Froth: A Novel

by Armando Palacio Valdés

She held up her muff, as has been said, to shade her eyes, and kept her eyes fixed on the ground as one who does not care to see or heed anything which may come in her way. Consequently, till she came to the Calle de Jorge Juan, she did not detect the presence of a young man, who, keeping pace with her on the opposite side of the way, gazed at her with even more admiration than curiosity. But on reaching the corner, without knowing why, she raised her head, and her eyes met those of her admirer. A very perceptible shade of annoyance clouded her face; she frowned with greater severity, and the haughty expression of her eyes was more marked than before. She walked a little faster, and, on reaching the Calle de Villanueva, she stood still, and looked down the street, hoping, no doubt, to see a tramcar. The youth dared not do the same; he went on his way, not without sending certain eager and significant glances after the graceful figure, to which she vouchsafed no notice. The car at last arrived; the lady stepped in, showing, as she did so, a pretty foot shod in a kid boot, and took her seat in the farthest corner. Finding herself safe from indiscreet observation, her eyes by degrees grew more serene, and rested with indifference on the few persons who were with her in the vehicle; still the cloud of anxious thought did not altogether disappear from her face, nor the touch of disdain which lent dignity to her beauty.

Her youthful admirer had not resigned himself to losing sight of her. He went on confidently down the Calle de Villanueva; but as the tramcar went by he nimbly caught it up, and got on the step without being observed. And contriving to place himself where the lady could not see him, behind other persons standing on the platform, he was able to gaze at her by stealth, with an enthusiasm which would have made any looker-on smile.

For the difference between their ages was considerable. Our young friend looked about eighteen; his face was as beardless, as fresh and as rosy as a girl's, his hair red, his eyes blue, gentle, and melancholy. Though he wore an overcoat and a felt hat, his appearance was that of a gentleman; he was in the deepest mourning, which contrasted strongly with the fairness of his complexion. Under the magnetic influence of a firm gaze, which we all have experienced, our heroine ere long turned her eyes to the spot whence the young man fired darts of passionate admiration. Her face grew dark again, and her lips twitched with impatience, as though the poor boy's adoration was an aggression. And she began to show signs of feeling ill at ease in the coach, turning her pretty head now this way and now that, with an evident desire to escape. However, she did not alight till they reached the church of San José, where she stopped the car and got out, passing her persecutor with a look of proud disdain, which might have annihilated him.

He must have been a very bold man, or quite devoid of shame, to jump out after her as he did, and follow her along the Calle del Caballero de Gracia, taking the opposite side-walk to be able to stare more at his ease on the face which had so taken possession of him. The lady proceeded at a leisurely pace, and every man who passed her turned to gaze. Her step was that of a goddess who condescends to quit her throne of clouds for an hour, to rejoice and fascinate mortal men, who, as they behold her, are enraptured and stumble in their walk.

"Merciful Virgin, what a woman!" exclaimed a young officer in a loud voice, clinging to his companion as if he were about to faint with surprise.

The fair one could not help smiling very slightly, and the flash of that smile seemed to light up her exceptional loveliness. Presently two gentlemen in an open carriage bowed respectfully to her, and she responded with an almost imperceptible nod. When she reached the corner where the streets part by San Luis she hesitated and paused, looking in every direction, and again catching sight of the red-haired youth, she turned her back on him with marked contempt, and went on at a more rapid pace down the Calle de la Montera, where her appearance caused the same excitement in the passers-by. Three or four times she stopped in front of the shop windows, though evidently she did so less out of curiosity than in consequence of the nervous state into which the youth's unrelenting pursuit had plunged her.

Near the Puerta del Sol, to avoid him no doubt, she made up her mind to go into Marbini's jewel shop. Seating herself with an air of indifference, she raised her veil a little, and began to examine without much attention the latest importations in gems which the shopman displayed before her. She could not have done worse by way of releasing herself from the observations of her boyish admirer, since he could pursue them at his leisure and with the greatest ease through the plate glass windows, and did so with a persistency which enraged her more and more every minute.

In point of fact, the elegantly decorated shop, glittering in every corner with precious stones and metals, was a worthy shrine for her beauty, the setting best fitted for so delicate a gem. And so the youth was thinking, to judge from the impassioned ecstasy of his eyes and the statue-like fixity of his attitude. At last, unable any longer to control her irritation, the lady abruptly rose, and with a brief "Good morning" to the attendant, who treated her with extraordinary deference, she quitted the shop, and set off as fast as she could walk, towards the Puerta del Sol.

Here she stopped; then she went a little way towards a hackney cab, as though intending to take it; but, suddenly changing her mind, she turned with a determined step towards the Calle Mayor, still escorted by the youth at no great distance. Half-way down the street she vanished into a handsome house, not without sending a hasty but furious glance at her follower, who took it with perfect and wonderful coolness. The porter who was standing in the portico, gravely clipping his bushy black whiskers, hastily pulled off his braided cap, made her a low bow, and flew to open the glass door to the staircase, pressing, as he did so, the button of an electric bell. She slowly mounted the carpeted steps, and by the time she reached the first floor the door was already open, and a servant in livery was awaiting her.

The house was that of the Excellentisimo Señor Don Julian Calderón, the head of the banking firm of Calderón Brothers, who occupied the whole of the first floor, with a staircase apart from that which led to the rest of the apartments, let to other persons. This Calderón was the son of another Calderón, well known, in the commercial circles of Madrid, as a wholesale importer of hides and leather, by which he had made a good fortune, and in the later years of his life he had greatly augmented it by devoting himself, not to trade alone, but also to circulating and discounting bills of exchange. He being dead, his son Julian followed in his footsteps, without deviating from them in any particular, managing with his own property that of his two sisters—both married, one to a medical man, and the other to a landowner of La Mancha. He, too, had been married for some years to the daughter of a wealthy merchant of Zaragoza, Don Tomas Osorio by name; the father of the well-known Madrid banker, whose house in the Salamanca quarter of the town, Calle de D. Ramon de la Cruz, was kept upon a princely footing. The handsome lady who had just entered the Calderón's house was this banker's wife, and consequently the sister-in-law of Señora de Calderón.