Buch lesen: «The Enemies of Women (Los enemigos de la mujer)»

CHAPTER I

THE Prince repeated his statement:

"Man's greatest wisdom consists in getting along without women."

He intended to go on but was interrupted. There was a slight stir of the heavy window curtains. Through their parting was seen below, as in a frame, the intense azure of the Mediterranean. A dull roar reached the dining-room. It seemed to come from the side of the house facing the Alps. It was a faint vibration, deadened by the walls, the curtains, and the carpets, distant, like the working of some underground monster; but there rose above the sound of revolving steel and the puffing of steam a clamor of human beings, a sudden burst of shouts and whistling.

"A train full of soldiers!" exclaimed Don Marcos Toledo, leaving his chair.

"The Colonel is at it again, always the hero, always enthusiastic about everything that has to do with his profession," said Atilio Castro, with a smile of amusement.

In spite of his years, the man whom they called the Colonel sprang to the nearest window. Above the foliage of the sloping garden, he could see a small section of the Corniche railroad, swallowed up in the smoky entrance of a tunnel, and reappearing farther on, beyond the hill, among the groves and rose colored villas of Cap-Martin. Under the mid-day sun the rails quivered like rills of molten steel. Although the train had not yet reached this side of the tunnel, the whole country-side was filled with the ever-increasing roar. The windows, terraces, and gardens of the villas were dotted black with people who were leaving their luncheon tables to see the train pass. From the mountain slope to the seashore, from walls and buildings on both sides of the track, flags of all colors began to wave.

Don Marcos ran to the opposite window overlooking the city. All he could see was an expanse of roofs with no trace of Nature's touch save here and there the feathery green of the gardens against the red of the tiles. It was like a stage setting broken into a succession of wings: in the foreground, amid trees, isolated villas with green balustrades and flower-strewn walls; next, the mass of Monte Carlo, its huge hotels bristling with pointed turrets and cupolas; and hazy in the background, as though floating in golden dust, the rocky cliffs of Monaco, with its promenades; the enormous pile of the Oceanographic Museum; the New Cathedral, a glaring white; and the square crested tower of the palace of the Prince. Buildings stretched from the edge of the sea halfway up the mountains. It was a country without fields, with no open land, covered completely with houses, from one frontier to the other.

But Don Marcos had known the view for years, and at once detected the unfamiliar detail. A long, interminable train was moving slowly along the hillside. He counted aloud more than forty cars, without coming to the rear coaches still hidden in a hollow.

"It must be a battalion … a whole battalion on a war footing. More than a thousand soldiers," he said in an authoritative manner, pleased at showing off his keen professional judgment before his fellow guests, who, for that matter, were not listening.

The train was filled with men, tiny yellowish gray figures, that gathered at the car windows, doors, and on the running-boards with their feet hanging over the track. Others were crowded in cattle pens or stood on the open flat-cars, among the tanks and crated machine guns. A great many had climbed to the roofs and were greeting the crowds with arms and legs extended in the shape of a letter X. Almost all of them had their shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows, like sailors preparing to maneuver.

"They are English!" exclaimed Don Marcos. "English soldiers on their way to Italy!"

But this information seemed to irritate the Prince, who always spoke to him in familiar language, in spite of the difference in their ages. "Don't be absurd, Colonel. Anybody would know that. They are the only ones who whistle."

The men still seated at the table nodded. Military trains passed every day, and from a distance it was possible to guess the nationality of the passengers. "The French," said Castro, "go past silently. They have had a little over three years of fighting on their own soil. They are as silent and gloomy as their duty is monotonous and endless. The Italians coming from the French front sing, and decorate their trains with green branches. The English shout like a lot of boys, just out of school, and in their enthusiasm, whistle all the time. They are the real children in this war; they go with a sort of boyish glee to their death."

The whistling sound drew nearer, shrill as the howling of a witches' Sabbath. It passed between the mountains and the gardens of Villa Sirena; and then went on in the other direction, toward Italy, gradually growing fainter as it disappeared in the tunnel. Toledo, who was the only one in the room to watch the train pass, noticed how the houses, gardens, and potagers on both sides of the track were alive with people, waving handkerchiefs and flags in reply to the whistling of the English. Even along the seashore the fishermen stood up on the seats of their boats and waved their caps at a distant train. The quick ear of Don Marcos distinguished a sound of footsteps on the floor above. The servants doubtless were opening the windows to join with silent enthusiasm in that farewell.

When only a few coaches were still visible at the mouth of the tunnel, the Colonel came back to his place at the table.

"More meat for the slaughter house!" exclaimed Atilio Castro, looking at the Prince. "The racket is over. Go on, Michael."

Under Toledo's watchful eye, two beardless Italian boys, unprepossessing in appearance, were serving the dessert at the luncheon.

The Colonel kept glancing over the table and at the faces of his three guests, as though he were afraid of suddenly noticing something that would show the lunch had been hastily arranged. It was the first that had been given at Villa Sirena for two years.

The master of the house, Prince Michael Fedor Lubimoff, who sat at the head of the table, had arrived from Paris the evening before.

The Prince was a man still in his youth, fresh with the well controlled vigor that is furnished by a life of physical exercise. He was tall, robust, and supple, of dark complexion, with large gray eyes, and a massive face, clean shaven. The scattered gray hairs at his temples seemed even more numerous in contrast with the blue-black of the rest. A number of premature wrinkles around the eyes, and two deep furrows running from his wide nostrils to the corners of his mouth, were the first indication of weariness in a powerful organism that seemed to have lived too intensely, in the mistaken confidence that its reserve of strength was endless.

The Colonel called him "Your Highness," as if Michael Fedor were a member of a ruling house, instead of a mere Russian prince. But this was when some one was present. It was a habit Don Marcos had adopted in the days of the late Princess Lubimoff, to maintain the prestige of the son, whom he had known since the latter was a child. In their intimate relations, when they were alone, he preferred to call him "Marquis," Marquis de Villablanca, and the Prince was never successful in disturbing, by his witticisms on the subject, the precedence thus established by Don Marcos in his terms of respect. The title of Russian Prince was for those who are dazzled by the lofty sound of titles, without being able to appreciate their respective merits, and origins; as for himself, the Colonel preferred something nobler, the title of Spanish Marquis, in spite of the fact that that title for Lubimoff was quite unknown in Spain, and lacked official recognition.

Toledo was well acquainted with Prince Michael's three guests.

Atilio Castro was a fellow countryman, a Spaniard who had spent the greater part of his life outside his own country. He affected great intimacy with the Prince and, on the grounds of a distant blood relationship between them, even spoke to him with some familiarity. Don Marcos had a vague idea that the young Spaniard had been a consul somewhere for a short time. Atilio was continually poking fun at him without his being always immediately aware of it. But the Colonel, seeing that it pleased "His Highness" greatly, felt no ill-will on that account.

"A fine fellow, good hearted!" the Colonel often said, in speaking of Castro. "He hasn't led a model life, he's a terrible gambler – but a gentleman. Yes, sir, a real gentleman!"

Michael Fedor defined his relative in other terms.

"He has all the vices, and no defects."

Don Marcos could never quite understand what that meant, but nevertheless it increased his esteem for Castro.

The Prince was only two or three years older than Atilio, and yet their ages seemed much farther apart. Castro was over thirty-five, and some people thought him twenty-four. His face had an ingenuous, rather child-like expression, and it acquired a certain character of manliness, thanks solely to a dark red mustache, closely cropped. This tiny mustache, and his glossy hair parted squarely in the middle, were the most prominent details of his features, except when he became excited. If his humor changed – which happened very rarely – the luster in his eyes, the contraction of his mouth, and the premature wrinkles in his forehead gave him an almost ominous expression, and suddenly he seemed to age by ten years.

"A bad man to have for an enemy!" affirmed the Colonel. "It wouldn't do to get in his way."

And not out of fear, but rather out of sincere admiration did the Colonel speak admiringly of Castro's talents. He wrote poetry, painted in water color, improvised songs at the piano, gave advice in matters of furniture and clothes, and was well versed in antiquities, and matters of taste. Don Marcos knew no limits to that intelligence.

"He knows everything," he would say. "If he would only stick to one thing! If he would only work!"

Castro was always elegantly dressed, and lived in expensive hotels; but he had no regular income so far as was known. The Colonel suspected a series of friendly little loans from the Prince. But the latter had remained away from Monte Carlo almost since the beginning of the war, and Don Marcos used to meet Castro every winter living at the Hôtel de Paris, playing at the Casino, and associating with people of wealth. From time to time, on encountering the Colonel in the gaming rooms, Castro had asked him for a loan of "ten louis," an absolute necessity for a gambler who had just lost his last stake and was anxious to recoup. But with more or less delay he had always returned the money. There was something mysterious about his life, according to Don Marcos.

The two other guests seemed to him to live much less complex lives. The one who had frequented the house for the longest period, was a dark young man, with a skin that was almost copper colored, a slight build, and long, straight hair. He was Teofilo Spadoni, a famous pianist. Spadoni's parents were Italian – this much was sure. No one could quite make out where he had been born. At times he mentioned his birthplace as Cairo, at other times, as Athens, or Constantinople, all the places where his father, a poor Neapolitan tailor, had lived. No one was astonished by such vagaries and absent-minded discrepancies on the part of the extraordinary virtuoso, who, the moment he left the piano, seemed to move in a world of dreams and to be quite incapable of adapting himself to any regular mode of life. After giving concerts in the large capitals of Europe and South America, he had settled down at Monte Carlo, explaining his residence there by the war, while Don Marcos imputed it to his love of gambling. The Prince knew him through having engaged him as a member of the orchestra on board his large yacht, the Gaviota II, for a voyage around the world.

Sitting beside the host was the last guest, the latest to frequent the house, a pale young man, tall, thin, and nearsighted, who was always looking timidly around as though ill at ease. He was a professor from Spain, a Doctor of Science, Carlos Novoa, who received a subsidy from the Spanish government to make certain studies in ocean fauna at the Oceanographic Museum. The Colonel who had spent many years at Monte Carlo without running across any of his compatriots, other than those whom he saw around the roulette tables, had expressed a certain patriotic pride in meeting this professor two months previously.

"A man of learning! A famous scientist!" he exclaimed in speaking of his new friend. "They can say all they want now about us Spaniards being ignoramuses."

He had only the vaguest notion of the nature of his fellow countryman's learning. What is more: from his earliest conversations he had guessed that the professor's ideas were directly opposed to his own. "One of those heretics with no other God than matter," he said to himself. But he added by way of consolation: "All those learned men are like that: liberals and free-thinkers. What of it…" As for the professor's fame, in the opinion of Don Marcos it was unquestionable. Otherwise why would they have sent him to the Oceanographic Museum, large and white as a temple, whose halls he had visited only once, with a feeling of awe that had prevented him from ever going back again.

On the occasional evenings when the professor would go to Monte Carlo and chance to meet Don Marcos, the latter would present him to his friends as a national celebrity. In this fashion Novoa had made the acquaintance of Castro and Spadoni, who never asked him more than how his luck was going.

When the coming of the Prince was announced, Toledo insisted that his illustrious friend the Professor should accompany him to the station in order to lose no time in introducing him to "His Highness."

"One of our country's prides… Your Highness is so fond of everything Spanish."

Michael Fedor had spent a considerable portion of his life on the sea, and felt a certain sympathy for the modest young man, on learning of the studies in which he specialized.

They talked for a long time about oceanography, and the following day Prince Michael, who was in the habit of entertaining elaborately at his table the most divergent kinds of guests, said to his "chamberlain":

"Your scholar is a very fine fellow. Invite him to luncheon."

The guests all spoke Spanish. Spadoni was able to follow the conversation, with the little he had picked up while giving piano recitals in Buenos Ayres, Santiago, and other South American capitals. He had been there with an impresario, who finally got tired of backing him, and struggling with his childish irresponsibility.

As they were sitting down at the table, the Colonel noticed that the Prince seemed preoccupied with some absorbing meditation. He made a point of talking with Professor Novoa, expressing his surprise at the slight compensation the scientist received for his studies.

Castro and Spadoni gave their whole attention to their food. The days of the famous chef, to whom Prince Michael gave a salary worthy of a Prime Minister, were over. The "master" had been mobilized and at that moment was cooking for a general on the French front. However, Toledo had managed to discover a woman of some fifty years, whose combinations were less varied, perhaps, than those of the artist whom the war had snatched away, but more "classical," more solid and substantial – and the two men ate with the delight of people who, forever obliged to eat in restaurants and hotels, at last find themselves at a table where no economy or falsifications are practised.

About dessert time the conversation, becoming general, turned, as always happens when men are dining alone, to the subject of women. Toledo had a feeling that the Prince had gently steered the guests' talk in this direction. Suddenly Michael summed up his whole argument by declaring a second time:

"Man's greatest wisdom consists in getting along without women."

And then had followed the long interruption as the train of English soldiers, in a whirl of shouts, whistling and hissing, had gone by.

Atilio Castro waited until the last car had disappeared in the tunnel, and said with a subtle and somewhat ironical smile:

"The shouting and whistling sound like a mixture of applause and scorn for your profound remark. However, please don't bother with such inexpert opinion. What you said interests me. You abominate women, you who have had thousands of them!.. Go on, Michael!"

But the Prince changed the conversation. He spoke of his impressions on returning to Villa Sirena after a long absence. Nothing remained to recall the former days, before the war, save the building and the gardens. All the men servants were mobilized: some in the French army, others in the Italian. The day after his arrival he had asked, as a matter of course, for an auto to go to Monte Carlo. There was no lack of machines. Three, of the best make, were lying as though forgotten, in the garage. But the chauffeurs too were at the front; and moreover there was no gasoline; and a permit was necessary to use the roads… In short, he had been obliged to stand at the iron gate of the garden and wait for the Manton electric. It was a novelty for him, an interesting means of locomotion. It seemed as if he had suddenly been transported into a world he had forgotten, as he found himself among the common people on the car. The general curiosity annoyed him. Everyone was whispering his name: and even the conductor showed a certain emotion on seeing the owner of Villa Sirena among his passengers.

"And the worst of it all, my friends, is that I'm ruined!"

Spadoni stared with wide opened eyes as though hearing something extraordinary and absurd. Castro smiled incredulously.

"You ruined?.. I'd be satisfied with a tenth of the remains."

The Prince nodded. He reminded one of those great transatlantic liners which, when they are wrecked, make the fortune of a whole population of poverty stricken people along the shore. Wealth was of course a relative thing. He might still have more than many people; but ruin it was for him, nevertheless.

"In view of what I am going to say later, I must not conceal from you the situation I am in. A few weeks ago I sold my Paris residence which my mother built. It was bought by a 'newly rich.' With this war, I'm going to become a 'newly poor.' You know, Atilio, how things have gone with me, since this row among the nations started. From the time they fired the first cannon they sent me from Russia only an eighth of what I received in times of peace; later much less. The revolution came and cut down my income still more. And, now under Comrade Lenin and the red flag, there is nothing coming through at all, absolutely nothing. I have no idea whatsoever of the fate of my houses, my fields, my mines … I don't know even what has become of those who were looking after my fortune there. They have probably all been killed."

The Colonel raised his eyes to the ceiling: "The revolution!.. What they need is a master."

"But a rich man like you with reserve funds in the bank all the time, can always find some one to make him a loan until times are better."

"Perhaps; but it means practically poverty for me. My administrator told me when I was leaving Paris, that I ought to limit my expenses, live according to my present income. How much have I?.. I don't know. He doesn't even know himself. He is balancing my accounts, collecting from some people and paying others – I had a lot of debts, it seems. Millionaires are never asked to pay their bills promptly… In short, I shall have to live, like a ruined prince, on some sixty thousand dollars a year; perhaps more, perhaps less. I really don't know."

Castro and Spadoni seemed to be stirred with longing at the mention of such a sum. Novoa looked with an air of respect at this man who called himself his friend and thought himself poor with sixty thousand dollars a year.

"My administrator spoke to me of selling Villa Sirena as well as the Paris residence. It seems that the newly rich would like to get everything I have. A complete liquidation… But I wouldn't listen to it. This is my own little nook; I made it what it is myself. Besides, life is impossible out in the world. The war has filled it with bitterness. Living in Paris is very gloomy. There is no one there. The streets are dark. The 'Gothas' make the people of our class worried and nervous. It is much better to leave. I thought I would settle down here and wait till this world madness is over."

"It is going to be a long wait," remarked Castro.

"I'm afraid so. However, this is an agreeable spot, a pleasant refuge, all the more delightful because of the selfish feeling that at this very moment millions of men are suffering every sort of hardship, and thousands are dying every day… But after all, it isn't the same as it used to be. Even the Mediterranean is different. The minute the sun goes down, my good Colonel has to mask with black curtains the windows and doors looking out on the sea, so that the German submarines cannot guide themselves by our lights… Dear me! Where are those wonderful days we spent here in time of peace, the festivals we used to have, those nights on the Gaviotta II when she anchored in the harbor of Monaco?"

A far away look came into Castro's eyes, as though he were in a dream. In his imaginings he saw the gardens of Villa Sirena, softly lighted, wrapped in a milky haze that settled on the invisible waves like rays of reflected moonlight.

The window curtains were crimson, and from them, drifting through the warm darkness of the night, came the sound of laughter, cries, the sighing of violins, amorous love songs, that told of women's throats, white and voluptuous, swelling with desire and the rapture of the music. The stars, specks of light lost in the infinite, twinkled in answer to the electric stars, hidden in the dark foliage. Walking slowly, couples arm in arm disappeared amid the deep shadows of the garden. All the women of the day had turned up there sooner or later: famous actresses from Paris, London, and Vienna; beauties of the smart cliques of two hemispheres, women of high society, smiling the smile of slaves before the potentate who could banish their debts with the stroke of a pen. Oh, the Pompeian nights of Villa Sirena!..

Spadoni saw, rather, the Gaviotta II, a palace with propellers, which, when anchored in the small harbor of La Condamine, seemed to fill it completely and to make the yachts of the American millionaires and the Prince of Monaco look like tiny things indeed. It was an alcazar, a palace of the Arabian Nights, topped off with two smoke stacks, and parading over every sea of the planet, its private parlors adorned with fountains and statues, its enormous library, its ball room with a raised platform, from which fifty musicians, many of them celebrated, gave concerts for a single visible auditor, Prince Michael, who half reclined on a divan, while the tropical breeze came through the high windows, caressing the heads of the officers and chief functionaries of the steamer crowding about the openings. The pianist could see once more the lonely harbors of dead historic countries, with flights of seagulls wheeling against the quiet azure vault; the mighty bays, filled with the smoke and bustle of North America; the coasts of the Antilles with groves of cocoanut palms, black at sunset against the reddish sky; the islands of the Pacific, of hard coral, forming a ring about an inner lake… And that omnipotent magician confessed the loss of his wealth!..

The Prince, as though he guessed their thoughts, added:

"It's the end of all that: I don't know whether forever or for many years… And even if things should be the same some day as they were before the war, what a long time we shall have to wait!.. I may die before then… That is why I am going to make a proposal to you."

He paused a moment, to enjoy the curiosity he read in the eyes of his auditors.

Then he asked Castro:

"Are you satisfied with your present life?"

In spite of Castro's good natured, smiling placidity, he started in surprise as if indignant at such a question. His life was unbearable. The war had upset his habits and pleasures, scattering his friendships to the four winds. He did not know the fate of hundreds of persons of various nationalities, who had filled his life before the war, and without whom he would then have thought it impossible to live.

"Besides, I have less money than ever. I am staying at Monte Carlo just for the gambling; and even if I always lose in the end, like everyone else, I always keep a tight grip on a little something to live on!.. But what a life!"

He glanced at Novoa as though the recency of his acquaintance inspired a certain suspicion, but immediately he went on, with an air of assurance:

"There is no reason why I should not speak quite plainly. A little while ago the Professor told us how much he earned: some hundred dollars a month; less than any employee at the Casino. I am going to be as frank as he. I live in the Hôtel de Paris: Atilio Castro cannot afford to live anywhere else; he must keep up his connections. But there are many weeks when I have the greatest difficulty in paying for my room, and I eat in cheap restaurants and Italian wine shops, when no one invites me out to dine. I pay three or four times as much for my bed as I do for my board. Evenings when luck is against me, and I lose everything to the last chip, I get along with a ham sandwich at the Casino bar. I belong to the same school as the Madrid gambler we nicknamed the 'Master,' and who used to say to us: 'Boys, money was made for gambling; and what's left, for eating.'"

"And in spite of that, you like good food," said the Prince.

Castro's laments took on a comical seriousness. With the war the good old customs had been forgotten. No one kept house; everyone lived in hotels, and the proprietors of the luxurious palaces took the scarcity of food as a pretext to serve the sort of meals one gets in third rate restaurants, scanty and poor. An invitation merely gave one a chance to fool one's hunger.

"It has been months, maybe years, since I've eaten as I have to-day, and I've sat at the tables of all the big hotels on the Riviera. I had ceased to believe that such chicken as you have just served existed in the world any longer. I imagined they were dream birds, mythological fowl."

The Colonel smiled, bowing as if that were a tribute to him.

"And you, Spadoni?" the Prince went on inquiringly. "How are you enjoying life?"

"Your Highness – I – I," stammered the musician, at the sudden question.

Castro intervened, coming to his rescue.

"Our friend Spadoni can always get a free meal at the villas of a number of invalid ladies, who live at Cap-Martin and who are mad about music. Besides some English people at Nice often invite him. He doesn't need to bother about paying hotel bills either. He has at his disposal a whole big villa, large and well-furnished: it goes with his job, as watchman over a corpse."

Novoa started with surprise at the news.

"Don't be astonished," continued Atilio. "He has the benefit of a magnificent house in exchange for looking after a tomb."

"Oh, Professor!.. Don't mind him," groaned the musician with the air of a martyr.

"But with all these advantages," Castro went on saying, "there is one terrible drawback: he is a worse gambler than I. He has a nickname in the Casino 'the number five gentleman.' He never plays any other number. Anything he can get hold of he puts on five, and loses it. I am the 'number seventeen gentleman' and it turns out as badly with me as with him… Besides, he has his English friends. Queer ducks! They come from Nice every day in a two horse landau, and just as if they didn't get enough gambling with the Casino, they set up a green table on their knees and take out a deck of cards. They play poker with the Corniche landscape, that people come from all over the world to see, right before their eyes. And our artist, when he takes a fourth hand with the two Englishmen and an old maid, there within the sight of the Mediterranean, golden in the setting sun, loses everything he took in at some concert at Cannes or Monte Carlo."

Spadoni started to say something, but stopped, seeing that the Prince turned to Novoa:

"I shan't ask you," said the Prince; "I know your situation. You live in the old part of Monaco, in the house of an employee of the Museum; and his lodgings can't be much. Besides, as Atilio was saying, you receive much less than a croupier at the Casino."

And looking at his guests he added:

"What I want to propose to you is that you live with me. The invitation is a selfish one on my part; I'm not denying that. I intend to stay here until the world quiets down, and life is pleasant once more. If my Colonel and I were here alone we would end by hating each other. You will keep me company in my retreat."

All three remained dumbfounded at such an unexpected proposal. Novoa was the first to regain the use of his tongue.

"Prince, you scarcely know me. We saw each other for the first time three days ago… I don't know whether I ought…"

The Prince interrupted him with the sharp tone and imperious manner of a man who is not accustomed to considering objections.

"We have known each other for many years; we have known each other all our lives." Then he added soothingly:

"It isn't much that I'm offering you. Servants are scarce. There are no men except my old valet and those two Italian monkeys that the Colonel managed to recruit somewhere. The rest of the service is done by women… But even so, our life will be pleasant. We shall isolate ourselves from a world gone crazy. We will not mention this war. We shall lead a comfortable existence, as the monks did in the monasteries of the Middle Ages, which were refreshing oases of tranquillity in the midst of violence and massacres. We shall eat well; the Colonel guarantees me that. The Library from the yacht is here. When I sold the boat, I had Don Marcos install all my books on the top floor. Our friend Novoa will find some volumes there which perhaps he does not know. Everyone will do what he pleases; free monks all of us, with no other obligation than to repair to the refectory at the proper hour. And if the 'number five gentleman' and the 'number seventeen gentleman' want to drop in at the Casino, they can do so, and someone will see to it that their pockets are kept filled. We must give something to vice, what the devil! Without vices, life wouldn't be worth living."