The Joy of Captain Ribot

by Armando Palacio Valdés

"Nothing—a factory of artificial stones."

"But it does not seem to be running."

"No."

"Whom does it belong to?"

"To me."

I shut up, because I understood how much the subject mortified him. We went on several steps without deigning to cast another look upon the abandoned factory, when, turning, he suddenly exclaimed:

"Don't imagine that I didn't know how to manufacture stone—all these walls are built of the products of the factory. Take up a piece of the stone and examine it."

I took up a piece, examined it, and saw that in fact it had, in appearance at least, all the necessary qualities of resistance. It gave me pleasure to say so. Martí explained that the failure of the factory was due to the scarcity of workmen. Valencia was a province that for centuries had neglected industrial for agricultural pursuits; it lacked hands. Then the manager had not properly filled his place; the increase on tariffs and freights, etc., etc.

The subject was undoubtedly vexatious to my friend. He spoke of it in a low voice, with a frown on his forehead, and he avoided looking at the unlucky factory. So in order to mortify him no more, I showed the least possible interest in all the rusting machinery, and went onward without bestowing another particle of attention upon it.

We came at last to the walls of his grounds. We entered them by a wrought-iron gateway, and crossed a handsomely laid-out garden to approach the house. This was a modest structure, but sufficiently spacious, and furnished within in considerable luxury. The furniture, suitable for the summer season, was simple and elegant. But that which roused my enthusiasm was the extensive park that stretched beyond, whose walls reached to the seashore, upon which it opened by a wrought-iron gateway. Formerly this had been a productive field. But first Martí's father and then himself had transformed it into a vast garden. Shady, gravelled pathways were bordered by orange-trees, lemons, pomegranates, and many other sorts of fruit-trees. Here was a little grove of laurels, and in the middle of it was a stone table surrounded by chairs. There was a grotto tapestried with jasmine and honeysuckle; yonder was a thicket of cannas, or cypresses, and in the centre a statue of white marble. And like a base for decoration, there was the azure line of the sea, into whose waves seemed ready to fall the oranges that hung from the boughs. The sun, that was already sinking, enveloped the garden and the sea with a sudden blaze of illumination; its golden rays were scattered over the white paths of the enclosure, made the whitewashed house resplendent, penetrated the thickets of cypress and laurel, lighting up the marble faces of the statues, and hung drooping from the branches of the trees like threads of the gold of waving tresses. At the right were visible over the walls the masts of little fishing boats with their simple rigging, and yonder extended the town of Cabañal in a rare and picturesque blending of fishermen's cots and aristocratic mansions wherein the grandees of the city came to spend the summer. More distant still was the port and the tall masts of steamboats.