But Gabino Maza, who was always captious, knew how to make a malicious use of the rupture with the Church by appealing to the consciences of several of the townsfolk. Not that he was a strict Catholic, or cared a rap whether the whole priestcraft were rooted up like parsley, or not, for his ideas had always been somewhat heterodox, and the clergy had long considered him beyond the pale, yet he was the one now to be shocked.
"After all," he said, "we have been brought up to respect religion, which is the only curb upon a town, and people can not be allowed to ride rough-shod over the sacred beliefs of our wives," etc.
These perfidious insinuations caused several people to give up their subscriptions to the paper.
The editor and the proprietor, who divined the source of the blow, were greatly indignant; but Gabino Maza, seconded by the no less irrepressible Delaunay, did not relax in his contentious campaign. If any of the staff of "The Light" were present nothing was said, but directly they left tongues wagged freely and furiously. Sometimes seriously and sometimes jokingly they discussed all who were concerned with the paper, more especially, as was only logical, its highest representative—the eminent Don Rosendo. They said (oh! disgraceful conduct!) that it was only the desire of seeing himself in print which had inspired him with the philanthropic movement of lighting the torch of progress in Sarrio; that Don Rufo, the doctor, was an impostor; Sinforoso, a poor thing—a broken reed to lean upon; Alvaro Peña (here the voices were lowered and furtive looks cast round), a blusterer without a spice of justice in him; Don Feliciano Gomez, a poor devil who had better look after his own not very flourishing affairs; Don Rudesindo, a great brawler who was only trying to let his storehouse and advertise his cider; and as to the originator and promoter of the enterprise, Don Rosendo, they said that he had always been a stupid fool, who had thought himself an author when in fact he understood nothing but the rise and fall of the price of codfish.
Only the imperious duty of acting as faithful and impartial chroniclers obliges us to record such remarks; for of a truth it is much against the grain—the pen itself even seeming to revolt in one's hand against writing down such abominable things.
The backbiters abstained from speaking against Don Pedro Miranda because they had already asked him to withdraw from the periodical, which he seemed inclined to do after the skirmish with the clergy; for Don Pedro was an old Christian, and a great friend of the Augustinian chaplain. The malignant remarks were successful in setting some of the influential ladies of the town against the paper, among whom was Doña Brigida; so the foolish and degraded Marin went over to their side at the Club.
The dissentient side was also increased by the drunken mayor, for a feeling of fellowship with the frequenters of the café, and the vexation caused him by the constant excitement of the press, made him quickly retire from the great reform movement. That which finally set him against "The Light" and its staff was a paragraph in which the mayor and the corporation were severely censured for the license they allowed the town police and the little they did to render Sarrio a pleasant seaside resort for distinguished scrofulous patients in the summer.
Although they outwardly behaved as friends, a veiled, silent enmity reigned among the chief frequenters of the Club, and this increased day by day, thanks to the mischief-makers, who never cease on such occasions to air the differences and dislikes. Thenceforth they avoided quarrels and disputes because the angry cries and insulting terms which meant nothing in former days were now, thanks to the cordial dislike which existed among them all, fraught with much danger.
Therefore greater silence and more courtesy reigned in the resort, but it was accompanied with less frankly and cordiality. That strange state of feeling could not last long. Among people meeting every day and not being very cordial with each other, a quarrel is soon inevitable. It happened thus.
There arrived at the saloon, no one knew how, a copy of a certain Catalonian illustrated paper, where, among other pictures, was one representing the banks of an American river, upon which a dozen crocodiles were disporting themselves. Maza had the paper in his hand when Rufo came up behind him and said in a jocular tone: