Caesar or Nothing by Pio Baroja

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To think of these sleeping forces irritated him: the waterfall, lost
without leaving its energy anywhere; the ravine, which might be
transformed into an irrigation reservoir; the river, which was flowing
gently without fertilizing the fields; the land around the hermitage,
which might have been converted into a park, with a bright, gay
schoolhouse; all these things that could be done and were not done,
seemed to him more real than the people with whom he talked and lived.

One morning Caesar walked to Cidones; the sun shone strongly on the
highway, and he reached the town choked and thirsty.

The streets of Cidones were so narrow, so cold and damp, that Caesar
shivered on entering the first one, and he turned back, and instead of
going inside that polypus of dark clefts, he walked around it by the
road. On a small house with an arbour, which was on a corner, he saw a
sign saying: 'Café Español'; and went in.

THE CAFÉ ESPAÑOL

The café was dark and completely empty, but at one end there was a
balcony where the sun entered. Caesar crossed the café and sat down near
the balcony.

He called several times, and clapped his hands, and a girl appeared.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Something to drink. A bottle of beer."

"I will call Uncle Chinaman."

The girl went out, and soon after a thick, chubby man came in, with a
bottle of beer in his hand, the label of which he showed to Caesar,
asking him if that was what he wanted.

"Yes, sir; that will do very well."

The man opened the bottle with his corkscrew, put it on the table, and
as he seemed to have a desire to enter into conversation, Caesar asked
him:

"Why did the girl tell me that Uncle Chinaman would come? Who is the
Chinaman?"

"The Chinaman, or Uncle Chinaman, as you like; I am."

"My dear man!"

"Yes, we all have nicknames here. They called my father that, and they
call me that. Psh! It makes no difference. Because if a person is cross
about it, it's all the worse. A few days ago a muleteer from a town
in the district arrived here, and went to the inn, and as he had no
nickname and they are very fond here in Cidones of giving one to every
living creature, they said to him: 'No matter how short a while you stay
here, you will be given a nickname'; and he answered contemptuously:
'Bah! Little fear.' Soon after, as he was crossing the square, a girl
said to him: 'Good-bye, Little Fear!' and Little Fear it remained."

As Uncle Chinaman seemed very communicative, Caesar asked him some
questions about life in the town.

Uncle Chinaman talked a great deal and with great clearness. According
to him, the cause of all trouble in the town was cowardice. The two or
three bosses of Castro and Father Martin ruled their party arbitrarily,
and the rest of the people didn't dare breathe.

The poor didn't understand that by being united they could offset the
influence of the rich, and even succeed in dominating them. Besides,
fear didn't permit them to move.

"But fear of what?" said Caesar.

"Fear of everything; fear that they will levy a tax, that they won't
provide work, that they will take your son for a soldier, that they will
put you in jail for something or other, that the two or three bullies
who are in the bosses' service might beat you."

"Does their tyranny go as far as that?"

"They do whatever they choose."

The Chinaman, who looked more like a Tartar, could make himself quite
clear. If it had not been that he used the wrong words and had an itch
for unusual ones, he would have given the impression of being a most
intelligent man.

He said he was anti-clerical, declared himself a pantheist, and spoke of
the "controversories" he maintained with different persons.

"A relative of mine who is a monk," he said, "is always reprehending me,
and saying: 'Lucas, you are a Free-Thinker.' ... 'And it's greatly to
my credit,' I tell him."

Then, apropos of his monkish relative, he told a scandalous story. A
niece of the Chinaman's, who had served for some while in the café, had
gone to live with this monk.

Uncle Chinaman's account of it was rather grotesque.

"I had a niece," he said, "in the house, you know, very spruce, very
good-looking, with breasts as hard as a rock. My wife loved her as
'muchly' as if she had been our daughter, and so did I. Suddenly we
heard the poor child had made a false step... or two false steps... and
a little while later the girl was in a bad condition. Well, then; she
went to town, and came back here to the café, and again we heard that
the poor child had made a false step... or two false steps; and as I
have daughters, you know, this 'pro... missiousness' didn't please me,
and I went and told her: 'Look here, Maria, this isn't right at all, and
what you ought to do is get out.' She understood me, and went away, and
went to her uncle the monk, and the two of them formed a 'cohabit.'...
Curse her! I went after them; and if I ever find them, I'll kill them.
All very well for the poor child to make a false step... or two false
steps; but this thing of getting into a 'cohabit' with a monk, and he
her uncle, that is a 'hulimination' for the family. You may believe that
we had to empty the cup down to the 'drugs.'"

FATHER MARTIN

Caesar was listening to Uncle Chinaman with joy, when he saw two friars
passing along the road below the balcony.

"They are from the monastery of la Peña, I suppose," he said.

The Chinaman looked out and replied:

"One of them is the prior, Father Lafuerza. The other is an intriguing
young chap who has been here only a short while."

"Man, I have to see them," said Caesar.

"They are coming up the street now."

Uncle Chinaman and Caesar went to the other end of the café, and waited
for them to pass.

The younger of the two friars had an air of mock humility, and was
weakly-looking, with a straggling yellowish beard and a crafty
expression; Father Martin, on the contrary, looked like a pasha parading
through his dominions. He was tall, stout, of an imposing aspect, with a
grizzly blond beard, blue eyes, and a straight, well-shaped nose.

The two friars came up the narrow, steep street, stopping to talk to the
women that were sewing and embroidering in the arcades.

Caesar and the Chinaman followed them with their eyes until the two
friars turned a corner. Then Caesar left the café and walked back to
Castro Duro.

VII

A TRYING SCENE

Don Platón Peribáñez's reply was delayed longer than he had promised. No
one knew whether the Duke of Castro Duro would get married or not get
married, whether he would come out of prison or stay in.

Caesar had nothing for it but to wait, although he was already fed up
with his stay. Alzugaray had a good time; he visited the surrounding
towns in the company of Amparito and her father. Caesar, on the other
hand, began to be bored. Accustomed to live with the independence of a
savage, the social train of a town like Castro irritated him.

His good opinion of people was in direct ratio to the indifference
they felt for him. Amparito's father was one of those who showed most
antipathy. Sometimes he invited him to go motoring, but only for
politeness. Caesar used to reply to these invitations with a courteous
refusal.

Amparito, who was doubtless accustomed to seeing everybody in town
fluttering about her, was wounded at this indifference and took every
chance to see Caesar, and then shot her wit at him and was sharply
impertinent.

The young creature was more intelligent than she had at first appeared
and she spoke very plainly.

Caesar could not permit a young girl to make fun of him and combat his
ideas for her own amusement.

"Let's see, Moneada," Amparito said to him one day in the gallery at Don
Calixto's. "What are your political plans?"

"You wouldn't understand them," replied Caesar.

"Why not? Do you think I am so stupid?"

"No. It is merely that politics are not a matter for children." "Ah! But
how old do you think I am?" she asked.

"You must be twelve or thirteen."

"You are a malicious joker, Señor Moncada, You know that I am almost
seventeen."

"I don't. How should I know it?"

"Because I told your friend Alzugaray...."

"All right, but I don't ask my friend what you have told him."

"It doesn't interest you? Very good. You are very polite. But your
politics do interest me. Come on, tell me. What reforms do you intend
to make in the town? What improvements are you going to give the
inhabitants? For I warn you, Señor Moncada, that they are all going to
vote against you otherwise, I will tell my father."

"I don't believe his political interest is so keen."

"It is keen enough, and my father will do what I tell him. My father
says that you are ambitious."

"If I were, I should make love to you, because you are rich."

"And do you suppose I would respond?"

"I don't know, but I should try it, as others do; and you can see that I
don't try."

Amparito bit her lips and said ironically:

"Are you reserving yourself for my cousin Adelaida?"

"I am not reserving myself for anybody."

"We couldn't say that you are very amiable."

"That is true. I never have been."

"If you keep on like that when you are a Deputy...."

"What difference is it to you whether I am a Deputy or not? Is it
because you have some beau who wants the place? If it is, tell me. I
will withdraw in his favour. You must see that I can do no more," said
Caesar jokingly.

"And how you would hate me then; if you had to give up being a Deputy on
my account!"

"No."

"You hate me already."

"No. You are mistaken." "Yes. I believe if you could, you would strike
me."

"No, the most I should do would be to shut you up in a dark room."

"You are an odious, antipathetic man. I thought I rather liked you, but
I only hate you."

"You know already, Amparito, that I am a candidate for Deputy, but not
one for you."

"All right. All right. I don't wish to hear any more stupid remarks."

"The stupid remarks are those you are making."

And Caesar, who was beginning to feel angry, rebuked Amparito too
severely, for her coquetry, her bad intentions, and her desire to
humiliate and mortify people without any reason.

Amparito listened to him, pale and panting.

"And after all," said Caesar, "all this is nothing to me. If I am in
your family's way, or even in your way, I can go away from here, and all
is ended."

"No, do not go away," murmured Amparito, raising her handkerchief to her
eyes and beginning to weep bitterly.

Caesar felt deeply grieved; all his anger disappeared, and he stood
there, amazed, and not knowing what to do.

"Do not cry," exclaimed Caesar; "what will they think of me? Come, don't
cry. It is childish."

At that moment Amparito's father entered the gallery, and he came
running to the girl's side.

"What have you done to my daughter?" he cried, approaching Caesar
threateningly.

"I, nothing," he said.

"You have. What has he done to you?" screamed the father.

"Nothing, Papa. Do not shriek that way, for God's sake," moaned
Amparito; "I was entirely to blame."

"If he..."

"No, I tell you he hasn't done anything to me."

Caesar, who had remained motionless in face of Amparito's father's
threatening attitude, turned on his heel, and went slowly out. THE
ETERNAL GAME OF DISDAIN

Caesar went back to the hotel, thinking very hard. Alzugaray asked him
what the matter was, and Caesar told his friend what had happened in
the gallery. On hearing the story Alzugaray assumed a look of deep
desolation.

"I don't understand what is the matter with the girl, for her to show
such antipathy for me," Caesar concluded.

"It is very simple," said Alzugaray, sadly; "the girl is interested in
you. The eternal game of disdain has produced its effect. She has seen
you show yourself indifferent toward her, speak curtly to her, and she
has gone on thinking more and more about you, and now she thinks of
nothing else. That is what has happened."

"Bah! I don't believe it. You act as if this were in a novel."

"It's no novel. It's the truth."

The next day, when Caesar got up, the maid handed him two letters. One
was from Don Calixto and said that Señor Peribáñez accepted him as
candidate. It had been learned that the Duke of Castro Duro had married
his landlady in England; the arrangement with the Cuban gentleman was
impossible, and the poor Duke would definitely have to winter in Paris,
in the prison, along with the distinguished apaches, Bibi de Montmartre
and the Panther of the Batignolles.

The other letter was from Amparito.

Don Calixto's niece told him he mustn't believe that she hated him; if
she had said anything to him, it was without bad intention; she would be
very happy if all his projects were realized.

Despite his ambitious plans and the desire he had that the question of
his candidacy should be definitely settled, Amparito's letter interested
him much more than Don Calixto's.

A new, disturbing element was coming into his life, without any warning
and without any reason. He said nothing about Amparito's letter to his
friend Alzugaray. He felt him to be a rival, and in spite of having no
intentions of going further, the idea of rivalry between them troubled
him. He did not wish to offend him by taking the attitude of a lucky
man.

He went out into the street and set off for a walk on the highway.

"It is strange," he thought, "this coarse psychology, which proves that
a man and a woman, especially a woman, are not complex beings, but
stupidly simple. The complex thing in a woman is not the intelligence or
the soul, but instinct. Why does a woman rebuff a man who pleases her?
For the same reason that the female animal repulses the male, and at the
same time calls him to her.

"And this instinctive love, this mixture of hatred and attraction, is
the curious thing, the enigmatic thing about human nature. The intellect
of each individual is, by contrast, so poor, so clear!

"This girl, rich and attractive, flattered by everybody, is bored in
this town. She sees a man that doesn't pay attention to her, who is
after another goal, and simply for that reason she feels offended and
hunts out a way to mortify him, for her entertainment and for spite; and
when she finds that she doesn't succeed, she gets to thinking about him
all the time.

"And this spite, this wounded vanity, is changed to an absorbing
interest. Why shouldn't that absorbing interest be called love? Yes, she
is in love, and finds great satisfaction in thinking so.

"She is not an insignificant girl, daughter of a commonplace gentleman;
to herself, she is a romantic figure. She seems to be absorbed in
another, and what is really the case is that she is absorbed in herself.
How ridiculous this all is!... And this is life. Is the whole of life
nothing, in reality, but ridiculous?"

Caesar returned home, and unknown to Alzugaray, wrote a letter to
Amparito. He put the letter into the box, and then went to call on Don
Calixto, and take leave of him. Don Calixto invited Caesar and Alzugaray
to dinner the next day, and there were the same guests as the first
time.

The dinner was cold and ceremonious. Amparito was grave, like a
grown person. Scarcely speaking, she replied with discreet smiles to
Alzugaray's occasional phrases, but she was not in a humour to tease
anybody.

The train started about the middle of the afternoon, and Don Calixto had
arranged to have the carriage got ready, and to accompany the travellers
to the station.

Caesar was uneasy, thinking of the leave-taking. The moment for saying
good-bye to Amparito and her father, it seemed to him, would be a
difficult moment. Nevertheless, everything went off smoothly. The father
offered his hand, without grudge. Amparito blushed a little and said:

"We shall see each other again, Moncada?"

"Yes, I'm sure of it," replied Caesar; and the two friends and Don
Calixto took the carriage for the station.

The two friends' return trip to Madrid was scarcely agreeable. Alzugaray
was offended at Caesar's personal success with Amparito; Caesar
understood his comrade's mental attitude and didn't know what to say or
do.

To them both the journey seemed long and unpleasant, and when they
reached their destination, they were glad to separate.

VIII

THE ELECTION

WHAT THEY SAID IN THE TOWNS

A short while later the eventuality predicted by Caesar occurred. The
Liberal ministry met a crisis, and after various intermediate attempts
at mixed cabinets, the Conservatives came into power.

Caesar had no need to insist with the Minister of the Interior. He was
one of the inevitable. He was pigeon-holed as an adherent, from the
first moment.

The Government had given out the decree for the dissolution of the
Cortes in February and was preparing for the General Election in the
middle of April.

Caesar would have gone immediately to Castro Duro, but he feared that if
he showed interest it would complicate the situation. There were a
lot of elements there, whose attitude it was not easy to foresee; Don
Platón's friends, Father Martin and his people, Amparito's father, the
friends of the opposing candidate, Garcia Padilla. Caesar thought it
better that they should consider him a young dandy with no further
ambition than to give himself airs, rather than a future master of the
town.

He wrote to Don Calixto, and Don Calixto told him there was no hurry,
everything was in order; it would be sufficient for him to appear five
or six days before the election.

Caesar was impatient to begin his task, and it occurred to him that he
might visit the towns that made up the district, without saying anything
to anybody or making himself known. The excursion commenced at the
beginning of the month of April. He left the train at a station before
Castro. He bought a horse and went about through the towns. Nobody in
the villages knew that there was going to be an election; such things
made no difference to anybody.

After the inauguration of a new Government there was a little revolution
in each village, produced by the change of the town-council and by the
distribution of all the jobs that were municipal spoils, which passed
from the hands of those calling themselves Liberals to the hands of
those calling themselves Conservatives.

Caesar discovered that besides the Liberal García Padilla, there was
another candidate, protected by Father Martin La-fuerza; but it looked
as if the Clericals were going to abandon him. In a town named Val de
San Gil, the schoolmaster explained to him, with some fantastic details,
the politics of Don Calixto. The schoolmaster was a Liberal and a frank,
brusque, intelligent man, but he formed his judgment of Don Calixto's
politics on the prejudices of a Republican paper in Madrid, which was
the only one he read.

According to him, Señor Moncada, whom nobody knew, was nothing more
than a figure-head for the Jesuits. Father Martin Lafuerza was getting
possession of too much land in Castro, and wanted everything to belong
to his monastery. The Jesuits had learned of this and were sending young
Moncada to undo the Franciscan friar's combinations and establish the
reign of the Loyolists.

In another place, named Villavieja, Caesar found that the four or five
persons interested in Castrian politics were against him. It seemed that
the Conservative candidate they wanted was the one protected by Father
Martin, who had promised them results greatly to their advantage.

In general, the people in the towns were not up on politics; when Caesar
asked them what they thought about the different questions that interest
a country, they shrugged their shoulders.

In the outlying hamlets they didn't know either who the king was or what
his name was.

The only way in which the trip was of service to the future candidate
was by giving him an idea of how elections were carried on, by teaching
him who carried the returns to Don. Calixto, and showing him which of
these people could be warranted to be honourable and which were rascals.

INDIFFERENCE IN CASTRO

Three days before the election Caesar appeared in Castro and went to
stay at Don Calixto's house. Nobody knew about his expedition in the
environs. There were no preparations whatever. People said they were
going to change Deputies; but really this was of no great moment in the
life of the town.

Saturday night the party committee met in the Casino at seven. Caesar
arrived a few minutes early; no one was there. He was shown into a
shabby salon, lighted by an oil lamp.

It was cold in the room, and Caesar walked about while he waited. On the
ceiling a complete canopy of spider-webs, like dusty silver, trembled in
every draught.

At half-past eight the first members of the committee arrived; the
others kept on coming lazily in. Each one had some pretext to excuse his
being late.

The fact was that the matter interested nobody; the politics of the
district were going to go on as formerly, and really it wasn't worth
while thinking about. Caesar was a decorative figure with no background.

At nine all the members of the committee were in the Casino. Don Calixto
made a speech which he prolonged in an alarming manner. Caesar answered
him in another speech, which was heard with absolute coldness.

Then a frantic gabbling let loose; everybody wanted to talk. They
abandoned themselves fruitfully to distinctions. "If it is certain
that....Although it is true....Not so much because ..." and they
eulogized one another as orators, with great gravity.

The next day, Sunday, the proclamation of the candidates took place.
They were three: Moncada, Governmental; Garcia Padilla, Liberal; and San
Román, Republican.

San Román was the old Republican bookseller; it was sure beforehand that
he couldn't win, but it suited Caesar that he should run, so that the
Workmen's Club elements should not vote for the Liberal candidate.

Two days before the election Caesar went to Cidones and entered the Café
Español.

He asked for Uncle Chinaman, and told him that he was the future Deputy.
Uncle Chinaman recognized the young man with whom he had talked some
months previous in his café, he remembered him with pleasure, and
received him with great demonstrations.

"Man," Caesar said to him, "I want you to do me a favour."

"Only tell me."

"It is a question about the election."

"Good. Let's hear what it is."

"There are several towns where Padilla's adherents are ready, after
the count, to change the real returns for forged ones. Everything is
prepared for it. As I have sent people to their voting-places, they
intend to make the change on the road, taking the returns from the
messengers and giving them forged ones instead. I want twenty or thirty
reliable men to send, four by four, to accompany the messengers that
come with the returns, or else to carry them themselves."

"All right, I will get them for you," said Uncle Chinaman.

"How much money do you need?"

"Twenty dollars will do me."

"Take forty."

"All right. Which towns are they?"

Caesar told him the names of the towns where he feared substitution.
Then he warned him:

"You will say nothing about this."

"Nothing."

Caesar gave precise instructions to the landlord of the café, and on
bidding Uncle Chinaman good-bye, he told him:

"I know already that you are really on my side."

"You believe so?"

"Yes." On Sunday the elections began with absolute inanimation. In
the city the Republicans were getting the majority, especially in the
suburbs. Padilla was far behind. Nevertheless, it was said at the Casino
that it was possible Padilla would finally win the election, because he
might have an overwhelming majority in five or six rural wards.

At four in the afternoon the results in the city gave the victory to
Moncada. Next to him came San Román, and in the last place Padilla.

The returns began to come in from the villages. In all of them the
results were similar. It was found that the official element voted
for the Government candidate, and those who had been attached to the
preceding town-council for the Liberal.

At eight in the evening the returns arrived from the first village where
Padilla expected a victory. The messenger, surrounded by four men from
Cidones, was in a terrified condition. He handed over the returns and
left. The result was the same as in all the other rural districts.

In one village alone, the presiding officer had been able to evade the
vigilance of the guards sent by Caesar and Uncle Chinaman, and change
the number of votes in the returns; but despite this, the election was
won for Caesar.

The next day the exact result of the election was known. It stood:

Moncada, 3705. García Padilla, 1823. San Román, 750.

When it was known that Caesar had played a trick on his enemies under
their noses, he came into great estimation.

The judge said:

"I believe you were all deceived. You supposed Don Caesar to be a
sucking dove, and he is going to turn out to be a vulture for us."

Caesar listened to felicitations and accepted congratulations smiling,
and some days later returned to Madrid.

IX

CAESAR AS DEPUTY

TRIPPING THEM UP

People who didn't know Caesar intimately used to ask one another: "What
purpose could Moncada have had in getting elected Deputy? He never
speaks, he takes no part in the big debates."

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