Saragossa: A Story of Spanish Valor

by Benito Pérez Galdós

Montoria was occupied, when we arrived, in cutting down olive-trees on his place, a proceeding demanded by the military exigencies of the plan of defence established by the officers in the field, because of the possibility of a second siege. And it was not our friend alone who destroyed with his own hands this heritage of his hacienda. All the proprietors of the surrounding places occupied themselves with the same task, and they directed the work of devastation with as much coolness as if they were watering or replanting, or busy with the grape harvest.

Montoria said to us, "In the first siege I cut down my trees on my property on the other side of the Huerva; but this second siege that is being prepared for us is going to be much more terrible, to judge by the great number of troops that the French are sending."

We told him the story of the surrender of Madrid, and as this seemed to depress him very much, we praised the deeds done at Saragossa between the fifteenth of June and the fourteenth of August with all sorts of grandiloquent phrases. Shrugging his shoulders, Don José said, "All that was possible to be done was done."

At this point Don Roque began to make personal eulogies of me, both military and civil, and he overdrew the picture so much that he made me blush, particularly as some of his announcements were stupendous lies. He said, first, that I belonged to one of the highest families of lower Andalusia, and that I was present as one of the marine guards at the glorious battle of Trafalgar. He said that the junta had made me a great offer of a concession in Peru, and that during the siege of Madrid I had performed prodigies of valor at the Puerta de los Pozos, my courage being so great that the French found it convenient after the capitulation to rid themselves of such a fearful foe, sending me with other Spanish patriots to France. He added that my ingenuity had made possible the escape of us four companions who had taken refuge in Saragossa, and ended his panegyric by assuring Don José that for my personal qualities also I deserved distinguished consideration.

Meantime Montoria surveyed me from head to foot, and if he observed the bad cut of my clothes and their many rents, he must also have seen that they were of the kind used by a man of quality, revealing his fine, courtly, and aristocratic origin by the multiplicity of their imperfections. After he had looked me over, he said to me, "Porra! I shall not be able to enlist you in the third rank of the company of fusileers of Don Santiago Sas, of which I am captain, but you can enter the corps where my son is; and if you don't wish to, you must leave Saragossa, because here we have no use for lazy men. And as for you, Don Roque, my friend, since you are not able to carry a gun, porra! we will make you one of the attendants in the army hospital."

When Don Roque had heard all this, he managed to express, by means of rhetorical circumlocution and graceful ellipses, the great necessity of a piece of meat for each one of us, and a couple of loaves of bread apiece. Then we saw the great Montoria scowl, looking at us so severely that he made us tremble, fearing that we were to be sent away for daring to ask for something to eat. We murmured timid excuses, and then our protector, very red in the face, spoke as follows,—

"Is it possible that you are hungry? Porra! Go to the devil with a hundred thousand porras! Why haven't you said so before? Do I look like a man capable of letting my friends go hungry? porra! You must know that I always have a dozen hams hanging from the beams of my storeroom, and I have twenty casks of Rioja, yes, sir. And you are hungry, and you did not tell me so to my face without any round-about fuss? That is an offence to a man like me. There, boys, go in and order them to cook four pounds of beef and six dozen eggs, and to kill six pullets, and bring from the wine-cellar seven jugs of wine. I want my breakfast, too. Let the neighbors come, the workmen, and my sons too, if they are anywhere about. And you, gentlemen, be prepared to punish it all with my compliments, porra! You will eat what there is without thanking me. We do not use compliments here. You, Señor Don Roque, and you, Señor Don Araceli, are in your own house to-day, porra! to-morrow and always, porra! Don José de Montoria is a true friend to his friends. All that he has, all that he owns, belongs to his friends."

The brusque hospitality of the worthy man astonished us. As he did not receive our compliments with good grace, we decided to leave aside the artificial formalities of the court, and, assuredly, the most primitive fashions reigned during the breakfast.

"Why don't you eat more?" Don José asked me. "It seems to me that you are one of these compliment-makers who expect to live on compliments. I don't like that sort of thing, my young gentleman. I find it very trying, and I am going to beat you with a stick to make you eat. There, despatch this glass of wine! Did you find any better at court? Not by a long way. Come now, drink, porra! or we shall come to blows." All this made me eat and drink more than was good for me; but it was necessary to respond to the generous cordiality of Montoria, and too it was not worth while to lose his good will for one indigestion more or less.

After the breakfast, the work of cutting down trees was continued, and the rich farmer directed it as if it were a festival performance.