Maximina Part 24

"No, you aren't graceful either!" exclaimed the _chula_, laughing.

"Well, I am beginning to get into your good graces, if I am not graceful."

"That's so."

After they had got deeply interested in conversation, suddenly heavy and clattering steps were heard in the back shop, and a man, or, more accurately speaking, a one-eyed giant, appeared at the rear door in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, in gray woollen trousers, a red belt, and a flat Biscayan cap; his face was as ugly and frightful as that of his ancestors, the Cyclops.

After casting a grim look around the room, without seeing Enrique, or apparently not seeing him, he uttered several grunts, staggered toward the counter, and fixing his vitreous, angry eye on the polished silk hat which the lieutenant had laid on it, he picked it up gingerly in his monstrous hands, examined it curiously, like a naturalist who has just stumbled upon some new zoophyte, while something that tried to be a smile, but succeeded in being only a horrible grimace, vexed his thick, livid lips.

"Oj, oj, oj.... Trrr, trrr, trr.... Is there a marquis in my shop? blast him!"

And he flung another glance around the room without having any objective point for it, as though there were no living beings in it.

Then, with perfect calmness and care, as though he were performing one of the most delicate operations of art, he crushed the hat between his hands until he had made it as flat as a pancake; and having done this, he flung it through the door into the middle of the street with no less delicacy and care.

Enrique suddenly grew as red as a pepper; then instantly turned pale; he leaped hastily from his seat like a new David, full of the impulse to meet the Goliath in battle; but Manolita restrained him, making no end of expressive signs going to show that the giant was not at heart a stern man. Then Enrique left the shop, a very disgusted man.

"Father, the hat belonged to this gent, and he was a customer."

"Hold your tongue, you! Do you understand?"

And in order to reinforce the significance of his wish, he gave the girl a slap.

But Enrique heard neither the daughter's amiable explanation nor the father's gentle reply; all he thought of was to straighten out and arrange his hat.

"Catch me coming to this pigsty of a shop again!" he exclaimed, furiously clapping his hat on his head, and sweeping like the north wind up the street in search of a hatter.

X.

In fact, he did not return ... until the next day; but he went dressed _de corto_, that is to say, in short jacket, tight pantaloons, and sombrero.

"See here, senorito, are you going to the slaughterhouse to skin something?" asked Manolita, as soon as she saw him in that rig.

And then began their skirmish of love-making; he making use of all the honied words at his command, she replying to each loving phrase with a proud, tierce parry.

Enrique was not foiled by that, and he was right. By the example of her young girl friends and companions, and by her rude training, the _chula_ was armed with a tough bark full of thorns; but G.o.d knew well, and Enrique likewise knew, that at heart she was a poor girl, good, industrious, long-suffering, ignorant as a fish, and more innocent in certain respects than might have been supposed from her speech and behavior.

She had lost her mother about two years before; her sister had married a farmer, and lived out toward Las Vistillas. She herself lived with her father, who was a Vizcano,[31] who had been established in Madrid for many years in a little house with two rooms facing the corral where the cows were kept.

She was a genuine Madrilena to the extent of never having even set foot on a railway train, or having in her walks gone farther than Carabanchel.

The Vizcano, since the death of his wife, who had exercised a restraining influence upon him, had been taking more and more desperately to drinking habits, and treated his daughter very brutally.

But even in her mother's lifetime she had become so accustomed to cruel treatment that it had never once occurred to her that she was living a very unhappy life; and when one day Enrique spoke of it in that way, after one of those barbarous deeds which the dairyman frequently committed, she looked at him in surprise and said, 'yes, that he was right, that she was very miserable'; but her tone seemed to say, "Man alive! don't you know that it isn't my fault?"

As day after day went by, Enrique, constantly visiting at the "dairy,"

enduring the _freshnesses_, the pus.h.i.+ng, and occasionally even the slaps of this gentlest of _chulas_, when he went beyond the bounds of reason, spent his time very pleasantly in the toils of his love.

At first he had a few unpleasant encounters with the brute of a father; but afterwards they became great friends as soon as the dairyman discovered that the senorito knew a thing or two about bulls, that he had himself taken part in bull-fights, and was a great friend of the most famous _espadas_, to whom the plebeians of Madrid offer fervid wors.h.i.+p.

When he came into the shop drunk, Enrique would take his hat and go, and the other was not in the least offended at him for it; in this way he avoided any collision with him. He spent not less than two hours every afternoon talking with Manolita; in the evening, after the shop was closed, he escorted her to the cafes to collect for the milk that they had used during the day; he would wait for her at the door while she settled her accounts with the proprietor.

As the _chula_ had her suitors, and they belonged to the "common people," and were jealous of a senorito paying attentions to her, our lieutenant was sometimes threatened, and even attacked; but we know that in his character of _bulldog_, he was most fierce and obstinate; he could defend himself so well with his iron cane, which he always took with him, that Manolita was perfectly tranquil about him, though she would bravely come to his aid and give his aggressors a few raps, as destructive as they were well directed.

What were Enrique's intentions when he first began this flirtation? They could not have been more perverse and insidious: he expected to ruin the _chula_ and afterwards back out of it, but after he had known her a month Manolita had him a prisoner at her feet, as tame and obedient as a mountebank's dog, and this (let us say it to his credit, since we have said unkind things of him) because he had a n.o.ble heart and felt sorry for the poor girl's fate, so sorry, indeed, that he made up his mind to marry her.

He spent several days pondering over this resolution, and then took courage to open his heart to his mother.

Dona Martina was annoyed beyond measure, all the more from remembering her own former position as laundress; but as she was a woman of excessive meekness, and Enrique was like the apple of her eye, she quickly took his part, although she could not bring herself to speak to her husband about it, since she knew his temper, and was perfectly a.s.sured that he would tear things in pieces rather than consent to such a match.

Finally the lieutenant, not having the courage to speak to his father, determined to write to him, and leave the letter on his table.

Don Bernardo did not answer, nor did he show the slightest sign of having received it; after a few days Enrique left another on the same spot with the same result.

The only sign that he could see was in his father's face: generally clouded, it was now more gloomy than ever. Then, after imploring his brothers, Vincente and Carlos to take his part, and after receiving from them a flat refusal, he went to ask a similar favor of his cousin Miguel, with whom he always kept on the most intimate terms of friends.h.i.+p.

"Fine recommendation mine would be!" replied Miguel. "If you want your father to kick you out of the house you could not find a better way."

"Don't you believe it; my father is fond of you--much more than he ever gives you reason to believe. That is the way with him ... stern in appearance ... but very affectionate at heart."

Miguel smiled, feeling respect for that judgment of a good son, and still he continued to decline the office; but Enrique insisted so strenuously, and with such fervent words, almost with tears in his eyes, that at last, though not with very good grace, Miguel consented to call upon his uncle and talk over the matter with him.

On the day set for the visit Enrique was waiting for him, walking up and down the corridor in a state of agitation easy to understand. When the door-bell rang he was the one that opened it.

"How pale you are, my friend!" exclaimed Miguel.

"My heart beats worse than if I were going to fight."

"Poor Enrique! Make up your mind that even if my meddling turns out ill, as I predict it will, you will not hesitate a moment to hang yourself on the beautiful tree that you have chosen!"

"See here, I can't wait for you in the house. My head is like a furnace; I must have some fresh air.... I will wait for you at the Imperial."

Before going to his uncle's room Miguel went straight to Vincente's, who was still master of ceremonies for the family.

Vincente received him with the affable gravity characteristic of him, and was amiable enough to give him a circ.u.mstantial and entertaining account of how the pipe that brought water to his wash-basin had, for a number of days, been afflicted with a small break, which had made it leak so that it had almost ruined a tapestry of the Catholic kings; but fortunately it had been discovered in time, and after a long search they had succeeded in finding the wretched leak.

Then he told him another story, no less interesting, about a curious system of bells which he had invented for communicating with the servants and the coachman. Finally, the oldest son of the Senores de Rivera, manifesting a generosity which was as honorable to him as to his cousin, brought from a closet a small ivory triptich, which he had recently bought at El Rastro. It was an exquisite work, a real jewel, as its owner declared, although somewhat the worse for wear. After both of them had looked at it and admired it, Vincente, as he was returning it to its place, and trying not to burst out laughing, said:--

"And do you know what Senor de Aguilar would be willing to give me for this triptich?"

"I haven't the slightest idea."

"Just imagine, Miguel!... a Trajan! Think of it! he wanted to take me in with a Trajan."

And Vincente, unable longer to contain himself, laughed till the tears ran.