Pío Baroja

“ To think of these sleeping forces irritated him: the waterfall, lost without leaving its energy anywhere; the ravine, which might be transformed into an irrigation reservoir; the river, which was flowing gently without fertilizing the fields; the land around the hermitage, which might have been converted into a park, with a bright, gay schoolhouse; all these things that could be done and were not done, seemed to him more real than the people with whom he talked and lived.
One morning Cæsar walked to Cidones; the sun shone strongly on the highway, and he reached the town choked and thirsty. ”

“ Cæsar and Preciozi went on encircling the walls and reading the various marble tablets set into them, and ascended to the Janiculum, to the terrace where Garibaldi’s statue stands.
POOR TINDARO
“But, are you anti-Catholic, seriously?” asked Preciozi. “But do you believe any one can be a Catholic seriously?” said Cæsar. “I can, yes; otherwise I shouldn’t be a priest.”
“But are you a priest because you believe, or do you make believe that you believe because you are a priest?”
“You are a child. I suppose you hate the Jesuits, like all Liberals.” ”

“ Because I see that you despise everybody and despise yourself, because you think people are bad, and that you are too, and to me this seems so sad that it makes me pity you deeply.”
Cæsar began to walk up and down the gallery, trembling a little.
“I don’t see why you say this to me,” he murmured. “I am a morbid man, with an ulcerated, wounded spirit.... I know that. But why say it to me? Do you take pleasure in humiliating me?”
“No, Cæsar,” said Amparito, drawing near him. “You don’t believe that I take pleasure in humiliating you. No, you know well that I do not.” ”

“ Among them were two serious old men; one was a model, a native of Frascati, with the face of a venerable apostle; the other, for contrast, looked like a buffoon and was the possessor of a grotesque nose, long, thin at the end and adorned with a red wart.
“My wife has a deadly hatred for all of them,” said Giovanni Battista, laughing.
“And why so?” asked Cæsar.
“Because we talk politics and sometimes they ask me for a few pennies....”
“Your wife must have a lively temper,...” said Cæsar.
“Yes, an unhappy disposition; good, awfully good; but very superstitious. ”

“ Susanna and Cæsar drew near the Forum.
In the opaque light of dusk the Forum had the air of a cemetery. Two lighted windows were shining in the high dark wall of the Tabularium, and sharp-toned bells were beginning to ring.
They went up the stairway that leads to the Capitol, and on a little terrace they stopped to look at the Forum.
“What terrible desolation!” exclaimed Susanna.
“All the stones look like tombs,” said Cæsar. “Yes, that is true.”
“What are those three high open vaults that give so strange an impression of immense size?” asked Cæsar. ”

“ Cæsar took leave of the blacksmith and got into the motor.
CÆSAR! CÆSAR!
“Yes, spring is in flower,” said Cæsar. “I will remove all the obstacles and men’s strength will come to life, which is action. This town, then others, and finally all Spain.... May nothing remain hidden or closed up; everything come to life, out into the sunlight. I am a strong man; I am a man of iron; there are no obstacles for me. The forces of Nature will assist me. Cæsar! I must be Cæsar!”
The automobile began to move in a straight line toward Castro. ”

“ Since nobody else came in, the Dawson girls and Cæsar wandered about looking into the cupboards and finding the Marchesa Sciacca’s music and the Neapolitan’s. They looked out one of the salon windows. It was a detestable night, raining and hailing; the great drops were bouncing on the sidewalks of the Piazza Esedra. Water and hail fell mixed together, and for moments at a time the ground would stay white, as if covered with a thin coating of pearls.
The fountain in the centre cast up its streams of water, which mingled with the rain, and the central jet shone in the lays of the arc-lights ”

“ That dazzling idyll intrigued all the girls in Castro. The truth was that none of them had considered Cæsar a marrying man; some had imagined him already old; others an experienced and vicious bachelor, incapable of yielding to the matrimonial yoke; and now they saw him a youth, of distinguished type, with distinguished manners and looks.
Cæsar went almost daily to Amparito’s father’s country-place. It was a magnificent estate, another ancient property of the Dukes of Castro Duro, with a house adorned with escutcheons, and an extensive stone pool, deep and mysterious. ”

“ Laura hummed Neapolitan songs. We walked along a little while without speaking, gazing at Jupiter, who shone resplendent.
“And you have the conviction that you will succeed?” I suddenly asked Cæsar. “Yes. More than anything else I have the vocation for being an instrument. If I win success, I shall be a great figure; if I go to pieces, those who know me will say: ‘He was an upstart; he was a thief.’ Or perhaps they may say that I was a poor sort, because men who have the ambition to be social forces never get an unprejudiced epitaph.” ”

“ Indubitably, there existed an instinctive accord of the sentiments between Amparito and him, an organic sympathy. She could feel for them both, but he could not think for them both; each mental machine ran in isolation, like two watches, which do not hear each other. She knew whether Cæsar was sad or joyful, disheartened or spirited, merely by looking at him. She had no need to ask him; she could read Cæsar’s face. ”

“ She knew many plants by their vulgar names, and understood their industrial and medicinal use. Besides, she spoke in such pure, natural phrases that Cæsar was filled with admiration.
Cæsar had reached such a degree of exaltation that he thought of nothing any more, except his sweetheart. At night, before going to sleep, he thought of her deliriously. He often dreamed that Amparito had changed into the red-flowered oleander of the wild palace garden, and in every flower of the oleander he used to see Amparito’s red lips and white teeth. ”

“ They left the tavern and went along a street between sides of sand cut straight down, and started up the Cerro del Pimiento. The soft, vague mist allowed the Guadarrama to stand out visible.
“This landscape enchants me,” said Cæsar.
“It seems hard and gloomy,” responded Alzugaray.
“Yes, that is true; hard and gloomy, but noble. When one is drenched with a miserable political life, when one actually forms a part of that Olympus of madmen called Congress, one needs to be purified. How miserable, how vile that political life is! ”

“ The atmosphere was wonderfully clear and pure; the suave blue sky seemed to caress the pinnacles and decorations of the big square.
Preciozi met a dirty friar, dark, with a black beard and a mouth from ear to ear. The abbe showed no great desire to stop and speak with him, but the other detained him. This party wore a habit of a brown colour and carried a big umbrella under his arm.
“There’s a type!” said Cæsar, when Preciozi rejoined him.
“Yes, he is a peasant,” the abbe said with disgust. ”

“ With a somewhat hostile woman he would have felt an inclination to be voluble and contradictory; with a sympathetic woman, on the contrary, he would have seemed to himself like a circus runner whom one of his pupils is trying to overtake, and who has to run hard to keep the record where it belongs.
But his wife was neither one nor the other.
Amparito had an extraordinary insouciance, gaiety, facility, in accepting life. Cæsar never ceased being amazed. She spent her days working, talking, singing. ”

“ In the middle of the court a fountain shot up a little way and fell into a stone basin covered with moss.
Kennedy and Cæsar mounted the wide monumental stairway; on the first floor a handsome glassed-in gallery ran around the court. The whole house had an air of solemnity and sadness. They entered the Cardinal’s office, which was a large, sad, severe room.
Monsignor Spada was a vigorous man, despite his age. He looked frank and intelligent, but one guessed that there was a hidden bitterness and desolation in him. He wore a black cassock with red edges and buttons. ”

“ When they had all spoken, Cæsar got up and asked them to wait. If he won the election the next day, he promised them that the prisoners should be freed immediately; if he did not win and the prisoners remained there...
“Then what is to be done?” said a voice.
“What is to be done? I am in favour of violence,” answered Cæsar; “burning the jail, setting fire to the whole town; I am ready for anything.”
At that moment he really did think he had been too lenient.
“Man’s first duty is to break the law,” he shouted, “when it is a bad law. Everything is due to violence and war. ”

“ What enchanted Laura was the wild garden at Don Calixto’s house, with its pomegranates and laurels, its tower above the river, full of climbing plants and oleanders.
“You ought to buy this house,” she used to tell Cæsar.
“It would cost a good deal.”
“Pshaw! You could arrange that wonderfully. You would get married and live here like a prince.”
“Get married?”
“Yes. To Amparito. That young thing is enchanting.
“She will make a splendid little wife. Even for your respectability as a Deputy, it would be fitting to marry. A bachelor politician has a poor look.” ”

“ Kennedy retailed this information the first day they went to Giovanni Battista Lanza’s house. Cæsar could see Simonetta keeping the books, while the small brother, in a white blouse that came to his heels, was chasing a dog, holding a pipe in his hand by the thick part, as if it were a pistol, the dog barking and hanging on to the blouse, the small boy shrieking and laughing, when Signora Vittoria came bawling out. ”

“ Amparito accepted Cæsar’s suggestions as if they had been, articles of faith.
Cæsar, on his part, had a great admiration for his wife. What strength for facing life! What amazing energy!
“I walk among brambles and leave a piece of my clothing on every one of them,” thought Cæsar, “and she passes artlessly between all obstacles, with the ease of an ethereal thing. It’s extraordinary!” ”

“ Carmelites with the appearance of highway men; Dominicans, some with a sensual air, others with a professorial air. Astuteness, intrigue, brutality, intelligence, mystic stupor.... And as for priests, what a museum! Decorative priests, tall, with white shocks of hair and big cassocks; short priests, swarthy and greasy; noses thin as a knife; warty, fiery noses. Gross types; distinguished types; pale bloodless faces; red faces.... What a marvellous collection!”
Preciozi listened to Cæsar’s observations and wondered if the Cardinal’s nephew might be a trifle off his head. ”

“ The town yawns and awakes; some priests pass, on their way to church; pious women come out of their houses; and market men and women begin to arrive from the villages nearby. The bells make that tilín-talán so sad, which seems confined to these dead towns. In the main street the shops open; a boy hangs up the dresses, the sandals, the caps, on the façade, reaching them up with a stick. Droves of mules are seen in front of the grain-shops; some charcoal-burners go by, selling charcoal; and peasant women lead, by their halters, little burros loaded with jars and pans. ”

“ Cæsar asked Kennedy.
“No, I think not,” answered Kennedy. “It seems that this Hungarian’s speciality is playing the waltzes and folk-songs of his own country, which is certainly not anything great; but his successes are not obtained with the violin, but among the women. The ladies in London fight for him. His game is to pass himself off as a fallen man, depraved, worn-out. There you have his phraseology.... They see a man to save, to raise up, and convert into a great artist, and almost all of them yield to this temptation.” ”

“ Traditional morality is a pragmatism, useful and efficacious for social life, for well-ordered life; but at the bottom, without reality. Summing all this up: first, life is a labyrinth which has no Ariadne’s thread but one,—action; secondly, man is upheld in his high qualities by force and struggle. Those are my conclusions.”
“Clever devil! I don’t know what to say to you.”
Alzugaray asserted that, without taking it upon him to say whether his friend’s ideas were good or bad, they had no practical value; but Cæsar insisted once and many times on the advantages he saw in his metaphysics. ”

“ Then the lawyer with the black beard arose and began to orate.
He spoke slowly and with great solemnity.
“This meeting shows,” he said in a strong and sonorous voice, “your enthusiasm and your loyalty for the good cause. Never, never will we permit outsiders devoid of religion and patriotism to upset the existence of our beloved city.” (Applause.) “We will defend our venerated traditions by all the means in our power; we will not permit the hydra of anarchy to rise up in Castro; and if it should arise to attack our holy principles, we shall crush it under our heels.” ”

“ Cæsar explained to Alzugaray the difficulties he had had to overcome in order that the Workmen’s Club could be reinstituted, and went on detailing his projects for the future.
“Do you believe the town is going to be transformed?” asked Alzugaray.
“Yes, certainly!” said Cæsar, staring at his friend.
“So then, you, a Darwinist who hold it as a scientific doctrine that only the slow action of environment can transform species and individuals, believe that a poor worn-out, jog-trotting race is going to revive suddenly, in a few years! Can a Darwinist believe in a revolutionizing miracle?” ”

“ He had the appearance of a superior workman, an electrician, carver, or something of the sort.
“If people find out you behave so extravagantly, they will think you are crazy,” said Alzugaray.
“Pshaw! Nobody comes here,” replied Cæsar. “The political world and this are separate worlds. This one belongs to the people who have to shoulder the load of everything, and the other is a world of villains, robbers, idiots, and fools. Really, it is difficult to find anything so vile, so inept, and so useless as a Spanish politician. The Spanish middle class is a warren of rogues and villains. ”

“ Laura presented Cæsar and the Abbé Preciozi to the Countess Brenda and to a lady who had just arrived from Malta.
“Did you know Rome before?” the Countess asked Cæsar in French.
“No.”
“And how does it strike you?”
“My opinion is of no value,” said Cæsar. “I am not an artist. Imagine; my specialty is financial questions. Up to the present what has given me the greatest shock is to find that Rome has walls.” ”