“I’ll tell you what I mean. The cards I’m missing to play a hand that, I must confess – and you, as a bridge player, will understand this perfectly – is quite a hard nut to crack. Senyor Baró, I imagine you hold your moral credit, your honor, your immaculate and invulnerable situation in the world of money and in the world of decent people, in even higher esteem than your fortune. You have looked into my father’s situation; I, too, have taken the liberty of looking a bit into your situation. And I congratulate you, Senyor Baró: it is an enviable situation. You are scrupulously conscientious, your relationships smack of solid honesty and capital. Your clients … that pin from the Parish Perseverance League on your lapel …”
“Excuse me, I don’t understand what this is all about. I don’t understand and what’s more, I warn you, I am getting irritated …”
“That is perfectly natural, Senyor Baró. But it is necessary for me to make these affirmations so that we can come to an agreement. As you well know, in Barcelona, in a world more or less left to its own devices, a world that lives day to day and without many scruples, and which, moreover, doesn’t have anything to lose, certain … things, certain … perversions, haven’t the slightest importance. But in your world, in the world of prejudices and ‘moral credit,’ in the world of holding on to clients by dint of breast-beating and paying for chapels and schools, there are certain types of scandals that can do one real harm … A sort of scandal that, understand me, may lead the victim to an often desperate and almost always fatal solution. Because there are some things that people don’t understand … or don’t want to understand … People are so hypocritical, so cruel, with those who fall from favor! And, when this fallen person is a gentleman with a great deal to lose, well, just imagine …!”
“I find your line of reasoning quite remarkable. I’m sure I don’t know what scandals you are referring to, but, well, I can only imagine. But truly, my friend, I am at a loss as to what this has to do with the fifty thousand pessetes your brother owes me.”
“Just be patient, Senyor Baró, and answer me this question. If you’re willing to answer it, that is …”
“Well, it depends what we’re talking about.”
“It is very simple: what would happen to you, if you were to find yourself tied up in a scandal, in one of those shameful scandals, do you get my drift? Indeed, what if you were the protagonist?”
“Listen to me, young Lloberola. This question of yours is utterly preposterous. Whom do you think you are speaking with? Your question has no more effect on me than if you asked what would happen if I had four noses instead of one!”
“I do not find the comparison to be sound. I find it a bit exaggerated. Indeed, Senyor Baró, I think you are a formidable optimist! All right, then, if you do not wish to answer my question, don’t answer it. I will ask you another, much more direct, question: What were you doing yesterday at six in the afternoon in the house of Dorotea Palau, the dressmaker?”
From the start of the second half of this dialogue, Antoni Mates had been anticipating a catastrophe. His initial flash of panic had been replicated with two or three of Guillem’s words. As the young man continued to talk, the Baró de Falset felt like one of those philanthropic souls who lie down on an operating table to offer their blood for a transfusion. Little by little, the baron was growing weaker. By the time the direct question arrived, the loss of moral calories had reached the magnitude of a collapse.
The baron was materially frozen. At the base of each hair on his head he felt a cruel sting, as if one of those parasites that inhabit the scalps of filthy ragamuffins had taken up strategic residence at the roots of his own hair. And at one precise moment each and every one of those parasites, obeying an imaginary bugle call, had sunk its monstrous pincers into the skin of el Senyor Baró.
Three seconds were all it took for the blood to return to his brain and for him to come up with a response. A response he offered up without much faith and with very little hope of success.
“Listen, young man, I don’t feel obligated to answer your question, but I need not hide anything I do. At six o’clock yesterday afternoon, at the home of the dressmaker you mentioned, I was accompanying my wife as she was fitted for a few outfits. Naturally, it may seem ridiculous to you that I should accompany my wife to the dressmaker’s, because young people, I mean young people nowadays, often do not understand the attentions that persons like myself consider worthy of dispensing. But as I see it …”
Clearly this grotesque comment on the part of Antoni Mates, this groveling to justify something as simple as accompanying his wife, was simply pathological. In point of fact, the baron barely knew what he was saying, he tripped over his tongue, he muddled about stupidly, because, though he was no genius, neither was he an idiot. Guillem spent a moment of cruel voluptuosity listening to these “theories” on attentiveness, understanding, or lack of understanding, but, since Guillem was also standing on shifting sands and felt a little frantic himself, he cut the baron’s comments short with these words:
“Senyor Baró, please. Enough theatrics. I asked you what you were doing at six o’clock in the afternoon. There is no need for you to tell me. I know as well as you, or perhaps even better, what you were doing. It would not be elegant to go into detail. You and I are both perfectly aware.”
Now the baron was like one of those boxers felled in the ring, who hear the count of five, six, seven, eight …, who are aware of everything, who want to make an effort to get up, but whose legs are glued to the mat.
“Are you taken aback, Senyor Baró, at my speaking with such confidence? There are only two people who could know what you were doing yesterday at six o’clock in the afternoon, is that not true? La Senyora Baronessa and an … other, a …, well, it doesn’t matter, call him what you will. And I am very surprised, Senyor Baró, that you have not yet realized that that ‘other’ was I.”
If Antoni Mates had been a normal man, a man physiologically like the majority of men, perhaps he would have reacted like an orangutan, going for the jugular of that cynical creature, attempting to strangle him, trying to do something – something a man would do. Instead, a suppuration of sad misery escaped from his closed lips, and with his eyes on the ground, his cheeks livid, like an absolute idiot, like a martyr disposed to be beaten, the Baró de Falset could not say a word. Perhaps within a few seconds he would have found a way to articulate words, but for the moment it was no use. Guillem, who was perfectly aware of what was going on, and who was enjoying how well the scene was going, took a pistol from his pocket.
“Senyor Baró, I admit that what I am doing here is an unspeakable fraud. And I offer you a solution because it can come to an immediate end, if you so desire. All you have to do is shoot; the pistol is at your disposal. At such a short distance, even if your hand trembles, the shot will almost certainly be on target. But think what you expose yourself to. It would be difficult, you understand, to justify a murder in this salon, at this time of day, in these circumstances. I don’t recommend suicide; it would be grotesque. What’s more, to commit suicide requires a measure of valor. Until now, only I know about ‘this.’ Your wife knows about it, too, and Dorotea Palau knows (but naturally not in full detail). It is in your interest, and in mine as well, but much more in yours, that no one else should be privy to ‘this.’ The procedure is very simple: the promissory note for fifty thousand pessetes, which you extended to my brother, should immediately be transferred into this satchel.”
Antoni Mates had found a way to articulate words. Not a particularly clever way, because in fact he was beaten. Even if the man blackmailing him had possessed all the facts needed to compromise him, if it had been any other than the very person who had “collaborated” in the secret liaison at the dressmaker’s house, he would have felt in possession of at least a scrap of dignity. But the fact that it was that very person produced such an intense shame in him, such an unbearable collapse, that everything Antoni Mates did manage to say must be considered of great
merit, because his natural impulse was to abandon himself to guttural moaning, and to wailing like a wild beast. Strange as it may seem, Antoni Mates had never, never, considered this possibility; it had seemed inconceivable to him that such a thing could happen. And this way of seeing it is perfectly normal for a man of Antoni Mates’s stripe. Any person who has a shameful flaw that essentially obligates him to behave differently from others is the victim of a certain innocence, because his desire outweighs everything else, and he cannot measure the consequences. When someone provides him a way to satisfy his abnormality, no matter how few guarantees are offered, he madly pursues its satisfaction, despite the insufficiency of the guarantees. And herein lies the innocence of these deviants. It consists in their believing in the good faith of others, in the good faith, above all, of the accomplice, and in hoping against hope that the thing will remain hidden. And sometimes this takes place in imprudent circumstances, in circumstances in which it is impossible for the secret to be kept. But the poor deviant doesn’t see it. Sad to say, he gives in; he will run any risk, like a child incapable of foreseeing danger. And when he realizes that the secret is no secret, when he realizes there could be a scandal, and in the enormity of the scandal, the poor deviant, if his name is Baró de Falset, becomes demoralized, and loses all control, all his masculine integrity. In the case of Antoni Mates, the type of amusements to which he had surrendered himself aggravated the situation. He had debased himself, he had debased his wife, he had engaged in an indefensible conjugal monstrosity. Antoni Mates was aware of it all; he saw all the consequences of the extortion clearly. A strong person, a real scoundrel, could have confronted the consequences, would have found thousands of ways out. He could have forged ahead and neutralize the perfect swine who had lent himself to such a vile ceremony for three hundred pessetes. But a pirate is needed for such occasions, and Antoni Mates only revealed his ragman’s fangs at the meetings of the board. In a contest such as this the only teeth he showed were weak and womanish.
“I see. You want the fifty thousand pesseta note? That’s what you want, you say. And what if I say I don’t care to give it to you? Then what? You can spread the rumor, you have a thousand ways of spreading whatever rumor you like about me. Who will believe you?”
“Everyone.”
That “everyone,” those three grave monotone syllables, spoken with the solemnity of a death knell, had been intoned by Guillem with such conviction that Antoni Mates truly saw that “everyone” would believe it, that “everyone” knew. Before his eyes paraded the equivocal expressions, the telling smiles, the whisperings. He saw himself infected with a special leprosy, as if his clothing gave off a smell that could not be disguised. Even so – and completely irrationally – he came up with these audacious words:
“So what?”
“You know best.”
“But where is the proof, where is it …?”
“What greater proof than my own confession, than my own debasement? When a man lowers himself so far as to be able to tell the tale I can tell about both you and me, they will have no choice but to believe him. Do you understand? No choice.”
Naturally, Guillem said this because he was sure that he would win the bluff and there would be no need for him to tell the tale. Moreover, if the need arose, he could find a way to tell it without going into certain details.
“You …, well, clearly you … what can I say … You are a …”
“Say no more, Senyor Baró. It would behoove us to treat this whole affair as if it were a business deal; to go into explanations would be too unpleasant. I am offering you an absolute guarantee. You have my word. To be frank, I think you’re getting off quite cheaply at fifty thousand pessetes.”
“I have been known to be … Well …, how do I know what I am capable of, poor devil … But you, and your cynicism …”
“Senyor Baró, your words …”
“What about … Dorotea Palau …? What assurances do I have?”
“No need for concern. Dorotea Palau has behaved with the most absolute good faith. The best thing, believe me – I’m saying this for your own good – the best thing is for you to do nothing, and to register no complaints. Dorotea Palau should never hear about this scene. Otherwise the scandal would be unavoidable!”
“Suppose I do give you the note. How do I justify this act of ‘generosity’ in your brother’s eyes?”
“It’s very simple. I’ll take care of it. Ah, and I warn you: my brother is fool enough not to accept this gesture from you. He has a lot of ‘pride,’ my brother does.”
“And so …?”
“And so, I suggest that you keep granting him extensions on the note, and my brother will keep accepting them, ad infinitum, but without need of an underwriter … Do you understand me? No underwriter. And, what’s more, I assume you will be good enough not to charge him interest …”
“But how can I trust you? You …”
“Naturally, you would be an idiot if you trusted me entirely, but for the time being I think I can be trusted.”
“What do you mean, for the time being?”
“I mean that I sort of have you at my mercy …”
“We’ll see about that …”
“Silence is the best strategy. Don’t lose your composure, Senyor Baró. Silence will be best, believe me …”
“Do you want the note right away?”
“If you will be so kind.”
Antoni Mates got to his feet. He had a pitiful air and gait. Three minutes later, he was back with the notorious promissory note. Guillem placed it in his satchel.
“Senyor Baró, before noon you will have a draft of the letter you are to write my brother this very day. Don’t get upset; it is a letter you will be able to sign in good conscience …”
Without responding, Antoni Mates saw Guillem to the door.
“Don’t you want to shake my hand …, Senyor Baró?”
“Enough cynicism. Just leave.”
ON THE SAME DAY Guillem visited the Baró de Falset, Frederic received a letter that stunned him. The letter was from the baron himself; he called him “dear friend,” he used the familiar “tu” and he closed it with, “A handshake from your good friend.” The content of the letter was enough to make him feel faint. Had Guillem truly managed to work a miracle? Frederic didn’t know what to think. Among other things, the letter read “A person I imagined was related to you, but whom I didn’t have the pleasure of knowing as your brother, came to speak with me about your situation and that of your family. I am sorry you weren’t more sincere with me, and didn’t convey to me the difficulty you were having in getting your esteemed father to underwrite the note. If you had been more frank, we could have found a better way to work things out, that is, we would have arranged things in your best interest. But this is where we find ourselves now: your brother and I had a very important affair to settle between us, having to do with my business. In exchange for some very special services, for which I can never express enough gratitude, I am in your brother’s debt, both personally and for a considerable amount. He has informed me that you are not very close, and that neither you nor your esteemed father was aware of the business relationship between your brother and me. Hence, in a display of altruism and unselfishness that you, his brother, who knows him well, can comprehend better than I, he has asked me to give him the promissory note you accepted, which if my memory serves comes due tomorrow or the day after, to wipe out part of my debt to him. He swears that his intention was to give you a surprise and avert an unpleasantness for your father, and that he will give you the note and you will make your own arrangements from there on in. He has intimated, moreover, that he owes you a few large favors, and having learned only lately of your compromised situation, the circumstances were ideal for him to show you this kindness. As I consider this perfectly natural, I have given him the note and, as he requested, I am writing you this letter.”
As Frederic went on reading, he didn’t understand a thing. “Consider
this perfectly natural”? Frederic thought, “Perfectly natural …? I find it entirely mysterious and bizarre. What kind of dealings could Guillem have with this fool? Was Guillem actually capable of earning money, of collaborating in a serious enterprise, of doing something worthwhile? Indeed, was this letter from Antoni Mates the genuine article? It would be incredible if the whole thing were some prank of Guillem’s.” Frederic kept going back and rereading the letter. Below the signature, the Baró de Falset had added these words: “I will be forever and deeply grateful if you tear up and burn this letter.” “What is that all about? What does it mean?” Frederic thought. “Why should I burn the letter? After all, nothing he says here could compromise anyone.”
The request that he “burn the letter” was a liberty Antoni Mates had taken; he had added it when he copied over the draft that Guillem had sent him. The baron, despite bearing the weight of a great despondency, believed that he was being prudent in asking Frederic to “burn the letter.”
Frederic’s perplexity knew no limits. The day before, after dropping Mossèn Claramunt off, when he thought about Antoni Mates, he would say to himself, “If I could only find the way to put one over on this Jew,” and the following day, “that Jew” had written him the strangest and most absurd letter he could ever have imagined. Frederic’s cowardice and distrust conjured up another idea in his mind: “But why did he give him the note? I mean, since this morning my brother is in possession of a promissory note that was extended to me … What does my brother want with this note? That rascal could have the nerve to pull a fast one on me!” In his state of excitation and amazement, Frederic didn’t remember that he and his brother had made a thousand-pesseta wager – a wager Frederic had considered to be a joke. He didn’t remember that Guillem had promised he would get the note back for him. His caviling didn’t last very long, because Guillem had calculated the time, trusting absolutely in the state of docile devastation in which he had left Antoni Mates. And just as Frederic had begun to get nervous, Guillem rang his doorbell. The following dialogue rapidly transpired between the two brothers:
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