Froth: A Novel

by Armando Palacio Valdés

The whole party joined in advising him with affectionate interest. A maiden of seven-and-thirty, a sportive, gushing thing, whose confessor he was, even said, half seriously and half in jest:

"Why, Father, if you were to die, what would become of me?"

A sally which made the guests laugh, but somewhat disconcerted the very proper director of souls. The Marquesa wished to hinder him this afternoon from delivering the address with which he usually favoured them; but he insisted.

Meanwhile the room had been filling. Mariana Calderón had come in with Esperancita, the Cotorrasos, Pepa Frias, and Irene. She, poor child, looked pale and ailing; in fact, she had come straight from her room, to which she had been confined for some days with a nervous attack. When the party was large enough, the Marquesa invited them to retire to the Oratory. The ladies took front places near the altar, chairs and stools having been comfortably arranged for them, the gentlemen stood in the background and were provided only with a velvet-pile carpet to kneel on.

The meeting began by each one going through the prayers of the Rosary after Padre Ortega. The ladies did this with edifying precision and devotion, their ivory fingers, on which diamonds and emeralds twinkled like stars, piously crossed or clasped, their pretty heads bent low—they were quite bewitching. The Creator must surely hearken to their prayers, if it were only out of gallantry. Not the least humble, the least engaging and edifying figure of them all was Pepa Frias. A black mantilla was most becoming to her russet hair and pink and white complexion. The same may be said of Clementina, who was taller, with more delicate features, and in no respect inferior in brilliancy and beauty of colouring. The languid and artistic attitudes affected by the fair devotees were no doubt intended to appeal to the Divine Will; but, as a secondary end, they were no less certainly meant to edify the escort of men who looked down on them. And, if by any chance there could have been a Freethinker among them, what confusion and shame must have possessed his soul on seeing that all that was most elegant and distinguished of the High-life of Madrid was enlisted in the service of the Lord.

Prayer being over, two of the ladies, accompanied by a baritone "Savage," went up into the gallery, and while another gentleman played the organ, they sang some of the finest airs from Rossini's Stabat Mater. As they listened, the pious souls felt a vague craving for the Opera house, for La Tosti and Gayarre, and confessed regretfully, in the depths of their hearts, that the amateur performance promised them in Heaven would be a stupendous and eternal bore. After the music came Padre Ortega's homily or lecture. The priest was accommodated on a sort of throne of ebony and marble in the middle of the chapel, the ladies moved their chairs and cushions, so as to face him, and the gentlemen formed an outer circle, and after a few moments of private meditation to collect his ideas, he began in a gentle tone to speak a few slow and solemn words, on the subject of the Christian Family.

As we know, Father Ortega was a priest quite up to the mark of modern civilisation, who kept his eye on the advance of rationalistic science that he might pounce down on it and put it to rout. Positivism, evolution, sociology, pessimism, were all familiar words to him, and did not frighten him, as they did most of his colleagues. He was on intimate terms with them, and fond of using them to confute the pretensions of modern learning. What he esteemed to be his own strong ground, was the demonstration of the perfect compatibility of science with faith, the Harmony (with a capital H) between Religion and Philosophy. His discourse on the Family was profound and eloquent. To Father Ortega, that which constituted the Family was a reverence and love for tradition, reverence and love for the past. "The Family is Tradition—the tradition of its glory and of its name, of honour, virtue, and heroism; and all these may be summed up in two words: respect for elders—love and reverence, that is to say, for all that is highest and most conservative in the race."

Starting from this theorem, the preacher inveighed against revolution as against a gale from hell, blowing down all that was old, and clearing the ground for all that was new; against the barbarous hostility of our time to the beliefs, the manners, the laws, the institutions, and the glories of the past.

"The banners of revolution are inscribed with the motto: 'Despise the Elders,'" said he, "as though old creeds, old manners, old institutions, old aristocracies—though like everything human, they fall far short of perfection—did not represent the labours of our forefathers, their intelligence, their triumphs, their soul, life, and heart. And this being the case, how could revolutionary science, which casts its stupid contumely on everything ancient and venerable, fail to besmirch even our great ancestors with its scorn? One element of dissolution in the Family was the attack on property, directed by the revolutionary faction. This aggression was not merely adverse to the constitution of society, it was still more directly hostile to that of the Family. Property, inheritance, and the patrimony, what were they but the outcome of reverence for our forefathers on the one hand, of love for our children on the other? Property consolidates the present, the past, and the future of the Family; it is the spot where it has grown up and spread; the soil which, when the progenitors pass away, assures them of rest beneath the tree of posterity, which shall grow up from it and call them blessed!"

Then, for above an hour, the learned Father proved the existence, on the most solid foundations, of the Christian family. Its bases were religion, tradition, and property. He spoke with decision, in a simple, convincing style, and emphatic but correct language. His audience were deeply attentive and docile, quite persuaded that it was the Holy Ghost which spoke by the mouth of the reverend preacher, commanding them to cherish tradition and religion, but, above all, property. The sublime thought was so elevating that some of the gentlemen present felt themselves united for all eternity to the Supreme Being by the sacred tie of landed estate, and registered a vow to fight for it heroically, and resist the passing of any law which, directly or indirectly, might affect its integrity.