“In here as usual, always in this blessed study of yours, which is as dark and as small as a prior’s cell and might be a prince’s boudoir for the treasures it contains!... Here as usual Leon! I never meet you anywhere. And María? She was with us last evening ... tears and lamentations as usual; her mother tried to comfort her, and they sat whispering and talking—between them I suspect, they made things pleasant for you. They have nothing to think about but their subscription to the theatres, and the festival-services at San Prudencio’s; and after Mass they lay their heads together to talk of the fashions.... But you, are you ill? You look pale, what is the matter?”
“I?” said Leon, looking at his father-in-law like a man who suddenly wakes face to face with a stranger, “what were you saying?”
“That you look ill. We were talking of you last evening at the Fúcars’. Since Pepa married Cimarra, poor Don Pedro’s life is a bitter one—Poor Pepa! I hear dreadful things of Federico ... and what a sweet child that is of Pepa’s! Have you seen it? Do you never go there?... Your cigars are first-rate.”
The smoke of their Havanas mingled as it curled up to the ceiling, and for a minute or two there was silence in the pretty little room; nothing was to be heard but the bubbling trickle of the water in the hose with which the gardener was sprinkling the shrubs outside, and the twitter of caged birds in a window near, whose chirruping song sounded like a piping medley of musical notes trying to agree as to the best way of producing a Wagnerian symphony. In the study, on a book-stand as large as a pulpit, a huge geological atlas lay open, showing the successive ages of the globe. On the table were flowers, dissected so as to show their inmost mysteries; insects undergoing autopsy; shells sawn down the middle, revealing their secret chambers of enamel and pearl; prints, displaying eggs at the various stages of incubation; a model in papier-maché of the human eye of the size of a coconut; and in the midst of all this paraphernalia stood a microscope, the lens reflecting a sunbeam on to the marquis’ head which, being perfectly bald, offered a convenient subject for the study of craniology.
“So you are studying natural history now?” said Tellería with an air of condescending tolerance. “Well, it seems to be the science of the day—the science of materialism. Much good you are doing the human race by depriving it of its time-honoured beliefs and giving it in exchange ... what?—The precious discovery that we are first cousins to the apes of Retiro.” And he laughed with childish glee at his own idea as he cast his eye on the litter of books.
“You know,” he said suddenly, “that I am on the commission to report on the law concerning vagrants.”
“You will make a brilliant report.”
“It is a delicate matter,” added the marquis, throwing himself back in his chair so that he sat with his eyes fixed on the ceiling and his feet in the air. “It is the question of the day. I have said again and again to the president of the council: ‘so long as we have no good vagrancy law legislation is impossible.’ We must go to the root of the matter, to the foundation of things, do not you see? It is the immense number of idle and disreputable souls, the starving and thieving classes, who count on a revolution to make their harvest, who are the festering cause of the ferment in which we live. Sweep away all this low filth and I will be responsible for social good order.”
“Very true,” said Leon. “Sweep them away—a clean sweep, that is what is wanted.”
“But the worst of it is that I cannot give as much time as I could wish to the commission; I am so much occupied. And that reminds me, Leon, I had some business to discuss with you.”
He had in fact reached the point which was the object of his visit; but though he approached the matter with a degree of anxiety that made his heart beat, he contrived to conceal his agitation. The man was too weak not to suffer from such qualms, but too highly artificial to betray them.
“You are aware that I am one of the directors on the board of administration of the Bank of Agriculture. It is a grand national undertaking; our function is to raise the credit of landed property from the abyss into which it has sunk.” Such phrases of financial cant were a frequent garnish to the marquis’ conversation, and he went on to deliver himself of a variety of novel ideas: as for instance, that Spain is essentially an agricultural country; that its territorial wealth cannot be developed for want of capital; that the capital nevertheless exists—why should it not?... That all that is needed is to concentrate it, to secure it, and to redistribute it, so as to enable it to fertilise—to benefit—to fructify—and the marquis, having lost his thread, could not finish the sentence, which he was improvising instead of repeating by heart. He stopped short. The Bank of Agriculture was closely connected with a great English company, “The Spanish Phosphate Company, Limited,” which was destined to effect a complete transformation in the country; it was a magnificent scheme. “Funds, subscribers—these were the two poles of the axis on which the regeneration of Spain was to turn.” This, again, was borrowed from the company’s prospectus, and the marquis wound up his harangue by saying with apparent indifference: “Well, what do you think of it? Will you invest some of your capital in our shares.”
“I must save my capital to secure my income,” said Leon with feigned simplicity.
“What, man!”
And then Leon went on to tell him such plain truths about certain companies that his father-in-law suddenly lost the delicate hue that his complexion usually wore and a deep purple tinge, like mulberry stain, flushed his cheek and betrayed his indignation. After a short pause, during which he devoted himself to twirling the waxed ends of his grizzled moustache till they looked as formidable as bull-darts, he rose and began to examine the objects of natural history.
“Well, there is nothing more to be said on the subject,” he muttered.
He touched and turned over everything, taking up this thing or that to inspect it more closely and then peeped through the microscope.
“But I cannot see anything,” he said, with that odd pride of ignorance that is occasionally to be met with. “I am no good at all at such things ... thanks.... How much your microscope helps you! Now, do tell me—can they see the soul with this? Or is it because they cannot see it that they maintain that it has no existence?”
And before his son-in-law could reply he went close up to him, and, standing in front of him, looked at him for a minute or two; then shaking his head he said: “I cannot help thinking that my poor daughter has very good reasons for complaining.... I do not mean that you are not a thorough good fellow, Leon; but really if you think of it ... she has her beliefs, you have yours—or, to be accurate, you have none. Your lack of religion and your contempt for the time-honoured beliefs of the Spanish People grieve and offend her deeply. My dear fellow,” he added, laying his hand on his son-in-law’s head with an affectionate gesture. “You must remember that the Spanish People are above everything religious, and you know Leon that we are not in Germany here—that land of Utopian dreams.”
Leon attempted some explanation. “No, no, to leave her at liberty is not enough,” Tellería began again with some vehemence. “You must take some definite step. You have a reputation for atheism that is really appalling. I am frank with you, and for my part I would rather lose my position and my name in the world than have such a character for atheism as you have gained. I quite enter into María’s feelings; she is deeply religious—she and her twin brother were born to be saints—and in the end she will hold you in