"Come, come, don"t be absurd, Maximina. Without you I should live neither well nor ill.... I should die," he replied, laughing.
Although excited by the prospect of the examinations, and working for them perhaps harder than he ought, our hero was not unhappy. When there is peace and love by the fireside, family life is the best sedative for mental sufferings. This on one side, and on the other the confidence which he had in his forces made living, up to a certain point, delightful.
There came a day, however, in which happiness and relative calmness disappeared at the announcement that the examinations for which he was working were indefinitely postponed, possibly till the next year.
All his plans fell to the ground. As he had not for some time thought of any other way of escape from his difficulties, he felt annihilated. He had strength enough, nevertheless, to hide it from his wife, and to appear at home serene and happy as usual. Redoubled by the surprise, the energies of his soul were awakened to new vigor.
"It is necessary, at all events, to seek for work," he said to himself.
He had money enough to last only for a month. Still he allowed his wife to spend as before, certain that she could not economize more than she did at the time without undergoing serious privations. The first thought that occurred to him was to seek for employment with some private firm.
He called on a number of friends, and all cheered him with good words.
Nevertheless a month pa.s.sed, and no employment appeared. He found himself obliged to p.a.w.n his watch in order to pay his landlord and store account; he told his wife that he had left it to be regulated.
A second month pa.s.sed, and still nothing turned up. One day Maximina, dead with mortification, said to him, as though she were confessing some crime:--
"Miguel, the shopkeeper down street has sent me his bill, and as I have not a cuarto, I can"t pay it."
The brigadier"s son trembled; but hiding it as well as he could, he replied, with affected indifference:--
"Very well; I will see that it is paid when I go out. How much is it?"
"Two hundred and twenty-four reals."
"Do you need any more money?"
Maximina dropped her eyes and blushed.
"I owe Juana her wages."
"I will bring it this afternoon."
He said these words without knowing what he said. Where was he to get it? His Uncle Bernardo had been sent some months before to a private mad-house in Paris. Dona Martina and her family had also gone there to look after him. Enrique was not in the condition to lend it to him. His step-mother was out of town, and she had barely enough to live decently; moreover, it caused him an invincible repugnance to ask back what he had once given. No one of the family was left of whom he could ask it, except his Uncle Manolo.
To him he went.
Uncle Manolo, a grave man and of excellent charity, although he knew about his nephew"s ruin, had not realized that it was so complete. He stood with his mouth open at hearing his request. He took out of his drawer the forty duros which he had requested and handed them to him.
Miguel, through certain words that escaped him, perceived that he was undergoing a greater sacrifice than any one could have imagined. He suspected, or rather he felt, almost certain, that his uncle was subjected to a shameful servitude. _La intendenta_ apparently had no thought of abandoning the care of her property, and she allowed him each month a certain sum of money for his private wants, which were, as always, large and perfectly indispensable.
Accordingly, Miguel went away greatly disturbed at the interview, and convinced that to borrow money of Uncle Manolo in such circ.u.mstances was equivalent to giving him a very great annoyance.
After this episode, convinced that he had no right to expect aid from his relatives, he put forth double zeal in his search for work of any kind. But all his attempts met with the bad luck which pitilessly followed him. In some places there was no vacancy; in others, finding that he was a senorito, and had never been in any counting-house, they distrusted him.
At the editorial offices he was most kindly received; but, as at that time, and even now, the pecuniary affairs of the press were rather upset, willing as the directors would have been, they did not find it easy to give him a position. The most that any of them promised was to give him a place as soon as there was a vacancy. But what he needed now, at this very moment, was some money to buy food, and the days were pa.s.sing, and it did not come. Without Maximina knowing about it, he p.a.w.ned a set of gold studs and a ring which had belonged to his father.
Finally the owner of an afternoon paper gave his absolute promise that he should have forty duros a month, as soon as a month was past: during the actual month, on account of certain difficulties in the business office, he could not pay it down. Our hero worked a whole month for nothing. At the beginning of the next, as it was absolutely necessary for him to pay certain sums, Miguel asked him to let him have some money.
Then the owner and manager, adopting that air half complaining and half diplomatic, which all a.s.sume who are about to refuse a just but unwelcome claim, painted in the darkest colors the business situation of the daily, the difficulty of collecting certain sums that were due him, the necessity which all editors have of "putting their shoulders to the wheel in order to sustain a young enterprise," etc., etc.
"Friend Huerta," replied Miguel, very much dissatisfied, "hunger has made me altogether too weak to be able to put my shoulder to any new enterprise; on the contrary, _I_ need to be propped up myself so as not to fall."
It was impossible to get a penny from him. Our hero took his leave, full of indignation, the more because he happened to know that all the money taken in went straight into the director"s private box, and that he used it to lead the life of a prince.
Now began for the young pair a gloomy and trying time. Miguel was unable any longer to hide his necessities. One by one the few objects of value which they had in the house went to the p.a.w.n-shop, where they brought scarcely the fifth part of their value. Oftentimes the young man despaired and cursed his lot, and even spoke of going and firing a shot at the Count de Rios and another at Mendoza.
Maximina, in these painful crises, consoled him, cheered him with new hope, and when this resource failed, she succeeded in softening him with her tears and driving away from him all his evil thoughts. Always serene and cheerful, she made heroic attempts to divert him, calling to her aid the little one, when worst came to worst; she carefully concealed the toil which in his absence she undertook so as not to let him see that there was anything at fault when he came.
Poverty, nevertheless, was pressing closer and closer around them each day. At last the day came that actually they had not a peseta in the house and knew not where to get another. At the grocery store they were not willing to let them have goods on credit.
Miguel, without his wife"s knowledge, took one of his coats, wrapped it up in paper and carried it to a p.a.w.n-shop: they would give only two duros for it. On his return, as he was meditating how to escape from this miserable situation, and seeing no way of finding work, he suddenly adopted a violent resolution: namely, that of undertaking manual labor.
With his face darkened by an expression of pain he said to himself as he walked along:--
"Rather than my wife starve to death I am ready to do anything....
Anything! even to commit robbery. I am going to try the last resort."
Near his house was a printing-office where on days of depression, when he had just received some rebuff, he often spent long hours watching the compositors at their work or trying himself to spell out some easy task.
The proprietor was an excellent man, and very cordial relations had sprung up between them. He went in there and calling him aside, he said:--
"Don Manuel, I find myself without means of getting food; in spite of all my efforts during these last months I have not been able to obtain a situation. Would you be willing to take me as an apprentice in your office, giving me a little something on account of future work?"
The printer looked at him with an expression of sadness.
"Are you so bad off as all that, Don Miguel?"
"In the last depths of poverty."
The owner of the printing-office considered a few moments, and said:--
"Before you could learn how to set type with any degree of rapidity, a long time would pa.s.s. Besides, it is not right that a _caballero_ should soil his hands with ink. The only thing that you can do here is to help the proof-reader. Do you object?"
"I am ready to do whatever you order."
He spent that day, in fact, reading proofs. At night the proprietor told him that he would give him three pesetas a day salary until he dismissed the present proof-reader, who was a great drunkard. As he started to leave, he thrust into his hand a ten-duro bill as advance pay.
"Thanks, Don Manuel," he said, deeply touched. "In you, who are a workingman, I have found more generosity than in all the _caballeros_ whom I have been to see up to the present time."
For several days he worked as well as he could, conscientiously fulfilling his task. It was hard and monotonous to the last degree; it kept him busy from early in the morning till night. Moreover, the very insignificant pay scarcely sufficed to buy potatoes; and although the proprietor was anxious to send away the proof-reader and give him the place, Miguel opposed it because he also was the father of a family, and had no other means of livelihood.
XXIX.
While they were in this dest.i.tute and most melancholy situation, it came to pa.s.s one afternoon just as he had come in from the printing-office that the bell rang. Juana announced that a very old _caballero_ wanted to speak with him. He sent word for him to come in, and instantly there appeared in his study the old apothecary Hojeda.
"Don Facundo!" he cried, with genuine joy.
"It is I, Miguelito; it is I. I am perfectly furious! Can"t you see it by my face? I must give you a regular scolding. Who would have thought that you, degenerate scion, should be tramping through this blessed world of ours, hunting for a situation, and never have remembered an old friend like me! I know very well that I am a poor old man who is not good for anything."