him with some energy.
For a long time their voices could be heard alternately even in the distant room where the birds were singing. María and her brother paused in their conversation to listen to the parliamentary muttering that reached them from the study.
“Those tiresome birds do not allow us to hear a single word,” said the young man. “Listen María, papa and your lord and master are disputing over something. What a waste of time!”
“Be quiet, you little plagues,” said María impatiently to the birds and she tried to hear what was going on. Presently the curtain over the door was hastily jerked open and revealed the pointed horns of the marquis’ moustache and his face, in which solemnity was now tempered by affability as though nature had intended it as a living symbol of the eternal and supreme duplicity of the human species.
“Well, you know,” he said in a bitter-sweet tone between grave and gay. “I am a hypocrite, and tact is my profession.... Your amiable wife has told me so in so many words.... A humbug, a hypocrite—yes, that is what she calls me....” And he kissed his daughter. “Do you know I really think Leon is a little weak in his mind,” he went on. “It is a pity, for he is such a clever fellow.... Oh! those dreadful birds will not let one speak.”
“Be quiet you little torments,” said María.
What a wonderful interest they take in the affairs and disputes of their masters; between the sentences of the conversation their shrill notes try to drown the differences of humanity in a flood of rapture.
The party sat talking for some time longer, but the birds prevented their being overheard, and the reader must have patience till the birds have ceased singing.
CHAPTER XI.
LEOPOLDO.
One morning when Leon Roch was sitting at work in his study he was suddenly interrupted; raising his eyes and looking in the large mirror that hung over the chimney opposite to him, he saw a lean, tall figure surmounted by a death’s-head, on which the grave seemed to have spared little but the skin; eyes that looked starting from their sockets, like those of a delirious creature; a long, thin neck, all red and scarred; a nose, also purple, finely-cut, though its extreme sharpness gave it the aspect of a beak and lent the face a bird-like expression; a meagre crop of yellow hairs that straggled round the cheeks and chin, forming a narrow line that irresistibly recalled the band tied round the face of a dead man; a low forehead, on which his hat had stamped a livid line, like a streak of blood; a flat head with the red hair parted into two elegant wings; a face in short which seemed the transfiguration or parody of a handsome countenance, the caricature of the family type; and at the same time he saw a man with his hands in his pockets, feet like a woman’s of which the toes were scarcely visible below the loose trousers that covered them, and a body devoid of roundness, of modelling or of grace, like a lay figure made to wear a coat. His dress was a morning suit, striped from head to foot, with an elegantly-knotted cravat; a stick that he held in one hand stuck out on a level with his pocket-hole, and a gorgeous flower blazed in his breast like the blood-stained handle of an assassin’s knife. As he caught sight of this personage Leon exclaimed with frank good-nature:
“Ah! Polito, sit down.... What brought you here?”
The young man let himself sink into an arm-chair and stretched his legs with demonstrations of fatigue. He spoke, and his voice, which one would have expected to be thin and effeminate, was hoarse and rasping, a sort of articulate cough or choke, like those voices which, in the lowest social grade, are formed by crying out wares in the streets, and which grow harsh under the influence of the morning air and the nightly dram. After making some brief remark he paused to put a lozenge or pill into his mouth.
“I cannot do without my tar,” he said, “not for an instant.—The moment I stop it I feel as if I were choking.—And what are you doing, Leon? Always at your books? How I envy you your peaceful life!—No, thanks, I dare not smoke, it is quite forbidden. We must try to conquer these epileptic attacks, just now I am very well. I am going to Seville do you know? All the fellows are going away and I cannot stay here; we are a party of four: Manolo Grandezas, the Count, Higadillos and I. Higadillos means to do bull-fighting during the three days of Easter—Why do not you do something! María would like immensely to see the fêtes.”
“If she wishes to go I am quite ready to take her.”
“She does not wish to go, and that is the fact,” said the hoarse-voiced youth. “By-the-bye, my dear Leon, I hear people say that you and she are very unhappy, that you do not get on together in the least, and that your infidelity is a constant torment to my poor sister. I, of course, laugh at such nonsense. ‘I tell you he is the best soul living, a thorough gentleman as you will find.’ That is what I answer, and by Jove, you know I do not say a thing unless I mean it. Last night the Rosafrías were saying that they could not imagine—What simpletons!—They could not imagine how my sister could have married you. ‘But, ladies, be reasonable,’ said I, ‘consider....’ It was of no use, they were utterly out of humour. I heard one lady whom we all know—I give no names—I heard her say in so many words: ‘I would rather see my daughter in her grave than married to a man like that....’ Of course you had plenty of defenders, even of the fair sex—‘Oh! but he is so clever, such a gentleman!’ But she cast you off by word and gesture.... ‘There are things that are impossible, quite impossible,’ said she. At last, I really did not dare put in a word for you. What I advise, by Jove, is that you should cease to go to certain houses; you will only expose yourself to insult or to a snubbing. There is that little Señora Borellano who speaks of you as the bête noire, still, she allows that you are very attractive. Pepe Fontán said a sharp thing apropos of that woman’s aversion for you. ‘It is all vexation,’ she said, ‘because Leon is the only man she knows who never made love to her.’ You know she has had an admirer at her heels for this year past, and Cimarra says she cannot conceal her age. Poor Federico! They say he has quarrelled with his wife and his father-in-law—he forged some letters it would seem. I suppose they will send him to Havana. What is the time? Eleven! And María is not home from church? You must allow that it is rather too much of a good thing. Oh! I know; she and my mother will have staid to chat with Padre Paoletti—an Italian dyed black, as dark as a negro! By Jove! if I were married I would not be henpecked, I know. My wife should go my way or I would know the reason why. María is as good as gold; but when she has got a thing into her head!—You may not believe it but I myself have spoken to her roundly before now for her nonsense.—Why, my dear fellow, it is intolerable to have a wife who is perpetually at you with her one tune: ‘Go and confess: go to communion: go to Mass.’ By Jove! it is enough to make you go and shoot yourself! Since you leave her free to go her own way she ought to know better. You are wrong to take such folly so much to heart. Look here: I should never forbid my wife attending four hundred and twenty-six Masses a day and undergoing penance from every confessor; but by setting a limit to her spending my money on processions I would soon cure her of her fancy. If she tried to talk to me about religious matters I should say to her: ‘Very good, my child, just as you please; I quite agree to all you say.’ In short, we should never quarrel over a dogma more or less; and meanwhile, my dear Leon, I should amuse myself to the top of my bent. Why, my good fellow, on your plan we should go to the devil without having any fun first; there can be no greater folly! You bury yourself among your books in this world, to be damned in the next. For that is what you will come to as well as I, we are all in the same boat!” And he laughed as loudly as his short breath would allow.
Then, rising from his seat, and leaning on the table with both hands, as though his body could not remain upright without support, he went on:
“Do
