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236 [ 27 ] LOOSE E NDS there Will be some who find it implausible that Don Faustino López de Mendoza had virtually no career to speak of in Madrid. Either Don Faustino was foolish or he was not, they will say. If he was foolish, the author of this story should have described him as such, but since he has described him as discreet, although extravagant , it is hard to understand that he did not gain standing in this disorderly, turbulent society in which it is so easy to rise. Numerous arguments to the contrary are made in the previous chapter. Nevertheless, preferring to be considered tedious rather than keen on the implausible, we are going to add other reasons. In Spain comprehension is very diffuse: there almost does not exist the great mass of highly useful, meek, governable, industrious , hardworking, and easily enthused fools that exist in other more fortunate nations, where comprehension is concentrated and as though grounded in but a few men. As a result, in Spain there are many more of comprehension than in other lands, but on the other hand we enjoy considerably less of the comprehension. Scarcely anyone advances beyond what is called clever or shrewd. This cleverness or shrewdness , not enhanced by much learning because we are lazy, does not yield the fruit for good things that it ought to yield; and, looking at it in another light, since there are so many who exhibit this cleverness to a greater or lesser degree, rare is the man in whom it reaches the point of constituting such excellence that it distinguishes him and raises him by general assent above the level of the others, making him suitable for authority. Hence, the insta- LOOSE E NDS 237 bility of every rule and the scant reverence with which the one who exercises it is regarded; hence, in addition, the fact that there are so very many who aspire to exercise it, believing themselves possessed of qualifications that are the same or better than those of the men who hold prominent positions. In this perpetual struggle to rise in the world several thousand men take part: the frock-coat proletariat. Since there are falls and ascents nearly every year, no doubt the most capable ones do become celebrities; then again, a certain percentage of the merely clever men also become personages, but inasmuch as the clever ones abound, most of them are left high and dry. What happens is that those who lose out are out of sight, out of mind, and it seems to us that they never existed. Only from time to time do we recognize and remember this one or that one—an old companion from secondary school, the university, or adolescence—in somebody who, dressed in rags, comes to ask us for a handout or a job that pays five or six thousand reales, when at another time he expected to become a duke or a prince, and at that would have seen himself as falling short. That a person’s character has considerable influence on the diversity of outcomes is something that cannot be doubted, but chance, the ill-named fate—that is, the combination and link of events that no human mind can foresee—has still more influence. As to the rest, what is unexplainable, mysterious , and unlikely in the extreme, is the prominence of inept people of every stripe in any other country, where, like in Spain, there are no aristocratic privileges nor regal whims that matter. The fact that Don Faustino stayed at a salary of fourteen thousand reales and went no higher, was natural, likely, and just in every country, without our having, as a consequence, to call the protagonist of our story an idiot or anything of the sort. The moment of the great events that are going to bring it to a conclusion is fast drawing near, but first we think it essential to tie together a few loose ends, to say something about what happened to several of the more important characters during the seventeen years that Don Faustino wasted so unhappily in Madrid. The notary Don Juan Crisóstomo Gutiérrez died peacefully and like a good Christian. Father Piñón, who attended him in those last moments, insisted that he marry Elvirita. And the notary did, recognizing and legitimizing the son that he had with Elvirita, named Serafinito, whom we have met and who figures in the introduction to this story. The notary...

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