The elder brother, a long-legged stutterer whom they called Aristón in jest, was the most funereal fellow on the planet; he suffered from acute necromania; anything connected with coffins, corpses, wakes and candles roused his enthusiasm. He would like to have been a gravedigger, the priest of a religious confraternity, a cemetery warden; but his great dream,—what most enchanted him,—was a funeral; he would imagine, as a wonderful ideal, the conversations that the proprietor of a funeral establishment must have with the father or the inconsolable widow as he offered wreaths of immortelles, or as he went to take the measure of a corpse or strolled amidst the coffins. What a splendid existence, this manufacturing of last resting-places for men, women and children, and afterward accompanying them to the burial-ground. For Aristón, details relating to death were the most important matter in life.
Through that irony of fate which almost always exchanges the proper labels of things and persons, Aristón was a supernumerary in one of the vaudeville theatres, through the influence of his father, who was a scene-shifter, and the job disgusted him, for in such a playhouse nobody ever died upon the stage, nobody ever came out in mourning and there was no weeping. And while Aristón kept thinking of nothing but funereal scenes, his brother dreamed of circuses, trapezes and acrobats, hoping that some day fate would send him the means to cultivate his gymnastic talents.
CHAPTER V
La Blasa's Tavern.
The frequent quarrels between Leandro and his sweetheart, the Corrector's daughter, very often gave the neighbours of the Corrala food for gossip. Leandro was an ill-tempered, quarrelsome sort; his brutal instincts were quickly awakened; despite his habit of going every Saturday night to the taverns and restaurants, ready for a rumpus with the bullies and the ruffians, he had thus far managed to steer clear of any disagreeable accident. His sweetheart was somewhat pleased with this display of valour; her mother, however, regarded it with genuine indignation, and was forever advising her daughter to dismiss her Leandro for good.
The girl would dismiss her lover; but afterwards, when he returned in humility, ready to accede to any conditions, she relented.
This confidence in her power turned the girl despotic, whimsical, voluble; she would amuse herself by rousing Leandro's jealousy; she had arrived at a particular state, a blend of affection and hatred, in which the affection remained within and the hatred outside, revealing itself in a ferocious cruelty, in the satisfaction of mortifying her lover constantly.
"What you ought to do some fine day," Señor Ignacio would say to Leandro, incensed by the cruel coquetry of the maiden, "is to get her into a corner and take all you want…. And then give her a beating and leave her soft as mush. The next day she'd be following you around like a dog."
Leandro, as brave as any bully, was as meek as a charity-pupil in the presence of his sweetheart. At times he recalled his father's counsel, but he would never have summoned the courage to carry it through.
One Saturday afternoon, after a bitter dispute with Milagros, Leandro invited Manuel to make the rounds that night together with him.