At length there was a respite among the commensals. That was when Adam, his right hand holding his wineglass and his left a fistful of figs, addressed the payador in a friendly way.
— So you must be the famous payador Tissone? he asked.
The payador smiled, whether out of modest glory or glorious modesty, no one knew.
— Look, he replied. I don’t know about famous…
— Don’t put yourself down! Adam censured. Tell me, what can you sing?
— My gaucho repertoire.
— Hmm. Do you play guitar?
— What a question! said Tissone, gesturing toward his guitar case.
Samuel Tesler, who ever since a whack by a certain shoe was not shy about displaying his fondness for the popular muses, accosted the payador.
— I suppose, he said, that you know the art of the payada.
Tissone looked at him as if thinking to himself, “This guy’s wet behind the ears.” At last he answered, sly and cheerful at the same time:
— Guess what. It’s my specialty!
— That’s bad, grunted Adam Buenosayres. Bad news.
— How come? said Tissone.
Adam pointed at Franky Amundsen.
— Because, he replied showing his concern, that fellow you see over there is the noted payador Amundsen. The “Blond Bull of Saavedra,” they call him. The two of you might have a run-in.
— So what if we do? squawked Tissone, getting upset.
At this point Franky screwed up his face, stuck out his chest, and laid a cold look on Tissone.
— Don’t go gettin’ yer hackles up on me, he intoned in a tough-guy drawl. I just wanna warn ya upfront the kinda guy I am: if I come up short on the guee-tar, I’m real long on the knife. A word to the wise.
At those menacing words, the payador Tissone hung his head, the three Bohemians looked at one another in alarm, and a wave of uneasiness swept over the vast circle of the commensals.
— No fights, warned Ciro Rossini, turning his noble profile toward the surly profile of the payador Amundsen.
— No worry, drawled Franky. I don’t go around eating people raw.
— Me neither, the payador Tissone piped up in an access of courage.
The convivium was still under some strain, and Luis Pereda relieved it when he turned to the two payadores and invited them to lay aside their personal vanity for the sake of tradition, for their native art and for Argentina. Profoundly moved, the payador Amundsen held out a cordial hand to his antagonist, and when the payador Tissone shook it vigorously, a round of applause put paid to the incident. However, the banquet fully recovered its joy only when Ciro Rossini, teary-eyed, suggested a general toast to the advent of concord, to Ciro’s Gazebo, and to bel canto. No one refused to participate in a toast so ardently proposed, and wine once again moistened those magnificent throats. Then Luis Pereda, author and architect of the peace, observed the payador Tissone with ineffable tenderness.
— A real, honest-to-goodness criollo! he cried at last. Tissone, a name redolent of clover and prairie grass!
— No, no! protested Ciro. It’s Italian, a good Italian name.
The payador agreed good-naturedly.
— Yes, he admitted. My old man came from Italy.
— Impossible! thundered Pereda, riveting him with disconcerted eyes. And even if it were true, you were born on the pampa, you grew up soaked to the balls in tradition. You can’t deny it, Tissone old pard’!
— Look, rejoined a confused Tissone. I was born right here in Buenos Aires, in La Paternal, and I’ve lived my whole life in the barrio, may I drop dead if I lie!
— Aha! Adam Buenosayres reproached him. So you’re trying to tell us you don’t know how to mount a bucking bronco, or tether a horse to a post with the proper knot, or toss a lasso over a set of horns, or wrestle a young bull to the ground?
It was obvious from Tissone’s perturbation that he’d never practised any of those criollo disciplines. Luis Pereda could read the payador like an open book. He brought his fist down on the table and looked meaningfully around the whole table.
— Gentlemen! he exclaimed. What a great country is ours! What character! What strength in its tradition! This man, Italian by blood and native of La Paternal, never having left his neighbourhood, never having seen the pampa or its ways, one fine day picks up a guitar and becomes a payador! Gentlemen, that’s greatness!
— Truly monumental, affirmed Adam Buenosayres, completely serious.
Pereda’s enthusiasm was contagious, and soon the commensals were weaving the most intricate web of conversation. Everyone had praises to sing, an example to recount. The pipsqueak Bernini was attempting to initiate the trio of Bohemians into a certain doctrine concerning a mysterious Spirit of the Land. But they weren’t paying much attention, because at the same time Samuel Tesler was trying to tell them about his own case — that he was Semitic in origin (though from a priestly family), had been born in the fabulous Bessarabia, but that every time he looked in the mirror he saw in his physiognomy the doggon’d’st likeness to the mythical Santos Vega. For his part, Ciro Rossini, flattered by the attention the astrologer and Pereda were paying him, launched into a ferocious diatribe against those gringos who liked to badmouth so generous a country as ours. He illustrated his dissertation by chronicling his countless bellicose interventions against foul-mouthed gallegos on Lacroze streetcar platforms. But alas! There was one among the commensals who did not join in the general fervor, remaining instead entrenched in a silent sarcasm clearly manifested in the glint of his eye and the curl of his lip. Prince Charming was that man, and for a while now, Adam Buenosayres had been studying him with curiosity. Taking advantage of a pause in the conversation, Adam questioned him in a loud voice:
— And you, Prince. Do you, too, cultivate the national tradition?
Prince Charming didn’t try to disguise his displeasure at being the object of everyone’s attention.
— Look ’t, he burst out at last. The past is a joke. Means nothing to me, get it?
— Oh, him! murmured Ciro Rossini. A pain in the neck.
— What does he do? Adam asked seriously.
— Poetry, groaned Ciro. He recites it in the gazebo.
With furrowed brow, Prince Charming ran his fingers through his exuberant mane, signalling that he had more to say.
— The present is what interests me, he added. I’m a poet of the contemporary.
— In what genre? asked Samuel.
— Don’t talk nonsense! answered the Prince. My art is at the service of the masses.
— The numbskull! Franky whispered into Adam’s ear. Then Franky said for all to hear:
— I know his type. In Saavedra the ground is lousy with them. This gentleman is one of those types who go around upsetting everyone, using any silly excuse to clamour for their right to play the “lyre.” And when they get their paws on that anachronistic instrument, they claim they “pluck” it for the sake of punishing the tyrants. Good Lord! Where have they seen a tyrant nowadays?