Dona Perfecta

by Benito Pérez Galdós

  CHAPTER XXV

  UNFORESEEN EVENTS--A PASSING DISAGREEMENT

  The scene changes. We see before us a handsome room, bright, modest,gay, comfortable, and surprisingly clean. A fine matting covers thefloor, and the white walls are covered with good prints of saints andsome sculptures of doubtful artistic value. The old mahogany of thefurniture shines with the polish of many Saturday rubbings, and thealtar, on which a magnificent Virgin, dressed in blue and silver,receives domestic worship, is covered with innumerable pretty trifles,half sacred, half profane. There are on it, besides, little pictures inbeads, holy-water fonts, a watch-case with an Agnes Dei, a Palm Sundaypalm-branch, and not a few odorless artificial flowers. A number ofoaken bookshelves contain a rich and choice library, in which Horace,the Epicurean and Sybarite, stands side by side with the tender Virgil,in whose verses we see the heart of the enamored Dido throbbingand melting; Ovid the large-nosed, as sublime as he is obscene andsycophantic, side by side with Martial, the eloquent and witty vagabond;Tibullus the impassioned, with Cicero the grand; the severe Titus Liviuswith the terrible Tacitus, the scourge of the Caesars; Lucretius thepantheist; Juvenal, who flayed with his pen; Plautus, who composedthe best comedies of antiquity while turning a mill-wheel; Seneca thephilosopher, of whom it is said that the noblest act of his life was hisdeath; Quintilian the rhetorician; the immoral Sallust, who speaks soeloquently of virtue; the two Plinys; Suetonius and Varro--in a word,all the Latin letters from the time when they stammered their first wordwith Livius Andronicus until they exhaled their last sigh with Rutilius.

  But while making this unnecessary though rapid enumeration, we have notobserved that two women have entered the room. It is very early, butthe Orbajosans are early risers. The birds are singing to burst theirthroats in their cages; the church-bells are ringing for mass, and thegoats, going from house to house to be milked, are tinkling their bellsgayly.

  The two ladies whom we see in the room that we have described have justcome back from hearing mass. They are dressed in black, and each of themcarries in her right hand her little prayer-book, and the rosary twinedaround her fingers.

  "Your uncle cannot delay long now," said one of them. "We left himbeginning mass; but he gets through quickly, and by this time he willbe in the sacristy, taking off his chasuble. I would have stayed to hearhim say mass, but to-day is a very busy day for me."

  "I heard only the prebendary's mass to-day," said the other, "and hesays mass in a twinkling; and I don't think it has done me any good, forI was greatly preoccupied. I could not get the thought of the terriblethings that are happening to us out of my head."

  "What is to be done? We must only have patience. Let us see what adviceyour uncle will give us."

  "Ah!" exclaimed the other, heaving a deep and pathetic sigh; "I feel myblood on fire."

  "God will protect us."

  "To think that a person like you should be threatened by a ----. And hepersists in his designs! Last night Senora Dona Perfecta, I went backto the widow De Cuzco's hotel, as you told me, and asked her forlater news. Don Pepito and the brigadier Batalla are always consultingtogether--ah, my God! consulting about their infernal plans, andemptying bottle after bottle of wine. They are a pair of rakes, a pairof drunkards. No doubt they are plotting some fine piece of villanytogether. As I take such an interest in you, last night, seeing DonPepito having the hotel while I was there, I followed him----"

  "And where did you go?"

  "To the Casino; yes, senora, to the Casino," responded the other, withsome confusion. "Afterward he went back to his hotel. And how my unclescolded me because I remained out so late, playing the spy in that way!But I can't help it, and to see a person like you threatened by suchdangers makes me wild. For there is no use in talking; I foresee thatthe day we least expect it those villains will attack the house andcarry off Rosarito."

  Dona Perfecta, for she it was, bending her eyes on the floor, remainedfor a long time wrapped in thought. She was pale, and her brows weregathered in a frown. At last she exclaimed:

  "Well, I see no way of preventing it!"

  "But I see a way," quickly said the other woman, who was the niece ofthe Penitentiary and Jacinto's mother; "I see a very simple way, thatI explained to you, and that you do not like. Ah, senora! you aretoo good. On occasions like this it is better to be a little lessperfect--to lay scruples aside. Why, would that be an offence to God?"

  "Maria Remedios," said Dona Perfecta haughtily, "don't talk nonsense."

  "Nonsense! You, with all your wisdom, cannot make your nephew do asyou wish. What could be simpler than what I propose? Since there is nojustice now to protect us, let us do a great act of justice ourselves.Are there not men in your house who are ready for any thing? Well, callthem and say to them: 'Look, Caballuco, Paso Largo,' or whoever it maybe, 'to-night disguise yourself well, so that you may not be recognized;take with you a friend in whom you have confidence, and station yourselfat the corner of the Calle de Santa Faz. Wait a while, and when DonJose Rey passes through the Calle de la Triperia on his way tothe Casino,--for he will certainly go to the Casino, understand mewell,--when he is passing you will spring out on him and give him afright.'"

  "Maria Remedios, don't be a fool!" said Dona Perfecta with magisterialdignity.

  "Nothing more than a fright, senora; attend well to what I say, afright. Why! Do you suppose I would advise a crime? Good God! the veryidea fills me with horror, and I fancy I can see before my eyes bloodand fire! Nothing of the sort, senora. A fright--nothing but a fright,which will make that ruffian understand that we are well protected. Hegoes alone to the Casino, senora, entirely alone; and there he meets hisvaliant friends, those of the sabre and the helmet. Imagine that he getsthe fright and that he has a few bones broken, in addition--without anyserious wounds, of course. Well, in that case, either his courage willfail him and he will leave Orbajosa, or he will be obliged to keep hisbed for a fortnight. But they must be told to make the fright a goodone. No killing, of course; they must take care of that, but just a goodbeating."

  "Maria," said Dona Perfecta haughtily, "you are incapable of a loftythought, of a great and saving resolve. What you advise me is anunworthy piece of cowardice."

  "Very well, I will be silent. Poor me! what a fool I am!" exclaimed thePenitentiary's niece with humility. "I will keep my follies to consoleyou after you have lost your daughter."

  "My daughter! Lose my daughter!" exclaimed Dona Perfecta, with a suddenaccess of rage. "Only to hear you puts me out of my senses. No, theyshall not take her from me! If Rosario does not abhor that ruffian as Iwish her to do, she shall abhor him. For a mother's authority must havesome weight. We will tear this passion, or rather this caprice, fromher heart, as a tender plant is torn out of the ground before it hashad time to cast roots. No, this cannot be, Remedios. Come what may,it shall not be! Not even the most infamous means he could employ willavail that madman. Rather than see her my nephew's wife, I would acceptany evil that might happen to her, even death!"

  "Better dead, better buried and food for worms," affirmed Remedios,clasping her hands as if she were saying a prayer--"than see her in thepower of--ah, senora, do not be offended if I say something to you,and that is, that it would be a great weakness to yield merely becauseRosarito has had a few secret interviews with that audacious man. Theaffair of the night before last, as my uncle related it to me, seems tome a vile trick on Don Jose to obtain his object by means of a scandal.A great many men do that. Ah, Divine Saviour, I don't know how there arewomen who can look any man in the face unless it be a priest."

  "Be silent, be silent!" said Dona Perfecta, with vehemence. "Don'tmention the occurrence of the night before last to me. What a horribleaffair! Maria Remedios, I understand now how anger can imperil thesalvation of a soul. I am burning with rage--unhappy that I am, to seesuch things and not to be a man! But to speak the truth in regard tothe occurrence of the night before last--I still have my doubts. Libradavows and declares that Pinzon was the man who came into the hous
e. Mydaughter denies every thing; my daughter has never told me a lie!I persist in my suspicions. I think that Pinzon is a hypocriticalgo-between, but nothing more."

  "We come back to the same thing--that the author of all the trouble isthe blessed mathematician. Ah! my heart did not deceive me when I firstsaw him. Well, then senora! resign yourself to see something still moreterrible, unless you make up your mind to call Caballuco and say to him,'Caballuco, I hope that--'"

  "The same thing again; what a simpleton you are!"

  "Oh yes! I know I am a great simpleton; but how can I help it if I amnot any wiser? I say what comes into my head, without any art."

  "What you think of--that silly and vulgar idea of the beating and thefright--is what would occur to any one. You have not an ounce of brains,Remedios; to solve a serious question you can think of nothing betterthan a piece of folly like that. I have thought of a means more worthyof noble-minded and well-bred persons. A beating! What stupidity!Besides, I would not on any account have my nephew receive even somuch as a scratch by an order of mine. God will send him his punishmentthrough some one of the wonderful ways which he knows how to choose. Allwe have to do is to work in order that the designs of God may find noobstacle. Maria Remedios, it is necessary in matters of this kind to godirectly to the causes of things. But you know nothing about causes--youcan see only trifles."

  "That may be so," said the priest's niece, with humility. "I wonder whyGod made me so foolish that I can understand nothing of those sublimeideas!"

  "It is necessary to go to the bottom--to the bottom, Remedios. Don't youunderstand yet?"

  "No."

  "My nephew is not my nephew, woman; he is blasphemy, sacrilege, atheism,demagogy. Do you know what demagogy is?"

  "Something relating to those people who burned Paris with petroleum;and those who pull down the churches and fire on the images. So far Iunderstand very well."

  "Well, my nephew is all that! Ah! if he were alone in Orbajosa--but no,child. My nephew, through a series of fatalities, which are trials, thetransitory evils that God permits for our chastisement, is equivalent toan army; is equivalent to the authority of the government; equivalent tothe alcalde; equivalent to the judge. My nephew is not my nephew; heis the official nation, Remedios--that second nation composed of thescoundrels who govern in Madrid, and who have made themselves masters ofits material strength; of that apparent nation--for the real nation isthe one that is silent, that pays and suffers; of that fictitiousnation that signs decrees and pronounces discourses and makes a farce ofgovernment, and a farce of authority, and a farce of every thing. Thatis what my nephew is to-day; you must accustom yourself to look underthe surface of things. My nephew is the government, the brigadier, thenew alcalde, the new judge--for they all protect him, because of theunanimity of their ideas; because they are chips of the same block,birds of a feather. Understand it well; we must defend ourselves againstthem all, for they are all one, and one is all; we must attack themall together; and not by beating a man as he turns a corner, but as ourforefathers attacked the Moors--the Moors, Remedios. Understand thiswell, child; open your understanding and allow an idea that isnot vulgar to enter it--rise above yourself; think lofty thoughts,Remedios!"

  Don Inocencio's niece was struck dumb by so much loftiness of soul. Sheopened her mouth to say something that should be in consonance with sosublime an idea, but she only breathed a sigh.

  "Like the Moors," repeated Dona Perfecta. "It is a question of Moors andChristians. And did you suppose that by giving a fright to my nephewall would be ended? How foolish you are! Don't you see that his friendssupport him? Don't you see that you are at the mercy of that rabble?Don't you see that any little lieutenant can set fire to my house, ifhe takes it into his head to do so? But don't you know this? Don't youcomprehend that it is necessary to go to the bottom of things? Don't youcomprehend how vast, how tremendous is the power of my enemy, who is nota man, but a sect? Don't you comprehend that my nephew, as he confrontsme to-day, is not a calamity, but a plague? Against this plague,dear Remedios, we shall have here a battalion sent by God that willannihilate the infernal militia from Madrid. I tell you that this isgoing to be great and glorious."

  "If it were at last so!"

  "But do you doubt it? To-day we shall see terrible things here," saidDona Perfecta, with great impatience. "To-day, to-day! What o'clock isit? Seven? So late, and nothing has happened!"

  "Perhaps my uncle has heard something; he is here now, I hear him comingupstairs."

  "Thank God!" said Dona Perfecta, rising to receive the Penitentiary. "Hewill have good news for us."

  Don Inocencio entered hastily. His altered countenance showed that hissoul, consecrated to religion and to the study of the classics, was notas tranquil as usual.

  "Bad news!" he said, laying his hat on a chair and loosening the cordsof his cloak.

  Dona Perfecta turned pale.

  "They are arresting people," added Don Inocencio, lowering his voice,as if there was a soldier hidden under every chair. "They suspect, nodoubt, that the people here would not put up with their high-handedmeasures, and they have gone from house to house, arresting all who havea reputation for bravery."

  Dona Perfecta threw herself into an easy chair and clutched its armsconvulsively.

  "It remains to be seen whether they have allowed themselves to bearrested," observed Remedios.

  "Many of them have--a great many of them," said Don Inocencio, with anapproving look, addressing Dona Perfecta, "have had time to escape, andhave gone with arms and horses to Villahorrenda."

  "And Ramos?"

  "They told me in the cathedral that he is the one they are looking formost eagerly. Oh, my God! to arrest innocent people in that way, whohave done nothing yet. Well, I don't know how good Spaniards can havepatience under such treatment. Senora Dona Perfecta, when I was tellingyou about the arrests, I forgot to say that you ought to go home atonce."

  "Yes, I will go at once. Have those bandits searched my house?"

  "It is possible. Senora, we have fallen upon evil days," said DonInocencio, in solemn and feeling accents. "May God have pity upon us!"

  "There are half a dozen well-armed men in my house," responded the lady,greatly agitated. "What iniquity! Would they be capable of wanting tocarry them off too?"

  "Assuredly Senor Pinzon will not have neglected to denounce them.Senora, I repeat that we have fallen upon evil days. But God willprotect the innocent."

  "I am going now. Don't fail to stop in at the house."

  "Senora, as soon as the lesson is over--though I imagine that with theexcitement that there is in the town, all the boys will play truantto-day----But in any case I will go to the house after class hours.I don't wish you to go out alone, senora. Those vagabond soldiers arestrutting about the streets with such insolent airs. Jacinto, Jacinto!"

  "It is not necessary. I will go alone."

  "Let Jacinto go with you," said the young man's mother. "He must be upby this time."

  They heard the hurried footsteps of the little doctor, who was comingdown the stairs in the greatest haste. He entered the room with flushedface and panting for breath.

  "What is the matter?" asked his uncle.

  "In the Troyas' house," said the young man, "in the house ofthose--those girls--"

  "Finish at once!"

  "Caballuco is there!"

  "Up there? In the house of the Troyas?"

  "Yes, senor. He spoke to me from the terrace, and he told me he wasafraid they were coming there to arrest him."

  "Oh, what a fool! That idiot is going to allow himself to be arrested!"exclaimed Dona Perfecta, tapping the floor impatiently with her foot.

  "He wants to come down and let us hide him in the house."

  "Here?"

  The canon and his niece exchanged a glance.

  "Let him come down!" said Dona Perfecta vehemently.

  "Here?" repeated Don Inocencio, with a look of ill-humor.

  "Here," answered the lady. "I don't k
now of any house where he would bemore secure."

  "He can let himself down easily from the window of my room," saidJacinto.

  "Well, if it is necessary----"

  "Maria Remedios," said Dona Perfecta, "if they take that man, all islost."

  "I am a fool and a simpleton," answered the canon's niece, laying herhand on her breast and stifling the sigh that was doubtless about toescape from it; "but they shall not take him."

  Dona Perfecta went out quickly, and shortly afterward the Centaur wasmaking himself comfortable in the arm-chair in which Don Inocencio wasaccustomed to sit when he was writing his sermons.

  We do not know how it reached the ears of Brigadier Batalla, but certainit is that this active soldier had had notice that the Orbajosans hadchanged their intentions; and on the morning of this day he had orderedthe arrest of those whom in our rich insurrectional language we areaccustomed to call marked. The great Caballuco escaped by a miracle,taking refuge in the house of the Troyas, but not thinking himself safethere he descended, as we have seen, to the holy and unsuspected mansionof the good canon.

  At night the soldiers, established at various points of the town, kepta strict watch on all who came in and went out, but Ramos succeeded inmaking his escape, cheating or perhaps without cheating the vigilance ofthe military. This filled the measure of the rage of the Orbajosans,and numbers of people were conspiring in the hamlets near Villahorrenda;meeting at night to disperse in the morning and prepare in this waythe arduous business of the insurrection. Ramos scoured the surroundingcountry, collecting men and arms; and as the flying columns followedthe Aceros into the district of Villajuan de Nahara, our chivalrous heromade great progress in a very short time.

  At night he ventured boldly into Orbajosa, employing stratagems andperhaps bribery. His popularity and the protection which he received inthe town served him, to a certain extent, as a safeguard; and it wouldnot be rash to affirm that the soldiers did not manifest towardthis daring leader of the insurrection the same rigor as toward theinsignificant men of the place. In Spain, and especially in time of war,which is here always demoralizing, these unworthy considerations towardthe great are often seen, while the little are persecuted pitilessly.Favored then by his boldness, by bribery, or by we know not what,Caballuco entered Orbajosa, gained new recruits, and collected arms andmoney. Either for the great security of his person or in order to saveappearances, he did not set foot in his own house; he entered DonaPerfecta's only for the purpose of treating of important affairs, andhe usually supped in the house of some friend, preferring always therespected domicile of some priest, and especially that of Don Inocencio,where he had taken refuge on the fateful morning of the arrests.

  Meanwhile Batalla had telegraphed to the Government the informationthat a plot of the rebels having been discovered its authors had beenimprisoned, and the few who had succeeded in escaping had fled invarious directions and were being actively pursued by the military.