Read Ebook: Morriña (Homesickness) by Pardo Baz N Emilia Condesa De Serrano Mary J Mary Jane Translator

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Ebook has 586 lines and 50050 words, and 12 pages

"I cannot understand why our amiable friend, Do?a Aurora, does not take the child to see his native place," Se?or de Febrero would say, stroking the cushion of his crutch.

"I am always intending to do so," Se?ora Pardi?as would answer, "but it is one of those plans that something always happens to interfere with. The truth is, as you know, that up to the present there has always been some difficulty or other in the way."

"Just as I take you to San Sebasti?n I might have taken you to Galicia, child, but it has not been possible to do so. Do you think I don't often long myself to see my native place again? We who were born there--it is foolishness--but our dearest wish is to go back to the old spot, and our love for it never changes."

"And we who were not born there love it too," added Don Nicanor Cand?s, armed with his trumpet. "I would give my little finger now to spend a year in Marineda; I would rather go there than to Oviedo or to Gij?n.

"But with me," continued Se?ora Pardi?as, "something always occurred to prevent me from carrying out my plan, as if the witches had interfered in the matter. Do you long to see your native place again, before you die? Well, wear yourself out with waiting until you are bent double with old age. You shall hear the causes of my never going back there"--and she would count them upon her fingers: "First, the difficulties in the way of doing so. You leave your family, your home, your possessions, to wander about the world, with a young child who is always delicate--from Oviedo to Saragossa, then, on account of the Regency, to Barcelona, then to the Supreme Court here. I was always saying to Pardi?as, 'Resign your position, man, resign your position, and let us return to the old land and not leave our bones in a foreign soil. With what we have, we have more than enough to live, and our family is not so large as to be a burden to us.' But you know what my poor husband was, there is no need for me to tell you."

Here Se?ora Pardi?as' voice grew slightly husky. She put her hand into her pocket, and taking out her handkerchief blew her nose and then wiped her eyes.

"Not with all of them, mamma; according to your own account there are several who have taken our part."

"Bah, how can I tell? In our place, child, it is hard to know who is for and who is against you. On that point I have had terrible disappointments. When you least expect it, your friends betray you and drive the knife into you up to the handle. To speak the truth, there we are not frank and loyal, so to say, like the old Castillians."

"You talk like a book," assented Se?or de Cand?s, who never let slip an opportunity of showing his claws. "The Galicians may have all the good qualities you please, but so far as being tricky and slippery and deceitful is concerned, there is no one who can beat them. Don't trust to the word of a Galician, for they have no faith; or, if they have, it is Punic faith. What must the Galicians be when the gypsies don't venture to pass through their country lest they should be cheated by them?"

"Take care how you insult the old land," said Rogelio.

"Why, that is a well-known fact. No gypsy will go to Galicia. They are trickier and more crafty than all the gypsies put together. And as for going to law--Good Lord! They are born litigants. And they will be sure to get the best of you; the most ignorant peasant there could wind you around his finger."

"That is a proof," responded Se?or de Febrero, "that we are an intelligent race; you will not deny that?"

Se?or de Cand?s, removing the silver tube from his ear so as not to find himself in the necessity of replying to this observation, and, in order to finish his argument to his own satisfaction, continued:

"And there are simpletons, who call the Galicians clever! I call them crafty. If they were clever, they would not be always sunk in poverty, eaten up with envy, without ever making an effort to be anything better than beggars and grumblers. They are more given to complaining than any people I know. They are always crying and groaning about something."

The ivory skin of Se?or de Febrero flushed a little, for he found it impossible to accustom himself to the malignant rudeness of Lain Calvo.

"You are a little severe, Se?or Don Nicanor," he said, "remember that we Galicians are in the majority here. How would you like it if I were to repeat to you now the vulgar saying, 'Asturian, vain, bad Christian, insane'?"

Here the old man went on spinning the thread of memory, and Rogelio, leaning with his elbow on the sofa, his cheek in the palm of his hand, listened absorbed. It seemed to him as if he

were listening to some family tradition. The apartment, and the people in it assumed an air of friendly intimacy; the atmosphere, moral and material, was genial; the world was as comfortable and easy for him as the cushion against which he leaned. Each of the company was for him, if not a father, at the least an uncle. Around him reigned sweet security; and as in certain luxurious abodes embarrassment and privation betray themselves, so in this modest dining-room was plainly visible domestic comfort, the most perfect golden mediocrity that poet could dream or philosopher desire. Harmony and moderation are always beautiful, and Rogelio, without being able to define this beauty that surrounded him, felt it and sheltered himself in it as the bird shelters itself among the feathers of its nest. And while the blazing logs crackled in the fireplace, and the sounds of the mortar came softened from the kitchen, and the old men chatted and his mother knitted her stocking, the boy, plunged in vague reverie, tried to picture to himself what that beautiful country, that green Galicia, abounding in rivers, in flowers, and in lovely girls was like.

The whole street--shopkeepers, peddlers, servants, and inhabitants--all knew Rogelio; as the saying is, every one had some account to settle with him. He was familiar with all the establishments, or rather, the modest little shops for the sale of crockery, imported provisions, novelties, cordage and periodicals, interspersed among the ancient and imposing ancestral houses of the Calle Ancha, which was animated by the presence of the students and by the passing up and down of the street cars.

"I too, swift charioteer, am a Galician, a Galician of the Galicians."

To which they would answer:

"What a droll se?orito!"

Whenever he went to engage a carriage for his mother the moment they caught sight of him, if he was a league away, they would laugh and lower the sign. And he would appear upon the scene addressing them something in this fashion:

The more extravagant the absurdities he strung together the more delighted were the drivers.

One morning Rogelio left the house wrapped up to the eyes in his cloak, for these closing days of October were bitterly cold, although the bright Madrid sun was shining in all its splendor. As usual, his errand was to go in search of a carriage for Do?a Aurora. On reaching the corner of the square he caught sight of one of his favorite equipages--a landau whose lining of Abellano shagreen was less soiled and worn than that of the generality of those vehicles. The driver, a stout man, fair and ruddy, answering to the name of Martin, was a Galician. Rogelio made signs to him as he approached, crying:

"Martin, Martin of the cape! Ho, with the imperial chariot!"

The driver was conversing with a woman whose face was hidden from the student, but at the sound of Rogelio's voice she turned around and he saw that she was young and not ill-looking, of humble appearance and dressed in mourning.

"Will you let me look at the direction?" said the student, changing his manner and the tone of his voice completely, as he addressed the young girl.

The girl handed him the note, for it was only a note.

"Why, it is for mamma!" he said, as he looked at the superscription. "Come with me; I will show you where the house is. Do you, driver, follow in our resplendent wake with your imperial chariot, drawn by that stately swan."

"Many thanks, Se?orito," said the girl in a sweet and well modulated voice, and with the sing-song accent peculiar to the Galicians of the coast. "There is no need for you to trouble yourself. I can see the door of the house from here; the driver pointed it out to me."

"It is no trouble; I am going that way," replied the young man.

Without offering any further objection the girl walked with him in the direction of the house. Rogelio instinctively took her left as he would have done with a lady. He had not gone a dozen steps, however, before he repented of his gallantry. In the first place, his companions would ridicule him unmercifully if they should chance to meet him accompanying so politely a girl wearing a shawl over her head and dressed in a plain merino skirt. In the second place, Rogelio was at the age when a boy brought up under maternal influence in the pure atmosphere of home cannot avoid a feeling of painful shyness when brought in contact with persons of the other sex with whom he is unacquainted. It is true that women of an inferior station did not confuse him so much; young ladies were like death to him; he always fancied they were making fun of him, that everything they said to him was only in sport; to draw him out, enjoy his confusion, and ridicule him afterward among themselves with malicious and pitiless irony. Walking at the side of this girl dressed in mourning, however, he experienced the same sort of confusion, for, notwithstanding her humble dress, neither in her manner nor in her appearance was there a trace of vulgarity. "Shall I speak to her?" he said to himself. "Will she laugh at me? She will laugh at me more if I say nothing. No, I must say something to her." What he said--and with the utmost seriousness, was:

"Do you know whom that letter is from that you are taking to mamma?"

"Why, certainly;" she replied; "it is from the young ladies at General Romera's. Don't you know them?"

"Of course I do. General Romera was a friend of papa's. We have not seen them for a long time."

"And is she better now?" asked Rogelio, for the sake of saying something, for anxiety for Do?a Pascuala's tonsils would never have deprived him of his sleep.

"She is entirely well now. If she was not well I should not have left her."

"Were you--living there?"

"Yes, Se?or, ever since I came from the old land."

"Ah, you are a Galician, then?"

"There is no reason why I should be ashamed of it."

"No, Se?or, no indeed. It is a very good country, better than Madrid or than any other place in the world."

Rogelio smiled, pleased with the girl's patriotism, and beginning to feel at home with her, for she seemed to him incapable of ridiculing any one. They were now near the house; Martin, who had gone on in advance, stopped his hack, a task which was easier than to make him start, and at the door stood Do?a Aurora, making signs to her son.

"Mamma, here is some one with a love-letter for you."

"Who? This girl?"

"Yes, Se?ora--from the Se?oritas Romera," said the young Galician.

"Come here, let me see. Perhaps it is something that requires immediate attention."

But no sooner had she torn open the envelope than she burst into a laugh.

"How crazy I am! Without my glasses--Here, child, read it you."

Rogelio unfolded the missive and began in a pompous voice:

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