“Cut me off what you please, my dear fellow,” I answered, frankly, revealing my disenchantment in a heavy sigh. “There are higher pleasures in the world than mere physical gratification. If you push me hard, I will tell you that matter does not exist—that it is a myth; only an idea, and nothing more. Two moments after taking leave of Belén, I forget even that there is such a woman in the world. I leave her house feeling penitent and more of a spiritualist than the devil.”
“I can’t bear to hear you say such stupidities,” cried Portal, furiously. “What do I care for your ideas, or your spiritualism, or your pumpkins! Why, where will you find another treasure like Belén? For you, Belén is the first prize. The trouble is that they have bewitched you at that cursed house of your uncle’s. The atmosphere of dullness and hypocrisy which surrounds you there is wasting away your spirit little by little. Why don’t you come to live at my boarding-house, I’d like to know? You would be like a fish in deep water there. We would drive the blues out of you in short order. Trinito is more amusing than ever, this year. Will you believe it, he not only sings us all the operas but all that he hears at the concerts in the Romero Salon as well. He fills our ears with “Lohengrin,” “Tannhäuser,” and “Parsifal,” till we can hardly stand it any longer. And the best of it is that he intends to become a musical critic. We came near throwing the coffee-pot at him yesterday, for he nearly split our ears with the “Rhinegold.” Come, my dear fellow, come with us.”
“I may be as simple as you choose, Luis, but I can’t bear that girl. I know that she is handsome, that she likes me, and all that; but it makes no difference to me. Let us see whether you, who did up this package, can undo it quickly. First you know, I’ll be telling her to her face that I hate her, which would be needless cruelty. No, no, I shall have nothing to do with it. Vice and folly may amuse us for a while, but they finally fill us with loathing.”
“You simpleton, how do you make out your vice and folly? Why, Belén is a treasure for you. She sincerely likes you. She would give up her satin boots and plated ware for your sake. Belén has a heart, while your aunt has none; at least, none for you. A fig for your virtuous women! I hate them. A plaster cast is more virtuous than they are, for it neither feels nor suffers.”
“What do you know about it,” I murmured, allowing my hopes to run wild in spite of myself. “How can you be sure that her heart may not be for me? You are too positive. Suppose it should turn out to be for me?”
Portal suddenly became preoccupied and serious. He knit his brow, and said to me in a slightly agitated voice:
“Heaven grant that it may not! I have pondered on that subject, and I swear to you that the best thing that can befall you is that such an event may never occur. Do you hear me? You are a lunatic, fit for the straight-jacket, and you’ll fetch up in Don Ezquerdo’s hands. Suppose that your aunt should really care for you, that the heart you prate about should be manifested as you think it may be. Well, after it had done so, and you had got to loving each other deeply, oh, immensely, like Francesca and Paolo, what would you do then, you hopeless stupid? Let us hear it. Unfold your loving programme. Would you elope with her? Would you hire an apartment for her? Would you desecrate your uncle’s home without any scruple? Answer, you gawk!”
His friendly interest in me blinded and irritated him. His protruding eyes stared at me angrily, as though gazing at a naughty boy who was about to cut his fingers playing with a knife.
“I don’t know what to answer, old chap,” I answered, meekly. “What I do know is that I should be happy, do you hear me? completely happy, if that angelic being should love me. Oh, if she would love me! I would ask no more. I would leave her, I would go off to the North Pole, if only I could be sure of her love. That is what I hope for and what I live for. I respect her like a saint,—but I want her to love me, to love me.”
“To love me, to love me!” chanted Portal, mimicking my voice and manner. “Why, it is the most senseless folly, by Jupiter, and I can’t stand your talking so. It is needless to add that I don’t speak in this manner out of any fantastic regard for morality or inflated consideration for home. Pshaw! As for morality, let everybody settle that question for himself. Home! that is a worn-out institution nowadays, and the one who does most to scuttle it is most deserving of reward from his countrymen. It is not that, by Jove! But it is a question of advantage,—your own advantage. You are losing your mind, and will waste a year’s time in your studies, and all for what? For a figment of your imagination! At our age we all dream about women, and it is natural enough that we should; but we ought to dream about a woman of our own make and not about the very one who would make us unhappy if we were to be united to her. Grant that your aunt is very good, very pure and saintly! Her goodness is only passive—submission to her destiny, a moral routine, my boy—and that’s the end of it, that’s the end. If you were married to Carmen, you would act just as your uncle does; you would not talk to her at table, and would leave her alone as much as possible, because you would not understand her, neither would she understand you, and you would not be able to endure each other. A more complete divorce of soul would never have been seen before. Believe me, and don’t indulge in stupid illusions. Could you become an intimate friend of a neo-Catholic, without culture and full of prejudice? Well, neither could you be a friend to your wife. And what you consider a virtue in her, would surely appear to you like affectation in the neo-Catholic.”