The Illusions of Doctor Faustino illusions of Doctor Faustino: a novel

29. Secret Vengeance for a Secret Insult

256 [ 29 ] S ECRET V ENGEANCE FOR A SE C RE T INSULT With eAch passing day the marquis of Guadalbarbo unwittingly assisted Costancita in furthering her diabolical scheme. The haughtiness and arrogance that most distinguished personages of Madrid exhibited, or that he fancied they exhibited, seemed so unwarranted to him that he could scarcely tolerate them. An admirer of the good order, greatness, and prosperity of Great Britain and other European states, the marquis lamented like no one the backwardness, disorder, and misgovernment of his native country. So he thought that, far from being proud, our leaders and statesmen should be ashamed of their ineptitude and filled with the most profound humility. The marquis, likealmost all men whose businessaffairsflourish , especially if they do not have to accuse themselves of base dealings nor dirty tricks, was endowed with a healthy amount of amour-propre, and, naturally, was annoyed by that of others, which in his mind came nowhere near to being justified. The marquis had never read the quaint book by Father Pe- ñalosa, The Spaniard’s five Excellent Traits that are depopulating Spain,1 but even if he had read this work, it was not in the nature of his comprehension to believe that ingenious monk’s singular theory, which took for granted that, because Spaniards are The chapter title is from the title of a drama by Pedro Calderón de la Barca: a secreto agravio, secreta venganza. 1. Benito Peñalosa y Mondragón, Benedictine monk whose work appeared in 1629. SE CRE T VE NGE ANCE 257 so noble, so Catholic, so realistic, so generous, and so martial, they’re always lost. Thus it is that perdition, according to the marquis, stemmed from bad and not good qualities, for which reason he did not cease grumbling and reproaching his fellow countrymen, although he discharged the thunderbolts of his reproaches on eminent figures and behaved benevolently and indulgently toward humble and lowly folk. Since cousin Faustino numbered among the latter group, the marquis felt for him, as we have already said, a special predilection that was ever on the increase. The wariness with which he had looked upon Costancita’s cousin , when he met him in Andalusia, had vanished completely. The presumptuousness of his early youth, the display of impiety and unbelief, and other shortcomings of Don Faustino’s had changed with the years and the disillusionments .2 And then too the marquis was far from seeing in Don Faustino , as he had seen in another time, a rival who was coming to steal his wife’s love; on the contrary, now he saw a hapless young man, over whom he had triumphed, and whose worth and noble qualities lent more value, merit, and importance to his victory the more he esteemed them. The higher the plane on which the marquis placed Don Faustino in his imagination, the more he celebrated Costancita’s love and free decision when she rejected Don Faustino and chose him. In such a state of affairs, the doctor’s visits to his cousin became more and more frequent, and if for some reason our hero did not turn up at the marquis ’s home for two or three days, the marquis would look for him or write to him, asking him to come. Meanwhile, the tirelessGeneral Pérez, veritablepractitionerofpoliorcetics of our time when it came to amorous pursuits, had been repelled in all his assaults, attacks, and onslaughts, but his siege of the fortress continued unabated and uninterrupted. Since he was a man of so much consequence, respect , and arrogance, hardly anybody dared to go near Costancita and talk to her, considering it a waste of time, thanks to that frightful scarecrow. General Pérez, with his glances and with his constant attentions to Costancita, signaled a perpetual declaration of blockade. Of course the gallants of Madrid did not back away for fear of being eaten alive by General Pérez, far from it, but when they saw a “conquistador” like him, so determined in his undertaking , neither losing heart nor retreating, perhaps they assumed that he was not altogether objectionable, and there was nary a one who dared to stand as a rival only to taste defeat. 2. There is alliteration in the original—con los años y los desengaños—impossible to transfer in translation. 258 SE CRE T VE NGE ANCE Costancita, more and more vexed...