were listening to some family tradition. The apartment, and the people in it assumed an air of friendly intimacy; the atmosphere, moral and material, was genial; the world was as comfortable and easy for him as the cushion against which he leaned. Each of the company was for him, if not a father, at the least an uncle. Around him reigned sweet security; and as in certain luxurious abodes embarrassment and privation betray themselves, so in this modest dining-room was plainly visible domestic comfort, the most perfect golden mediocrity that poet could dream or philosopher desire. Harmony and moderation are always beautiful, and Rogelio, without being able to define this beauty that surrounded him, felt it and sheltered himself in it as the bird shelters itself among the feathers of its nest. And while the blazing logs crackled in the fireplace, and the sounds of the mortar came softened from the kitchen, and the old men chatted and his mother knitted her stocking, the boy, plunged in vague reverie, tried to picture to himself what that beautiful country, that green Galicia, abounding in rivers, in flowers, and in lovely girls was like.
IV.
The whole street—shopkeepers, peddlers, servants, and inhabitants—all knew Rogelio; as the saying is, every one had some account to settle with him. He was familiar with all the establishments, or rather, the modest little shops for the sale of crockery, imported provisions, novelties, cordage and periodicals, interspersed among the ancient and imposing ancestral houses of the Calle Ancha, which was animated by the presence of the students and by the passing up and down of the street cars.
But those with whom Rogelio was most intimate were the drivers of the hackney coaches, of which there was a stand in the little square of Santo Domingo. Doña Aurora seldom went out that a twinge of her rheumatism or the cold or the heat did not decide her to send for one of those vehicles, so shabby in appearance but so comfortable and convenient. She called them, emphatically, her “equipages,” and declared laughingly that her coach stood always waiting at the door with so punctual a driver that he had never once kept her waiting. Rogelio, as the only son of wealthy parents, indulged in a more luxurious mode of conveyance; his mother allowed him to keep a dashing brougham and a pair of spirited horses at the livery stable of Augustin Cuero, so that on feast days he might drive in the Retiro, or wherever he might like. She would not consent to his keeping a saddle horse, through fear of an accident. But nothing in the world would have induced Señora Pardiñas herself to make use of that toy equipage. She was perfectly satisfied with her quiet hacks. Except on some special occasion—to make visits of ceremony or the like—she cared not a jot whether her carriage had a little extra varnish or her coachman wore gloves or a goat-skin cape. Owing to the frequency with which she employed them and to judicious tips all the drivers of the square were devoted to Doña Aurora, as well as greatly attached to the Señorito, though he loved to torment them, especially his compatriots, the Galicians, whom he was never tired of teasing. He ridiculed their native land, he sang the Muñeira for them, he spoke to them in the Galician dialect, like the servants in Ayála’s comedies, and if by a miracle they were vexed, he would say:
“I too, swift charioteer, am a Galician, a Galician of the Galicians.”
To which they would answer:
“What a droll señorito!”
Whenever he went to engage a carriage for his mother the moment they caught sight of him, if he was a league away, they would laugh and lower the sign. And he would appear upon the scene addressing them something in this fashion:
“Winged Automedon, touch your fiery courser with the whip that he may fly to my enchanted palace. Already the generous steed, impatient, champs the golden bit. Behold him flecked with snowy foam. Buloniu, of what were you thinking, that you did not perceive my approach?”
“I was reading La Correspondencia, Señorito.”