“What a fine time you must have had, eh? Running about and playing on the beach all day, I suppose?”
And the boy answered without betraying any annoyance, but with a grimace of mischievous drollery:
“Yes, indeed, splendid! I made holes in the sand, and built little houses with it. I never enjoyed myself so much.”
In reality the good heart of the young man had grown attached to the assemblage of worthy old oddities who frequented the house. This very Señor de Rojas, for example, inspired him with a feeling of affectionate respect, on account of the justness of his views, and his unquestioned probity. If Themis should descend to this lower sphere, she might take up her abode in the house of Señor Rojas and she would find there an altar erected to her and her image (of wood, according to Candás). A jealous interpreter of the law in its literal signification, Rojas walked along the narrow path that lay before him, without turning to the right hand or to the left, with head erect, and with a tranquil conscience. Convinced of the exalted dignity of his position, he complied with the requirements of social decorum at the expense of incredible privations in his house, sympathized with and seconded in this heroic conduct by his wife. In the exercise of his functions he was influenced neither by considerations of politics nor of friendship. Interests involving millions had been intrusted to him, without awakening in him the faintest touch of cupidity, which is only the instinct of conservation expressing itself in the guise of acquisitiveness. For this reason the honorable name of Prudencio Rojas was pronounced, sometimes with veneration, sometimes with the disguised and caustic irony which vice employs to discredit virtue. The sarcastic Don Nicanor called Rojas a “puppet of the law.” He said that everything about him, mind and character alike, was wooden, neither seeing nor wishing to see that this kind of men, if laws were perfect as far as it is possible for human laws to be, might, by their firmness and integrity in applying them, bring back the golden age.
Often, of an afternoon, especially if it was very cold, or if it snowed or rained, Rogelio, instead of going out, would settle himself comfortably in a corner of the broad sofa and listen to the drowsy chat of the old people. Whenever he could he tried to turn the conversation toward a subject for him full of interest, and one of which he never tired—his native Galicia, which he had left when he was very young. Almost all the party were either natives of that province or had spent long periods of time there, filling positions in the court of Marineda, and they expatiated on the benignity and salubrity of the climate, the cheapness and the excellent quality of the food, the easy and cordial manners of the people and the extraordinary beauty of the scenery.
“I cannot understand why our amiable friend, Doña Aurora, does not take the child to see his native place,” Señor de Febrero would say, stroking the cushion of his crutch.
“I am always intending to do so,” Señora Pardiñas would answer, “but it is one of those plans that something always happens to interfere with. The truth is, as you know, that up to the present there has always been some difficulty or other in the way.”
“Say that you are very fond of your ease, mater amabilis,” her son would interpose. “If it had depended upon you, you would have been a tree that you might have taken root where you had happened to be planted.”
“Just as I take you to San Sebastián I might have taken you to Galicia, child, but it has not been possible to do so. Do you think I don’t often long myself to see my native place again? We who were born there—it is foolishness—but our dearest wish is to go back to the old spot, and our love for it never changes.”
“And we who were not born there love it too,” added Don Nicanor Candás, armed with his trumpet. “I would give my little finger now to spend a year in Marineda; I would rather go there than to Oviedo or to Gijón.