“Ah, it is magnificent, wonderful!”
“An English naval officer was here last year who admired it enthusiastically and wanted to photograph it. He carried away more than ten different views. Don Vicente Sotopeña assures me that Castelar, in his speech at the Literary Contest, praised the yew very highly when speaking of the marvelous beauties of Galicia. Castelar is a great orator, hey? Flowery,—above all things flowery.”
Señor Aldao appeared to me like one of those men who carry their vanity (somewhat concealed in other men) outside and entirely visible to everybody. I afterward found out that he had always been vain, and founded his vanity on the most hollow and superficial things. When a young man he prided himself on his dandyfied appearance, his waxed mustaches, and eyebrows drawn out straight. Afterward he was seized with the nobility fever, and on all occasions wore his uniform as an officer in the militia, dreaming about the marquisate of Tejo. He made a sort of platonic love to the said marquisate, attaching himself closely to the civil governors when he desired a title from Castile, and to the bishops when he wanted it to be palatine. However, his desire for vulgar display was never gratified. An old man now, the extraordinary power Don Vicente wielded, and his absolute control over the province and a great part of Galicia, had made Señor Aldao comprehend that social rank, in our times, is not founded on parchments, more or less musty. “Nowadays politics absorb everything,” he used to say. “The man who can give away sugar-plums with one hand, while he wields the lash with the other, is the real celebrity.” That was one reason why he had received my uncle’s matrimonial proposals with so much favor. He saw in them the handle whereby he might fasten on to the great Galician boss’s coat-tails, and thus gratify a multitude of miserable ambitions he had preserved for years, and which were getting sour, viz., that about the cross; the rousing up of a bill for a carriage-road, which was sleeping the sleep of the just; and I don’t know what other trifles in connection with the Provincial Legislature and contracts.
No matter how much we may search the depths of the human heart, we never succeed in disentangling the cause of certain hidden feelings. Envy, competition, and emulation demand, it would seem, something like equality, and one cannot understand how those bad passions are developed when not the slightest equality exists between the envious one and the man he envies. Can a soprano who sings in comic opera envy Patti, or a simple lady of the middle class, the queen? Well, they do, without any doubt, and from the obscurity wherein they dwell they try to cast a feeble ray of light which will compete with that of the star.
In the same way, Don Román Aldao, a small, provincial gentleman, who enjoyed only a moderate income, indulged himself at times in impulses to compete with Don Vicente Sotopeña, the renowned politician, the shining light of the law, the famous chief, the great boss of Galicia, the lawyer overrun with succulent cases, the millionaire, the man of great and universal influence.
And in what particular did he want to eclipse Sotopeña? Why, in the matter of their respective country seats. Don Vicente owned a sort of royal estate near Pontevedra, where he could rest from his labors and enjoy his leisure hours; and whenever Señor Aldao heard any one speak of his magnificent villa, of his orange orchard, of his grove of eucalyptus trees, of his marble statues, and of the other beauties which were displayed at Naranjal, his face would wear a scowl, his lips would be compressed in mortified pride, and he would ask the people with whom he was speaking:
“What do you think of the tree, my yew? An English naval officer praised it most enthusiastically and wanted to take views of it,” etc.
It was a fancy of Don Román’s, never to be realized, that he could beautify his estate in imitation of Naranjal. Nature was an accomplice in his dream, however, for, besides the gigantic yew-tree which she had created, she spread around it all the charms which she is accustomed to display in that corner of paradise which is called Rías Bajas. The sun, the ocean, the sky, the climate, the beach, the vegetation of a district so luxuriant, formed an oasis of Tejo, though it could not compete with Naranjal in what depended on the work of man. Art may make a great show in the country, but the highest charm of a country seat depends on Nature. But our Don Román did not understand this. He did not appreciate the ineffable sweetness and repose of the country, which causes a man to forget the pleasures of social life. On the contrary, he longed for the bustle, the style, the glories and pomps of a proprietor and local magnate, and felt, above all, the urgings of his vanity, which was so absurd, because so impotent. Of course, Aldao did not attempt to copy splendors like those of the famous chapel of stalactites, so highly praised by newspaper writers and tourists. But if, for example, they set up at Naranjal a spacious breakfast room, in an arbor covered with jasmine-vines, immediately Don Román would fall to planning a rickety place, covered with honeysuckle, wherein they might take their chocolate. Was there fine statuary at Naranjal? Out Don Román Aldao would come with his plaster busts, his “Four Seasons,” or his group of “Cupids,” and would place them in the middle of a meadow or an espalier. If they introduced a conservatory at Naranjal, with a fine collection of ferns and orchids, immediately after Don Román would repair to Pontevedra, and purchase all the worn-out window-frames he could find, in order to fit up a cheap hot-house, filled with stiff and insufferable begonias. Did they have rustic tables and seats brought from Switzerland at Naranjal? Señor Aldao would show the village carpenter how to saw pine cones in two, and with the trunks of the pine trees would make rustic seats and all kinds of furniture. And, to crown all, there was the yew-tree!
On the first day of my stay at Tejo some people came from Pontevedra to dine: Señor Aldao’s oldest son, Luciano, with his child, a boy about four years old, and a provincial deputy named Castro Mera, who was my uncle’s greatest friend at that time, and head of the clique which represented his political views in the bosom of the Pontevedra Assembly. Everything is relative, and in Pontevedra there were not only my uncle’s henchmen but his own public policy, directed by the strict principles which the reader will imagine.
The editor of El Teucrense was also there. That petty sheet was a devoted supporter of my uncle at that time, although it used to abuse him soundly six months before; but there are magical sops to throw to such Cerberuses. They talked a great deal about local politics, which were so small that they were fairly microscopic.