Caesar or Nothing

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"This, no doubt, is what is called being happy," he used to say to
himself. And being happy gave him the impression of a limbo; he felt
as though his old personality was dying within him. He could no longer
recover his former way of life; all his disquietudes had vanished. He
felt that he was balanced, lacking those alternations of courage and
cowardice which had previously formed the characteristic thing in him.
It was the oasis after the desert; the calm that follows the storm.

Caesar wondered if he had acquired new nerves. His instinct to be
arbitrary was on the downward track.

He could not easily determine what role his wife played in his inner
life. He felt the necessity of having her beside him, of talking to her;
but he did not understand whether this was mere selfishness, for the
sake of the soothing effect her presence produced, or was for the
satisfaction of his vanity in seeing how she gave all her thought to
him.

Spiritually he did not feel her either identified with him or strange to
him; her soul marched along as if parallel to his, but in other paths.

"All that men say about women is completely false," Caesar used to
think, "and what women say about themselves, equally so, because they
merely repeat what men say. Only when they are completely emancipated
will they succeed in understanding themselves. It is indubitable that we
have not the same leading ideas, or the same points of view. Probably we
have not a similar moral sense either. Neither is woman made for man,
nor man for woman. There is necessity between them, not harmony."

Many times, watching Amparito, he told himself:

"There is some sort of machinery in her head that I do not understand."

Noting his scrutinizing gaze, she would ask him:

"What are you thinking about me?"

He would explain his perplexities, and she would laugh.

SYMPATHY

Indubitably, there existed an instinctive accord of the sentiments
between Amparito and him, an organic sympathy. She could feel for them
both, but he could not think for them both; each mental machine ran in
isolation, like two watches, which do not hear each other. She knew
whether Caesar was sad or joyful, disheartened or spirited, merely by
looking at him. She had no need to ask him; she could read Caesar's
face. He could not, on his side, understand what went on behind that
little forehead and those moist and sparkling eyes.

"Are you feeling happy? Are you feeling sad?" he would ask her. He could
not reach the point of knowing by himself.

"I never succeed in knowing what you want," he sometimes said to her,
bitterly.

"Why, you always succeed," she used to reply.

Caesar often wondered if the role of being so much loved, whether wrong
or right, was an absurd, offensive thing. In all great affections there
is one peculiarity; if one loves a person, one gets to the point of
changing that person to an idol inside oneself, and from that moment
it seems that the person divides into the unreal idol, which is like a
false picture of the adored one, and the living being, who resembles the
idolized object very slightly.

Caesar found something absurd in being loved like that. Besides, he
found that she was dragging him away from himself. After six months of
marriage, she was making him change his ideas and his way of life, and
he was having absolutely no influence on her.

Previously he had often thought that if he lived with a woman, he should
prefer one that was spiritually foreign to him, who should look on him
like a rare plant, not with one that would want to identify herself with
his tastes and his sympathies.

With a somewhat hostile woman he would have felt an inclination to be
voluble and contradictory; with a sympathetic woman, on the contrary, he
would have seemed to himself like a circus runner whom one of his pupils
is trying to overtake, and who has to run hard to keep the record where
it belongs.

But his wife was neither one nor the other.

Amparito had an extraordinary insouciance, gaiety, facility, in
accepting life. Caesar never ceased being amazed. She spent her days
working, talking, singing. The slightest diversion enchanted her,
the most insignificant gift aroused a lively satisfaction.

"Everything is decided, as far as you are concerned," Caesar used, to
tell her.

"By what?"

"By your character."

She laughed at that.

It seemed as if she had chosen the best attitude toward life. She saw
that her husband was not religious, but she considered that an attribute
of men, and thought that God must have an especial complacency toward
husbands, if only so as not to leave wives alone in paradise.

Amparito held by a fetichistic Catholicism, conditioned by her situation
in life, and mixed with a lot of heterodox and contradictory ideas, but
she didn't give any thought to that.

The marriage was very successful; they never had disputes or
discussions. When both were stubborn, they never noticed which one
yielded.

They had rented one rather big floor facing on the Retiro, and they
began to furnish it.

Amparito had bad taste in decoration; everything loud pleased her, and
sometimes when Caesar laughed, she would say:

"I know I am a crazy country girl. You must tell me how to fix things."

Caesar decided the arrangement of a little reception-room. He chose
a light paper for the walls, some coloured engravings, and Empire
furniture. Female friends found the room very well done. Amparito used
to tell them:

"Yes, Caesar had it done like this," as if that were a weighty argument
with everybody.

Amparito and her father persuaded Caesar that he ought to open an
office. All the people in Castro lamented that Caesar did not practise
law.

He had always felt a great repugnance for that sharpers' and skinflints'
business; but he yielded to please Amparito, and set up his office and
took an assistant who was very skillful in legal tricks. Caesar was often
to be found writing in the office, when Amparito opened the door.

"Do you want to come here a moment?" she would say.

"Yes. What is it?"

"Look and see how this hat suits me. How do you like it?"

Caesar would laugh and say:

"I think you ought to take off the flowers, or it ought to be smaller."

Amparito accepted Caesar's suggestions as if they had been, articles of
faith.

Caesar, on his part, had a great admiration for his wife. What strength
for facing life! What amazing energy!

"I walk among brambles and leave a piece of my clothing on every one of
them," thought Caesar, "and she passes artlessly between all obstacles,
with the ease of an ethereal thing. It's extraordinary!"

It pleased Amparito to be thus observed.

Her husband used to tell her:

"You have, as it were, ten or twelve Amparitos inside of you; it often
seems to me that you are a whole round of Amparitos."

"Well, you are not more than one Caesar to me."

"That's because I have the ugly vice of talking and of being
consequential."

"Don't I talk?"

"Yes, in another way."

_DOUBT_

In the spring they went to Castro, and the members of the Workmen's Club
presented themselves before Caesar to remind him of a project for a
Co-operative and a School, which he had promised them. They were all
ready to put up what was necessary for realizing both plans.

Caesar listened to them, and although with great coldness, said yes,
that he was ready to initiate the scheme. A few days later, in Dr.
Ortigosa's _Protest_, there was enthusiastic talk of the Great
Co-operative, which, when established, would improve, and at the same
time cheapen necessary articles.

The same day that the paper came out with this news, a commission of the
shopkeepers of Castro waited on Caesar. The scheme would ruin them. It
was especially the small shopkeepers that considered themselves most
injured.

Caesar replied that he would think it over and decide in an equitable
manner, looking for a way to harmonize the interests of all people.
Really he didn't know what to do, and as he had no great desire to begin
new undertakings, he wanted to call the Co-operative dead, but Dr.
Ortigosa was not disposed to abandon the idea.

"It is certain that if goods are made cheaper," said the doctor, "and
the Co-operative is opened to the public, the shopkeepers will have to
fight it, and then either they or we shall be ruined; but something else
can be done, and that is to sell articles to the public at the same
price as the tradesmen, and arrange it that members get a dividend from
the profits of the society. In that way there will be no fight, at any
rate not at first."

They tried to do it that way, but it did not satisfy the poor people, or
calm the shopkeepers.

Caesar, who had lost his lust for a fight, put the scheme aside; and
although it would cost him more, decided to have the construction of the
school begun.

The Municipality ceded the lot and granted a subsidy of five thousand
pesetas to start the work; Caesar gave ten thousand, and at the
Workmen's Club a subscription was opened, and performances were given in
the theatre to collect funds.

The school promised to be a spacious edifice with a beautiful garden.
The corner-stone was laid in the presence of the Governor of the
Province, and despite the fact that the founders' intention was to found
a lay school, the Clerical element took part in the celebration.

When the work began, the majority of the members of the Club were
shocked to find that the masons, instead of working on the same
conditions as for other jobs, asked more pay, as if the school where
their sons might study were an institution more harmful than beneficial
for them.

Caesar, on learning this, smiled bitterly and said:

"They are not obliged to be less of brutes than the bourgeoisie."

From Madrid Caesar continued sending maps for the school, engravings,
bas-reliefs, a moving-picture machine.

Dr. Ortigosa and his friends went every day to look over the work.

A year from the beginning of work, the boys and girls' school was
opened. Dr. Ortigosa succeeded in arranging that two of the three male
teachers they procured were Free-Thinkers. One of them, a poor man who
had lived a dog's life in some town in Andalusia, was reputed to be an
anarchist. They appointed three female teachers too, two old, and one
young, a very attractive and clever girl, who came from a town near
Bilboa.

Caesar took part in the opening, and spoke, and received enthusiastic
applause. Despite which, Caesar felt ill at ease among his old friends;
in his heart he knew that he was deserting them. He now thought it
unlikely, almost impossible, that that town should succeed in emerging
from obscurity and meaning something in modern life. Moreover, he
doubted about himself, began to think that he was not a hero, began to
believe that he had assigned himself a role beyond his powers; and this
precisely at the moment when the town had the most faith in him.

XV

"DRIVELLER" JUAN AND "THE CUB-SLUT"

_A MURDER_

"Driveller" Juan, the town dandy protected by Father Martin, had from
childhood distinguished himself by his cowardice and by his tendency to
bullying. His appearance was that of an idiot; people said he drivelled;
whence they gave him the nickname of "Driveller" Juan. He lived by
pretending to be terrible in the gambling houses, and bragged of having
been in prison several times.

The Clericals had made "Driveller" the janitor of the Benevolent
Society, and at the same time its bully, so that he could inspire
terror; but as he was a coward in reality, and this was evident, he did
not succeed in terrifying the members of the Workmen's Club.

"Driveller" Juan was tall, red-headed, with high cheek bones, knotty
hands, and a pendulous lip; his father, like him, had been bony and
strong, and for that reason had been called "Big Bones."

"Driveller," like the coward he was, knew that he was not filling his
job; one day he had dared to go to a ball at the Workmen's Club, and San
Roman, the old Republican, had gone to him and tapped him on the arm,
saying:

"Listen here, 'Driveller,' get out right now and don't you come back."

"Why should I?"

"Because you are not wanted."

Juan had gone away like a whipped dog. "Driveller" wanted to do a manly
action, and he did it.

There was a boy belonging to the Workmen's Club, who was called
"Lengthy," one of the few type-setters in the town, a clever, facetious
lad who now and then wrote an article for _The Protest_.

"Driveller" insisted that "Lengthy" wanted to make fun of him. No doubt
he chose him for his victim, because he was so slim, lanky, and weak;
perhaps he had some other reason for attacking him. One afternoon,
at twilight, "Driveller" halted "Lengthy," demanded an explanation,
insulted him, and on finding his victim made no reply, gave him a blow.
The street was wet, and "Driveller" stepped on a fruit-skin and fell
headlong. Seeing the bully infuriated, "Lengthy" started to run, came to
an open door, and ran rapidly up the stairs. "Driveller," furious, ran
after him. Pursued and pursuer went down a hallway and "Lengthy" managed
to reach a door and close it. "Driveller's" revengeful fury was not
satisfied; he lay in wait until "Lengthy," believing himself alone,
tried to escape from his hiding-place and was walking down the hall,
and then "Driveller" drew his pistol and fired with the mouth against
"Lengthy's" shoulder, and left him dead. As it was a rainy day, both the
dead man's footsteps and the murderer's could be followed and everything
that had happened ascertained.

The impression produced in the town by this assassination was enormous.
Some people said that Father Martin and his followers had ordered
"Lengthy" killed. In the Workmen's Club there was talk of setting fire
to the Benevolent Society of Saint Joseph and of burning the monastery
of la Pena.

Caesar was in Madrid at the time of the crime. Some days later a
committee from the Club came to see him; it was necessary to have a
charge pushed and for Caesar to be the private attorney.

According to the Club people, the Clericals wanted to save "Driveller"
Juan, and if he was not disposed of completely, he would begin his
performances again.

Caesar could see nothing for it but to accept the duty which the town
put upon him.

Because of the crime, the history of "Driveller's" family came to be
public property. He had a mother and two sisters who were seamstresses,
whom he exploited, and he lived with a tavern-keeper nicknamed "The
Cub-Slut," a buxom, malicious woman, who said horrible things about
everybody.

* * * * *

_LIFE OF "THE CUB-SLUT"_

There were reasons for "The Cub-Slut's" being what she was. Her parents
being dead when she was a baby, having no relatives she had been left
deserted. A farrier they called "Gaffer," who seemed to have been a
kind person, took in the infant and brought her up in his house. It was
"Gaffer" who had given the nickname to the child, because instead of
calling her by her name, he used to say:

"Hey, 'Cub-Slut!' Hey, little 'Cub-Slut!'" and the appellation had
stuck.

When the girl was fourteen, "Gaffer" ravished her, and afterwards, being
tired of her, took her to a house of prostitution in the Capital and
sold her. "The Cub-Slut" left the brothel to go and live with an old
innkeeper, who died and made her his heiress. Six years later she went
back to Castro. Those that had seen her come back maintained that when
she reached the town and was told that "Gaffer" had died a few months
before, she burst into tears; some said it was from sentiment, but
others thought, very plausibly, that it was from rage at not being able
to get revenge. "The Cub-Slut" set up a tavern at Castro.

"Driveller" and "The Cub-Slut" got along well, although, by what any one
could discover, "The Cub-Slut" treated the bully more like a servant
than anything else.

"The Cub-Slut" was said to be very outspoken. One Sunday, on the
promenade, she had answered one of the young ladies of Castro rudely.
The young lady was the daughter of a millionaire, who had married after
having several children by a mistress of pretty bad reputation. The
millionaire's children had been educated in aristocratic schools, and
his girls were very elegant young ladies; even the mother got to be
refined and polished. One Sunday, on the promenade, one of them, on
passing near "The Cub-Slut," said in a low tone to her mother:

"Dear Lord, what riff-raff!"

And "The Cub-Slut," hearing her, stopped and said violently:

"There's no riff-raff here except your mother and me. Now you know it."

The young lady was so upset by the harsh retort that she didn't leave
the house again for a long while.

Such rude candour on "The Cub-Slut's" part had made her feared; so that
nobody durst provoke her in the slightest degree. Besides, her history
and her misfortune were known and people knew that she was not a vicious
woman, but rather a victim of fate.

The assassination of "Lengthy" was one of those events that are not
forgotten in a town. "Lengthy" was the son of "Gaffer," "The Cub-Slut's"
protector, and some people imagined that she had persuaded "Driveller"
to commit the crime; but the members of the Workmen's Club continued to
believe that it was a case of clerical revenge.

_"THE CUB-SLUT'S" ARGUMENT_

In the month of June, Caesar and Amparito went to Castro Duro.

One afternoon when Caesar was alone in the garden, a very buxom woman
appeared before him, wearing a mantilla and dressed in black.

"I came in without anybody seeing me," she said. "Your porter, 'Wild
Piglet,' let me pass. I know that Amparito is not here."

She didn't say "Your wife," or "Your lady," but "Amparito."

"Tell me what you want," said Caesar, looking at the woman with a
certain dread.

"I am the woman that lives with 'Driveller' Juan."

"Ah! You are...?" "Yes. 'The Cub-Slut.'"

Caesar looked at her attentively. She was of the aquiline type seen on
Iberian coins, her nose arched, eyes big and black, thin-lipped mouth,
and a protruding chin. She noticed his scrutiny, and stood as if on her
guard.

"Sit down, if you will, please, and tell me what you wish."

"I am all right," she replied, continuing to stand; then, precipitately,
she said, "What I want is for them not to punish Juan more than is
just."

"I don't believe he will be punished unjustly," responded Caesar.

"The whole town says that if you speak against him in court, the
punishment will be heavier."

"And you want me not to speak?"

"That's it."

"It seems to me to be asking too much. I shall do no more than insist
that they punish him justly."

"There is no way to get out of it?"

"None."

"If you wanted to ... I would wait on you on my knees afterwards, I
would make any sacrifice for you."

"Are you so fond of the man?"

"The Cub-Slut" answered in the negative, by an energetic movement of her
head.

"Well, then, what do you expect to get out of him?"

"I expect revenge."

"The Cub-Slut's" eyes flashed.

"Is what they say about you true?" asked Caesar.

"Yes."

"The dead boy was the son of the man that sold you?"

"Yes."

"But to revenge oneself on the son for the sin of the father is
horrible."

"The son was just as wicked as the father."

"So that you ordered him killed?"

"Yes, I did."

"And you come and tell that to me, when I am to be the private
attorney." "Have them arrest me. I don't care."

"The Cub-Slut" stood firm before Caesar, provocative, with flashing
eyes, in an attitude of challenge.

"You hated that dead boy so much as this?"

"Yes, him and all his family."

"I can understand that if the father were alive, you might..."

"If he were alive! I would give my life to drag him out of his tomb, so
as to make him suffer as much as he made me suffer."

Caesar vaguely remembered the story he had heard about this woman, whose
adopted father had ruined her and then left her in a disreputable house
in the Capital. In general, the most absolute lack of apprehension
characterizes such village tragedies, and neither does the victim know
she is a victim, nor the villain that he is a villain.

But in this case, judging by what "The Cub-Slut" was telling him, it
had not been so; "Gaffer" had gone about it with a certain depravity,
glutting his desires on her, and then selling her, putting her into an
infamous house. The villain had been cruel and intelligent; the victim
had realized that she was one, to the degree that her soul was filled
with desires for vengeance.

"That man," "The Cub-Slut" ended, sobbing, "took away my name and gave
me a nickname; took away my honour, my life, everything; and if I
cannot be revenged on him because he is dead, I will be revenged on his
family."

Caesar listened attentively to the woman's explanation, without
interrupting her. Then, when she had finished speaking, he said:

"And why not go away?"

"Away? Where?" she asked, astonished.

"Anywhere. The world is so big! Why do you persist in living in the one
spot where people know you and have a bad opinion of you? Go away from
here. There are countries with more generous sentiments than these old
corners of the world. You do not consider yourself infamous or vile."

"No, no."

"Then go away from here. To America, to Australia, anywhere. Perhaps
you can reconstruct your life. At any rate, nobody will call you by your
nickname; nobody will talk familiarly to you. You will conquer or you
will be conquered in the struggle for life. That's evident. You will
share the common lot, but you will not be vilified. Do go."

"The Cub-Slut" listened to Caesar with eyes cast down. When he ceased,
she stood looking at him intently, and then, without a word, she
disappeared.

XVI

PITY, A MASK OF COWARDICE

_THE MOTHER_

Some days later Caesar was in his office, when a thin old woman, dressed
in black, shot in, crossed the room, and fell on her knees before him.
Caesar jumped up in disgust.

"What's this? What's going on here?" he asked.

Amparito entered the room and explained what was going on. The old woman
was "Driveller" Juan's mother. People had told Juan's mother that the
only obstacle to her son's salvation from death was Caesar, and she had
come to implore him not to let them condemn Juan to death.

"My poor son is a good boy," moaned the old creature; "a woman made him
commit the crime."

Caesar listened, silent and gloomy, without speaking, and then left the
room. Amparito remained with the old woman, consoling her and trying to
quiet her.

That night Amparito returned to the task, and dragged the promise from
her husband that he would not act as private attorney at the trial.

Caesar was ashamed and saddened; he didn't care to go to see anybody; he
was committing treason against his cause.

"Pity will finish my work or finish me," thought Caesar, walking
about his room. "That poor old woman is worthy of compassion; that is
undeniable. She believes her son is a good boy, and he really is a low,
cowardly ruffian. I ought not to pay any attention to this plea, but
insist on their condemning that miserable wretch to death. But I haven't
any more energy; I haven't any more strength. I can feel that I am going
to yield; the mother's grief moves me, and I do not consider that if
this bully goes free, he is going to turn the town upside down and ruin
all our work. I am lost."

_FLIGHT_

Caesar confided to his wife that he was daunted; his lack of courage was
a nightmare to him.

Amparito said that they ought to take a long trip. Laura had invited
them to come to Italy. It was the best thing they could do.

Caesar accepted her solution, and, as a matter of fact, they went to
Madrid and from there to Italy.

The Workmen's Club telegraphed to Caesar when the time for the trial
came, and Amparito answered the telegram from Florence, saying that her
husband was ill.

Never had Caesar felt so agitated as then. He bought the Spanish
newspapers, and expected to find in some one of them the words: "Senor
Moncada is a coward," or "Senor Moncada is a sorry creature and a
traitor."

When they knew that judgment had been pronounced and Juan condemned to
eight years in the penitentiary, they returned to Madrid.

Caesar felt humiliated and ashamed; he did not dare show himself in
Castro. The congratulations that some people sent him on the restoration
of his health made his cheeks hot with shame in the solitude of his
office.

The editor of a newspaper in the Capital of the Province came to call on
Caesar, who was so dispirited that he confided to his visitor that he
was ready to retire from politics. Two days later Caesar saw a big
headline on the first page of the Conservative newspaper of the Capital,
which said: "Moncada is about to retire."

Amparito applauded her husband's decision, and Caesar made melancholy
plans for the future, founded on the renunciation of all struggle.

A few days later Caesar received a letter from Castro Duro which made
him quiver. It was signed by Dr. Ortigosa, by San Roman, Camacho, the
apothecary, and the leading members of the Workmen's Club. The letter
was in the doctor's handwriting. It read thus:

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