"And Primo? And Mendez de las Vides?"
"They are no match for the priest. The day least expected they will be made a show of; they will hang their heads for shame. But you, my boy—think well about it. You are not in love with the law?"
Segundo shrugged his shoulders with a smile.
"Well, turn the matter over in your mind; think what would suit you best. For you must be something; you must stick your head in somewhere. Would you like a justiceship? a place in the post-office? in one of the departments?"
They had turned the corner of the Plaza on their way to García's house and were passing under Leocadia's window when the fragrance of the carnations penetrated to Segundo's brain. He felt a poetic revulsion of feeling and, dilating his nostrils to inhale the perfume, he exclaimed:
"Neither justice nor post-office employee. Say no more on that point, uncle."
"Don't insist, Clodio," said the lawyer bitterly. "He wants to be nothing, nothing but a downright idler, to spend his life scribbling rhymes. Neither more nor less. The money must be handed out for the Institute, the University, the shirt-front, the frock coat, the polished boots, and then, when one thinks they are ready to do for themselves, back they come, to be a burden to one, to smoke and to eat at one's expense. I have three sons to spend my money, to squeeze me dry, and not one to give me any help. That is all these young gentlemen are good for."
Segundo stopped, twisting the end of his mustache, with a frown on his face. They all stood still at the corner of the little plaza, as people are wont to do when a conversation changes to a dispute.
"I don't know what puts that into your head, father," declared the poet. "Do you suppose that I propose to myself never to be anything more than Segundo García, the lawyer's son? If you do, you are greatly mistaken. You may be very anxious to be rid of the burden of supporting me, but you are not half as anxious as I am to relieve you of it."
"Well, then, what are you waiting for? Your uncle is proposing a variety of things to you and none of them suits you. Do you want to begin by being Minister?"
The poet began to twist his mustache anew.
"There is no use in being impatient, father. I would make a very bad post-office clerk and a still worse justice. I don't want to tie myself down to any fixed career, in which everything is arranged beforehand and moves by routine. In that case I should be a lawyer like you or a notary like Uncle Genday. If we really find Don Victoriano disposed to do anything for me, ask some position—no matter what—without fixed duties, that will enable me to reside in Madrid. I will take care of the rest."
"You will take care of the rest. Yes, yes, you say well. You will draw upon me for little sums, eh? like your brother in the Philippine Islands. Let me tell you for your guidance, then, that you needn't do so. I didn't steal what I have, and I don't coin money."
"I am not asking anything from you!" cried Segundo, in a burst of savage anger. "Am I in your way? I will get out of it, then; I will go to America. That ends it."
"No," said the lawyer, calming down. "Provided you exact no more sacrifices from me."
"Not one! not if I were starving!"
The lawyer's door opened; old Aunt Gáspara in her petticoat, looking like a fright, had come to let them in. Tied around her head was a cotton handkerchief which came so far over her face as almost to conceal her sour features. Segundo drew back at this picture of domestic life.
"Aren't you coming in?" asked his father.
"I am going with Uncle Genday."
"Are you coming back soon?"
"Directly."
Walking down the square he communicated his plans to Genday. The latter, a short man, with a fiery temper, signified his approbation by movements quick and restless as those of a lizard. His nephew's ideas were not displeasing to him. His active, scheming mind, the mind of an electoral agent and a clever notary, accepted vast projects more readily than the methodical mind of the lawyer García. Uncle and nephew were much of the same way of thinking as to the best manner of profiting by Don Victoriano's influence; conversing in this way they reached Genday's house, and the servant of the latter—a fresh-looking girl—opened the door for her master with all the flattering obsequiousness of a confirmed old bachelor's maid-servant. Instead of returning home Segundo, preoccupied and excited, walked down the plaza to the highroad, stopped at the first clump of chestnut trees he came to, and seating himself on the step of a wooden cross which the Jesuits had erected there during the last mission, gave himself up to the harmless diversion of contemplating the evening star, the constellations, and all the splendors of the heavenly bodies.
IV.
During the tiresome siestas of Vilamorta, while the visitors to the springs digested their glasses of mineral water and compensated themselves for the loss of their morning sleep by a restorative nap, the amateur musicians of the popular band practiced by themselves the pieces they were shortly to execute together. From the shoemaker's shop came the melancholy notes of a flute; in the baker's resounded the lively and martial strains of the horn; in the tobacconist's moaned a clarionet; in the cloth-shop, the suppressed sighs of an ophicleide filled the air. Those who thus devoted themselves to the worship of Euterpe were clerks in shops, younger sons, the youthful element of Vilamorta. These snatches of melody rose with piercing sonorousness on the drowsy warm atmosphere. When the news spread that Don Victoriano Andres de la Comba and his family were expected to arrive within twenty-four hours in the town, to leave it again immediately for Las Vides, the brass band was tuned to the highest pitch and ready to deafen, with any number of waltzes, dances, and quicksteps, the ears of the illustrious statesman.
In the town an unusual animation was noticeable. Agonde's house was opened, ventilated, and swept, clouds of dust issuing through the windows, at one of which, later on, appeared Agonde's sister, with a fringe of hair over her forehead and wearing a pearl-shell necklace. The housekeeper of the parish priest of Cebre, a famous cook, went busily about the kitchen, and the pounding of the mortar and the sizzling of oil could be heard. Two hours before the time of the arrival of the stage-coach from Orense, that is to say at three o'clock in the afternoon, the committee of the notabilities of the Combista-radical party were already crossing the plaza, and Agonde stood waiting on the threshold of his shop, having sacrificed to the solemnity of the occasion his classic cap and velvet slippers, and wearing patent-leather boots and a frock coat which made him look more bull-necked and pot-bellied than ever. The coach from Orense was entering the town from the side next the wood, and, at the tinkling of the bells, the clatter of the hoofs of its eight mules and ponies, the creaking of its unwieldy bulk, the inhabitants of Vilamorta looked out of their windows and came to their doors; the reactionary shop only remained closed and hostile. When the cumbrous vehicle turned into the square the excitement increased; barefooted children climbed on the coach steps, begging an ochavo in whining accents; the fruit-women sitting in the arches straightened themselves up to obtain a better view, and only Cansin, the clothier, his hands in his trousers' pockets, his feet thrust into slippers, continued walking up and down his shop with an Olympic air of indifference. The overseer reined in the team, saying in soothing accents to a rebellious mule:
"E-e-e-e-e-e-h! There, there, Canóniga."
The brass band, drawn up before the town-hall, burst into a deafening prelude, and the first rocket whizzed into the air sending forth a shower of sparks. The crowd rushed en masse toward the door of the coach, to offer their hands, their arms, anything, and a stout lady and a priest, with a cotton checked handkerchief tied around his temples, alighted from it. Agonde, more amused than angry, made signs to the musicians and the rocket-throwers to desist from their task.