“Heaven!” said Raphael, “what eloquence! My aunt is inspired, illuminated! I will vote for her as a candidate for the Cortes.”
“Dispense also,” continued the marchioness, “with introducing into your novel the frightful suicide.”
“Apropos of suicides, will you kill yourself if I marry Don Luis?” asked Rita of Raphael.
“I, executioner of my innocent person! God preserve me, my beautiful ingrate! I will live to see you repent, to replace Don Luis, the conqueror, if one day he takes it into his head to play a game at monte, in the kingdom of Lucifer, his compeer.”
“My mother,” said the countess, “instead of tears and crimes, make something good and amusing.”
“But, Gracia,” replied Raphael, “it must be acknowledged that there is nothing so insipid in a novel as virtue only. Example: let us suppose I should write the biography of my aunt. I would say she was an excellent young girl; that she was married, with the approval of her parents, to a man suited to her; and that she is the model of wives and of mothers, without any other weakness than being a little prone to things of the past, and to have a little too great penchant for the tresillo. All this is very good for an epitaph, but it is rather simple for a novel.”
“Where have you discovered that I aspire to become the model of a heroine in a novel? What nonsense!”
“Then,” remarked Stein, “write an historical romance. No, rather a romance on manners. At this moment you are about to have a romance composed by me—a romance which will be composed of two styles.”
“The scene—will it be laid here?” said the marchioness. “You will see, Don Frederico.”
“I intend to take for my subject,” said Raphael, “the life, altogether moral and honorable, of my uncle, General Santa-Maria.”