Saragossa: A Story of Spanish Valor

by Benito Pérez Galdós

"We will see," he said, "if this time they will dare to attack the Castle. Have you not seen the works that we have built? They will find it a very complicated task to take them. I have just given two hundred bales of wool, a mere nothing, and I would give my last crust."

When we returned to the town, Montoria took us to look over the defensive works that were built in the western part of the city. There was in the Portillo gate a large semi-circular battery that joined the walls of the Convent de los Fecetas with those of the Augustine friars' convent. From this building to the Convent of the Trinitarios extended a straight wall, with battlements along all its length and with a good pathway in the centre. This was protected by a deep moat that reached to the famous field of Las Eras, scene of the heroic deeds of the fifteenth of June. Further north, towards the Puerta Sancho, which protected the breastworks of the Ebro, the fortifications continued, terminated by a tower. All these works, constructed in haste, though intelligently, were not distinguished by their solidity. Any one of the enemy's generals, ignorant of the events of the first siege, and of the immense moral force of the Saragossans, would have laughed at those piles of earth as fortifications offering material for an easy siege. But God ordains that somebody must escape once in a while the physical laws that rule war. Saragossa, compared with Amberes, Dantzig, Metz, Sebastopol, Cartagena, Gibraltar, and other famous strongholds, was like a fortress made of cardboard.

And yet—!

CHAPTER IV

Before we left his house, Montoria became vexed at Don Roque and me because we would not take the money that he offered us for our first expenses in the city; then were repeated the blows on the table, and the rains of "porras" and other words that I will not repeat. But at last we arrived at an arrangement honorable for both parties.

And now I begin to think I am saying too much about this singular man before I describe his personality. Don José was a man of about sixty years of age, strong, high-colored, of over-flowing health, well placed in the world, contented with himself, fulfilling his destiny with a quiet conscience. His was an excess of patriotic virtues and of exemplary customs, if there can be an excess of such things. He was lacking in education, that is to say, in the finer and more distinguished training which in that time some of the sons of such families as his were beginning to receive. Don José was not acquainted with the superficialities of etiquette, and by character and custom was opposed to the amenities and the white lies which are a part of the foundations of courtesy. As he always wore his heart upon his sleeve, he wished everybody to do the same, and his savage goodness tolerated none of the frequent evasions of polite conversation. In angry moments he was impetuous, and let himself be carried to violent extremes, of which he always repented later. He never dissimulated, and had the great Christian virtues in a crude form and without polish, like a massive piece of the most beautiful marble where the chisel has traced no lines. It was necessary to know him to understand him, making allowances for his eccentricities, although to be sure he should scarcely be called eccentric, when he was so much like the majority of the men of his province.

His aim was never to hide what he felt; and if this occasionally caused him some trouble in the course of life in regard to questions of little moment, it was a quality which always proved an inestimable treasure in any grave matter, because, with his soul wholly on view, it was impossible to suspect any malice or any double dealing whatever. He readily pardoned offenders, obliged those who sought favors, and gave a large part of his numerous goods to those in need. He dressed neatly, ate abundantly, fasted with much scrupulousness during Lent, and loved the Virgin del Pilar with a fanatical sort of family affection.

His language was not, as we have shown, a model of elegance, and he himself confessed, as the greatest of his defects, the habit of saying porra every minute, and again, porra! without the slightest necessity. But more than once I heard him say, knowing his fault, he had not been able to correct it, for the porras came out of his mouth without his knowing it.

Don José had a wife and three children. She was Doña Leocadia Sarriera, by birth a Navarraise. The eldest son and the daughter were married, and had given grandchildren to the old man. The younger son was called Augustine, and was destined for the church, like his uncle of the same name, the Archdeacon of La Seo. I made the acquaintance of all these on the same day, and found them the best people in the world. I was treated with so much kindness that I was overwhelmed by their generosity. If they had known me since my birth, they could not have been more cordial. Their kindness, springing spontaneously from their generous hearts, touched my very soul; and as I have always had a faculty for letting people love me, I responded from the first with a very sincere affection.