Don Pablo

“ Don Pablo did as he was bid, and readily distinguished a group of his acquaintances, with Don Froilan in their midst, standing at the barber’s door, lighting their cigars4. [102]
“How now, Don Froilan!” exclaimed Don Lupercio; “a ball at your own house in honour of your sister’s wedding, and you out here!”
(“Ah, poor fellow!” said Don Pablo to himself, “he won’t countenance his sister’s fickleness. He was always a great friend of mine.”)
“Why, to tell you the truth,” replied Don Froilan, “the first part of a ball is always dull work. I have set them going, and I’m off to the opera. ”

“ Don Pablo rose.
"Why feign longer? Since I cannot induce you to give up your plan, Ellen, the explanation you ask of me is needless. Do you believe," he went on, as he walked in great agitation up and down the jacal, "that I have not already regarded the strange position in which we find ourselves from every side? Fatality has impelled us toward each other by one of those accidents which human wisdom cannot foresee. ”

“ Don Pablo Zarate, the hacendero's son, was a powerfully built man, with harshly marked features, and a haughty glance, although at times it was imprinted with gentleness and kindness. Endowed with more than ordinary strength, skilled in all bodily exercises, Don Pablo was renowned through the whole country for his talent in taming the most spirited horses, and the correctness of his aim when on the chase. A determined hunter and daring wood ranger, this young man, when he had a good horse between his legs, and his rifle in his hand, knew none, man or animal, capable of barring his passage. ”

“ The vaquero, even in his remote mountain-home, had heard of Don Pablo, knew that he was a good patriot and friend of the Indians, and he would therefore have risked his life to serve such a man—for no people have proved more devoted to the friends of their race than these simple and faithful Indians of the Andes. ”

“ Certainly (thought old Don Miguel) life could hold no problems for one of Pablo's race thus pleasantly situated.
Coming upon Pablo this morning, as the latter sat in his favorite seat under the catalpa tree just outside the wall of the ancient adobe compound, where he could command a view of the white wagon-road winding down the valley of the San Gregorio, Don Miguel decided to question his ancient retainer.
"My good Pablo," he queried, "what has come over thee of late? Thou art of a mien as sorrowful as that of a sick steer. Can it be that thy stomach refuses longer to digest thy food? ”

“ He then told Pablo what had taken place. "You see, Pablo, I dare not send to the intendant to-night, in case the robbers should come here."
"No, not send to-night," said Pablo; "stay here and fight them; first make door fast, then cut hole to fire through."
"Yes, that was my idea. You don't mind fighting them, Pablo?"
"No; fight hard for Missy Alice and Missy Edith," said Pablo; "fight for you too, Massa Humphrey, and fight for myself," added Pablo, laughing. ”

“ Both sat down upon the trunk of a dead tree that Guapo had felled, and was cutting up for firewood: not that it was at all cold, but they had now arrived in the country of the terrible jaguar, and it would be necessary to keep up a blazing fire throughout the night.
“Your words were true, love,” began Don Pablo. “God has not forsaken us. I have seen three things that have inspired me with fresh life and hope. ”

“ Before the table was seated a tall, lean man, with ascetic features, and ambiguous, deceitful eyes. This was Don Justo Vallejos, Secretary of Don Pablo; for, as he had given himself the luxury of a chaplain, this worthy colonel no doubt had felt all the greater need of attaching a secretary to his person.
A cabo or corporal stood near the door, and filled; the functions of doorkeeper, introducing the visitors.
"At last!" cried Don Pablo, perceiving the Frenchman; "I began to fear that you would not come." ”

“ The characters of the story, which seems rather to tell itself than to be told, are all such as were the common property of the comic writers of the period, but scarcely anywhere else are they found invested with so much of the breath of life. Don Pablo himself, his companions, his fellow-students, the crazy old poet, the villainous jailer, the braggart espadachins, the poor hidalgo, the strolling players, the beggars, the gay ladies, the jail-birds, bullies, and thieves—every member of that unclean company, with all their unsavoury surroundings, is a real, living personage. ”

“ But Don Pablo hastily seized his arm.
"Valentine," he said, "what are you about, my friend?"
"It is true," the hunter replied; "when so near death, I will not dishonour myself by killing this wretch."
"Well done, brother," Don Pablo said, as he gave a glance of scorn to the Gazelle, who implored him in vain; men like us do not assassinate women. "Let us leave her and sell our lives dearly."
"Nonsense; death, perhaps, is not so near as you may fancy ”

“ From the draw where Don Miguel lay no sound came forth. Pablo tried hard to erase from his mind a vision of what he would find when, his primal duty of vengeance, swift and complete, accomplished, he should go down into that draw. His tear-dimmed, bloodshot eyes searched the valley—ah, what was that? A cow, a deer or a man? Surely something had moved in the brush at the edge of the river wash.
Pablo rubbed the moisture from his eyes and looked again. A man was crossing the wash on foot and he carried a rifle. ”

“ In chapter viii., when on the road to Torrejon, Don Pablo comes up with a crazy man mounted on a mule, who proves to be a master of the art of fencing, with several extravagant projects in his brain for the good of the kingdom. ”

“ Since their arrival here at Casa-Frama, you cannot deny that they have been treated with the greatest attention and respect. Of what do they complain?"
"They complain of being exposed to misplaced and almost dishonouring attentions on your part; moreover, they say with reason that, far from giving them that liberty that you had engaged to give them, you sequester them, and treat them as if they were your captives."
Don Pablo shrugged his shoulders with disdain.
"The women are all alike," said he, with irony; "nothing will satisfy them. ”

“ Among the works of Quevedo, that which, perhaps, is most characteristic of his genius, and most valuable as a picture of contemporary life and manners, is Don Pablo de Segovia, here presented in an English dress, and, as we venture to believe, in a most appropriate and harmonious setting, through the art of M. Vierge. Don Pablo de Segovia, otherwise known as El Gran Tacaño (The Great Sharper) , is a prime sample of that species of romance which was native of the soil of Spain—there first engendered at least, and flourishing nowhere else in the same vigour and luxuriance—the picaresque novel. ”

“ From beginning to end Don Pablo’s career is one of undisguised trickery, dissimulation, and lying. All his companions are thieves, or impostors, or rogues, patent or undetected. The scenes are laid almost entirely in the lowest places—in the slums of Segovia, of Madrid, and of Seville, mostly in prison or in some refuge from the law. The manners of the people, men and women, are as repulsive as their morals ”

“ You will wonder that one apparently so rich, and on so distant a journey, was not provided with animals enough to carry his whole party. Another horse at least, or a mule, might have been expected in the cavalcade. It would not have been strange had Guapo only walked—as he was the arriero, or driver, of the llamas—but to see Don Pablo afoot and evidently tired, with neither horse nor mule to ride upon, was something that required explanation. ”

“ Don Pablo replied, shaking his head gloomily: "but our position is truly desperate, my friend."
"A man can only die once, after all," the hunter remarked philosophically, as he threw his rifle over his shoulder ”

“ Two Indian women had been attached by the partisan to the service of the ladies, apparently as servants, but in reality to watch them and render him an account, of what they said and did; for, notwithstanding all the denials of Don Pablo, the marchioness and her daughter, although treated with the greatest respect, were really prisoners—which they had not been long in perceiving. ”

“ A certain wealthy Cuban planter, whom I will call Don Pablo, once suspected an old negro in his service of being an Obi man. He had but recently returned to his estates, from a long sojourn in Europe, and was determined to suppress, so far as in him lay, the diabolical ceremonies which, his overseer assured him, were frequently performed by certain of the negroes on his plantation, who had thus acquired a vast influence over their fellows. One night, Don Pablo followed his overseer into the forest, and reached a deserted hut, evidently used as a fetish temple, just as the rites began. ”

“ Disfigured as it is by all Quevedo’s faults of style and manner, Don Pablo deserves to be rescued from the fate to which its faults of language, rather than its defects of taste or its failure in the moral part, have hitherto consigned it, at least in England. As a picture of low, vagabond life, it necessarily deals with vice, but it cannot be said that the vice is rendered attractive. All the characters are bad, in the sense that they all belong to the class who have failed to achieve a decent life. ”

“ Looking around him, Don Pablo assured himself that his wishes had been attended to, and that his officers had assumed an attitude more becoming than that they had previously taken, and then, turning towards the corporal, motionless at the door, on the lock of which his hand was placed—
"Cabo Mendez," said he, "introduce to us the representatives of his Catholic Majesty the King of Spain and the Indies." ”

“ The troop of Pitubas who had burned the Ribote house made one or two forays into the Gaspar country, to burn the houses of other prominent Whites. Word came that afternoon that they were coming to burn this particular ranch. That old ruffian, Don Pablo, who would not let me go to Anselmo, ordered the people to vacate the ranch, and to join his body, which (he said) would then attack the Pitubas. They hurried the women away to safety; then, as they rode out to join Don Pablo, someone in a panic fired a shot, and everybody began to blaze away at nothing. ”

“ Two years has Don Mike been with the soldiers. Is it not time that he returned to us?"
Don Miguel's aristocratic old face softened.
"So that is what disturbs thee, my Pablo?"
Pablo nodded miserably, seated himself, and resumed his task of fashioning the hondo of a new rawhide riata.
"It is a very dry year," he complained. "Never before have I seen December arrive ere the grass in the San Gregorio was green with the October rains. Everything is burned; the streams and the springs have dried up, and for a month I have listened to hear the quail call on the hillside yonder. ”

“ I go."
"If he hadn't called Pablo a liar," Don Mike murmured plaintively, "I should have permitted him to march out with the honors of war. As the matter stands now, however, I invite all of you to listen attentively. In a few minutes you're going to hear something that will remind you of the distant whine of a sawmill. After all, Pablo is a poor old fellow who lives a singularly humdrum existence."
"Ah, yes; let the poor fellow have his simple little pleasures," Mrs. Parker pleaded. "'All work and no play'—you know, Don Miguel." ”

“ NOT more unquestioned is Cervantes’ claim to be the first of Spanish humorists than that of Quevedo to be the second. Among his own countrymen the title, which is generally the more disputable, has been by a singular consensus of opinion assigned to Quevedo. The author of Don Quixote apart, who is with the Immortals, there is no greater name among the writers of Spain than that of the author of The Visions, of Don Pablo, of innumerable poems, pamphlets, satires, pieces of wit, and works serious, moral, sportive, and fanciful. ”

“ Sulkily Pablo turned away. What could one do with a madman who insisted on throwing his life away? The young Mexican was not a savage, though the barbaric strain in his wild lawless blood was still strong. He did not relish the business of killing in cold blood even the man he hated.
"If you kill me you'll hang," went on Gordon composedly. "You'll never get away with it. Your own friends will swear your neck into a noose. Your partner Sebastian—you'll excuse me if I appear familiar, but I don't know the gentleman's other name—will turn State's evidence to try to save his own neck. ”

“ But Pablo was a peon. From somewhere on his person, he produced a dirk and slashed vigorously. Okada evaded the blow, and gave ground.
"Quidado!" Pablo roared, and charged; whereupon the potato baron, evidently impressed with the wisdom of the ancient adage that discretion is the better part of valor, fled before him. Pablo followed, opened the patio gate, and, with his long dirk, motioned the Jap to disappear through it. "The hired man, he don' sleep in the bed of the gente," he declared. "The barn is too good for one Jap. ”

“ He wagged his gray head sorrowfully. "Don Mike will think that, with the years, laziness and ingratitude have descended upon old Pablo. Truly, Satan afflicts me." And he cursed with great depth of feeling—in English.
"Yes, poor boy," old Don Miguel agreed; "he will miss more than the quail-shooting when he returns—if he should return. They sent him to Siberia to fight the Bolsheviki."
"What sort of country is this where Don Mike slays our enemy?" Pablo queried.
"It is always winter there, Pablo. It is inhabited by a wild race of men with much whiskers." ”