, what an excellent lady Dona Perfecta is!"

  "She is the only person in Orbajosa who has no nickname, the only personin Orbajosa who is not spoken ill of."

  "Every one respects her."

  "Every one adores her."

  To these utterances the young man responded by praises of his aunt, buthe had no longer any inclination to take money from his pocket and say,"Maria Juana, take this for a pair of boots." "Pepa, take this to buy adress for yourself." "Florentina, take this to provide yourself with aweek's provisions," as he had been on the point of doing. At a momentwhen the three girls had run out to the balcony to see who was passing,Don Juan Tafetan approached Rey and whispered to him:

  "How pretty they are! Are they not? Poor things! It seems impossiblethat they should be so gay when it may be positively affirmed that theyhave not dined to-day."

  "Don Juan, Don Juan!" cried Pepilla. "Here comes a friend of yours,Nicolasito Hernandez, in other words, Cirio Pascual, with thisthree-story hat. He is praying to himself, no doubt, for the souls ofthose whom he has sent to the grave with his extortion."

  "I wager that neither of you will dare to call him by his nickname."

  "It is a bet."

  "Juana, shut the blinds, wait until he passes, and when he is turningthe corner, I will call out, 'Cirio, Cirio Pascual!'"

  Don Juan Tafetan ran out to the balcony.

  "Come here, Don Jose, so that you may know this type," he called.

  Pepe Rey, availing himself of the moment in which the three girls andDon Juan were making merry in the balcony, calling Nicolasito Hernandezthe nickname which so greatly enraged him, stepped cautiously to one ofthe sewing baskets in the room and placed in it a half ounce which hehad left after his losses at play.

  Then he hurried ou
t to the balcony just as the two youngest cried in themidst of wild bursts of laughter, "Cirio, Cirio Pascual!"