VIII. THE ELECTION
WHAT THEY SAID IN THE TOWNS
A short while later the eventuality predicted by Cæsar occurred. The Liberal ministry met a crisis, and after various intermediate attempts at mixed cabinets, the Conservatives came into power.
Cæsar had no need to insist with the Minister of the Interior. He was one of the inevitable. He was pigeon-holed as an adherent, from the first moment.
The Government had given out the decree for the dissolution of the Cortes in February and was preparing for the General Election in the middle of April.
Cæsar would have gone immediately to Castro Duro, but he feared that if he showed interest it would complicate the situation. There were a lot of elements there, whose attitude it was not easy to foresee; Don Platón’s friends, Father Martin and his people, Amparito’s father, the friends of the opposing candidate, Garcia Padilla. Cæsar thought it better that they should consider him a young dandy with no further ambition than to give himself airs, rather than a future master of the town.
He wrote to Don Calixto, and Don Calixto told him there was no hurry, everything was in order; it would be sufficient for him to appear five or six days before the election.
Cæsar was impatient to begin his task, and it occurred to him that he might visit the towns that made up the district, without saying anything to anybody or making himself known. The excursion commenced at the beginning of the month of April. He left the train at a station before Castro. He bought a horse and went about through the towns. Nobody in the villages knew that there was going to be an election; such things made no difference to anybody.
After the inauguration of a new Government there was a little revolution in each village, produced by the change of the town-council and by the distribution of all the jobs that were municipal spoils, which passed from the hands of those calling themselves Liberals to the hands of those calling themselves Conservatives.
Cæsar discovered that besides the Liberal García Padilla, there was another candidate, protected by Father Martin La-fuerza; but it looked as if the Clericals were going to abandon him. In a town named Val de San Gil, the schoolmaster explained to him, with some fantastic details, the politics of Don Calixto. The schoolmaster was a Liberal and a frank, brusque, intelligent man, but he formed his judgment of Don Calixto’s politics on the prejudices of a Republican paper in Madrid, which was the only one he read.
According to him, Señor Moncada, whom nobody knew, was nothing more than a figure-head for the Jesuits. Father Martin Lafuerza was getting possession of too much land in Castro, and wanted everything to belong to his monastery. The Jesuits had learned of this and were sending young Moncada to undo the Franciscan friar’s combinations and establish the reign of the Loyolists.
In another place, named Villavieja, Cæsar found that the four or five persons interested in Castrian politics were against him. It seemed that the Conservative candidate they wanted was the one protected by Father Martin, who had promised them results greatly to their advantage.
In general, the people in the towns were not up on politics; when Cæsar asked them what they thought about the different questions that interest a country, they shrugged their shoulders.
In the outlying hamlets they didn’t know either who the king was or what his name was.
The only way in which the trip was of service to the future candidate was by giving him an idea of how elections were carried on, by teaching him who carried the returns to Don. Calixto, and showing him which of these people could be warranted to be honourable and which were rascals.
INDIFFERENCE IN CASTRO
Three days before the election Cæsar appeared in Castro and went to stay at Don Calixto’s house. Nobody knew about his expedition in the environs. There were no preparations whatever. People said they were going to change Deputies; but really this was of no great moment in the life of the town.
Saturday night the party committee met in the Casino at seven. Cæsar arrived a few minutes early; no one was there. He was shown into a shabby salon, lighted by an oil lamp.
It was cold in the room, and Cæsar walked about while he waited. On the ceiling a complete canopy of spider-webs, like dusty silver, trembled in every draught.
At half-past eight the first members of the committee arrived; the others kept on coming lazily in. Each one had some pretext to excuse his being late.
The fact was that the matter interested nobody; the politics of the district were going to go on as formerly, and really it wasn’t worth while thinking about. Cæsar was a decorative figure with no background.
At nine all the members of the committee were in the Casino. Don Calixto made a speech which he prolonged in an alarming manner. Cæsar answered him in another speech, which was heard with absolute coldness.
Then a frantic gabbling let loose; everybody wanted to talk. They abandoned themselves fruitfully to distinctions. “If it is certain that.... Although it is true.... Not so much because...” and they eulogized one another as orators, with great gravity.
The next day, Sunday, the proclamation of the candidates took place. They were three: Moncada, Governmental; Garcia Padilla, Liberal; and San Román, Republican.
San Román was the old Republican bookseller; it was sure beforehand that he couldn’t win, but it suited Cæsar that he should run, so that the Workmen’s Club elements should not vote for the Liberal candidate.
Two days before the election Cæsar went to Cidones and entered the Café Español.
He asked for Uncle Chinaman, and told him that he was the future Deputy. Uncle Chinaman recognized the young man with whom he had talked some months previous in his café, he remembered him with pleasure, and received him with great demonstrations.
“Man,” Cæsar said to him, “I want you to do me a favour.”
“Only tell me.”
“It is a question about the election.”
“Good. Let’s hear what it is.”
“There are several towns where Padilla’s adherents are ready, after the count, to change the real returns for forged ones. Everything is prepared for it. As I have sent people to their voting-places, they intend to make the change on the road, taking the returns from the messengers and giving them forged ones instead. I want twenty or thirty reliable men to send, four by four, to accompany the messengers that come with the returns, or else to carry them themselves.”
“All right, I will get them for you,” said Uncle Chinaman.
“How much money do you need?”
“Twenty dollars will do me.”
“Take forty.”
“All right. Which towns are they?”
Cæsar told him the names of the towns where he feared substitution. Then he warned him:
“You will say nothing about this.”
“Nothing.”
Cæsar gave precise instructions to the landlord of the café, and on bidding Uncle Chinaman good-bye, he told him:
“I know already that you are really on my side.”
“You believe so?”
“Yes.” On Sunday the elections began with absolute inanimation. In the city the Republicans were getting the majority, especially in the suburbs. Padilla was far behind. Nevertheless, it was said at the Casino that it was possible Padilla would finally win the election, because he might have an overwhelming majority in five or six rural wards.
At four in the afternoon the results in the city gave the victory to Moncada. Next to him came San Román, and in the last place Padilla.
The returns began to come in from the villages. In all of them the results were similar. It was found that the official element voted for the Government candidate, and those who had been attached to the preceding town-council for the Liberal.
At eight in the evening the returns arrived from the first village where Padilla expected a victory. The messenger, surrounded by four men from Cidones, was in a terrified condition. He handed over the returns and left. The result was the same as in all the other rural districts.
In one village alone, the presiding officer had been able to evade the vigilance of the guards sent by Cæsar and Uncle Chinaman, and change the number of votes in the returns; but despite this, the election was won for Cæsar.
The next day the exact result of the election was known. It stood:
Moncada, 3705. García Padilla, 1823. San Román, 750.
When it was known that Cæsar had played a trick on his enemies under their noses, he came into great estimation.
The judge said:
“I believe you were all deceived. You supposed Don Cæsar to be a sucking dove, and he is going to turn out to be a vulture for us.”
Cæsar listened to felicitations and accepted congratulations smiling, and some days later returned to Madrid.