The Joy of Captain Ribot

by Armando Palacio Valdés

I had no wish to seek for more details, for I saw that Martí was going to break down. There is nothing sadder than the sadness of a happy man. To distract him, I turned the conversation, and talked of myself and the projects I had under way. His face changed at once, and a cheerful smile played about his mouth.

"Bravo, Captain! At last you are going to be our own," he cried, hugging me until he choked me.

We talked the matter over carefully. At last we decided that, considering my age and character, I must not conduct myself like a youth, but with all due formality. After gaining the consent of Isabelita, which Martí seemed to think already assured, I must, before entering upon our relations, visit her people and talk seriously with them. This plan captured his imagination and he drove along assuredly. He cheered me, embraced me several times, calling me cousin, and promising me to help me all that he could, and promised, too, that Cristina would do the same.

We returned to the dining-room. Our cheerful countenances were in great contrast to the solemn and dejected ones there. Doña Amparo's eyes still showed the water-marks of their recent flood. Matilde—there is no saying how she was. Isabelita, who was staying with her cousins, received me with the same blushes, but without any great signs of rejoicing, which I attributed to the trouble her family was in. Castell was, as always, cold and disdainful. Cristina—I cannot express how I found Cristina. Her eyes had a strange sadness, which impressed me painfully. I at once imagined that she found herself bowed beneath the burden of some great wrong, and that this could be nothing else but the infamous gallantry of Castell. Perhaps he had narrowed the circle. Perhaps—oh, what a thought!

All at once I saw her eyes brighten with delight at the entrance of the nurse with my god-daughter in her arms. She was a beautiful rosebud, fresh, sweet, delicate, and probably, as that is the rule, dowered with marvellous intelligence. Martí would have testified to that with his blood.

To carry conviction to our minds, he found no more adequate means than to enter upon a series of mimic representations, certain of which had a surprising success. First he intoned a hymn of the Church with the voice of a precentor. The little girl at once began to put up her lips and burst out crying. Then he sang some sequidillas, and the youngster at once cheered up and began to bounce, trying to get down on the floor, doubtless to run away on all fours. He barked, he mewed, he crowed like a cock, and we understood at once that the little one had no lack of zoölogical notions, but had an idea of the classifications introduced in the animal kingdom.

Martí demonstrated the thesis in a way which left no room for doubt, and proud of the impression on the assemblage that his notable experiments succeeded in making, he considered it proper next to take the child from her nurse's arms and toss her up and down in his own like a bottle of ink. Maybe he imagined that by this method of concentration he would invigorate still more her psychic faculties. But he did not go on with this long enough to make her black. The little creature, not familiarized with his novel method, objected to it with loud screams and all the indignation of her soul. Cristina took her, did all that she could to hush her, and gave her again to the nurse, who was the one who really brought calm into her outraged heart.

Before we went in to supper, they obliged me to dismiss my cab. Castell would take me back in his own. I tried to get out of this, because the company of this gentleman grew constantly more distasteful to me; but it was not possible. Emilio, with his characteristic impetuosity and slight knowledge of men, gave the order to the coachman to depart.

They placed me beside Isabelita. Everybody would say that that was perfectly natural, and that I ought to have been whispering to her all the evening. Of this I have nothing to say. Perchance, if they had been asked if I should touch her foot gently with my own and fondle her hand underneath the table, some of them would have held a contrary opinion and would have discussed it more or less at length. But I, deciding that the majority would finally decide in favor of it, did not hesitate in anticipating the decisions of such a tribunal.

At twenty minutes after ten I settled down in a corner of the dining-room where Retamoso's girl was, and where I could chat freely with her. I told her first that she was the only woman in the world who could make me happy; second, that by my frank and sympathetic character, and by my honorable intentions—and because of the voice I said it in—I deserved what would make me happy. In accordance with these things I was resolved that on the following day I would give an account of this matter to Señor and Señora Retamoso. It was then twenty-five minutes after ten.