The Resources Of Quinola Part 26

Quinola Resignation seems to me to be the fourth theological virtue omitted from the list out of consideration for women!

Monipodio Hold your tongue! Justice is on your track and you would have been arrested before this if they had not taken you for one of my people.

Sheriff's Officer This is the last lot, gentlemen. Going, going--no further bid? Gone!

It is knocked down to Senor Mathieu Magis for ten ducats, six maravedis.

Lothundiaz (to Don Ramon) What do you think of that? Thus ends the sublime invention of our great man! He was right, by heaven, when he promised us a rare spectacle!

Coppolus You can laugh; he does not owe you anything.

Esteban It is we poor devils who have to pay for his folly.

Lothundiaz Did you get nothing, Master Coppolus? And what of my daughter's diamonds, which the great man's servant put into the machine?

Mathieu Magis Why, they were seized in my house.

Lothundiaz And are not the thieves in the hand of justice? I would like best of all to see Quinola, that cursed pilferer of jewels, in durance.

Quinola (aside) Oh, my young life, what lessons are you receiving! My antecedents have ruined me.

Lothundiaz But if they catch him, his goose will soon be cooked, and I shall have the pleasure of seeing him dangling from the gallows, and giving the benediction with his feet.

Fontanares (to Quinola) Our calamity stirs this dullard's wit.

Quinola You mean his brutality.

Don Ramon I sincerely regret this disaster. This young artisan had at last listened to my advice, and we were on the point of realizing the promises made by him to the king; but he blindly forfeited his opportunity; I mean to ask pardon for him at the court, for I shall tell the king how useful he will be to me.

Coppolus Here is an example of generosity extremely rare in the conduct of one learned man towards another.

Lothundiaz You are an honor to Catalonia!

Fontanares (coming forward) I have endured with tranquillity the agony of seeing a piece of workmans.h.i.+p, which ent.i.tles me to eternal glory, sold as so much old junk--(murmurs among the people). But this pa.s.ses all endurance. Don Ramon, if you have, I do not say understood, but even guessed, at the use of all these fragments of machinery, displaced and scattered as they are, you ought to have bought them even at the sacrifice of your whole fortune.

Don Ramon Young man, I respect your misfortunes; but you know that your apparatus could not possibly go, and that my experience had become necessary to you.

Fontanares The most terrible among all the horrors of dest.i.tution is that it gives ground for calumny and the triumph of fools!

Lothundiaz Is it not disgraceful for a man in your position thus to undertake to insult a philosopher whose reputation is established? Where would I be if I had given you my daughter? You would have led me a fine dance down to beggary; for you have already wasted, for absolutely no purpose, ten thousand sequins! Really this grandee of Spain seems particularly small in his grandeur to-day.

Fontanares You make me pity you.

Lothundiaz That is possible, but you do not make me envy you; your life is at the mercy of the tribunal.

Don Ramon Let him alone; don't you see that he is crazy?

Fontanares Not quite crazy enough, senor, to believe that O plus O is a binomial.

SCENE SECOND

The same persons, Don Fregose, Faustine, Avaloros and Sarpi.

Sarpi We have come too late; the sale is over.

Don Fregose The king will regret the confidence he placed in a charlatan.

Fontanares A charlatan, my lord? In a few days, you may be able to cut my head off; kill me, but don't calumniate me; your position in the state is too high for you to descend so low.

Don Fregose Your audacity equals the extent of your downfall. Are you unaware that the magistrates of Barcelona look upon you as an accomplice of the thief who robbed Lothundiaz? The flight of your servant proves the crime, and the freedom you now enjoy is due to the intercessions of this lady. (Points to Faustine.)

Fontanares My servant, your excellency, might have been in early life a criminal, but since he has followed my fortune he has been an innocent man. I declare, on my honor, that he is guiltless of any such act as theft.

The jewels which were seized at the moment he was engaged in selling them were the free gift of Marie Lothundiaz, from whom I had refused to accept them.

Faustine What pride he shows, even in adversity! Nothing can bend him.

Sarpi And how do you explain the resurrection of your grandfather, the pretended director of the Venetian a.r.s.enal? Unfortunately for you, the senora and myself were acquainted with the actual man.

Fontanares I caused my servant to put on this disguise in order that he might talk science and mathematics with Don Ramon. Senor Lothundiaz will tell you that the philosopher of Catalonia and Quinola perfectly understood each other.

Monipodio (to Quinola) He has ruined himself!

Don Ramon On this subject I appeal to my writings.

Faustine Do not be perturbed, Don Ramon; it is so natural for people of this kind, when they find themselves falling, to drag down other people with them!

Lothundiaz Such a disposition is detestable.

Fontanares Before I die I ought to speak the truth, senora, to those who have flung me into the abyss. (To Don Fregose) My lord, the king promised me the protection of his people at Barcelona, and here I have met with nothing but hatred! Oh, you grandees of the land, you rich, and all who have in your hands power and influence, why is it that you thus throw obstacles in the way of advancing thought? Is it the law of G.o.d that you should persecute and put to shame that which eventually you will be compelled to adore? Had I been pliant, abject and a flatterer, I might have succeeded! In me you have persecuted that which represents all that is n.o.blest in man--His consciousness of his own power, the majesty of his labor, the heavenly inspiration which urges him to put his hand to enterprise, and--love, that spirit of human trust, which rekindles courage when it is on the point of expiring in the storm of mockery. Ah! If the good that you do is done amiss, you are always successful in the accomplishment of what is bad! But why should I proceed?--You are not worthy of my anger.

Faustine (aside) Oh! Another word and I must cry out that I adore him!

Don Fregose Sarpi, tell the police officers to advance and carry off the accomplice of Quinola.

(Applause and cries of "bravo!")

SCENE THIRD

The same persons and Marie Lothundiaz.

(At the moment the police officers seize Fontanares, Marie appears, in the habit of a novice, accompanied by a monk and two sisters.)

Marie Lothundiaz (to the viceroy) My lord, I have just learned that in my desire to save Fontanares from the rage of his enemies I have caused his ruin. But now an opportunity is given me to vindicate the truth, and I beg to declare that I myself put into the hands of Quinola the precious stones and the money I had treasured as my own. (Lothundiaz shows some excitement.) They belonged to me, father, and G.o.d grant that you may not have cause some day to mourn your own blindness.

Quinola (throwing off his cloak) Whew! I breathe freely at last!