Caesar or Nothing by Pio Baroja

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"How much have you made?"

"From what these telegrams say, I think I shall go over half a million
francs. From those beginners, Don Calixto and Amparito's father, I think
I have made forty thousand pesetas."

"What an atrocious person! If the Minister should find out about your
game."

"Let him find out. I am not worried. The famous financier, in addition
to being an idiot, is an honourable rogue. He plays the market with
the object of enriching himself and leaving a fortune to his repugnant
children. I, on the other hand, play it with a patriotic object."

The matter didn't rest there: Puchol, carried away by an easily
comprehensible desire for lucre, and thinking it brought the same amount
to the famous financier whether he played through Recquillart or through
Muller, had made the last bid for the Minister through the new broker.

The Minister's winnings diminished considerably and Caesar's gained in
proportion. The illustrious financier, on learning what had happened,
shrieked to heaven; but he said nothing, because of the secret
transaction they had had together. Puchol was dismissed by Recquillart,
and with the thirty thousand francs he collected from Caesar he set up
for himself.

The Minister, a little later, went to Biarritz, to collect his share.
On his return he sent Caesar a note, unsigned and written on the
type-writer. It read:

"I did not think you had enough ability for cheating. Another time I
will be more careful."

Caesar replied in the same manner, as follows:

"When it's a question of a man who, besides being an idiot, is a poor
creature and a cheat like you, I have no scruple in robbing him first
and despising him afterwards."

Some days later Caesar published an article attacking the retiring
Minister of Finance and disclosing a lot of data and figures.

The Minister answered with a letter in a Conservative paper, in which
he denied everything Caesar alleged, and said, with contempt, that
questions of Finance were not to be treated by "amateurs."

Caesar said that he considered himself insulted by the Minister's words,
whom, however, he admired as a financier; and a few months later he
joined the Liberal party and was received with open arms by its famous
chief.

XII

LOCAL STRUGGLES

THE WATER SUPPLY

Caesar had money in abundance, and he decided to exert a decisive
influence on Castro Duro.

For a long while he had had various projects planned.

He thought it was an appropriate moment to put them into practice.

The first that he tried to carry out was the water supply.

The Municipality had a plan for this in the archives, and Caesar asked
for it to study. The scheme was big and expensive; the stream it was
necessary to harness so as to bring it to Castro, was far away. Besides
it was requisite to construct a piping system or an aqueduct.

Caesar consulted an engineer, who told him:

"From a business point of view, this is very poor. Even if you use
the superfluous water, in a factory for instance, it will give you no
results."

"What shall we do then?"

"The simplest thing would be to put in a pumping plant and pump up the
river water."

"But it is infected water, full of impurities."

"It can be purified by filtering. That's not difficult."

Caesar laid this plan before the Municipality, and it was decided to
carry it out, as the most practical and practicable. A company was
formed to pump up the water, and work was begun.

The stockholders were almost all rich people of Castro, and the company
drew up its constitution in such a manner that the town got scarcely any
benefit out of it. They were not going to instal more than two public
fountains inside the city limits, and those were to run only a few
hours. Caesar tried to convince them that this was absurd, but nobody
paid any attention to him.

THE LIBRARY

A bit disappointed, he left the "Water Pumping Company" to go its way,
and devoted himself entirely to things that he could carry out alone.

The first one he tried was establishing a circulating library of
technical books on trades and agriculture, and of polite and scientific
literature, in the Workmen's Club.

"They will sell the books," everybody said; "they will get them all
soiled, and tear out the leaves...."

Caesar had the volumes bound, and at the end of each he had ten or
twelve blank sheets put in, in case the reader wished to write notes.

The experiment began; predictions were not fulfilled; the books came
back to the library untorn and unspotted and with some very ingenuous
notes in them. Lots of people took out books.

The clerical element immediately protested; the priests said in the
pulpit that to send any chance book to working people's houses without
examining it first, was to lead people into error. Dr. Ortigosa retorted
that Science did not need the approval of sacristans. As, in spite
of the clerical element's advice, people kept on reading, there were
various persons that took out books and filled them with obscene
drawings and tore out illustrations. Dr. Ortigosa sent Caesar a letter
informing him what was happening, and Caesar answered that he must limit
the distribution of books to the members of the Workmen's Club and
people that were known. He bade him replace the six or seven books
abused, and continued to send new ones.

The ferment kept the city stirred up; there were no end of heated
discussions; lectures were given in the Club, and Dr. Ortigosa's paper,
_The Protest_, came to life again.

"I am with you in whatever will agitate the people's ideas," wrote
Caesar; "but if they start to play orators and revolutionists, and
you folks come along with pedantic notions, then I for my part shall
drop the whole thing."

When Caesar was in Castro, he spent his evenings at the Workmen's Club.
They gave moving pictures and frequent balls. Caesar did not miss one of
the Club's entertainments. The men came to him for advice, and the
girls and the little boys bowed to him affectionately. There was great
enthusiasm over him.

THE BENEVOLENT SOCIETY

Shortly after the initiation of these improvements in the Club, there
appeared in Castro Duro, without fuss, without noise, two rather
mysterious societies; the Benevolent Society of Saint Joseph and the
Agricultural Fund. In an instant the Benevolent Society of Saint Joseph
had a numerous array of members and patrons. All the great landholders
of the region, including Amparito's father, bound themselves to employ
no labourers except those belonging to the Benevolent Society. In the
neighbouring villages the inhabitants joined _en masse_. At the same
time as this important society, Father Martin and his friends founded
the Castrian Agricultural Fund, whose purpose was to make loans, at a
low rate of interest, to small proprietors.

The two Catholic institutions set themselves up in rivalry to the
Workmen's institution. The town was divided; the Catholics were more
numerous and richer; the Liberals more determined and enthusiastic. The
Catholics had given their upholders a resigned character.

Moreover, the name Catholic applied to the members of the two Clerical
societies made those who did not belong to them admit with great
tranquillity that _they_ were not Catholics.

The Clericals called their enemies Moncadists, and by implication
Schismatics, Atheists, and Anarchists. Inside the town there was a
Moncadist majority; in the environs everybody was a Catholic and
belonged to the Benevolent Society.

Generally the Catholics were abused in word and deed by the Moncadists;
the members of the Workmen's Club held those of the Benevolent Society
for cowards and traitors. Doubtless Father Martín did not wish that
his followers should be distinguished by Christian meekness, and he
appointed a bully whom people called "Driveller" Juan warden of the
Benevolent Society. This Juan was a lad who lived without working; his
mother and his sisters were dressmakers, and he bled them for money, and
spent his life in taverns and gambling-dens.

"Driveller" began to insult members of the club, especially the boys,
and to defy them, on any pretext. Dr. Ortigosa went to see Caesar and
explained the situation. "Driveller" was a coward, he didn't venture
beyond a few peaceable workmen; but if he had defied "Furibis" or
"Panza" or any of the railway men that belonged to the Club, they
would have given him what he deserved. But in spite of "Driveller's"
cowardice, he inspired terror among the young boys and apprentices.

Dr. Ortigosa was in favour of getting another bully, who could undertake
the job of cutting out "Driveller's" guts.

"Whom are we to get?" asked Caesar.

"We know somebody," said Ortigosa.

"Who is it?"

"' El Montes.'"

"What kind of a party is he?"

"A bandit like the other, but braver."

_BANDITS_

"El Montes" had just come out of Ocaña.

He was a Manchegan, tall, strong, robust, and had been in the
penitentiary several times.

"And how do we manage 'El Montes'?" asked Caesar.

"We make him a servant at the Workmen's Club."

"He will corrupt the place."

"Yes, that's true. Then at the right moment we shall send him to the
Café del Comercio. They gamble at that café; he can go there and in two
or three days call a halt on 'Driveller' Juan." "Good."

"We must arrange for you to dismiss the new judge and put in some friend
of yours, and one fine day we will get a quarrel started and we will put
all Father Martin's friends in jail."

"You two play atrocious politics," said Alzugaray, who was listening to
the conversation.

"It's the only kind that will work," replied Ortigosa. "This is
scientific politics. Ruffianism converted into philosophy. We are
playing a game of chess with Father Martin and we are going to see if we
can't win it."

"But, man, employing all these cut-throats!"

"My dear friend," responded Caesar, "political situations include such
things; with their heads they touch the noblest things, the safety of
one's native land and the race; with their feet they touch the meanest
things, plots, vices, crimes. A politician of today still has to mingle
with reptiles, even though he be an honourable man."

"Besides, we need have no scruples," added Ortigosa; "the inhabitants of
Castro are laboratory guinea-pigs. We are going to experiment on them,
we are going to see if they can stand the Liberal serum."

* * * * *

_THE TWO ASYLUMS_

A little after these rivalries between the Benevolent Society and the
Workmen's Club, which stirred up every one's passions to an extreme
never before known at Castro Duro, another motive for agitation
transpired.

There were two asylums in the town; the Municipal Aid and the Asylum of
the Little Sisters of the Poor.

The Municipal Aid had its own property and was wisely organized; the old
people were permitted to go out of the asylum, they had no uniform, and
from time to time they were allowed to drink a glass of something. In
the Little Sisters' Home, on the contrary, discipline was most severe;
all the inmates had to go dressed in a horrible uniform, which the
poor hated; to be present, like a chorus, at the funerals of important
persons; pray at every step; and besides all that, they were forbidden
under pain of expulsion, to smoke or to drink anything.

So the result was that there were abandoned old wretches, who, if they
couldn't get a place in the Aid, let themselves die in some corner,
rather than put on the uniform of the Little Sisters' Home, degrading in
their eyes.

That asylum had no income, because its Catholic managers had eaten it
all up. In view of the institution's bad economic condition, it occurred
to Father Martin to consolidate the two; to make one asylum of the
municipal and the religious, and to put it under the strict rule of the
religious one. What Father Martin wanted was that the Little Sisters
should have a finger in the whole thing, and that the income of one
institution should serve for both.

Caesar threatened the mayor with dismissal if he accepted the
arrangement, and insisted that the Liberal councilmen should not permit
the fusion, which was to the great advantage of the Clerical party.

As a matter of fact, the plan came to nothing, and Caesar treated the
Municipal Aid to two barrels of wine and tobacco in abundance, which
aroused great enthusiasm among the old people, who cheered for the
Deputy of their District.

Caesar rode over the situation on horseback; but the Clerical campaign
strengthened at the same rate that popular sympathies went out toward
him. In almost every sermon there were allusions to the immorality and
the irreligion that reigned in the town. The support of the women was
sought and they were exhorted to influence their husbands, brothers, and
sons to resign from the Workmen's Club.

The old pulpit oratory began to seem mild, and on the feast of the
Virgin of the Rock, a young preacher launched out, in the church, into
an eloquent, violent, and despotic sermon in which he threatened eternal
suffering to those who belonged to heretical clubs and would not return
to the loving bosom of the Church. The homily caused the greatest
impression, and there were a few unhappy mortals who, some days later,
were reported as dead or missing at the Workmen's Club.

XIII

AMPARITO IN ACTION

_LAURA AT CASTRO_

A time for new elections arrived, and Caesar stood for Castro Duro. Don
Calixto, who had married his two daughters and was bored at not being
allowed to pull the strings in the town, decided to move to Madrid.
First he had thought of spending only some time at the capital, but
later he decided to stay there and he had his furniture sent down.

People said that Don Calixto had no great affection for the old palace
of the Dukes of Castro, and Caesar proposed that he should rent the
house to him.

Don Calixto hesitated; in Castro he would certainly have refused, but
being in Madrid he accepted. His wife advised him that if he had any
scruples, he should ask more rent. They came to the agreement that
Caesar should pay three thousand pesetas a year for the part Don Calixto
had formerly inhabited.

This time Caesar had the election won, and there was not the slightest
fight. He was the boss of Castro, a good boss, accepted by everybody,
save the Clericals.

Caesar had money, and he wrote to his sister to come and see him at
Castro in his seigniorial mansion. Laura arrived at Madrid in the
autumn, and the two went to Castro together.

Laura's appearance in the town created a great sensation. At first
people said she was Caesar's wife. Others said she was an actress; until
finally everybody understood that she was his sister.

Laura really took undue advantage of her superiority. She was
irresistibly amiable and bewitching with everybody. The majority of the
men in Castro Duro talked of nothing but her, and the women hated her to
the death.

Being a marchioness, a Cardinal's niece, and a Deputy's sister, gave
her, besides, a terrible social prestige.

One person who clung to her, enchanted to have such a friend, was
Amparito. She went to the palace in her motor at all hours, to see Laura
and chat with her. In the afternoon the two of them used to walk in
Amparito's father's property, where the labourers, who were threshing,
received them like queens.

What enchanted Laura was the wild garden at Don Calixto's house, with
its pomegranates and laurels, its tower above the river, full of
climbing plants and oleanders.

"You ought to buy this house," she used to tell Caesar.

"It would cost a good deal."

"Pshaw! You could arrange that wonderfully. You would get married and
live here like a prince."

"Get married?"

"Yes. To Amparito. That young thing is enchanting.

"She will make a splendid little wife. Even for your respectability as a
Deputy, it would be fitting to marry. A bachelor politician has a poor
look."

Caesar paid no attention to these suggestions and continued to lead
an unsocial life. He covered the environs on horseback, found out
everything that was going on and settled it. In this he set himself
an enormous task, which was not notable for results; but he hoped to
succeed in conquering the district completely, and then to extend his
sphere of action to others and yet others.

After being a fortnight in Castro Duro, Laura went to Biarritz, as was
her custom every year.

AMPARITO AND CAESAR

Caesar was left alone. He had seen Amparito with his sister many times
but had scarcely ever exchanged more than a few words with her. One
afternoon Caesar was in the gallery in an arm-chair, with his feet high.
He felt melancholy and lazy, and was watching the clouds move across the
sky. Soon he heard steps, and saw Amparito with an old servant who had
been her nurse.

Caesar jumped up.

"What's the matter?" he exclaimed.

"I came to get something Laura forgot," said Amparito.

"She forgot something?" asked Caesar stupidly.

"Yes," replied Amparito; and added, addressing the old woman:

"Go see if there is a little glass box in Señorita Laura's room."

The old woman went out, and Amparito, looking at Caesar, who was on his
feet watching her nervously, said:

"Do you still hate me?"

"I?" exclaimed Caesar.

"Yes, you do hate me."

"I! I have never hated you.... Quite the contrary."

"Whenever you see me you get away, and just now you looked at me as
if you were terrified. Have you such a grudge against me for a joke I
played on you long ago?"

"I, a grudge! No. It is because I have the impression, Amparito, that
you want to upset my plans, to make game of me. Why do you?"

"Do you think I try to amuse myself by worrying you?"

"Yes."

"No, that isn't true. You don't think so."

"Then why this constant inclination to distress me, to poke fun at me?"

"I never poked fun at you."

"Then I have made a mistake.... I had come to think that you took some
interest in me."

"And so I did. I did take an interest in you, and I keep on taking an
interest in you."

"And why so?"

"Because I see that you are unhappy, and you are alone."

"Ah! You are sorry for me!" "Now you are offended. Yes, I am sorry for
you."

"Sorry!"

"Yes, sorry. Because I see that you despise everybody and despise
yourself, because you think people are bad, and that you are too, and to
me this seems so sad that it makes me pity you deeply."

Caesar began to walk up and down the gallery, trembling a little.

"I don't see why you say this to me," he murmured. "I am a morbid man,
with an ulcerated, wounded spirit.... I know that. But why say it to me?
Do you take pleasure in humiliating me?"

"No, Caesar," said Amparito, drawing near him. "You don't believe that I
take pleasure in humiliating you. No, you know well that I do not."

On saying this, Amparito burst into tears, and she had to lean against
the gallery window, to hide her face and dissemble her emotion.

Caesar took her hand, and as she did not turn her head, he seized her
other, too. She looked at him with her eyes shining and full of tears;
and in that look there was so much attachment, so much distress, that
Caesar felt a weakness in his whole frame. Then, taking Amparito's head
between his hands, he kissed it several times.

She leaned her head on Caesar's shoulder and stood pressed against him,
sobbing. Caesar felt a sensation of anguish and pain, as if within the
depths of his soul, the strongest part of his personality had broken and
melted.

They heard the footsteps of the old woman, coming back to say that she
had found nothing in the room Laura had occupied during her stay.

Amparito dried her tears, and smiled, and her face was redder than
usual. Presently she said to the nurse:

"Probably you didn't look well. I am going to go myself."

Amparito went out.

Caesar was pale and absorbed; he felt that something extraordinary
had happened to him. His hands trembled and things swam around him.

In a short while Amparito returned. She had a round glass box in her
hand, which she said she had found in Laura's room.

"This afternoon I am going to Our Lady of the Rock," said Amparito.
"Will you come, Caesar?"

"Yes."

"Then, good-bye till then."

Amparito gave him her hand, and Caesar kissed it. The old servant was
dumfounded. Amparito burst out laughing.

"He is my beau. Hadn't you noticed it before?"

"No," said the old woman with a gesture of violent negation.

Amparito laughed again and disappeared.

The first days of his engagement Caesar was constantly in-tranquil and
uneasy. He kept thinking that it was impossible to live like that,
giving his whole attention to nothing except the desires of a girl. He
imagined that the awakening would come from one moment to the next; but
the awakening didn't arrive.

By degrees Caesar abandoned all the affairs of the district, which had
taken all his attention, and took to occupying himself solely with his
sweetheart. The whole town knew their relations and talked of the coming
wedding.

That dazzling idyll intrigued all the girls in Castro. The truth was
that none of them had considered Caesar a marrying man; some had
imagined him already old; others an experienced and vicious bachelor,
incapable of yielding to the matrimonial yoke; and now they saw him a
youth, of distinguished type, with distinguished manners and looks.

Caesar went almost daily to Amparito's father's country-place. It was
a magnificent estate, another ancient property of the Dukes of Castro
Duro, with a house adorned with escutcheons, and an extensive stone
pool, deep and mysterious. The garden did not resemble that at Don
Calixto's house, for that one was of a frantic gaiety, and the one on
Amparito's father's estate was very melancholy. Above all, the square of
water in the pool, whose edges were decorated with great granite vases,
had a mysterious, sad aspect.

"Doesn't it make you very sad to look at this deep water in the pool?"
Caesar asked his fiancée.

"No, it doesn't me."

"It does me."

"Because you are a poet," she said, "and I am not; I am very prosaic."

"Really?"

"Yes."

The more Caesar talked with Amparito, the less he understood her and the
more he needed to be with her.

"We really do not think the same about anything," Caesar used to tell
himself, "and yet we understand each other."

Many times he endeavoured to make a psychological résumé of Amparito's
character, but he didn't succeed. He didn't know how to classify her;
her type always escaped him.

"All her notions are different from mine," he used to think; "she speaks
in another way, feels in another way, she even has a different moral
code. How strange!"

Also, what Amparito knew was completely heterogeneous; she spoke French
well and wrote it fairly correctly; in Spanish, on the other hand, she
had no idea of spelling. Caesar was always stupefied on seeing the
transpositions of h's, s's, and z's that she made in her letters.

There remained by Amparito, from her passage through the French school,
a recollection of the history of France made up of a few anecdotes and a
few phrases. Thus, it was not unusual to hear her speak of Turenne,
of Francis I, or of Colbert. For the rest, she played the piano badly
enough and with extremely little enthusiasm.

This was the part belonging to her education as a rich young lady; that
which belonged to the country girl, who lived among peasants, was more
curious and personal.

She knew many plants by their vulgar names, and understood their
industrial and medicinal use. Besides, she spoke in such pure, natural
phrases that Caesar was filled with admiration.

Caesar had reached such a degree of exaltation that he thought of
nothing any more, except his sweetheart. At night, before going to
sleep, he thought of her deliriously. He often dreamed that Amparito had
changed into the red-flowered oleander of the wild palace garden, and
in every flower of the oleander he used to see Amparito's red lips and
white teeth.

XIV

INTRANSIGENCE LOST

DISQUIET DISAPPEARS

The wedding took place and Caesar had to compromise about a lot of
things. It didn't trouble him to confess and receive communion; he
considered those mere customs, and went to the church of the Plain to
conform to these practices with the old priest who was a friend of
Amparito's.

On the other hand, it did bother Caesar to have to suffer Father Martin
in his house, who allowed himself to talk and give advice; and he
was also irritated by the presence of certain persons who considered
themselves aristocrats and who came to call on him and point out to him
that it was now time to give up the rabble and the indigent and to rise
to their level.

If he had not had so much to think about as he did have, he would have
found this a good chance to show his aggressive humour; but all his
attention was fixed on Amparito.

The newly married pair spent the first days of their honeymoon at
Castro; then they went to Madrid, with the intention of going abroad,
and afterwards they went back to the town.

The old palace of the Dukes of Castro was witness to their idyll.

At the end of some time Caesar felt tranquil, perhaps too tranquil.

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