The Torrent Part 28

The venerable orator folded his arms and waited for the noise in the Chamber to cease. When the last determined fugitives had disappeared through the exit doors, he began to speak. The journalists in the press-gallery craned their necks toward "the tribune," hushing for silence in order not to lose a word.

This man was the patriarch of the Chamber. He represented "the Revolution"--not only the old-fashioned, the political, revolution, but the modern, the social and economic revolution. He was the enemy of all present systems of government and society. His theories irritated everybody, like a new and incomprehensible music falling on slumbering ears. But he was listened to with respect, with the veneration inspired by his years and his unsullied career. His voice had the melodious feebleness of a m.u.f.fled, silver bell; and his words rolled through the silence of the hall with a certain prophetic stateliness, as if the vision of a better world were pa.s.sing before his eyes as he spoke, the revelation of a perfect society of the future, where there would be no oppression and no misery, the dream he had so often dreamed in the solitude of his study.

Rafael was sitting at the head of the committee bench, somewhat apart from his companions. They were giving him ample room, as bull-fighters do their _matador_. He had bundles of doc.u.ments and volumes piled up at his seat, in case he should need to quote authorities in his reply to the venerable orator.

He was studying the old man admiringly and in silence. What a strong, st.u.r.dy spirit, as hard and cold and clear as ice! That veteran had doubtless had his pa.s.sions like other men. At moments, through his calm impa.s.sive exterior, a romantic vehemence would seem to burn, a poetic ardor, that politics had smothered, but which smouldered on as volcanic fires lie dormant rumbling from time to time under the mantle of snow on a mountain peak. But he had known how to adjust his life to duty; and without belief in G.o.d, with the support of philosophy only, his virtue had been strong enough to disarm his most violent enemies.

And a weakling, a dawdler like himself, must reply to a hero like that!... Rafael began to be afraid; and to recover his spirits he swept the hall with his eyes. What the regular hangers-on of the sessions would have called a medium-sized house! A few deputies scattered about the benches! But the public galleries were filled with spectators, workingmen mostly, absolutely quiet, and all ears, as if they were drinking in every word of the old republican! In the reserved seats, just previously packed with curiosity-seekers interested in the set-to scheduled for the opening of the session, only a few foreign tourists were left. They were taking in everything--even the fantastic uniforms of the mace-bearers; and they were determined not to leave until they were put out. A few women of the so-called "parliament set," who came every afternoon when there was a squabble on the program, were munching caramels and staring in wonderment at the old man. There he was, the arch enemy of law and order! The man whose name it was bad form to mention at their afternoon teas! Who would have supposed he had such a kindly, harmless face? How easily, with what naturalness and grace, he wore his frock coat! Incredible!... In the diplomatic gallery a solitary lady! She was extravagantly attired in a huge picture hat with black plumes. Almost hidden behind her was a fair haired youth, his hair parted in the middle, his dress the height of correctness and foppery.

Some rich tourist-woman probably! She was directly opposite Rafael's bench. He could see that her gloved hand rested on the railing, as she moved her fan to and fro with an almost discourteous noise. The rest of her body was lost in the darkness of the gallery. She bent back from time to time to whisper and laugh with her escort.

Somewhat rea.s.sured by the empty appearance of the house, Rafael scarcely paid any further attention to the orator. He had guessed all that the man would say, and he was satisfied. The outline of the long answer he had prepared would not in the least be affected.

The old man was inflexible and unchangeable. For thirty years he had been saying the same thing over and over again. Rafael had read that speech any number of times. The man had made a close study of national evils and abuses, and had formulated a complete and pitiless criticism of them in which the absurdities stood out by force of contrast. With the conviction that truth is forever the same and that there is nothing ever so novel as the truth, he had kept repeating his criticism year after year in a pure, concise, sonorous style that seemed to scatter the ripe perfume of the cla.s.sics about the muggy Chamber.

He spoke in the name of the future Spain, of a Spain that would have no kings, because it would be governed by itself; that would pay no priests, because, respecting freedom of conscience, it would recognize all cults and give privileges to none. And with a simple, unaffected urbanity, as if he were constructing rhyming verses, he would pair statistics off, underscoring the absurd manner in which the nation was taking leave of a century of revolution during which all peoples had done things while Spain was lying stagnant.

More money, he pointed out, was spent on the maintenance of the Royal House than upon public education. Conclusion: the support of a single family in idleness was worth more than the awakening of an entire people to modern life! In Madrid, in the very capital, within sight of every one of his hearers, the schools remained in filthy hovels, while churches and convents rose overnight on the princ.i.p.al streets like magic palaces. During twenty-odd years of Restoration, more than fifty completely new, religious edifices, girding the capital with a belt of glittering structures, had been built. On the other hand, only a single modern school, at all comparable to the ordinary public schools of any town in England or Switzerland! The young men of the nation were feeble, unenthusiastic, selfish and--pious--in contrast with fathers, who had adored the generous ideals of liberty and democracy and had stood for action, revolt! The son was an old man at majority, his breast laden with medals, with no other intellectual stimulus than the debates of his religious fraternity, trusting his future and his thinking to the Jesuit introduced into the family by the mother, while the father smiled bitterly, realizing that he was a back-number, belonging to a different world, to a dying generation--though to a generation which had galvanized the nation for a moment with the spirit of revolutionary protest!

Here was the Church collecting pay for its services from the faithful, and then over again from the State! Here was the Ministry of the Interior appealing for a reduction in taxes--a program of strict economy--while new bishoprics were being created and ecclesiastical appropriations swelled for the benefit of the upper clergy; and with no advantage at all, meanwhile, to the proletariat of the soutane, to the poor curates who, to make a bare living, had to practice the most impious worldliness and unscrupulously exploit the house of G.o.d! And while this was going on public works could wait, towns could go without roads, Districts without railroads, though the wildest savages of Asia and Africa had both! Fields could continue to perish of drought while nearby rivers continued to pour their unutilized waters into the sea!

A thrill of conviction rippled through the Chamber. The silence was absolute. Everybody was holding his breath so as not to lose a syllable from that faint voice, which sounded like a cry from a distant tomb. It was as though Truth in person were pa.s.sing through those murky precincts; and when the orator ended with an invocation to the future, in which social absurdities and injustice should no longer exist, the silence became deeper still, as if a glacial blast of death were blowing upon those brains that had thought themselves deliberating in the best of all possible worlds.

It was now time for the reply. Rafael arose, pale, pulling at his cuffs, waiting a few minutes for the excitement in the Chamber to subside. The audience had relaxed and was whispering and stirring about, after the sustained attention compelled by the concise style and the barely audible voice of the old man.

If Rafael was depending on the sympathy of an audience to encourage him, things looked promising indeed! The hall began to empty. Why not? Who is interested in a committee's reply to the Opposition? Besides, Brull had a bundle of doc.u.ments on hand. A long-winded affair! Let's escape!

Deputies filed by in line across the semi-circle in front of him; while above, in the galleries, the desertion was general. The caramel-chewers, noting that the display of celebrities was over for the day, rose from their places. Their coaches were ready outside for a ride through the Castellana. That strange woman in the diplomatic gallery had also risen to go. But no: she was giving her hand to her companion, bidding him good-bye. Now she had resumed her seat, continuing the busy movement of her fan that annoyed Rafael so. Thanks for the compliment, my fair one I Though as far as he was concerned, the whole audience might have gone, leaving only the president and the mace-bearers. Then he could speak without any fear at all! The public galleries, especially, unnerved him.

n.o.body had moved there. Those workingmen were without doubt waiting for the reb.u.t.tal of his answer from their venerable spokesman. Rafael felt that the swarthy heads above all those dirty blouses and shirt-fronts without collars or neckties were eyeing him with stony coldness. "Now we'll see what this ninny has got to say!"

Rafael began with a eulogy on the immaculate character, the political importance and the profound learning of that venerable septuagenarian who still had strength to battle consistently and n.o.bly for the lost cause of his youth. An exordium of this nature was the regular procedure. That was how "the Chief" did things. And as he spoke, Rafael's eyes turned anxiously upon the clock. He wanted to be long, very long. If he did not talk for an hour and a half or two hours he would feel disgraced. Two hours was the least to be expected from a man of his promise. He had seen party chiefs and faction leaders go it for a whole afternoon, from four to eight, hoa.r.s.e and puffing, sweating like diggers in a sewer, with their collars wilted to rags, watching the great hall-clock with the intentness of a man waiting to be hanged.

"Still an hour left before closing time!" a speaker's friends would say.

And the great orator, like a wearied horse, but a thoroughbred, would find new energy somewhere and start on another lap, round and round, repeating what he had already said a dozen times, summarizing the two ideas he had managed to produce in four hours of sonorous chatter. With duration as the test of quality, no one on the government had yet succeeded in equaling a certain redheaded deputy of the Opposition who was forever heckling the Premier, and could talk, if need be, three days in succession for four hours a day.

Rafael had heard people praise the conciseness and the clarity of new-fangled oratory in the parliaments of Europe. The speeches of party leaders in Paris or in London took up never more than half a column in a newspaper. Even the old man he was answering had adopted, to be original in everything, that selfsame conciseness: every sentence of his contained two or three ideas. But the member from Alcira would not be led astray by such n.i.g.g.ardly parsimony. He believed that ponderousness and extension were qualities indispensable to eloquence. He must fill a whole issue of the Congressional Record, to impress his friends back home in the District. So he talked and talked on, trying deliberately to avoid ideas. Those he had he would keep in reserve as long as possible, certain that the longer he held them prisoner the longer and more solemn would his oration be.

He had gained a quarter of an hour without making any reply to the previous speech whatever, and literally burying his ill.u.s.trious antagonist in flowers. _Su senoria_ was noteworthy firstly, because, secondly, because, fourteenthly, because ... Nay more, he had accomplished this, performed that, endeavored the other thing--"But"--and with this _but_, alas, Rafael must begin to loosen up on a little of what he had prepared in advance. _Su senoria_ was an "ideologue" of immense talent, but ever removed from reality; he would govern peoples in accordance with theories dug out of books, without paying any attention to practical considerations, to the individual and indestructible character possessed by every nation!...

And it was worth sitting an afternoon even in that Chamber to hear the slighting tone of scorn with which the member from Alcira emphasized that word _ideologue_ and that phrase about "theories dug out of books"

and "living removed from reality!"

"Good, fine. That's the way to give it to him," his comrades encouraged, nodding their sleek bald-pates in indignation against anybody who tried to live apart from reality. Those _ideologues_ needed somebody to tell them what was what!

And the minister, Rafael's friend, the only auditor left on the Blue Bench, pressing his huge paunch against the desk, turned his head--an owlish, hairy head with a sharp beak--to smile indulgently on the young man.

The orator continued, his confidence increasing as he went on, fortified by these signs of approval. He spoke of the patient, deliberate study the committee had made of this matter of the ecclesiastical bud-gets. He was the most modest, the least among them, but there were his comrades--they were there, in truth, solemn gentlemen in English frock-coats, with their hair parted in the middle, from their foreheads to the napes of their necks--studious young men--who had flattered him with the honor of speaking for them--and if they had not been more economical, it was because greater economy had been impossible.

And the heads of the committee-men nodded as they murmured gratefully:

"Say, this fellow Brull can make quite a speech!"

The government was ready to exercise any economy that should prove prudent and feasible, without prejudice to the dignity of the nation; but Spain was an eminently religious country, favored by G.o.d in all her crises; and no government loyal to the national genius could ever touch a _centimo_ of the ecclesiastical appropriation. Never! Never!...

On the word _never_ his voice resounded with the melancholy echo that rings in empty houses. Rafael looked in anguish at the clock. Half an hour. Half an hour gained, and still he had not really damaged his outline. His talk was going so well that he was sorry the Chamber was far from crowded!... Before him, in the shadows of the diplomatic gallery, that fan kept fluttering. Pesky woman! Why couldn't she keep quiet and not spoil his speech!

The president, so restless and vigilant, so ever-ready with watch and bell in hand when any of the Opposition had the floor, was now sitting back in his chair with his eyes shut, dozing away with the confidence of a stage director who is sure the show will go off without a hitch. The panes of the gla.s.s dome were glowing under the rays of the sun, but they allowed only a diffuse, green light, a discreet, soft, crypt-like clarity to seep through into the Chamber that lay below in monastic calm. Through the windows over the president's chair, Rafael glimpsed patches of the blue sky, drenched in the gentle light of an afternoon of Springtime. A white dove was hovering in the perspective of those blue squares.

Rafael felt a slackening of his powers of endurance, as if an irresistible languor were stealing over him. The sweet smile of Nature peering at him through the transoms of that gloomy, parliamentary tomb had taken him back to his orange-orchards, and to his Valencian meadows covered with flowers. He felt a curious impulse to finish his speech in a few hasty words, grab his hat and flee, losing himself out among the groves of the Royal Gardens. With that sun and those flowers outside, what was he doing in that hole, talking of things that did not concern him in the least?... But he successfully pa.s.sed this fleeting crisis. He ceased rummaging among the bundles of doc.u.ments piled up on the bench, stopped thumbing papers so as to hide his perturbation, and waving the first sheet that came to his hand, he went on.

The intention of the gentleman in opposing this appropriation was not hidden from him. On this matter he had his own, his private and personal ideas. "I understand that _su senoria_, in here proposing retrenchment, is really seeking to combat religious inst.i.tutions, of which he is a declared enemy."

And as he reached this point, Rafael dashed wildly into the fray. He was treading firm and familiar ground. All this part of the speech he had prepared, paragraph by paragraph: a defense of Catholicism, an apology _pro fide_, so intimately bound up with the history of Spain. He could now use impa.s.sioned outbursts and tremors of lyric enthusiasm, as if he were preaching a new crusade.

On the Opposition benches he caught the ironic glitter of a pair of spectacles, the convulsions of a white chin quivering over two folded arms, as if a kindly, indulgent smile had greeted his parade of so many musty and faded commonplaces. But Rafael was not to be intimidated. He had gotten away with an hour almost! Forward, to "Section Two" of the outline, the part about the great national and Christian epic! And he began to reel off visions of the cave of Covadonga; the fantastic tree of the Reconquest "where the warrior hung up his sword, the poet his harp," and so on and so on, for everybody hung up something there; seven centuries of wars for the cross, a rather long time, believe me, gentlemen, during which Saracen impiety was expelled from Spanish soil!

Then came the great triumphs of Catholic unity. Spain mistress of almost the whole world, the sun never allowed to set on Spanish domains; the caravels of Columbus bearing the cross to virgin lands; the light of Christianity blazing forth from the folds of the national banner to shed its illuminating rays throughout the earth.

And as if this hymn to enlightening Christianity, chanted by an orator who could now hardly see across the gloomy hall, had been a signal, the electric lights went on; and the statues, the escutcheons, and the harsh, blatant figures painted on the cupola, sprang forth from obscurity.

Rafael could hardly contain his joy at the facility with which his speech was developing. That wave of light which was shed over the hall, in the middle of the afternoon, while the sun was still shining, seemed to him like the sudden entrance of Glory, approaching to give him the accolade of renown.

Caught up now in the real torrent of his premeditated verbosity, he continued to relieve himself of all that he had learned by cramming during the past few days. "In vain does _su senoria_ fatigue his wits.

Spain is and will remain a profoundly religious country. Her history is the history of Catholicism: she has survived in all her times of storm and stress by tightly embracing the Cross." And he could now come to the national wars; from the battles in which popular piety saw Saint James, on his white steed, lopping off the heads of the Moors with his golden cutla.s.s, to the uprising of the people against Napoleon, behind the banner of the parish and with their scapularies on their bosoms. He did not have a word to say about the present. He left the pitiless criticism of the old revolutionist intact. Why not? The dream of an ideologue! He was absorbed in his song of the past, affirming for the hundredth time that Spain had been great because she had been Catholic and that when for a moment she had ceased to be Catholic, all the evils of the world had descended upon her. He spoke of the excesses of the Revolution, of the turbulent Republic of '73, (a cruel nightmare to all right-thinking persons) and of the "canton" of Cartagena (the supreme recourse of ministerial oratory),--a veritable cannibal feast, a horror that had never been known even in this land of _p.r.o.nunciamientos_ and civil wars.

He tried his best to make his hearers feel the terror of those revolutions, whose chief defect had been that they had revolutionized nothing.... And then came a panegyric on the Christian family, on the Catholic home, a nest of virtues and blessings, whereas in nations where Catholicism did not reign all homes were repulsive brothels or horrible bandit caves.

"Fine, Brull, very good," grunted the minister, his elbows stretched forward over his desk, delighted to hear his own ideas echoing from the young man's mouth.

The orator rested for a moment, with his glance sweeping the galleries now bright with the electric lighting. The woman in the diplomatic section had stopped fanning herself. She was following him closely. Her eyes met his.

Of a sudden Rafael nearly fell to his seat. Those eyes!... Perhaps an astonishing resemblance! But no; it was she--she was smiling to him with that same jesting, mocking smile of their earlier acquaintance!

He felt like the bird writhing on the tree unable to free itself from the hypnotic stare of the serpent coiled near the trunk. Those sarcastic, mischievous eyes had upset all his train of thought. He tried to finish in some way or other, to end his speech as soon as possible.

Every minute was an added torment to him; he imagined he could hear the mute gibes that mouth must be uttering at his expense.

Again he looked at the clock; in fifteen minutes more he would be through. And he spurted on at a mad pace, with a hurried voice, forgetting the devices he had thought of to prolong the peroration, dumping them out all in a heap--anything to get through! "The Concordate... sacred obligations toward the clergy ... their services of old ... promises of close friendship with the Pope ... the generous father of Spain ... in short, we cannot reduce the budget by a _centimo_ and the committee stands, by its proposals without accepting a single amendment."

As he sat down, perspiring, excited, wiping his congested face energetically, his bench companions gathered around him congratulating him, shaking his hands. He was every inch an orator! He should have gone deeper into the matter and taken even more time! He shouldn't have been so modest!

And from the bench below came the grunt of the minister:

"Very good, very good. You said exactly what I would have said."

The old revolutionist arose to make a short reb.u.t.tal, repeating the contentions of his original speech, of which no denial had been attempted.

"I'm quite tired," sighed Rafael, in reply to the felicitations.

"You can go out if you wish," said the minister. "I think I'll answer the reb.u.t.tal myself. It's a courtesy due to so old a deputy."

Rafael raised his eyes toward the diplomatic gallery. It was empty. But he imagined he could still make out the plumes of a woman's hat in the dark background.

He left his bench hastily and hurried to the corridor, where a number of deputies were waiting with their congratulations.