CHAPTER XXII.
How did it happen that a ray of divine joy, of unreasoning but delicious hope, fell upon my soul—a light, in short, like that which according to popular tradition, penetrates the darkness of the limbo on Candlemas Day? Let me see whether I can recollect it, with all its most insignificant and even ludicrous details; with its intermingling of dreams and realities, so inseparable that I do not know where the first end or the second begin; indeed, I cannot affirm that the latter ever existed except within the soul that perceived them, in my own representative faculty, though that is for me the supreme reality.
It happened that Trinito, our philharmonic Cuban, on receiving quite a large sum of money from his island home, set about spending it right and left in the most reckless manner. One of his extravagances was to take orchestra chairs at the Real and invite us all to go to the opening night of a Spanish opera, which had been greatly discussed and commented upon in the newspapers beforehand. In vain did we object that this lavishness was unnecessary, since we would feel much more at our ease in the gallery, between girls both plain and good-looking, and skilled devotees of the “divine art.”
But what he really aspired to was to put on airs and give a certain dress-coat its opening night, and he would not listen to us, but dragged Portal and me off to the theater; but as for the poor boy from Zamora, he would not budge, even if they were to cut him in pieces.
Neither Portal nor I owned dress-coats, but we did justice to the festive occasion and put on our long frock-coats, which we dragged out from the bottom of our trunks, hoping that no one would notice us, and that all eyes would be fixed on the Cuban, who was resplendent in his finery. His new dress-coat and trousers glistened with the peculiar luster of broadcloth, and the narrow satin lappel, reaching down to his waist, set off the snowy whiteness of his shirt-front. The fellow, in order not to omit any accessory, had spent his quarter for a fragrant gardenia, which rested proudly in his button-hole in irreproachable style. He did not buy a crush hat for lack of time, but entered the theater concealing his slouch hat under his cloak, so as not to disarrange his curls and the beautiful parting of his hair.
We took our seats, feeling somewhat bashful, hoping that nobody would see us; but Trinito stood up with his back to the orchestra, and, thrusting out his chest where the fine shirt-front bulged out, passed his gloveless hand over his carefully dressed hair, and looked just like a dandy of the loftiest and most overpowering sort. Although his sight was as keen as his hearing, he had hired an enormous pair of opera-glasses, and leveled them alternately at the boxes and orchestra seats, scanning the society belles, their low-cut dresses, their ornaments and jewels. Portal, very quiet and somewhat abashed, amused himself by saying sotto voce that Queen Christina was gazing at him through her lorgnette, and that the Infanta Isabel was making signs to the Infanta Eulalia to call her attention to the unknown and fascinating dandy.
As soon as the curtain went up, Trinito experienced his musical seizure, and closely followed the construction of the opera, which for five hours gave us siftings of Wagner and Meyerbeer, Donizetti and Rossini, as it had a little of everything in it except what was new and Spanish.
Trinito, carried away by excitement, and with his unfailing, retentive memory, would not let us rest.
“Boys,” he said, “this is simply an olla podrida. Here the fellow has put in the largo assai of Mendelssohn’s thirty-second opus. Well, well! If he hasn’t taken the entire allegretto of the overture of ‘Don Juan.’ I declare, that’s from ‘The Magic Flute;’ fifteen measures, at least, are exactly like it, stolen bodily! This maestoso is from ‘The Flying Dutchman’ or ‘Parsifal.’”
“Or from ‘Green Beans,’” added Portal, phlegmatically.