University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER THREE

WHEN General Barrios stopped to address Mrs.
Gould, Antonia raised negligently her hand holding an
open fan, as if to shade from the sun her head, wrapped
in a light lace shawl. The clear gleam of her blue eyes
gliding behind the black fringe of eyelashes paused for a
moment upon her father, then travelled further to the
figure of a young man of thirty at most, of medium
height, rather thick-set, wearing a light overcoat.
Bearing down with the open palm of his hand upon the
knob of a flexible cane, he had been looking on from a
distance; but directly he saw himself noticed, he approached
quietly and put his elbow over the door of the
landau.

The shirt collar, cut low in the neck, the big bow of
his cravat, the style of his clothing, from the round hat
to the varnished shoes, suggested an idea of French
elegance; but otherwise he was the very type of a fair
Spanish creole. The fluffy moustache and the short,
curly, golden beard did not conceal his lips, rosy, fresh,
almost pouting in expression. His full, round face was
of that warm, healthy creole white which is never
tanned by its native sunshine. Martin Decoud was
seldom exposed to the Costaguana sun under which he
was born. His people had been long settled in Paris,
where he had studied law, had dabbled in literature, had
hoped now and then in moments of exaltation to become
a poet like that other foreigner of Spanish blood,
José Maria Herédia. In other moments he had, to pass
the time, condescended to write articles on European

affairs for the Semenario, the principal newspaper in
Sta. Marta, which printed them under the heading
"From our special correspondent," though the authorship
was an open secret. Everybody in Costaguana,
where the tale of compatriots in Europe is jealously
kept, knew that it was "the son Decoud," a talented
young man, supposed to be moving in the higher
spheres of Society. As a matter of fact, he was an idle
boulevardier, in touch with some smart journalists,
made free of a few newspaper offices, and welcomed in
the pleasure haunts of pressmen. This life, whose
dreary superficiality is covered by the glitter of universal
blague, like the stupid clowning of a harlequin by
the spangles of a motley costume, induced in him a
Frenchified — but most un-French — cosmopolitanism, in
reality a mere barren indifferentism posing as intellectual
superiority. Of his own country he used to say to
his French associates: "Imagine an atmosphere of
opera-bouffe in which all the comic business of stage
statesmen, brigands, etc., etc., all their farcical stealing,
intriguing, and stabbing is done in dead earnest. It is
screamingly funny, the blood flows all the time, and
the actors believe themselves to be influencing the fate
of the universe. Of course, government in general, any
government anywhere, is a thing of exquisite comicality
to a discerning mind; but really we Spanish-Americans
do overstep the bounds. No man of ordinary intelligence
can take part in the intrigues of une farce macabre.
However, these Ribierists, of whom we hear so much
just now, are really trying in their own comical way to
make the country habitable, and even to pay some of
its debts. My friends, you had better write up Señor
Ribiera all you can in kindness to your own bondholders.
Really, if what I am told in my letters is true, there is
some chance for them at last."

And he would explain with railing verve what Don
Vincente Ribiera stood for — a mournful little man oppressed
by his own good intentions, the significance of
battles won, who Montero was (un grotesque vaniteux et
féroce), and the manner of the new loan connected with
railway development, and the colonization of vast
tracts of land in one great financial scheme.

And his French friends would remark that evidently
this little fellow Decoud connaissait la question à fond.
An important Parisian review asked him for an article
on the situation. It was composed in a serious tone and
in a spirit of levity. Afterwards he asked one of his
intimates —

"Have you read my thing about the regeneration of
Costaguana — une bonne blague, hein?"

He imagined himself Parisian to the tips of his fingers.
But far from being that he was in danger of remaining a
sort of nondescript dilettante all his life. He had
pushed the habit of universal raillery to a point where it
blinded him to the genuine impulses of his own nature.
To be suddenly selected for the executive member of
the patriotic small-arms committee of Sulaco seemed to
him the height of the unexpected, one of those fantastic
moves of which only his "dear countrymen" were
capable.

"It's like a tile falling on my head. I —I — executive
member! It's the first I hear of it! What do I know
of military rifles? C'est funambulesque!" he had exclaimed
to his favourite sister; for the Decoud family —
except the old father and mother — used the French
language amongst themselves. "And you should see
the explanatory and confidential letter! Eight pages
of it — no less!"

This letter, in Antonia's handwriting, was signed by
Don José, who appealed to the "young and gifted

Costaguanero" on public grounds, and privately opened
his heart to his talented god-son, a man of wealth and
leisure, with wide relations, and by his parentage and
bringing-up worthy of all confidence.

"Which means," Martin commented, cynically, to
his sister, "that I am not likely to misappropriate
the funds, or go blabbing to our Chargé d'Affaires
here."

The whole thing was being carried out behind the
back of the War Minister, Montero, a mistrusted
member of the Ribiera Government, but difficult to
get rid of at once. He was not to know anything of it
till the troops under Barrios's command had the new
rifle in their hands. The President-Dictator, whose
position was very difficult, was alone in the secret.

"How funny!" commented Martin's sister and confidante;
to which the brother, with an air of best Parisian
blague, had retorted:

"It's immense! The idea of that Chief of the State
engaged, with the help of private citizens, in digging a
mine under his own indispensable War Minister. No!
We are unapproachable!" And he laughed immoderately.

Afterwards his sister was surprised at the earnestness
and ability he displayed in carrying out his mission,
which circumstances made delicate, and his want of
special knowledge rendered difficult. She had never
seen Martin take so much trouble about anything in his
whole life.

"It amuses me," he had explained, briefly. "I am
beset by a lot of swindlers trying to sell all sorts of gas-
pipe weapons. They are charming; they invite me to
expensive luncheons; I keep up their hopes; it's extremely
entertaining. Meanwhile, the real affair is
being carried through in quite another quarter."

When the business was concluded he declared suddenly
his intention of seeing the precious consignment
delivered safely in Sulaco. The whole burlesque business,
he thought, was worth following up to the end.
He mumbled his excuses, tugging at his golden beard,
before the acute young lady who (after the first wide
stare of astonishment) looked at him with narrowed
eyes, and pronounced slowly —

"I believe you want to see Antonia."

"What Antonia?" asked the Costaguana boulevardier,
in a vexed and disdainful tone. He shrugged
his shoulders, and spun round on his heel. His sister
called out after him joyously —

"The Antonia you used to know when she wore her
hair in two plaits down her back."

He had known her some eight years since, shortly before
the Avellanos had left Europe for good, as a tall
girl of sixteen, youthfully austere, and of a character
already so formed that she ventured to treat slightingly
his pose of disabused wisdom. On one occasion, as
though she had lost all patience, she flew out at him
about the aimlessness of his life and the levity of his
opinions. He was twenty then, an only son, spoiled by
his adoring family. This attack disconcerted him so
greatly that he had faltered in his affectation of amused
superiority before that insignificant chit of a school-girl.
But the impression left was so strong that ever since all
the girl friends of his sisters recalled to him Antonia
Avellanos by some faint resemblance, or by the great
force of contrast. It was, he told himself, like a
ridiculous fatality. And, of course, in the news the
Decouds received regularly from Costaguana, the
name of their friends, the Avellanos, cropped up frequently
— the arrest and the abominable treatment of
the ex-Minister, the dangers and hardships endured by

the family, its withdrawal in poverty to Sulaco, the
death of the mother.

The Monterist pronunciamento had taken place before
Martin Decoud reached Costaguana. He came
out in a roundabout way, through Magellan's Straits by
the main line and the West Coast Service of the O.S.N.
Company. His precious consignment arrived just in
time to convert the first feelings of consternation into a
mood of hope and resolution. Publicly he was made
much of by the familias principales. Privately Don
José, still shaken and weak, embraced him with tears
in his eyes.

"You have come out yourself! No less could be expected
from a Decoud. Alas! our worst fears have been
realized," he moaned, affectionately. And again he
hugged his god-son. This was indeed the time for men
of intellect and conscience to rally round the endangered
cause.

It was then that Martin Decoud, the adopted child of
Western Europe, felt the absolute change of atmosphere.
He submitted to being embraced and talked to
without a word. He was moved in spite of himself by
that note of passion and sorrow unknown on the more
refined stage of European politics. But when the tall
Antonia, advancing with her light step in the dimness
of the big bare Sala of the Avellanos house, offered him
her hand (in her emancipated way), and murmured, "I
am glad to see you here, Don Martin," he felt how impossible
it would be to tell these two people that he had
intended to go away by the next month's packet. Don
José, meantime, continued his praises. Every accession
added to public confidence, and, besides, what an
example to the young men at home from the brilliant
defender of the country's regeneration, the worthy expounder
of the party's political faith before the world!

Everybody had read the magnificent article in the
famous Parisian Review. The world was now informed:
and the author's appearance at this moment
was like a public act of faith. Young Decoud felt overcome
by a feeling of impatient confusion. His plan had
been to return by way of the United States through
California, visit Yellowstone Park, see Chicago,
Niagara, have a look at Canada, perhaps make a short
stay in New York, a longer one in Newport, use his
letters of introduction. The pressure of Antonia's hand
was so frank, the tone of her voice was so unexpectedly
unchanged in its approving warmth, that all he found to
say after his low bow was —

"I am inexpressibly grateful for your welcome; but
why need a man be thanked for returning to his native
country? I am sure Doña Antonia does not think so."

"Certainly not, señor," she said, with that perfectly
calm openness of manner which characterized all her
utterances. "But when he returns, as you return, one
may be glad — for the sake of both."

Martin Decoud said nothing of his plans. He not
only never breathed a word of them to any one, but only
a fortnight later asked the mistress of the Casa Gould
(where he had of course obtained admission at once),
leaning forward in his chair with an air of well-bred
familiarity, whether she could not detect in him that
day a marked change — an air, he explained, of more
excellent gravity. At this Mrs. Gould turned her face
full towards him with the silent inquiry of slightly
widened eyes and the merest ghost of a smile, an
habitual movement with her, which was very fascinating
to men by something subtly devoted, finely self-
forgetful in its lively readiness of attention. Because,
Decoud continued imperturbably, he felt no longer
an idle cumberer of the earth. She was, he assured

her, actually beholding at that moment the Journalist
of Sulaco. At once Mrs. Gould glanced towards Antonia,
posed upright in the corner of a high, straight-
backed Spanish sofa, a large black fan waving slowly
against the curves of her fine figure, the tips of crossed
feet peeping from under the hem of the black skirt.
Decoud's eyes also remained fixed there, while in an
undertone he added that Miss Avellanos was quite
aware of his new and unexpected vocation, which in
Costaguana was generally the speciality of half-
educated negroes and wholly penniless lawyers. Then,
confronting with a sort of urbane effrontery Mrs.
Gould's gaze, now turned sympathetically upon himself,
he breathed out the words, "Pro Patria!"

What had happened was that he had all at once
yielded to Don José's pressing entreaties to take the
direction of a newspaper that would "voice the aspirations
of the province." It had been Don José's old and
cherished idea. The necessary plant (on a modest
scale) and a large consignment of paper had been received
from America some time before; the right man
alone was wanted. Even Señor Moraga in Sta. Marta
had not been able to find one, and the matter was now
becoming pressing; some organ was absolutely needed
to counteract the effect of the lies disseminated by the
Monterist press: the atrocious calumnies, the appeals
to the people calling upon them to rise with their knives
in their hands and put an end once for all to the Blancos,
to these Gothic remnants, to these sinister mummies,
these impotent paraliticos, who plotted with foreigners
for the surrender of the lands and the slavery of the
people.

The clamour of this Negro Liberalism frightened
Seńor Avellanos. A newspaper was the only remedy.
And now that the right man had been found in Decoud,

great black letters appeared painted between the windows
above the arcaded ground floor of a house on the
Plaza. It was next to Anzani's great emporium of
boots, silks, ironware, muslins, wooden toys, tiny silver
arms, legs, heads, hearts (for ex-voto offerings), rosaries,
champagne, women's hats, patent medicines, even a few
dusty books in paper covers and mostly in the French
language. The big black letters formed the words,
"Offices of the Porvenir." From these offices a single
folded sheet of Martin's journalism issued three times a
week; and the sleek yellow Anzani prowling in a suit of
ample black and carpet slippers, before the many doors
of his establishment, greeted by a deep, side-long inclination
of his body the Journalist of Sulaco going to and
fro on the business of his august calling.