Pío Baroja

“ Great and small, illustrious and humble, every individual who gazes into a mirror will always see in the glass the reflection of a pretender.”
“I’m with you,” said Quentin.
“I believe,” declared the Swiss, “that you only look upon the dark side of things.”
“I force myself to see both sides,” responded Escobedo—“the bright as well as the dark. I believe that in every deed, in every man, there is both light and darkness; also that there is almost always one side that is serious and tragic, and another that is mocking and grotesque.”
“And what good does that do you?” asked Don Gil. ”

“ They were evidently reconnoitering the bridge on both sides, for the watchman’s lantern oscillated from left to right, and from right to left.
Quentin crept toward one of the vaulted niches in the middle of the bridge.
“Shall I get in there? They will find that easier than anything else. What shall I do?”
To throw himself into the river was too dangerous. To attack his pursuers was absurd.
As if to add to his misfortunes, the moon was coming from behind the cloud that had hidden it, and was shedding its light over the bridge. Quentin climbed into the niche. ”

“ The Frenchwoman smiled, and her husband said:
“Weren’t you afraid?”
“Afraid of which?—The bulls, or my sweetheart?”
“Of both!” exclaimed the Frenchman, laughing heartily.
“What a simpleton!” reiterated the countryman, smiling, and looking at him as he would at a child.
“All you have to do with women and bulls to understand them,” said Quentin, with the air of a consummate connoisseur, “is to know them. If the bull attacks you on the right, just step to the left, or vice versa.”
“And if you don’t have time to do that?” questioned the Frenchman rather anxiously. ”

“ Quentin mounted to the main floor and knocked several times: the door was opened to him, and he entered.
“Here I am!” he shouted, as he traversed a dark corridor. A door was heard to open, and the boy felt himself hugged and kissed again and again.
“Quentin!”
“Mother! But I can’t see you in all this darkness.”
“Come”—and his mother, with her arms about him, led him into a room. Bringing him to the light of a balcony window, she exclaimed: “How tall you are, my son! How tall, and how strong!” ”

“ In the plazoletas, white houses with green blinds, with their eaves shaded by tracings of blue paint, their intersecting angles twisted, and splashed with lime, sparkled and shone. And from the side of one of these sunbaked plazas, there started a narrow, damp, and sinuous alley, full of violet shadows.
Sometimes Quentin paused before sumptuous façades of old manorial houses. At the furthest end of the broad entrance, the wrought-iron flowers of the grating stood out against the brilliant clarity of a resplendent [27] patio. ”

“ I have all sorts of humility and all sorts of arrogance within me. For example, if you were to say to me tomorrow: ‘By selling all the inhabitants of Cordova into slavery, you can make a fortune,’ I would sell them.”
“A lie!” replied the Countess. “You would not sell them.”
“No, I would not sell them if you told me not to.”
“Really, now!”
“Do you know what I used to think of doing when I was in England?” said Quentin.
“What?” asked Pacheco.
“Of putting up a money box. You must have seen one of them in Madrid, I think in the Calle del Fuencarral; people throw lots of money into it. ”

“ Don Paco, who had come in to take coffee, surprised him in this caviling. The man was oozing joy. The Revolution was made, the most glorious, the most humane that the centuries had ever witnessed. The entire world, the French, the English, the Swiss, the Germans;—all envied the Spaniards. Spain was going to be a different sort of country. Now, now, the great conquests of Progress and Democracy would be realized: Universal Suffrage, Freedom of Worship, Freedom of Association.
“And do you believe that all that will make life any better?” asked Quentin coldly. ”

“ No one works.”
“Don’t say that, father.”
“What your father says, is right,” continued Quentin “and not only is that true, but the activity of the few who do work, annoys and often offends those who do nothing. For instance: I, who have done nothing so far but live like a rowdy, have friends and even admirers. If I had devoted myself to work, everybody would look upon me as a good-for-nothing, and from time to time, secretly, they would place a stone in my way for me to stumble over.”
“No, it would not be a stone,” said Springer, “it would be a grain of sand.” ”

“ It is because man idealizes all distant objects.
Quentin, dominated by his half-dolorous, half-grotesque impressions, returned slowly to the town.
When he reached the Paseo de la Victoria, night had already fallen. The line of carriages was still filing past. The mountain was wrapped in a mist; the sun was sinking over the distant meadows, its great, red disk hiding itself behind the yellow fields; a bluish hill surmounted by a castle stood out in silhouette against the rosy-tinted horizon. ”

“ Palomares had been drinking, and with the excitement of the alcohol, he exposed the very depths of his soul.
“You are terrible,” said Quentin.
“You think I’m a coward! No; I have a wife and three small children ... and I’m already decrepit.... Believe me, we should unite against them, and wish them death. Yes sir! Here’s what I say: the coachman should overturn his master’s carriage, the labourer should burn the crops, the shepherd should drive his flock over a precipice, the clerk should rob his employer—even the wet nurses should poison their milk.” ”

“ This place is dead,” replied Quentin. [326]
“No, no—not that,” replied the younger Springer. “It isn’t dead; Cordova is merely asleep. All the kings have punished it. Its natural, its own civilization has been suppressed, and they have endeavoured to substitute another for it. And even to think that a town can go on living prosperously with ideas contrary to its own, and under laws contrary to its customs and instincts, is an outrage.”
“My dear lad,” rejoined Quentin rather cynically, “I don’t care about the cause for it all. What I know is that one cannot live here.” ”

“ Quentin seated himself and began to talk on different subjects.
“When are you going to marry?” Quentin suddenly asked her.
“How do I know?” replied Remedios.
“Rafaela told me that you have refused many suitors.”
“You see, they want me to marry a man,” she replied, “because he has money or a title. But I don’t wish to. It makes no difference to me whether he is rich or poor; what I want is for him to be good, for him to have a blind trust in me, as I shall have in him.”
“And what do you call being good?” asked Quentin. ”

“ Salvador, the proprietor of this silversmith’s shop, was a wealthy bachelor who had lived with a sister for many years before her death.
At the time of my story, Don Andrés, as the silversmith was called, was a man of some sixty years, small, clean-shaven, with white hair, rosy cheeks, clear eyes, and smiling lips. He resembled a silver medal.
With all his sweet, beatific countenance, Don Andrés was at heart, an egoist. Possessing little intelligence and less courage, life made a coward of him. He had an idea that things advanced too rapidly, and was, therefore, an enemy to all innovations. ”

“ The other day, pointing to the bottle, she called to her mother from her bed: ‘Mother, bring me that what’s-its-name.’... So you see, for that class of people, language is not language—it is nothing.”
“Doesn’t that indicate inventive genius?” asked the Swiss.
“But what do I want of inventive genius, Springer?” exclaimed Quentin loudly. “Why, a woman doesn’t need inventive genius! All she needs is to be pretty and submissive, and nothing else....”
“You are tremendous,” said the Swiss. “So that for you, a woman’s intelligence is of no account?” ”

“ He leaned over the railing on the river bank. The Guadalquivir was muddy, clay-coloured: some fishermen in black boats were casting their nets near the Martos dam and mill: others, with poles, perched upon the rocks of the Murallón, were patiently waiting for the shad to bite.
Quentin returned to the Calle del Sol disgusted with his weakness, but as soon as he reached the house, his energy again disappeared. Fortunately for him, the man who had opened the gate for him a few days before was seated on a stone bench in the vestibule. ”

“ And she liked you, believe me; but as you were not a marquis, or a duke, but a poor son of a shop-keeper, she would have nothing to do with you.”
Quentin felt deeply mortified by the phrase, and fell silent. Presently she burst into gracious laughter.
“What are you laughing at?” said Quentin, piqued.
“With all your boasting, you are worth less than I am: all your cravings are for things that are not worth while. I don’t mind it in the least when they call me La Aceitunera, but you, on the other hand, are utterly cast down because I called you the son of a shop-keeper.” ”

“ While Juan worked, Quentin turned his ambitious projects over and over in his mind.
“What a superb stroke!” he was thinking. “To marry the girl, and save the property! That surely would be killing two birds with one stone. To have money, and at the same time, pass for a romantic chap! That would be admirable.”
“Here come the young ladies,” said Juan suddenly, looking down the corridor.
Sure enough; Rafaela and Remedios, accompanied by the tall, dried-up servant, appeared in the garden. The two girls were prettier than ever in their mantillas and black dresses. ”

“ The bandit!” exclaimed Quentin, striking the table a blow with his fist.
“Who is a scoundrel?” asked Señor Sabadía in surprise.
“That Mojoso fellow, the dirty thief ... his daughter dishonoured him because she loved a man, yet he did not dishonour himself, though he robbed every one that came along.”
“That’s different.”
“Yes, it’s different,” cried Quentin furiously. “To the hidalgos of Spain it is a different matter; to all those commonplace and thoughtless men, a woman’s honour is beneath contempt. ”

“ His reputation as a gambler, a dare-devil, and a rude and powerful man, made it possible for him to have his little successes with the ladies, and more than one of them looked at him with the long, staring, and penetrating glance of a woman not altogether understood by her husband.
As was customary on fiesta days, the carriages were driven to and fro along the Paseo, and among them rode several horsemen on spirited mounts. In one of his turns, Quentin saw Rafaela and Remedios alone in a carriage. ”

“ He walked rapidly toward Las Tendillas, where he found great excitement, and heard all sorts of comments and gossip. He asked a man where Pacheco was.
“He’s near the Plaza de la Trinidad now.”
Quentin ran on, opening a path through the crowd with his elbows.
“The man is an idiot,” he thought. “Could he have imagined that he was really going to head the Revolution?”
After a hard struggle, Quentin could see two horsemen riding at the head of the rabble. One of them was Pacheco; the other was his brother.
“Long live Liberty! Long live the Revolution!” shouted the bandit, waving his arm. ”

“ He does what he wants here,” replied the bandit. “You already know what they say in Cordova: ‘Charity in El Potro, Health in the cemetery, and Truth in the fields.’”
“Then we’ll go into the fields to look for it,” said Quentin.
“Not that”—answered Pacheco. “I won’t allow you to lose out; but if you want to give that woman a good scare....”
“Have you thought of some way?”
“Not yet; are you capable of doing something on a large scale?”
“I am capable of anything, comrade.”
“Good. Wait for me until tonight.”
“Very well,” said Quentin. “Will you take these papers to the printer for me?” ”

“ These houses, which were reflected in the surface of the river—a serpent of ever changing colour—were small, grey, and crooked. Upon their walls, which were continuously calcined by the sun, grew dark-coloured ivy; between their garden walls blossomed prickly pears with huge intertwined and pulpy leaves; and from their patios and corrals peeped the cup-shaped tops of cypress trees and the branches of silver-leafed fig trees.
Their roofs were grey, dirty, heaped one above the other; with azoteas, look-outs, and little towers; a growth of hedge mustard converted some of them into green meadows. ”

“ The rain soon ceased, the sun came out, and the whole garden glowed like a red-hot coal; the oranges shone among the damp foliage; the green hedge-mustard spotted the glittering grey roof tiles with its gay note; water poured from the dark, ancient belfry of a near-by tower; and several white gardens smiled upon the mountain side.
“That is a regular gipsy sun,” lisped Remedios, who at times had an exaggerated Andalusian pronunciation.
Quentin laughed; the little girl’s manner of speech amused him immensely.
“Don’t laugh,” said Rafaela to Quentin with mock gravity ”

“ It was the natural course of events; and yet, Quentin wondered at her.
We often see strange birds flying in the heavens. They are like men’s illusions. Sometimes these birds fall, wounded by some hunter, and when one sees them upon the ground with their sad eyes, their white feathers,—they are a surprise to whomsoever contemplates them.... ”