Froth: A Novel

by Armando Palacio Valdés

He went out on foot, as was his custom in the morning. The birds were singing in the beautiful trees which bordered the walks. It was quite clear that they had incurred no bad debts. The Duke cursed their foolish trick of singing, and would not listen to their gleeful trills. He walked on slowly with a gloomy scowl, taking no notice of the greetings of the gardeners and the gate-keeper, biting his huge cigar with more than usual viciousness. In the street, however, his face somewhat recovered its tone. He had a pleasant and useful meeting with the President of the Council of State, who likewise was fond of an early walk, and who bowed to him in the Avenue de Recoletos; they stood talking for a few minutes, and he availed himself of the opportunity of recommending to the President, with the intentional bluntness which he affected, the prospectus of certain salt-marshes in which he was interested. Then, at a deliberate pace, gazing with his prominent, guileless eyes at the passers by, and more especially at the fresh damsels hastening home from market with their baskets loaded, and their cheeks rosy from the effort, he proceeded to the Bank of Spain. Numbers of persons lifted their hats to him, now and again he paused for a moment, shook hands with one or another, and after exchanging a few words with an acquaintance, went on his way.

It was still early. Before reaching the Bank, it occurred to him that he would go to see his friend and connection Calderón, whose warehouse and counting-house were in the Calle de San Felipe Neri, still in the state in which his father had left them—that is to say, very poverty-stricken, not to say dirty and squalid. In these quarters, where the light filtered in through panes darkened by dust and protected by clumsy ironwork, and where the smell of hides was perfectly sickening, old Calderón with mechanical regularity had accumulated dollar on dollar, till several piles of a million each had formed there. His son Julian had made no change. Though he was one of the wealthiest bankers in Madrid he had not given up the hide warehouse and the small profits which this business brought in—small as compared with those on securities and stocks which the banking house dealt in.

Calderón was a banker of a different type from Salabert. He was of an essentially conservative temper, timid in speculation, always preferring small profits to large when there was any risk. His intelligence was somewhat limited, cautious, hesitating and circumspect. Every new undertaking struck him as madness. When he saw a friend embarking on one he smiled maliciously, and congratulated himself on the superior shrewdness with which he was gifted; if it turned out well he would shake his head, saying with determined foreboding: "Those who laugh last, laugh longest." At home he was parsimonious, nay stingy to a scandal; and though the house was kept on a comparatively luxurious footing, this was partly the result of his wife's entreaties, and the raillery of his friends, but even more of his conviction, slowly formed, that some external prestige was indispensable, if he was to compete with the numbers of skilful financiers established in the capital. But after having bought good furniture, he insisted on such care being taken of it, such refinements of precaution on the part of the servants and his wife and children, that they were really the slaves of these costly possessions. Then with regard to the carriage, it is impossible to imagine the anxieties and agitations without end which it cost him. Every time the coachman told him that a horse wanted shoeing it was a fresh worry. He had a pair of French mares of some value, and he loved them as he loved his children, or more. He drove them out of an evening; but never to go to the theatre for fear of cold; he would rather see his wife walk or take a hired carriage than expose them to any risk. And if one of them really fell ill, there are no words for our banker's state of mind; anxiety and dejection were written in his face. He went frequently to see the animal, patted and petted her, and would often assist the coachman and the vet. in applying the remedies, however unpleasant. Till the invalid had recovered no one in the house had any peace.

As a husband he was most officious; but in this he was hardly to blame. His wife's apathy was such that if he had not taken charge of the kitchen accounts and the store-cupboard keys, God knows how the house would have been kept. Mariana did nothing and gave no orders. Any other woman would have felt humiliated by finding herself obliged to refer to her husband at every moment for the most trifling details of domestic life, but she took it quite as a matter of course, and found it most convenient, when Calderón's stinginess did not make itself too pressingly felt. Her part was that of a child in the house, and she was quite content to play it.

The person who sometimes dumbly rebelled against the exclusive centralisation of all administrative power in the master's hands was Mariana's mother, the diminutive lady with deep set eyes, of whom mention was made in the first chapter. Her protests indeed were neither frequent nor lengthy. At heart she and her son-in-law were in perfect agreement. The old woman, the widow of a provincial merchant, who herself had helped in saving his capital, was even more devoted to order and economy than Calderón himself—that is to say, more sordidly thrifty. For this reason she never would have endured to live with her son; his expensive tastes, and, yet more, Clementina's extravagance and disreputable caprices enraged her, and would have embittered every moment of her life. In Calderón's house she was inspector or spy over the servants, and she filled the part to admiration. Her son-in-law could rest in confidence, and thanks to this and to his expectation that Mariana would be enriched by her will, he showed far more consideration for her than for his wife.

Salabert was at heart not less covetous than Calderón, and hardly less timid; but his intellect was very superior, his cowardice was counterbalanced by a strong infusion of bounce, and his avarice by a profound knowledge of mankind. He knew very well that the paraphernalia and ostentation of wealth have a marked influence on the minds of the most indifferent, and contribute in a great measure to inspire the confidence without which no important enterprise can prosper. Hence the luxury in which he lived—his palace, his servants, and the famous balls he occasionally gave to the fashionable world of Madrid. For Calderón he had a profound contempt, though at the same time his society put him into a good humour. As he contemplated his friend's inferiority he swelled in his own esteem, regarding himself as a greater man than he really was, and deriving from it the liveliest satisfaction. He not only judged himself to have more cleverness and astuteness—the only superior qualities he really possessed—but, to be, by comparison, generous and liberal, almost a prodigy.

Panting and puffing he went into the dark warehouse in the Calle de San Felipe Neri, producing the usual effect of amazing, crushing, annihilating the clerks of the house, to whom the Duke de Requena was not merely the greatest man in Spain, but a quite supernatural being. His visit impressed them with the same reverence and enthusiasm, awe and adoration, as the appearance of the Mikado arouses in the Japanese. And if they did not prostrate themselves with their foreheads in the dust, they coloured up to their ears, and for some minutes they could not put pen to paper, nor attend to the requirements of a customer. They looked at each other with awe-stricken eyes, repeating in an undertone, what indeed they all knew: "The Duke!" "The Duke!"

The Duke passed in, as usual when he by chance called there, without vouchsafing them a glance, and made his way to the little room where Calderón sat. Long before reaching him, he began shouting: "Caramba, Julian! When do you mean to get out of this hole? This is not a banking-house, it is a stye. Are you not ashamed to be seen here? Poof! Do you skin the beasts here, or what? The stink is intolerable."

Calderón's private room was beyond the front office, a mere closet, separated from the rest by a partition of painted wood, with a spring door. Thus he could hear all that his friend was saying, before Salabert reached him.

"What do you expect, man?" said he, somewhat nettled at his clerks being made the confidants of this philippic. "We are not all dukes, trampling millions under foot."