“Poor woman! She is never very cheerful; but she never seems discontented, either. She is an excellent woman! As good as gold!”
“Well, she tried hard to conceal her grief, but it was very evident, especially to those of us who were already aware of the circumstances.”
“Why, what has happened? Have they had any trouble?” asked Señora de Pardiñas in alarm, for she sincerely esteemed and liked Señora de Rojas.
“Joaquin—the son, the judge—they have transferred him again from one end of Spain to the others, two months after the first transfer, and just when his wife is about to be confined. That will convince him that one cannot play the Quixote here, carapuche. Fancy a young man, who is beginning his career, making his début by opposing so powerful a chief as Colmenar, who has at his back the Minister of the Department. He will soon see, he will soon see that they are not the people to be trifled with. And he will see, too, of how much consequence the law is. A judge can be transferred only at his own instance? Well, put in the royal order, ‘at his own instance,’ and that settles it. Why, there have been people who were placed on the retired list ‘at their own instance.’ And when they protested, they were told they were wanting in respect for the Minister.”
“But, Señor Don Nicanor, that is very creditable to the Rojases. It is evident the young man is of his father’s school. People as upright as that are seldom seen nowadays. I understand nothing about those things, but I remember the affair was discussed here, and it was said that they wanted Joaquin Rojas to be a party to a dreadful piece of dishonesty—a robbery of——”
“The idea of a jackanapes like that,” continued Lain Calvo, persisting in his deafness, “wishing to set himself up in opposition to the Minister. The Rojases are as stubborn as mules. Talis pater—a fanatic the father, a fanatic the son. That is to say, a still greater fanatic, although that might seem to be impossible. For the father at least does not get himself into a fix; he adheres to the letter of the law and that is the end of it. The code says white? White let it be, then. Does it say black? Then let it be black. Rojas is a machine for carrying out the law. If the law to flog criminals or to cut off their ears were still in force, Rojas would himself go about seeing it carried into execution. But the boy! Because he has read a few trashy German and Italian books, translated into worse gibberish, he plays the learned man and the phi-los-o-pher. A judge a phi-los-o-pher! Fancy! What pretentiousness!”
“Well, for my part,” protested Doña Aurora, without raising her voice, for she knew how much faith to put in the Crown Solicitor’s deafness, “I think that in every situation in life a man should behave himself with dignity and propriety. For that reason I have a great deal of sympathy for the Rojases.”
“And as a natural consequence,” continued Lain Calvo, “they are very straitened in their circumstances. They never light a fire in that house, they eat only the plainest food, they drink no coffee. The salary is not enough to meet the expenses of moving from one place to another; he has married a girl without a penny, and as soon as things come to a crisis the young gentleman will lower his tone. Necessity teaches more than all the universities put together. They will tame him yet. He will be as soft as a glove before the year is over.”
Convinced that she would gain nothing by argument, Doña Aurora went on narrowing the heel of her stocking, contenting herself with shaking her head in dissent from time to time, for her quick temper would not allow her to listen quietly to the spiteful remarks of the malicious Asturian.
“We all begin life with the idea that we are going to reform the world,” he went on, “but very soon we take in our sails. Oh, yes, we soon take in our sails. Or if we do not, we lead a miserable existence. You will see that the storm that has caught Joaquin will reach his father also. It is brewing for him. Before the year is out they will give him a lesson he won’t forget. They cannot transfer him? They will superannuate him, then. I am no lover of the past like Don Gaspar and the others, but I must acknowledge that in my day politics had less to do with the magistracy than it has now. That is the way things come and that is how we must take them. Those gentlemen are always in the clouds, carapuche. Complete fools! The new generation understand things better. I am the only one of our circle who lives in the world. If it were not for this cursed deafness——”