The Joy of Captain Ribot Part 26

She blushed as she uttered these words. I showed no surprise, in order not to increase her confusion. After kissing my old friends, her children, I went off to the theatre that she named in search of their elegant papa.

When I entered, the play had already begun. I took up a position in a corner behind the stalls and scrutinized the theatre. I was not long in seeing him in his place in a proscenium box. These boxes in the provinces, as in the capital, are the sacred spots, whence the superior beings of each locality radiate their splendors. Accustomed to lay down the law for the mult.i.tude, the gilded youths who meet there, converse, argue, smoke, and yawn, firmly convinced that they have no duties to fulfil towards the ma.s.ses, those who listen placidly from the stalls.

They dwell separate like the G.o.ds of Olympus, in conscious enjoyment of their perfections and their power, grinning at the actors, tossing compliments to the actresses, and from time to time talking in loud voices with their kind in the opposite boxes, over the heads of the rabble of the unfashionable.

Sabas belonged to the ruling caste, although his face showed none of the marks that characterize it, neither the flabby flesh, the pallid skin, nor the loose mouth, signs of the life of self-indulgence.

His dark, sunburned face, peeled in places, offered rather an extremely industrious aspect. It would not have been strange if he had arrived that same night from Madagascar or Java, after enriching himself in a caoutchouc expedition. This was doubtless the opinion of the contralto of the company (much richer in avoirdupois than in voice), to judge by the timid admiration and the blushes wherewith she received his ardent compliments every time that the exigencies of the piece obliged her to go near his box. I sat down in one of the _butacas_ and waited for the fall of the curtain. I confess that I was less interested in what was going on on the stage than in the play that was revealed between the box and the footlights. Sabas, leaning his chin in his hand with a purely Oriental languor, fixed his gaze of serpent-like fascination upon the contralto. She, overcome with an irresistible terror, made efforts to flee from that glance and escape. In vain. In spite of herself, even in the most important scenes and against all the demands of the play, she would break abruptly away from the tenor in a love duet and turn towards that tropical and fascinating man of the quivering nostrils. She listened with eagerness to his voice vibrating like a cry in the desert, hoping ever that he would end by offering her fifty elephants, a necklace of pearls, and the heads of three rajahs, his enemies.

When the act was ended I went without delay to the box. Sabas received me with the grave indifference which, in all perfectly cultivated countries, expresses elegance. I explained my wishes at once. He accepted them benignly; disdaining his conquest, secure like all heroes of arriving always in time to conquer, he took his hat and we left the theatre. We walked for some time in silence. I felt my heart oppressed with sadness wherein I perceived with alarm a certain antic.i.p.ation of something pleasant. This something could be nothing else than the presence of Cristina. Yes, I recognized it with shame; yet in that sad hour it absorbed me more than anything else in the world.

Sabas stopped after a time, took his pipe from his mouth, and, looking at me attentively some moments, remarked solemnly:

"You see how it is, friend Ribot. The madness of my brother-in-law has carried him to the extreme that I have prophesied so many times."

"Poor Emilio!" I exclaimed.

"Yes, poor indeed. At present he hasn't a peseta, nor anybody who will lend him one."

"The worst of all is, according to what has been told me, his illness is very serious."

He found nothing to answer to this. After a while he again took out his pipe and paused.

"Does it seem to you, friend Ribot," he exclaimed in indignant accents, "as if a man with a family has the right to throw away his capital according to his own caprices and reduce that family to dest.i.tution?"

I shrugged my shoulders, without knowing what to answer, suspecting that Sabas included himself among the most important members of that suffering family.

He put his pipe back between his teeth, and having, doubtless, thus got himself in connection with his electric current, contrived to move onward. He was not long in interrupting it, by taking out the pipe again, spitting, and going on talking.

"I understand perfectly how a bachelor can dispose of his means as he pleases; how, getting up some morning out of humor, he could go out on the balcony and toss over everything that he owns. At most there is only himself to pay for the consequences of his whims. But when a man who is not alone in the world, who has a.s.sumed sacred obligations to fulfil, throws himself into senseless speculations and wastes an important property, his conduct seems to me not merely imprudent, but also immoral."

I did not doubt that Sabas included among these sacred obligations that of providing him with means to submit to his own fascinations all the sopranos and contraltos who presented themselves on the Valencian horizon; and not to say anything impertinent, I determined to hold my peace. In this manner, using his pipe like a manipulator of an electric machine to r.e.t.a.r.d or hasten his fancy, and slopping over in a torrent of critical wisdom, we reached at last the house where his brother-in-law lived. It was not so sumptuous as that in the Calle del Mar, but new and elegant. We mounted to the apartment on the second floor, which was the one that Marti occupied, and rang. Regina, the old _doncella_, came out to open for us, and on seeing me could not refrain from a cry of surprise.

"Oh, Don Julian!"

"Silence!" I exclaimed, putting my finger on my lips.

Next, I seized upon my G.o.d-daughter, taking her in my arms and silently covering the child with warm and tender kisses. But she did not receive them in the silence that was to be desired. Frightened by my beard, and perhaps p.r.i.c.ked by it, she began at once crying to heaven.

I heard the voice of Cristina.

"Who is there?"

And she appeared from the end of the corridor. On seeing me, she paused for an instant, then immediately came on to me, holding out both hands with an affectionate gesture.

"Oh, Captain! My poor Emilio is dying!"

I saw her eyes cloud with tears. I pressed those beautiful hands that I held, and murmured some words of hope. Perhaps her fears were exaggerated. Emilio had always enjoyed good health; but this sort of temperament bore disease for many years. I asked if it were possible to see him at that hour, and, having been answered affirmatively, made ready to go in. Cristina would not let me enter until she had first prepared him. He was very nervous, and a sudden emotion might injure him. While she was gone to perform this gentle duty, Sabas improved the opportunity to give me his hand, dark as an Asiatic colonial's, in good-by and departed with his energetic characteristic importance.

Through the door that still stood open I saw him go down the stairs carrying in his ardent glance desolation and tears for the contralto.

"Come in, come in this minute!" It was the voice of Emilio, a little hoa.r.s.e, but as vigorous as ever. I hastened towards the place whence came the sound, and entered a room where the luxury of the furniture was in contrast with the modesty of the things in the rest of the place. He was reclining in an arm-chair with two cushions at his back, wearing an elegant dressing-gown. The light of a candle fell on his face, where I could see very clearly the fatal signs of tuberculosis. But that face was beautiful, more beautiful and more interesting than any I had ever seen. The hair of head and beard was longer; this with the whiteness of the skin and the great, black, melancholy eyes made him look like the Nazarene. Those eyes shone at sight of me with a frank and cordial expression. He took my hand and, pressing it affectionately between his own, said several times in a low voice:

"Captain! Captain! Captain! How good you are!"

I found myself too much moved to speak.

"How do you find me? In a very bad way, don't you?" he asked at last, after a long silence.

"I hope I shall see you better soon," I answered, making an effort to control myself and hide the emotion that mastered me.

At the same time I took the candle, and bringing it nearer his face, pretended to examine it with close attention.

"Do you know what ails you?" I asked. "It's _morrina_!"

"What is that?" he asked, opening his eyes wide.

"It is an illness that attacks the Galicians when they lose an amount exceeding fifty centimos."

I saw a smile steal over his lips and, glancing gayly at his wife, he exclaimed:

"The same as ever! He doesn't seem to me a bit changed--no!"

I understood that the kindest thing I could do at that moment was to go on joking. I plucked up my courage and unlocked my stock of buffooneries, although they can't be called very witty. Soon I had the pleasure of hearing him laugh heartily. His face brightened, his eyes shone; in a few minutes we were chatting together with the same gayety as if he were perfectly well and had not lost a centimo of his capital.

Cristina watched us with a melancholy smile. She was happy in seeing her husband so cheerful, although she knew that this could not last long.

And, indeed, a violent attack of coughing soon came to interrupt most sadly our chat. He became livid and half-stifled, holding his head between his hands.

"The chill of the night air is bad for you. It is the chill of night that brought it on, Emilio," said Cristina. "It is time for you to go to rest."

He lifted his hand, making lively signs of negation with it. When the attack subsided, and he could speak, he exclaimed:

"No, don't take him away from me! I feel much better. The captain is a mouthful of oxygen. He brings me the good sea air."

I stayed half an hour longer, to please him. At last I went, not before promising to return early the next day. I did not wish to go in that night to pay my respects to Dona Amparo. I had already had notice from Sabas that she had taken up a fashion lately of fainting away at sight of any friend whatsoever. As the hour seemed to me unseasonable for such an organic phenomenon, I deferred it until another more suitable.

Cristina came with me to the door.

"How do you find him?" she asked, fixing an anxious look upon me.

"I don't find him well. But while there is life, who knows? who knows?"

n.o.body could help knowing. She also knew; but the unhappy lady sought some way to hide the truth from herself.

I went away with my head in a whirl, and my heart torn and rent. The force I had used to appear cheerful upset my nerves, and I could not sleep. Poor Marti! Never had he seemed to me more hearty, more innocent, more worthy to be beloved. Not one word, not the most insignificant allusion to the treacherous actions of his friend Castell, nor the inhuman manner in which he had ruined him. And in the days following it was the same. His soul not only knew how to avoid filth like the feet of ladies, but did not believe in it.

I wrote to our shipping house to say that, for reasons of health, I wished to stay on land during the next voyage, and const.i.tuted myself companion and nurse to my unfortunate friend. I was seldom away from him. When I left him I saw a sadness in his eyes so sincere that I wished to stay. Every day he lost strength; I saw that he grew constantly weaker. He began to have cruel stiflings that threatened his life. While they lasted I fanned him, and Cristina bathed his temples.

But when he came out of these attacks like a man who has succeeded in escaping an imminent peril and unexpectedly finds himself safe and sound, he would be talkative and gay, a.s.suring us that very soon he would be able to go out into the streets and take up his business again.