“Yes.” Paco’s teeth had appeared: “I will acknowledge what I please.” He was calm again. “After all, that is also another superstition. It seems that today we are doing away with many superstitions.”
The Count was drawing his breath in short gasps. He extended his arm and pointed to the door: “Get out! Get out of this house.”
“I am waiting to see Laura.”
“You need not wait for her. She will not come down after what she knows.”
“Yes. She has strength of character and she will come down.”
“Don’t think that she will intercede in your favor. Nothing will change my decision. And she will not try to change it. She is also finished with you.”
“She will not fail me.”
“You will not see her.”
And then the door opened and Laura stood there. She was of medium height, very dark, with black curly hair and large green eyes like those of a cat. Those who believe psychological qualities break through the skin like an eruption would have looked in vain for strength of character in her.
“Hola, Paco,” and then she looked at her father and inquired with composure, “What is the matter?”
“Nothing, my darling. Nothing. This man has come to upset me as usual.”
Paco had approached Laura with an afflicted air. He held her hand and declaimed theatrically: “Sister — yes, sister! At last I can call you that and it is the saddest moment in my life.”
The Count had dropped back into his chair and was looking at him with contempt, shaking his head: “Hypocrite, hypocrite!”
“Don’t listen to him, sister. He is furious with me and I don’t know why. I am innocent. I could not help it if I was his child.”
“Paco!”
“Yes, sister. That truth has embittered my life.” He was acting his part splendidly. “I could never be proud of my mother like other boys. No, I only knew shame from the very beginning.”
Laura was looking down. The Count had covered his ears in desperation. Paco went on:
“But that is not the worst, Laura. I knew of your love for me, I knew it all the time, and all I can say is that it was not as deep, not as intense as the one I felt for you. But I had to seal my lips. I knew the truth and I could not reciprocate it. In despair I married. ” He broke down effectively.
Laura had stepped to the window and her back could be seen shaking. The Count stood up again: “Liar — dirty liar. I never thought a man could be so low.”
Paco smiled at him politely, bowed, and then became serious again because Laura had turned about.
“Father.!” She extended her arms. Paco walked over to her and held her hand.
“Yes, sister, please defend me. See how he treats me. See how he insults me and I cannot retaliate, because I am his son.”
Laura looked at her father in silence, long, reproachfully.
“But damn it all! Don’t be such a fool. He is a liar, a hypocrite. He was laughing behind your back. Just this minute he was laughing— Oh! He is such a. ”
“Don’t believe him, sister. He wants to turn everyone against me. He has cast me into the world, a helpless illegitimate son, and as if that were not enough, now he wants to disinherit me, to leave me in utter misery— Oh! how unjust, how unjust life is with some people!” He produced a handkerchief and put it to his eyes.
“Father. How could you do such a thing? How can you be so cruel?”
“Yes, Laura, how can he be so. ”
“Enough!” The Count was shaking all over, almost foaming at the mouth. “Get out, you damn liar! Get out! You have come to make her unhappier still. Get out or I will call the servants to kick you out!”
Paco had opened the door with a dramatic gesture. He stood there, his arms open, a crucified victim:
“Yes, I will go away. You are turning your son out of your house. That is your last abuse. I shall empty my cup of bitterness to the dregs, but I shall never lower myself to discuss money.” He addressed Laura: “Good-bye, sister. You are my only hope. You are the only one I have in this world.”
The Count laid a hand on a heavy crystal inkwell and Paco, hurriedly, as if to hide his tears, rushed out.
Laura was about to run after him.
“Stop, Laura! Don’t go after that man! Someday you will know him for what he really is.”
She slid to the floor against the door and cried for a long time.
As Paco left the palace, he felt a strong desire to kick the sumptuous staircase, but he considered its massive hardness and gave up the idea.
There followed another long-winded and pathetic analysis of Julieta’s feelings and Paco’s misbehavior. I select a few paragraphs at random:
Julieta sat alone with her children in the big house and saw the works of art, the furniture, leave piece by piece. The numerous gifts of jewelry which her parents had given her had been sold. Even her collection of shawls was sold, some of them given away, to adorn gay happy women, all but a very bright one which she liked more than the others and had hidden away.
This gives a fairly accurate idea. Here is some more:
One day a friend came to see her. Julieta had retired from society as if ashamed to face anyone she knew. This was practically the only friend she still had.
The lady saw Julieta old and worn but was too discreet to comment, a rare exception, and then Julieta told her everything, slowly, calmly, with scarcely any expression in her voice or in her action.
“He was not like that before. He was so serious when you married!”
“Yes, but the goat will go to the mountain. You see, Virginia?” And Julieta showed her friend an ugly bruise. “That’s him.”
“But I thought he was a gentleman, Julieta.”
“I wonder if he ever was. You know? He was thrown out of La Gran Peña for stealing there. Do you hear? For stealing! At least my brother stole from father and the shame remained at home, but this was public. They were kind enough not to send him to jail. They only threw him out like a filthy thing, and the few jewels I had left had to go toward paying back. He owes money to everybody.”
The interview of the heroine and her friend went on like this with more self-punishing confessions on the part of one and increasing pity on the part of the other, to end with this bit of dialogue:
“Poor Julieta!”
“Don’t pity me. Let me feel that I am also to blame, lest the injustice be too great to bear.”
Paco announced to Julieta that he had closed a deal and would have the villa torn down and an apartment house erected in its place. This would pay more.
Julieta said nothing. For some time they lived in different places while the house was demolished and the building erected. They scarcely saw each other during that long time.
When the building was finished they moved to one of the apartments while the others were yet to rent. Although it was a good apartment house, it seemed to her, after the way she had lived, a dingy sordid place. In her loneliness she thought that perhaps the new rooms coincided with the old ones, with the rooms that were. Although the rooms were smaller, she tried to imagine that they occupied the same spot of the former ones. She walked about trying to conceive that, although walking on new floors, she was moving in the same space which had once been so dear to her. She tried to conceive it but the idea escaped her; it puzzled her, it obsessed her.
Then she knew real misery. The apartments did not rent and heavy mortgages became due and took away what they had. She resorted to her brother, impelled by Paco, but his help was very slight. The jewelry shop had lost greatly; it also had big debts to meet and threatened bankruptcy. Only Ledesma’s administrative skill kept it afloat.