“Are the family affairs in such bad shape that the Marquis was forced to take this course?”
“They are very bad. The grandfather hasn’t much longer to live; the Señorita’s father is a profligate; and El Pollo Real doesn’t care to do anything at all. To whom will they leave the girls? Their stepmother, La Aceitunera, is no good. Have you ever heard of a Señora Patrocinio who has a house in Los Tejares? Well, she goes there every day. Why, it’s a shame.”
“And this Juan de Dios ... is he rich?” asked Quentin.
“Very; but he is very coarse. When he was a little boy he used to say: ‘I want to be a horse,’ and he used to go out to the stable, pick up some filth in his hands, and say to the people, ‘Look, look what I did.’”
“He is coarse, then—eh?”
“Yes; but he’s got noble blood in him.”
Quentin left Juan and went home perplexed. Indubitably, he was no Bœotian, but a vulgar sentimentalist, a poor cadet, an unhappy wretch, without strength enough to set aside, as useless and prejudicial, those gloomy ideas and sentiments: love, self-denial, and the rest.
And he had thought himself an Epicurean! One of the few men capable of following the advice of Horace: “Pluck today’s flower, and give no thought to the morrow’s!” He! In love with a young lady of the aristocracy; not for her money, nor even for her palace; but for her own sake! He was on a level with any romantic carpenter of a provincial capital. He was unworthy of having been in Eton, near Windsor, for eight years; or of having walked through Piccadilly; or of having read Horace.
In the miserable state in which Quentin found himself, only nonsensical ideas occurred to him. The first was to go to Rafaela and demand an explanation; the second was to write her a letter; and he was as pleased with this idiotic plan as if it had been really brilliant. He made several rough drafts in succession, and was satisfied with none of them. Sometimes his words were high-sounding and emphatic; again, he unwittingly gave a clumsy and vulgar tone to his letter: one could read between the lines a common and uncouth irony, as often as extraordinary pride, or abject humility.
At last, seeing that he could not find a form clear enough to express his thoughts, he decided to write a laconic letter, asking Rafaela to grant him an interview.