Froth: A Novel

by Armando Palacio Valdés

It was at this time that, in order to serve his political ends, as well as to gratify his native taste for display—in spite of his counter-balancing avarice—he determined to give a fancy dress ball, in his magnificent residence, inviting all the aristocracy, and securing the presence of the royal family. Preparations were begun two months beforehand. Although the palace was splendidly fitted up, he had some rather heavy and over-large pieces of furniture removed from the drawing-rooms, and replaced by others from Paris, of lighter and simpler style. He got rid of some of the hangings, and purchased several decorative works of art, which it must be owned were certainly lacking. Three weeks before the day fixed for the ball he sent out the invitations. Three weeks, he thought, were not too much to allow his guests to prepare their costumes. Fancy dress was indispensable; gentlemen to wear dominoes at the very least. The newspapers had soon announced the ball to every town in Spain.

As her stepmother took little interest in such things, and from her delicate health was not able to play an active part in the preparations, Clementina was the life and soul of the whole affair. She spent all her days in her father's house, save only a few hours which she bestowed on Raimundo. Osorio at this juncture took it into his head to have their two little girls home from school, one ten and the other eleven years old, to spend a few days with their parents; but the poor little things had to return some days sooner than their father had promised, because Clementina was so busy that she scarcely found time to speak to them. This made their father so angry that, one day, without allowing them to take leave of their mother, he put them into the carriage, and himself accompanied them back to school. That evening, however, when Clementina returned home, there was a violent quarrel between them on the subject.

Raimundo, too, found himself neglected; still he looked forward with childish delight to this entertainment, at which he meant to appear as a court page. This was an idea suggested by Clementina. The model for his dress was taken from a famous picture in the Senate-house. For herself, she had fallen in love with a portrait of Margaret of Austria, the queen of Philip III., painted by Pantoja. She ordered a black velvet dress, very closely fitting, with pink silk slashings braided with silver; and there can be no doubt that it was a costume singularly well adapted to set off her fine and ample figure and the imposing beauty of her face.

The Duke himself worked hard at the less ornamental details; the erection, for instance, of a gallery for the musicians, which was to be built up against the wall, between the two large drawing-rooms, and embowered in shrubs and flowering plants; the arrangements for hats and wraps, the laying of carpets, the removal of furniture, and so forth. Salabert was a terribly hard overseer, a real driver of the workmen. He never allowed them to rest, and expected them to be incessantly on the alert. He never gave them a moment's peace, nor was satisfied with what they did.

One day a cabinet of carved ebony had to be moved, from a room where the ladies were to sit to the card-room. The workmen, under the direction of the master carpenter, were carrying it slung, while the Duke followed, bidding them be careful, with an accompaniment of objurgations.

"Damn it all, be quick. Move a little quicker, can't you, you snub-nosed cur! Now, mind that chandelier!—lower Pepe, lower—lower, I say, you ass! Damn it, now raise it again."

As they went through the door, the head carpenter, seeing that they might easily hurt themselves, called out: "Mind your fingers!"

"Mind the mouldings! Curse your fingers," exclaimed the Duke. "Do you think I care for your fingers, you louts?"

And one of the men looked him in the face with an indescribable expression of hatred and scorn.

When the cabinet was in its place the Duke saw it fixed, and then went to his room to brush off the dust. Soon after, he went down the grand staircase, and getting into his carriage went out.