At one time it was a road to the capital, another a port of refuge, or stone moles, and another time a grand hotel. Some West Indians, certainly only a few, fell victims to his persuasions, and paid for their innocence with the loss of some thousands of pesetas.
However, Delaunay was a man of talent, and studious, and he was well informed in all the improvements of science, so to depreciate him would be injustice.
The harbor-master, Alvaro Peña, a young fellow thirty years of age, dark, with large black eyes, and a mustache like King Victor Emmanuel's, was noted for his profound, implacable hatred against the ecclesiastical profession, and all who represented it, even to his own brother.
Without any taste for science or literature, he owned a rather extensive library, consisting exclusively of books against religion and its ministers. He was a contributor to two or three periodicals, known by their anti-clerical opinions; and it was said that he had been occupying himself for some years past collecting data for a book that he thought of publishing under the title "Religion, the Most Retrograde of Sciences," of which several of his acquaintances had been introduced to different portions. He was cheerful and straightforward, and loved stories and jokes in which some priest or monk played the chief part.
Don Jaime Marin, the owner of four hundred acres of land which, with the tax, realized six thousand pesetas, would have been a great scoundrel, a fast, bad man, if he had not had Doña Brigida for a wife. This important lady managed, with laudable energy, to prevent her husband ruining the whole family, and being turned out of doors. Before he finished making ducks and drakes of the property she succeeded in depriving him judicially of its control, and having it made over to her.
It is not easy to describe the firmness with which Doña Brigida took the reins of management. No Roman patrician was ever imbued with a greater sense of the sui juris of the sacred rights with which "the city" had invested her. From the time of this occurrence Don Jaime, who was then over fifty years of age, dropped into being a mere thing in her hands, according to the law's decree. In his character of alieni juris he had to submit to the direct and constant sway of his lord and master, and to bow in all ways to her universal will.
Farewell to sumptuous suppers of shellfish and Rueda wine in the Café de la Marina! Farewell to hunting the hare with Fermo the butcher and Mercelino the engraver! Farewell to delightful nights of tresillo! Farewell to afternoons of peace and happiness on the lake of Sebastian de la Puente! Farewell! The obdurate lady put three pesetas in his hand every Sunday, neither more nor less. It was all the pocket money he had to spend on his pleasures for the week, with the exception of smoking, which she took in hand herself, buying the cigars and all. When he required a hat, she bought it for him; when he needed a suit of clothes, or a pair of boots, she told the tailor or shoemaker to call and measure him. She even prevented his going to the barber's for fear he should spend the two reales, and so the barber came on Saturdays to shave him. It sometimes happened that the barber came when Don Jaime was still asleep.
"What am I to do?" he asked of Doña Brigida.
"Shave him," returned the inexorable señora.
Obedient to the command, the barber approached the bedside, covered the face with soap and quietly shaved Don Jaime while still half asleep, and on his finally rousing himself, he said to the servant who brought him his chocolate: