The same hand that negligently extracted from his pocket a wad of bills rolled into a ball, giving them away capriciously without knowing just how much, also wore a lash hanging from the wrist. It was supposed to be for his horse, but it was used with equal facility when any of his peons incurred his wrath.
"I strike because I can," he would say to pacify himself.
One day, the man receiving the blow, took a step backward, hunting for the knife in his belt.
"You are not going to beat me, Patron. I was not born in these parts.
... I come from Corrientes."
The Patron remained with upraised thong. "Is it true that you were not born here? ... Then you are right; I cannot beat you. Here are five dollars for you."
When Desnoyers came on the place, Madariaga was beginning to lose count of those who were under his dominion in the old Latin sense, and could take his blows. There were so many that confusion often reigned.
The Frenchman admired the Patron"s expert eye for his business. It was enough for him to contemplate for a few moments a herd of cattle, to know its exact number. He would go galloping along with an indifferent air, around an immense group of horned and stamping beasts, and then would suddenly begin to separate the different animals. He had discovered that they were sick. With a buyer like Madariaga, all the tricks and sharp practice of the drovers came to naught.
His serenity before trouble was also admirable. A drought suddenly strewed his plains with dead cattle, making the land seem like an abandoned battlefield. Everywhere great black hulks. In the air, great spirals of crows coming from leagues away. At other times, it was the cold; an unexpected drop in the thermometer would cover the ground with dead bodies. Ten thousand animals, fifteen thousand, perhaps more, all perished!
"WHAT a knock-out!" Madariaga would exclaim with resignation. "Without such troubles, this earth would be a paradise... . Now, the thing to do is to save the skins!"
And he would rail against the false pride of the emigrants, against the new customs among the poor which prevented his securing enough hands to strip the victims quickly, so that thousands of hides had to be lost.
Their bones whitened the earth like heaps of snow. The peoncitos (little peons) went around putting the skulls of cows with crumpled horns on the posts of the wire fences--a rustic decoration which suggested a procession of Grecian lyres.
"It is lucky that the land is left, anyway!" added the ranchman.
He loved to race around his immense fields when they were beginning to turn green in the late rains. He had been among the first to convert these virgin wastes into rich meadow-lands, supplementing the natural pasturage with alfalfa. Where one beast had found sustenance before, he now had three. "The table is set," he would chuckle, "we must now go in search of the guests." And he kept on buying, at ridiculous prices, herds dying of hunger in others" uncultivated fields, constantly increasing his opulent lands and stock.
One morning Desnoyers saved his life. The old ranchman had raised his lash against a recently arrived peon who returned the attack, knife in hand. Madariaga was defending himself as best he could, convinced from one minute to another that he was going to receive the deadly knife-thrust--when Desnoyers arrived and, drawing his revolver, overcame and disarmed the adversary.
"Thanks, Frenchy," said the ranchman, much touched. "You are an all-round man, and I am going to reward you. From this day I shall speak to you as I do to my family."
Desnoyers did not know just what this familiar talk might amount to, for his employer was so peculiar. Certain personal favors, nevertheless, immediately began to improve his position. He was no longer allowed to eat in the administration building, the proprietor insisting imperiously that henceforth Desnoyers should sit at his own table, and thus he was admitted into the intimate life of the Madariaga family.
The wife was always silent when her husband was present. She was used to rising in the middle of the night in order to oversee the breakfasts of the peons, the distribution of biscuit, and the boiling of the great black kettles of coffee or shrub tea. She looked after the chattering and lazy maids who so easily managed to get lost in the nearby groves.
In the kitchen, too, she made her authority felt like a regular house-mistress, but the minute that she heard her husband"s voice she shrank into a respectful and timorous silence. Upon sitting down at table, the China would look at him with devoted submission, her great, round eyes fixed on him, like an owl"s. Desnoyers felt that in this mute admiration was mingled great astonishment at the energy with which the ranchman, already over seventy, was continuing to bring new occupants to live on his demesne.
The two daughters, Luisa and Elena, accepted with enthusiasm the new arrival who came to enliven the monotonous conversations in the dining room, so often cut short by their father"s wrathful outbursts. Besides, he was from Paris. "Paris!" sighed Elena, the younger one, rolling her eyes. And Desnoyers was henceforth consulted in all matters of style every time they ordered any "confections" from the shops of Buenos Aires.
The interior of the house reflected the different tastes of the two generations. The girls had a parlor with a few handsome pieces of furniture placed against the cracked walls, and some showy lamps that were never lighted. The father, with his boorishness, often invaded this room so cherished and admired by the two sisters, making the carpets look shabby and faded under his muddy boot-tracks. Upon the gilt centre-table, he loved to lay his lash. Samples of maize scattered its grains over a silk sofa which the young ladies tried to keep very choice, as though they feared it might break.
Near the entrance to the dining room was a weighing machine, and Madariaga became furious when his daughters asked him to remove it to the offices. He was not going to trouble himself to go outside every time that he wanted to know the weight of a leather skin! ... A piano came into the ranch, and Elena pa.s.sed the hours practising exercises with desperate good will. "Heavens and earth! She might at least play the Jota or the Perican, or some other lively Spanish dance!" And the irate father, at the hour of siesta, betook himself to the nearby eucalyptus trees, to sleep upon his poncho.
This younger daughter whom he dubbed La Romantica, was the special victim of his wrath and ridicule. Where had she picked up so many tastes which he and his good China never had had? Music books were piled on the piano. In a corner of the absurd parlor were some wooden boxes that had held preserves, which the ranch carpenter had been made to press into service as a bookcase.
"Look here, Frenchy," scoffed Madariaga. "All these are novels and poems! Pure lies! ... Hot air!"
He had his private library, vastly more important and glorious, and occupying less s.p.a.ce. In his desk, adorned with guns, thongs, and chaps studded with silver, was a little compartment containing deeds and various legal doc.u.ments which the ranchman surveyed with great pride.
"Pay attention, now and hear marvellous things," announced the master to Desnoyers, as he took out one of his memorandum books.
This volume contained the pedigree of the famous animals which had improved his breeds of stock, the genealogical trees, the patents of n.o.bility of his aristocratic beasts. He would have to read its contents to him since he did not permit even his family to touch these records.
And with his spectacles on the end of his nose, he would spell out the credentials of each animal celebrity. "Diamond III, grandson of Diamond I, owned by the King of England, son of Diamond II, winner in the races." His Diamond had cost him many thousands, but the finest horses on the ranch, those which brought the most marvellous prices, were his descendants.
"That horse had more sense than most people. He only lacked the power to talk. He"s the one that"s stuffed, near the door of the parlor. The girls wanted him thrown out... . Just let them dare to touch him! I"d chuck them out first!"
Then he would continue reading the history of a dynasty of bulls with distinctive names and a succession of Roman numbers, the same as kings--animals acquired by the stubborn ranchman in the great cattle fairs of England. He had never been there, but he had used the cable in order to compete in pounds sterling with the British owners who wished to keep such valuable stock in their own country. Thanks to these blue-blooded sires that had crossed the ocean with all the luxury of millionaire pa.s.sengers, he had been able to exhibit in the concourses of Buenos Aires animals which were veritable towers of meat, edible elephants with their sides as fit and sleek as a table.
"That book amounts to something! Don"t you think so, Frenchy? It is worth more than all those pictures of moons, lakes, lovers and other gewgaws that my Romantica puts on the walls to catch the dust."
And he would point out, in contrast, the precious diplomas which were adorning his desk, the metal vases and other trophies won in the fairs by the descendants of his blooded stock.
Luisa, the elder daughter, called Chicha, in the South American fashion, was much more respected by her father. "She is my poor China right over again," he said, "the same good nature, and the same faculty for work, but more of a lady." Desnoyers entirely agreed with him, and yet the father"s description seemed to him weak and incomplete. He could not admit that the pale, modest girl with the great black eyes and smile of childish mischief bore the slightest resemblance to the respectable matron who had brought her into existence.
The great fiesta for Chicha was the Sunday ma.s.s. It represented a journey of three leagues to the nearest village, a weekly contact with people unlike those of the ranch. A carriage drawn by four horses took the senora and the two senoritas in the latest suits and hats arrived, via Buenos Aires, from Europe. At the suggestion of Chicha, Desnoyers accompanied them in the capacity of driver.
The father remained at home, taking advantage of this opportunity to survey his fields in their Sunday solitude, thus keeping a closer oversight on the shiftlessness of his hands. He was very religious--"Religion and good manners, you know." But had he not given thousands of dollars toward building the neighboring church? A man of his fortune should not be submitted to the same obligations as ragam.u.f.fins!
During the Sunday lunch the young ladies were apt to make comments upon the persons and merits of the young men of the village and neighboring ranches, who had lingered at the church door in order to chat with them.
"Don"t fool yourselves, girls!" observed the father shrewdly. "You believe that they want you for your elegance, don"t you? ... What those shameless fellows really want are the dollars of old Madariaga, and once they had them, they would probably give you a daily beating."
For a while the ranch received numerous visitors. Some were young men of the neighborhood who arrived on spirited steeds, performing all kinds of tricks of fancy horsemanship. They wanted to see Don Julio on the most absurd pretexts, and at the same time improved the opportunity to chat with Chicha and Luisa. At other times they were youths from Buenos Aires asking for a lodging at the ranch, as they were just pa.s.sing by. Don Madariaga would growl--
"Another good-for-nothing scamp who comes in search of the Spanish ranchman! If he doesn"t move on soon ... I"ll kick him out!"
But the suitor did not stand long on the order of his going, intimidated by the ominous silence of the Patron. This silence, of late, had persisted in an alarming manner, in spite of the fact that the ranch was no longer receiving visitors. Madariaga appeared abstracted, and all the family, including Desnoyers, respected and feared this taciturnity.
He ate, scowling, with lowered head. Suddenly he would raise his eyes, looking at Chicha, then at Desnoyers, finally fixing them upon his wife as though asking her to give an account of things.
His Romantica simply did not exist for him. The only notice that he ever took of her was to give an ironical snort when he happened to see her leaning at sunset against the doorway, looking at the reddening glow--one elbow on the door frame and her cheek in her hand, in imitation of the posture of a certain white lady that she had seen in a chromo, awaiting the knight of her dreams.
Desnoyers had been five years in the house when one day he entered his master"s private office with the brusque air of a timid person who has suddenly reached a decision.
"Don Julio, I am going to leave and I would like our accounts settled."
Madariaga looked at him slyly. "Going to leave, eh? ... What for?" But in vain he repeated his questions. The Frenchman was floundering through a series of incoherent explanations--"I"m going; I"ve got to go."
"Ah, you thief, you false prophet!" shouted the ranchman in stentorian tones.
But Desnoyers did not quail before the insults. He had often heard his Patron use these same words when holding somebody up to ridicule, or haggling with certain cattle drovers.
"Ah, you thief, you false prophet! Do you suppose that I do not know why you are going? Do you suppose old Madariaga has not seen your languishing looks and those of my dead fly of a daughter, clasping each others" hands in the presence of poor China who is blinded in her judgment? ... It"s not such a bad stroke, Frenchy. By it, you would be able to get possession of half of the old Spaniard"s dollars, and then say that you had made it in America."
And while he was storming, or rather howling, all this, he had grasped his lash and with the b.u.t.t end kept poking his manager in the stomach with such insistence that it might be construed in an affectionate or hostile way.
"For this reason I have come to bid you good-bye," said Desnoyers haughtily. "I know that my love is absurd, and I wish to leave."
"The gentleman would go away," the ranchman continued spluttering. "The gentleman believes that here one can do what one pleases! No, siree!
Here n.o.body commands but old Madariaga, and I order you to stay... .
Ah, these women! They only serve to antagonize men. And yet we can"t live without them!" ...
He took several turns up and down the room, as though his last words were making him think of something very different from what he had just been saying. Desnoyers looked uneasily at the thong which was still hanging from his wrist. Suppose he should attempt to whip him as he did the peons? ... He was still undecided whether to hold his own against a man who had always treated him with benevolence or, while his back was turned, to take refuge in discreet flight, when the ranchman planted himself before him.