Zaragoza. English
Page 5
CHAPTER IV
Before we left his house, Montoria became vexed at Don Roque and mebecause we would not take the money that he offered us for our firstexpenses in the city; then were repeated the blows on the table, andthe rains of "porras" and other words that I will not repeat. But atlast we arrived at an arrangement honorable for both parties.
And now I begin to think I am saying too much about this singular manbefore I describe his personality. Don Jos? was a man of about sixtyyears of age, strong, high-colored, of over-flowing health, wellplaced in the world, contented with himself, fulfilling his destinywith a quiet conscience. His was an excess of patriotic virtues andof exemplary customs, if there can be an excess of such things. Hewas lacking in education, that is to say, in the finer and moredistinguished training which in that time some of the sons of suchfamilies as his were beginning to receive. Don Jos? was not acquaintedwith the superficialities of etiquette, and by character and customwas opposed to the amenities and the white lies which are a part ofthe foundations of courtesy. As he always wore his heart upon hissleeve, he wished everybody to do the same, and his savage goodnesstolerated none of the frequent evasions of polite conversation. Inangry moments he was impetuous, and let himself be carried to violentextremes, of which he always repented later. He never dissimulated, andhad the great Christian virtues in a crude form and without polish,like a massive piece of the most beautiful marble where the chiselhas traced no lines. It was necessary to know him to understand him,making allowances for his eccentricities, although to be sure he shouldscarcely be called eccentric, when he was so much like the majority ofthe men of his province.
His aim was never to hide what he felt; and if this occasionally causedhim some trouble in the course of life in regard to questions of littlemoment, it was a quality which always proved an inestimable treasurein any grave matter, because, with his soul wholly on view, it wasimpossible to suspect any malice or any double dealing whatever. Hereadily pardoned offenders, obliged those who sought favors, and gave alarge part of his numerous goods to those in need. He dressed neatly,ate abundantly, fasted with much scrupulousness during Lent, and lovedthe Virgin del Pilar with a fanatical sort of family affection.
His language was not, as we have shown, a model of elegance, and hehimself confessed, as the greatest of his defects, the habit of sayingporra every minute, and again, porra! without the slightest necessity.But more than once I heard him say, knowing his fault, he had not beenable to correct it, for the porras came out of his mouth without hisknowing it.
Don Jos? had a wife and three children. She was Do?a Leocadia Sarriera,by birth a Navarraise. The eldest son and the daughter were married,and had given grandchildren to the old man. The younger son was calledAugustine, and was destined for the church, like his uncle of thesame name, the Archdeacon of La Seo. I made the acquaintance of allthese on the same day, and found them the best people in the world.I was treated with so much kindness that I was overwhelmed by theirgenerosity. If they had known me since my birth, they could not havebeen more cordial. Their kindness, springing spontaneously from theirgenerous hearts, touched my very soul; and as I have always had afaculty for letting people love me, I responded from the first with avery sincere affection.
"Se?or Don Roque," I said that night to my friend as we were going tobed in the room which was given us, "I have never seen people likethese. Is everybody in Aragon like this?"
"There are all kinds," he answered; "but men made of stuff like DonJos? and his family are plentiful in this land of Aragon."
Next day we occupied ourselves with my enlistment. The spirit of themen who were enlisting filled me with such enthusiasm that nothingseemed to me so noble as to follow glory, even afar off. Everybodyknows that in those days Saragossa and the Saragossans had obtaineda fabulous renown, that their heroism stimulated the imagination.Everything referring to the famous siege of the immortal city partookon the lips of narrators of the proportions and colors of the heroicage. With distance, the actions of the Saragossans acquired greatdimensions. In England and Germany, where they were considered theNumantines of modern times, those half-naked peasants, with ropesandals on their feet and the bright Saragossan kerchief on theirheads, became like figures of mythology.
"Surrender, and we will give you clothes," said the French in the firstsiege, admiring the constancy of a few poor countrymen dressed in rags.
"_We do not know how to surrender_," they made answer; "_and our bodiesshall be clothed with glory_."
The fame of this and other phrases has gone round the world.
But let us go back to my enlistment. There was an obstacle in the way,Palafox's manifesto of the thirteenth of December, in which he orderedthe expulsion of all strangers within a period of twenty-four hours.This measure was taken on account of the numbers of people who madetrouble, and stirred up discord and disorder; but just at the time ofmy arrival another order was given out, calling for all the scatteredsoldiers of the Army of the Centre which had been dispersed at Tudela,and so I found a chance to enlist. Although I did not belong to thatarmy, I had taken a place in the defence of Madrid and the battleof Bailen. These were reasons which, with the help of my protectorMontoria, served me in entering the Saragossan forces. They gave me aplace in the battalion of volunteers of the Pe?as of San Pedro, whichhad been badly weakened in the first siege, and I received a uniformand a gun. I did not enter the lines, as my protector had said, in thecompany of the clergyman of Santiago Sas, because this valiant companywas composed exclusively of residents of the parish of San Pablo.They did not want any young men in their battalion; for this reasonAugustine Montoria himself, Don Jos?'s son, could not serve under theSas banner, and enlisted like myself in the battalion of Las Pe?as deSan Pedro. Good luck bestowed upon me a good companion and an excellentfriend.
From the day of my arrival I had heard talk of the approach of theFrench army; but it was not an incontrovertible fact until thetwentieth. In the afternoon a division arrived at Zuera, on the leftbank of the river, to threaten the suburb; another, commanded bySuchet, encamped on the right above San Lamberto. Marshal Moncey, whowas the general in command, placed himself, with three divisions, nearthe canal, and on both sides of the Huerva. Forty thousand men besiegedus.
It is known that the French, impatient to defeat us, began operationsearly on the twenty-first, attacking simultaneously and with greatvigor Monte Torrero, and the Arrabal, the suburb on the left of theEbro, points without whose possession it was impossible to dream ofconquering the valiant city. But if we were obliged to abandon Torreroon account of the danger of its defence, Saragossa displayed in thesuburb such audacious courage that that day is known as one of the mostbrilliant of all her brilliant history.
From four o'clock, from day-dawn, the battalion of Las Pe?as de SanPedro guarded the front of the fortifications, from Santa Engracia tothe Convent of Trinitarios, a line which seemed the least exposed inall the circuit of the city. Behind Santa Engracia was established thebattery of Los Martires; from there ran the battlements of the wallas far as the Huerva bridge, defended by a barricade; it deflectedafterwards towards the west, making an obtuse angle, and joininganother redoubt built in the Torre del Pino; it continued in a straightline as far as the Convent of Trinitarios, and enclosed the Puerta delCarmen.
Whoever has seen Saragossa can well understand my imperfectdescription, for the ruins of Santa Engracia still remain, and in thePuerta del Carmen may still be seen, not far from the Glorieta, itsruined architrave and worm-eaten stones.
We were, as I have said, occupying the position described, and part ofthe soldiers had a bivouac in a neighboring orchard, next to the Carmencollege.
Augustine Montoria and I were inseparable. His serene character, theaffection he showed me from the moment we met, and the inexplicableconcord in our thoughts, made his company very agreeable. He was ayoung man of beautiful figure, with large brilliant eyes and open brow,and an expression marked by a melancholy gravity. His heart, like thatof his father, w
as filled by generosity which overflowed at the leastimpulse; but he was not likely to wound the feelings of a friend,because education had taken from him a great deal of the nationalbrusqueness. Augustine entered manhood's estate with the security of akind heart, firm and uncorrupted judgment, with a vigorous and healthysoul; the wide world only was the limit of his boundless goodness.These qualities were enriched by a brilliant imagination of sure anddirect action, not like that of our modern geniuses, who most of thetime do not know what they are about. Augustine's imagination was loftyand serene, worthy of his education in the great classics. Althoughwith a lively inclination to poetry,--for Augustine was a poet,--hehad learned theology, showing ability in this as in everything. Thefathers at the Seminary, who were fond of the youth, looked upon himas a prodigy in the sciences, human and divine, and they congratulatedthemselves on seeing him with one foot at least over the threshold ofthe Church.
The Montoria family had many a pleasant anticipation of the day whenAugustine would say his first mass, as a holy event that was fastapproaching. Yet,--I am obliged to say it,--Augustine had no vocationfor the Church. Neither his family nor the good fathers of theSeminary understood this, nor would they have understood it, even ifthe Holy Spirit had come down in person to tell them. This precocioustheologian, this humanist who had Horace at the ends of his fingers,this dialectician who in the weekly discussions astonished the fatherswith intellectual gymnastics of scholastic science, had no morevocation for the Church than Mozart for war, Raphael for mathematics,or Napoleon for dancing!