But now I arose quietly from my thrice-sprung seat and said in a soft voice: “Nothing it is to me, if maître d’hôtel you be, or fiend or dream, or the three: but take my word, I am only a poet, and I cannot cope with the verbal resources of your universal larder. Let me only not starve! Thank you, good night!”
At these words, the butler, flitting, gave a soft submissive smile, like one, too courteous, that has not been well understood: he bowed himself to the wall and suddenly disappeared. I shut my eyes and drew a bottle at random from the automatic bar, and soon after falling asleep, dreamed I saw Gargantua pouring from an everrunning bottle the active ferments of a monstrous digestion.
You can well imagine that when I reached home again, and my mother asked me: “Well, did you eat well at the Redshields? At least, I suppose they have pure food, if their servants are not thieves,” I was in a position to rejoice her heart.
“NOW, the Poet’s tale was well chosen,” said the Broker, “to sharpen our appetites. I call a man a true artist who knows the hour and the subject so well; and a fine cook, who makes the hors d’oeuvres piquant and too brief. Can you cook?” he asked the Poet.
“Yes, but only an orange soufflé,” answered the Poet. “But my mother is a genius for fish-sauce. She is only four feet ten high and can never succeed in killing a fish, and as I cannot bear to hit a fish on the head, we have no fish at all and no fish-sauce.”
“Why,” said the Frenchwoman, “what difficulty is there in killing a fish?”
“My mother told the fishmonger that. She said: ‘Two hours I was there, with a fish fifteen inches long in a pot, a carp, a river-fish; and two hours I was hitting him with a wooden spoon, but he would not die: I had to fight with him, and at last I put him in the pot almost alive. Even in the water he kicked, my goodness, such a tiger you never saw, and I had to lie down afterwards, exhausted with fighting that fish. But he was well cooked, with wonderful fish-sauce: never, in a restaurant they make such fish-sauce: I make it with butter, and they, with margarine; poison.’ She asked me, for I was there, carrying her bag, ‘Isn’t that right, Peter? Was it nice or not, my fishsauce?’ and when I said, ‘Wonderful, Mama,’ she told the fishmonger, triumphant: ‘You see, I tell the truth: you’ll never see such fish-sauce in your life. But Peter won’t kill a fish and I can’t fight all day with such giants,’ and she smiled. But she worries, my mother, for fish is good for the brain, and she thinks I should eat fish perpetually!”
“Our mouths are watering,” said one, “let us go down to lunch.”
“But let us come back this afternoon,” said the Frenchwoman, “or to the Mirabell-garten, before the play begins, and the Broker will amuse us with a tale.”
“I will gladly do that,” said the Broker; “I was in Spain this year and saw a bull-fight, and I said to myself, looking at a splendid matador, ‘Don Juan was certainly a bull-fighter.’ So I imagined last night’s opera in a new setting.”
“You must tell us that,” said the Poet; and they went down the hill.
The Broker’s Tale
DON JUAN IN THE ARENA
THE burning sun shines on his black curls in their lustrous prime as he makes his way towards the arena of Seville, Don Juan, on an Easter Monday. His mantle of hyacinth silk, his red velvet doublet, his gold chain and the knots and ribands of Ahura-Mazda, his black barb, attract a little attention even in this thick current of peasants in outlandish dress, of thieves, pickpockets and touts, orange-sellers, sherbet-mongers and cocoanut-toters, of citizens extravagantly got up in swords and ruffs, of foreigners of all nations trying to outdo the natives, of the new rich, hangers-on, sycophants, court favourites’ favourites and people in the know, importing foreign fashions, of rich and poor ecclesiastics alike lording it around, of servants of the Inquisition, footmen, messengers, prostitutes in red, yellow and blue, masked ladies out for adventure, and the barefaced daughters, painted and perfumed, of the dissolute, speculating broken-down town classes, and of calèches, hand-chairs, hacks and mules, all setting towards the Plaza.
The sun snorting on high spreads his ribbons across the azure arena, and throws down his vermilion and foamy white on gloomy walls, bannered grilles and balconies. The earth, spread with this brilliant living carpet, stinks like a distillery, with the cabbage-stalks, garlic leaves, rotten bones, fruit-skins and general refuse, trodden underfoot, and the stagnant gutters. The Arab perfumes of the women rush in strong gusts up the nostrils of the hero: he palpitates with this old pleasure, exciting like the smell of blood to him, the clash of swords, the pan-pan of a guitar, the rustle of curtains, and the clackety-clack of a horse, running through the lovelorn streets of Seville at dawn.
The churchmen pass him with the faces of epileptics, hypocrites, butchers, self-torturers and Emperors of the Moon. There goes the son of the Corregidor, flaunting on his arm the emptiest head and heart in town, Maria Anna, dancer and comedienne from the theatre at Madrid. An impudent fellow, that lad, but protected by the Chief Inquisitor himself: a boy with a long and lousy future of crime and peculation.
On all sides comes the plebs, even shepherds and beggars, streaming in from the country, who have stolen, sold themselves, begged, borrowed, tattled, murdered and done anything you like to get a cheap place at the fight. The hour is near. The walls have long been plastered with bills in all colours announcing that this Festival of Bulls is under the patronage of the Archbishop and the Commander, and there is an excessively bloody picture of a bull tossing a picador and a horse into the air. The advertisement appeals to the merciful as well as to the bloodthirsty heart, for the “proceeds from the bull-fight will go to the rebuilding of the dormitories of the Convent of Mary of Seville.”
Don Juan reads the notice, and “The dormitory walls were strong enough,” he says to Sganarelle, “some twenty years ago,” and his mind goes back to that time of his youth when he attempted to carry off one of the nuns. A procession of nuns coming back from an Easter service passes them at this moment, and he tries to look under their bonnets to see if his inamorata is among them, and how she looks after twenty years’ service to Juan’s great rival among the virginities, the ascetic Syrian Don.
As he passes through the street leading to the Plaza he recognises with a grave salute a forlorn woman in black, whose black eyes follow him. It is Donna Elvira with wild and pallid face, like the ghost of that splendid and beauteous Spain which was still living when Juan lay in his voluptuary’s cradle, and which is now passing away in the throes of madness, iniquity and superstition. No doubt Elvira holds a knife in her dress to repay an unkind thrust of the other night. But her hand trembles and tears once more stand in her eye: even now, he triumphs.
At the entrance to the arena, “Don Juan, Don Juan, bravo!” shout the people, and those who are too poor to get into the show, crowd near, with savage elbowings and strokes of their knobbed sticks, to see one of the heroes of the day, and try to size up, even at this distance, the chances of the combat. They have followed the bulls in from their pastures, belabouring the fierce beasts, and coming to blows among themselves, about their points: now their blood is feverish, and they’ll have no blood to cool it—tantalising hour. Then, for he has a reputation as a breaker of God’s laws and man’s, Juan hears lewd compliments from the grinning whitetoothed loafers and low smart-alecks, and the cries, loud kisses and unblushing language of the lusty women.
He looks the sun in the eye with his black eye, as look the bull, the eagle and the serpent: he looks towards the arena packed with the terrible and ridiculous crowd, and the thrill that goes through his body is the annunciator of victory. “Don Juan! Don Juan!” it seems to him the bells ring in their full peal. The band plays Spanish martial music, mournful and wild. Monks press about the entrance now, selling indulgences, rosaries, crucifixes and relics, all the products of the godderies, charms against the evil eye, charms for matadors. A poor knight who enters these lists with trembling (for his purse’s not his honour’s sake), buys one gratefully and
asks a monk to bless him. A monk offers a charm to Don Juan who kicks him away: the bagman of salvation mutters, but the crowd pushes him away, vociferating and laughing. “Don Juan! Don Juan!” the bells ring with rising, interweaving clangour.
Is the sun dimmer? Is there a threatening undertone in the last volley of bells? Did the martial music call up from far off the rumble of a battle? Did a thunderstorm growl? Was there a hostile murmur in the crowd? Don Juan looks behind at his train: Sir Sganarelle, the poor knight, who serves him with fidelity and jibes, and jibs like a brother, some humbler gentlemen in their finery, the runners in fancy costumes as Persian soldiers, his body-servant, a groom in a red shirt. All is in order. Let the ladies look. A beauteous fighter of bulls; and pride!—the pride of an old grandee, the pride of a King’s favourite, one would say a Medina Sidonia! A most noble master of the horns, a signal coucher of lances: quick, quick, let’s not miss the fun, Don Juan’s entering the arena!
But what ails Don Juan? His digestion is perfect! The feast of beaux and actresses that he attended last night, the last of a long series worthy of the bards of antiquity, and even of recent ones like Rabelais, was not likely to upset him, such a green gallant (although now at the age when ladies of pleasure said, “How young you are, Don Juan!”). No, the fat goose-liver and stuffed olives, the crabs, the eels, the river salmon, the seasonings, pheasants, peacocks, ducks with truffles, and cocks in white wine, the creams, profiterolles, pears, and sugar confections, the pastries, tropical fruits and wines are scarcely likely to upset Don Juan’s stomach. A delicate, Juan, besides, a scrupulous eater, a grammarian of the oesophagus, one who gives a just and nice attention to the mother of organs, but no more; one who bathes but not drowns his wit, one whose refined sensuality is energetic, not muscle-bound, like a saltimbanque, not a strong-man: at the feast which has been his life he has tasted with one eye, smacked his lips and thrown away all but the taste. Then it is not indigestion, Don Juan (that’s amply proved), which dims your eye instantly, like the nictitating membrane closing the eagle’s eye! Nor age! At forty-four, Don Juan is a fledgling! The Queen-Mother herself in Madrid last year, ambitious, spoiled and vicious, courted you, and when you rejected her, instead of royal vengeance, she—discretion is valour—but that flower-girl selling bouquets at your door when you came from the theatre was very like, so like her to whom you owe allegiance, valorous Spaniard, that in doubt, you rendered the flower-girl homage for every province in Spain.
Then, not age draws a film over the royal purple heavens where the heraldic sun rides in splendour. Is the weather changing, that minor glissandos and dervish-dancing on the strings issue diabolically from every crevice as you pass by? What ice freezes in your breast, poor hero: what unhorsed harbinger of evil goes whining down the western shades of the arena? What are you dreaming of, Don Juan? The men envy you; the ladies, red and black like lollipops inside their coloured mantillas, paid for, to attract you, by their husbands’ ventures in the Levant and the Americas, and their lace smuggled over the Pyrenees, the ladies let their fans move slower as you move past with your blue-black curls rolling over your yellow ruff.
Are you asleep still, Cavalier? Yet you awoke bright and early this morning; refreshed, like a copper cup shining by a public fountain, you were, in the lap of your newest mistress. Who was that mistress, that last of a thousand and more? Can you remember now? No, you are without that grey hair, memory. Was she Olga with hair like silver reefs, from the northern fjords, Anna with snowshoe eyes from beneath the Aurora Borealis, Lina the Russian dancer, sly, silly, light-fingered and full of vain dreams, Nadya with rich bosom and heart imprisoned lightly in Balkan embroidery, Eisa the mannered English beauty with ropes of pearls and shares in the Turkey Company, Rosemara the Scottish heiress, fair, hysterical and handy with the dirk, Connemara the elf-locked, slovenly, blueeyed, bluehaired, hopping like a bog-fire, handy with the fist, Lucilla convent-bred in France, dreaming of a dowry and Easter lilies, Freda, flannel-faced from a cloth house in Cologne, Faustina with stiletto tied in ribbons yellow and rose, Isabella of Portugal hobbling in a French negligee, or Margarita the Andalusian beauty, savage and faced like a falcon? Which one was it, or which she among the nameless, that triumphed so over your manhood? No, it was not that! No woman born of woman has mated Don Juan yet.
Or was it that at nightfall, yesterday, Don Juan with Sganarelle wandered lustily singing among the couples that starred the hillside, into the cemetery on the outskirts of the town, and there, laughing over the trick that was played on Elvira the night before, heard an owl hoot in the darkness with a singular hoot? Above sifted the Stardust granted only to the Heaven of Spain: below grated the souldust of the dead of Spain. Thrice the owl hooted, and the errant knights became pensive. And looking at the dust, looking at the owl-haunted yew and looking above the horizon of their plumed hats, they saw the stone bust of the late Corregidor. “Your friend, I think,” said mocking Sganarelle, always the one, Sganarelle, to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. “True! Your servant,” said Don Juan, carelessly, making to pass on. “He has a fresh look, even now, the old steer,” said the satellite. “He has a doughty front of bone,” said the hidalgo. “He looks preoccupied,” continued Sganarelle: “perhaps he knows summat standing there and ruminating: perhaps at last an idea has crossed his bean, some news of revolution in the Americas, some new quotation for silver bullion, or some last courier from tomorrow’s bulls.” “Ask him to come,” said the Don politely, yawning: “tell him I’ve given displays before all the horned heads of Europe.” “Have a care, Don Juan,” said the coward Sganarelle, who although his buttocks are like full moons, will have a shade, when he dies, thinner than that cast by a man of glass at midday in midsummer. “Go, ask him if he will preside at the Corrida tomorrow,” says Don Juan energetically, “and see me affront the daringest bulls of Spain!.” “No, that were a dismal sight!” said the attendant shrinking. “Go, do as I tell you, eunuch,” said the hero. The knight made a low obeisance and murmured the fatal message. Then he came running, skipping over the tombstones, nettles and cockscombs. “He nodded, he nodded!” he cried abjectly, “he says he will come!” “Worthy old man, respectable tombstone, not deviating from the courtly manners of old Spain,” said Don Juan, “I will expect you tomorrow at the festival.” (There was an ironic reference there to the Commander’s having bought his dignities from infamous Olivarès.) “I will come,” said the Commander of Stone, in a noticeably hollow tone.
Have we got it now, at longwinded last? Is that what is in the mind of Don Juan as he looks over the arena at Seville, where he expects to win many a battle and inflict many a gaping wound on many a polished hide? No, that is not it all! There is nothing in the mind of Don Juan, and that is what alarms him, no project, no delight; that is why he looks so pensive and interesting. There is fate in it, somehow, and the hero knows it. He thinks of Elvira with irritation. Need she haunt him like this? She is not dead yet, although she looks pale as a stone.
As Don Juan reaches the entrance to the arena, a flushed boy pulls his stirrup; “Don Juan,” says the messenger, “your steward, Florian, sent me to say that your ship has just arrived in Cadiz. He has this moment received advices.” “My ship?” says the hero with his thoughts elsewhere. (Donna Elvira was wrinkled and drawn, as these coldly passionate ladies always are at forty. He knew, too, at what balcony to expect Anna with her Ottavio, both grown sedate, religious and plump: he has done well in business, Ottavio.) “Your ship, in which you have a partnership,” says the boy. “I have no ship, nor interest in a ship. Did he say what cargo?” “I believe he said silver bullion from Peru, a freight long overdue, your Excellence!” says the boy respectfully. “Impossible!” says Juan, and then turns pale. “What is it, Cavalier?” asks Sganarelle, riding closer. “Ask not,” says Don Juan with a stern expression: “it is some trick, no doubt, played by some presumptuous friend who knows too much of my business,” and he looks sidelong at the follower. The boy messenger looking up at
Don Juan, in all his splendour, says piously, “God save your honourable Grace, in this coming combat!” “Much good will it do his Grace, when the Devil shortly calls for him,” says Sir Sganarelle aloud then, and bends down to find out the boy’s business. Then with wicked shining eye he rides to join his master, and approaching him, says, “Is this not my ship of silver, of which the Commander’s ghost owns half? Do you think the Commander coming at your invitation today, will demand half of the cargo from me?” He laughs low, with the hideous malice of a sycophant risen in the world unexpectedly by the help of Satan.
Don Juan makes no reply but rides through the gate. Coming close behind him, Sganarelle impertinently under cover of their cloaks lays hold of Don Juan’s bridle, “Say, your Grace, is it not my ship of silver that you sold me years ago, your ship of silver bullion coming from Peru, an enterprise you went shares in with the regretted Corregidor, God rest his soul? It was when signing the papers, you doubtless remember, that you made the acquaintance of Donna Anna, a charming maid then, of fifteen, and modest as a rabbit? That ship was lost ten years ago, at the time the Commander met with his accident, and never sighted or reported again; but it was said to be drowned in the Southern Ocean of darkness, and the bones and ingots strewn indiscriminately on the beaches of the Devil, or far down on the Afric coast, or in the ice-caves of the sea-serpent. You remember? That share in the cargo you sold me one drunken night in a fit of shocking raillery, for a thousand and three ducats, one for every soul you lost in Spain, and you said, ‘Their white-paper souls into the bargain! The commander,’ you said, ‘has doubtless stolen the whole cargo to buy himself a passport into Hades! ‘You had the thousand and three ducats, Don Juan, and laughed at my grumbling the next day when you saw my creditors at my heels: when my wife the next month, too poor for her good looks, left me and ran off with a renegade monk, from whom you prised her, gallant Don, took her and abandoned her, so that now she runs the gutters of I don’t know what God-forsaken Spanish village, or slaves in some Church institution for women! Is that my ship, the ship of lost souls, bartered over the gaming tables, one furious summer night?”
The Salzburg Tales Page 8