CHAPTER III
JEW AND GENTILE
Pablo Valls was known throughout all Palma. When he seated himself on the terrace of a café on the Paseo del Borne a compact circle of listeners would form around him, smiling at his forceful gestures and at his loud voice, which was ever incapable of discreet tones.
"I am a Chueta, and what of that? A Jew of the Jews! All of my family come from 'the street.' When I was in command of the Roger de Lauria, being one day in Algiers, I stopped before the door of the Synagogue, and an old man, after looking me over, said: 'You may enter; you are one of us!' I gave him my hand and answered: 'Thanks, fellow-believer.'"
His hearers laughed, and Captain Valls, proclaiming in a loud voice his Chuetan ancestry, glanced in every direction, as if defying the houses, the people, and the soul of the island, hostile to his race through the fanatical hatred of centuries.
His physiognomy revealed his origin. His gray-tinged ruddy side whiskers denoted the retired sea-faring man, but between these shaggy adornments projected his Semitic profile, the heavy, aquiline nose, the prominent chin, the eyes with elongated lids, and pupil of amber and gold according to the play of light, and in which here and there floated tobacco-colored spots.
He had been much on the sea; he had lived for long periods in England and in the United States; and as a result of his contact with those lands of liberty, free from religious tolerance, he had brought back a belligerent frankness which impelled him to defy the traditional prejudices of the island, socially and politically, unprogressive and stagnant. The other Chuetas, cowed by centuries of persecution and scorn, concealed their origin, or tried to make it forgotten through their humble demeanor. Captain Valls took advantage of every occasion to discuss the matter, parading the name of Chueta as a title of nobility, as a challenge which he hurled at the popular bias.
"I am a Jew, and what of that?" he shouted again. "A co-religionist of Jesus, of Saint Paul, of the other saints who are venerated on the altars. The butifarras boast of their ancestors, but they date scarcely further back than yesterday. I am more noble, more ancient! My forefathers were the patriarchs of the Bible!"
Then, waxing indignant over the antipathy to his race, he again became aggressive.
"In all Spain," he announced gravely, "there is not a Christian who can lift a finger. We are all descendants of Jews or of Moors. And he who is not—he who is not——"
Here he stopped, and after a brief pause affirmed resolutely, "He who is not, is the descendant of a priest!"
On the Peninsula the traditional odium for the Jew which still separates the population of Majorca into two antagonistic races, does not exist. Pablo Valls became furious discussing his fatherland. Openly orthodox Jews did not exist there. The last synagogue had been dissolved centuries ago. The Jews had all been "converted" en masse, and the recalcitrant were burned by the Inquisition. The Chuetas of the present day were the most fervent Catholics of Majorca, bringing to their profession of faith a Semitic zealotry. They prayed aloud, they made priests of their sons, they sought influence to place their daughters in the convents, they figured as moneyed people among the partisans of the most conservative ideas, and yet, against them lay the same antipathy as in former centuries, and they lived ostracized, with no allies in any social class.
"For four hundred and fifty years we have had the water of baptism on our pates," Captain Valls continued in loud tones, "and yet we are still the accursed, the reprobates, as before the conversion. Isn't that queer? The Chuetas! Look out for them! Bad people! In Majorca there are two Catholicisms—one for our people, and another for the rest."
Then with the concentrated odium gathered from centuries of persecution, the sailor said, referring to his racial brethren, "They are doing their best through cowardice, through too great love for the island, for this little rock, this Roqueta on which we were born; to not forsake it, they became Christians, and now, when they are really Christians at heart they are paid for it with kicks. Had they continued to be Jews, dispersing throughout the world as others have done, perhaps at this moment they would be great personages, bankers to kings, instead of sticking in their little shops on 'the street,' making silver hand bags."
Himself a skeptic, he scorned or attacked them all—the Jews faithful to their old beliefs, the converts, the Catholics, the Mussulmans, with whom he had lived on his journeys to the coasts of Africa and in the ports of Asia Minor. Again he would be dominated by an atavistic tenderness, displaying a certain religious respect toward his race.
He was a Semite; he declared it with pride, beating his chest: "The greatest people in the world!"
"We were a lousy, starving crowd when we were in Asia, because there was no one in that land with whom to traffic, nor to whom we could loan our money. But no race has given the human flock more actual shepherds than has ours, which shall yet be for centuries and centuries masters of men. Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed are from my country. Three strong champions, eh, caballeros? And now we have given the world a fourth prophet, also of our race and of our blood, only that this one has two faces and two names. On the obverse he is called Rothschild, and is the captain of all who lay up money; on the reverse he is Carl Marx—the apostle of those who wish to wrest it from the rich!"
The history of the race on the island Valls condensed after his fashion into brief words. The Jews were many, very many in former times. Nearly all the commerce was in their hands; most of the ships were theirs. The Febrers, and other Christian potentates, had no objection to being their associates. The ancient times might be called the times of liberty; persecution and cruelty were relatively modern. Jews were the treasurers of kings, doctors, the courtiers of the courts of the Peninsula. When religious feuds broke out, the richest and most astute Hebrews of the island were wise enough to become converted in time, voluntarily, mixing with the native families, and sinking their origin into oblivion. These new Catholics were the very ones who, later on, with the fervor of the neophyte, had instigated the persecution against their former brethren. The Chuetas of the present time, the only Majorcans of recognized Jewish origin, were the descendants of the last to be converted, the offspring of the families persecuted by the Inquisition.
To be a Chueta, to spring from the street of the Silversmiths, which by antonomasia is called "the street," is the greatest disgrace which can happen to a Majorcan. In vain had revolutions been made in Spain, in vain had liberal laws been passed which recognized the equality of all Spaniards; the Chueta when he passed on to the Peninsula was a citizen like other people, but in Majorca he was a reprobate, a kind of pest who could marry none but his own kindred.
Valls commented ironically upon the social order, resembling the steps of a stairway, in which the different classes of the island had dwelt for centuries and where many steps still remained intact. Aloft, on the vortex, the proud butifarras; then the nobles, the caballeros; afterward the mossons; trailing along behind these came the merchants, the artisans, and finally the cultivators of the soil. Here opened an enormous gap in the order established by God in creating the classes; a vast open space which each one could people according to his caprice. Undoubtedly after the Majorcan nobles and plebeians came hogs, dogs, asses, cats, rats, and, at the tail of all these beasts of the Lord, the despised citizen of "the street," the Chueta, the pariah of the island. It mattered nothing if he were rich, like the brother of Captain Valls, or intellectual, like others. Many Chuetas who attained the dignity of state functionaries, army officers, magistrates, landed proprietors on the Peninsula, found on returning to Majorca that the meanest beggar considered himself superior to them, and on the slightest excuse poured insults upon their persons and their families. The isolation of this bit of Spain, surrounded by the sea, served to keep intact the spirit of earlier epochs.
In vain the Chuetas, fleeing from this odium which flourished despite the new era of progress, exaggerated their devotion to Catholicism with a blind and vehement faith, largely influenced by the fear absorbed into their souls and into their flesh during centuries of persecution. In vain they continued in imitation of their forefathers to recite their prayers in loud voices in their houses so that passersby might hear, and they cooked their food in their windows so that all should see that they ate pork. The traditional barriers could not be overcome. The Catholic Church, which entitles itself universal, was cruel and harsh with the Jews on the island, repaying their adherence with disdainful repulsion. The sons of the Chuetas who desired to become priests found no room in the seminary. The convents closed their doors against every novice proceeding from "the street." On the Peninsula the daughters of Chuetas married men of distinction and men of great fortune, but on the island they scarcely ever found one who would accept their hand and their riches.
"Bad people!" continued Valls sarcastically. "They are industrious, they lay up money, they live at peace in the bosoms of their families, they are more fervent Catholics even than the rest, but they are Chuetas; there must be something the matter with them to be so despised! Something there must be about them, do you understand? Something! He who wishes to know more let him find out for himself."
The seaman laughingly told of the poor peasants from the country who until a few years ago declared in good faith that the Chuetas were covered with grease and had tails, taking advantage of an occasion when they found a lonely child from "the street" to disrobe him and convince themselves whether the story of the caudal appendage were true.
"And how about what happened to my brother?" continued Valls. "To my sainted brother Benito, who prays aloud, and who is so devout that one might think he were going to actually devour the images?"
They all remembered the case of Don Benito Valls, and they laughed heartily, since his brother was ever the first to jest about the matter. The rich Chueta had found himself owner, on settling some accounts, of a house and valuable lands in a town in the interior of the island. On taking possession of the new property the most prudent citizens had given him good advice. He would be allowed to visit his property during the day, but as for spending the night in the house, never! There was no record of a Chueta having slept in the pueblo. Don Benito paid no attention to this counsel and he spent a night on his property, but scarcely had he gotten into bed than the domestics fled. When the master of the house had slept long enough he sprang from his couch. Not even the faintest ray of light entered through the crevices. He thought he must have slept at least twelve hours, yet it was still dark. He opened a window and his head bumped cruelly; he tried to open the door, but he could not. While he had been asleep the neighbors had walled up all the windows and doors, and the Chueta had to make his escape by way of the roof, to the accompaniment of shouts of laughter from the people who thus rejoiced over their work. This joke was merely by way of warning; if he persisted in going counter to the customs of the town, some night he would awake to find the house in flames.
"Very amusing, but very barbarous!" added the captain. "My brother! A good soul! A saint!"
They all laughed at this. He maintained friendly relations with his brother, although with some frigidity, and he made no secret of the grievances he had against him. Captain Valls was the bohemian of the family, ever on the high seas or in distant lands, leading the life of a gay bachelor. He had enough money on which to live. On the death of his father his brother had taken charge of the business of the house, defrauding him of many thousands of dollars.
"The same as the Christians of olden times!" Pablo hastened to add. "In matters of inheritance there is neither race nor creed. Money recognizes no religion."
The interminable persecutions suffered by his ancestors infuriated Valls. Advantage was taken of every circumstance for trampling under foot the people of "the street." When the peasants had grievances against the nobles or when foreigners descended in armed bands upon the citizens of Palma, the difficulty was always settled by a joint attack upon the ward of the Chuetas, killing those who did not flee, and looting their shops. If a Majorcan batallion received orders to march to Spain in case of war, the soldiers mutinied, broke out of their barracks and sacked "the street." When the reaction followed the revolutions in Spain, the royalists, to celebrate their triumph, assaulted the silversmiths' shops of the Chuetas, took possession of their riches, and made bonfires of their furniture, hurling even their crucifixes into the flames. Crucifixes belonging to old Jews, that, of course, must be false!
"And who are the people of 'the street'?" shouted the captain. "Everybody knows; those who have noses and eyes like mine; and there are many who are flat-nosed and present nothing of the common type. On the other hand, how many are there who pretend to be caballeros of antiquity, of proud nobility, with faces like Abraham and Jacob?"
There existed a list of suspicious surnames for identifying the genuine Chuetas, but these same surnames were borne by long-time Christians, and it was additional caprice which separated one from the other. Only the descendants of those families beaten or burned by the Inquisition had remained permanently marked by popular odium. The famous catalogue of surnames was made up undoubtedly from the autos of the Holy Offices.
"A joy indeed to become a Christian! The ancestors frizzled in the bonfire, and the descendants singled out and cursed for centuries upon centuries!"
The captain dropped his sarcastic tone upon recalling the harrowing story of the Chuetas of Majorca. His cheeks flamed and his eyes flashed with the effulgence of hatred. That they might dwell in tranquillity they had been converted en masse in the Fifteenth Century. There was not a Jew left on the island, but the Inquisition must do something to justify its existence, so there were burnings of persons suspected of Judaism in the Paseo del Borne, spectacles organized, as said the chroniclers of the epoch, "in accordance with the most brilliant functions celebrated by the triumph of the Faith in Madrid, Palermo, and Lima." Some Chuetas were burned, others were beaten, others went out to their shame wearing nothing but hoods painted as devils and with green candles in their hands; but all of them had their goods confiscated and the Holy Tribunal was enriched. After that, those suspected of Judaism, those who had no clerical protector, were forced to go to mass in the Cathedral with their families every Sunday under the command and custody of an alguacil, who herded them as if they were a flock of sheep, put mantles on them so that no one could mistake them, and thus he took them to the temple amidst catcalls, insults, and stonings from the devout populace. This happened every Sunday, and in this unceasing weekly torment fathers died, sons grew into manhood, begetting new Chuetas destined to public contumely.
A few families gathered together to flee from this degrading slavery. They met in an orchard near the sea wall, and were counselled and guided by one Rafael Valls, a valorous man of great culture.
"I don't know for sure that he was a relative of mine," said the captain. "It was more than two centuries ago; but if he were not, I wish he had been. It would be an honor to have him for an ancestor. Adelante!"
Pablo Valls had collected papers and books of the epoch of persecutions, and he talked of them as if they had occurred but yesterday.
"Men, women and children took passage on an English ship, but a storm drove them back on the coast of Majorca, and the fugitives were taken prisoners. This was during the reign of Charles II, the Bewitched. To wish to flee from Majorca where they were so well treated, and more than that, on a ship manned by Protestants! They were held three years in prison, and the confiscations of their property, yielded a million duros. Besides this, the Sacred Tribunal counted upon more millions wrested from former victims, and constructed a palace in Palma, the finest and most luxurious possessed by the Inquisition in any land. The prisoners were subjected to torment until they confessed what their judges desired, and on the seventh of March, 1691, the executions began. That event has as its historian such a one as no other part of the world has ever known, Father Garau, a pious Jesuit, a fount of theological science, rector of the Seminary of Mount Sion, where the Institute now stands, author of the book 'The Faith Triumphant,' a literary monument which I would not sell for all the money in the world. Here it is; it accompanies me everywhere."
Out of his pocket he drew "The Faith Triumphant," a small book bound in parchment, of antique and reddish print, which he fondled with a ferocious grip.
"Blessed Father Garau! Placed in charge of exhorting and encouraging the criminals, he had seen it all at close range, and he told of the thousands and thousands of spectators who flocked from many towns on the island to witness the festival, of the solemn masses attended by the thirty-eight criminals destined for the burning, of the luxurious trappings of caballeros and alguaciles mounted on prancing chargers at the head of the procession, and of the 'piety of the multitude, which burst into cries of pity when a highwayman was led to the gallows, but which remained dumb in the presence of these God-forgotten reprobates.' On that day, according to the learned Jesuit, the temper of soul of those who believe in God and of those who do not was displayed. The priests marched courageously, uttering shouts of exhortation unceasingly, while the miserable criminals were pale, exhausted and fainting. It was easy enough to see on which side lay celestial aid!
"The condemned were conducted to the foot of the Castle of Bellver for the final burning. The Marquis of Leganes, Governor of the Milanesado, chancing to be in Majorca with his fleet, took pity on the youth and beauty of a girl sentenced to the flames, and sued for her pardon. The tribunal praised the marquis for his Christian sentiments, but would not grant his petition.
"Father Garau was the one in charge of the conversion of Rafael Valls, 'a man of some letters, but one in whom the devil inspired an immeasurable pride, impelling him to curse those who condemned him to death, and refusing to reconcile himself with the Church.' But, as the Jesuit said, such boastfulness, the work of the Evil One, fails in the presence of danger, and cannot compare to the serenity of the priest who exhorts the criminal.
"The Jesuit father was a hero far from the flames! Now you shall hear with what evangelical pity he relates the details of the death of my ancestor."
Opening the book at a marked page, he read impressively: "'As long as nothing but the smoke reached him, he stood like a statue; when the flames came, he defended himself, he tried to shield himself, he resisted until he could bear no more. He was as fat as a sucking pig, and, being on fire inside in such a way that even before the flames reached him, his flesh was becoming consumed like half-burnt wood, and bursting in his middle, his entrails fell out like a Judas. Crepuit medius difusa sunt oninia viscera ejus.'"
This barbaric description always produced an effect. The laughter ceased, countenances darkened, and Captain Valls looked around with his amber-colored eyes, breathing satisfaction, as if he had achieved a triumph, while the small volume slipped back into his pocket.
Once when Febrer figured among his hearers, the sailor said to him rancorously, "You were there, too; that is, not yourself, but one of your ancestors, one of the Febrers, who carried the green flag as the chief ensign of the Tribunal; and the ladies of your family were in a carriage at the foot of the castle to witness the burning."
Jaime, annoyed by this reminder, shrugged his shoulders.
"Things of the past! Who ever remembers what is dead and gone? No one but some crazy fellow like you! Come, Pablo, tell us something about your travels—about your conquests of women."
The captain growled. Things of the past! The soul of the Roqueta was still the same as in those olden times. Odium of the Jewish religion and race still endured. For a good reason they dwelt apart, on this bit of ground isolated by the sea.
But Valls soon recovered his good humor, and, like all men who have knocked about the world, he could not resist the invitation to relate his past.
Febrer, another vagabond like himself, enjoyed listening to him. They both had led a turbulent, cosmopolitan existence, different from the monotonous life of the islanders; they both had squandered money prodigally, but Valls, with the active genius of his race, had known how to earn as much as he had spent, and now, ten years older than Jaime, he had enough to amply supply his modest bachelor needs. He still engaged in commerce occasionally, and he carried out commissions for friends who wrote to him from distant ports.
Of his eventful history as a mariner, Febrer disregarded the stories of hunger and storms, and only felt curiosity over his escapades in the great cosmopolitan ports where congregated the exotic vices and the women of all races. Valls, in his youth, when he was in command of his father's ships, had known women of every class and color, often finding himself involved in sailors' orgies, which ended in floods of whisky and stabbing affrays.
"Pablo, tell us of your love affairs in Jaffa, when the Moors came near killing you."
Listening to him Febrer laughed loudly, while the sailor said that Jaime was a good boy, worthy of a better fate, with no defect other than that of being a butifarra somewhat given to the family prejudices.
When he stepped into Febrer's carriage on the road to Valldemosa, ordering his own to return to Palma, he pushed back the soft felt hat which he wore on all occasions, the crown crushed in, and the brim tilted up in front and down in the back.
"Here we are! Really, didn't you expect me? I heard the news. I've been told all about it, and since there is to be a family gathering, let it be complete."
Febrer pretended not to understand. The carriage entered Valldemosa, stopping in the vicinity of La Cartuja before a dwelling of modern construction. When the two friends opened the garden gate they saw approaching them a gentleman with white whiskers, leaning on a cane. It was Don Benito Valls. He greeted Febrer with a weak, hollow voice, cutting short his words at intervals to gasp for air. He spoke humbly, laying great stress upon the honor which Febrer showed him by accepting his invitation.
"And how about me?" asked the captain, with a malicious smile. "Am I nobody? Aren't you glad to see me?"
Don Benito was glad to see him. He said so several times, but his eyes revealed uneasiness. His brother inspired him with a certain fear. What a tongue he had! It were better that they should not meet.
"We came together," continued the mariner. "Hearing that Jaime was breakfasting here, I invited myself, sure of giving you a great joy. These family reunions are delightful."
They had entered the house. It was simply decorated. The furniture was modern and vulgar. Some chromos and a few hideous paintings representing scenes in Valldemosa and Miramar hung on the walls.
Catalina, Don Benito's daughter, came down hurriedly. Her bosom was besprinkled with rice powder, revealing the haste with which she had given the last touch to her toilette on seeing the carriage arrive.
Jaime had opportunity to study her appearance for the first time. He had not been mistaken in his conjecture. She was tall, with pale brown coloring, black eyebrows, eyes like drops of ink, and a light down on her lip and on her temples. Her youthful figure was full and firm, announcing a greater expansion for the future, as in all the women of her race. She seemed of a sweet and gentle disposition, a good companion, not likely to be in the way during the journey of a common life. She kept her eyes lowered, and her face flushed as she greeted Jaime. Her manner, her furtive glances, revealed the respect, the adoration of one who is abashed in the presence of a being whom she considers her superior.
The captain caressed his niece with a certain familiar-it, adopting that air of a gay old man with which he spoke to the common girls of Palma in the small hours of the night in some restaurant on the Paseo del Borne. Ah! A smart girl! And how pretty she was! It seemed incredible that she came of a family of homely people!
Don Benito directed them all into the dining-room. Breakfast had been waiting for some time; in this house old customs were kept up; twelve o'clock sharp! They took their seats around the table, and Febrer, who sat next to the host, was annoyed by his heaving respiration, by the sharp gasps which interrupted his words.
In the silence which often reigns at the beginning of a dinner the wheezing of his unsound lungs was painfully noticeable. The rich Chueta pursed his lips, rounding them like the mouth of a trumpet, and drew in the air with a disagreeable rattle. Like all sick people he was eager to talk, and his sentences were long drawn out from a combination of stammering and pauses which left him with palpitating chest and eyes aloft, as if he were about to die of asphyxia. An atmosphere of uneasiness pervaded the dining-room. Febrer glanced at Don Benito in alarm, as if expecting to see him fall dead from his chair. His daughter and the captain, more accustomed to the spectacle, displayed indifference.
"It is asthma—Don Jaime," laboriously explained the sick man. "In Valldemosa—I am better—In Palma—I would die."
The daughter took advantage of the opportunity to put in her voice, which was like that of a timid little nun, contrasting strangely with her ardent, oriental eyes.
"Yes, papa is better here."
"You are more quiet in Valldemosa," added the captain, "and you commit fewer sins."
Febrer pictured to himself the torment of spending his life near that broken bellows. By good luck he might die soon. An annoyance of some months, but it did not alter his resolution of becoming one of the family. Courage!
The asthmatic, in his verbose mania, spoke of Jaime's ancestors, of the illustrious Febrers, the finest and noblest caballeros of the island.
"I had the honor—of being a great friend—of your—grandfather, Don Horacio."
Febrer looked at him in astonishment. It was a lie! Everyone in the island knew his grandfather, and he exchanged a few words with them all, but ever maintaining a gravity which imposed respect in others without alienating them; but as for being his friend! Don Horacio may have had business relations with the Chueta relating to loans needed for propping up his fortune in its decline.
"I also knew—your father—very well," continued Don Benito, encouraged by Febrer's silence. "I worked for him—when he was running—for deputy. Those were—different times—from these! I was young—and had not—the fortune which I have now. Then I figured—among the 'reds.'"
Captain Vails interrupted him with a laugh. His brother was a conservative now and a member of all the societies in Palma.
"Yes, I am," shouted the sick man, choking. "I like order—I like the old customs—and I think it right—for those who have—something to lose to be—in command. As for religion? Ah, religion! For that I would—give my life."
He pressed a hand against his breast, breathing painfully, as if choking with enthusiasm. He fixed aloft his pain-clouded eyes, adoring with a respect inspired by fear the sacred institution which had burned his forefathers alive.
"Pay no attention—to Pablo," he gasped, turning to Febrer when he had recovered breath. "You know him—a wild-headed fellow—a republican; a man who might be rich—but he won't have two pesetas—in his pocket—in his old age."
"Why not? Because you'll get them away from me?"
After this rude interruption by the sailor silence fell. Catalina looked alarmed, as if she feared that the noisy scenes which she had often witnessed when the two brothers fell into an argument would be reproduced in Febrer's presence.
Don Benito shrugged his shoulders and addressed his conversation to Jaime. His brother was crazy; he had a good head, a heart of gold, but he was mad, stark mad! With his exalted ideas, and his loud talk in the cafés, it was largely his fault that decent people felt a certain prejudice against—that they spoke ill of——
The old man accompanied his mutilated expressions with gestures of humility, avoiding the word Chueta and refusing to name the famous street.
The captain, flushing with contrition for his violence, desired his hasty words to be forgotten, and he ate voraciously, keeping his head lowered.
His niece smiled at his good appetite. Whenever he ate at their table he amazed them with the capacity of his stomach.
"It is because I know what hunger is," said the sailor with a kind of pride. "I have suffered real hunger, the kind of hunger that makes men think of the flesh of their companions."
This reminiscence spurred him on to a vivid relation of his maritime adventures, telling of his younger days when he had been a supernumerary aboard a frigate which sailed to the coasts of the Pacific. When he insisted upon being a sailor, his father, the elder Valls, originator of the fortune of the house, had shipped him in a galley of his own which freighted sugar from Havana, but that was not a sailor's life because the cook reserved the best dishes for him; the captain dared not give him an order, seeing in him the son of the ship-owner. At this rate he would never have become a real sailor, rugged and expert. With the tenacious energy of his race he had taken passage unknown to his father on a frigate bound for the Chinchas Islands for a cargo of guano, manned by a crew of many races—deserters from the English navy, bargemen from Valparaiso, Peruvian Indians, black sheep of every family, all under command of a Catalonian, a niggardly ruffian, more prodigal with blows than with the mess. The outbound trip was uneventful, but on the return voyage, after passing the Straits of Magellan, they ran into the calms, and the frigate lay motionless in the Atlantic almost a month, and the store of provisions soon ran low. The miser of a ship-owner had victualled the vessel with scandalous parsimony, and the captain, in his turn, had sailed with a scanty supply, appropriating to his own uses part of the money intended for stores.
"He gave us two sea biscuits a day, and those were full of worms. At first I used to busy myself scrupulously, like a well brought up boy, carefully picking out the little beasts, but after the housecleaning, there was nothing left except bits of crust as thin as wafers, and I was starving. Then——"
"Oh, uncle!" protested Catalina, guessing what he was going to say, and pushing away her plate and fork with a gesture of repugnance.
"Then," continued the impassive sailor, "I gave up cleaning them out, and I swallowed them whole. It is true I ate at night—I've eaten lots of them, girl! Finally he only gave us one a day, and when I got back to Cadiz I had to go on a broth diet to get my stomach straightened out again."
Breakfast being over, Catalina and Jaime strolled out to the garden. Don Benito, with the air of a kindly patriarch, told his daughter to take Señor Febrer and show him some exotic rose bushes which he had recently planted. The two brothers remained in the room, which served as an office, watching the couple as they sauntered through the garden and finally seated themselves in the shade of a tree on two willow seats.
Catalina replied to her companion's questions with the timidity of a Christian maiden, piously educated, guessing the purpose concealed in his brusque gallantry. This man had come on her account, and her father was the first to welcome the suggestion. A settled affair! He was a Febrer, and she was going to tell him "yes." She thought of her youthful days in the college surrounded by poorer girls who took advantage of every opportunity to tease her, through envy of her wealth and hatred learned from their parents. She was a Chueta. She could only mingle with those of her own race, and even they, eager to ingratiate themselves with the enemy, played false to their own kind, lacking energy and cohesion for a common defense. When school let out the Chuetas marched in advance, by order of the nuns, to avoid insults and attacks from the other pupils out on the street. Even the servants who accompanied the girls quarreled among themselves, assuming the odium and prejudices of their masters. In the boys' school also the Chuetas were dismissed first to escape the stonings and whippings of those who had longer been Christians.
The daughter of Valls had suffered the torments of the treacherous pin-prick, of the stealthy scratching, of the scissors in her braids, and then, on becoming a woman, the odium and scorn of her old-time companions had followed her, embittering the pleasures of the young woman despite her riches. What was the use of being elegant? On the avenues none but her father's friends bowed to her; in the theater her box was visited only by people proceeding from "the street." At last she must marry one of them, as her mother and her grandmothers had done.
The despondency and mysticism of adolescence had urged her toward a monastic life. Her father almost choked with sorrow at the idea, but it was the call of religion, that religion to which she longed to devote her life! Don Benito consented to her entering a monastery in Majorca, where he could see his daughter every day, but not a convent would open its doors to her. The Superiors, tempted by the father's fortune, which would in the end revert to the order, showed themselves favorably disposed, but the monastic flock rebelled at receiving into its bosom a girl from "the street," and especially one who was not meek and resigned enough to submit to the superciliousness of the others, but rich and proud.
When she was left thus in the world by the resistance of the nuns, she did not know how to plan her future, and she spent her life near her father, like a nurse, ignorant of what was to be her fate, turning her back upon the young Chuetas who fluttered about her, attracted by Don Benito's millions, until the noble Febrer presented himself, like a fairy prince, to make her his wife. How good God is! She fancied herself in that palace near the Cathedral, in the ward of the nobles, along whose silent, narrow, blue-paved streets grave canons passed during the dreamy afternoon hours, summoned by the chime of bells.
She imagined herself in a luxurious carriage among the pines on the mountain of Bellver, or along the jetty, with Jaime at her side, and she revelled in the thought of the envious glances of her former companions, who would envy her, not only her wealth and her new position, but her possession of that man whom far-away adventures and a turbulent life had endowed with a certain halo of terrible seduction, dazzling and fatal to the quiet island señoritas. Jaime Febrer! Catalina had always seen him at a distance, but when she whiled away her monotonous hours with incessant novel reading, certain characters, the most interesting on account of their adventures and daring, always reminded her of that noble from the ward of the Cathedral who dashed about the world with elegant women dissipating his fortune. Then, suddenly, her father had spoken of this remarkable personage, giving her to understand that he was going to offer her his name, and with it the glory of his ancestors, who had been friends of kings! She did not know whether it were love or gratitude, but a wave of tenderness which dimmed her eyes drew her to the man. Ah! How she would love him! She listened to his words as to a sweet melody, not knowing what to say, intoxicated by its music, thinking at the same time of the future which he had suddenly opened to her, a rising sun bursting through the clouds.
Then, making an effort, she concentrated her mind and listened to Febrer, who was telling her about great foreign cities, of rows of luxurious carriages filled with women arrayed in the latest fashions, of broad stone steps in front of theaters down which came cascades of diamonds, ostrich plumes and nude shoulders, trying to place himself on a level of thought with the girl to allure her with these descriptions of feminine glory.
Jaime said no more, but Catalina guessed the purpose which had inspired these words. She, the unhappy girl from "the street," the Chueta, accustomed to seeing her people cringing and trembling beneath the weight of traditional odium, would visit these cities, would figure in the procession of riches, would have opened to her doors which she had always found closed, and she would pass through them leaning on the arm of a man who had ever seemed to her the personification of all terrestrial grandeur.
"When shall I see all that?" murmured Catalina with hypocritical humility. "I am condemned to live on the island, I am a poor girl who has never harmed anybody, and yet I have suffered great annoyances—I must be repulsive!"
Febrer rushed down the pathway which this feminine cleverness had opened for him. "Repulsive! No, Catalina." He had come to Valldemosa solely to see her, to speak to her. He offered her a new life. All these things at which she marveled she could experience and taste with but a word. Would she marry him?
Catalina, who had been waiting for an hour for this proposal, turned pale, tremulous with emotion. To hear it from his lips! She sat still for some time without answering, and at last stammered out a few words. It was a joy, the greatest she had ever known, but a well-educated girl like herself must not answer at once.
"I? Oh, I must have time! This is such a surprise!"
Jaime wished to insist, but at that very instant Captain Valls appeared in the garden, calling him vociferously. They must return to Palma; he had already given the driver orders to hitch up. Febrer protested stubbornly. But by what right did that busybody mix into his affairs?
Don Benito's presence cut off his protest. He was puffing painfully, with his face congested. The captain stirred about with nervous hostility, protesting at the coachman's delay. It was evident the brothers had been having a violent discussion. The elder one looked at his daughter, he looked at Jaime, and he seemed content in the belief that the two had reached an understanding.
Don Benito and Catalina accompanied them as far as the carriage. The asthmatic clasped Febrer's hand between his own with a vehement pressure. This was his house, and he himself a true friend desirous of serving him. If he needed his assistance he could dispose of him as he wished, just as if he were one of the family! He mentioned Don Horacio once again, recalling their former friendship. Then he invited Febrer to breakfast with them two days afterward, without remembering to include his brother.
"Yes, I will be here," said Jaime, giving Catalina a look which made her redden.
When the garden gate, behind which stood the father and daughter waving their hands, was lost to view, Captain Valls burst into a noisy laugh.
"So it seems that you would like to have me for an uncle of yours?" he questioned, ironically.
Febrer, who was furious at the intervention of his friend and the rudeness with which he had forced him to leave the house, gave expression to his choler. What business was it of his? By what right did he venture to meddle in his affairs? He was old enough not to need advisers.
"Halt!" said the sailor, leaning back in his seat and extending his hands near the musketeer's hat thrust on the back of his head. "Halt! my young gallant! I meddle in the affair because I am one of the family. I believe this concerns my niece; at least, so it looks to me."
"And what if I wished to marry her? Perhaps Catalina would think well of it; perhaps her father would consent."
"I don't say that he would not, but I am her uncle, and her uncle protests, and he says that this marriage is an absurdity."
Jaime looked at him in astonishment. An absurdity to marry a Febrer! Possibly he aspired to more for his niece?
"An absurdity for them and an absurdity for you," declared Valls. "Have you forgotten where you live? You can be my friend, the friend of the Chueta, Pablo Valls, he whom you see in the café, in the Casino, and whom folks consider half crazy, but as for marrying a woman of my family!"
The sailor laughed as he thought of this union. Jaime's relatives would be furious with him, and would never speak to him again. They would be more tolerant with him if he were to commit a murder. His aunt, the Popess Juana, would scream as if she had witnessed a sacrilege. He would lose everything, and his niece, forgotten and tranquil until then, would give up the tediousness of her home, monotonous and sad, for an infernal life of misery, humiliation, and scorn.
"No, I say again; her uncle opposes it."
Even the people of the lower classes who declared themselves enemies of the rich would be indignant at seeing a butifarra marry a Chueta. The traditional atmosphere of the island must be respected, under penalty of death, as his brother Benito would die, for lack of air. It was dangerous to try to change all at once the work of centuries. Even those who came from outside, free of prejudices, after a short time suffered this repulsion of race, which seemed to permeate the very atmosphere.
"Once," continued Valls, "a Belgian couple came and established themselves on the island, bearing letters to me from a friend in Antwerp. I was attentive to them. I did all manner of favors for them. 'Be careful,' I told them; 'remember that I am a Chueta, and the Chuetas are very bad people.' The woman laughed. What barbarity! What out-of-date notions prevail here on the island! There were Jews everywhere and they were people like any other. After a while we met less frequently, they saw more of other people; at the end of a year they met me on the street and they glanced about in every direction before bowing to me; and now when they see me they always turn away their faces if they can, just the same as if they were Majorcans!"
Marriage! That was for a whole lifetime. In the first few months Jaime would try to face the murmurings and the scorn, but time runs on, and an odium dating from centuries does not wear out in the course of a few years, and finally Febrer would regret his ostracism, he would realize his mistake in running counter to the traditions of the grand majority, and the one to suffer the consequences would be Catalina, looked upon in her own house as a type of ignominy. No; in matrimony no chances must be taken. In Spain it is indissoluble, there is no divorce, and making experiments results dear. That was why he had remained a bachelor.
Febrer, irritated at these words, reminded Pablo of his vigorous propagandas against the enemies of the Chuetas.
"But don't you desire the elevation of your people? Doesn't it make you furious to have the people from 'the street' looked upon as different from ordinary human beings? What could there be better than this marriage to combat the prejudice?"
The captain waved his hands in sign of doubt. Ta! Ta! Such a marriage would accomplish nothing. During several epochs of tolerance and momentary forgetfulness some of the old-time Christians had married into the families of the people from "the street." There were many on the island who revealed this mixture by their surnames. And what was the result? Odium and separation continued the same. No, not the same; a little more tempered than in other days, but latent still. The things which would end this situation were the culture of the people, new customs, and this would be the work of years, and would not be accomplished by a marriage. Besides, experiments were dangerous and caused victims. If Jaime were eager to make the test let him choose someone besides his niece.
Valls smiled sarcastically on seeing Jaime's negative gestures.
"Are you enamored of Catalina?" he asked.
The captain's amber-colored eyes, malicious and focused steadily on Jaime, would not permit him to lie. Enamored?... No, not enamored; but love was not indispensable to marriage. Catalina was agreeable, she would make an excellent wife, a pleasant companion.
Pablo grinned even more widely.
"Let us talk like good friends, like men who know life. My brother is even more agreeable to you. No doubt he will set himself to arranging your business affairs. He will shed tears when he sees how much money you will cost him, but he has a mania for name; he respects and adores the past, and he will put up with anything. But don't trust him, Jaime. He is the type of those Jews represented in plays, with a fat pocketbook, helping people out in an hour of stress, but squeezing them afterward. They are the ones that discredit us; I am different. When he gets you into his power you will regret the business deal you have made."
Febrer looked at his friend with hostile eyes. The best thing he could do was to have no more to say about this matter. Pablo was a crazy fellow accustomed to saying whatever he thought, but he was not going to put up with it forever. If they were to continue friends, he must keep still.
"Well, we'll keep still," said Valls. "But understand once and for all that the girl's uncle opposes you, and that he does it for your sake and for hers."
They rode in silence the rest of the way. They separated on the Paseo del Borne with a frigid bow, without a handclasp.
Jaime returned to his house at dusk. Mammy Antonia had placed upon a table in the reception hall an oil lamp whose flame seemed to make the darkness of the vast room even more dense.
The Ivizans had just left. After breakfasting with her, and wandering about the city, they had waited until nightfall for the señor. They must spend the night on the boat; the master of the vessel wished to set sail before sunrise. Mammy spoke with kindly interest of these people who seemed to her to have come from another side of the world. "How they marveled at everything! They went about the island as if frightened; and Margalida! What a beautiful girl!"
Good old Mammy Antonia gave expression to one idea, but another persisted in her mind, and while she followed her master to his dormitory she looked him over with unconcealed curiosity, eager to read something in his face. What had taken place in Valldemosa, Virgin del Lluch? What had become of that absurd plan of which the señor had told her during breakfast?
But her master was in an ill humor, and he responded to her questions with brief words. He was not going to remain in the house; he would dine at the Casino. By the light of a lamp which but dimly illuminated his vast apartment, he changed his suit and brushed himself up a bit, taking an enormous key from Mammy's hands in order to open the door when he returned late at night.
At nine o'clock, on his way to the Casino, he saw his friend Toni Clapés, the smuggler, standing in the doorway of an inn. He was a large man with a round, shaven face, in peasant garb. He looked like a country curate dressed as a farmer to spend the night in Palma. With his white hempen sandals, his collar minus a cravat, and his hat thrust back, he entered the cafés and clubs, being received with profuse manifestations of friendship. In the Casino the men respected him for the calm way in which he drew handfuls of bank notes from his pockets. A native of a town in the interior, he had, by force of courage and dangers, become chief of a mysterious industry of which everyone had heard, but whose secret operations remained in shadow. He had hundreds of accomplices ready to die for him, and an unseen fleet which sailed by night, unafraid of storms, putting into port at inaccessible places. The worry and risk of these enterprises were never reflected in his jovial countenance nor in his generous impulses. He only seemed downcast when several weeks passed without news of some vessel which had sailed from Algiers in stormy weather.
"Lost!" he would say to his friends. "The bark and the cargo don't matter so much, but there were seven men in her; I've sailed that way myself—I must see to it that their families don't lack bread."
On other occasions his gloom was only pretended, with an ironic wrinkling of his lips. A government craft had just seized one of his vessels; and everyone laughed, knowing that nearly every month Toni allowed some old boat carrying a few bales of tobacco to be captured, to satisfy his pursuers by letting them boast of a triumph. When there was an epidemic in African ports the authorities of the island, powerless to guard so extensive a coastline, sent for Toni, appealing to his patriotism as a Majorcan, and the contrabandist promised to cease his navigation for the time, or he loaded at another point to avoid spreading the contagion.
Febrer had in this rough man, lighthearted and generous, a fraternal confidence. He had often told him his troubles, seeking the advice of his rustic astuteness. He, who would never dream of soliciting a loan from his friends in the Casino, in moments of stress accepted money from Toni which the contrabandist seemed to think no more about.
They shook hands when they met. Had Febrer been at Valldemosa? Toni had already heard about his trip, thanks to the facility with which the most insignificant news circulates through the calm, monotonous atmosphere of a Biscayan city open-mouthed for gossip.
"They are saying something more," said Toni in his provincial Majorcan dialect, "something that I can't believe. They say you're going to marry the atlota of Don Benito Valls!"
Febrer, surprised that the news had circulated so quickly, dared not deny it. Yes, it was true. He would acknowledge it to no one but Toni.
The smuggler made a gesture of repulsion, while his eyes, accustomed to the greatest surprises, revealed astonishment.
"You are making a mistake, Jaime, a serious mistake."
He spoke gravely, as if dealing with a solemn matter.
The butifarra maintained with this friend a confidence which he would not have risked with any one else. But he was ruined, dear Toni! Nothing that remained in his house was his! His creditors only respected him in the expectation of this marriage!
Toni shook his head with a negative expression. The rude native, the contrabandist who mocked at laws seemed stupefied by the news.
"Any way you look at it, you are making a mistake. You should get out of your money troubles any way you can, but not this way. We, your friends, will help you. You marry a Chueta?"
He took leave of Febrer with a vigorous handclasp, as if he imagined him in danger of death.
"You are making a mistake, think it over," he said with a reproachful expression. "You are making a mistake, Jaime!"