“No, Serrano. My women I don’t win and I don’t even earn. They must come to me of their own accord, preferably without my deserving them, and also preferably without the official knowledge of their husbands. Don’t forget that I am a caballero.”
Garcia had succeeded in making Serrano even a worse brigand than La Torre and, in doing so, had made up for some of the latter’s failures and disclosed a saving grace of innocent self-deception, both La Torre’s and Garcia’s. I read on:
It was at that time that Paco called on the Count of X. with the obvious purpose of obtaining money from him.
He betook himself one good day to the Count’s residence at Recoletos, where the old man lived with his daughter Laura, both of them lost in the immense mansion which to all appearances housed a regular army of servants rather than the masters. It was one of the most lavish places in Madrid. The main staircase alone was a masterpiece and worth a fortune. The banister had been designed by a great sculptor of the time and represented a waterfall in which cherubs rolled and swam with foaming joy.
Paco ascended the staircase appraising its value and was led by consecutive servants to a small library in the rear of the building where he found the Count buried in a huge Spanish chair, the lower part of his person wrapped in a llama blanket and his feet resting on a merino skin dyed red. The Count was reading with all the comfort of a priest. Upon the table there was a silver tea service steaming aromatically.
The Count was a very old man with a magnificent head of white hair which was neatly combed. His white beard melted and faded into a white muffler submerged in the folds of the blanket He had a penetrating gaze and all the traces of being ill-tempered.
With a hand he waved the servant away, always looking at his book, and then he regarded Paco with the tail of his eye: “I knew you wouldn’t be gone long.”
“Splendid! That eliminates the element of surprise, which is generally somewhat upsetting.”
“No. Some surprises are very soothing, as for instance, if you had decided not to see me again.”
“I had, but the decision has abandoned me completely. It is fortunate, for I see I come in time to inquire after your health. You seem to be ill. All these blankets, mufflers and steaming tea. These are bad signs at your age. Hmm— you are a very old man, and you had better be careful.”
The Count was always irritated at being reminded of his age: “Old, you say? Don’t worry. I will live longer than you would like.”
Paco whistled and sat down: “And how is my dear Laura?”
“She will probably be down soon. That fool servant always advertises everyone who comes here all over the house.”
“Most embarrassing when the guest happens to be a charming one with skirts.”
The old man disregarded the allusion: “And she still has that stupid tenderness about you.”
“It is none of your fault if she still has, eh?”
“No. I admit it. At another time, it was different. Now you are married and you threw your chance overboard.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know very well what I mean. That girl has loved you with a faithfulness of which I never suspected a human being capable. She has suffered on your account and she remains single because of you. If there is a man who never deserved that love, it is you, but you could never appreciate a fine thing.”
“But this is the first news I’ve had on the subject. Why! How flattering!”
“You knew it all the time, but you can act unconcerned and most candid when it suits you. As they say, acting dumb as if you were not. ”
“I assure you. ”
“. and you have been a fool. You could have married her and had everything you have been after for such a long time. You chose the other road and now you can take the consequences.”
Paco stood up in true surprise: “But do you mean to say that you would have let your daughter marry your own son?”
“Why not, if she did not know it and it could have made her happy? That is only a superstition like many others — but now it is too late. Now she knows it and she suffers from that superstition and now she is very unhappy because she has lost all hope.”
“You have told her, then?”
“How clever of you! Yes, I have. And now that I have learned the kind of life you are giving your wife, I am glad that things have ended this way. Now she will grow to be an embittered old maid, but that is better than being your wife.”
“I am not sure of that.”
“Your opinion is immaterial to me, as is everything that concerns you. I have been lenient enough with you. Not because I did not know you for what you are, but because of my daughter. She has been a good daughter and I love her much, and I owe you also the most painful moment in my long life, when I had to confess to her who you were. You have been a fool and I am finished with you.”
“I have done what I like and I don’t think that is being a fool.”
“You might have liked this better and that is what you don’t know, and now you will live in the uncertainty of thinking that perhaps you might have been happier.”
“Uncertainties have never bothered me.”
“Because you have never been down, way down. But you are going to be very soon and then you will know the proportions which a doubt can assume. Your mother was also a fool. If she had listened to me, everything would have worked out for the best, but she also had the superstition about brothers. She was sentimental and grew maternal with you.”
“If she had not been so, things might not have worked out so easily for you.”
“Perhaps, I don’t know. But Serrano, your. father, was different. He was a clever fool and I think he is the only man who has ever understood me and one of the few who understood life. However, they are both dead and these vagaries concerning the past lead nowhere.”
“That is right. I am glad to see that your logical faculties have not abandoned you yet. Let us get down to the present. I came to see you because. ”
“You don’t have to tell me. I know why you came and let me tell you that there is no hope. I am finished with you. Don’t even count on my death. I think I am being fair to you by letting you know in time that your name has been erased from my will.”
Paco threw his cigarette down and stamped his foot on it.
“Mind the rug, my boy.”
“But this is an abuse! I am as much your son as she is your daughter. Simply because of a benediction, a meaningless sign in the air. ”
“Not so meaningless as you think. ”
“Yes, as meaningless as the scraps of paper which make an innocent child legitimate or illegitimate. I am your blood as much as she is. All the rest is nothing but a superstition.”
“Now you want to discard a superstition and a little while ago you were considering another superstition as something insurmountable. How you change!”
“That is different. This is merely social. The other is biological.”
“Big words. But you know very well that people respect the social much more than the biological, at least officially. But we are not going to discuss that now. You have been disinherited and that is all that concerns you.”
“Wait a moment. Don’t think that you can discard me as easily as that. I have papers which may support my claims, or at least spoil your good memory after your death and create a painful situation for your daughter.”
“You may have papers, but I have influence.”
“I have influence also, and besides, remember that you will be dead and stiff, and a scandal is a scandal.”
The Count had stood up in rage and threw the blanket aside: “You will not show those papers. You will not stoop so low. You will not acknowledge publicly that you are a bastard and that your mother was. ”