登陆注册
4709000000042

第42章

"Here we are very observant of one another," continued Don Inocencio.

"We take notice of everything our neighbors do, and with such a system of vigilance public morals are maintained at a proper height. Believe me, my friend, believe me,--and I do not say this to mortify you,--you are the first gentleman of your position who, in the light of day--the first, yes, senor--/Trojoe qui primus ab oris/."

And bursting into a laugh, he clapped the engineer on the back in token of amity and good-will.

"How grateful I ought to be," said the young man, concealing his anger under the sarcastic words which he thought the most suitable to answer the covert irony of his interlocutors, "to meet with so much generosity and tolerance, when my criminal conduct would deserve--"

"What! Is a person of one's own blood, one who bears one's name," said Dona Perfecta, "to be treated like a stranger? You are my nephew, you are the son of the best and the most virtuous of men, of my dear brother Juan, and that is sufficient. Yesterday afternoon the secretary of the bishop came here to tell me that his lordship is greatly displeased because I have you in my house."

"And that too?" murmured the canon.

"And that too. I said that in spite of the respect which I owe the bishop, and the affection and reverence which I bear him, my nephew is my nephew, and I cannot turn him out of my house."

"This is another singularity which I find in this place," said Pepe Rey, pale with anger. "Here, apparently, the bishop governs other people's houses."

"He is a saint. He is so fond of me that he imagines--he imagines that you are going to contaminate us with your atheism, your disregard for public opinion, your strange ideas. I have told him repeatedly that, at bottom, you are an excellent young man."

"Some concession must always be made to superior talent," observed Don Inocencio.

"And this morning, when I was at the Cirujedas'--oh, you cannot imagine in what a state they had my head! Was it true that you had come to pull down the cathedral; that you were commissioned by the English Protestants to go preaching heresy throughout Spain; that you spent the whole night gambling in the Casino; that you were drunk in the streets?

'But, senoras,' I said to them, 'would you have me send my nephew to the hotel?' Besides, they are wrong about the drunkenness, and as for gambling--I have never yet heard that you gambled."

Pepe Rey found himself in that state of mind in which the calmest man is seized by a sudden rage, by a blind and brutal impulse to strangle some one, to strike some one in the face, to break some one's head, to crush some one's bones. But Dona Perfecta was a woman and was, besides, his aunt; and Don Inocencio was an old man and an ecclesiastic. In addition to this, physical violence is in bad taste and unbecoming a person of education and a Christian. There remained the resource of giving vent to his suppressed wrath in dignified and polite language; but this last resource seemed to him premature, and only to be employed at the moment of his final departure from the house and from Orbajosa.

Controlling his fury, then, he waited.

Jacinto entered as they were finishing supper.

"Good-evening, Senor Don Jose," he said, pressing the young man's hand.

"You and your friends kept me from working this afternoon. I was not able to write a line. And I had so much to do!"

"I am very sorry for it, Jacinto. But according to what they tell me, you accompany them sometimes in their frolics."

"I!" exclaimed the boy, turning scarlet. "Why, you know very well that Tafetan never speaks a word of truth. But is it true, Senor de Rey, that you are going away?"

"Is that the report in the town?"

"Yes. I heard it in the Casino and at Don Lorenzo Ruiz's."

Rey contemplated in silence for a few moments the fresh face of Don Nominative. Then he said:

"Well, it is not true; my aunt is very well satisfied with me; she despises the calumnies with which the Orbajosans are favoring me--and she will not turn me out of her house, even though the bishop himself should try to make her do so."

"As for turning you out of the house--never. What would your father say?"

"Notwithstanding all your kindness, dearest aunt, notwithstanding the cordial friendship of the reverend canon, it is possible that I may myself decide to go away."

"To go away!"

"To go away--you!"

A strange light shone in Dona Perfecta's eyes. The canon, experienced though he was in dissimulation, could not conceal his joy.

"Yes, and perhaps this very night."

"Why, man, how impetuous you are; Why don't you at least wait until morning? Here--Juan, let some one go for Uncle Licurgo to get the nag ready. I suppose you will take some luncheon with you. Nicolasa, that piece of veal that is on the sideboard! Librada, the senorito's linen."

"No, I cannot believe that you would take so rash a resolution," said Don Cayetano, thinking himself obliged to take some part in the question.

"But you will come back, will you not?" asked the canon.

"At what time does the morning train pass?" asked Dona Perfecta, in whose eyes was clearly discernible the feverish impatience of her exaltation.

"I am going away to-night."

"But there is no moon."

In the soul of Dona Perfecta, in the soul of the Penitentiary, in the little doctor's youthful soul echoed like a celestial harmony the word, "To-night!"

"Of course, dear Pepe, you will come back. I wrote to-day to your father, your excellent father," exclaimed Dona Perfecta, with all the physiognomic signs that make their appearance when a tear is about to be shed.

"I will trouble you with a few commissions," said the savant.

"A good opportunity to order the volume that is wanting in my copy of the Abbe Gaume's work," said the youthful lawyer.

"You take such sudden notions, Pepe; you are so full of caprices," murmured Dona Perfecta, smiling, with her eyes fixed on the door of the dining-room. "But I forgot to tell you that Caballuco is waiting to speak to you."

同类推荐
  • 送刘山人归洞庭

    送刘山人归洞庭

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 古玩指南

    古玩指南

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • Indian Summer of a Forsyte

    Indian Summer of a Forsyte

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 离峰老人集

    离峰老人集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 佛说宝雨经

    佛说宝雨经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 工作的成就

    工作的成就

    本套书系故事精彩,内容纵横,伴随整个人生成功发展历程,思想蕴含丰富,表达深入浅出,闪耀着智慧的光芒和精神的力量,具有成功心理暗示和潜在智慧力量开发的功能,具有很强的理念性、系统性和实用性,能够起到启迪思想,智慧的源泉,生命的明灯,是当代青年树立现代观念、实现财智人生的精神奠基之作,也是各级图书馆珍藏的最佳精品。
  • 从零开始创造地下城

    从零开始创造地下城

    那是一座神秘的城堡,坐落在森林的中央。有人传言,阴影城堡的主人是可怕的怪物,但是也有人反驳说,那只是个爱笑的金发男孩。心怀贪婪的佣兵来到城堡当中,有些人死了,有些人再也没有办法离开,只有永远都无法散去的乌云,裹挟着寒冷的雨水,无休止的浇灌在腐败的森林中。(本书充斥着大量带脑子不带脑子都看不懂的情节,请不明所以的亲们右上角点X,真的,这本书不适合你们放松看。)
  • 被领导的艺术

    被领导的艺术

    任何一个人,不管在什么行业,担任什么职位,都同时充当领导者和被领导者两种角色,但是平日里往往将领导艺术摆在第一位,忽视了被领导的艺术。每一个人,几乎都在领导别人的同时接受别人的领导,所以我们最好先学习如何接受领导,然后才能懂得如何领导别人。因为只有学会被领导的艺术才能当好领导者。本书从做有准备的被领导者、与领导建立和谐关系、领会领导的真实意图、获得授权时做好本分等多个方面,运用心理学、处世哲学、管理艺术、领导学等领域知识,通俗、细致、独到地讲解了被领导的艺术和智慧。这是曾仕强教授首次系统讲授被领导的智慧,是领导者和被领导者必学的一门新课。
  • 神奇的倒霉蛋

    神奇的倒霉蛋

    本书讲了一个狠心的爸爸,觉得自己的孩子是天生的哑巴,狠心的把自己的孩子扔到深山老林里,孩子意外地被狼收养了十年,十年以来,小狼和老狼对男孩儿特别好,男孩儿与狼为友。于是,这个“狼孩儿”既有人性的善良,又有了“狼性”的坚韧。后来,他无意间遇到的外星人,并且借助外星人的魔法重返人间,从而发生了一个个妙趣横生的故事……
  • 重生之奋斗娱乐圈

    重生之奋斗娱乐圈

    新书《今生不嫁有钱人》已经上传啦,欢迎亲们来踩呀!------那个一辈子碌碌无为的蒋艳阳重生啦,还莫名其妙的进了娱乐圈当上了经纪人。谁也想不到,她就靠着那三两个人四五杆枪,竟然成了演艺圈最红的经纪人!这是一个无经验小白靠着个人努力和运气,外加金大腿的加持,一步步成为娱乐圈当红经纪人的故事,当然爱情事业双丰收那是必须的!
  • 治安疏

    治安疏

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 齐燕和张美凤的春天

    齐燕和张美凤的春天

    故事以描写两个女子间的情感为主题,让人想起已渐渐随时间流逝的稚嫩,青春一寸寸过去了,友谊永存,爱也还在,让我们一起用回忆感知少年的轻狂,用泪水感受生活的美好。
  • 明朝那些事儿(全集)

    明朝那些事儿(全集)

    《明朝那些事儿》主要讲述的是从1344年到1644年这三百年间关于明朝的一些故事。以史料为基础,以年代和具体人物为主线,并加入了小说的笔法,语言幽默风趣。对明朝十七帝和其他王公权贵和小人物的命运进行全景展示,尤其对官场政治、战争、帝王心术着墨最多,并加入对当时政治经济制度、人伦道德的演义。它以一种网络语言向读者娓娓道出明朝三百多年的历史故事、人物。其中原本在历史中陌生、模糊的历史人物在书中一个个变得鲜活起来。《明朝那些事儿》为我们解读历史中的另一面,让历史变成一部活生生的生活故事。
  • 钢铁是怎样炼成的

    钢铁是怎样炼成的

    《钢铁是怎样炼成的》系作者以亲身经历为素材创作的反映20世纪二三十年代青年参与建立和巩固苏维埃政权、参与重建国民经济火热斗争的长篇小说。主人公帕维尔科尔恰金在战争中身负重伤,后全身瘫痪,双目失明。为重返建设国家的岗位,他刻苦自学,阅读了大量的文学作品,逐步提高写作水平,最终写出感人至深的长篇小说,继续为人民作出卓越贡献。
  • 婚意绵绵,总裁慢慢宠

    婚意绵绵,总裁慢慢宠

    安静姝的母亲从小就教导她凡事都要忍耐。所以,新婚当天,顾北城抛下自己去找初恋情人,让自己成为全城笑柄的时候,自己忍了。结婚三个月的时候,顾北城带着大腹便便的初恋情人告诉她肚子里面的孩子是他的,她也忍了。但是在出初恋情人流产之后却打着离婚的旗号把自己送进精神病院!这尼玛就不能够忍了。老虎不发威你把我当病猫啊!--情节虚构,请勿模仿