1^
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE 
 FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 A
 
 The HOUSE of the 
 FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 By 
 HENRY BAERLEIN 
 
 up 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY
 
 PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY 
 
 THE OUINN a BODEN COMPANY 
 RAHWAY. N. J.
 
 To 
 
 It is the pleasant custom, as you will remember, of 
 the Swedes to hang a garland round the neck of those 
 who go a journey. You have been my comrade in a 
 thousand journeys while this book was being written 
 and it seems ridiculous that I should now suspend on 
 you these withering flowers of speech. And yet the 
 journeys did not cause you inconvenience, for you 
 never knew that they were being made. 
 
 H. B. 
 
 2134346
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Whether I shall die to-morrow or in twenty years 
 or thirty does not matter, for now I have written the 
 last word of my book. It is the fifth of June, 1880. 
 
 I have accomplished all that God has given me the 
 strength to do.* This poor memorial of my friends of 
 long ago may be more durable than a stone monument, 
 which few regard until the day comes when a revolu- 
 tionary mob or General believe it is the statue of a 
 tyrant and they drag it down; this manuscript of 
 mine may cause my heroes to be known more clearly 
 in the years to come than would a painting which the 
 Governor of Veracruz, my State in Mexico's Republic, 
 would display to some rich foreigner who wishes to 
 exploit the country, and the foreigner, not caring what 
 the picture is, would pay the Governor as if, indeed, 
 it were the picture of Two Early Saints by Fra An- 
 gelico. Whatever be the fate of monuments or paint- 
 ings in another country, it is here among the most 
 uncertain; while a manuscript will not be touched by 
 any one who is unworthy to become the friend of my 
 dear friend, Eugenio Gil. 
 
 It is not seemly for a person such as I to say that 
 all the world is dull, as I have often heard it said by 
 venerable men, when they recall the stirring days in 
 which they had a part. Assuredly it is to dullards that 
 
 *The Spanish MS., translated here, was found in excellent 
 condition at Jalapa, in the year 191 1. The owner of the house 
 knew nothing of it. (Translator's note.) 
 
 7
 
 8 PREFACE 
 
 the world is dull — one ought to pity them — and for 
 myself the world is not so splendid as it was in 1866 
 and 1867. I never had occasion, except once, to go 
 beyond the frontiers of the State of Veracruz, which, 
 from the palm lands by the sea, goes rolling up through 
 gorgeous pasture and through woods of everlasting 
 green, up to the distant shadowy hills and to the bril- 
 liant snows on Orizaba, the dead volcano, that is like a 
 spear which threatens the blue vault of heaven. The 
 gray roads which the Spaniards built and the long 
 forest trails of my own people have been trodden by 
 the same steps, bold and hesitating, furtive, thought- 
 ful, as the wildernesses or the streets of other coun- 
 tries; but for me, because they have resounded to the 
 footsteps of the disciple of Noah and of Don Eugenio 
 Gil, they seem the most extraordinary roads in all the 
 world. 
 
 So far as I know, nothing has been written of this 
 brave philosopher, the Noahcite, who Hved and died 
 in Mexico. The population of Jalapa, where his home 
 was, did not try to understand what he was doing, for 
 in their opinion he was mad. I will not venture to 
 make any criticism of so strange a man, who certainly 
 was most unfortunate; what I can do is merely to 
 repeat, so far as I remember them, his glorious ideas. 
 What occupied him was no less than All Knowledge, 
 in so far as it was known to Noah, for he held that 
 ignorance produces our unhappiness, that knowledge, 
 on the other hand, means happiness, and that the 
 person in whose head All Knowledge lay was Noah. 
 I am well aware that many people think it is an idle 
 thing to want to have All Knowledge in one's head, to 
 be, in fact, a pantologist (one who studies or is versed 
 in universal knowledge), and they would unhesitatingly 
 reject the system of our patron. He was pleased to
 
 PREFACE 9 
 
 tell Eugenio Gil and me that he was happy, owing to 
 the work on which he was engaged. And it was his 
 firm intention to bestow the gift of happiness on every- 
 body, after he had made himself the perfect master 
 of it. You will learn with deep regret that he was exe- 
 cuted for conspiracy in the State of Tamaulipas. 
 
 As for Don Eugenio Gil — if Spain had only sent us 
 more like him! "With the passing of the years," says 
 the Friar Gregorio de la Concepcion Melero y Pina, 
 "death comes to our passions, and our prejudices are 
 extinguished and a path is made for truth into the souls 
 of men who go in search of it with a good will." My 
 master, Don Eugenio, had a good will, and if he had 
 lived longer then the passions which so hampered him 
 might have been utterly destroyed. Whatever I have 
 learned of letters I acquired from him. And if he had 
 not been so tossed about the v/orld, I think he would 
 have been like famous doctors in the books; but never 
 like the Doctor Canizares, who is now remembered 
 on account of having fed his pupils on an onion and a 
 little bread, and sometimes on a stew of goats' feet. 
 
 Men whom God has made austere may think my 
 master was too self-indulgent, but he was not hard on 
 any one. He did not in the least resemble those 
 unpleasant people who deny themselves all pleasures 
 here on earth in order that, when they are dead, they 
 may be famous. And he was wont to say that God, 
 who made the grandeur of the universe, could certainly 
 have made him a much better man, if that had been 
 His will.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 My name Is Juan de Dios Eusebio de la Concha, for 
 my father was a pious man, a breeder of fightmg-cocks, 
 who was a friend of the great de la Concha family, 
 although my father was a native of the country, an 
 Indian, and they were Spanish. 
 
 It was in the village of Colorado that we lived, and 
 all the neighboring country, as far up as Jalapa, used 
 to buy its fighting-cocks from my dear father, so that 
 he became more prosperous than any one, he thought, 
 of our ancestors. But he said that he would always 
 remain in the village, no matter how great he might 
 become, for it was in the middle of his district, and 
 indeed he was regarded as the chief man of Colorado. 
 Our wooden house was not very large, but it was the 
 largest, with a balcony on the first floor and iron bars 
 at some of the windows, like the fine houses at Jalapa, 
 and in front of it there was a long veranda. So the 
 travelers from Veracruz, who came on horse-back or 
 on mule-back or in litters or in shaky carriages, would 
 sleep at our house if they had to stop at Colorado. 
 And my father was the only person in the village who 
 subscribed to a newspaper; he kept them in a room 
 downstairs and for the benefit of travelers who, even 
 if they were escorted by a military troop, fell often 
 into ambuscades where bandits robbed them of their 
 clothes. The newspaper, which also came from 
 Veracruz, was not very strong, so that my father 
 would not let me touch it. But he told me that some 
 
 II
 
 12 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 day I must learn how to read, because our family was 
 growing rich, and thus if any traveler who was forced 
 to buy a newspaper consented to instruct me in the 
 letters, then my father sold it him or her more 
 cheaply. That is how I came to be the only person 
 in all Colorado, with the exception of the priest, who 
 knew the alphabet; for Senor Gonzalez, the shopkeeper 
 on the opposite side of the road, and Captain Bartolme 
 Robledo, the old man, regretted, as they told my 
 father, that they had not had a father such as he was. 
 
 My mother was a very thoughtful woman; she used 
 to tell my father nearly every day that all things have 
 their end and that perhaps his wealth would leave him. 
 
 But he used to stroke her anxious face and laugh at 
 her. It was to him like some old funny story which 
 we love to have repeated. "Mother Guadalupe," he 
 would say to her, "I tell you that you are the pearl 
 of women." 
 
 She was always shaking her dear head when I played 
 soldiers with my father. What he did was to shout: 
 "Psh! psh!" and what I did was to fall flat on my 
 stomach — that was the whole game and I loved to 
 play it. 
 
 "You will train him," quoth she, "to be a warrior 
 and then he will go out from here and be killed. 
 Thank the holy saints," she said, "that you have 
 money and our Juanito need not go to fight for any 
 of them. It is wicked money that one makes in 
 that way." 
 
 "There is plenty of it," laughed my father. "If 
 you are a man on one side you can always sell the 
 guns and powder to the chieftain of the other side. 
 But our son is not going to be a common soldier." 
 
 Yet she was not satisfied. "Father Pedro," she 
 would say, "the holy ones do not look down with
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 13 
 
 favor on a fighting man, except if he be fighting for 
 the faith. I know very well," she said, "that all their 
 proclamations, whether they be Juarez generals or 
 generals who would kill him, or great foreign generals 
 of the Emperor Maximilian, I know that all of them 
 announce that they are fighting on the side of God, 
 and some of them are liars and that is why they are 
 killed," said my mother. 
 
 "Or because they don't fall on their stomachs," 
 said my father. "Anyhow, while there is wind in the 
 palm tree, as they say, so long will the women cajole 
 us, and you are the pearl of women." 
 
 It was impossible for my poor mother to invoke the 
 priest, because he was so friendly with my father; he 
 was one of those who bought the cocks, and on a 
 Sunday, when the Mass was over, he would come with 
 all of us into the space which is in front of the shop of 
 Seiior Gonzalez. After the Mass, he said, he was like 
 other citizens. Thus he would never tell my father 
 what the holy ones might have against him. "You 
 are a good woman," he used to say to my mother, 
 "for when you are kneeling down in the church I have 
 seen you keep your arms stretched out for five or six 
 minutes. And how v/ould you have me declare that 
 the holy saints are angry with a man for being a soldier 
 or pretending to be one? Do not we, the reverend 
 priests, accompany the troops?" He smiled at her in 
 his weak, amiable way. 
 
 The village was like any other, with fine palm trees 
 and all sorts of other trees and cactus. Here and 
 there, among the trees, were houses built of painted 
 wood, all kinds of colors. That one of the Senor 
 Gonzalez was the meeting-place; my father, when he 
 was not somewhere else to do his business, liked to sit 
 outside it in the night, with other players. Our own
 
 14 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 house was opposite, and even if we had not seen him 
 underneath the flaring lamps we should have known 
 that he was there, because he laughed so heartily. My 
 mother said that even if he lost his money at the game 
 he would be laughing — and we Mexicans are such a 
 silent race — she never knew if he had won or lost, so 
 that her hatred for Gonzalez was intense. She would 
 lean out from the low window of her dark room for 
 an hour or two hours at a time, and when my father 
 had returned she spoke against Gonzalez. 
 
 "Nonsense!" cried my father. "What should we 
 do without him? And I told him just this evening 
 that you are the pearl of women, and he said it was 
 the truth." 
 
 Of course my father did not spend a very large part 
 of his time in playing games with me or playing at the 
 shop. His business occupied him, and it grew so large 
 that he was sorry I had learned to read, he said, be- 
 cause it would not be a seemly thing if I continued 
 merely as a man of business. What I was to be he did 
 not know, but something grander than himself at any 
 rate. 
 
 One day when he came from a journey he informed 
 my mother that he had a plan for me. He was more 
 grave than I had ever seen him, and he sat down on 
 the floor, as if we had no chairs. Then he reached up 
 and took my hand and started smoothing it, while I 
 was wondering why his own hand trembled so. 
 
 "Is it that you have been robbed on this journey? 
 Did they take the cocks or else your money?" asked 
 my mother. 
 
 "Oh, you always think the worst at once," he 
 said. 
 
 "And now you want to make our only son a brigand. 
 It is profitable, certainly, but they will never take him
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 15 
 
 into heaven, and with sleeping on the mountain-tops 
 and all those places he will catch a chill. Father 
 PedrO; . . ." 
 
 ''By the saints!" he said, "it is all wrong what you 
 are saying. I have settled that when travelers come 
 to the house they shall behold our Juanito reading in 
 the newspapers, and when they see it they will, some 
 of them will, offer him a post, and if it is a good 
 post . . ." 
 
 "He shall never go away from Colorado!" she ex- 
 claimed, and there she stood in front of us, seeming 
 much taller than usual, and with her sad eyes glit- 
 tering. 
 
 But from that day when there was a traveler who 
 stopped with us I nearly always found occasion to dis- 
 play my talents. I would sit beside the table where 
 they ate and, with the newspaper spread out before 
 me, read aloud. Sometimes they complimented me or 
 gave me little presents, and sometimes a lady kissed 
 me; sometimes they were furious, when there was 
 nothing yet for them to eat, and sometimes they sat 
 talking the more loudly. "When that is what they do," 
 said my father, "it is because they cannot read." He 
 waited patiently for one to come who would give ex- 
 cellent advice or even take me with him to the glory 
 I deserved. 
 
 The newspaper I read was always the same one, as 
 they were so valuable in the way I have explained 
 before. You might suppose that all the people of the 
 village would be eager for me to read out to them 
 what each new paper said, but the people of a village 
 do not change their habits quickly, and in years gone 
 by they had not felt the need of any paper. And in 
 all the village, with the exception of the few books 
 of the priest, there was only one book, which had
 
 i6 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 formerly belonged to Captain Bartolme, and now was 
 mine. He gave it me because he said he was no 
 student. It had fallen into his possession when he 
 plundered a dead officer, and since it dealt with 
 stately Spanish dances, and he was, he said, a patriot 
 and also could not dance, he thought it would be 
 better if he gave it me. You may be sure that I was 
 proud of it, and so was my father; in fact, the old 
 captain seemed always now to have a place at our 
 table, and at the end of the meal he enveloped in his 
 cloak such articles of food as lay about him, just as if 
 it was some sweet that he was taking to his children. 
 At his house, my father said, there was no food at all, 
 for he had been abandoned by the Government, and 
 Enriqueta, that woman who looked after his house, 
 was nearly starving. I think before he gave me the 
 Book of IDances poor Captain Bartolme was wont to 
 come a little time before a meal, and, rocking to and 
 fro in his chair, to relate a story of how he had dis- 
 persed the enemies of Mexico. It was a long tale, 
 and, with rare exceptions, he was not obliged to go 
 through more than half of it before the dishes were 
 brought in, and he sat down among the rest of us. 
 But now, if perchance my father was not in good 
 spirits, he had only to strike an attitude which came 
 out of the book, and usually he had not even to do 
 that. 
 
 Then, one day in the hot season of 1866, I had been 
 lying with some other children underneath a tree, and 
 we had been amusing ourselves with making patterns 
 of dust on each other's bodies, when I saw a traveler 
 in black arrive and look all round him, searching for 
 a man, because it was the hour when people rest. And 
 then he slowly mounted the veranda of our house; 
 I saw that he was very tired, but it was my duty to
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 17 
 
 read pieces of the paper to him and I got up also, 
 feeling that it was a most intolerable burden to be 
 some one so instructed. 
 
 As he heard me he turned round. His face was a 
 dull red, and there was something very mournful in 
 his eyes. "My son," quoth he, "I am in great need 
 of a cup of water." He was not as old as my father, 
 but the hair, which, being wet, clung to his forehead 
 in large curls, was gray. 
 
 It is extraordinary, when I come to think of it, that 
 I, in total nakedness, was not at all embarrassed by 
 this stranger. But he was the sort of man with whom 
 it is impossible to be embarrassed. For a European 
 he was not a tall man; yet he had about him an air 
 of magnificence, and this was not diminished by the 
 lower part of his rather heavy face — for in repose it 
 smiled, a smile that altered from moment to moment, 
 a smile that seemed to run out of his mouth and to 
 play hide and seek in the dimples of his ruddy chin — 
 and still less was his magnificence diminished by his 
 physical condition or the dust which lay upon his old 
 black suit. 
 
 "It seems to me," he said, "that I can go no further 
 till to-morrow. You, with your young legs, you cannot 
 think how tired I am." 
 
 I told him I would fetch my father, who was 
 sleeping. 
 
 But he held his hand up, a beautiful plump hand. 
 "Oh, by no means," he said. "Let me drink a cup of 
 water and then show me where to sleep." 
 
 By this time a few of my companions had 
 approached us. One of them I sent for water. I 
 could not break off this wonderful and heavenly con- 
 versation, though now that I have put it down it does 
 not seem so different from others.
 
 i8 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 Presently my father came out from the house. 
 "Senor," he said, not caring that the traveler had come 
 on foot, "this is the only place for travelers in Colo- 
 rado. But you are in a good humor." 
 
 "Host," said he, "I have got 65 centavos. Therefore 
 I cannot ask for more than half a bed." 
 
 "Senor," said my father, "from your language I 
 perceive that you are a Spaniard from Spain. But 
 although I must abhor you, since you were the enemy, 
 yet I have never slain one while he slept within my 
 house, which is at the disposal now of Your Illustrious 
 Person. Some of those who come to these lands out of 
 Spain do not like the particular small insects of our 
 beds, but you are the determined traveler. In fact," 
 said my father, nodding his head rapidly up and down 
 — a way with him when his emotions were engaged — 
 "in fact," said he, "I would embrace you if I were not 
 a poor Indian only." 
 
 They embraced, with many pats upon each other's 
 backs, and then they went into the house and, for a 
 time, I stayed among the other children. We were 
 talking of the traveler, and wondering what he might 
 be and whither he was going, when old Captain 
 Bartolme Robledo, in a state of perturbation, limped 
 toward us. Was my father at the house? he shouted. 
 When I told him that he was, the Captain uttered a 
 strange growl and hurried on. It was impossible for 
 us to stay out in the open air. We followed him. 
 And at the door of the large room we stopped. In 
 front of us there stood the Captain, with his arms 
 thrown out and talking in a shrill, abrupt, and 
 incoherent fashion. The fat traveler lay on a bed, 
 that is to say, he propped himself on his left elbow; 
 with his right hand he was eating from a bowl. My 
 father, on a chair, looked up most wrathfully at the
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 19 
 
 old Captain, but his fingers did not cease from plucking 
 a white hen that was between his knees. 
 
 "Gone away, entirely gone, I tell you," shouted the 
 old Captain, "and how am I to find her?" 
 
 "If you will permit me, sir?" the traveler said. "I 
 have but lately come into your country. My name is 
 Eugenio Gil, once a citizen of Zaragoza in Aragon and 
 once — alas! — librarian to the Bishop's books. It is 
 possible — I know not — but it is possible that I can help 
 you." 
 
 "She has gone! Her name was Enriqueta. Oh, the 
 woman ! She — she " 
 
 "Look you," said my father, "is it right that you 
 should come disturbing His Honor of the books in this 
 way? And it is my house. You are shameless!" 
 
 But Don Eugenio spoke to the Captain very seri- 
 ously. "It is what we must expect," he said. "They 
 are the little clouds which make our sky more beautiful, 
 and then they sail away." He dipped his leaf into the 
 bowl again. 
 
 Don Bartolme did not know what to say. Such 
 reasoning as this had never yet been placed before 
 him. Suddenly he turned and told us children to be 
 gone. And they all crept away, except myself. I 
 crouched down in the corner of the room, upon an 
 empty sack of oranges. There in the shade I thought 
 I would escape attention. 
 
 "Senor," said the Captain to Don Eugenio, "it is 
 benevolent on your part, but — but have you ever loved 
 a woman very much?" 
 
 The traveler did not reply. 
 
 And as the Captain started pacing up and down the 
 room, "Oh, name of God," he moaned, "why did I 
 listen to her? Now let all the creatures talk — I hold 
 my ears. I hate them all."
 
 20 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 "So that, my friend," said Don Eugenio, "you may 
 not enter Paradise. We have in my part of the 
 country an old saying which the Arabs left behind 
 them. It is that a talking bird has got the Keys of 
 Paradise." 
 
 "Oho! what does he talk about?" 
 
 "They have not found him yet," acknowledged Don 
 Eugenio. 
 
 The Captain gave a scoffing laugh. "A bird, for- 
 sooth! Perhaps you have come here to find him!" 
 
 "And why not?" said Don Eugenio with a smile. 
 "Do you believe it is no miracle that men can talk? 
 And if one miracle, why not another?" 
 
 "Oh, this bird," exclaimed my father, holding up 
 the half-plucked hen. "I wish I had not slain it." 
 
 The old Captain laughed. "What foolishness! Mi 
 Pedrecito," he said to my father, "surely you don't 
 think . . ." And turning round to Don Eugenio he 
 asked, a little anxiously, "It is all nonsense, is it 
 not?" 
 
 "At any rate," said Don Eugenio, "I think the bird 
 which has the Keys will be a very common bird." 
 
 I had been lying on the empty sack and nobody 
 had taken any notice of me. But at this point I was 
 ordered by my father to be off and dress myself. 
 
 I stood up, but my head was hanging. 
 
 "My little Andalucian angel," said Don Eugenio. 
 
 "Now," said my father, "put your clothes on like 
 a Christian. In the presence of this learned gentle- 
 man of books it is not fitting that you should forget 
 your clothes." 
 
 And, glancing up, I saw my mother at the door 
 which led into the other room. Her mouth was open. 
 
 "Yes," quoth Don Eugenio, "I am a man of books, 
 but not of our books of to-day. You see there is a
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 21 
 
 prejudice against us if we would expose our bodies 
 that are clean and lovely in the sight of God, whereas 
 in books and newspapers the people may, with great 
 impunity, expose the dirtiest of minds." 
 
 I had not thought that he could be so stern. 
 
 "Senor," my mother said, "you speak of news- 
 papers. What do you think of those they make at 
 Veracruz?" 
 
 He greeted her with a grave courtesy, half-rising 
 from the bed. 
 
 "Juan is the first one of us who has read a news- 
 paper," my mother said; "and do you think he ought 
 to read?" 
 
 Before the traveler could reply my father rose and 
 put his right hand on my mother's shoulder. In his 
 left there swung the carcase of the hen. "She is the 
 pearl of women," he explained, "but there are things 
 she does not understand." He smiled indulgently. 
 
 My mother did not hesitate a moment. "There may 
 be some things," she said, "that we ought not to 
 know." 
 
 The traveler nodded. 
 
 "Here," she said, "is one of them." And going over 
 to the painted box, in which the fire-arms and the 
 colored handkerchiefs and old, dried palm-leaves and 
 some iron stirrups and some other articles were kept, 
 she took out the small book on dancing. 
 
 "As I said," observed my father, "she is what she 
 is, Senor, and I have never wished to have another 
 wife. But she is what she is and very little civilized. 
 One cannot always stay the same as were one's 
 ancestors. Is that not so? To cultivate your garden 
 and your oranges and coffee-plants may be extremely 
 meritorious, but there is something, I do not know 
 what, a mystery, a holy sentiment, a voice of God,
 
 22 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 that sometimes urges men to rise. Is that not so? 
 And thus I have become a breeder of these fighting- 
 cocks." 
 
 My mother had been holding out, for every one to 
 see, the first page of the book. It had the picture of a 
 lady dancing through a hoop, which hung so wonder- 
 fully in the air. And at the corners of the page there 
 were some roses. 
 
 "Be careful with that book," said Captain Bartolme, 
 "for it is I who gave it you." 
 
 "Of course, I know," said my mother, "that this 
 woman looks as if she were the sister of the Holy 
 Virgin, which they sell at the Jalapa fair for one or 
 two or five centavos, and you are safe in your house 
 if you have got a five-centavo one. I know this woman 
 looks as if she were the sister, but if I should pray to 
 her and sing to her when I am weary in my heart, what 
 will she do? I ask." 
 
 "We have been taught," said Don Eugenio, "that 
 there are holy ones — some who lived long ago and 
 some in days more recent — and that if we pray to 
 them they sometimes will appear to us. But I, no 
 doubt, because of my innumerable sins, have never 
 seen these holy creatures. I am even as old Bernal 
 Diaz the Conquistador, who says that though Saint 
 James came down on a white horse to help the Spanish 
 soldiers at Otumba, he, because of his transgressions, 
 could not see him. Those whom I have seen are holy 
 people, humble people, and I do not pray to them or 
 sing to them, but I attempt to follow their example. 
 And if you behave as does this woman of the picture, 
 dancing when your heart is weary, you may find it is 
 as good as praying to the Holy Virgin." 
 
 "So that . . ." said my mother in amazement.
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 23 
 
 She could think of nothing else to say, and no one 
 spoke, because my father and Don Bartolme were 
 staring at the traveler, and he was sitting upright on 
 the bed, his feet upon the floor. He was knocking 
 the dust out of his clothes. 
 
 "I myself, when I was at Madrid," quoth he, "saw 
 the sublime Coralla, who was endowed with calves of 
 iron and with a magic power in pantomime, and she 
 could enter on the scene and leave it as she wished, 
 no matter what was going on. Ah, me! But how she 
 danced!" 
 
 "Seiior," said my mother, "I will brush your 
 clothes very well for you after you have taken them 
 off. And here at Colorado is a priest who will not let 
 us dance as was the custom of our ancestors. He says 
 that dancing is unseemly." 
 
 "Then," said Don Eugenio, "he does not know that, 
 ever since that lamentable accident which happened to 
 the Mariette, a dancer does not now omit to put on 
 underclothes. She who first took this precaution was 
 the good Camargo, who could execute six entrechats 
 and anyhow, she never stumbled, as did Mariette, 
 across an imitation window-frame. Ah, what is 
 this?" 
 
 It was Gonzalez, owner of the shop, who flung him- 
 self into the house, and his queer, smallpoxed face was 
 working agitatedly; his little eyes were flashing in his 
 head. "That Enriqueta," he began, "has come to me. 
 She wants to live with me! Just as I was half sleeping 
 in the shop my woman enters. And from now . . ." 
 
 "For all these months . . ." said the old Captain. 
 He did not seem angry, but very sad. 
 
 "Oh, well, she doesn't want you," said Gonzalez. 
 "Long ago and long ago I asked her to come to me,
 
 24 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 because you are not a fighting soldier, but a lame old 
 man. This Captain," he explained to Don Eugenio, "is 
 a soldier such as we have many of in Mexico. When 
 it became a question to throw out the Spaniards, forty, 
 fifty years ago, there was every kind of honor paid 
 to the insurgent heroes: garlands round their necks 
 and money for their pockets and the perfumed girls 
 of every village for them, just as if they had been 
 Spanish landlords of the olden time. Yes, all this was 
 for the heroes, this or death. Many of them fell into 
 the hands of our oppressors and were slaughtered. 
 Many others were more careful, like this Captain, 
 who . . ." 
 
 "I have been in bloody battles," said the Captain, 
 with his hand upon his heart, "I have indeed." 
 
 "Oh, hear him! That," Gonzalez cried, "is what 
 I said to Enriqueta, that he was of those who like the 
 honors but will never find their way into a battle. 
 He is like those peaceful soldiers whom we also have, 
 senor, in Mexico; as fast as possible they sell the 
 powder and the guns to their opponents. That is how 
 they work for a disarmament and peace." 
 
 "It seems to me that I have come to a great coun- 
 try," said Don Eugenio. 
 
 "And this man was about the age of fifty years when 
 he became an officer. He stole the uniform of a cap- 
 tain and that is how . . ." 
 
 "But the man was dead," exclaimed Don Bartolme 
 indignantly. 
 
 "And then," pursued Gonzalez, "he comes here to 
 Colorado and he lives upon the sunlight and on what 
 we give him, and he takes our Enriqueta. But from 
 now she is my woman. She is mine!" He grinned 
 delightedly at all of us. 
 
 "Will you be gone," my father said, "you with your
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 25 
 
 vile, indecent life? Here is a gentleman of books, and 
 you disturb him with a story out of life. May yellow 
 fever fall upon you!" 
 
 This was not the way in which my father usually 
 spoke, but so much was he in earnest that he made a 
 movement as if he was going to throw the hen into 
 Gonzalez's face. 
 
 The shopkeeper had never thought that he would be 
 received in this way. "Ca!" said he, "I have more 
 of politeness. I will not wish that the yellow fever fall 
 upon this gentleman. But if it were to fall, I think his 
 books would not assist him." 
 
 "That is very probable," quoth Don Eugenio, "for 
 when the Greeks advised us to suspend beneath our 
 chins a piece of vellum with some words from Homer's 
 Iliad, they had in mind not to prevent the yellow fever, 
 whereof they were ignorant, but other fevers. May 
 I hope," he added to Gonzalez, "that you will have 
 many years of health and all felicity with the good 
 lady Enriqueta?" 
 
 "I remain at the disDosal of your Honor," said 
 Gonzalez, as he backed towards the door. "If only," 
 said he, "this Pedro does not take her from me." 
 
 "I hope," said my father, in a trembling voice, "that 
 I shall never see you or the woman again. And if I 
 were you I'd keep her in a cage." 
 
 "Oh, as for that," he laughed, "she'll run away 
 from me as fast as Captain Bartolme can run." And 
 seizing the old fellow by the arm he pulled him out to 
 the veranda. "Hola!" he cried, "you don't want a 
 cage for some of them. When the bird is dead you 
 can leave the cage open!" And he made off, with his 
 arm round the limping Don Bartolme. 
 
 His last words may have been directed against my 
 mother, but nevertheless my father turned to Don
 
 26 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 Eugenio and said, "Those are the people of Colorado. 
 And after you are gone I shall consort with them again. 
 It is a miserable life. And thus it will continue till I 
 die and then for Juanito, my son whom you see here, 
 it will be the same. But I must send him out into the 
 world." And he looked sideways at Don Eugenio. 
 
 "If you would like me," said the man of books, "to 
 take him to Jalapa?" 
 
 "Seiior," said my mother, "when I was outside the 
 room I heard you say that you are not a rich man. 
 We have also not as much as the most rich of all, 
 but God has smiled upon the business of my husband. 
 We have always a sufficiency of onions and brown 
 beans and coffee, which is very good, and animal meat 
 and good pineapples and plenty of corn and also cigars 
 and papayas with agreeable juice, and therefore if 
 your Honor will stay with us . . ." 
 
 "Thank you very much," said Don Eugenio, "but 
 I am bound for Jalapa, to the house of a Noahcite. 
 At Veracruz I heard of him, and I believe that in the 
 course of his researches he will find me useful. I have 
 wares that one may often ta^e to market and not sell. 
 There may, in fact, not be another man of all your 
 country who will want me." 
 
 "Why then did you come to Mexico?" asked my 
 father. And when he noticed that a shadow was on 
 Don Eugenio's face he begged him not to answer. 
 
 "As for Juanito, who is not without instruction," 
 said the traveler, "and who evidently is inquisitive — a 
 more important attribute — I shall be glad to take him 
 with me if his mother will consent." 
 
 "You have not yet mentioned," said my father, "if 
 you love the fighting-cocks." 
 
 He held his hands up in denial. 
 
 "Well then," said my father, very resolutely, "I will
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 27 
 
 pay in something else, or, if you like, in coin. Yes, 
 so be it." 
 
 Don Eugenio smiled. "Once in my native town," 
 he said, "I heard a story of a lad who was brought 
 up inside a monastery. And he never saw a woman 
 till he went one day to market in a neighboring 
 village, with a monk. He saw some girls there, and 
 he asked what they might be. The monk said they 
 were geese. And when the boy was back inside the 
 monastery he seemed very mournful, and the monk 
 inquired if he was sick or weary. T should like to eat 
 some of those geese,' said the boy." 
 
 "And what," asked my father with great earnestness, 
 "what did he do?" 
 
 Said Don Eugenio, "I told the story as an illustra- 
 tion of the charm of ignorance and the peril of it. 
 And perhaps on the whole it is better if I let your boy 
 go with me to the market, though I cannot promise 
 that he will not be a sadder boy when he returns. 
 The money which you kindly offer I will also take, 
 for I will earn it conscientiously. As for the educa- 
 tion, it will not be in accordance with his tender 
 years. In fact, it will be far beyond what other boys 
 attempt." 
 
 My father stroked my hair. "But go," he said sud- 
 denly, "go and dress yourself." 
 
 "Tell me," said my mother, "what will he do after 
 he knows all that? What will he do?" 
 
 "Que hombre!" said my father. "In other lands it 
 may be like this or like that, but in Mexico there are 
 some people underneath and some on the top. It is 
 more pleasant to be on the top, and the way to accom- 
 plish that is by being a learned man." 
 
 "Oh, happy country!" interjected Don Eugenio. 
 "What I was going to say was that so much of what
 
 28 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 he overhears he will not understand, but I think it is 
 better that a boy should wander in the dark if he will 
 grope about, than that he should be always lolling in 
 the sunlight. I believe that you do well to let me have 
 your son, although you do not know me." 
 
 "But, indeed, I know you," said my father, "and 
 besides we all of us are in the hands of God." 
 
 "Amen," said Don Eugenio; "and now I think it 
 suitable that I should say a prayer even if I am no 
 priest." 
 
 My father and my mother went down on their knees, 
 and so did I. 
 
 "This lad," quoth he — his hands fell rather heavily 
 upon my head — "this lad is now committed to the 
 care of me, Eugenio Gil, Thy wicked servant. And 
 I pray that Thou wilt mercifully guide me so that I 
 may lead him well. Thou wilt not blame us in that 
 we have been impetuous, for it is Thou who knewest 
 of it since the world began that we should meet and 
 that we should, for good or evil, but I hope for good, 
 set out together." 
 
 "Excuse me," said my mother, "I am not a learned 
 one. I have not understood." 
 
 "And what of that?" called my father, angrily. 
 "Will you not let His Honor proceed with the beau- 
 tiful prayer. God knows very well what he is talking 
 about." 
 
 Don Eugenio began again: "It is my purpose so 
 to train this boy that the small seed of education 
 which he has may blossom into flower and be to him 
 immeasurable riches and perhaps a source of earthly 
 riches also. Here the seed would certainly be choked 
 by the great Ignorance around him; on the other 
 hand, O God, I will endeavor not to blind with too 
 much education, which is only seeing further and more
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 29 
 
 terribly into the forest-labyrinths of Ignorance, I will 
 endeavor not to blind what of Old Wisdom may be 
 in the boy. Instead of worthless newspapers and 
 books on dancing he shall study our good language 
 and the Latin language, so that soon, in a humble 
 capacity, he will be able to assist, I have no doubt, in 
 portions of the work that the Noahcite of Jalapa will 
 set before me. The idea of an assistant did not come 
 to me, and thus I have not had to wait for Juan during 
 anxious days. I thank Thee." 
 
 "We have waited a long time for you," said my 
 father, "but now you have come. It is beautiful, 
 beautiful." 
 
 Don Eugenio looked at him amiably. "In other 
 circumstances, my dear host," he said, "I should have 
 knocked in a very woeful condition at the house of 
 that Noahcite. And, by the way, I have not told you 
 much about him — it is owing to the fact that I myself 
 have only heard a little. He appears to be a hermit." 
 
 "Juanito will be safe with you," said my father. 
 
 "And I ought to tell you more about myself." 
 
 "All that can wait until to-morrow," said my 
 father. "I am going now to get some fireworks from 
 Gonzalez, such as we have orders to send up when 
 there is a most high procession of the Church or when 
 there is a grand procession for a newly-chosen Gov- 
 ernor of Veracruz, our State." And having spoken 
 thus, my father rose. "This day shall not be soon 
 forgotten," he declared. 
 
 "I think we shall remember it more joyfully in years 
 to come," said Don Eugenio, "if you do not allow 
 Gonzalez to send off the fireworks himself."
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 On the next day, Don Eugenio told the story of his 
 life to us. He and my father and myself had walked 
 a little distance out of Colorado, to a grove of palms. 
 I had been very often with my comrades in that grove 
 and often, when it happened to be my turn, as a 
 desperate Spanish governor who knows not how he will 
 escape from the encircling, hidden patriots; but I had 
 never been so thrilled before. And Don Eugenio 
 began : 
 
 "At Zaragoza I was born," he said, "and at an 
 early age I found myself inside the seminary. 
 Zaragoza has a restless, active population; but my 
 family, both such of them as lived in the town, and 
 such as plied their trade among the mountains, were 
 considered to be rather independent; and it had been 
 settled that I should become a priest, in expiation of 
 their naughtiness. But my instructors at the seminary 
 were, in a short time, as little pleased as I was, and 
 they told my parents that there was within me some- 
 thing, if not diabolical, at any rate entirely different 
 from what the Church demanded. As an instance of 
 my intractable spirit, they informed my parents that 
 when I was told of God's great anger with the 
 Israelites for worshipping the golden calf I was not, 
 like the other boys, at all impressed. 'Anybody else,' 
 I said, 'would have laughed at them.' I happen to 
 remember this one out of the long catalogue of my 
 transgressions; but the priests, when they returned me, 
 
 30
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 31 
 
 said that they were sorry, for there seemed to be a 
 studious side to my bad character. 
 
 "My parents thereupon dispatched me to an uncle 
 who was one of the most celebrated smugglers of 
 Aragon. His band of ten or twelve devoted followers 
 were very kind to me, not so much because I was the 
 nephew of their chief as that I had been in a seminary, 
 for they looked upon the Church with reverence, and 
 were on good terms with the large majority of 
 mountain curates. Each of them, my uncle and his 
 pretty daughter, and the other smugglers, used to wear 
 as a protection some sort of a rosary or sacred relic, 
 and the medal of Saint Eugracia, which the priests 
 had given me, was one which all the band admired. 
 I know not whether I should have developed into a 
 proficient smuggler or if I should have grown weary 
 of the charm, the moon-lit rides, the ambuscades, the 
 plunder, the good fellowship. I know not if my 
 conscience would have ever told me that it was a 
 wicked life — in common with most other Spaniards we 
 looked on ourselves as men who swindled the intolera- 
 ble swindle of the fiscal regulations — I do not know if 
 I should have been a merry and rich smuggler at this 
 moment, instead of as you see me now; but I was 
 scarcely a few months in the profession when, un- 
 luckily, I killed a customs-officer. I found him with 
 Antonia, my cousin, in his foul embrace, and I think 
 that every member of the band would have done just 
 the same as I did, though my cousin cursed me at the 
 time most bitterly, and told me that she almost had 
 persuaded him to join our band. At any rate, she there 
 and then commanded me to go back to my parents, and 
 I did so, feeling very much disgraced. 
 
 "They had been looking forward to me coming back 
 in great prosperity to help them in old age, and they
 
 32 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 were very violent. Now I had thrown away, they 
 said, the second chance which, as good parents, they 
 had offered me. It was upon myself henceforward 
 that I must rely. They turned me out, and then my 
 wanderings through Aragon and the Castiles began in 
 earnest. On the way I had occasion to be first the 
 clerk to an apothecary, then a traveling actor, then 
 the servant of a man who held a lottery at all the fairs, 
 and then I was a stable-man, a baker, a water-carrier. 
 I will not say that I was to be pitied on account of 
 the lowliness of some of these occupations; they were 
 honest, which I cannot say for two others which 
 engaged me. Well, I had arrived at my twenty-second 
 year, and then I saw one afternoon, a girl drive past 
 me in Madrid who changed the whole course of my life. 
 She put into my heart such longing and such tender- 
 ness that on the next day, very early, I went to a stall 
 of books and begged the goodman there to let me 
 serve him. I had more and more avoided anything 
 which had to do with my old seminary days — among 
 the attributes of that regretted, more and more 
 regretted, time were books. And now, with that 
 enchanting girl upon my heart, I could resist no 
 longer. It happened that the bookseller was not in a 
 position to employ me, but a friend of his required 
 a new assistant and I flung myself most ardently into 
 the world of books, which up to then, of course, I 
 scarcely knew at all. I cannot say if I should have 
 become as great a lover of the books if it had not been 
 that I vowed with all my soul that I adored them; 
 but the weather-beaten books of chivalry were 
 splendid, and the brown piles of old play-bills and the 
 fat religious books, such as those of Juan Nieremberg 
 of Madrid — the 'Life of Saint Ignacius of Loyola' was 
 one of them, the ^Tract concerning the Beauty of
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 33 
 
 God' was another — and Quevedo, of whom we had a 
 translation issued at Rouen in 1641, by Jacques 
 Besongne, with a very ornamental device on the 
 title-page; and we had a book which was published in 
 Flanders, all about the war — it was by Carlos Coloma, 
 the Spanish General, whose language was so clear and 
 lofty; by the side of it we had one which had been 
 composed by the Most Illustrious Juan Coloma, 
 Viceroy and Captain-General for His Majesty in 
 Sardinia, and this book we could never sell, although 
 it was the first one printed in that island and although 
 the Most Illustrious proclaimed in his Introduction 
 that the book would confer so much of benefit and 
 honor on the Kingdom, and indeed it may at that 
 time have been in request, since the Most Illustrious 
 announces that unauthorized ones who purvey it will 
 have every copy confiscated and be liable to pay a fine 
 of five and twenty ducats — it was a little book in 
 poetry about the Passion of our Lord; and then we 
 had The Lugubrious Nights' by Colonel Jose 
 Cadalso, who was killed in 1782 by the English at the 
 Siege of Gibraltar. In that book of his he had imi- 
 tated the 'Night Thoughts' of Dr. Young, an English- 
 man — I found them all delicious and I even read them, 
 while I watched our thievish customers. 
 
 "But they eluded me, the scoundrels, more than 
 once, so that the owner of the stall said I would ruin 
 him. He was a philanthropic man; I might, he said, 
 go to his lodging with him every night and there read 
 all the books I wanted, but if I should go to any other 
 bookseller he would inform him that for watching I was 
 very useless. 
 
 "So I found myself in a condition worse than I had 
 ever known; I couldn't bear it in Madrid. You may 
 think it was foolish of me, but I left the town."
 
 34 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 "Pues, in the towns," said my father; "one has 
 many thieves, as you yourself observed." 
 
 "At Alcala de Henares I fell in with a foreign inn- 
 keeper, a Catalan; and as I had eaten for two 
 days nothing but a little rye bread and garlic I con- 
 sented to assist him in selling a cat for a hare, as the 
 saying is." 
 
 My father turned his head away. 
 
 "Yes, yes, I know that it is not to be excused," 
 said Don Eugenio, "and there is only one thing which 
 consoles me. There in Alcala amid the travelers 
 whom I helped the man to fleece — ^himself, he could 
 not read nor write — were many, I am certain, who 
 were wicked people, so that it was seemly for them to 
 be punished. God have mercy upon me, a sinner." 
 
 "Amen," said my father. "But did any of the 
 wicked people find you out?" 
 
 "It was not on that account," said Don Eugenio, 
 "that I went from there. Of course, I longed to be 
 with books again, but how it was to come about I 
 could not see. And what I did was to continue at 
 my work and trust in God. And He rewarded me 
 far, far beyond my merits. A sweet angel came to 
 Alcala; she once had been the good wife of a common 
 soldier who became a duke and left her when the 
 Queen cast eyes upon him. This occurred some years 
 ago and the poor woman was compelled to keep herself 
 in hiding. Nowhere could she turn for aid; her life 
 was the most miserable that you can imagine; but 
 at last the Church, offended with the haughty duke, 
 resolved to help her, and they passed her out of Spain. 
 She did not travel in the public coach, as is the 
 custom of our highest, but in a black carriage with a 
 trusty bodyguard. And when she halted for the 
 night with us at Alcala she noticed, in the midst of
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 35 
 
 her anxieties, that I was looking very miserable. And 
 she took me with her, on the next day, to my native 
 town, where she had letters for the Bishop. This is 
 how I came into the service of that well-beloved man, 
 the Bishop of Zaragoza. 
 
 "You have heard, perhaps, of Saint Eugracia and 
 her marvels? Well, a portion of her liver is resorted 
 to, at Zaragoza, by the faithful who are incommoded 
 by some pain around the stomach; while a tumor in 
 the neck, a lamparone, yields, they tell me, to the oil 
 of Saint Eugracia's lamp. At any rate, I had been 
 perfectly familiar from my childhood with the reputa- 
 tion of this holy woman, whose adherents and their 
 friends came always in a ceaseless stream to Zaragoza. 
 I did not suppose that I myself should ever have much 
 traffic with her, but the Bishop said that I had just 
 arrived at the good time to write her life. He had 
 determined that it should be written, since it would be 
 doubtless very edifying, and he was an amiable man 
 and a grandee who did not love the learned doctors 
 half as much as the unlearned people. All the manu- 
 scripts about ecclesiastical affairs in Aragon, and other 
 parts, which filled his library he did not care about, 
 but he was much devoted to our Saint, and so for 
 nearly twenty years he nourished me and was my 
 friend while these investigations were in progress. 
 
 "Now and then I could inform him that I had dis- 
 covered something else about the lady and her eighteen 
 martyred comrades, but it was not easy to learn much, 
 and as the years went on I lived a good deal at the 
 only Zaragoza bookstall that was just outside my 
 former seminary, and when I was at the Bishop's house 
 I gave more time and more time to the manuscripts. 
 The catalogue I was compiling of them gave him pleas- 
 ure, and he promised me that, after I had written it
 
 36 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 in Latin, he would send it to be bound at Barcelona in 
 dull red morocco with the edges gilt and gauffred, with 
 his arms emblazoned in the center of the cover, and 
 inside a painted geometrical design; there should be 
 a symmetrical and elegant ground-work of tears. On 
 the title-page, he said, I could describe myself as his 
 librarian. He was so kind to me that I lamented 
 having ascertained so little as to Saint Eugracia. 
 
 "I visited my parents now and then — they both died 
 in this period when I was back in Zaragoza — but there 
 was a feeling of constraint between us. When my 
 uncle, who became one of the richest smugglers of all 
 Aragon, received them for the gorgeous nuptials of his 
 daughter, he inquired about myself and the profession 
 I had chosen. But my parents told me, somewhat 
 curtly, that it had been quite impossible to answer him 
 with accuracy if it was not to excite his great amaze- 
 ment and, maybe, his sense of humor. I was like a 
 priest, they said to him, I helped the Bishop and was 
 growing corpulent. My pretty cousin asked if I had 
 got a woman, but they said that I did not concern 
 myself with them. And," quoth Don Eugenio, "I have 
 in this tale of my life not thought it necessary to 
 repeat the passages of love; I did this for the reason 
 that, so far as I know, they have had no influence on 
 my career, with the exception of that girl I met one 
 afternoon of autumn in Madrid. With your permis- 
 sion I will say no word about the others, not because 
 they are of slight importance, but because they are 
 too sacred or too little sacred." 
 
 My father had some small cigars inside his hat. He 
 took out one for Don Eugenio, he lighted it and gave 
 it him, and then he chose another for himself. 
 
 "At last the Bishop died," said Don Eugenio, "and
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 37 
 
 his successor chased me out into the world. And thus 
 I came to Mexico." 
 
 "If that man in Jalapa whom you talked of should 
 not want to have you," said my father, "then I hope 
 that you will always live with us."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Although I was a little boy when Don Eugenio 
 came and took me with him to Jalapa, and although we 
 only lived together for about a year, I seem to have 
 him always with me. Here in Mexico you have to be 
 the most secluded of all hermits if the everlasting strife 
 and treacheries and turmoil do not sometimes make 
 you wish to be in a more peaceful country; but I live 
 with Don Eugenio and I am happy. And he lives with 
 me as he does not live, I am sure, with anybody else, 
 and when I vanish he will vanish also. 
 
 It is terrible to think that all this laughter and gay 
 learning and benevolence will fade out of the world. 
 And it is strange to think that probably they would 
 have faded sooner if the Bishop's librarian had not 
 encountered a small, naked Indian boy. But I am far 
 more troubled and more serious about these things 
 than Don Eugenio would have been — it is the nature 
 of my people to be serious, if we reflect at all. He used 
 to say that, speaking with the most profound humility, 
 he did not think that God would like it if one always 
 treated Him with seriousness, for, surely, in the works 
 of God one could discern amid the grandeur no small 
 wa3rwardness and wistfulness and mirth, so that one 
 could suppose in God a wish not to be veiled in awe, 
 but to be treated with a loving friendliness, with a 
 complete familiarity. He was quite firm in his belief 
 that God could laugh at men. I think he used to 
 laugh at God, and he was a much better man than 
 many who have tonsured heads. And if it is the case 
 
 38
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 39 
 
 that God can laugh at us, I think He had the last 
 laugh over Don Eugenio. Instead of letting him live 
 in a Latin country and at ease among his fellows, He 
 made a poor wanderer of him, a solitary man who did 
 not really give his confidence to any one until it was 
 to me! 
 
 While he was at Zaragoza in the Bishop's library, 
 he could not tell them what he thought about these 
 matters; he would certainly have been expelled, if 
 nothing worse. The Inquisition was distasteful to 
 him, but when he was ultimately sent away the only 
 manuscripts that he could lay his hands on happened 
 to be certain papers of the Council of the General 
 Inquisition of Spain, together with a few Reports of 
 the Inquisitors of Aragon and one or two more manu- 
 scripts of that kind. 
 
 Don Eugenio was the sort of man who does not like 
 to lead a solitary life. The old philosophers and 
 Christian Fathers whom he found on Zaragoza book- 
 stalls were to him as much a joy as the profane books 
 of Madrid; but he was not so wise and pure a man, he 
 said, as to be satisfied witn lofty books. 
 
 I ought to have begun at the beginning. As we 
 walked back from the palm grove, where he told us all 
 that story of his life, he settled with my father on the 
 money that he should receive for giving me instruction. 
 And he promised that he never would neglect me. 
 "It is wonderful," he said, "when I remember the rich 
 students who came riding and the poor ones who came 
 walking very painfully into the town of Zaragoza in 
 the autumn; those who ride on mules, sometimes two 
 and even three on the same animal, may not be 
 opulent, but anyhow they have a green serge parcel of 
 belongings and they listen to the poor ones who become 
 their menials in the town, for otherwise the ragged
 
 40 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 fellows could not stay there to absorb the Stoic 
 teachings or the Treatise of Pope Gregory the Great 
 upon the Book of Job or whatsoever else it is they 
 want to study. When I walked up here from Vera- 
 cruz I thought that I was not so fortunate as those 
 poor studentSj seeing that the Noahcite perhaps — who 
 knows? — he may be dead or . . ." 
 
 ^'Venerable sir," put in my father, "you shall have 
 a mule, just like those other students. You and 
 Juanito, each of you shall have his mule." 
 
 "My friend," said Don Eugenio, "will you believe 
 it when I tell you that in Salamanca, which abounded 
 with apothecaries, male and female, there was one 
 called Clara, who possessed prescriptions that were 
 guaranteed to tame the luckless stomachs of the 
 students who could not appease them, save with pesti- 
 lential food?" 
 
 My father clenched his fist. "The people who allow 
 that kind of thing, they should be slain themselves," 
 he cried. "It causes me to think that every one is 
 wicked, if there are some men like that. Oh, devils!" 
 
 "Well," said Don Eugenio, "perhaps I also have not 
 much esteem for men, but I have still less for myself." 
 
 He was not one oif those who decorate themselves 
 with crimes that are as out of place upon them as 
 a multitude of stars upon a dull, gray sky. My Don 
 Eugenio was the simplest of all men; he held that 
 neither God nor yet the Devil had conferred upon him 
 any special decorations. He believed that he was 
 undistinguishable from the crowd of ordinary men. 
 And he was more disposed to think unfavorably of 
 himself than of the others, since he often thought that 
 with regard to them he might be wrong. 
 
 It is presumptuous on my part, surely, to attempt 
 to give an accurate description of him. just as well,
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 41 
 
 I think, could a poor stone enveloped in the fog give 
 an account of what the fog is like upon its frontier, 
 with the sunbeams painting it. There is not much of 
 Don Eugenio, I fear, that I was capable of seeing. 
 And to speak about his erudition merely — which is 
 not the side of him that I most love and therefore can 
 best understand — he was forever strengthening his 
 arguments with something that a great or famous man 
 had uttered or had done. The documents which he 
 had taken from the Bishop's library were very few, 
 and they were all devoted, more or less, to matters 
 of the Church; but in his head my splendid master 
 seemed to have another and more ample library. 
 I used to wonder if he was disturbed about the 
 scattering, by death, of all his knowledge; but he 
 certainly was very tranquil when he thought about his 
 body's death. I am not sure that he would have 
 amended any of his ways in order to avoid a punish- 
 ment in the hereafter, but he earnestly maintained 
 that we are punished now. He would have scorned 
 to claim the least excuse. His errors and his frailties 
 he did not cherish, so he said, for any higher motive— 
 "I have seen," quoth he, "some people cultivate 
 theirs sins as if they had been rebel flags to wave at 
 the opponent." He cultivated his because he liked 
 them. 
 
 During the two days that he remained at Colorado 
 there was no one who insisted more on being with him 
 than the priest. A man degenerated, said the priest, 
 in such a miserable village; one must lose no chance 
 of intercourse with reasonable folk. But in the night 
 when both of them were vehemently singing first 
 a Spanish student's song, then a religious chant, and 
 then another student's song, which made the village 
 snigger each time that it was repeated, Don Eugenio
 
 42 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 did all he could to sing more loudly than his boon 
 companion, in a noble effort to preserve the old priest's 
 dignity. 
 
 There was much sorrow in the village on that 
 morning when we rode away. Gonzalez and his 
 Enriqueta, the old Captain and the mumbling priest, 
 and several other people walked beside the mule of 
 Don Eugenio; my parents held the bridle of my 
 own — the bridles and the saddles, and the necks of 
 Don Eugenio and me were hung with pretty garlands. 
 But the only ones of the procession who did not seem 
 to be sad were Enriqueta and my master. She was 
 making fun of the old Captain, and my master, with 
 his head thrown back — not paying even slight atten- 
 tion to his mule — sang a brave h5min in Latin. 
 
 Two days have gone since I put down those words. 
 It is amid my dearest memories, the picture of him 
 riding through the trees and singing — he alone of all 
 the company. We could not understand the song, but 
 as he sang it all our blood ran riot and our sadness 
 disappeared. We felt that we were soldiers marching 
 to a field of triumph and we started singing. Loud 
 and shrill the voices — that of the old Captain was the 
 loudest; he rolled forth a lover's melody which ought 
 to have been murmured. But he did not hinder me 
 from hearing my dear mother's voice, which seemed to 
 sing despite herself. The blue and yellow flowers that 
 were hanging from the trees, you saw them shake — 
 they wanted to be like the butterflies and dance 
 around us. 
 
 When at last my mother and my father and the 
 rest of them decided to go back, and when they said 
 farewell to us, I do not think that any one was sad.
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 43 
 
 At all events I am quite sure that in the afternoon as 
 Don Eugenio and I rode up towards Jalapa he was 
 speaking meditatively about us both. 
 
 "In one way I regret," he said, "that I accepted 
 money from your father — I shall have to keep you 
 with me. And your mother will not give permission, 
 I am sure, if we should want to go beyond Jalapa. 
 We may quarrel with the Noahcite and leave his 
 service — I should not be much surprised if he is a 
 pedantic fellow — and if we remain there in the town, 
 where the commodities are sure to be expensive, we 
 shall starve. But no, I am too mournful. This is your 
 first journey." 
 
 "Let me starve if I may journey on with you!" I 
 cried. 
 
 "My son," said Don Eugenio — he bent a little for- 
 ward and away from me, to stroke the right ear of his 
 mule — "I have not come to Mexico for such a reason as 
 caused Coelius Apicius to go to Africa, though it must 
 be admitted that innumerable men have traveled to far 
 distant countries on account of a much baser object 
 than to ascertain if crayfish on the coast of Africa is 
 more delectable than such as one discovers at Min- 
 turnse. While I do not pretend to have the energy of 
 this good man, yet I maintain, as strongly as did 
 Aristotle, that we go in hunger at our peril. In the 
 writings of that most august philosopher you will find 
 all about it. Some day we shall study Aristotle. And 
 we must not starve." 
 
 I pointed out a little clearing by the roadside where 
 we could eat some of the tamales and the oranges and 
 bits of chicken and dried fish and other things my 
 mother had packed up for us. And we had not been 
 there a long time when I heard the footsteps of a 
 horse; upon it was a man, a tall, young soldier, and
 
 44 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 behind him was a woman, the most beautiful whom I 
 had ever seen, although her eyes were worn with weep- 
 ing. She was fastened to the soldier by a thick rope, 
 but she did not look as if she would have dared to run 
 away. A flower or two was in the black hair which 
 hung down beyond the upturned portion of the 
 saddle. 
 
 The soldier in the splendid uniform waved a salute 
 to Don Eugenio; the horse stopped of its own accord. 
 
 "Young man," said Don Eugenio, "I do not know 
 your business, but it seems to me you have been going 
 further than is very wise for one day." 
 
 "I am the Lieutenant Esteban Fuentes, aide-de- 
 camp to His Excellency the Governor of Veracruz," 
 he said with truculence. "How is a man who rides 
 upon a mule to know what is and what is not wise for 
 a horse?" 
 
 My master got up from the ground and bowed 
 superbly. 
 
 "I am the student Eugenio Gil, ex-librarian to His 
 Lordship the Bishop of Zaragoza in Aragon," he said, 
 "and it is by the faded flowers in this lady's hair that 
 I observe how many leagues you must have covered." 
 
 "You are very wise," the young lieutenant sneered. 
 
 "No doubt," said Don Eugenio, "we men are wiser 
 than all other living creatures, but for my part I am 
 not so certain of the reason. It may be, as the 
 philosopher imagines, because a man hath very little 
 head in respect of the proportion of the body. Or do 
 you suppose it is because the blood of man is the most 
 subtle, pure and clean?" 
 
 "Yes, yes, but I am hungry. I have ridden a good 
 distance. Will you give me some of your provi- 
 sions?" 
 
 Don Eugenio, who had approached the new ar-
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 45 
 
 rivals, stepped back to the spot where we had laid 
 the food and took up in his arms some of the choicest 
 things. He carried them to the young officer who 
 clearly had not eaten for a long time, having calculated, 
 I suppose, that he would come across a village, and 
 the village having shown itself inclined to help his 
 captive. But although he was so ravenous he gave, 
 from time to time, a handful to the girl. 
 
 My master was quite near him, with one hand in fact 
 upon the saddle. While he stood there he continued 
 that most profitable discourse. "The blood of man," 
 he said, "is the nutrition, and so there is great differ- 
 ence, you will admit, whether it be cold or hot, thin or 
 thick, troubled or clear." 
 
 The soldier went on with his eating very noisily, but 
 in the dark eyes of the girl there was great friendliness. 
 
 "Or," continued Don Eugenio, "is it by reason of the 
 constitution of his blood that man has a most perfect 
 sense of feeling?" 
 
 From the soldier came a grunt. 
 
 "Because they have soft flesh they are endowed with 
 sharp and rapid wit^ and they whose flesh and skin are 
 thicker and grosser, they are dull and slow." While 
 he was saying this his fingers were upon the rope, 
 untying it. "Surely," he said, "in a soft body the spirit 
 of the soul is the more easily infused, and doth more 
 willingly and speedily disclose itself; and on the other 
 hand, the hardness and thickness is a hindrance which 
 "prevents the pure clean blood, whereby the spirits are 
 engendered, from being carried from place to place; 
 for unto every man is given a certain portion of spirit 
 to work withal." As he spoke these words he pulled 
 her suddenly from off the horse. 
 
 "What do you mean? What is this?" cried the lieu- 
 tenant. "May the thunder of God . . ."
 
 46 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 "You have treated her badly/' said Don Eugenio, in 
 a cold, stern voice. 
 
 "Now say your prayers!" 
 
 The girl was moaning and my master reassured her. 
 Then he turned to the lieutenant who had drawn his 
 sword and evidently was enraged. 
 
 "It is most opportune to pray," said Don Eugenio, 
 "for I must render thanks to God, who has enabled 
 me to set this woman free. Young man, when you 
 are older you will look back to this day with sorrow, 
 seeing that amid your other lapses you let slip the 
 opportunity of joining in this prayer." 
 
 I somehow did not think he would cut off the head of 
 Don Eugenio, because he seemed to cower beneath my 
 master's words. And I can see him, as if it were yes- 
 terday, with his long sword held down beside his leg. 
 I thought the fiery spirit had gone out of him just as 
 the flash of sunlight from the sword. 
 
 "If you desire it," said my master to the girl, "I 
 will go with you to your home." 
 
 She sank down at his side and kissed his hand. 
 
 "But if you would prefer," he said, "to see the city 
 of Jalapa, which is where I hope to stay awhile, then 
 you can safely come with me. No doubt the good 
 nuns have a convent there." 
 
 "I do not know," she murmured. 
 
 The young officer was quickly getting over his em- 
 barrassment and, with a laugh I did not like, "We're 
 all good friends," he cried. " Car a jo f but it is too hot 
 to quarrel. We can all of us," said he, as he dis- 
 mounted, "we can all of us spend half-an-hour in sleep." 
 
 The girl was clinging to my master, who put his 
 right arm around her. And as she looked up at him 
 she saw a smile which marvelously changed her 
 troubles into smiling.
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 47 
 
 "Would you like to tell me," he began, "what is your 
 name and where you come from?" 
 
 "Yes, I am Maria." She was like a sunbeam which 
 is happy in the foliage of a splendid tree. 
 
 "My little girl," he said, "if the good nuns receive 
 you I will send a letter to your parents. They will not 
 be anxious, I am sure, when I explain to them." 
 
 Maria looked as if she had not one anxiety in all the 
 world. 
 
 "I think it is most fortunate," he said, "that the 
 lieutenant brought you from your village. He did not 
 intend to do a worthy deed, no more than did the 
 Devil to Saint Guy. But now you have been taken 
 from your slothful village, even as our little friend 
 here," and he indicated me. "And if you return when 
 you have finished with the convent and you settle down 
 at home, it will be something for you to remember." 
 
 "Yes," she said, a little dreamily and sadly. 
 
 "On the other hand, if you would like to be a nun, 
 if you have the vocation . . ." and he also looked a 
 little wistful. 
 
 The sun was beating down upon us all, and so my 
 master stepped aside to where the moss lay underneath 
 the trees. Maria did not leave him, and as he sat 
 down she sat down also. As for us, the officer and me, 
 we followed them — we seemed to be spectators of it — 
 and we stood there, watching them. 
 
 "We really need not talk about the final vows," said 
 Don Eugenio, "because, for one thing, I am never much 
 disposed to think of what is very far ahead. But you 
 must not imagine that they will compel you to 
 remain." 
 
 She nodded, very gravely, with her little head. The 
 faded flowers did not look more serious than she was. 
 
 "I believe/' said Don Eugenio, "that I shall be
 
 48 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 permitted now and then to see you. If you find it 
 irksome I will get you out and send you home. But 
 now we must not be so melancholy." He was smiling 
 at her. "After all, it has gone well to-day." 
 
 She sat with trembling eyelids. 
 
 "Let us think no more about to-morrow. Can you 
 sing a song to us or shall we make our thanksgiving 
 to God?" 
 
 And then, with a subdued but passionate voice, "I 
 won't go into any convent," she declared. 
 
 He gazed at her. I thought he frowned. "Maria! 
 What am I to do with you? Poor little girl," he 
 said. 
 
 "No, no — I will not be a nun ... I really cannot 
 be a nun," she pleaded. 
 
 "You can always leave the convent, I am sure, while 
 you are on probation. But if you will not go there at 
 all, it will be, I confess, a trouble to me. You must 
 not be running up and down Jalapa by yourself." He 
 took a hand of hers and patted it. "You see," he said, 
 "I must look after you." 
 
 "But — but " she shuddered. She drew nearer to 
 
 him. "Oh, you don't understand." 
 
 He was evidently in distress. "My little one," he 
 said, "there is nobody who understands better than I 
 do that the life ecclesiastic is not for all of us. Have 
 faith in me — I wish you well, so well — only have faith 
 in me." 
 
 "Why don't you take her?" cried the young lieu- 
 tenant. 
 
 Don Eugenio made a kind of roaring sound. He 
 would have spoken if Maria had not thrown herself 
 into his bosom. Then he acted for a time as if the 
 officer and I were far away. And as they clung to 
 one another they were laughing, weeping, sighing.
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 49 
 
 It was she who was the first to speak. "I am so 
 glad," she said. 
 
 My master's face was like a scarlet sun when it is 
 blazing through the mists above Jalapa. "I have 
 dreamed of you for many years/' he said. 
 
 ''Now always, always I will be with you." 
 
 "Ah, yes . . ." and then his eye met that of the 
 lieutenant. "Sir!" he said, "this lady and myself are 
 going to be married. God in heaven! Otherwise I 
 should have merely saved her from one sinking raft to 
 fling her on another — which may be the life of man," 
 he said, "but it shall not be her life, in so far as I 
 arrange it." 
 
 Not long afterwards we had resumed the journey. 
 The lieutenant rode in front and then the mule on 
 which Maria sat with me and then my master's mule. 
 He would have dearly loved to take her on his animal, 
 and she desired it also, but beyond all other Spaniards 
 I have ever seen he loved the beasts of burden. 
 
 Now and then, between the vegetation which hung 
 down, as if it were a waterfall, from every tree, one 
 had a glimpse of the blue mountains, range on range; 
 and toward the evening, as the color of the sky grew 
 faint, there was no difference between it and the moun- 
 tains of the topmost range. But the crimson snows of 
 Orizaba, high above all other mountains, made me feel 
 — I knew not why — a conqueror. Of course, I had 
 seen all these things, the gorgeous forests and the 
 winding road, the distant ranges and great Orizaba, I 
 had seen them many hundred times — and yet, until 
 that day, I had not seen them. 
 
 Sometimes the old Spanish road was not in good 
 repair, so that the mule was forced to jump from stone 
 to stone. At other times I slumbered in the saddle, 
 partly owing, I suppose, to the fatigue and partly to
 
 50 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 the strange excitements of the day. Maria spoke a 
 little, saying that she was so glad that Don Eugenio 
 had rescued her, and also that it would be beautiful 
 for us three to be friends. She turned her head and 
 answered Don Eugenio from time to time, and once 
 when I woke up — it was near nightfall — he was talking 
 with a tremble in his voice. I think it was about 
 Jalapa he was talking. 
 
 Then she asked him what the Devil did with poor 
 Saint Guy. 
 
 ''Well, he was beneficial, though he did not mean 
 to be so," said my master. "It offended him to see 
 the way in which the young man served his church. 
 From early morning Guy was busy there: he swept 
 the spiders from the vault, he swept the floor, attended 
 to the altars and the shrines, in fact he was so much 
 devoted to the church, which was that of Our Lady 
 of Laeken, that it is most probable he would have 
 stayed there all his life and that he never would have 
 been admitted to the hierarchy of saints. But then 
 the Devil in disguise approached him and persuaded 
 him to be a man of business, seeing that this would 
 enable him, the Devil said, to gain much money for 
 his parents and the needy. But the Devil was frus- 
 trated, for the young man had very soon made a 
 failure of his business, whereupon he recognized his 
 fault and was exceedingly regretful. He went back 
 into the church, but as a penance he now took upon 
 himself a task more useful or, at any rate, more 
 prominent: he traveled both to Rome and to Jerusa- 
 lem, he was a pilgrim to the celebrated shrines of 
 Christendom, and he conducted other pilgrims, such 
 as Wondulph, to their satisfaction. Far and near, 
 wherever he was seen, his merits were acclaimed and 
 ultimately he was canonized."
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 51 
 
 I do not know how many miles we rode. When I 
 awakened for the last time it was owing to the angry 
 voice of Don Eugenio and that of an official who, with 
 an uplifted torch, was standing just beside our mules. 
 His eye was glittering as much as any of the buttons 
 on his uniform. 
 
 At first I did not know what they were shouting at 
 each other for, and then I found that Don Eugenio 
 would not agree to pay for bringing the remainder of 
 our food into the town. Later on my master told me 
 that he had resisted on account of a wild devil who 
 was in him, but especially because he wanted to be 
 grand before Maria. 
 
 "I command you, do you hear me?" cried the man 
 in uniform. "You either pay what it is right to pay 
 or else go back along that road. And, for the rest, 
 I care not if your food will choke you or if you go 
 wandering about the land in hunger. What I know is 
 that unless you pay you shall not come into my 
 town." 
 
 And then I did not think how bold I was, because I 
 only thought that I must help my master: "Aristotle 
 said," quoth I, repeating words which I had learned 
 from Don Eugenio, "Aristotle said we go in hunger at 
 our peril." 
 
 "And I say," the man shouted, "that it is I who 
 collect the dues at this office. Do you think that I care 
 what anybody else says?" 
 
 I was not afraid of him, because my master's hand 
 was on my shoulder. And I think that Don Eugenio 
 would then have paid the money if our friend the 
 young lieutenant had not at this moment ridden 
 forward from the darkness where he had been looking 
 on. He wished the officer good-night and our pro- 
 cession passed into the town.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 The lieutenant said that he would tell us all about 
 the place, but there was nothing in this neighborhood, 
 he said, at the beginning of the town. I tried to look 
 at every house, but I saw hardly anything, nor did 
 Maria, since it was so dark. What I could see, by 
 means of the few lights inside the windows, were great 
 iron bars. Some people, who were wrapped in cloaks, 
 went past the houses rather hurriedly; if one of them 
 had stopped, perhaps I should have screamed — so did 
 the iron bars affect me. But as we climbed up towards 
 the middle of the town, with here a church and there 
 another large black building, I was much relieved to 
 find more lights; the people also were not hurrying. 
 And in the plaza one could see their faces, which were 
 friendly. They were strolling round and round the 
 plaza and I should have liked to stop and look at 
 them, as well as at the palace of the governor with its 
 arcades; and at the other side, up many steps, was 
 the cathedral. But we rode on across the plaza and 
 we turned off to the right, down a steep, curving road. 
 At last we halted at a big house. The lieutenant had 
 dismounted and was talking to my master. 
 
 "Will you still insist," he said, "on going to this 
 man to-night? He will not be prepared, as I have 
 told you. In the barracks or some hostelry . . ." 
 
 "You do not know him," said my master. 
 
 The lieutenant crossed himself. "At this hour of 
 the night who knows what he is doing? Very likely," 
 said the terrified lieutenant, "he — ^he . . ." 
 
 52
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 53 
 
 "Come now," said my master, as he slid from the 
 mule, "he will be a most sympathetic person. He will 
 take me to his arms." 
 
 "Yes, yes, and carry you to Hell. He is in league 
 with Satan. You — they have not told you what goes 
 on in this accursed house. If you will only wait until 
 to-morrow — I am really fond of you — if you will wait 
 until to-morrow and inquire of any one who is intelli- 
 gent." 
 
 My master helped Maria and myself to get on to 
 the ground. "Behold," he said to the lieutenant, with 
 a little smile of mischief, "our Maria, who is not with- 
 out experience of being carried off, does not seem 
 to be much afraid." 
 
 "Oh, no," she laughed. 
 
 The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders and he 
 scowled. "It will be my turn," he declared, "to laugh 
 to-morrow. Fare you well." He saw that Don 
 Eugenio was knocking at the heavy door, and instantly 
 he strode away, pulling his horse after him. He did 
 not turn round even once to see what happened to us. 
 
 Then my master noticed that Maria's face was over- 
 cast. "Brave little girl," said he, "what is it in your 
 head?" 
 
 "About the mattress," she replied, "for I have never 
 slept upon another one. We are but Indians, at 
 home," she said, "but we have got three mattresses 
 and one of them is mine. If only he had let me bring 
 it on the horse!" 
 
 "But think of the poor horse," said Don Eugenio. 
 
 "I think of you," she said. 
 
 The door was iDeing opened and the face of an 
 astonished man, a servant, peered at us out of the 
 darkness. 
 
 "Will you tell Don Arcadio," my master said, "that
 
 54 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 I, the ex-librarian of the Bishop of Zaragoza in Ara- 
 gon, have just arrived? I shall be very glad to see 
 him." 
 
 There was no change in the servant's swarthy face. 
 
 "These are two friends of mine," said Don Eugenio. 
 "Now be so good as to inform your master." 
 
 "Let it be so," said the man resignedly. "I hope 
 that good will come of it." He turned and started 
 walking back into the darkness of the house. 
 
 My master raised his voice, in order that this foolish 
 man should tell us where to put the mules. And he 
 informed us that there was indeed a stable, a very 
 large stable with a room on the top of it; but ever 
 since he had been in the service of Senor Quiroga 
 nobody had used it. 
 
 "Nevertheless," quoth he, "I will take you there." 
 He moved so slowly, and I was so tired and so was 
 Maria. 
 
 Naturally, in the stable, which lay just behind the 
 house, there was no morsel for the mules to eat; but 
 this the man perceived. He promised that while we 
 were talking to his master, if we really wished to talk 
 to him, he would for his part try to borrow grass from 
 some one in the street. On that side of the house there 
 were no steps at all; the door gave straight on to 
 the courtyard, and the door was open. . . . We, with 
 our small quantity of luggage, were not long in passing 
 through the doorway, but we had to wait a little time 
 until Faustino, the bewildered servant, brought a 
 candle. There we three stood in the darkness of a 
 strange abode, but Don Eugenio did not seem to be 
 ill at ease. 
 
 "It is too probable," he said, "that I shall have to 
 spend the night in conversation with our host. That 
 is my chief care."
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 55 
 
 "I have my faith in you," Maria said, "but are 
 you sure he will not throw us out into the street?" 
 
 "My child," said Don Eugenio, "your faith in me 
 is like the faith of most of us: we guard it very 
 preciously and never look at it. . . . Before I came 
 into this house I had my moments of misgiving. Now 
 — well, I am like a lover who is on the point of seeing 
 his beloved." 
 
 "Do you say that?" asked Maria in a tone of some 
 surprise and sorrow. 
 
 "It is difficult for you to understand. I have been 
 traveling so many hundred leagues and I have scarcely 
 met a man who would have given a dilapidated cloak 
 for one of these church manuscripts Our host, the 
 Noahcite, will know how to appreciate such treas- 
 ures." 
 
 I was getting quite accustomed to the darkness of 
 the room, when I heard footsteps coming down the 
 stairs and we could see each other by Faustino's torch 
 that was approaching. In a little time Faustino en- 
 tered the bare room in which we stood, and just be- 
 hind him was a very tall, thin, weary-looking man, the 
 Noahcite. 
 
 "My servant tells me," said the Noahcite, "that 
 you have come from Aragon. If I can be of service 
 to you, pray command me; but I fear that both 
 Faustino and myself have little skill for entertaining. 
 We are solitary folk," he said, with some emotion. 
 
 Don Eugenio stepped forward, and his face shone 
 as if not a single torch but many were illuminating 
 it. "If it is true what I have heard of you," said he, 
 "then you are toiling at a task that you will not 
 accomplish. I acknowledge, Don Arcadio, that with 
 an aim so noble it does not so greatly matter if you 
 do or do not reach it."
 
 56 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 The tall gentleman bowed stiffly. "You have come 
 to help me in my work?" he said. 
 
 "I will not hide it from you," said my master, "that 
 I would not otherwise have traveled up from Vera- 
 cruz. Correct me, sir, if I be wrong; but what I 
 gather from the rumors is that you conceive of human 
 knowledge as a pyramid, with all that we know now 
 the base of it and with the knowledge of old Noah 
 as the apex." 
 
 Don Arcadio bowed again. "Of course," he said. 
 And then he turned round to Faustino, in whose hand 
 the torch was trembling. "Do me the favor of pre- 
 paring beds," quoth he. 
 
 "I ought to have explained," said Don Eugenio — 
 while Faustino placed his torch on a gilt bracket which 
 projected from the wall — "I ought to have explained 
 that this is Juanito who has been entrusted to me by 
 his father, one Pedro, a breeder of fighting-cocks. I 
 undertook to supervise the education of the lad, who 
 knows already how to read, and who in Colorado, 
 where I found him, was reduced to reading newspapers 
 and a poor book on dancing. This," he pointed to 
 Maria, "is, as you perceive, a native also." 
 
 "I have a light hand for cooking the tamales," said 
 Maria to the Noahcite. Her voice betrayed that she 
 was ill at ease. 
 
 He called down the passage something to Faustino 
 that I did not hear and then he said to Don Eugenio: 
 "I like, sefior, what you were saying of the pyramid." 
 
 "If you are near the top of it," said Don Eugenio; 
 "if you are now concerned with Eastern manuscripts 
 or other sources then I shall be of no use to you. 
 But if the Latin writings occupy you still . . ." 
 
 "Yes, indeed," replied our host, "that is the case. 
 I have not made much progress from the bottom of
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 57 
 
 the pyramid. I see you understand what I am doing 
 and, if I may say so, the sublimity of my purpose does 
 not seem absurd to you, as to so many others, all of 
 whom I mean to benefit." 
 
 "To-morrow," said my master, "we will set to work. 
 And yet, perhaps . . ." He hesitated. 
 
 "Seiior," said the Noahcite, "this journey from the 
 coast will have fatigued you, and you certainly must 
 not begin to work before to-morrow morning." 
 
 Don Eugenio smiled a little ruefully. "I was just 
 wondering," he said, "it was a thought which some- 
 times comes into my mind that all our knowledge is 
 in vain. It seems to me to be a circle which does 
 not lead anywhere." 
 
 "Sir, it is a pyramid," said Don Arcadio. 
 
 My master waved his hand. "At all events," he 
 said, "we shall not start before to-morrow. Will you 
 let us go to where your servant is preparing beds?" 
 
 Our host took up the torch and led the way. My 
 master pinched me as we walked along and whispered 
 in my ear that it would not suprise him if we found 
 Faustino sleeping in our bed. But when we had 
 mounted the stone staircase — on the walls were faded 
 tapestries — and when we arrived in a large room up- 
 stairs we saw Faustino very busily engaged. He had 
 a pile of mattresses and blue sheets on the floor and, 
 as he lifted them about, he muttered to himself. 
 
 "He is the best of servants," said the Noahcite in 
 a low voice, as we four stood upon the threshold of 
 the room. "If every one in our unhappy country were 
 as honest!" 
 
 "Pardon me," said Don Eugenio, "but I have never 
 thought that honesty is natural to man. You take 
 a lofty view. As for any country being happy . . ." 
 
 "It is to accomplish that," exclaimed the Noahcite,
 
 58 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 "that I have worked for all these years. And even 
 if I die before the task is finished I shall have my 
 followers." 
 
 He spoke so loudly that Faustino heard him and 
 turned round, and with a most pathetic look. "If it 
 please your honor, I have not yet made the beds," 
 quoth he. "I have been thinking that I am a useless 
 person and that you must pension me." 
 
 "Nay, Faustino," said the Noahcite, "do not lose 
 heart." 
 
 Maria said that she would help him. 
 
 "Ha!" The Noahcite observed her for the first 
 time. "Well, well, well — we have a woman in the 
 house, Faustino." 
 
 And Faustino, who was standing with his bare foot 
 on a blue sheet, nodded gravely, saying, "May it please 
 your honor." 
 
 "So that you and I," the Noahcite said to my 
 master, "we can go downstairs and have a little conver- 
 sation suitable for men of sense, such as 'Why should 
 A begin the alphabet?' or 'What is God?' " He took 
 my master by the arm. 
 
 "Remain and help Maria and be quick," my master 
 said to me, a little breathlessly, as he was being pulled 
 away. 
 
 And very soon we had the three beds ready, each 
 one in a different corner. Faustino started telling us 
 how he had been for many years the servant of his 
 master, but Maria told me that if I was tired I could 
 go to bed and sleep.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 It was Maria's laugh that woke me up. The room 
 was all in darkness and I heard the tender voice of 
 Don Eugenio. 
 
 "And so it is," said he. "The poor man is entirely 
 mad. I was afraid that this would be the case. And 
 I am right." 
 
 "Oh," she was murmuring, "you are so great and 
 wise and clever." 
 
 "That is nothing," said my master. "But I must 
 say it is tragic that a man should get his head confused 
 because of wanting with so great an ardor to make 
 everybody happy." 
 
 "I am happy, I am happy," sighed Maria. 
 
 "My dear little one," said Don Eugenio. 
 
 Now I could see a little more distinctly, but I still 
 could not see either of them, and I think they spoke 
 no more. 
 
 When I woke up again, Maria had undone the 
 shutters. It was a most brilliant morning. I sat up 
 in bed and watched Maria, who was far more lovely, 
 so I thought, than on the previous day. The sunlight 
 danced all round her, and she seemed herself to dance 
 to music which I could not hear. In the far corner of 
 the room my master, Don Eugenio, still lay a-bed and 
 slept. And so that I should not awaken him she came 
 towards me with a finger on her lip. Oh, she was 
 beautiful indeed. 
 
 She sat down at my side and put her arms around 
 me in a way to which I was quite unaccustomed; 
 
 59
 
 6o THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 for my mother, though she was so fond of me, had 
 rarely treated me in such a fashion. And the other 
 women of our village were true Indians, with the sole 
 exception of the wanton woman Enriqueta, and, for- 
 sooth, that woman did not spend her kisses on the 
 little boys. 
 
 When Maria kissed me in the radiance of that 
 morning at Jalapa I did not feel shy, as I have heard 
 that others in such circumstances would have felt; 
 but I remember very well how something seemed to 
 break inside me. 
 
 Then my master Don Eugenio began to move. 
 Maria took her place beside the open window, looking 
 out of it. She laughed in merriment, as if the sun- 
 light was in all her graceful body. I had never seen 
 a woman like Maria. 
 
 ^^Hola," quoth my master, "have you taken it into 
 consideration that we are inside a mad-house?" 
 
 "Senor," she replied demurely, "it was you who 
 brought us. Shall we try to find another house?" 
 
 "The Devil! As if that were easy! I suppose we 
 must endure it for a time," he said. 
 
 "Oh, yes," said she. 
 
 My master got up from the bed. Of course he had 
 lain down with all his garments on except the coat, 
 for in Jalapa it is cold at nights. "And after all," 
 he said as he walked over to the window, "after all, 
 there is no danger in the madness of this Noahcite. 
 I heard of two professors who were filled with hatred 
 for each other: one of them, Tuphantius, composed a 
 treatise very learned, very serious, and very long, to 
 prove that the inhabitants of ancient Greece had an 
 effective hair-wash, for in certain of their tombs he 
 had discovered something which he swore was hair- 
 wash; then Magerius, his rival, wrote a still more
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 6i 
 
 learned and more serious and longer book to prove 
 that the Assyrians possessed a hair-wash which was 
 more effective, seeing that in all his work among their 
 burial-places not a trace of hair-wash had been found 
 by him or anybody else." 
 
 Maria was now looking out into the street and Don 
 Eugenio did not ask if she had listened to him. After 
 he had softly patted her upon the head and let his 
 hand run halfway down her hanging hair, he also 
 gazed out of the window and he talked, but I heard 
 nothing till he suddenly turned round and told me 
 that he would go out and make an exploration of this 
 town. 
 
 The tapestries which hung upon the staircase walls 
 were very old and difficult to understand, and Don 
 Eugenio, after peering at them with his eyes screwed 
 up, said that he could make nothing of them, and he 
 looked so helpless. He had spoiled his eyes, said he. 
 
 Then I put my hand in his. 
 
 But he began to laugh quite cheerfully. "My son," 
 he said, "it shows how much we stand in need of one 
 another, you and I. The general and the scout — make 
 way for us! — oh, yes, I'll have to train you for my 
 scout." 
 
 I told him how my mother used to hate the notion 
 of me being turned into a soldier. 
 
 "May she go to Paradise!" said Don Eugenio. 
 
 "And when you have an opportunity please tell her 
 
 ; that I once had her opinions with regard to soldiers. 
 
 I Oh, I tremble when I think of what Our Father thinks 
 
 ' of men who hate another class of men. Such people 
 
 are the fools of fools, and while I am sure as any one 
 
 can be that God is fond of certain fools, I am not 
 
 the less positive that there are fools whom He detests. 
 
 And so your mother must not hate the soldiers or,
 
 62 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 indeed, the carpenters or the philosophers or those 
 who sometimes have not kept the laws of man. But, 
 on the other hand, if she will pity them . . ." 
 
 'The carpenters," said I, "and the — the " I 
 
 was puzzled. 
 
 'The beginning and the end of it," said Don 
 Eugenio, "is that we should love each other, and we 
 must have pity for all those we love. When you are 
 a little older you will see the truth of that." 
 
 We had arrived by this time in the large and gloomy 
 hall, which had so little furniture, and we had noticed 
 that Faustino was asleep upon the floor in front of 
 what we guessed must be his master's room. As we 
 came close to him he did not waken, though, as I 
 walked sideways, looking at him, I tripped up against 
 my master's feet and fell. 
 
 The iron-studded door was hard to move, but Don 
 Eugenio and I were able, finally, to get it open and 
 to leave the house. Poor old Faustino seemed to be 
 enjoying pleasant dreams, to judge by the expression 
 of his face, which now was in the sunlight. Yet we 
 thought it safer — we knew nothing of this town — to 
 slam the door, and whether he woke up we did not 
 know. 
 
 The street was not so full of people as I had ex- 
 pected. It was nearly perpendicular, I saw, and no- 
 body would walk there if he could avoid it, and the 
 riders did not find it comfortable, judging from the 
 sour expression of a man we saw on mule-back, who 
 was going with his jars of milk to the big houses. 
 Out of one of them — a house which had a fountain 
 in the patio — there actually came a man with whom 
 I was acquainted. Often I had seen him drive through 
 Colorado on his way to Veracruz or to the mountains, 
 and when he got off his carriage at my father's house
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 63 
 
 he had been in the habit of allowing me to don his 
 hat, so heavy with its silver decorations, and he used 
 to promise that the day would come when he would 
 show me the great world. And here he stood in front 
 of me in all his glorious apparel — the purple plush 
 jacket and the colored shirt, the red sash and long 
 leather leggings. I was sorry that Maria was not 
 there to see him blinking at me. 
 
 "What has happened? What has happened?" he 
 inquired. 
 
 '^I am here," said I, beaming at him. 
 
 "Our young friend," said Don Eugenio, "consented 
 to come with me, and I hope with all my heart that 
 he will not regret it." 
 
 Senor Bias, the driver, did not ask us why we had 
 come up from Colorado or in whose house we were 
 living. Possibly he would have asked us after he had 
 finished blinking; but the one who spoke was Don 
 Eugenio. 
 
 "Excuse me if I talk about your clothes," he said, 
 "they are so distinguished." 
 
 "Sir, I thank you," said the driver. 
 
 "Is it not the quiet thrush," said Don Eugenio, 
 "which is the moral bird and goes back to the last 
 year's mate? And do not birds of a more brilliant 
 hue exhibit morals of a looser kind?" 
 
 Senor Bias was solemn. "It may be exactly as you 
 say," quoth he. "And I am much obliged to you for 
 telling me. But if your lordship wants to talk about 
 my own attire, that is, indeed, a theme wherein I am 
 instructed. I am here at the disposal of your Honor 
 if you wish to talk of that." 
 
 "Let us go up to the plaza yonder," said my master, 
 "and sit underneath the trees." 
 
 "I go with you," said Senor Bias.
 
 64 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 And as both of them were corpulent they did not 
 speak while they were mounting to the plaza. Sefior 
 Bias laid his strong hand upon my head, and when 
 I looked at him he nodded as if he were very pleased. 
 
 The plaza was the grandest place I ever had beheld, 
 with a band-stand made of tin which glittered in the 
 sun, and all around it were green benches and the 
 palm-trees and the flowers. A few inhabitants sat 
 negligently on the shaded benches, two or three were 
 strolling on the plaza's yellow sand, and none of them 
 was in a hurry. It was all majestic even as the build- 
 ings round about the plaza and the range of mountains 
 which rose up out of the mist wherever you could 
 see. My master settled down upon a seat with Sefior 
 Bias beside him, panting; as for me, I wandered over 
 to where somebody was selling sweetmeats. Pink and 
 brown they were — and I remember, as if it all hap- 
 pened yesterday, that I did not more long for them 
 than for the mountains or the glittering band-stand 
 or the silver-mounted hat of Senor Bias or the whole 
 town of Jalapa. And the man knew very well, I saw, 
 that I had got no money, for he did not interrupt 
 his morning labors — he took every sweetmeat from 
 its place and blew the dust off and then put it back 
 again. 
 
 Ultimately I returned across the plaza to my friends. 
 The driver was just taking from the inside of his hat 
 some cigarettes; one he held out to my master and 
 another one he placed in his own mouth. "And that," 
 said he — he spoke with a great emphasis — "that is 
 Don Maximiliano's Empire. It will have an end ex- 
 actly like this cigarette." 
 
 "And like so many objects that we think important, 
 such as our own world, the sun, the moon, the stars. 
 I always," said my master, "think the nebula in the
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 65 
 
 sword-handle of Orion is extremely worth our notice, 
 for it has been examined and described by various 
 observers since the day of its discovery, in 1656, by 
 Huyghens, and it must have altered greatly both in 
 form and physical appearance. What in all our uni- 
 verse is permanent? And if a thing so monstrous 
 could exist, it could not enter our imagination." 
 
 "Now," said Sefior Bias, "do not pretend I have not 
 warned you." 
 
 Don Eugenio leaned back comfortably on the bench 
 and smiled a little and "What would you have me do?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Oh, well," said Senor Bias, "the safest thing is if 
 you will do nothing. Then perhaps the enemies of 
 Maximiliano will not kill you." 
 
 "How is this?" cried Don Eugenio. "Since I have 
 landed in the country I have not had my attention 
 called to any rivalry. To tell the truth, I know that 
 Maximiliano is the Emperor, and he is sure to have 
 opponents." 
 
 "May God protect you, sir," said Serior Bias. 
 
 He was rather agitated then, my master, and he 
 threw his cigarette away into the sand. "Do you 
 mean to say it is as serious as that?" he asked. "And 
 everywhere, at Veracruz and in the villages through 
 which I came, I fancied that the population was quite 
 reconciled to having European soldiers in their midst 
 — and, by the way, these soldiers seem to be so scanty 
 that the people cannot feel oppressed." 
 
 "They will be scantier," said Senor Bias, "for it has 
 been decided that the French troops are to be with- 
 drawn — the last of them will go in 1867, that is next 
 year, in the spring — and then we Mexicans will have 
 our fatherland again. Que viva Mexico!" These 
 pious words he uttered rather loudly, and the idlers
 
 66 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 on the benches gazed at him; the sweetmeat- vendor, 
 who was pouring out a drink for one of them, came 
 over to us and inquired of Senor Bias if he could serve 
 him. 
 
 The fat driver nodded. "Here we have a gentle- 
 man," he said, "who is not much acquainted with our 
 country." 
 
 "Then the best thing is to give him of the snow of 
 Orizaba, flavored," said the vendor, "with a little pine- 
 apple." He mixed them in two glasses, and for me 
 he took a sweet out of his bosom. 
 
 "Let us drink," my master said, "to Mexico. And, 
 after all, why should they not have their own father- 
 land? And what a fatherland! I come from Aragon 
 of the green valleys and the river Ebro, which is one 
 of the great rivers. I would not have come away from 
 Aragon, the generous fields of Aragon, if I could have 
 remained there as a peaceful farmer. But I am not 
 sorry that I came to Mexico, which is more grandiose 
 and just as fertile, if not more. The people in the 
 villages are well-contented — how could they be other- 
 wise? — and when their fatherland is given back com- 
 pletely to them, they — they will ..." 
 
 "They will slay each other," said Sefior Bias. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said my master. "Oh, you 
 are trying to make your country seem remarkable, 
 even more so than it is. But have I not observed the 
 people? They appear to me as if they erred a little 
 on the side of sluggishness and you would have me 
 think of them as fighting-cocks!" 
 
 The vendor made two other drinks, which they re- 
 ceived, and then he left us, saying that he would 
 return. 
 
 "About the fighting-cocks," said Sefior Bias, "I 
 probably know less than Juanito here. Notwithstand-
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 67 
 
 ing, I am dubious if they would fight unless they had 
 the education. But I know my mules," he said, "for 
 I have sixteen of them harnessed very often at the 
 same time to the coach and I regret to tell you that 
 they are like us, the Mexicans. They can be roused 
 from slothfulness" — he took a handful of sharp stones 
 out of his pocket — ''these are what I hurl at them," 
 he said, "and bitter words that sting their ears. The 
 people of this country — Indians, Spaniards, and the 
 half-castes — would prefer to do nothing, and when 
 they are roused to deeds those are the deeds of wicked- 
 ness." 
 
 Don Eugenio took a draught of his snowed pine- 
 apple. "And look round there," he said, "the gorgeous 
 vegetation and the mountains rising, range on range 
 — it is so beautiful." 
 
 "I wager you an ounce of gold," said Seiior Bias, 
 "that you will wish you had not come to Mexico." 
 
 "But in this paradise a human being cannot surely 
 be below all other human beings. Or I wonder if they 
 feel discomfited by so much loveliness." 
 
 The driver shrugged his shoulders. "They are all 
 the same," he said, "and those who come here they 
 become as we are. There is a lieutenant-colonel of 
 gendarmes," he said, "a Dutchman who incarcerates 
 suspected persons in the prison of the capital and there 
 he bastinadoes them. If I were you," said Senor Bias, 
 "I would consort with nobody except your Don Ar- 
 cadio in that house of the Corpus Christi Street from 
 which I saw you come. He is a madman." 
 
 For a little while they did not speak and Don 
 Eugenio was looking very troubled. 
 
 "Thus it is," said Senor Bias, "God be my witness. 
 But if you have been unfortunate in many things you 
 have been fortunate in finding me, since I will always
 
 68 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 help you to escape, if I am in the neighborhood when 
 there is grievous trouble." 
 
 "Oh, thank you," said my master, in a mournful 
 voice. "And now may you fare well. I must return 
 to Don Arcadio, my madman." He got up and took 
 me by the hand. 
 
 But we had not proceeded more than ten steps from 
 the plaza when there rushed upon us Senor Bias; he 
 rushed between us and exhorted Don Eugenio to be of 
 better cheer. "You are a very learned man," he said, 
 "and those who have a life so rich they have two 
 lives or three to that of ordinary folk. Is that not 
 so?" 
 
 "Well, if they stand me up for execution," said my 
 master, "I shall be well occupied, I am glad to think, 
 in meditating on what you have told me." 
 
 "But they make you dig your grave," said Seiior 
 Bias. "But no! That is enough of all such things. 
 What were you telling me about my clothes?" 
 
 We went on walking down the steep, deserted road 
 to Don Arcadio's house. 
 
 "It was that I am like a little bird," said Seiior Bias. 
 
 My master stopped and laid his hand upon the 
 driver's arm. "Dear friend," quoth he, with a most 
 pleasant smile, "you have been warning me so well 
 of all the dangers that I run, and in exchange I do 
 believe that it is in my power to warn you of some 
 other perils." 
 
 Seiior Bias was also smiling and he patted my dear 
 master on the back. "But, hombre! I can take good 
 care," he said, "for my own self. Be not perturbed 
 on my behalf, I pray you." 
 
 "Very likely," said my master, "I am altogether 
 wrong when I suggest that in our morals we resemble
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 69 
 
 birds and that a person who is brilliantly clad is more 
 inclined to waywardness." 
 
 "I said you are a learned man," cried Seiior Bias, 
 with much enthusiasm, "and that is the fact indeed." 
 
 My master sadly shook his head. "There may be 
 just a little truth in it," quoth he, "since those who 
 find themselves arrayed, be it by nature or by man's 
 decree, in merry plumage have to bear the brunt of 
 more temptation than we others — than we others, who 
 have quite enough to bear, God knows." 
 
 But Senor Bias was puzzled. He pushed back his 
 fine sombrero and he scratched his forehead. "I was 
 friendly with a sparrow once," he said, "and saw him 
 take a wife. They had six children. And when these 
 had flown away he pecked his wife and she flew after 
 them." 
 
 "I am afraid," said Don Eugenio, "that there was 
 very little in my notion after all. And how presump- 
 tuous of me to take your clothes for an example!" 
 
 "No! no!" Senor Bias exclaimed, "no! no! You 
 are the learned one and you have given me a new 
 idea, and, as you said, we both of us will help each 
 other. I will help you with my coach when it is 
 needful, and I know that you will help me when — 
 who is that woman flying up the street?" 
 
 It was Maria with her wondrous hair all out behind 
 her. She was uttering strange sounds. 
 
 "Well, well," said my master. 
 
 Senor Bias was grunting out his disapproval. "She 
 must be a very shameless woman," he observed. 
 
 Breathlessly she rushed towards us and, with a deep 
 sigh of satisfaction, flung herself into the arms of 
 Don Eugenio.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 Nothing terrible had happened to Maria; she was 
 merely in a fright lest Don Eugenio should not return. 
 And now that she discovered that her fears were base- 
 less she became extremely playful. With a ringing 
 laugh she flung round Don Eugenio's head her long, 
 black hair; as if it were the coil of rope which horse- 
 men from their saddle hurl so accurately round the 
 front legs or the hind legs of an untamed horse, the 
 black hair of Maria had encircled Don Eugenio's head 
 and he was helpless. There he stood and gasped and 
 spluttered, and he did not see the face of Seiior Bias, 
 he did not hear the sound of his quick steps as he 
 departed from us. 
 
 Naturally, I presumed my master would explode in 
 wrath and would be furious against Maria, or, indeed, 
 would send her packing. As she swayed -from side to 
 side in laughter — and she clapped her hands together 
 and put them on the eyes of Don Eugenio, while he was 
 gradually disentangling himself — I thought that she 
 was something from another world, and that I — that 
 I was no less a personage than the ferocious and 
 superb lieutenant-colonel they had just been speak- 
 ing of. 
 
 When I began to write these recollections I did not 
 intend to say much of myself, for what am I compared 
 with Don Arcadio, the Noahcite, and Don Eugenio 
 and Faustino? It is not that I am despicable; my 
 dear master, Don Eugenio, explained to me — perhaps 
 I have to thank him most of all for this — that we 
 
 70
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 71 
 
 shall certainly find men and women and ourselves 
 endurable if only we observe them, and that of all 
 pleasures there is none so great as observation. What 
 I placed before myself was to describe, since no one 
 else will do so, the few months when these three men 
 were living side by side. Of course, we others formed 
 the background, and a background has to be included 
 in the picture; but as demonstrating how much I 
 have fallen short of my intention, and how very little 
 alien matter I would wish to have, it is the truth that 
 if my first plan had been carried out in its austerity 
 such episodes would not have been admitted as, for 
 instance, my awakening from boyhood into adoles- 
 cence at Maria's hand there in the sunlight of the 
 street. And I am sure that numerous, far less im- 
 portant episodes about myself and all those others 
 will adhere to this my wandering record. 
 
 It was rather early in the day for people to be 
 sitting on the balconies or to be watching from behind 
 the iron bars or from the upper windows; otherwise 
 they would have witnessed our most curious advance 
 towards the house of Don Arcadio. We walked 
 abreast, and each of us was occupied with his or her 
 ideas: the girl was nearly dancing, I was nearly burst- 
 ing, and my master, who perceived that, anyhow, 
 Maria was in a condition to be left alone, smiled 
 gravely and a little ruefully at his own meditations, of 
 the days, I think, when he was youngef. I thought 
 it then, and Don Eugenio appeared to me just at that 
 time to be a very, very aged man. I felt so sorry for 
 him — he would lose Maria. 
 
 At the entrance of the Noahcite's abode there stood 
 Faustino with a twitching mouth. He did not seem 
 to know how to begin to speak to us, he rubbed his 
 forefinger athwart his chin and back again, and then
 
 72 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 he said to Don Eugenio that it would be good if we 
 came with him, Don Eugenio and I, to see his master 
 who, he added, had been searching for us a long time 
 ago. 
 
 Faustino shuffled off in front of us and glanced 
 across his shoulder more than once. And as Maria 
 went up the stone staircase she threw us merry glances. 
 I believe that she was singing to herself, but I could 
 not catch any of the words. Faustino kept on jerking 
 round his head, as if to make sure we were follow- 
 ing. And in the darkest corner of the hall he tapped 
 upon a door. ... He waited patiently and then he 
 tapped again. My master muttered something, but 
 Faustino made as if he did not hear him. Very gently, 
 as a leaf that flutters to the ground, Faustino tapped 
 again upon the faintly shining door; and when my 
 master pointed out that this was foolish if the Noah- 
 cite desired our presence he did not reply, and then 
 at last the door was opened and the Noahcite, .so tall 
 and gaunt and dignified, was asking us to enter. Evi- 
 dently he was suffering from some excitement. 
 
 Over Don Eugenio's head I saw long rows of books 
 that reached up to the ceiling. Don Eugenio passed 
 hurriedly into the room and, after stooping down to 
 see what books and documents were piled on one of 
 the four tables, he made first a step to this side, then 
 to that, and finally was very much like a bewildered 
 bull that bounds into the ring. 
 
 "Welcome to my library," said Don Arcadio. "But 
 let me ask how you have slept." 
 
 My master went on breathing heavily. 
 
 "Oh, well," said Don Arcadio, "we must throw away 
 these ceremonies. Will you stay? Speak! Are you 
 going to be like my assistants who have gone — I need 
 not tell you why, but they have gone, and now the
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 73 
 
 years are coming over me — there is no time to 
 waste . . ." 
 
 "What books!" ejaculated Don Eugenio. 
 
 "Most of them are worthless," said the Noahcite. 
 "I mean that for my purpose . . ." 
 
 Don Eugenio was at a book-shelf. All the room was 
 lined with book-shelves, leaving only space for several 
 windows and between two of the windows, on a space 
 of empty wall, there hung what afterwards they told 
 me was a map, a pale brown sheet with brown men 
 and great birds and rivers painted on it. 
 
 "I have come to a conclusion," said the Noahcite, 
 "and I am in the hope that you, sefior the ex-librarian, 
 will agree with me. It is that in geology we have 
 the science which reveals what is contained in human 
 heads." 
 
 "And I," said Don Eugenio, "have been lamenting 
 all these years the loss to Spain of that collection of 
 the Marquis of Astorga, whose three thousand and 
 four hundred books were sold to Scotland. Here ir 
 front of me is a collection of such grandeur as the 
 Marquis in his dreams could not attain to!" 
 
 "Pardon me," said Don Arcadio, "but for many 
 years I was the slave of all these books. A score of 
 them would summon me at once, and I endeavored to 
 reply to each demand. Of course I sometimes was 
 enchanted by a certain book, so that all others were 
 forgotten; afterwards I would incessantly be rushing 
 hither, thither — it was blissful, always in the chase of 
 knowledge. And if any one has ever had a greater 
 ecstasy and a more perfect happiness from literature 
 of the imagination than I had from literature of knowl- 
 edge — no, it is impossible." His eyes were brilliant. 
 "Then I recollected it was not the happiness of me 
 alone but of my fellows that I was pursuing. If I
 
 74 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 had continued in that mode of study I should never 
 have been able to assemble in my own head all the 
 knowledge of mankind and thus work backwards to 
 the knowledge which lay, as it were an acorn, in the 
 head of Noah. By supreme good fortune I discovered 
 that my goal — and surely a great goal it is — was more 
 accessible a thousand times if I no longer roamed 
 down every path, but strode with guch persistence as 
 I have along the one path of geology. Most excellent 
 senor, I have explained myself to you." He bowed 
 from his great height a little stiffly. 
 
 Don Eugenio was at one of the far book-shelves, 
 with his back half-turned towards us. 'He was croon- 
 ing over certain volumes as he passed his fingers over 
 them. And yet he had been listening to the Noahcite, 
 for he began at once to answer 'him. "I will remain 
 with you and work with you," said he, "so long as 
 God permits. I have been told that the political con- 
 ditions of this country . . ." 
 
 "That is nothing!" cried our host. "And you will 
 stay and work with me! Now I am certain that my 
 task will be accomplished. You shall have the room 
 above the stable, for it is extremely quiet." 
 
 "Many thanks," said Don Eugenio, "and later on, 
 no doubt, you will explain in a most lucid fashion why 
 geology is to assist us to the goal you have in view. 
 But for the moment I prefer to gaze at these inestima- 
 ble treasures. H ombre! you have talked of happiness. 
 And here you have a very good edition of the Jesuit 
 Acosta's 'Natural and Moral History of the Indies, 
 both East and West.' How shall I enjoy to read 
 again what the glorious Chrysostom and Theodoritus, 
 a grave writer, and Theophilactus had to say about 
 the sky which does extend or else does not extend over 
 all our world. I will give you four reals," he said,
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 75 
 
 "for this book, the 'Ship of Fools'; the edges are 
 scraped to clean them and the woodcuts are English 
 copies of the Dutch." 
 
 "In fact it is not worth your attention," said the 
 Noahcite. 
 
 "Except for the misprint in the colophon. There is 
 Londod instead of London. But it is not everybody 
 who has got my tastes." And, like a true bibliophile, 
 he was quickly turning over the pages in order to se^^ 
 if any of the quire signatures were missing. 
 
 "The book is yours," laughed the Noahcite. 
 
 Don Eugenio nodded gratefully and slipped the vol- 
 ume into his pocket. "And, of course," he said, "you 
 have Orosius — who can be surprised that King Alfred 
 of England translated him?— this copy," Don Eugenio 
 took it from the shelf, "has illustrations by the worthy 
 Sigebertus Havercampus, and is published . . ." 
 
 "Do you want it?" asked the Noahcite. 
 
 "No! no!" He put it back. "And here is one of 
 those Venetian school-books I have only heard of, with 
 a border showing very accurately how the master flogs 
 the boy, and here," his voice was quaking, "here is 
 a most notable collection of forged charters from 
 Turin. . . . You speak of happiness!" 
 
 "Oh, they are very well, these books," said Don 
 Arcadio, "but I do not regard them. All my time is 
 given to geology, the wondrous science. Let me tell 
 you," said our host, as he advanced to where my 
 master stood, and speaking in the same tone very 
 earnestly, so that I found it difficult to hear him— and 
 Faustino at my side did not seem to make any effort 
 to hear anything— "let me tell you," said the Noahcite, 
 "what are the special virtues of geology. It is the 
 science which investigates the history of the earth, 
 and all around us lie the rocks in which the records
 
 76 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 of this history are written. You will certainly admit 
 that there is not a branch of natural knowledge which 
 is equally wide open to the student who is willing to 
 train up his faculties of observation and to discipline 
 his mind by the patient correlation of facts and the 
 fearless dissection of theories. We discover what ex- 
 actly is contained inside the earth, and, since man- 
 kind is fashioned out of earth, we learn what is in 
 man." 
 
 ''Well, well," said Don Eugenio, smiling. 
 
 "Have you," asked the Noahcite, "by chance 
 brought with you any book upon geology?" 
 
 "Alas," said Don Eugenio, "the only books and 
 manuscripts that I could carry from the library at 
 Zaragoza deal with sacred subjects. I have got some 
 Papers of the Council of the General Inquisition of 
 Spain, which have to do with the Republic of Andorra. 
 The Republic was in striking peril then, in June of 
 1574, because the Huguenots were coming thither out 
 of France. You may be interested in the smooth 
 caligraphy of the Bishop on the right, whereas the 
 notes made by King Philip on the left are in a large, 
 wild, careless hand. I also have some very good 
 Reports of the Inquisitors of Aragon, referring^ to the 
 cases which had been disposed of at autos da je, when 
 the condemned were charged with moral crimes and 
 with assisting at Mahometan or demoniac ceremonies. 
 I have these in a most exquisite French binding of a 
 light brown calf, probably from Lyons, with a hand- 
 some geometrical design, and, in the surrounding ara- 
 besques of black and silver, is the representation in 
 gold of a death's head and of other religious emblems, 
 accompanied by a motto. I have likewise a good 
 letter in Italian from the son of James the Second, 
 King of England, to the Inquisitor-General with re-
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 77 
 
 gard to the due payment of the pension of four thou- 
 sand doubloons yearly, which was granted to himself 
 and children. It is signed, in a large, lucid writing, 
 'Giacomo R.' And I have brought a manuscript of 
 the Dialogo dos Montes, which the Rabbi Saul Levi 
 Morteira composed in Amsterdam in 5406, that is the 
 year 1705. It is the copy of a printed book, and on 
 the title-page is a most decorative wreath of flowers 
 and vegetables, and there is a sepia picture of Jehoso- 
 phat, the Judge with sandaled feet and with a plume 
 upon his turban. He is sitting underneath a canopy, 
 beside the mountains, the Mount of Carmel, of Sinai, 
 of Sion, and so forth, which are talking to each other. 
 And I have a Latin pamphlet, the whole sentence 
 passed upon a preacher in the diocese of Zaragoza who 
 did not speak well of the Conception. Finally, I have 
 a book which has a noble binding; it came to my 
 Bishop from the library of Count von Hoym, the 
 envoy of the Kingdoms of Saxony and Poland, at the 
 Court of France from 1720 to 1729. It was executed 
 for him by Antoine Michel Padeloup, whose ticket — 
 'Relie par Padeloup le jeune, place Sorbonne a Paris' — 
 is affixed to the title-page of the volume; there is a 
 doublure of inlaid citron morocco with a beautiful 
 dentelle border of fine tooling. The edges of the leaves 
 are marbled under the gilding." 
 
 "We were talking of geology," said Don Arcadio, 
 "and I am glad to tell you that I have a manuscript 
 of Roger Bacon's, de materia terrae, which has hitherto 
 been quite unknown, and which you kindly will tran- 
 scribe and make a digest of, so that I may absorb it. 
 How the manuscript came into my possession I need 
 not relate. You will be careful of it, I am sure, since 
 I am no less fond of it than Roger Bacon was of Peter 
 Peregrinus, of Maricourt in Picardy."
 
 78 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 My master said he would devote himself with pleas- 
 ure to this work, and how could he begin to learn 
 geology, said he, from any one more sound than Roger 
 Bacon? 
 
 "It is excellent," said Don Arcadio, "to learn as 
 Peter Peregrinus did. 'He is ashamed,' says Bacon, 
 'that anything should be known to laymen, old women, 
 soldiers, plowmen, of which he is ignorant.' And 
 while you are engaged, my friend, with this important 
 manuscript the boy can be your servant, since Faus- 
 tino is no longer young." 
 
 "The boy," said Don Eugenio, "has been entrusted 
 to me by his father, who breeds fighting-cocks at Colo- 
 rado, a most worthy man. I vowed I would conduct 
 his Juanito some way on the road of learning. He 
 can learn his Latin very well from Roger Bacon's 
 treatise." 
 
 "As you wish," said Don Arcadio, "and in the mean- 
 time I must occupy myself with yonder map. It has 
 to do not only with geology, but, I believe, with gold; 
 and therefore by t'^is map I will advance another step 
 towards my philosophic goal and simultaneously I will 
 give the people what they want; while I am on the 
 path to reach, for them, eternal happiness, I will pro- 
 vide them with a happiness that passes, if, that is to 
 say, I am correct in my surmise that certain marks 
 upon the map, which was issued on the ninth of Decem- 
 ber of 1702 by command of the Count de la Moraleda, 
 Knight of the Order of Saint James, Political Chief 
 and Lieutenant-Captain-General of His Highness in 
 the province of Jalapa, that these certain marks indi- 
 cate gold." 
 
 "I am an adherent of the Church," said Don Eu- 
 genio, "and yet I doubt if things that pass away are 
 not more suitable to man, if they are not more lovely
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 79 
 
 in his eye than that which is eternal. We can think 
 of this, however, on some other day. The work which 
 I am now to do involves, I understand, no more than 
 simple knowledge of the Latin language. What do 
 you propose to do concerning Noah's tongue? Can it 
 be possible that you have ascertained the speech he 
 used?" 
 
 "I would have come to that," said Don Arcadio, 
 "but there is no vast hurry, seeing that we have enough 
 to keep us occupied — I do not know for how long. 
 We may very well find somebody who knows the sub- 
 ject and is not a madman as, I fear, was Colonel 
 Charles Valiancy. Have you come across his notion 
 which connects the Irish language with the Punic, 
 Kalmuck, and the language of the Algonkin Indians, 
 with Eg3^tian, Persian, Hindustani, and the language, 
 I presume, which Noah spoke? This gentleman, who 
 died in 181 2, had become 'the master as far as his 
 leisure would permit' of Ancient Irish. He would 
 have advised us to acquaint ourselves with Ancient 
 Irish and if we excuse ourselves by saying he was 
 mad, we must remember how disastrous it would be 
 if all the so-called madmen of the world had been sup- 
 pressed. Faustino will conduct you now, sir, to your 
 room and I will work in this one — though, of course, 
 we work together. It shall be as in that more con- 
 vincing Irish legend of the twelfth century, in which 
 the fairy asks the woman to go with him to the land 
 where there is neither mine nor thine." 
 
 Faustino started shuffling off, so sure was he that a 
 suggestion by his master would be instantly obeyed. 
 And Don Eugenio, as he and I were walking up the 
 great stone staircase, told me that I must forget what 
 he was saying about Don Arcadio being mad. "But 
 the intelligence," said he, "belongs to everybody, more
 
 8o THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 or less, who wanders through the world, and he will 
 surely lose the way if he have not a heart to steer 
 by. Let us hope that Don Arcadio . . ." 
 
 At this moment we were greeted by Maria, who was 
 on the corridor above. "I have been carrying the 
 clothes of Juanito to another room which is near ours," 
 she said, "and I have waited a long time for you and 
 I have spoken from the window to that Seiior Bias, 
 who says he will convey us back to Colorado if we 
 wish to go there," 
 
 Don Eugenio patted her affectionately, and re- 
 marked that he was rather out of breath, not owing 
 so much to the staircase as to all her catalogue of 
 news. "I have had a rare experience to-day," quoth 
 he, "and whither we are going — who can tell?" 
 
 "I would like to go to Colorado, if you like," she 
 said demurely. "I have never driven in a coach." 
 
 "If it please you," said Faustino, "we have had 
 two others who were in the room above the stable. 
 One of them fled in the night and afterwards the 
 second one became a special child of God — he lost 
 possession of his ordinary senses and betook himself 
 into the plaza and from there into the mountains, 
 talking, always talking, as he went." 
 
 "I see that you believe in God," said Don Eugenio. 
 "In these dark days of unbelief it is a pleasure to find 
 any one like you, who cherishes a simple and a lovely 
 faith." 
 
 Faustino nodded. "My dear master told me that 
 it would be better for me to believe," said he.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Don Eugenic and I did not stay very long alone that 
 morning in the spacious study which had been assigned 
 to us above the stable. It was nothing else but spa- 
 cious when we got there, since it had no furniture 
 at all, but only stains upon the wooden flooring which 
 were due to Don Eugenio's predecessors or perhaps 
 to the persistent curtain of fine rain, the chipi-chipi, 
 which at certain seasons falls upon Jalapa and could 
 come into this room by any of the three dilapidated 
 windows. Now the sun was flowing through them 
 very gaily, laughing through the holes, said Don 
 Eugenio, as if it were a child. "I think," said Don 
 Eugenio, "that if it were not for the people who are 
 old in culture we should have no laughing, no frivolity, 
 no childishness. And they are like that ancient sun." 
 
 Faustino had been carrying the manuscript of 
 Bacon's work for us. He laid it down upon the floor 
 and said, "I ask the pardon of the seiior ex-librarian, 
 but will he have some chairs?" 
 
 My master smiled. "I am so glad," quoth he, "that 
 I have met you. And I hope that we shall stay a 
 long time here with you and the august philosopher." 
 
 "Then I will carry in some chairs," observed Faus- 
 tino. And he left the room. 
 
 My master looked about him for a time, and I could 
 see that he was filled with comfortable thoughts. And 
 as I watched him he became more serious, but pres- 
 ently he smiled again, and in a child-like, wistful way. 
 "If only it will last," he murmured. Then he saw 
 that I was gazing at him, and he told me that he had 
 
 8i
 
 82 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 been thinking of our future. This was going to be 
 the room, he said, in which, if it pleased God to let 
 him stay, he would be able honorably to earn his 
 bread, by working for the Noahcite. He said he did 
 not care a bit if this old manuscript of Roger Bacon's 
 should turn out to be monotonous and dull, since it 
 would be a way of showing me that dullness is ex- 
 tremely useful — ''I once had a friend," he said, "a 
 poet who dwelt in my town of Zaragoza. He was 
 occupied in stamping upon round pieces of chocolate 
 a picture of our Saint Eugracia. He held the choco- 
 late with his left and stamped it with his right hand, 
 while his thoughts were free to wander; and if his 
 employment had not been so dull and so monotonous 
 he would have had less freedom; and I think that 
 freedom, not of body but of mind, is the most precious 
 thing. At all events, my friend who stamped the 
 face of Saint Eugracia upon numerous round discs of 
 chocolate was in possession of such happiness that 
 he made happy all his household, which was also very 
 numerous and very poor. However, this is not the 
 time for reminiscence," said my master, "though I 
 do wish, Juanito, that you could have seen that friend 
 of mine — his smile was like the song of birds. What 
 we have to do is to apply ourselves to Roger Bacon's 
 treatise. Incidentally, you will become acquainted 
 with the Latin language. I foresee that — no! to 
 work!" he cried. And thereupon I did my best to 
 listen and he did his best to be like other teachers, 
 till the moment when the door was opened, and the 
 Noahcite stood at the threshold, with Faustino just 
 behind him. 
 
 "I have come," said Don Arcadio, "to ask if you 
 will dine with me. It does not matter very much if 
 there is this delay in our great work."
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 83 
 
 ''Oh, not at all," said Don Eugenio, as he rose 
 laboriously to his feet; we had been obliged to sit 
 upon the floor. "Oh, not at all," said he, "I have 
 the hunger which Cervantes speaks of when he says 
 in the Novelas Exemplares that there are all sorts 
 of things in the world, and perhaps hunger drives 
 ingenious men to things which are not on the chart." 
 My master rubbed his hands most cheerfully and made 
 a step towards the door. 
 
 But Don Arcadio did not move. It never struck 
 me more than at that instant how much he was like 
 one of those statues which we raise in Mexico for 
 generals or statesmen and which look as if they are 
 the monuments of men who have not been alive. 
 
 "Perhaps," said Don Arcadio, "it would be well to 
 start at the beginning and explain to you precisely 
 what this admirable science of geology has taught us." 
 
 "Judging from those rays there of the sun," quoth 
 Don Eugenio, "and not to mention other indications, 
 I am pretty sure that it is time for dinner." 
 
 "Yes," said Don Arcadio, very earnestly, "it is the 
 time for dinner. And I was myself upon the point of 
 talking of the rays. As they pass through the air they 
 do not heat it of a sudden or directly, but they heat 
 the land and the sea, which absorb some of the rays 
 and reflect others and so warm the air in contact with 
 them. But, as you will comprehend, the land and 
 sea do not absorb and reflect the heat rays in the same 
 fashion or to the same extent; nor do the sun's rays 
 fall equally or constantly on all portions of tJie earth's 
 surface. So then, from various causes, onf. part of 
 the earth is always being warmed in a different way 
 from other parts." He paused. 
 
 "My dear sir," said Don Eugenio, "I believe you 
 said that you would tell me, with this famous science
 
 84 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 of yours, exactly what is in the earth, so that we may 
 ascertain exactly what is in ourselves who live upon 
 the earth. Weil, it is my opinion that if you begin 
 with the sun and his rays your program will take you 
 a considerable time." 
 
 "The sun as an abode of life," said Don Arcadio, 
 "we may at once put out of the question." 
 
 "God be thanked!" said Don Eugenio. "And let 
 us talk about the rest of it this afternoon." He threw 
 an arm round the thin Noahcite, and off they went 
 together. 
 
 I went after them, as did Faustino. On the way, 
 so far as I could make it out, my master and the 
 Noahcite were talking simultaneously, but yet they 
 did not seem to be at all angry with each other. I 
 believe the Noahcite was talking of that ancient map 
 on which he had spent all the morning. 
 
 Thus we descended the stairs and passed across the 
 sunny courtyard and had reached the long, dark pas- 
 sage of the house, when suddenly I heard the Noah- 
 cite stop and exclaim: "It is the truth that I am seek- 
 ing, and no less ! The truth about . . ." 
 
 "Do me the favor!" quoth Don Eugenio. 
 
 And they proceeded. Into the large hall they came, 
 and as we followed them I was astonished when the 
 silent one who walked with me, his hand on mine, 
 began with that very hand to cross himself, and when 
 I asked him what the reason was he said that always 
 before Don Arcadio ate his dinner it was the habit of 
 him, his servant, to do this. "Oh, that he may be 
 saved!" murmured Faustino. 
 
 "But is anybody going to poison him?" I asked, 
 because he was not one of those wicked priests from 
 Spain nor a tax-gatherer nor anything like that. 
 
 "I am not a very good cook," said Faustino. "Be-
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 85 
 
 fore I came here I was other things and never a cook. 
 And now I am here, as you see, and gradually he has 
 sent away his other servants and so for several years 
 I have been the cook." 
 
 Faustino did not speak rapidly; by the time he had 
 told me all this we were nearly in the dining-room. 
 That he should take me so into his confidence made me 
 tremendously excited, and I had to ask him to go on, 
 to tell me what he had been. I felt sure that it was 
 something most mysterious. 
 
 ''Oh, well," said Faustino. 
 
 "Do you see Don Eugenio?" I whispered. "He was 
 brought up to be a smuggler." 
 
 But even this did not arouse in him the spirit of 
 emulation. "I was an orphan," said he. 
 
 "What did you do?" I entreated. 
 
 I must have spoken loudly, for the Noahcite, who 
 was already in his place, with Don Eugenio beside 
 him, turned his head round and gazed at me. His 
 astonished look was so soon melted into one of amuse- 
 ment that when he asked me what I wanted to know 
 I found myself courageous enough to answer him. 
 
 "What was he long ago?" I blurted out, as I pointed 
 to Faustino. "He won't tell me the truth," I com- 
 plained, 
 
 "Aha!" laughed Don Eugenio, "there is another one 
 who is like your worship and seeks for the truth!" 
 
 "And why not, why not indeed?" exclaimed the 
 Noahcite. "Sir," said he, "I fail to understand you." 
 And he motioned me that I should sit down on the 
 chair which was opposite my master. 
 
 "Pray do not imagine that I am a cynic," said my 
 master. "I can hate excellently well, and one sort of 
 person whom I do hate is the cynic. Let me make it 
 clear why I was laughing: I believe it is ridiculous
 
 86 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 to go in search of truth. You may go searching, but, 
 as that old writer Gongora would say, it is longer 
 than a winter's night for a man who is ill-wed." 
 
 "Your illustration," said the Noahcite, "is to me, 
 I must confess, not more attractive than your the- 
 ory." 
 
 "Oh, I can give you another," said Don Eugenio. 
 "We are all of us, it seems to me, in a great forest, 
 and it is our business to hew a path on which others 
 may walk pleasantly or, if that is beyond us, to walk 
 ourselves along some path which is already made, 
 and in either case to let our demeanor be a modest 
 one. My sympathy is not with those wayfarers who 
 continually dart away to this side, to that side, and 
 shout that they have found the truth because of a 
 strange brilliance on the bark of some tree or the 
 pretty colors of a leaf which hitherto they never 
 noticed or some unusual radiance of the sun which 
 dazzles them. One and all of them persist in declaring 
 that they have found the truth, and what they have 
 done is to lengthen their path and sometimes to lose 
 the path altogether and, what is worse, to induce other 
 people to follow them." My master was leaning for- 
 ward with his arms on the table, and his flushed face 
 was quite near to that of the Noahcite. 
 
 "Sir," said our host, speaking very gravely, "it 
 affords me a profound delight to see you in my house. 
 You have a mind, if I may say so, worthy to go 
 onward, onward in this grand adventure which engages 
 me. Of course your attitude is totally wrong, but 
 that we can change. It is so much easier to change 
 a man's attitude than his stature. Sir," he said, "I 
 will give myself the pleasure of drinking to you." And 
 he filled their two glasses. 
 
 Faustino had been standing patiently behind them
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 87 
 
 with a dish of hot meat; it was turkey, given us to 
 celebrate this day. 
 
 While my master helped himself the Noahcite ad- 
 dressed me. He was in a very good humor, and he 
 asked me whether I had not wanted to learn something 
 about Faustino's youth. The only thing, he said, 
 which he could think of — it was traditional in his 
 family — was an occasion when Faustino had been left 
 alone in the room with half a dozen oranges, and 
 when his mother came back he had eaten them all. 
 She was going to punish him, but he said that it was 
 not his fault; he was only a little boy and she ought 
 not to have left him alone with all that fruit. 
 
 Faustino was looking proud of himself. 
 
 And the Noahcite was smiling. "I am sorry," he 
 said, "that I can't tell you anything else about the 
 youth of my good friend Faustino; but why do you 
 want to know? Are you going to write a book about 
 him?" 
 
 By this time Faustino had placed a portion of turkey 
 in front of me, and from behind the smoke of it I 
 ventured to say, but very shyly, to the Noahcite that 
 I would so like to know what Faustino had been. 
 "My father," I explained, "is a breeder of fighting- 
 cocks, and Faustino won't tell me what he was." 
 
 Don Arcadio made a sign to him that he was to 
 take out the dish to Maria, and, after he was gone, 
 said to me in the kindest way that for the future I 
 should have my meals with Maria and Faustino. "I 
 apprehend,", said he, "that the conversation of myself 
 and Don Eugenio, whatever it may fail to achieve, 
 would assuredly do harm to your digestion. Now, 
 about Faustino — ^he used to occupy himself in selling 
 lottery-tickets here in Jalapa, and I bought them from 
 him and so did my father and my brother, who have
 
 88 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 both been dead for many years. Faustino used to 
 oblige me, I can tell you, to buy his tickets, and we 
 sometimes amuse ourselves nowadays by acting those 
 old episodes over again. You see," said the Noahcite, 
 as he turned with an apologetic smile to Don Eugenio, 
 "I have to take a little relaxation from my work." 
 
 "You are perfectly right," said Don Eugenio, "and 
 is that why you have Faustino for your servant?" 
 
 "It was like this," said Don Arcadio. "The man 
 is of such honest stuff that he would not allow his 
 own people, the poor Indians, to buy tickets. He 
 knew that every one is far more likely to lose than 
 to win, and therefore he would only sell to the people 
 who, in his opinion, had sufficient money. There was 
 very seldom an attractive entertainment at Jalapa — 
 apart from the secular festivities of carnival and the 
 more religious orgies, perhaps a company of players 
 would give us a half-hearted performance on their 
 way to the capital — yet for me the best entertainment 
 was to watch Faustino, usually in the plaza. But 
 whenever he caught sight of me he tried to make me 
 buy a ticket. His methods were altogether original, 
 so that my defense was nearly always pierced, and — 
 well, at last I thought it would cost me less if I took 
 him from the plaza and gave him a place in my house- 
 hold, and now he is the only one. As I said, we still 
 from time to time play our old skirmishes over again. 
 Ah, yes," he sighed, "I wish I had more leisure, I wish 
 I had not wasted all those years when I was studying 
 a thousand things, instead of dedicating every moment 
 to this most august of sciences." 
 
 "As soon as I saw Faustino," said my master, "I 
 had a feeling for him. And what a cook!" 
 
 Don Arcadio had become entirely serious again. 
 "With regard now to the composition of the earth,"
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 89 
 
 said he, "you will be much astonished when I tell 
 you." 
 
 "Excuse me," said my master, "but if you know 
 all about it why do you continue toiling at this science 
 of yours and also inviting me to do so? Even if 
 your knowledge is not absolutely perfect, I can assure 
 you, my dear sir, on the authority of Fontanes that 
 the desire for perfection is the worst disease that ever 
 afflicted the human mind." 
 
 The Noahcite repressed his impatience and in a dig- 
 nified tone informed my master that alas! he knew as 
 yet very little, but even that little would astonish a 
 thoughtful man. "I must ask you to forgive me," 
 said he, "if in this matter of the composition of our 
 earth I do not start at the beginning. But I promise 
 you faithfully that I will begin at the most remote 
 period with which I am acquainted." 
 
 "On the other hand," interrupted Don Eugenio, 
 "would it not be saving a considerable amount of 
 trouble, to both of us, if you simply say that the 
 world was made by God? There it is, at any rate. 
 And then you can discuss the water and the air and 
 all that." 
 
 Don Arcadio drew himself up to his full height 
 and, in an awe-inspiring voice, he said: "This God of 
 yours who is reputed to have made the world, I pull 
 him down from his seat. I am sorry," he added, "but 
 I am compelled to do so." 
 
 At this moment Faustino returned, bearing a large 
 tray on which v/as one of those fish they send up from 
 Veracruz and a highly-seasoned mess of chicken and 
 a plate of our beautiful fruit and bottles of Hungarian 
 wine, which Don Arcadio must have had from an 
 official of the Emperor. I noticed that my master took 
 a portion of the steaming fish and of the chicken with
 
 90 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 scarcely a look at them, and when Faustino had poured 
 him out some of the wine and he had drunk it his 
 lips were compressed for a little, but he was evidently 
 not thinking of the silvery wine. 
 
 Don Arcadio would have nothing else to eat or 
 drink. "By asserting that your God is responsible 
 for the world, which is a grievous responsibility," said 
 he, "you do not absolve yourself from the urgent need 
 of knowing how He made it. And this is what I 
 propose to investigate. But if in this act of making 
 there should be some features that repel us, some 
 terrible . . ." 
 
 "Oh, you need not imagine that I shall rise up in 
 arms," said Don Eugenio. "I am a Christian, at least 
 I was educated in a seminary, but it is not in my 
 nature to be fanatical, and I can only hope, in all 
 humility, that God will pardon me. Amen. What 
 you said about pulling Him down from His seat has 
 reminded me of that abominable fellow who consid- 
 ered himself to be of extreme grandeur on account of 
 his extreme wealth. When he died he presented him- 
 self at the gate of heaven, but, before he could knock, 
 Saint Peter opened it and besought him to enter. 'We 
 have all heard about you,' said the Saint. 'Come in, 
 come in at once.' Near the gate of the second heaven 
 there stood an archangel with his luxuriant wings softly 
 opening and shutting for delight. 'How good of you 
 to come,' said he. 'We have been looking forward 
 to this for many years.' And at the gates of the third 
 and the fourth and the fifth and the sixth heavens 
 it was just the same, and at the portal of the seventh 
 heaven who but the Almighty should come hurrying 
 up, and 'Pray, my dear friend, do step in,' He begged. 
 'I — I fear I've been sitting on your seat.' " 
 
 The Noahcite laughed.
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 91 
 
 "And yet," said Don Eugenio reproachfully, "you 
 will not believe that there is a God." 
 
 When the Noahcite had finished laughing, which he 
 did with a series of jerks, he wiped a tear from his eye 
 and again addressed my master, this time with an air 
 of great reasonableness. "I do not regret," quoth he, 
 "that before we set seriously to work we should permit 
 ourselves to dally with this rather unimportant ques- 
 tion as to whether God does or does not exist. It is 
 more than unimportant, it is vexatious, seeing that 
 each race of men have made themselves a God more 
 or less in their own image — those who are worshiped 
 by some of the savage tribes are certainly less power- 
 ful than is a civilized man. So there are Gods of 
 all conditions — your God is not as my God — and how 
 then are we to discuss as to whether God exists? My 
 dear colleague," said he, leaning forward and laying 
 his hand upon that of Don Eugenio, "will you not 
 allow us to pass on?" 
 
 My master was very thoughtful, and then, with the 
 most gentle smile breaking out upon his countenance, 
 he said that in his faith there was only one God and 
 that, although he had been taught that it is necessary 
 to drag down the gods of savages, yet are these not the 
 same as our God, inasmuch as they are the most lofty 
 of aspirations? "And if this idea of God be nothing 
 but a dream," said my master, "let us cling to it since 
 it is beautiful." 
 
 As for me, when my dear master spoke these words, 
 which were outside my understanding, I felt as if I 
 would have kissed his feet. 
 
 "It may well be," said the Noahcite, "that you have 
 not had occasion to live with any savage race. We 
 in this country possess, far away to the south, a people 
 who are a thousand times more degraded than — than
 
 92 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 Faustino, for instance. Is that not so, Faiistino?" 
 Faustino was behind the Noahcite, looking with ad- 
 miration at the top of his head. And he answered, 
 "Oh, assuredly," and his expression did not change. 
 
 "There are men who are called wise," said the Noah- 
 cite, "and who, because they have had to reproach 
 these people for not tilling the soil and for not keep- 
 ing cattle, and for being unacquainted with metals 
 and for not even knowing how to make a fire and 
 for not troubling to clothe themselves, except with a 
 paste of clay which, when it dries, is turned into a 
 sort of hard shell, and for having very elementary tools 
 of stone or wood, these wise men see fit also to re- 
 proach them for having elementary gods. I must say, 
 Don Eugenio, that I prefer your attitude. . . . But 
 at the same time I must say that all our Gods are 
 different, and that yours of the seminary is not like 
 mine, because he created the world. As you are not a 
 fanatic you will not be angry with me, I am sure, 
 if I say that I cannot help thinking that my God is 
 higher than yours and more perfect, because he did 
 not create anything. You will reject, even as I do, 
 that proverb of an heroic but unphilosophic people 
 which says: 'God is not sinless; he created the world.' 
 But I reject it because the God they mean is not my 
 God, for whom there is no time nor space, but Jehovah 
 who rejoiced in the smell of slaughtered animals. And, 
 by the way, the name of Jehovah or Jahwe, which 
 means 'He who causes to be,' was applied to the 
 national deity before the arrival of Moses — the name 
 of his mother is compounded with it — so that those 
 early Jews knew better than to say that it was God 
 who created the world, for you cannot create except 
 in space and time. Moses also knew very well that 
 the ten commandments were not inspired by God, so
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 93 
 
 that he ascribed them to Jehovah; and perhaps it is 
 due to this lesser authority being behind them that 
 they have not been more rigidly kept. 
 
 ''You perceive that even if this Jehovah is not God 
 he is nevertheless regarded to be in the enjoyment of 
 considerable powers, and notably those powers of crea- 
 tion whose effect it was needful for me to observe. 
 I was accustomed to picture him to myself as with a 
 gigantic blow detaching from the parent nebula a 
 brilliant globe of flame, which he sent whirling, whirl- 
 ing through centuries. And I liked to think of him 
 being glad as he brooded over it and saw that in the 
 cold fields of space the gases were condensing and 
 that it was gradually becoming partly liquid and partly 
 gas, and then, after millions of years, observing how 
 the first crust of solid matter began to form on the 
 liquid surface. All this and very much more I used 
 to put down to the prowess of Jehovah. Is it then 
 surprising that I revered him? And you will under- 
 stand my grief when I discovered that he was a myth. 
 To-day I have alluded to him in the old fashion, as 
 I used to do, but now he has become for me no more 
 than a personage of folk-lore. And I am convinced 
 that if Moses had had at his disposal such collections 
 of traditional beliefs and popular superstitions and 
 tales and legends as we have, and if he had not been 
 dealing with a semi-barbarous people he would have 
 announced that Jehovah did not live on the top of 
 Mount Sinai, but in folk-lore. Moses was sagacious 
 enough to see that one could not appeal to that people 
 through their knowledge of the nature of things, be- 
 cause they did not possess such knowledge. If that 
 eminent man were living now I am sure he would 
 not claim that in his case there had been any more 
 inspiration than in the cases of other good law-makers.
 
 94 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 He was prudent but uninspired, for the ten command- 
 ments contain only such fundamental rules of conduct 
 as would suggest themselves to man at a very early 
 stage, and the so-called Mosaic account of creation 
 does not, despite the theologians, display any super- 
 human wisdom in the order in which the things are 
 said to have been produced; the writer is merely not 
 stupid enough to create the herbivorous animal be- 
 fore the plants on which it feeds, or the fishes before 
 the sea in which they swim. Moses was what you 
 would call a sane person, one who is glad to have the 
 sensation that the ground is firm under his feet. 
 
 "Now, before I bid farewell to Jehovah, let me say 
 that, of course, there is no merit in the fact that I am 
 living at this hour when the generations of laborious 
 and brilliant men have placed at my disposal their 
 researches into folk-lore. But I would give a great 
 deal if for a moment I could come face to face with 
 Moses. I believe that he would be interested, that 
 the eyes in his majestic head would twinkle and that 
 he would listen gravely while I told him how, to my 
 sorrow, Jehovah had become to me no more than a 
 thick cloud. Were you not loth yourself, Don Eu- 
 genio, to lose Little Red Riding-Hood when they told 
 you that she is the dawn, while the wolf which eats 
 her, like the black cow which swallows Tom Thumb, 
 is a personification of the night? And as for Je- 
 hovah . . ." 
 
 "Let me make a confession," said my master. "It 
 is this: they never told me what you have just laid 
 down. And I should be grateful if you will allow 
 me to retire and meditate." He rose from the table. 
 
 "In one word," said Don Arcadio, "the characters 
 in folk-lore are the same as the characters in Aryan 
 mythology."
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 95 
 
 My master was striding to the door and I got up 
 to follow him. But just as I reached him he turned 
 round and said to our host that he appreciated very 
 much all that he had so kindly told him, and he un- 
 derstood that Jehovah was a thick cloud, something 
 as to which he need no longer trouble. 
 
 Then the Noahcite rose also in his place and looked 
 at Don Eugenio with some concern. One hand he 
 rested on the back of his chair and the other hand he 
 lifted up in warning. 
 
 "But even if we discard Jehovah there is no doubt," 
 said he, "but that our earth was made. How was 
 it made? Every people has its own cosmogony, that 
 is to say, its own method of conceiving the origin and 
 the formation of the world. But the traditions on 
 this subject which have been handed down to us are, 
 beyond all argument, mere myths. They relate an 
 occurrence at which no human being was present, and 
 with regard to which there is no documentary evi- 
 dence whatever. And when did human beings first 
 begin to make these myths? Tell me, do you think 
 that the primeval savage ever pondered as to how the 
 world originated? He was a child who holds that 
 everything has always been as he now sees it. And 
 the cosmogonies, which in effect are nature speaking 
 through human nature, did not start for a very long 
 time." 
 
 "If you are going to describe to me all the cosmog- 
 onies," said my master, "then . . ." He grasped the 
 handle of the door and turned it resolutely, but the 
 door would not open. 
 
 Don Arcadio came a step or two nearer. "No," 
 he said, "I do not intend to do any such thing. But 
 as to nature speaking through the earliest human na- 
 ture, I suppose the reproductive processes were those
 
 96 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 which had the first attraction for our distant, long- 
 forgotten ancestors. I should suppose that their ac- 
 count of the world's origin would appear to us a gross 
 and flamboyant indecency, not amusing, but pitiable." 
 
 My master threw all his weight against the door. 
 A crash, a shriek . . . and we saw that on the other 
 side of it was Maria. She must have been told by 
 Faustino that we should all of us remain for a long 
 time in the dining-room, because she had put herself 
 as close as she possibly could to the door; and when 
 Don Eugenio flung it open she and the chair capsized 
 together; so she lay there with her garments every- 
 where but where they ought to be. Quickly she 
 clutched her skirt, cast it back again to its proper 
 position, and, while she still lay on the floor, she ex- 
 claimed, "May I be blessed! Did you ever see the 
 like before?" 
 
 "No, in good faith," said my master, "except once 
 at Madrid." 
 
 Then as we three climbed up the stairs together, 
 Don Eugenio pinched her lovely cheek a little and 
 informed her gaily that they both had suffered, she 
 in one way, he in another, but that after their siesta 
 they would be quite well again. And he said that 
 I, on this occasion, could lay me down in the same 
 room, as he wished to talk to me. 
 
 "My legs do not hurt very much," said Maria, but 
 she stopped to rub them. 
 
 Don Eugenio looked anxiously down towards the 
 dining-room door, afraid less the Noahcite should come 
 up after us. And then he urged Maria to have courage 
 and proceed. He put his arm round her waist. And 
 as they moved on he told her, in the most fatherly 
 way, that he would help her. 
 
 She began to laugh. "You talk," she said, "as if
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 97 
 
 you were a doctor. But I have always been a poor 
 Indian girl, and, by the Grace of God, we do not 
 want doctors." 
 
 "My child," said he, "if I were still at Zaragoza, 
 serving in the bishop's admirable library and making 
 my researches for the 'life' of Saint Eugracia, it is 
 probable that I could, if necessary, have assisted you 
 more than a mere surgeon. Know that the oil of 
 some of Saint Eugracia's lamps can heal a tumor in 
 the neck, while that which burns in front of the Virgen 
 del Pilar is capable of restoring a lost leg. And if the 
 saint had declined to work one of these miracles for 
 me, her faithful biographer, then for whom would she 
 have performed them?" 
 
 Maria pressed herself more closely against him. 
 "Oh, I am glad," quoth she, "that you are not at 
 Zaragoza." 
 
 Don Eugenio said that he would postpone the con- 
 versation with me. Let me go into the plaza, said 
 he, and perhaps find a boy to play with. And any- 
 how, I had done sufficient work for the first morning. 
 
 As they went away from me I heard Maria ask 
 some question about the Bishop of Zaragoza, and 
 from her voice I think she was envious of the regard 
 which my master still seemed to have for him. 
 
 And I saw that my master was looking at her and 
 was making his ruddy face as stern as he could. "And 
 there are people," said he, "who revere the venerable 
 Palafox, Archbishop of Zaragoza, who advised the 
 faithful never to look a woman in the face and never 
 to speak to one of them without pressing into his 
 bosom a cross garnished with iron points, so that 
 temptation be opposed by pain." 
 
 I did not hear him say anything else.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 Early on the next day Don Eugenio and I were in 
 our room above the stable. It had meanwhile been 
 provided with some furniture, but Don Eugenio was 
 not much pleased to find that Roger Bacon's treatise 
 was the only written thing of any sort which it 
 contained. He said that probably the Noahcite, in 
 whose collection were such fascinating books, desired 
 him to give all his energies to this one volume, one, 
 moreover, which related to a subject he knew naught 
 about and wanted to still less. He laughed as he 
 declared that in his numerous vicissitudes he never 
 once had been associated with a personage like Don 
 Arcadio. But he and I must not forget, said he, that 
 if this most extraordinary man had not befriended us 
 we should be in a sorry plight, for he had come to the 
 conclusion — having talked with several of the natives 
 overnight — that beautiful Jalapa was no refuge for 
 the learned and, besides, the situation in the neigh- 
 borhood, what with the miscellaneous troops from 
 Europe and the Mexicans who said they would be true 
 to Maximilian and those others who were openly for 
 Juarez and the many who were for themselves, the 
 situation was unstable; and if, during a disturbance, 
 our protector should be slaughtered, we two, like the 
 wicked people of a tale, would perish miserably. But 
 for the time being, said my master, we stood in no 
 imminent peril, for which we ought to thank the 
 soldiers of all parties, and we were not obliged to beg 
 from nor to steal from the uncultured populace, for
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 99 
 
 which we must be grateful to the Noahcite, even if he 
 did insist on pouring geology into us. 
 
 "However, up to the present," said Don Eugenio, 
 "he has dealt not so much with geology as with 
 God the Creator, whose existence, by the way, he 
 denies. But you observe, Juanito, that he could 
 hardly stop talking about Him, and this is a reasonable 
 proof that God exists. I have been told by men who 
 occupy themselves with such affairs that, so far as we 
 are concerned, there is nothing but our mind, that 
 if our mind had not named and weighed the star 
 Aldebaran, then Aldebaran would not exist. Of 
 course, I do not argue that Jehovah must be weighed; 
 we who meditate about Him are conscious of other 
 qualities and glorious attributes. And is it not our 
 triumph that the wretched fellow who denies Him 
 cannot keep Him from his mind, which clearly shows 
 that even for this Noahcite our God exists? . . . 
 However, I did not intend that we should talk about 
 this side of Don Arcadio." 
 
 "Oh, yes," I said enthusiastically, "our God exists. 
 He wrote those books in our church, because there is 
 so much in them about Himself." 
 
 And Don Eugenio smiled. 
 
 It was impossible to be afraid of my dear master, 
 and I asked him to his face why he had not said all 
 these things to Don Arcadio in the dining-room, when 
 Don Arcadio said, I was sure he said it, that there is 
 no God. 
 
 "You are a good boy and a faithful one," said my 
 master, looking rather sad. "If in my career I could 
 have always answered quickly, then I think," said he, 
 "that I should not have been so worsted in the strug- 
 gle .. . That is it," — now he was half talking to him- 
 self and with a mournful smile — "the cannon has to
 
 loo THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 answer to the cannon opposite ... I bring up mine 
 when all the enemy has ridden from the field." 
 
 I for my part wanted to put an end to his sadness. 
 And, as I did not know what to say, I said suddenly, 
 "Oh, yes, our God exists, Don Eugenio." 
 
 He gazed at me. "My son," he said very seriously, 
 "I can prove it in a multitude of ways, for instance, 
 through the xylocopa, a genus of solitary bees, who die 
 immediately after laying their eggs; at the moment 
 when these are hatched there does not survive a single 
 individual of the preceding generation, so that the 
 young do not learn by example how to conduct them- 
 selves. Besides, they are in so backward a condition 
 that examples would be of no use to them. They have 
 as yet neither eyes nor feet; they are worm-shaped 
 creatures whose existence for a whole year in a dark 
 lodging is the most sedentary you can imagine. 
 Nevertheless, as soon as they emerge, one sees them 
 hastening actively to work, not for the satisfaction of 
 their personal needs, but in order to make all those 
 preparations which are wanted for the welfare of the 
 generation which they will, in their turn, produce, and 
 which they will never see ... If their teacher is not 
 God then we will call him God . . . And now," said 
 Don Eugenio, "let us think about your own situation. 
 It may be that you yourself would not examine it with 
 care, since you are very young; and also you may be 
 inclined to look upon me as a sort of god, whose 
 wisdom and benevolence will help you always. 
 Juanito, what we must consider is if the advantages 
 you may derive from being here are greater than the 
 perils. And I need not say that if you have to leave 
 me I shall heartily regret it." 
 
 As for me, I think I merely stared at him. 
 
 "Dear child," said he, "you will be brave." He
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS loi 
 
 looked at me with such a brave light in his eyes that I 
 could not help feehng as if I were his one comrade in 
 some gallant exploit. "It is necessary that you should 
 go back at dawn to-morrow/' so he said, "to Colorado. 
 Senor Bias will take you in his coach. I have arranged 
 it. Also, if your parents are willing that you should 
 return, then Bias will bring you." 
 
 "But— but " I objected. 
 
 "But it has to be, my friend. Your father and 
 your mother must settle it between them if you are to 
 stay with me and learn the Latin language and some 
 of the miscellaneous information I have gathered in 
 the bishop's library and in the world. But your good 
 parents will have to recognize that we are living in 
 Jalapa at considerable risk. All the information 
 I can get goes far to show that Senor Bias was right in 
 warning me. The troops of Juarez may at any time 
 rush down upon us ... if there is fighting we may be 
 compelled, you and I, to join either one side or the 
 other, and they would show just as much regard for 
 our private preferences as they do for those of the 
 various Virgins whom they snatch up from the altars 
 and carry bombastically at the head of one of their 
 miserable armies. On the other hand, if there is no 
 fighting, our position will be more perilous, because I 
 imderstand that it is customary for them to have 
 ceremonies of joy and brotherhood, which begin badly 
 with enormous recitations by all the poets that can be 
 found, and conclude extremely badly with a drunken 
 salute of guns into any house they see, and this is one 
 of the largest in the town . . . Perhaps you think 
 that I exaggerate — I hope I do — but then, in your 
 little village, you have never seen such episodes as I 
 am told occur from time to time in the towns of this 
 country."
 
 I02 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 I had a sudden idea. "Senor," said I, "let us go to 
 Colorado, you and I and Maria." 
 
 But he shook his head. "Maria will do what she 
 likes, but I must remain," he said. "It is these books. 
 Where shall I find again on this side of the sea those 
 august volumes which I have already noticed? It 
 is probable that he possesses books I should not find 
 in any bishop's library of Spain, since he declares that 
 formerly he was, hke Albertus Magnus and Saint 
 Thomas Aquinas, a candidate for universal knowledge. 
 There will be books in velvet bindings, books in 
 canvas, satin, linen, buckram. There may be a book 
 or two whereof the famous libraries^ the Barberina, 
 the Bodleian, the Mazarine, the Riccardiana, and our 
 beloved little library of the Escorial, are ignorant. 
 We talked but yesterday about Mount Sinai — at the 
 bottom of it in the Convent of Saint Catherine it was 
 that Tischendorf, some twenty years ago, prevented 
 them from burning a large basket full of parchment 
 leaves — two baskets had already gone! — he found 
 that they were parts of the Old Testament in Greek 
 in an extremely old handwriting. And who knows 
 whether there is not some marvel which is lying in 
 oblivion here, since Don Arcadio neglects whatever 
 is not on geology? When he is dead I have the 
 deepest apprehensions for his books in such a country. 
 To abandon them at present would be the most 
 infamous and cowardly proceeding. 
 
 "This afternoon, when I have dined with Don 
 Arcadio, I shall manage, in conversation with him, 
 to walk by his side into that splendid room of books, 
 and gradually, as he becomes absorbed with his map, 
 or whatever else it may be, I shall escape his notice. 
 I shall glide away into a corner! I shall revel in the 
 great collection! . . . And thus, day by day I shall
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 103 
 
 hope to spend my time always less on this geology. 
 We shall see. But there are some words in that book 
 which, as you inform me, was written by God Himself: 
 'And the land had rest forty years'; and I assure you 
 that I hope it will be so in Don Arcadio's discourse. 
 
 "Oh," said he, "I can see what you are going to 
 say! What is the good of being killed in the midst 
 of these treasures instead of living safely at Colorado 
 or elsewhere? Well, if I am killed it would give me 
 pleasure to die in a fashion as noble as possible. 
 Should I not be like one of the soldiers of Sertorius, 
 Philopoemen, Brutus, or Csesar, a man richly and 
 sumptuously arrayed and therefore, in the opinion of 
 these sage commanders, more disposed to offer a great 
 resistance than would a soldier who is poorly fur- 
 nished? Such was also the reason, we are told, why 
 the Asiatic troops were wont to go campaigning with 
 their wives, their concubines, their jewels, and what- 
 ever they most cherished. I remain among these 
 books . . . Some day, Juanito, you may feel your 
 body thrill in the delighted contemplation of a manu- 
 script. Then you will know how exquisite and how 
 divine a joy we mortal men are capable of bearing. 
 You will grieve for those misguided ones who let their 
 bodies thrill with passion. What will be the end of 
 these? There was a wise man, Juanito, who pro- 
 claimed that there is no more potent antidote to 
 vicious ways than the adoration of beauty. And, 
 I ask you, what beauty can there be on earth, what 
 beauty of woman to compare with an illuminated 
 book of hours on vellum? Look for a moment at the 
 specimen we have at Zaragoza, with the text in golden 
 letters and the pages garlanded and wreathed with 
 an infinity of subjects, animals and men, comic and 
 capricious and satirical and in most handsome colors.
 
 104 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 I will ask a decent citizen to tell me if his happiness 
 will not be more enduring in the company of such a 
 glory than with one of those complaisant girls . . . 
 And now," said he, "we can do some work. I cannot 
 undertake, like Roger Bacon, to teach a willing pupil 
 Hebrew or Greek, no, not even Latin, in three days, 
 but that is no reason why we should not work this 
 morning." 
 
 So he put the manuscript on the table before us, 
 and at the top of the first page he bade me read the 
 words: "Pars quinta compendii studii theologie." 
 He drew his plump finger along the red line which was 
 underneath these words and I looked at them very 
 carefully. They were brown and all the rest of the 
 page was brown, except some large letters which were 
 red, and at the side of the page were things written 
 here and there. I was looking all over the page, but 
 my master told me to read the first words again, and 
 then he told me what they signified and in that way 
 I had soon learned five words of Latin , . . We 
 worked until Faustino came and told my master that 
 it was the hour for him and Don Arcadio to dine. He 
 said that Don Arcadio was seated in the dining-room. 
 
 My master left me and — perhaps in order to escape 
 as much as possible the bitterness of parting — showed 
 himself no more until, at dawn of the next day, I was 
 about to sally from the house. He stayed a long time 
 in the dining-room with Don Arcadio, while in another 
 room I let Maria talk to me. And she did not cease 
 with her cheerful talking as Faustino came and went. 
 But I could no more answer to her mood than if I 
 had been built of stone. 
 
 When Don Eugenio and the Noahcite had gone into 
 that large room of the map, Maria took me out with 
 her into the streets. We wandered up and down, but
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 105 
 
 1 was very wretched, till ... At twilight we returned 
 to Don Arcadio's house and vaguely I was feeling glad 
 that it was darker, since the darkness was like me, 
 and as Maria saw that I was not so miserable she was 
 very pleased, although she did not say so; but she put 
 her hand in mine. 
 
 We found that Don Eugenio and the Noahcite were 
 still in that same room, and straightway she and I — 
 as if a voice was ordering us — went, hand in hand, 
 again into the street. 
 
 As we walked down the hill we came past people 
 who had brought their rocking-chairs out to the pave- 
 ment. There they sat and swayed. I should have 
 liked to tell them who I was, and that at daybreak 
 I was going on a journey by myself. But they con- 
 tinued swaying to and fro, they let the cigarette smoke 
 curl out of their mouths, and none of them knew that 
 their glowing cigarettes were nothing in comparison 
 with the great fire which burned within me. How I 
 pitied them! 
 
 At the bottom of the street there was a little bridge, 
 and after that we came into the country road. It was 
 so dark . . . the two rows of high trees were black 
 . . . and you could scarcely see the road. We 
 stopped to listen . . . there was nothing but the 
 insects whirring over the dim fields . . . Maria's hand 
 was hurting me ... I would have kissed her, but I 
 did not dare to look at her . . . we stumbled hand in 
 hand across a field ... it was not dark enough . . . 
 we hurried on . . . my dear, dear Maria sighed . . . 
 and at the end of another field the ground fell 
 sharply ... a few more steps and then we stopped 
 . . . there was a stream or a small river at the foot of 
 the slope and we were in the long, thick grass . . . 
 
 On the way back she was vowing by the saints in
 
 io6 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 Paradise that if I stayed at Colorado she would surely 
 come there too. And always, always she would follow 
 me. Her arm was round my neck, pressing me against 
 her. And I tried to keep her hair away from my face.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 I DO not know how long into the night my master 
 had remained with Don Arcadio, but they were waiting 
 for me in the hall when I came down the staircase. 
 There they sat together in long cloaks ; and indeed that 
 gloomy hall was cold. It would have been quite dark 
 but for the two fat candles they were holding. 
 
 "We have waited for you," said the Noahcite, in his 
 own solemn fashion. 
 
 "Come and embrace me," said my master. 
 
 Even as I did so, he could not prevent himself from 
 yawning. And the Noahcite was yawning too. 
 
 Don Eugenio handed me a letter, which I was to 
 give my parents. It explained, he said, the reason why 
 he was returning me. "And I have added," said my 
 master, "that you have made progress with your Latin 
 and that Don Arcadio and I appreciate your services. 
 Is that not so?" And as he turned towards the Noah- 
 cite he yawned again. 
 
 Our host was sitting with his eyes shut and his head 
 had fallen forward. Now he jerked himself into an 
 upright posture and he rubbed his eyebrow, which the 
 candle must have singed. 
 
 "Oh, certainly!" he cried. "I appreciate you very 
 much. What a beautiful night!" And then he sank 
 again into a happy sleep. 
 
 My master got up carefully and glided to the door — 
 he had no boots on — and with infinite precautions 
 opened it. He stooped to whisper, with a shrewd smile, 
 in my ear that he had scarcely paid more heed to the 
 
 107
 
 io8 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 Noahcite's harangues and arguments and absurdities in 
 that room there than Faustino at this moment. And 
 he pointed to Faustino sleeping in his old place at the 
 door of Don Arcadio's room. 
 
 "The consequence has been," my master said, 
 "that we have grown quite fond of one another. Now 
 good-by, dear child. May God protect you. And 
 remember that there is a God. The words of that 
 old reprobate have no more life than water in a 
 ditch." 
 
 I kissed his hand impetuously and I hastened out, 
 with my small bundle underneath one arm. The 
 street was empty. I strode up towards the plaza 
 where the coach would be. But I could not help look- 
 ing back and there my master stood beside the door — 
 his candle seeming very strange — while at her window 
 stood Maria, making diverse signals that she wished 
 me well. I waved my hand, I hurried on again. 
 
 The coach was being driven round the plaza by a 
 boy who was not older than myself, and Seiior Bias in 
 his great cloak was striding up and down with some 
 one else who had a cloak drawn up across his chin, and 
 they were talking very earnestly. Some half-awakened 
 passengers stood in a group beside their luggage, and 
 the sweetmeat-seller asked them if they would have a 
 refreshing drink or flavored snow. But they were 
 angry with him. And the boy who drove the coach 
 got up and cracked his whip and shouted at the mules, 
 who went on walking round the plaza. I could see the 
 passengers consult with one another; yet they did not 
 like to interrupt the talk of Senor Bias, because it evi- 
 dently was most serious. And so they stamped their 
 feet and breathed into their hands and muttered. Then 
 the sweetmeat-seller told me that the day was ex- 
 cellent, he gave me a long piece of chocolate and
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 109 
 
 wished me a good journey. And at last the talk of 
 Senor Bias was done, he got on to the coach and called 
 me to sit next to him. When all the passengers had 
 either got inside the coach or climbed on with their 
 luggage to the top, Senor Bias addressed a word, as 
 I had often seen him, to the mules, and slowly they 
 began to pull. Yet I had to clutch the seat, for I had 
 never traveled on a coach before, and I was almost 
 shaken off. 
 
 The face of Seiior Bias was very grim, but when he 
 looked at me and saw how I was clinging to the seat 
 he smiled. 
 
 "Aha! they shall not save themselves," said he, "the 
 tyrants ! " 
 
 Then he ground his teeth, but went on smiling at 
 me. But I had no time to ask him what he meant, 
 because the houses which we passed were large and 
 small and blue and pink and gray — I had not seen this 
 portion of the town before — and flowers grew all over 
 them. We came past a Franciscan convent which was 
 very old; the monks inside were singing, so that 
 Seiior Bias began to sing a little. And a passenger, 
 who thought that now he would not be severe, began 
 to question him. 
 
 "I should be obliged, sefior," said the passenger, 
 "if you could tell me why the coach did not leave 
 earlier." 
 
 As Seiior Bias did not reply at once, another 
 passenger exclaimed that it was scandalous for 
 coaches to set out before the sun had made the air 
 warm. "I have traveled in all parts," said this one, 
 "I have been to Puebla by the coach, and from 
 Puebla I have been to Mexico itself, and as for 
 Cordoba I have on numberless occasions — Sir! I tell 
 you that I have spent many ounces of good gold on
 
 no THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 these coaches of yours, but as for leaving at barbaric 
 times I never found one such as this, and if I die of it, 
 then— I shall die." 
 
 Senor Bias made the long whip curl splendidly and 
 strike the neck of one of the front mules, just where 
 the flies had made an open wound. By this he showed 
 that he was meditating, and he sang so softly now that 
 I could scarcely hear him. 
 
 ''What a country we are in!" declared the first 
 passenger. 
 
 "That is it!" cried the second. 'T have not the 
 honor, sir, of knowing you, but with your permission 
 I agree with every word you say. What a country! 
 I have traveled in all parts of it. I have been to 
 Puebla and other places, but everywhere it is the same. 
 And there is no remedy." 
 
 By this time we were out beyond the houses; by the 
 road were aloes and banana-trees and chirimoyas, not 
 to mention other trees of which you cannot eat the 
 fruit. Some of the passengers tried with their hands 
 to catch the fruit, but now the mules were running 
 faster. Sefior Bias leaned forward, and as we came 
 near a tree of lemons he cut off a branch so grandly 
 with his whip that it fell right across the coach, and 
 everybody clapped their hands or said bravo. 
 
 "They are at the disposal of the gentlemen," said 
 Sefior Bias. "Come," said he, "let us throw aside our 
 cares and let us sing the Paloma. Who will sing with 
 me? One — two . . ." 
 
 Then he started, and I think we all were singing it. 
 And when we reached the end we sang it all again. 
 The passengers were so much comforted that one of 
 them — he who had traveled everywhere — said it was 
 the most perfect song of all the world. And that other 
 passenger said yes, it surely was; and fortunate, said
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS in 
 
 he, was the country which could produce a thing of 
 that sort. 
 
 "Let us sing it once again/' said Senor Bias. 
 
 "What this gentleman was saying/' quoth the first 
 passenger, "is nothing more than truth. It is there 
 on the surface, like the ducks. I say that in other 
 countries you may dig out of the earth more gold than 
 here in Mexico, but out of the gold come quarrels and 
 murders. And out of our song the Paloma come no 
 quarrels, no murder, no hatred." 
 
 Senor Bias and all of us began again that exquisite 
 and soothing melody. We passed a bare-legged, 
 grizzled vagabond, who took off his sombrero and 
 gazed up at us with the expression of a dog unjustly 
 hit. We clattered on and did not stop our singing, 
 but we threw into his hat or on the road some pieces 
 of small money and some chocolate and some lemons. 
 I believe we sang for more than a whole league and 
 certainly long after sunrise. Senor Bias shook off his 
 cloak, so did the passengers, and they were getting 
 friendlier and friendlier to one another and to Senor 
 Bias. They held out cigarettes to him, and when he 
 took them they were very glad; one passenger had 
 some cigars rolled up inside a vegetable leaf, and 
 saying only "Do me the favor," he put three or four 
 of them between myself and Seiior Bias. I seized 
 them as they were about to fall; we had to stop the 
 coach in order that they might be safely stowed in 
 Senor Bias's hat. So there was always something going 
 on, and I had very little leisure for the other things: 
 the women, now and then, with children on their backs, 
 the loaded strings of mules, the white and blue and 
 scarlet flowers hanging from the trees, but so high 
 that I could not reach them, and from time to time 
 a wooden cross with some initials on it, and then
 
 112 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 myrtle trees and palms and the green liquidambar, 
 and, far off^ between tliern one could see the moun- 
 tains that were in a haze already. I am sure I would 
 not have observed one-half of these things even if it 
 had not been for Senor Bias, Vv^ho likewise told me 
 of the wooden crosses which were often over friends 
 of his or enemies. 
 
 If this had not been my first journey in a coach, 
 perhaps I would have spent the day in thinking of my 
 master and Maria, and my parents and the others I 
 would see, and Don Arcadio and Faustino. But when 
 I was ready to remember them I was a little weary, 
 from .the jolting, and the dust was in my eyes, and it 
 was very warm. So I thought of them rather lan- 
 guidly, and as I dropped to sleep I seemed to hear my 
 master speaking to me very gently, saying that he 
 promised I should soon go back to him. And then I 
 seemed to have Maria walking with me hand in hand 
 — her w^ords were like the white flowers falling over 
 me — and then I knew she was far off, that I was rolling 
 further, further — and it was as if a knife was in me. 
 
 Senor Bias with his left hand pulled his cloak up to 
 my shoulders and said that we should be in a fine 
 large village in an hour. But we were not. For as 
 we bumped along a stretch of road that was no rockier 
 than the rest and which had holes not any larger, 
 suddenly one of the wheels collapsed and Senor Bias 
 made the mules stop. He and all of us got down, the 
 wheel was broken utterly, and after looking at it for 
 a little time he said this was no accident, that some one 
 in Jalapa had arranged the whole affair, and very 
 jovially he said that if there was a gentleman to whom 
 he owed some money he would pay him now. 
 
 The passengers knew very well what he was thinking 
 of; they hurried hither, thither, cursing, shouting,
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 113 
 
 giving orders, while their pistols glittered in the sun- 
 light. Senor Bias looked at the wheel and shook his 
 head, but no one else would look at it: one passenger 
 was crawling underneath his luggage in the coach, 
 another was behind a tree, two others simply ran a 
 few steps up the road^ then back again, not knowing 
 what to do. Senor Bias said that it would be possible 
 to mend the wheel if they would help him, but they 
 all said that it was no use, and why should they exert 
 themselves in vain? Then Senor Bias said that the 
 mules might have their dinner, and he gave it them. 
 He moved about as if he were at peace with all the 
 world, and then a passenger called out to him, and 
 in a bitter voice, that this was a good opportunity to 
 sing his dear Paloma. 
 
 "What a country!" said the passenger who was 
 inside the coach. "Alas, alas! what will happen to us? 
 And it is our ov^^n fault — we should have examined all 
 the wheels." 
 
 One of the two passengers who had been rushing 
 up and down the road exclaimed that this was not 
 the truth, because it was the Government's own fault. 
 The Government, said he, was weak. If it were strong 
 the bandits would be frightened. It is clear enough, 
 said he. 
 
 But that one who was in the coach said this was 
 something he could talk about, and very well. He 
 was excited. As it happened, this was just the very 
 subject, so he said, on which he had been meditating 
 many years, and he would be surprised if he knew less 
 about it than did other people. Should a country 
 have, or should it not have, a strong Government? 
 "That is what we are discussing, is it not, senor?" said 
 he. "And I will tell you that I am a barrister, ac- 
 quainted with the laws of Rome and other ancient
 
 114 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 countries, with the Spanish laws and with the French. 
 And I am altogether at your service." He was smiling 
 in a calm, triumphant way; and if he was uncom- 
 fortable in the coach he did not show it. 
 
 "Sefior," said the other one as he stood smiling also 
 and caressing his black beard, "I have not meditated 
 about all those things, for I am only a commercial man 
 of Veracruz; but I permit myself to say that in this 
 land the laws of Rome and France and all the others 
 flourish just as much as any of the laws of Mexico, 
 That is the kind of country that one has to live in!" 
 
 The other passengers and Sefior Bias and I collected 
 round this gentleman; that one who had been walking 
 with him up and down said that assuredly he had the 
 right on his side and he patted him upon the back. 
 
 The barrister asked in a loud voice for some 
 patience. "Do I understand," said he to the com- 
 mercial man, "that what you want is a strong 
 Government? I ask you nothing else." 
 
 They all replied in chorus that of course it should be 
 strong. And Sefior Bias held up his forefinger and 
 said the Government should be not only strong but 
 good. And we all murmured our applause. 
 
 The barrister did not seem disconcerted. Holding 
 himself at the window with his left hand, he held up 
 the other with the open palm towards us, and a look of 
 sympathy came over him. "It will be very easy for 
 me," he began, "to show you that it is the object of 
 the greatest men to make the Government more weak, 
 less capable of interfering with our liberty. There are, 
 relatively speaking, few things which we should allow 
 the Government to do. What can be more divine 
 than liberty? And, gentlemen, remember that by 
 Article No. 3 of our Constitution of 1857 it is pro- 
 mulgated to the whole world of the two Americas and
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 115 
 
 Europe that as soon as any slave shall set his foot 
 upon our soil he is a free man. What could be more 
 lofty, what could be a better proof that we^ beyond 
 all other countries, worship freedom? And you, gen- 
 tlemen, would lightly throw away our grandeur, you 
 would have us brought down to the level of those other 
 kingdoms, empires, and republics with their strong, 
 their interfering Governments, their Governments 
 which have no article like that one, for the simple 
 reason that they loathe the very words 'a free man.' 
 Is that not the case?" 
 
 He halted for no answer, but continued headlong: 
 "Plato said that there are States which have true 
 artists for their rulers, ruling in a spirit of unselfish- 
 ness, and States that wolfish rulers govern selfishly. 
 Wolfish men, unselfish men — that is how they rule us 
 if they have the power. And clearly men are much 
 more often of the first kind — they are as bad as God 
 made them, said Sancho Panza, and some of them a 
 good deal worse — so that generally men should not 
 have much power over other men. Indeed, a land 
 with a weak Government is very blessed." 
 
 "And I suppose," said Sefior Bias, "that one with 
 two or three weak Governments, all at the same time, 
 is more blessed?" 
 
 "When we come to Rome," said the barrister, and 
 in a louder voice, "what do we find? The people of a 
 single town were governing the world. Will anybody, 
 here or elsewhere, contradict me when I say that this 
 was a superb material success and also of the spirit, 
 for a man was proud to boast, 'Civis Romanus sum'? 
 No success indeed could have been greater, and the 
 Government was weak. Yes, it was very weak, 
 because the people wielded it and not a single man or 
 any clique. That was the time of glory . . , Later on
 
 ii6 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 the Government was strengthened, for the generals 
 placed themselves above the people and one general 
 above his fellows. So the Government was strong, 
 supported by the army; and as a result all freedom 
 everywhere was crushed beneath the Roman military 
 despotism." 
 
 It was in the middle of the barrister's oration that a 
 splendid cavalier had joined us. He did not dismount, 
 but guided his young foaming stallion near enough for 
 him to hear the speech; and at the end of it this 
 gentleman removed his hat and bowed to all the 
 others. Sefior Bias and he had evidently met before; 
 but no one else was smiling, and the cavalier composed 
 himself as he looked round and bowed again, and said 
 he trusted that they would not let him interrupt them. 
 
 "By no means," said the barrister. "And I believe, 
 sir, you are interested in this argument which turns 
 upon the question as to whether it is preferable for a 
 Government to be a weak thing or a strong one." 
 
 The commercial man broke in. "A traveler," said 
 he, "of such distinction must assuredly be with us. It 
 is only a strong Government which can protect a 
 citizen who is so richly garbed; and I am sure you 
 often must have wished to be in countries where the 
 people are protected. Why, your silver spurs, to men- 
 tion nothing else, must cause you terrible anxiety." 
 
 The cavalier replied in a most graceful way to both. 
 He said that he entreated them to talk as if he were 
 not there at all. In these high matters he was very 
 ignorant, as yet. 
 
 "Oh, well," said Seiior Bias, "I know some naughty 
 brigands who believe they flourish here because our 
 Government is weak. Is that not so, my friend? And 
 what a ludicrous mistake!" 
 
 "Never," said the cavalier most courteously, "no,
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 117 
 
 never shall I contradict you. But I should be really 
 glad to learn, most estimable Seiior Bias, why it is 
 such a ludicrous mistake." 
 
 'Then I will tell you, Don Fernando." 
 
 There was something in their voices which caused 
 everybody else to listen quite attentively — the bar- 
 rister, who now was leaning far out of the window, 
 and the bearded man, the other couple and myself. 
 
 "Bueno, in this country," said Senor Bias, "the 
 people are of such a sort that even if the Government 
 were strong the brigands would accomplish their 
 desires. It is not possible for any Government to 
 get the better of them, with a people such as we are. 
 Always, always if a brigand or a soldier lays his hand 
 on something or on somebody there is no shadow of 
 resistance. In this way we Mexicans are made. That 
 a man should suffer is a good thing, but that he should 
 be prepared to suffer more is bad." 
 
 "What a country!" said the barrister. 
 
 "It will not cease from effervescing or it will not 
 effervesce at all and both are bad, in my view," said 
 the man of commerce. 
 
 Senor Bias ignored the interruptions and proceeded: 
 "I will give you an example. In a farmstead were a 
 certain company of brigands who first overpowered 
 the men and afterwards went seeking for the women. 
 Two of these — a handsome girl and her decrepit 
 mother — had been hiding in the same room, but in 
 different cupboards. Well, they found the girl and 
 dragged her out and all that. Then they found the 
 mother and were dragging her out also when the girl 
 entreated them, with tears and piteous screaming, to 
 be merciful. She flung herself before the feet of one 
 of them and begged him that her mother should be 
 spared. But the mother was annoyed and curtly
 
 ii8 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 bade her daughter to be quiet. 'Say no more, you 
 foolish one,' quoth she. 'It is the fortune of war.' " 
 
 "And, gentlemen," said the cavalier, after they had 
 stopped laughing, "there is not another tale more true 
 than that one. It was at a farm near La Calera in 
 that pleasant region. I remember it as though it had 
 all happened to us yesterday. Gentlemen," said he, 
 with a vibration in his voice, "I beg that you will not 
 be rash." 
 
 Every one save Senor Bias, was pointing with his 
 pistol more or less in the direction of the cavaher. 
 And he seemed to be covering them all with his own 
 weapon. 
 
 "You were arguing," said he, "about the Govern- 
 ment, if it is better weak or strong. And Senor Bias, 
 my old friend, is of the opinion that a nation's 
 character is more important than the Government. 
 I am extremely interested in such thoughts, for I shall 
 some day, when it is more opportune, renounce this 
 undomestic life and I shall let myself become a 
 deputy — that is what I have ever placed before 
 myself. But as for Senor Bias, I think he has good 
 reason on his side. And I think there is something 
 else which is of more importance than a Government. 
 There is our holiest religion." 
 
 As he said these words he crossed himself, with that 
 same hand as held the pistol. Other hands among 
 the group of men were hesitating or spasmodically 
 imitating his, as if their owners had not got control of 
 them. 
 
 "It is religion," Don Fernando said, "which causes 
 me to come here by myself and not with any of my 
 comrades. We were on the outskirts of Jalapa when 
 we met a priest who was transporting the viaticum. 
 We saw him and his acolyte, who swung the incense;
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 119 
 
 naturally we dismounted, we knelt down upon the 
 road and prayed devoutly for the dying man to whom 
 the priest was going. We remained thus for a time 
 in ardent prayer that the sins of this man should be 
 all forgiven. There was yet, when we arose, a faint 
 smell of that incense in the air. With one accord we 
 said that this was not the day for any enterprise such 
 as we had intended. And, indeed, if we had perse- 
 vered with it I doubt if God would ever have protected 
 us again. So I have only come in order to relate what 
 has occurred and so that you can put away all your 
 anxiety." 
 
 "Hombre! that is kind of you," said Seiior Bias. 
 "Nay, more, I am at the disposal of your worships," 
 said the cavalier. "How can I serve you?" 
 
 He was very much in earnest, one could see, but 
 nobody made a suggestion. Some were frowning, some 
 were gazing at him in a stupid way. At last he said 
 that he would ride into the nearest place and bring us 
 back a wheel. He would go instantly, and it would 
 not be like that person of the proverb who went out for 
 wool and came back shorn. 
 
 The cavalier departed, and we stopped beside the 
 coach for several hours. At first they talked with 
 vehemence about the cavalier and Mexico and liberty 
 and other things. Then, as the sun beat down upon 
 the road, they got inside the coach and started playing 
 cards, and most of them became exasperated on ac- 
 count of their bad cards -and of the "heat and of the 
 cavalier's delay and of the big flies which the mules 
 attracted. Clearly Don Fernando had not found a 
 wheel in the first village or the second. And although 
 the passengers told Senor Bias that he would not return 
 at all, of course he came; but in the meantime I had 
 ample opportunity for thinking of the new, strange life
 
 I20 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 up at Jalapa, out of which I had been torn. And in 
 my hours of loneliness beside that road I grew more 
 desperate and yet more desperate in the resolve that I 
 would not remain at Colorado. You might just as well 
 command a boy to turn away from the procession of 
 a circus when he has beheld the marvelous beginning 
 of it. Later on I grew less violent, because I told 
 myself that if my parents tried to keep me I would 
 run away or take no food, or by some other method 
 show them that I was not to be hindered. 
 
 When the cavalier came back and had assisted us 
 to put the wheel on, he saluted us and rode away 
 towards Jalapa. As he went he sang, but rather 
 mournfully, the first few bars of the Paloma. 
 
 We, however, on the coach, refrained from singing, 
 for the mules were made by Seiior Bias to go so rapidly 
 that we were in extreme discomfort and in danger. 
 But although we went at such a speed it was entirely 
 dark when we arrived at Colorado. They were in so 
 great a hurry that they said good-by to me before 
 we got there, and as soon as I was on the ground they 
 rolled away. That was the last I saw of any of those 
 passengers. 
 
 There in the darkness of my village, as I struck out 
 for my parents' house, it seemed to me the dust 
 through which I had to walk was most barbaric after 
 those good cobbles of Jalapa. My poor parents, how I 
 pitied them! And in the large room of the house there 
 was my mother and with her Don Bartolme Robledo, 
 the old captain. I had flung myself against the door 
 impetuously; then I stopped — they were all blinking 
 at me: my poor mother, the old captain, and the candle. 
 
 But how different had been the flame upon my 
 master's candle, as he stood that morning in the cloak 
 and watched me leave him!
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 As I sank down at my mother's side and was em- 
 bracing her, she murmured incoherent words of love. 
 She pressed me very tightly to her. Then, while she 
 was crooning still, she touched me on the head and on 
 the shoulder and the arms, wherever she could reach, 
 because she was afraid that I was injured. 
 
 "What is the matter with him?" asked Don 
 Bartolme. 
 
 I told her that I was not hurt at all. 
 
 "No, no!" she said. "I am your mother and you 
 cannot hide it from me. This is what I always knew 
 would happen and I always told your father. I shall 
 tell him when he comes in from the shop, where he is 
 playing cards as usual with Gonzalez and the others. 
 It was very wrong of me to let you go with that man 
 who was fat and — and — tell me what they did to you." 
 
 In vain I tried to reassure her. But the Captain 
 presently had a most useful thought, when he said that 
 it would be well to give me food. He helped my 
 mother to prepare the meal, and then he sat down with 
 me, for he himself — my father being absent — had not 
 had his supper. I was so tired that I nearly fell 
 asleep while I was eating, and my mother rambled on : 
 
 "To come back at this hour of the night, as if he 
 were a thief! And he the son of Pedro, who is every- 
 where respected for the valiance of his fighting-cocks. 
 Why should our son return in this way? They have 
 not been good to him, or he has seen that all the world 
 is nothing but a snare, as the priest said. Don Bar- 
 
 121
 
 122 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 tolme, when I told the priest that Juanito in Jalapa 
 would be educated, he replied that it was good and 
 when I said he would obtain a high place with this 
 education the old priest said that all greatness is a 
 snare, as was perceived by warriors and noblemen who 
 had themselves enrolled^ the priest said, in the ranks 
 of Capuchins. Well then, said I, what is the use of 
 education? . . . Look at me, my son," she said, "it is 
 so plain that you are ill." 
 
 "What I know," said Don Bartolme, "is this, that 
 if they had provided him with such delicious beans he 
 would have kept his health intact." The aged Cap- 
 tain was enjoying his brown beans immensely. 
 
 "After you had gone away with that old man from 
 Spain," my mother said, "I thought that you would 
 give' yourself to soldiery, since you had always been 
 encouraged by your father in those soldier-games. And 
 then it would no longer be a game, but something 
 serious with an evil end. Your father would not listen 
 to me, and I told a man of reason who was traveling 
 through Colorado, but he said it was like some of the 
 celebrated saints to be a soldier, and that if one lived 
 in a large town instead of Colorado one would mingle 
 with high officers and know them well. Of what ad- 
 vantage is it that my Juanito should know all about 
 the virtues and the vices of some General, I ask?" 
 
 The beans and other food had put fresh life into the 
 aged Captain. He banged with his fist upon the table, 
 and declared that there is no vice in a General of 
 Mexico. 
 
 "The rogue you are!" my mother cried. "Or did 
 you never hear of that one who was writing to his 
 daughter and said: T hope you are well, I wade in 
 blood.' . . . But let me tell you that my Juanito was 
 not made to be a man of that sort. And he knows it
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 123 
 
 too," she added in victorious tones, "and that is why 
 he has escaped. O my beloved one, they shall not 
 catch you, and no other man from Spain or anywhere 
 shall take you from your mother. Now go to your 
 bed." She kissed me on the brow more fervently than 
 she had ever done. 
 
 Then footsteps and some other noises rang outside 
 the house, and in a very little time my father, and 
 Gonzalez and his woman Enriqueta were encircling 
 me. Their mood was jovial, and my father caught 
 me in his arms. He laughed and talked and pinched 
 me, and was not at all depressed when he observed the 
 gloomy silence of my mother. It was splendid to be 
 with him after all her anxious speculation. 
 
 "Father Pedro," said my mother in a warning voice, 
 "you know not why he has returned." 
 
 And Enriqueta told Gonzalez to go over to the shop 
 and bring a bottle of his wine for them to drink my 
 health. 
 
 "You are a heartless person," said my mother. "He 
 is very sick. I wish that he were looking still as he 
 did half an hour ago before his supper. Then you 
 would perhaps close fast your mouth." 
 
 My father asked me if I had enjoyed my supper, and 
 when I said we had eaten everything he was delighted, 
 put his hand upon my stomach, and said anyhow there 
 was one part of me which was not ailing. 
 
 "Leave him alone!" cried my mother. "I will not 
 have you touch him there." 
 
 "Then," said my father, "I will carry him to bed." 
 He took me up in his strong arms. And at the door 
 he turned and with his joyous laugh exclaimed: "The 
 Holy Roman belly!" As he carried me along, I heard 
 them laughing down below. I knew that my good 
 mother would try vainly not to laugh; there never yet
 
 124 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 had been in Colorado any woman or a man so stubborn 
 as to hear those words without hilarity. Some traveler 
 from Spain had left them years ago; for he had told 
 us of a Holy Roman Emperor, I believe that it was 
 Charles the Fifth, who was a very mighty man. One 
 day, when he was ill in bed, the doctor pressed him 
 through the bed-clothes, here and there, to find the seat 
 of trouble ; and when he began to touch the sore place, 
 "Hold!" cried the Emperor, "remove your hand from 
 off the Holy Roman belly." That is why we always 
 laughed at Colorado when we talked of bellies. 
 
 As my father laid me down he said that he knew all 
 about the Noahcite, for he had made inquiries from a 
 customer who told him that the Noahcite was mad, 
 and very rich and amiable. The customer revealed 
 so much about the life of Don Arcadio that my father 
 had resolved, as soon as possible, to pay us all a visit 
 at Jalapa. Had I run away, he asked, or had I only 
 come to have a holiday? 
 
 "Yes, holiday," said I, "and Senor Bias will take 
 me back." 
 
 My father kissed me and I fell at once into a dream- 
 less sleep. But early in the morning when I gradually 
 woke the first sensation which I had was one of dread 
 that I should have to stay between these walls. One 
 episode and then another from the previous night went 
 flying through my head — and glimpses of Jalapa flew 
 among them. How I shuddered at the difference! For 
 I belonged to Don Eugenio and the Noahcite. I shud- 
 dered as I thought about my parents, and yet and 
 yet I loved my father, and my mother also. Every 
 word which they had said the night before came back 
 to me, and that one which I clung to most was "holi- 
 day," my father's word. As I grew more composed 
 I set myself to plot and plan how I could use this word
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 125 
 
 of his. And in the end I had decided that I would 
 read out to them my master's letter — since they could 
 not read I might say anything^ and it should be about 
 a little holiday. 
 
 When I was with my parents afterwards it happened 
 all as I had hoped. My father looked at me and told 
 my mother that she was a silly woman if she still 
 persisted that I was unwell. And she admitted that I 
 had improved since my arrival. Oh, I was so glad! 
 
 And so were they when I informed them that I had 
 begun to learn the Latin language. With a beaming 
 face my father pointed out how glorious a future was 
 prepared for me. He had been thinking, so he said, 
 about the various positions I might occupy when I 
 could show the rulers my capacity. He recognized, 
 he said, that Latin was not everything, and that a 
 fellow who was very skilful in it might yet be debarred 
 by the authorities, deservedly debarred, from reaching 
 posts of honor and of profit. Other qualities were 
 doubtless necessary, also, for advancement — how could 
 he say what they were since he was nothing but a 
 simple breeder of the fighting-cocks? But if the people 
 once perceived that I had learned this famous language 
 they would know that I could learn the other things. 
 
 "And anyhow," my mother said, "he will be able 
 then to comprehend all that the priest says." 
 
 "Pues!" said my father in disdain, "that will not 
 advance him very far." 
 
 "It will advance him surely into heaven," said my 
 mother. 
 
 But my father snorted. "Touching Don Arcadio, 
 the Noahcite," said he, "there is a customer of mine 
 who was here from Jalapa yesterday. This doctor, 
 for he is a doctor, used to know him very well, but 
 now they are no longer friends. Of course, the first
 
 126 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 thing that I asked was on the subject of your Don 
 Arcadio, and very willingly the doctor told me, though 
 I could observe that he was longing to consult with 
 me about his fighting-cocks, and I myself was anxious 
 he should buy a very good one, called El Chino, which 
 will fight in such a way that ladies will throw flowers 
 from their boxes, yes, and diamonds." 
 
 I had to interrupt. "O little father," I complained, 
 "do you think I could forget El Chino? I have not 
 forgotten one, not one of them." 
 
 ''Son of my soul," said he, "but I was going to say 
 that both the doctor and myself were eager to converse 
 about our business, yet we spoke of Don Arcadio. 
 It seems that he belonged to one of the most rich and 
 reputable families; his father was a gallant of his 
 own time, and in later years a brother of your gen- 
 tleman was in the forefront of Jalapa's aristocracy, 
 a comrade of the doctor's at the cock-pit. Don Ar- 
 cadio, on the other hand, was always odd — a man who 
 had his own ideas on everything. The strangest part 
 of it was that he lived in the great house of Corpus 
 Christi Street and moved about Jalapa, when he really 
 should have gone to dwell in some remote farm of 
 his family or else have made himself a hermitage 
 among the mountains. Everybody would have been 
 more comfortable. He would sometimes loiter in the 
 plaza, just like any Christian, but if you addressed 
 him, talking of the latest news, he would not speak 
 of it like other men, and therefore it was natural that 
 they avoided him. He did not wish to be avoided, but 
 it came about and more and more. To see him wan- 
 dering up and down was very sad, and, since he would 
 not lead the pleasant life, they wanted to persuade him 
 to fill any of the posts such as are suitable to gentle- 
 men of his position. He refused. He would not, for
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 127 
 
 example, be a magistrate, because he said that dealing 
 justice out to men was an iniquity, for justice was a 
 cold, repulsive thing. He would not even change his 
 attitude when they reminded him that justice is ad- 
 ministered by God and therefore it is something 
 sacred," 
 
 "And," said my mother, with determination, "it will 
 not be cold for him. Amen. He will be thrust into 
 the fiery torment." 
 
 "Guadalupe," said my father — he was quite indig- 
 nant — "you know very well that if he were a man of 
 that sort I would not permit our Juanito to be with 
 him." 
 
 But my mother had some more to say. "How can 
 I tell? You do with Juanito what you like and I am 
 nothing, I am pitiful, I am as a wounded cock who 
 asks for cacao. So it is, and I — I," she was nearly 
 breaking down, "what am I? For a long time you 
 have looked through to the other side of me and you 
 have asked for nothing, not for my advice and not 
 for my attention, not for love." 
 
 "You are the pearl of women," said my father, "but 
 you are a woman and in great confusion, like the 
 negroes' banquet. I will talk of all those things an- 
 other time. But now it is of Don Arcadio who would 
 not be a magistrate. They told him, as I said, that 
 justice is administered by God, and he replied that, 
 whether justice is a benefit or not, he doubted if it 
 was administered in heaven, seeing that on earth God 
 did not deal in it. And anyhow, he would not be a 
 magistrate." 
 
 "He is a sacrilegious criminal ! Oh, I should like to 
 see him," said my mother, "when he is in that place 
 where God puts them." 
 
 "Since he would not be a magistrate nor any other
 
 128 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 thing they offered, he was thrown upon himself, said 
 my customer, and he was very grave and serious. 
 He came far less into the streets, and when he did 
 come there was only one man who could make him 
 laugh, a man who sold him tickets for the lottery. 
 They used to chase each other round the streets, for 
 they had some old game together which they very 
 much enjoyed, and then he took this man into his 
 house to be his servant. Less and less they saw him 
 in the town, and when he did go out he scarcely looked 
 up from his feet, and he was working for the happiness 
 of every one! . . . My customer is absolutely sure 
 of it. There was this lonely gentleman at work all 
 through the day with books and books. You, Guada- 
 lupe, have not traveled, and you do not know that 
 everywhere about the world are gentlemen who have 
 no other occupation than to sit with books in front 
 of them, because it gives them pleasure. But this 
 Don Arcadio is the only person of the world, so says 
 my customer, who does all this in order to give other 
 people pleasure. When the day arrives and he knows 
 everything he will himself be happy, for he says that 
 happiness can only come in that way." 
 
 My father paused. He looked as if this exposition 
 had been a great strain upon him. And he did not 
 want my mother to say anything at all, for he was 
 anxious to collect his thoughts so that he could con- 
 tinue. She, for her part, wanted to say something, 
 since she was completely hostile to the Noahcite. She 
 felt it in her inmost being that he was a wicked and 
 perverted man, but she had never come in contact 
 with a person of this kind before. She felt like one 
 who, with a sword, has to destroy a pestilential mist. 
 ... I wondered, looking at their very troubled faces, 
 whether it would first be she or first my father who
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 129 
 
 would speak. How they were watching one another! 
 
 Then my father said again that when the day 
 arrived and Don Arcadio knew everything he would 
 be happy, for he said that happiness could only come 
 in that way. 
 
 "He is one of the crowned devils," said my mother. 
 
 But my father went on sturdily: "And after he 
 possesses happiness he will distribute it among us all. 
 And we shall all of us be happy. You," he said, in a 
 severe tone to my mother, "you must be ashamed of 
 speaking in that fashion of so great a benefactor. 
 Think of it! When every one is like a day of fes- 
 tival!" 
 
 "O FuchiV^ cried my mother. "How shall anybody 
 make me happy if I have a husband such as you?" 
 
 "He will have thought of everything," said my 
 father. "He is very great and we shall have to build 
 him one or two triumphal arches decked with flowers. 
 He is called the Noahcite because he follows Noah, 
 and when he has in his own head what was in the 
 head of Noah there will then be nothing he has still 
 to learn. . . . But all these things are not for you or 
 me to question. We are nothing, and I tell you, 
 Guadalupe, that one should be filled with gratitude if 
 our son Juanito has the privilege of living near this 
 mighty man. Come," and he embraced her, "let us 
 cease to quarrel. We are nothing. I confess to you, 
 dear woman, that I do not understand it all, nor 
 does my customer, for when I asked him how it is 
 that Don Arcadio will get his happiness through know- 
 ing everything he said he was uncertain. Who are 
 we to try to seek how such a man does this or that?" 
 
 My mother had been plainly touched. "There is 
 but one thing, Father Pedro," she avowed, "which 
 weighs on me, and it is this, that Noah is a sacred
 
 I30 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 person of the Church, and it is contrary to order for a 
 man to make himself like that. And also if the rage 
 of God does not descend upon him for his pride, it 
 may be that the rage of men will take him, even as it 
 took that mountebank who stood up in the market- 
 place and said there is no God, inviting God to kill 
 him if it was not so. He stood there, the most im- 
 pious person, with his head thrown back and 'Ca!' 
 said he, for he exulted. 'God,' said he, 'thou dost not 
 kill me.' 'No,' said the inhabitants, 'but we do.' And 
 they did. ... I fear that if this happens to the 
 man who makes himself like Noah, it may not be well 
 for Juanito to be living near him. If the people set 
 his house on fire and slay our Juanito, what shall we 
 do then?" said she. 
 
 But with a little gentle reasoning my father made 
 her understand that the two cases were not on a level, 
 since the mountebank had boasted that there is no 
 God, and Don Arcadio, on the other hand, maintained 
 that Noah had existed and was good to imitate. 
 Thereby, my father said, he would not cause offense 
 to any one in Mexico, except if there was any one who 
 was an anti-Noahcite. Undoubtedly, somewhere in 
 Mexico there would be found a man with these opin- 
 ions, for we loved, my father said, to be against 
 all men whatever. That was why the country rolled 
 from turmoil into turmoil. Not a single man could 
 hold authority, but there would be rebellion against 
 him. And above Jalapa, in the dreary region of Mai 
 Pais, or upon the plains of dust and wind and cactus 
 there would probably be some one who was so embit- 
 tered against all the leaders, dead and living, whether 
 Mexican or foreign, whether on the land or on the 
 water, that he would be solidly opposed to Noah and 
 to Noahcites.
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 131 
 
 "Such a man," my mother said, "is dangerous." 
 
 "You are the pearl of women," said my father, 
 whose whole countenance was like a hymn of grati- 
 tude for life. "But you forget that these rebellious 
 ones can luckily be bought, and if a General who has 
 not much money can obtain, as they have done ere 
 now, the whole insurgent army, or if the insurgent 
 army in the same way can acquire the General's, do 
 you think it would be difficult for Don Arcadio, who 
 is wealthy, to win over this one man?" 
 
 "Ah, well," said my mother, "you look very pleased 
 and full of confidence. And you know much more of 
 the world than I do." 
 
 Thus it came about that my return to Don Arcadio's 
 was agreed upon. And for a few days, while I waited 
 there for Senor Bias, I was a sort of hero in my village. 
 Old and young, they knew that in Jalapa I was being 
 changed into another kind of person, and although 
 I loved them and although they wished me all the 
 good one can imagine, yet I could not keep myself 
 from longing for the coach of Senor Bias. A little 
 time before I had been wont to play with Colorado's 
 other boys on sultry afternoons when it was irksome 
 to wear any clothes. We were as happy as the hours 
 were long, and none of them would ever make the 
 least remark about me living in the house with the 
 veranda, nor would any one reproach me with the 
 fact that I could read. But now I shrank from playing 
 with my clothes removed, and there was something 
 else which separated me from my dear comrades.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Throughout the few days that I spent at Colorado 
 I was always being asked to talk about my travels, and 
 among the people who insisted most was Enriqueta, 
 the gay wanton. But she did not join the others when 
 they questioned me; she seized her opportunities when 
 I was by myself, and once, although I did not like 
 her, she persuaded me to walk with her into the neigh- 
 boring wood, and there we sat among the ferns while 
 I began again to tell exactly what had happened to 
 me. But she let me go no further than to the lieu- 
 tenant's coming on the horse, with sweet Maria at 
 the back of him. How the lieutenant looked, and 
 what he said and what he did — all this she urged me 
 to describe, not once but several times. And she 
 wished heartily that I had not lost sight of him up at 
 Jalapa. But the fact remained that he was there and 
 she confided with me that this was no life in Colorado, 
 and that she had settled not to stay there. By some 
 way or other, even if she had to walk, she would go 
 traveling at last, and, namely, to Jalapa. There had 
 been an hour ago, she told me, the most disagreeable 
 events inside the shop, between herself, Gonzalez, and 
 the aged Captain. By the time of our return, she 
 said, there would be no one in all Colorado who would 
 not be able to repeat each word of that unpleasant 
 scene. How could one live in such a place, where 
 nothing could remain your own? 
 
 Apparently, she had employed the hour of the siesta 
 to inform Gonzalez of her resolution. And the Cap- 
 tain was downstairs outside the shop, because — poor, 
 
 132
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 133 
 
 faithful fool, she said — he then could listen to her 
 voice and not be seen by her. She had most amicably 
 told Gonzalez that if he desired to go with her she 
 would be pleased, and he, of course, had answered by 
 abusing her most harshly, for he could not thus aban- 
 don Colorado and the shop. Their argument became 
 so heated that the Captain down below feared that a 
 murder would be done; he did not stop to calculate 
 the peril to himself, but rushed into the house and to 
 the room of the siesta. 
 
 "I laughed so much to see him there," said En- 
 riqueta, "that Gonzalez grew more angry still. But 
 afterwards he was for letting the old Captain hear 
 about my perfidy, and then the Captain, as a military 
 cavalier, should give us his opinion. Well, it was 
 Gonzalez who related the affair, and I put in a word 
 from time to time, and at the end of it all old Bartolme 
 said stoutly that I had the right on my side, for it was 
 an arrant cruelty to keep a woman such as me in 
 Colorado. . . . 'Oh, you scoundrel,' cried Gonzalez, 
 'did you never keep her in your own most miserable 
 cottage?' 
 
 "Angela Maria! You should have beheld the Cap- 
 tain. It was beautiful, the way in which his body 
 stiffened. He was filled with anger, but he was ex- 
 tremely calm, he was majestic. And he said that if 
 he had done wrong in days now past, he thanked the 
 holy saints that he could recognize it and acknowledge 
 it, whereas Gonzalez was an unrepentant sinner. . . . 
 But Gonzalez sneered that if one is a weak old man, 
 one frequently repents. He sat upon our bed, his 
 feet were dangling to and fro. And sneeringly he said 
 he would advise the Captain to behave like those small 
 birds, the huitzitzilin, who sleep all through the winter, 
 a most prudent action if one's blood is cold.
 
 134 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 "Oh, yes, you should have seen Don Bartolme. I 
 never thought that he could be so grand. He tossed 
 his gray old head and then he smiled at me. . . . And 
 I was sorry I was lying on the bed. 
 
 "Gonzalez had not finished even then. 'I see,' he 
 said, 'the pretty little huitzitzilin does not interest 
 your lordship. It has very handsome plumage and 
 it sleeps, as I have said, in winter time; but almost 
 as convenient, you will agree, is the peculiarity of 
 living on the very smallest quantity of food. I hear 
 it can maintain itself upon the dew inside a flower,' 
 
 "This was too much for the Captain. 'You — you 
 — you would keep my darling Enriqueta here,' he 
 shouted, 'when she wants to run away from her op- 
 pressor. And if I from time to time am forced to beg 
 a little food, it is not from your hands that I would 
 take it. No, not even if I were to starve.' 
 
 "As he was saying this I rolled off from the bed 
 and stood up next to him. Gonzalez looked at us. 
 He did not yet see that he had been conquered. 
 
 "But I told him in the plainest manner that I must 
 go to Jalapa. And he suddenly became so furious that 
 he could say no word. 
 
 "Don Bartolme was thinking still about the ques- 
 tion of the food. 'I hope,' he said, 'the day will come 
 for you when you will have a thin, thin broth and 
 you will hope to catch some solid morsel in it, and 
 you will not have Saint Peter's luck, who fished all 
 night in vain till Jesus Christ assisted him.' 
 
 "I put my hand on that of the old Captain. How 
 he trembled! And I told Gonzalez that although I 
 must depart I had some gratitude, and I would always 
 think of him with kindliness. 
 
 "He looked as if he certainly would choke. 
 
 "And then old Bartolme informed him that he would
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 135 
 
 accompany me anywhere, wherever I might go. He 
 squeezed my hand most violently. 
 
 "Well, my little friend, I will admit to you that it 
 displeases me to think of this old man beside me on 
 the journey and beside me always at Jalapa. What 
 am I to do? Oh, may he stand there whistling on the 
 hill. . . . Now tell me something more of the lieu- 
 tenant." 
 
 We remained a very long time in the wood, for 
 after I had told her all I knew, which was not much, 
 of the lieutenant, and of Don Arcadio and Faustino 
 and Jalapa generally, and then again of the lieutenant, 
 she lay back among the ferns and thought about the 
 future, sometimes silently, then uttering a word or 
 two, then jerking little laughs into the air. How long 
 we stopped I cannot tell, but we might have remained 
 until the evening if there had not been a voice, the 
 voice of the old Captain, far away among the trees. 
 I thought that Enriqueta, after what she had been 
 saying of the Captain, would be angry or would stop 
 her ears; but how much did I know of women? She 
 arose and took me by the arm and rapidly we went 
 towards the voice; but Enriqueta saw to it that we 
 did not emerge into the open. And at last we found 
 ourselves among such lofty ferns that I could scarcely 
 walk. Don Bartolme was not far off. We crouched 
 behind those ferns and waited there. And when he 
 did go past he was the strangest sight: he was flourish- 
 ing his ancient sword and cutting off a leafy branch 
 or else a fern, just as the fancy seized him. He was 
 happy to excess. His age and poverty and other ail- 
 ments he had quite forgotten. He was tramping 
 through the wood as if the gods had turned him into 
 a young, merry boy. 
 
 And Enriqueta, after he had gone, said she had
 
 136 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 changed her mind, and that it must be so and that 
 she would permit him to escort her on the journey. 
 "After all," she said, "he loves me. He will be my 
 slave." 
 
 The Captain did go with her and on foot a few days 
 after this, when she had made her preparations. I, 
 for my part, had to leave quite suddenly on the next 
 morning — Senor Bias came back much earlier than 
 usual. And so there was no time for me to say fare- 
 well to every one. My parents and some others who 
 were loitering about the coach embraced me, and I 
 drove away, not even knowing whether Enriqueta had 
 gone back to spend her last days with Gonzalez. 
 
 We arrived in good time at Jalapa; and, although 
 my friend and benefactor of the sweetmeats stopped 
 me for a moment as I climbed off from the coach, I 
 very soon was rushing down the Corpus Christi Street. 
 The big door at the house of Don Arcadio was shut, 
 I ran round to the back and through the passage, up 
 the stairs, and to the room in which I hoped to find 
 Maria. But she was not there, nor was my master. 
 And I will confess that I had ugly, very dark and ugly 
 thoughts. ... I wished the room would fall on me 
 and bury me. . . . Then I was on the staircase, I was 
 in the yard, and with a whirling head I passed on, on 
 into the room above the stable. In the room I found 
 my master; he was sitting with some open books 
 spread out before him, and upon his face the most 
 benign expression in the world. 
 
 He welcomed me with all his heart. He saw that 
 I was very much perturbed and this, he thought, was 
 owing to my coming back to him. So tenderly he 
 spoke, and in my breast I felt as if there was a battle 
 raging. When he asked about my parents, I am not 
 sure what I answered, and I certainly could not control
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 137 
 
 myself enough to tell him of the plans of Enriqueta 
 and the Captain. 
 
 "It would make you tranquil," Don Eugenio said, 
 "if you could read with me this part of Bacon's man- 
 uscript. I ask for nothing better than to make an- 
 other voyage through this part. It is indeed a voyage ! 
 You may recollect, my son, that when this manuscript 
 was placed before me I was not enthusiastic. Well, 
 I have discovered that this Bacon is am.ong the blessed 
 writers who adorn their subject in a thousand ways, 
 no matter what the subject be." 
 
 Then he discoursed with fire and passion on the 
 splendid merits of the doctor mirabilis. But I could 
 only hear quite vaguely what he said, for I was think- 
 ing of Maria and the window where I last had seen 
 her, and the sloping fields outside Jalapa where we 
 two had wandered in the dark. 
 
 Don Eugenio paused, and then I asked him whether 
 beautiful young girls are sometimes killed by their old 
 lovers, even if the lover has got no suspicion that she 
 has been faithless. And my master, who was always 
 ready to pour out for me his miscellaneous knowledge, 
 did not waste a moment, as so many others would 
 have done, in asking me how I connected this new topic 
 with the observations he had been engaged in making. 
 
 "Juanito," so he said, "I am not sorry that you 
 have begun to speculate about some of the problems 
 that we human beings have to face. How this one 
 came into your mind I do not know, but nothing is 
 more certain than the lack of reason in old lovers, and 
 in young ones. You were thinking of the old, how- 
 ever, and I can inform you of a case with which I 
 was myself concerned. At any rate my bishop, whom 
 I speak of, as you know, with very deep respect, com- 
 manded me to write a long, didactic poem on a trial
 
 138 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 that was heard before the Holy Office many years ago, 
 at Zaragoza. In a neighboring country district there 
 had dwelt an old man of position, and his young wife, 
 who was marvelously beautiful. She had, to mention 
 only two things, golden hair and eyes of jet — no girl 
 was like her in the kingdom. But the husband was 
 as jealous as a man can be; although he watched her 
 and his servants watched her very carefully, they never 
 could detect her in the slightest sin. And so he grad- 
 ually came to loathe his young wife and her golden 
 hair. He asked the local priest how he could catch 
 the girl, since she was far too clever for him, and 
 the priest was friendly with a man called Valdes, a 
 familiar of the Inquisition. This official said at once 
 that if the woman was too clever she was certainly 
 a witch, as had been laid down by the good Athera- 
 goras, by Minucius Felix (who, by the way, was an 
 accomplished person, but was not the author of the 
 Contra Mathematkos) and by Tertullian in the twenty- 
 second chapter of his Apology. And if she was a 
 witch, she ought, said Valdes, to be rigorously pros- 
 ecuted. At the trial, nothing could be proved against 
 her; she did not appear to have partaken of unhal- 
 lowed pleasures or to have used incantations so that 
 wolves could do no harm, or to have brought a toad 
 into the world. She was, in fact, no witch, and she 
 was slain because of her uncommon cleverness. . . . 
 That was the subject of the poem which I wrote, if 
 I may say so, in a meter that was most appropriate 
 to the argument. My manuscript was bound up, by 
 the bishop's order, in a pale brown calf which had 
 been decorated with his arms and with a pattern of 
 gold tears. He placed the book upon his shelves and 
 there, so far as I know, it remains." 
 No longer was Maria's face the solitary, all-absorb-
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 139 
 
 ing question for me. I demanded of my master if the 
 husband also was rigorously prosecuted. 
 
 And he said that he had every reason to believe it. 
 "Though we found no further record of the fellow than 
 was in the trial, and though it may often seem to us, 
 dear Juanito, that unrighteous men escape their pun- 
 ishment and even flourish in the most repulsive man- 
 ner, yet, my son, I cling in many things to the re- 
 ligion of my fathers; and it tells me that the wicked 
 go into Gehenna or into the state which has been 
 variously known as that of outer darkness, of un- 
 quenchable fire, of the undying worm, of eternal de- 
 struction, of the weeping and gnashing of teeth or of 
 the second death. I hope, my son, that even if in after- 
 life you should have doubts concerning one dogma 
 or another, yet that you will manage to retain your 
 faith in all or some of these dire punishments. It will 
 enable you to be more placid and more patient in 
 your intercourse with those who seem to be unduly 
 prosperous." 
 
 My dear master went on talking for a time in this 
 way, until of a sudden, very breathlessly, Maria burst 
 into the room. She smiled at me, but then began at 
 once to tell us of a scene which she had witnessed. 
 There had been a noise of lamentation so prolonged, 
 she said, from Don Arcadio's library that she went 
 in; and there she found Faustino weeping and the 
 Noahcite endeavoring to comfort him. She said the 
 Noahcite was weeping also, but the reason of it all, 
 she could not guess. And would not Don Eugenio go 
 there to help them? 
 
 He half rose and then sat down again. He asked' 
 Maria if they had observed her entrance. 
 
 "They looked at me and went on crying just the 
 same," she said.
 
 I40 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 My dear master frowned a little. "I am out of 
 sympathy," said he, "with people who rush in with 
 words of consolation. It is only in the moments of 
 profoundest grief, Maria, that the large proportion 
 of mankind see through the mist of things that so 
 continuously whirl about them. Is not such a grief 
 the most sublime and sacred temple we can ever build, 
 Maria, and the people with their consolation are like 
 dead leaves blown into the temple? He who is within 
 is face to face with life, as he may never be again, 
 and those who interrupt with the most beautiful of 
 consolations are dead leaves to him, dead leaves. 
 However ..." 
 
 He sat there rubbing his chin. 
 
 "Oh, no," said Maria, very earnestly, "I never spoke 
 a word." 
 
 Don Eugenio was ruminating. "On the other hand," 
 he murmured, "is it not more likely that their sorrow 
 is an ordinary one and due, perhaps, to some unfortu- 
 nate misunderstanding. And in that case one wise 
 word may be all that is needed." 
 
 "If you like," Maria said, "I will go down and speak 
 to them." 
 
 But Don Eugenio said that he would go himself. 
 And as he made his way down from our room, we 
 others followed him and he did not object. He went 
 down to the yard, where one could hear the usual few 
 noises of the town. And even in the house 1 could 
 myself hear nothing of that lamentation. There was 
 no sound save our feet upon the floor of stone. Out- 
 side the library my master listened for a short time; 
 then he knocked, and Don Arcadio's voice called out, 
 a little shakily, and asked him to go in. 
 
 And there inside the room was Don Arcadio stand- 
 ing up behind a chair in which Faustino sat. The
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 141 
 
 body of Faustino was all huddled up; he took no 
 notice of us, and not even when my master strode 
 towards him. I remained, so did Maria, at the door. 
 
 Then Don Arcadio smiled most sadly and most 
 sweetly on my master. "My dear friend," quoth he, 
 "you come at the good hour. If you can help me 
 with Faustino! He insists on leaving me." 
 
 "Come now," said Don Eugenio to the prostrate 
 one, as he sat down beside him, "have you torn a 
 precious book or had some other accident? See, Don 
 Arcadio forgives you, and he wants you to forgive 
 yourself as quickly as he will forget." 
 
 But that was not the cause of the disturbance. 
 Don Arcadio explained that he by chance had men- 
 tioned to Faustino that he might be able to extend the 
 lives of both of them considerably. The power to 
 do this, Don Arcadio said, had been alleged to lie 
 in liquid gold, which was the substance he was occu- 
 pied just then, said he, in thoroughly investigating. 
 He refrained from an opinion on the efficacy of this 
 liquid gold, but he would make experiments. And 
 that was why Faustino was distressed, for it appeared 
 to him unholy for a man to meddle with the length 
 of his own life, and if his master would persist in 
 such experiments then he would have to go away. 
 
 "Well, if your master fails in his experiment," said 
 Don Eugenio, "then presumably you will not have to 
 leave him? And he will not look upon it as disloyal, 
 I am sure, if you do not assume beforehand that his 
 act will be successful. Come, Faustino, you are not 
 impetuous by nature, and it seems to me this is en- 
 tirely an occasion for delay." 
 
 Faustino gazed in a dull fashion both at Don 
 Eugenio and his master. 
 
 "I am very sorry," said the Noahcite to Don
 
 142 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 Eugenio, "that this question has arisen, but it is in- 
 cumbent on me to learn everything there is to learn 
 regarding all the miscellaneous substances of which 
 our earth is made. You will agree that this life-giving 
 property of gold, if we can prove it to exist, is of no 
 small importance." 
 
 "Oh, you need not speak so modestly," said Don 
 Eugenio, "for it is of the highest possible importance 
 to detain the beauty of a woman. I have read that 
 this, according to Brantome, did actually occur in the 
 case of the Duchess of Valentinois, who drank quan- 
 tities of gold." 
 
 "Pardon me," said Don Arcadio, with some dignity, 
 "but I do not claim to preserve mere beauty. It is 
 life that I would keep from premature annihilation." 
 And he stood there like a prophet prophesying glory. 
 
 My master shrugged his shoulders. "I for one," 
 said he, "do not think that we should be grateful to 
 you for extending life in general. No, I should dis- 
 approve of that." 
 
 Faustino nodded vigorously. 
 
 "My dear sir, you pain me," said the Noahcite; 
 "I do beseech you not to harbor views of that sort. 
 Why, they are the views of the police! They were, 
 at all events, of the police in Paris when Saint-Leger 
 brought about such marvelous cures. No doubt it 
 was ecclesiastics who incited the repressors; and why 
 did they not influence them somewhat earlier, when 
 the good physician, in whose service was Saint-Leger, 
 treated with such wonderful success the Emperor 
 Rudolf? Why did not the Church and the police 
 show their displeasure then?" 
 
 "Oho," exclaimed my master, "you will have to 
 search through all this town and several others if you 
 want to find a man who can reply to that! Apart
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 143 
 
 altogether from the Church, whom I, her most un- 
 worthy son, may not undertake to judge, it sometimes 
 did appear to me that likewise the police were in- 
 scrutable. But I know nothing of the Emperor Rudolf. 
 Did he do more with his life than the average Parisian 
 of the period?" 
 
 Don Arcadio went over to his large writing-table, 
 he pulled out a drawer and from it took a piece of 
 gold. He held this in his left hand, with raised fore- 
 finger, and he solemnly moved backward and forward. 
 "Don Eugenio," said he, "you are a skeptic as to the 
 tremendous powers of this. I hope the day will come 
 when this august material will revenge itself upon you 
 very nobly by making your life longer." 
 
 Don Eugenio had a rueful smile upon his face. "If 
 I may for a moment speak about the ordinary services 
 of gold," said he, "then I assure you that I am no 
 sort of skeptic. I have always had so little of it 
 that perhaps I have esteemed it more than was be- 
 fitting for a student. Since I encountered Juanito, 
 who, as you perceive, has happily returned to us, I 
 have been promised by his admirable father an emolu- 
 ment for giving him some knowledge of the Latin 
 tongue. He pays me quite as much as I shall earn, 
 I think, but it will not enable me to have a tranquil 
 mind concerning this year and the coming years, and 
 that is also something which befits a student more than 
 other people," 
 
 "Hombre!" said the Noahcite, "why should you 
 agitate yourself about such trifles? Any money that 
 you want is yours. Let that be understood." He 
 looked as if he would prefer no more allusion to be 
 made to money. 
 
 But my master rose — he was extremely serious — •■
 
 144 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 and going over to the Noahcite, he put his arms around 
 him. 
 
 "It is nothing, it is nothing," said the Noahcite. 
 
 "How shall I thank you?" said my master, as he 
 ceased embracing Don Arcadio. "You are my bene- 
 factor. Truly you are one of those whose gifts it is 
 not seemly to decline ... it would be hindering the 
 sun from doing the great work he loves. Oh, sir, I 
 am obliged to borrow thoughts from the Arabian 
 writers, for your generosity is Oriental. Sir, my feel- 
 ings overpower me — but it may seem strange to you 
 that a philosopher should care for money." 
 
 "No, by no means," said the Noahcite, "for you 
 will set out on your travels when I die." 
 
 "My dear, good friend," said Don Eugenio, "you 
 have already given me a roof to sleep under, a table 
 furnished with abundant meat and drink, a conver- 
 sation which I feel is perfectly unique in Mexico. 
 You are indeed a bountiful and gracious personage. 
 And what can I do in return? If I were a great poet 
 you should be immortal. Woe is me! As I have just 
 been telling Juanito, I was once requested by my 
 patron the lord bishop of Zaragoza to compose a 
 lengthy poem so that people should remember a most 
 wicked man; but even if that poem still remains upon 
 the shelves, I ask you — what has been the good of it? 
 I believe I used a meter that was well in keeping with 
 the lurid story. What has been the good of it? I 
 should not be surprised to hear that nobody has ever 
 read my manuscript. And if I cannot cause a wicked 
 man to be remembered, how much more profoundly 
 shall I fail with a man of merit?" 
 
 My poor master was so downcast. 
 
 But the Noahcite exhorted him to be more cheerful. 
 In the first place, he said, he really did not covet
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 145 
 
 immortality, for he was satisfied with the long years 
 that liquid gold would give him, if indeed it had the 
 power. And in the second place, said Don Arcadio, 
 he really had done nothing. 
 
 "I have an idea!" cried Don Eugenio. "Let me go 
 away with Juanito. In an hour we shall come back 
 and then . . . !" He did not wait for a reply, he 
 hurried towards me and together he and I went, almost 
 running, to our room above the stable. When we got 
 there he sat down and made me stand just at his knee. 
 
 ''I am going to copy out for my dear benefactor," he 
 began, "some phrases of the Arab poets who once 
 used to flourish in all parts of Spain. Don Arcadio's 
 lavishness is positively Eastern, and he therefore may 
 appreciate the Arab compliments that are of great 
 luxuriance. I sometimes read them in a badly-printed 
 old translation when I was the servant of a bookstall- 
 keeper in Madrid. I do not wish to be sententious, 
 but you see from this how profitable one may find 
 the reading of remote and what seems on the surface 
 to be sterile literature. Presently I shall recall the 
 phrases, you can put them down in your best writing 
 and our dear benefactor will, I hope, be grateful. 
 
 "But first I want to warn you, Juanito, against some 
 of his opinions and his practices. It surely must be 
 wrong for any one to try to lengthen human life by 
 sorcery; herein the man appears to me a most pre- 
 sumptuous and blaspheming villain. As for the ad- 
 vantages of keeping death at bay, I fear that Don 
 Arcadio is no true philosopher, at any rate he has not 
 my philosophy. . . . There are some people, Juanito, 
 who assert that they have looked at life in a detached 
 and unimpassioned way, have given it their calm con- 
 sideration and have come to this or that conclusion. 
 They are fools! Or will they say that you can be
 
 146 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 detached and calm and unimpassioned in the midst of 
 battle? It is one gigantic, rolling battle. Well, we 
 do get on, we do get on and we fall back again, God 
 grant that we are moving forward. But in the mean- 
 time we live by ruin and destruction. I have some- 
 times thought that every act of ours involves an 
 injury — which we may never see nor hear of — this is 
 frequently the case when people have accomplished 
 their one act of greatness, which is dying. Yet on the 
 whole we do less harm, I think, when we are dead than 
 when we live. . . . The more one tries to lead a 
 worthy life the more is one appalled. For instance, 
 there was an old monk whose life had been most saintly 
 during eighty years, and when the abbot came to give 
 him the last sacraments he would insist on kneeling 
 though he scarcely could endure the pain; he was in 
 such a state of penitence and contrition that one might 
 have thought him the most guilty creature in the 
 world. His abbot, seeing that he was so horrified at 
 all his sins, demanded which of them was causing him 
 the sharpest grief; he answered that the sin of sins 
 had been a lie which he committed in his childhood. 
 Thereupon the abbot said that little children were in- 
 capable of sinning greatly, and he charged him to 
 allow his mind to be at peace. But this the monk 
 refused to do; he said that now he had another sin 
 upon his conscience, the sin of wasting time, for he 
 had confessed about the lie on many hundreds of 
 occasions; he had also done severest penance. 
 
 "Now," said Don Eugenio, "let us concern ourselves 
 with those Arabian phrases." 
 
 He walked up and down the room and told me to 
 write very carefully what he dictated.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 For the next few days we worked most energetically, 
 Don Eugenio and I. Of course, the help which I could 
 render him was limited, and very often I was much 
 more of a hindrance. He would give me Latin sen- 
 tences to copy out and learn, while he was busy with 
 his digest of a certain section of the manuscript. But 
 if amid the words he gave me there was one that 
 struck him, if it was an old friend or a new one, he 
 would put his manuscript aside and he would talk at 
 large on any subjects that the word brought up. You 
 who never saw him with his little black cap pushed 
 away from the grand forehead, while his large and 
 ruddy face, in every part of it, was grave and gay, 
 the shadows chasing one another as they do across a 
 sunlit mountain, and the veil of haze which dances so 
 mysteriously over our blue mountains often seemed to 
 dance across the eyes of Don Eugenio, you who never 
 saw my master scarcely will be able to imagine that 
 such various sentiments — to me the most sublime and 
 eloquent and wise and curious of all the world — could 
 issue from the lips of one man. By the way, I am not 
 sure if I would like you to have known him; it is as 
 though I had a shrine in the green forest which no 
 other person can approach. 
 
 Well, he used to talk of things which he had seen 
 and done and what he thought. I loved to hear him 
 speak about his failures, which were always made 
 against the side I hated. Sometimes he discussed what 
 he would do if he were Emperor of Mexico. Quantidd 
 
 iA7
 
 148 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 sapientia gubernatur mundus! And I fear that if my 
 master had succeeded to some throne it might have 
 been delightful for the country, but he would have been 
 assassinated. So was Maximilian, but how different 
 was he! He would have scarcely deigned to listen to 
 my master, for he did not even free the slaves. 
 
 Sometimes Don Eugenio would discourse upon a 
 moral or another topic and would interrupt himself 
 to ask me to go down to Don Arcadio and ask the 
 meaning of a Latin geological expression which he 
 could not fathom. Later on we were supplied by Don 
 Arcadio with various authors in the Latin language, 
 such as Joannes Stobaeus and Olympiodorus, who had 
 touched these matters, more or less. And those were 
 the proud moments of my life when Don Eugenio 
 asked me to look up in one or other of them for 
 an explanation of some word or phrase in Roger Bacon. 
 I was rather sorry if by accident I hit upon the ex- 
 planation very quickly; it more often happened that 
 I never found it. We had also, in a Spanish transla- 
 tion, the book which Dioscorides, of Anazarbos, the 
 great army doctor, wrote on minerals. 
 
 During these very glorious days we neither of us 
 knew if an arrangement had been made between Faus- 
 tino and the Noahcite. Perhaps the faithful and most 
 pious servant had agreed to stay till the experiments 
 with liquid gold had either proved successful or had 
 not; perhaps the Noahcite was turning his attention 
 to another branch of his great work. At any rate 
 there seemed to be no jar in their relations, and Faus- 
 tino went about his business in precisely the same 
 quiet and contented fashion as before. 
 
 But now Maria used to come each night into my 
 room. When Don Eugenio had fallen into his sound 
 slumber she would creep away. I sometimes fell asleep
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 149 
 
 myself before she came, and on the other nights I 
 could not bear to wait so long — I leaned out of the 
 window and I threw myself upon the bed again, and 
 finally I used to feel my way along the corridor till 
 I was outside Don Eugenio's room. If he was not 
 yet snoring I would wait, and I was fiercely hot and 
 cold so that I trembled, and it seemed to me that 
 if he was awake he certainly would hear me. But 
 I could not go away. And in the end the door would 
 softly open and we two would glide together down the 
 corridor. 
 
 When we were in my room she loved to tell me that 
 I was a fool for having left it. 
 
 And I said that nobody could hear me. I had gone 
 so carefully. 
 
 "Some night," she said, "my little Juanito, you 
 will lose the road and stumble down the stairs and 
 kill yourself. Ay de mi, what shall I do? Besides, 
 it will make such a noise." 
 
 Sometimes I never answered her at all, but grasped 
 her in my arms, and while I kissed her, while her 
 lovely hair was round me and upon my shoulders, I 
 would feel that I was drowning, drowning into endless 
 life. Sometimes Maria would resist me, pushing me 
 away with her open hands or scratching me or spit- 
 ling, just as if she were a wild thing of the woods, and 
 all her useless struggles made me more and more en- 
 flamed. I was surprised at my own strength as grad- 
 ually I began to overpower her, and then it was her 
 arms no longer pushed against me, but were winding 
 round me and our hearts were one heart singing, 
 singing. 
 
 Soon, alas! the moments of enchantment ended, and 
 as I lay at her side and she still held my hand in hers 
 I used to have another kind of thought.
 
 I50 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 "Maria, you must leave him, Don Eugenio," said I. 
 
 "Oho," she laughed. I could not see her, but I 
 knew what sort of roguish look was in her eyes. 
 
 "Maria, will you listen to me?" 
 
 She pretended to be shocked. "What gratitude!" 
 said she. "From being nothing in the world he brings 
 you here and lets you be his comrade. Then you 
 turn on him with treachery and try to leave him deso- 
 late. Oh, fie! I never thought that Juanito would 
 be such a monster." 
 
 "But, Maria, do you love me?" 
 
 "It is most peculiar," she said, "that you should 
 ask me that. Indeed, I think that it is not polite 
 considering what we have done. You are a savage 
 person, Juanito. And if you continue so against your 
 master, who is the most kind of men, I shall not speak 
 to you another word and you will see if you will like 
 it to be treated sternly or, as they say, to love God 
 in a strange land." 
 
 What was this? Was this Maria speaking? Some- 
 how I conveyed to her that she astonished me. 
 
 "It is all easy to explain," she said. "You cannot 
 live with Don Eugenio and still be only a poor ignorant 
 and foolish Indian girl." 
 
 Perhaps he had been doing miracles on me, but at 
 this instant she had suddenly been raised for me to 
 some extraordinary pinnacle. I felt I must apologize 
 for my embraces. And I did so. 
 
 But she interrupted me with laughter of a kind 
 which persons on a pinnacle did not, according to my 
 theories of deportment, use. She merrily rebuked me 
 for my notions and she kissed me, and "My little 
 Juanito, if you think I do not want to be with you," 
 said she, "would I be here? You please me. By the 
 wrath of God, it was on the first day that I saw you,
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 151 
 
 when you looked at me with such big eyes of pity 
 as I sat on the lieutenant's horse, it was just then 
 that I decided we would love each other." 
 
 Scarcely had she finished speaking than I flung 
 myself again into her arms, and with a new fire blazing 
 in me I pressed kisses here and there and everywhere. 
 The room was filled with music of mad fairies. 
 
 She told me that she wanted me to listen to her 
 and she then enjoined me to be thoughtful, more than 
 I had been. "This time will you be so kind," said 
 she, "will you remember that you are not by yourself, 
 and that a gentleman is he who lives in order to please 
 others? Juanito, you are not offended, are you? All 
 the young are selfish till one has instructed them." 
 
 "But where did you learn all these things?" I asked, 
 for she amazed me. 
 
 It was Don Eugenio again. 
 
 I had forgotten her injunction. I was on the point 
 of speaking of him. 
 
 "And if I am here," she said, "to-morrow and the 
 next night and the next, and they are all the same to 
 you, then you are a barbarian, says Don Eugenio, and 
 worse. But now I will forget him for a time, my 
 little one." 
 
 Presently she also said I was her love and her sweet 
 syrup and her little cat. 
 
 I was very glad, because my ignorance had made me 
 feel so humble, and I had been very anxious that she 
 should be pleased with me. 
 
 At last, when I was lying there and she was sitting 
 at my side and was caressing me, I thought of En- 
 riqueta and I told her, but she knew already. 
 
 "The man who comes on horseback with our milk," 
 she said, "he also takes it up to the lieutenant, and he 
 told me that this woman Enriqueta is in the apartment
 
 152 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 and that she has asked him to bring you to see her." 
 
 "But," I pointed out, "you did not tell me." 
 
 "No, I did not," said Maria. "How she came into 
 the hands of the lieutenant, Don Esteban Fuentes, the 
 milkman does not know. But she will not be his good 
 angel, says the milkman, for she swears that she will 
 always be most faithful and will not desert him. She 
 has even told the milkman that in a campaign she will 
 not cease to follow her beloved. Everybody knows 
 that it is only women of the common soldiers who do 
 such a thing — to cook for them and nurse them and 
 look after their belongings, children, dogs, and par- 
 rots, which the soldier does not carry even if he be 
 on horseback — and then in the middle of a battle if a 
 soldier is uneasy, fearing lest the woman or the burden 
 she has with her is not safe, he can withdraw to where 
 she is and reassure himself. But if an officer goes 
 back out of the battle it is not the same, because he is 
 an officer, and so the woman who is luring him to this 
 is an abandoned woman." 
 
 "Any one would think," said I, "that you are fond 
 of the lieutenant." 
 
 "Oh, that shameless one! But it is you I love." 
 She bent down over me and was most tender. 
 
 And I hoped that she would soon sit up and talk 
 again, but when she did it was about us two. 
 
 "How did I ever live," said she, "without you? I 
 was waiting for you, I suppose. I really like you very, 
 very much, my Juanito. And I only hope that you 
 like me as much as that." 
 
 "Oh, yes," said I. 
 
 "This woman Enriqueta," she went on, "has told 
 the milkman that she will be faithful always, as if 
 anybody should be faithful always! She has fastened 
 herself on to him and how much can she love the man
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 153 
 
 if she remains with him when they no longer love 
 each other? ... In my village there are two inhabi- 
 tants, the one an old man who is called Jacinto, and 
 a handsome old woman who is Catalina. Now and 
 then they see each other at the large tree where the 
 people sit, and there they have a little gossip. Once 
 they lived together and had many children, who are 
 men and women of that village and of other parts. 
 Jacinto never married Catalina, for they were not rich 
 enough to pay the fees, and even if they had been 
 they would not have married; and when both of them 
 were old and deaf and quarrelsome they lived apart, 
 which was a very good arrangement. But a young 
 priest came from Europe, and he scarcely settled down 
 before he wanted to reform the village, and he started 
 with these two old people. First he said that they 
 must marry, but they utterly refused. He tried to 
 make them, and he failed. And then he said, at all 
 events they must not live apart. But for a long time 
 he could not persuade them even to do this. He 
 talked to them and talked to them about the glory 
 they would have in heaven if they were good people, 
 and he shouted at them of the flames in which bad 
 people had to burn. He shouted at them privately 
 and when he preached a sermon in our church, and 
 every one enjoyed it, for the priest we used to have 
 before him had been very gentle with regard to all 
 these matters, and the people knew that he was right. 
 The young man still continued with his raging, and I 
 think it gave him pleasure also, for the church was 
 always full and everybody listened with great care, 
 and also the young priest thought he had come into 
 our village like an early martyr of the Church, a 
 pioneer, and he determined to be just as bold and des- 
 perate as they had been. And in the end he took a
 
 154 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 torch and set on fire the little house of Catalina, so that 
 she should be compelled to go into Jacinto's house. 
 And that is what she did, and all the people of the 
 village laughed. But Catalina and Jacinto fought each 
 other all day long, and then he threw her out and 
 there was nowhere else for her to go, because the other 
 people were afraid that any dwelling which received 
 her would be set on fire. And thus she marched into 
 the house of the young priest, with all the village 
 looking on. He could not order her away, and so 
 she stayed there and became his mistress." 
 
 While Maria told me this affecting story I could feel 
 her little laugh go rippling through me, and she must 
 have known it, for she asked me if I would not look 
 at the nice ornament which hung upon her breast. 
 It was not shining much, and I had to get near to it to 
 see it properly. And the result was that my mind 
 went back to other thoughts. These were encouraged 
 by Maria in her irresistible and most endearing fashion, 
 and it grieved me that she should be growing more 
 and more vivacious just when I was very tired. But 
 I vowed I would not let her scoff at me for that, and 
 it would likewise have been lacking in all courtesy if 
 I had disappointed her. And I am glad to say that 
 I was able to prevent her feeling any wrath. She was 
 the sun, and flowers sprang to life within me. 
 
 But naturally it was difficult for me to concentrate 
 myself a few hours later on my work. While Don 
 Eugenio was busily engaged in making the most elo- 
 quent translation of a passage — for he always said that 
 easy reading is not brought about by easy writing — 
 I would sit and dream. I watched the pale clouds as 
 they drifted gracefully across the dome of our blue 
 sapphire sky, and as they separated into little fleets of 
 sailing boats and as they wandered pitifully with no
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 155 
 
 pilot or as they began to sink into the sea of sapphire. 
 I was sorry for them, they would never know Maria. 
 
 "Will you be so good," said Don Eugenio, "as to 
 look up several words for me in that translation of our 
 Dioscorides. But I observe that you are disinclined 
 to work this morning. Let Pedacius or Pedanius 
 Dioscorides be an example to you; he was famous for 
 his industry and for the patience he devoted to re- 
 search. He fell, no doubt, into most grievous errors 
 and inaccuracies, but his talents are not to be blamed 
 as much as the defective state of science when he 
 wrote. Posterity will never blame you, Juanito, if you 
 are less perfect than itself. And if you are industrious 
 I will not blame you either." 
 
 I murmured that I had been thinking. 
 
 "Ah, my son," said he, "I should not like to know 
 how much time that has wasted since the world began. 
 When you are older you will see on every side, for 
 instance in a library, the proof of how men have flung 
 all their lives away in this pursuit. Perhaps there 
 was a good philosopher of Augsburg in the sixteenth 
 century who spent his life in thinking that a certain 
 branch of knowledge should be propagated and he 
 wrote a hundred books about it; then his grandson 
 spent his life in thinking that this branch was fatuous 
 and obsolete and to be extirpated, and he wrote a 
 hundred books. And if these two hundred are not all 
 forgotten they distract us with their rival claims. I 
 would impress upon you, my dear son, that we are 
 not obliged to think with this philosopher or that — we 
 need not think at all. When I was in the seminary of 
 that famous capital which I shall never see again, they 
 taught me that the thinking on all subjects of impor- 
 tance had been done already by the Fathers of the 
 Church. Now there are two ways, I was told, of
 
 156 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 thinking — one is right and one is wrong, one is of the 
 Church and one is of the Lutherans, the Calvinists, the 
 Moors, the murderers, the tyrants, the false witnesses, 
 the usurers, and all such people. If I thought of any- 
 thing myself there was a chance that I would harken 
 to the whisper of some devil or philosopher and not 
 think as I ought to do. And therefore it was certainly 
 less dangerous if I refrained from thinking. I need 
 only learn and then remember what the Church taught. 
 It might be that now and then a person who was not 
 inside the Church would have the right thoughts with 
 regard to one or two things, but that was no more 
 than accident. The thoughts of man are wounded 
 birds, they told me, for their range is very small. And 
 any one who trusts himself to them is more than rash, 
 ''How different it is, my son, with those thoughts 
 which have been provided by the holy Church, for 
 they are indestructible, immutable, and universal. 
 Sometimes they may seem ridiculous, but that, I was 
 informed at Zaragoza, is a sign that we have lost the 
 beautiful simplicity of mind which flourished in those 
 far-off pastoral days. The thoughts provided by the 
 Church may seem to us entirely childish and when 
 that occurs the reason is that we are ageing. Oh, let 
 us recapture those great thoughts, so placid and pro- 
 found! My teachers in the seminary, when I ques- 
 tioned them, admitted that if one should have inside 
 one's head no other thought save what the Sacred 
 Fathers had laid down, there would arise between 
 one's fellow-creatures and oneself embarrassment, mis- 
 understandings, and recrimination. This, however, 
 would be due exclusively to the deplorable back-sliding 
 of our fellow-men, whose thoughts had been so 
 changed. It was our duty, then, despite the physical
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 157 
 
 and moral opposition that we would encounter, to have 
 in one's mind exclusively these venerable thoughts. 
 But they admitted also that it is not always easy to 
 remember them, indeed that we should often stand in 
 gravest jeopardy of not remembering if we were un- 
 assisted by that grace which sometimes we, who are 
 such miserable sinners, are in no condition to receive. 
 "But after having made myself as like a Sacred 
 Father as my strength allowed me, I was recommended 
 not to waste my time in thinking, but to act. Is it 
 not true that of the greater saints a handful have 
 achieved their crowns by holy thinking, while a multi- 
 tude have gained them by some holy deed? Chris- 
 tianity, my child, says that it is the faith of the sincere 
 and humble, and so largely are the saints selected from 
 the ranks of active rather than of meditative men that 
 it would seem as if the chance of being made a saint 
 is in proportion as the candidate's activity of body 
 is superior to his activity of mind. Thus in the 
 hierarchy of saints the one who was admitted with 
 least opposition is the one who thought the least. 
 And whereas there is no man of any vile profession 
 and no woman of the most antique for whom there 
 may not be a halo, one imagines that the preference 
 is given to such people as are heedless, careless, in- 
 attentive, flighty, giddy, and, in fact, devoid of the 
 capacity for thought. Yet the possession of these 
 qualities will not suffice; the energy that would be 
 needed to suppress them must be used in doing noble 
 and good acts, of which a great variety have in the 
 Christian Church been recognized as meriting a saint- 
 ship. So, my Juanito, you will gather that if it is true 
 what I was taught and what I deduce therefrom, you 
 should not put yourself to inconvenience in learning
 
 158 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 what the world, which is so vain and transitory, may 
 esteem; but rather you should strive to do some deed 
 which is agreeable to God." 
 
 I had been thinking that my master's words were 
 wonderful and pious, but as I applied them to myself 
 I dreaded having to cease learning Latin at the hands 
 of Don Eugenio, and besides, I had no furious desire 
 to be a saint. I ventured to inform my dear, good 
 master of these sentiments. 
 
 "Juanito," he replied, "your honored father, who 
 no doubt is talking of us to his fighting-cocks, shall not 
 be disappointed, nor shall you, for since the Latin 
 language teaches us to read those Sacred Fathers you 
 may cultivate it with an easy mind. And as for these 
 ideas concerning act and thought, my son, one cannot 
 help admiring them. Consider how a Church is glori- 
 ous which raises up the simple and the unoriginal to 
 the confusion of the others! How far-reaching a re- 
 ward that Church can have, since it appeals to men 
 who do not glitter with intelligence and surely the 
 prevailing spirit of the human race looks angrily at 
 intellect. Oh, the grandeur of the Church that solves 
 in so complete a fashion all our little gropings, all 
 our doubts! Oh, the celestial wisdom! Oh, the light 
 from heaven which conducts the poor and purblind, 
 while it dazzles uUerly the men who fondly thought 
 that they could see a little ! Oh, miracle! Oh, wonder 
 of the universe! Oh, wise commandment which is 
 greater than all earthly wisdom! And, my son, I 
 could, if it were needful, give you many very adequate 
 examples of promotion to the highest place of men 
 and women who refused to think for themselves. Saint 
 Leonardo of the Order of Saint Francis was, while 
 still a boy, so glad to let his elders think for him that 
 on returning to his uncle's home from church he sat
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 159 
 
 repeating all that he had heard there while his supper 
 grew quite cold. There is the edifying instance of the 
 Venerable Vianney, of the diocese of Lyons, who pre- 
 ferred to practise the renunciation of his will instead of 
 corporal austerities, 'We have nothing of our own,' 
 said he, 'except our will, and it is that which I must sac- 
 rifice to God.' And assuredly obedience could no fur- 
 ther go than with the blessed Bonaventura of Potenza, 
 who even after death was guided by the thoughts of 
 others. It is told that when his corpse, exhaling a 
 sweet odor, was borne in procession through the village 
 street, one of the carriers ordered him to lift his arm 
 so that a vein might be perforated by the doctor, and 
 his blessed arm, whose every movement had been reg- 
 ulated by the will of others, raised itself. Now there 
 are many, many more examples of this virtue of not 
 thinking for oneself; and yet, my son, I never could 
 accept that precept of the seminary. It is all too prob- 
 able that I have thrown away my time in thinking, 
 but do you remember those philosophers of Augsburg 
 whom I told you of? Well, even if oblivion has settled 
 over every one of their two hundred books I still be- 
 lieve that honest thoughts, if they are written or if 
 they are not, have just the same chance as an honest 
 man of being dowered with eternal life. . . . And now 
 you will oblige me, Juanito, by returning to the 
 Dioscorides, for there are in this otherwise attractive 
 manuscript some technical expressions which are just 
 as dark to me as were the horses of Poseidon, and 
 yet some of those Etruscan vases give him both a white 
 horse and a black one. Oh, there is no single question 
 that we can be sure of! We are shadows passing in a 
 world of shadow! And I spend my time in studying 
 geology, which has to do with solid things." 
 
 Then Don Arcadio's long figure stalked into the
 
 i6o THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 room. He looked in an appreciative way at my dear 
 master, and said gravely that it was most true. 
 
 "In fact," said he, "that science is associated with 
 the solid things of life in more than one way. Is it 
 not a privilege that you and I should be engaged upon 
 it?" 
 
 "Sefior Noahcite," said Don Eugenio, "I have been 
 talking rather philosophically to my pupil, so much so 
 indeed that I do not feel, at this moment, sure of 
 anything." 
 
 "But you are sure about the virtues of geology, at 
 all events?" said Don Arcadio. 
 
 "If I may say so," said my master, with a smile of 
 tired amusement, "you are standing there with the 
 appearance of an army sergeant. Yes, and you recall 
 to me an episode. I said just now that I do not feel 
 sure of anything and I agree that it is much more 
 comfortable if you can be sure of everything, as was 
 that sergeant I am going to tell you of — he knew 
 exactly how to treat the foe, because he knew that they 
 possessed no single moral quality, not fortitude, not 
 valor and not even truthfulness. One day his men 
 were burying a little heap of them, and presently a 
 soldier came to him and said that that one yonder 
 could not be included, for he was not dead. 'Bury 
 him, I say,' growled the sergeant. Away went the 
 soldier and came back again. 'We can't bury that 
 man,' said he, 'because he is not dead at all.' 'Bury 
 him,' growled the sergeant. A second time the man 
 went back and once more he returned. 'We can't 
 bury him,' said he, 'he is not dead.' 'And how do 
 you know that?' growled the sergeant. 'He says so 
 himself,' * replied the man. 'How often have I told 
 
 * See Note I., p. 299.
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS i6i 
 
 you,' said the sergeant, 'that you are not to believe a 
 word they say?' . . . This is the story," said my 
 master. "Do you think," he said, with some anxiety, 
 "that I am not a person of sufficient seriousness? I 
 do assure you that I have been reading this old manu- 
 script with concentration, and I have been earning all 
 the money you so kindly promised me, but which — 
 which . . ." 
 
 "Are you ready for another manuscript?" inquired 
 the Noahcite. "I have received some more from 
 Europe from my correspondents." 
 
 I could see that Don Eugenio had intended to pursue 
 the subject of the salary which was as yet unpaid. 
 However, he did nothing more than shrug his shoul- 
 ders and "I hope," said he, "your manuscripts have 
 turned out to be valuable." 
 
 "Thank you," said the Noahcite. "I shall be sat- 
 isfied if they are half as valuable to me as to the eyes 
 of the officials in the custom house at Veracruz. It 
 is a monstrous thing that one should have to pay on 
 manuscripts. The law says nothing, but the Chief 
 Official writes me that I must be patriotic and allow 
 him to assess my imports so that Maximilian's Gov- 
 ernment may have more funds. And what do I care 
 for this Government or any other that we have? The 
 Chief Official tells me that it is untrue to call it either 
 futile or extravagant, and finally, he says, it stands 
 between us and a Government of Juarez, the Liberal 
 leader. And he says it would be dreadful to be ruled 
 by Liberal bandits, who prevent the priests from own- 
 ing what they like and doing what they like. He says 
 it is my glory to assist the Empire in this way, and 
 he regrets the conduct of the British Minister five years 
 ago — a diplomat of insight and a statesman, says the 
 Chief Official, would not have gone out of Mexico be-
 
 i62 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 cause it had seemed well to the authorities to enter the 
 legation and appropriate 660,000 pesos. A Govern- 
 ment, says he, which has got no resources is not merely 
 pitiable but also dangerous." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Don Eugenio, "that Government 
 alone is good which makes itself superfluous." Then 
 suddenly he had a brilliant idea. "Senor," he cried, 
 "why should not you and I pack up these books and 
 manuscripts and maps and all the rest of it, and travel 
 to some other country? Juanito's father would, I 
 think, raise no objection. You and I and Juanito and 
 Maria and Faustino — let us go!" 
 
 For a little time the Noahcite walked up and down 
 the room, his hands behind his back. And then he 
 stopped and shook his head. "No, no," said he, "what 
 is the use of it? We may find something even worse. 
 And, though I am without experience of any other 
 country, it may be that those which to a stranger seem 
 the kindest and most hospitable, are in truth the most 
 exacting. At any rate, I have a pamphlet which was 
 written a few years ago by some indignant Nicaraguans 
 (but published in Honduras) when their Government 
 was in the hands of General Walker, the American, 
 known as the filibuster. It is stated in the pamphlet 
 that all new American arrivals in the country are pre- 
 sented with so many acres and are thus made citizens 
 of the Republic, eligible for such offices as may appeal 
 to them. The Nicaraguans who have a like ambition 
 must be honorable men, but for the new arrival there 
 is no such obligation. Well, who would not go to 
 Nicaragua? Apparently, a married couple of these 
 immigrants receive an extra hundred acres, but the 
 pamphlet says that 'very often they are only married 
 civilly, which is the purest concubinage, and this does 
 not hinder them from having children, in accordance
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 163 
 
 with their democratic, filibustering ideas.' So Nica- 
 ragua, which looked more generous than any country 
 I had heard of, is, indeed, exacting. And I fear that 
 it is much the same with all the others. . . . But 
 would you care to take a stroll? I have not left the 
 house for many days and that is really why I came 
 here. Faustino says that I must take a walk." 
 
 "Most willingly," said Don Eugenio; and, as the 
 Noahcite turned round, my master made a sign to me 
 and so we followed him.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 As my master and the Noahcite walked slowly on 
 the narrow footpath^ I myself ran down the hill in front 
 of them. This was the street of memories — Maria and 
 the twilight and the rocking-chairs of those who gazed 
 at us — but now as I ran down it in the sparkling 
 brilliance of the morning it appeared to me as if the 
 morning was a river^ gay with music, and upon that 
 river all my memories were flakes of snow. It was 
 delightful to be running down the street. 
 
 And where the town comes to an end I saw both 
 Enriqueta and old Captain Bartolme Robledo as they 
 were returning over the stone bridge that leads into 
 the open country. She was sitting very proudly on 
 a horse, behind her was a soldier-servant on another 
 horse, and poor Don Bartolme was trudging through 
 the dust. Perhaps he had put on his ancient uniform 
 — which, you may recollect, was only his for having 
 stolen it from a dead officer — he may have put it on 
 in order to win favor in the eyes of Enriqueta. But 
 she was not paying him the least attention, and the 
 soldier-servant looked like one of those who do not 
 take an interest in anything. The dust lay in large 
 patches on the Captain's uniform, which once had been 
 dark blue; it lay upon his careworn face and hairy 
 bosom, for he had unfastened a few buttons of the 
 tunic. He was panting very much, and as he lurched 
 along I was afraid that he would fall. And Enriqueta 
 sat there like the cruel eagle of the arms of Mexico, 
 which has the serpent tightly in her talons. I had 
 
 164
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 165 
 
 never seen her look so ruthless and magnificent and 
 beautiful. She may not have observed me; anyhow, 
 she took no notice and the three had passed me, and 
 I still was gazing at them when my master and the 
 Noahcite came down the street, and all together we 
 went on across the bridge. 
 
 The Noahcite was talking. "But the other day," 
 said he, "you were reluctant to agree that liquid gold 
 confers a benefit by lengthening our life. Indeed, you 
 doubted whether such phenomena were possible. And 
 with regard to other substances of which our earth is 
 made, I fear that you will not believe in their great 
 properties, whatever these may be, and so we two will 
 be compelled to argue endlessly. But, on the other 
 hand, I have been thinking that if all these substances 
 can be transmuted into one another we shall merely 
 have to know the properties of one, and when we are 
 agreed on those we shall be thoroughly acquainted 
 with the properties of all the numerous and interesting 
 substances which go to form our earth. And that will 
 be a notable step forward. When we once have settled 
 what is in this earth we will know perfectly what lay 
 in Noah's head. Yes, we will know this even better 
 than he knew himself, because the very large propor- 
 tion of his powers lay within him in a dormant or, I 
 should say, latent state." 
 
 "I wonder if he could see people who were yet un- 
 born," said Don Eugenio. 
 
 "By careful study on the lines which I have indi- 
 cated," said the Noahcite, "we shall ere very long 
 know all about him. But we must work back to him, 
 as I explained, not through the wayward generations, 
 but through earth, which is to-day what it was then." 
 
 "I wonder what the good man thought of us," said 
 Don Eugenio.
 
 i66 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 "And how convenient/' said the Noahcite, "if all 
 these miscellaneous substances of earth can be trans- 
 muted into one another. Mind you, I do not say that 
 it is so; but I am investigating. I have thrown myself 
 these last few days most ardently into the question, 
 ardently and with a palpitating hope. Think how 
 much nearer it would bring us to the goal!" 
 
 By this time we were a good distance from Jalapa, 
 and I thought that Don Eugenio, who was not built for 
 walking more than necessary, would sit down against 
 a tree or else against a stone which here and there 
 had risen over its old comrades of the ancient road 
 and had perhaps received a covering of roses or of 
 moss. But yet he persevered, and Don Arcadio looked 
 as if he would walk up to the green mountains and 
 the blue ones. 
 
 "It is natural," said Don Arcadio, "that all the trans- 
 mutations which we read of deal with sundry metals 
 being turned to gold." 
 
 "For my part I am ready to believe," said Don 
 Eugenio, "that if one metal can be changed to gold 
 then you can change one metal into any other metal 
 that you like. When Saint Eugracia, whose unworthy 
 hagiographer I am, was buried, eighteen angels came, 
 according to a good account, to give assistance at the 
 funeral. And there are people who reject the tale 
 because it would be an astounding incident for eighteen 
 angels to appear at anybody's funeral. But, as I 
 pointed out, if you are willing to believe in one angel, 
 then it wants no greater faith to believe in hundreds." 
 
 "And I suppose you will agree," said Don Arcadio, 
 "that if one can transmute a little metal into gold one 
 can transmute a limitless amount?" 
 
 "I undertake that I would never, never ask you 
 for another piece of gold," said Don Eugenio, "if I
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 167 
 
 knew how to make it. Why should I want to have 
 a store of diamonds if I could get them out of carbon 
 with more ease than from Golconda?" 
 
 "Senor ex-librarian," said the Noahcite, "you may 
 not have pursued the subject, but it seems to me that 
 there are ample precedents for the successful trans- 
 mutation of a metal into gold, I have examined the 
 good work of Michael Sendivogius, the Moravian, 
 whose real name was Sensophax. He helped the 
 alchemist called Sethon to escape from prison, but 
 could not persuade him to reveal the secrets of the 
 powder which had been the cause of his incarceration 
 and most fearful torments. Later on, however, 
 Sendivogius inherited this powder and, despite the 
 troubles into which it plunged him, he continued to 
 employ it in transmuting metals into gold, and was, 
 indeed, so anxious to enlarge his stock of powder that 
 he married Sethon 's widow, only to discover that she 
 could not make it. And I ask you, would the persecu- 
 tion of him have proceeded if his power had not been 
 effective? Would the Polish nobleman have laid an 
 ambush on the road and seized him and confined him 
 in a dungeon, out of which he managed to escape, a 
 naked man, but with the powder? Would Duke 
 Frederic, of Wiirtemberg have entertained him and 
 conferred on him a title if the powder had been use- 
 less? And the rival alchemist who was attached to 
 Frederic's court, would he have treacherously urged 
 our Sendivogius to fly and then overtaken him with 
 twelve armed men and robbed him of the powder and 
 imprisoned him again? No, everything appears to 
 show that he was able to transmute another metal into 
 gold. We need not ask about the composition of his 
 powder any more than we need ask about the marvel- 
 ous philosopher's stone. It is enough that it exists."
 
 i68 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Don Eugenio, "but why then have 
 they not converted into gold our rocks and stones and 
 mud and all this earth?" 
 
 "And thus have nothing left to do?" said Don 
 Arcadio. "What princes then would humbly crave 
 their presence and would shower gifts upon them? 
 And, moreover, it is sometimes the employer's fault 
 that alchemists do not convert a substance into gold. 
 For example, it was Henry the Sixth of England who — 
 dissatisfied with the rate at which the gold was being 
 manufactured — caused his alchemists to occupy them- 
 selves with making him an amalgam of copper, out of 
 which he struck false money." 
 
 For a little time my master and the Noahcite walked 
 on in silence, each engaged with his own thoughts. 
 
 And then the Noahcite said that he spoke on the 
 authority, not of such bygone heroes as Spinoza or 
 Leibnitz, but of the most recent scientific coryphsei, 
 who asserted that it is by no means foolish to admit 
 that all matter is one and that there are irreducible 
 atoms which, in their agglomeration submitting to 
 various laws, perhaps to a single one, take every form 
 upon themselves. Thus, all imaginable transmutations 
 cease any longer to appear impossible. What we must 
 do is to discover the simple irreducible body and then 
 the laws which it obeys in the assumption of those 
 multiple forms which it affects." 
 
 "Oh, well, I do not say," quoth Don Eugenio, "that 
 I do not believe in all these things. For at the bottom 
 of my heart I cannot help believing m the holiness of 
 man, and this requires, you will agree, a faith more 
 stubborn than is wanted for the school of any alchemist. 
 What they assert is capable of proof and therefore less 
 sublime than those exalted things which I believe and 
 which, if God does not abandon me, I shall not cease
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 169 
 
 believing with my latest thought, however contrary to 
 reason and ridiculous they may appear. Amen . . . 
 But I should like to have the smallest proof, dear 
 friend, of your ability to turn metal into gold." 
 
 "Oh, listen to him! There is nothing easier," cried 
 Don Arcadio, "and I will do it instantly. I would, 
 that is to say, if I possessed the needful apparatus. 
 But I will go home and I will read about the exploits 
 of some others of the grand alchemical philosophers." 
 
 He stopped and turned and walked away from us. 
 My master also did not hesitate, but strode along with 
 great determination and he did not once look round. 
 At last he spied a ruined wall which stood inside a 
 grove of flowering myrtles at a little distance from the 
 road. He climbed up and I climbed up after him, and 
 then we saw that we were in the ruins of a convent. 
 It had evidently been destroyed a long time, for the 
 whole interior was a thicket of rank vegetation. Don 
 Eugenio found a place where we could sit against the 
 wall, with purple flowers growing at our back, and 
 then he told me that he would be glad if I rejected 
 some of these extraordinary notions of the Noahcite. 
 
 "Whatever he may say," said Don Eugenio, "I think 
 the changing of a baser metal into gold would not 
 have God's approval. I will tell you why. 'He that is 
 unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, 
 let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him 
 be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy 
 still.' That is from the Bible; does it not lay down 
 that baser substance should not hope to be converted 
 into gold? And yet — and yet . . . But this I do know, 
 that to some God gives great beauty and to others ugli- 
 ness. He is not a huckster with a pair of scales, who 
 compensates with sundry virtues those of us who are 
 deficient in this gift or that. It surely is most impious
 
 I70 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 to say, as people do^ that God does not allow the 
 beautiful to have the same amount of other estimable 
 qualities as have the rest of us." 
 
 He brushed a fly from his large forehead and leaned 
 back and smiled. But then another thought came over 
 him. "That fellow," he exclaimed, "that Noahcite, 
 that spagirist, with the agglomerating atoms which sub- 
 mit to laws! Am I to think of Enriqueta as a mere 
 assemblage of these atoms? And even as they came 
 together so will they, with absolute indifference, depart 
 from one another ! Bueno, but they make a very pleas- 
 ing picture. The dear girl! No, I will not brood on 
 her transitory atoms any more than she does." 
 
 "Did you see her on that horse," I asked, "and Don 
 Bartolme?" 
 
 "Yes, and even if I am entirely wrong in what I said 
 of God's design — I should not be astonished if it can 
 be proved, by copious quotations, that it is the very 
 opposite and that a lower metal should be turned to 
 gold, and that there is no lower metal in the sight of 
 the Creator — yet I am pleased that we have talked of 
 God before we talk of Enriqueta, for it is the custom 
 of those people, Don Arcadio's new proteges, who sally 
 out in search of the philosopher's stone, to make a start 
 by turning their unbalanced minds to the All-Powerful. 
 And as for Enriqueta, you will not have seen how 
 grandly beautiful she has become. In Colorado she 
 was at a disadvantage, owing to the meanness of her 
 situation. Here, it seems to me, she is redoubtable, she 
 is serene, she is the princess of that fairy tale who 
 thought she was a farmer's servant till she wandered 
 out into the world and found the Kingdom of her 
 ancestors. But what will Enriqueta do? One sees 
 that she has made a friend already. It is to be feared 
 that she will cause some bloodshed; for I apprehend
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 171 
 
 that she is no more virginal in her behavior than this 
 place in which we sit is like a convent. . . . Yet, after 
 all," said he, "why should one deplore so much the 
 quarrels she will bring about? Is it not a nobler and 
 more sacred thing to let your blood flow for the sake 
 of beauty rather than for politics? And Mexicans, 
 apparently, insist that it shall flow. But if the country 
 were to fight on account of one beautiful woman, they 
 would understand why they are fighting. By the way, 
 the most austere advocate of warfare would be satis- 
 fied, because the struggle, for the very large proportion 
 of the combatants, would be without hope of personal 
 benefit. And every one would understand what he is 
 fighting for. Those poor devils of Indian soldiers in 
 this country, do they understand why they are made 
 to kill each other?" ... He looked at me, his eyes 
 aflame with honest indignation and with pity. 
 
 And I gazed at him. 
 
 "Poor devils! And the soldiers of all other coun- 
 tries!" ... He was panting. But, as he continued 
 looking at me, he began to shake his wise old head. 
 "And you," said he, "my Juanito, if you really under- 
 stand what is a virgin you will not do as the vulgar 
 folk one day when I was in Madrid^ for some one asked 
 a little boy, who had been taken to the pictures at the 
 Prado, what a virgin is, and he said that it is a woman 
 with a child. Of course, the foolish people laughed. 
 But, Juanito, if in course of time you should forget 
 whatever I have taught you, this, at all events, I beg 
 you to remember — that we, if we dare condemn the 
 morals of our fellow-creatures must condemn no 
 woman, for so many of them are like water-lilies that 
 are virginal and white, though rooted in repulsive mud. 
 The time will come for you, my son, when you will 
 love the sex; to love is to understand, but you will find
 
 172 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 that you must love woman a great deal before you 
 can understand her a little." 
 
 Later on, as we were going back towards Jalapa, 
 I explained to Don Eugenio how it was my fault that 
 Enriqueta had arrived, and how it was that she had 
 come to our lieutenant. 
 
 "Ah, well," quoth my good master, "let us hope that 
 God has given him the gift which is greater than 
 beauty, I mean the power of appreciating it. We must 
 lose no time in going to that house." 
 
 I wondered if my master would remove her, even as 
 he took Maria from the same lieutenant in the forest. 
 
 Once we were inside the town it was not difficult to 
 find the place where Don Esteban Fuentes lived. The 
 loiterer who took us to the top of that particular street, 
 and was carefully polishing his nails as he strolled 
 along, would surely not have left us had he noticed 
 what was happening at the house. Don Bartolme, the 
 poor old captain, who was seated on a bench outside 
 it, looked as if his sufferings had made him numb. 
 His arms hung limply down, and though the dust, 
 which was all over him, was even on his mouth he did 
 not seem to care. The noise of a guitar and singing 
 came out of the open windows of a room above him, 
 on the first floor. It was Enriqueta and Don Esteban 
 Fuentes singing. 
 
 When we halted opposite the Captain and saluted 
 him, he nodded at us with no sign of pleasure or aston- 
 ishment. He nodded at us^ and his head continued 
 moving up and down. 
 
 "My friend," said Don Eugenio, "may pleasant days 
 await you in Jalapa." 
 
 We could hear them singing, with emotion, that 
 romance by Juan Melendez Valdes:
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 173 
 
 "Welcome, welcome, lovely rain, 
 
 The refreshment of our valleys. 
 
 You are bringing us abundance 
 
 As you pass along the land." 
 
 "Forgive me for intruding," said my master, "but 
 I hope that you are not a follower of Epicurus. How 
 magnificent is our religion which proclaims that they 
 are blessed who suffer. And that is why the Epicurean 
 loses faith in religion. Blessed are those who mourn, 
 my friend. It is sorrow which tests and awakens the 
 generous sentiments; it arms against pleasure; it 
 fertilizes." 
 
 And the song continued: 
 
 "Beautifully you bring life 
 To the flowers which are bursting 
 To receive you, which no longer 
 Can remain within the bud." 
 
 Suddenly Don Bartolme Robledo shook his fist at 
 my good master. "You torment me!" he exclaimed. 
 "You are the children of the devil, you and she and 
 all of them! And why have you come here to mock 
 me? Do you think that you are doing good, for- 
 sooth?" 
 
 Don Eugenio sat down beside the angry man. He 
 laid a hand upon his leg and looked at him with tears 
 in his blue eyes. 
 
 "Well, well, is it not so?" said the Captain. 
 
 "The good which I can do," said Don Eugenio, 
 "talking to you is perhaps extremely small. I would 
 to God that it were different. It may be that great 
 benefits come out of grief, but when our heart is flut- 
 tering against its barriers the heavens seem to shrink
 
 174 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 around us and we break our heart against another 
 cage. My friend," said Don Eugenio, with a smile of 
 brave encouragement — a tear was passing down his 
 cheek, he let it pass — "my friend," said he, "however 
 gray and poor the world may seem to you, I wager that 
 to scores of other people it is . . ." 
 
 "How much will you wager?" asked the Captain. 
 
 "H ombre! you have killed the shadows," said my 
 master. "You have a mightier sword than this one," 
 said he, as he touched the Captain's weapon. 
 
 "But I say the world is . . ." 
 
 "Let us listen to the music," said my master. 
 
 We could hear the voices overhead and the guitar. 
 They sang with fervor: 
 
 "Oh, the colors are more radiant 
 Than the pearls of your bestowing, 
 And the ground on which you break 
 You adorn with diamonds." 
 
 "After all," said Don Eugenio, "we should be grate- 
 ful, you and I, for those who sing to us. Have you 
 not seen old, venerable men who crown themselves 
 with vine-leaves and go capering about a village, while 
 the merciful and righteous people yearn to veil their 
 eyes and sometimes veil them? Surely if the young 
 had . . ." 
 
 And the song continued: 
 
 "Come down, come, you shall appease 
 The hunger of the dusty field. 
 What you touch will dance again 
 And old age will be forgotten." 
 
 "If the young had been more natural, more joyous," 
 said my master, "then the old would have been satisfied
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 175 
 
 to play their part and listen. What a worthy picture 
 we present," said Don Eugenio, "we two old men who 
 sit here on the bench and . . ." 
 
 "Is that why you came?" the Captain said. 
 
 And just then I saw the lieutenant at the window. 
 He put both his arms upon the wood-work and gazed 
 downwards. He was smiling. And before my master 
 answered Don Bartolme I saw Enriqueta also. She 
 stood there beside her friend, she leaned against him, 
 and she signaled to me several things and very 
 amiably. 
 
 I think if Don Bartolme asked his question in all 
 innocence he quickly grew suspicious, owing to my 
 master not replying. It may be his question took my 
 master unawares, but on the other hand perhaps it was 
 that Don Eugenio did not deign to tell a falsehood, for 
 he was the noblest and the most illustrious of men. 
 
 "Aha," the Captain cried. "I know exactly why 
 you came. We are two brothers!" And he put his 
 arm around my master's neck, and with his other hand, 
 a bony, yellow hand, he stroked my master on the 
 cheek. I could not bear the way in which Don Bar- 
 tolme was laughing. 
 
 But the dignified expression of my master was as 
 great as it was wonderful. 
 
 "Now," babbled the old man, "now tell your little 
 brother what you thought that you would do." 
 
 The pair above were listening most eagerly. 
 
 And when my master spoke — not making any effort 
 to remove the two obnoxious hands of Don Bartolme — 
 he was very grave. "In ancient times," said he, "it 
 used to be considered arrogant for any one to make a 
 loud enumeration of his sins, except when the conceal- 
 ing of them might involve the guiltless. I have no 
 desire, however, to be shielded by that custom of the
 
 176 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 Jews. They had another salutary precept, recommend- 
 ing criminals to make confession at a distance of ten 
 cubits from the place where they were to be executed. 
 I believe I am within that distance of the object on 
 account of which I sinned, and so I will confess. But, 
 first of all, it has been said that evil is a necessary 
 thing if moral beings are to do good works and to be 
 good. If evil then be necessary, is it not justifiable? 
 Can we condemn what must be? If a thing is neces- 
 sary is it not, in a sense, good?" 
 
 "Oh, that is talking like the devil!" said Don 
 Bartolme. 
 
 "I was coming to that," said my master, "for in 
 your invective, if you will remember, you denounced, 
 not only me but Enriqueta and, I think, everybody 
 else as being children of the devil. Have you medi- 
 tated on the devil, Don Bartolme? Look at his 
 position. He is given certain qualities, lust, foulness, 
 concupiscence, and the others which they tell him he 
 must exercise; because it is essential that there should 
 be opposition between fair and foul, between wisdom 
 and folly, so that human beings may achieve this or 
 that other virtue. It is only by a wound that a 
 caress is understood, and we are put into this transi- 
 tory world that we may understand the value of the 
 world, which is eternal. So the devil, with his evil 
 attributes, is playing a tremendously important part." 
 
 "Oh, yes!" cried Don Bartolme, in excitement. He 
 looked like a faithful dog which, in the middle of a 
 long, long sentence, hears a word it understands. 
 
 "And all the time," said Don Eugenio, "the devil 
 knows how indispensable he is, for his superior intelli- 
 gence is always vaunted; even by the hostile critics it 
 is said to be not less in volume than his peccability.
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 177 
 
 Now what would happen if he should decline to play 
 his part?" 
 
 The Captain shook his head. "Who knows?'" quoth 
 he. "Who knows what then would happen . . . Oh, 
 by the holy saints, he would no longer trouble us and 
 we should all be glad. Yes, that is it!" 
 
 "There can be no light if there is no darkness," said 
 my master, "seeing that it is impossible to think of any 
 light which does not illuminate. Darkness alone is 
 capable of being lit. Without darkness the light would 
 have no opposition it can work upon, that is to say, 
 it would not light and it would not be the light withal. 
 And so God cannot work without the devil. It is con- 
 stantly implied in sacred writings that the devil's sway 
 has been permitted that it may be over-ruled. More- 
 over, he is always being told that his power can be 
 resisted by the will of man, when aided by the grace 
 of God. Well, suppose that he should take into his 
 head to retire from the business. I can tell you that 
 his great Opponent would be very much embarrassed. 
 Hitherto, however, he has stayed at work . . . 
 
 "Many people have their doubts to-day concerning 
 this or that tradition of our fathers, and they fre- 
 quently have said that I must follow them, as if my 
 own doubts were not more than ample. But in this 
 matter of the devil I am very steadfast. I am with 
 the popular beliefs and customs and practices and old 
 tales of warning and fairy-tales and general conversa- 
 tion, in all of which, despite the efforts to the contrary, 
 he plays a part that is by no means insignificant. His 
 task it is both to direct and organize the heresies, the 
 errors, the superstitions, the fanaticism and indiffer- 
 ence, the enervation of ease, the dangers of wealth and 
 poverty . . . Let me ask you, Captain Don Bartolme,
 
 178 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 is there any one for whom, in view of all the circum- 
 stances, you can feel a sorrow more profound?" 
 
 Don Bartolme looked extremely solemn. 
 
 "Any single person?" said my master. 
 
 The poor, battered Captain groaned, and, gazing 
 with a dull eye into space, he said that he was very, 
 very sorry for himself, "What have I done," said 
 he, "that I should have all these misfortunes? I am 
 weary in this town and I have nowhere I can sleep, 
 and, as for food, I have to beg. How beautiful it was 
 in Colorado at the house of Pedro, the good father of 
 that boy. He never stinted me the beans and the 
 sweet oranges, and sometimes part of the well-peppered 
 mess or else the stew which travelers had left un- 
 eaten, and sometimes a soup made of the little fishes 
 they brought up from Veracruz, and sometimes I could 
 put my finger in the chocolate his good wife was pre- 
 paring with the goat's milk, and they never made me 
 talk while I was eating." 
 
 Don Eugenio arose and took the Captain by the arm. 
 "You must go with me to the Noahcite's," said he. 
 
 "Yes, very willingly," said Don Bartolme. 
 
 And as they were starting I saw the lieutenant at 
 the window, who was with his mouth half-open, but 
 uncertain what to say. And Enriqueta whispered to 
 him and cajoled him, and he shut his mouth. 
 
 My master and the Captain, arm in arm, walked up 
 the street. And I had never seen the Captain limp so 
 grievously, not even when he had been following, an 
 hour ago, the horse of Enriqueta. That old sword of 
 his made such a shrill noise on the pavement.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 There can be no doubt that if we had remained in 
 Don Arcadio's house the poor old Captain would have 
 been provided with a home. But on the morning after 
 his arrival Don Arcadio stalked into my room and 
 bade me follow him. He told me, on the way, that 
 our departure for the State of Tamaulipas would no 
 longer be delayed, and as we reached the library he 
 pointed to that ancient map which hung upon the wall. 
 
 "The time has come," said he, "when I must make 
 investigations there, because the people of this country 
 seem to be more agitated, and if I can give them gold 
 they may not think so much of revolution as of other 
 things." 
 
 I gazed at him and at the map. 
 
 "You naturally will object," said he, "that gold may 
 lead them to commit iniquities, which are as bad as 
 revolutions. On the other hand it may persuade them 
 to employ the arts of peace; and I, at any rate, will be 
 regarded with considerable gratitude, and for my few 
 remaining years of life will be allowed to work without 
 the constant fear of molestation. We will go next week 
 to Tamaulipas." 
 
 "Shall we have a camp," I asked, "like soldiers?" 
 
 "Yes, and soldiers to bring back the gold," said Don 
 Arcadio. "The governor has promised me an escort 
 if I give him a proportion of the gold. I have learned 
 a lesson from that Spanish lady who was bringing 
 silver from the mountains many years ago and was 
 afraid she would not reach the coast in safety. When 
 
 179
 
 i8o THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 the governor heard of this he offered her the shelter 
 of his house, and she went in with all her mules. He 
 comforted her very much and told her that her fears 
 were altogether useless^ and in the night he murdered 
 her . . . But what I wish to talk about/' said Don 
 Arcadio, "is not the sad experience of this lady nor 
 the expedition we are going to make, but rather to 
 make sure that you appreciate the glories of geology. 
 Since you and Don Eugenio have been with me it so 
 has happened that we have devoted a good deal of time 
 to liquid gold and other matters, which are not without 
 a deep importance, but which may have caused you, my 
 dear Juanito, to forget the fundamental facts which 
 move me onwards. Geology, in short, is the greatest 
 of all sciences, because it leads me to the greatest goal 
 which any mortal man has ever struggled for. It 
 teaches us of what this earth is made, and very soon I 
 hope to know precisely — and if all the substances can 
 be reduced to one, of course, my task will be much 
 easier — and when I know precisely what is in the earth 
 I shall have ascertained what lay in Noah's head. He, 
 like all other men, was made of earth. And when I 
 know what lay in Noah's head I shall have all the 
 knowledge of which man is capable, and therefore all 
 the happiness, and then I shall proceed to pour this 
 happiness on our distracted country. But I have not 
 brought you here," he said, "to talk of all these 
 things.'' 
 
 I hoped that he would now dismiss me, for I wanted 
 to search out old Captain Bartolme, who was below 
 this very roof. 
 
 "It has occurred to me," said Don Arcadio, "not that 
 you doubt the wisdom of my life's pursuit, but that 
 you may not grasp it as completely as I would desire. 
 And if you happened to be questioned by a band of
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS i8i 
 
 skeptics you might be unable to allay their skepticism; 
 they might laugh at both of us. And that is why I 
 think it well to give you a short exposition of the 
 Nature of Matter. I request you, Juanito, not to pay 
 attention to those plausible philosophers who say that 
 we are in a world of mere illusion and that nothing, 
 neither you nor I nor Mexico, does really exist. How- 
 ever fascinating be that doctrine I am naturally up in 
 arms against it, for it would destroy my work. The 
 structure would come falling round my ears ... As 
 I have told you several times, true happiness springs 
 out of knowledge and complete human happiness can 
 be reached by knowing what the world is made of. 
 Therefore, if it turns out to be made of nothing, of 
 appearances, of things that in our blindness we be- 
 lieve we see, then it would follow that our human 
 knowledge is no more than vanity, and that our happi- 
 ness — no! no!" 
 
 He started pacing up and down the room. "My 
 search for happiness, my search for happiness," he 
 muttered. And he glared at me and was a long time 
 growing calm. 
 
 At last he stopped in front of me and said that he 
 would tell me of some precious stones and what they 
 signified to ancient folk. "As I have mentioned," said 
 the Noahcite, "all matter may be one, and therefore, 
 to avoid the risk of wasting time, we will devote our- 
 selves not to the composition of these stones but to 
 their inherent qualities, and surely this is of extreme 
 importance. Well, it was decided that the twelve 
 stones of the New Jerusalem have each of them a 
 meaning in accordance with their color, and it is re- 
 markable how accurately all their attributes were 
 known to experts such as Bonaventura and Richard of 
 Megenberg. The former has divided the twelve stones
 
 i82 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 in groups of four which represent the virtues of Chris- 
 tian perfection. For example, in the second group the 
 emerald is hope for the forgiveness of sins, the sar- 
 donyx is hope for mercy and the sard is hope for 
 eternal bliss. And the religious symbolism of the 
 stones was not by any means fantastic, for it sprang 
 from their medicinal and celebrated qualities. It is 
 quite true that Albertus Magnus, who was a most 
 enviable pantologist, that is to say, a person who em- 
 braced all knowledge, found himself obliged to argue 
 with the people who expressed their doubts as to the 
 healing power of stones. And then this wise man gives 
 in utmost detail all the multitudinous powers which 
 reside in them, while Richard of Megenberg deduces 
 this power from the stone's symbolical meaning. Thus 
 the green jasper, says he, which strengthens the body, 
 stands for that belief which strengthens the soul. And 
 with regard to the emerald, he informs us that it repre- 
 sents modesty and that it will break in two if a sin 
 against love is committed in its presence, and thus it 
 has the power to restrain such evil deeds. Albertus 
 Magnus goes so far as to assert that it cannot bear the 
 matrimonial intercourse of married people, since a 
 King of Hungary possessed a stone which broke upon 
 his finger while he was embracing the Queen. Yet I 
 know nothing of Hungarian amours . . . But you, my 
 son, are not without some knowledge now of one 
 branch of geology." 
 
 With that he waved me to the door. And I ran 
 quickly up to Don Eugenio's room. 
 
 He was engaged in talking to Maria, very earnestly, 
 and she was sitting on the floor and with her head 
 against his knee. When I came in my master did not 
 cease discoursing, "If, on the other hand," said he, 
 "the Noahcite will not allow you to go with us on this
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 183 
 
 expedition which to me is most repellent, but from 
 which I cannot well excuse myself, then you will either 
 wait here till such time as we return, if that indeed be 
 God's desire, or you will go your way. If only there 
 lay any value in my blessing, I would give it you, 
 Maria, from the bottom of my heart. What can I do 
 except to pray that you will fall into more worthy 
 hands than mine? At least I saved you from the wild 
 lieutenant." 
 
 She looked up at him most tenderly. 
 
 "In front of our young friend," said Don Eugenio, 
 "we need not change the subject of the conversation. 
 We began by talking about love, and Juanito may be 
 grateful to us, in the days to come, when he first is 
 troubled with a woman. Let him know that women, if 
 they run away from you or if you conquer them, are 
 always man's great enemy." 
 
 "But, sefior," said Maria, "why do you say that?" 
 
 "Dear girl, I trust that you will never know one half 
 the damage you will do to men. It may be answered 
 that the men who seize or who attempt to seize you 
 are pernicious fellows anyhow, but if they are not 
 punished for this crime I should reject that part of 
 Holy Scripture which relates the punishment of Judas 
 Iscariot and for a sin which he was fated to commit. 
 Some people are less fortunate than others, that is all. 
 And you, my children, must at any rate not fall into 
 the sin of thinking that our Maker is unjust or cruel." 
 
 "Oh, no, no," she said most gravely, "and let Him 
 not be cruel, Don Eugenio, to you for having seized 
 me." 
 
 Then there came into my master's face a look of 
 grand nobility. "Indeed," quoth he, "there is no 
 greater culprit in this land." 
 
 Maria flung herself against him and she pressed her
 
 i84 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 fingers on his lips. "Oh, do not speak like that!" she 
 cried. "You are not wicked and you did not seize 
 me. It is I who came to dwell with you. And God 
 knows that, of course." 
 
 Don Eugenio smiled and gently took her hands 
 away. "He also knows/' said he, "that my one con- 
 solation is the thought that from the greatest sinners 
 come the greatest saints; repentance is the frame of 
 mind which God prefers in us because the Devil hates 
 it most. And by the way," said Don Eugenio, "I 
 should like to tell you of Saint Mary the Egyptian, 
 who is the patron saint of all those who repent. Her 
 example we can keep before us; but even if we have 
 the courage and the opportunity to wander, as she did, 
 for so many years in the desert, I am doubtful as to 
 whether our transgressions would be so completely 
 washed away that another Zozimus, of eminent virtue, 
 would approach us and would humbly ask our bless- 
 ing. Also I am doubtful whether, in this different age 
 of ours, we should not have to tread the wilderness for 
 more than Mary's seven and forty years and still not 
 meet a man as perspicacious and benevolent as Zozi- 
 mus. How many persons nowadays would give their 
 mantle to a miserable penitent whose body has be- 
 come entirely black, whose hair falls to the shoulders 
 and is white as wool, whose garment is the robe of 
 innocence? Alas, it is an age of lesser sinners and of 
 lesser saints. As the saying goes, it is the lesser saints 
 who will be the ruin of God; and I fear He looks 
 askance upon the lesser sinners. But if we live in 
 narrow circumstances we must still continue, we must 
 try to leave our little garden better than when we 
 received it, we must not spend all our time in thinking 
 of old, medieval, spacious gardens which have disap- 
 peared for ever."
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 185 
 
 Don Eugenio had spoken the last sentence with 
 solemnity, and now he sat there sunk in thought, until 
 Maria, speaking not a word, put down her head and 
 kissed his hand. 
 
 "Ah, well," said Don Eugenio, "this thinking about 
 love has made us melancholy. And although I said 
 that love is perilous to women and more perilous to 
 men, the greatest danger is to stop and spend our time 
 in thinking of it. I believe that it is better for a man 
 to do evil boldly than to think of evil, better to live 
 than to think about life and better to snatch at love 
 with both his hands than merely to dream of it. . . . 
 Now," said he to Maria, "I do not want you to look 
 sad." 
 
 "But when you are not here to talk to me, when I go 
 back into my village and can understand what every- 
 body says — dear God, I wish I could go with you." 
 
 "Well, well, and what news have you?" said Don 
 Eugenio to me. "If it is bad, your patience, let me 
 tell you, is quite contrary to precedent." 
 
 I told him that I had been learning from the Noah- 
 cite about some precious stones, and that all men are 
 made of earth and that he didn't want me to believe 
 some plausible philosophers, and that that was all I 
 could remember. 
 
 "Wait until I have him for a whole day riding by 
 my side to Tamaulipas," said my master. "I will 
 demonstrate to him how horribly he is in error when 
 he says that men are made of earth. But now you 
 and I will go," said he, "to spend another happy day 
 among our books. God knows what is in store for us." 
 
 We made our way into the room above the stable, 
 where by this time my good master had collected a fair 
 quantity of books and manuscripts belonging to the 
 Noahcite. The larger part of them did not deal with
 
 i86 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 geology, for they had been in Don Arcadio's possession 
 from the days when he did not restrict himself to this 
 one science. Yet as we were eating Don Arcadio's 
 bread and salt, my master said it would be less than 
 honorable if v,^e spent a day without devoting part of 
 it to Roger Bacon's treatise. And I recollect how on 
 that morning we began methodically, Don Eugenio 
 transcribing sentences in his large, lucid, somewhat 
 ornamental hand, while every now and then he told 
 me of a Latin word which was not yet in my vocabu- 
 lary. So we came to the word jumant, "they are 
 smoking," which was in a paragraph about volcanoes. 
 
 "Et jam summa procul villarum culmina jumant,'* 
 said my master, "by which Virgil means that evening 
 approaches. Oh, my son," said he, "if we were not 
 about to undertake this dreadful journey we would 
 read a book of that great poet. Et jam summa — and 
 what smoke shall we find of an evening except the 
 smoke of ravished villages? . . . Old Virgil, he was 
 innocent and amiable and peaceful, rather like his 
 writings, so that he attracted me, for I was so unlike 
 him; I could always hear a tempest blowing round the 
 corner, even when I had for years been in the bishop's 
 library. I cannot help it, talking of the distant days, 
 now that I am to be pulled up again where I had taken 
 root, and this time I shall not survive it." As he said 
 these words his voice was very valiant and his coun- 
 tenance was flushed. 
 
 Perhaps he saw how great my longing was to rise 
 against these words and bury them and let them never- 
 more come out into the light. 
 
 "Ah, well," said my beloved master, "there was 
 something else in Virgil which I used to think was not 
 unlike me, that is the desire to lead a contemplative 
 life. It was a labor, sometimes a delightful labor, for
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 187 
 
 him to write poetry; but he was never able to leave 
 off, and so far I may say I have resembled him, since 
 I have not been able to leave off from mixing with 
 another sort of poetry which is the crowd of men. 
 The idea to write a book has come to me, but I was 
 always either too indolent or too busy. Well, I 
 wonder what sort of book I would have written. . . . 
 If only those men were to write who have a new 
 philosophical theory of life, then even Virgil would 
 have had to keep quiet." 
 
 At this moment we were interrupted by Faustino. 
 We had not heard him coming up the stairs, since, in 
 accordance with his usual habit, he was barefoot. 
 Still we might have heard his breathing, which was 
 very loud. And, though he had a face which never 
 could show much expression, any one could see that 
 he was most intensely agitated. For example, his eyes, 
 which I had never noticed, had the look of a poor dog 
 which does not understand why it is being whipped. 
 The corner of his bluish under-lip was quivering. 
 
 "But calm yourself," said Don Eugenio, "so far as I 
 can help it no harm shall befall your master." 
 
 "The whole country is full of robbers!" cried 
 Faustino. "We shall certainly be killed." 
 
 "Then I shall only take one pair of boots," said Don 
 Eugenio. 
 
 Faustino blinked at him. "But — but," said he, "and 
 if the jefe of the region should arrest us he will make 
 us build a road or — I ask your pardon, would you like 
 to hear what happened to a friend of mine who was 
 a very upright comrade and a good tailor? But I 
 am not sure if you would like to hear of him." Faus- 
 tino's agitation was now giving way to deep despon- 
 ency. 
 
 My master wished to render him more cheerful.
 
 i88 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 Therefore he assured him that he was most curious to 
 hear about this friend of his. 
 
 "But, woe is me, I have forgotten what his name 
 was," said Faustino. 
 
 "Call him Juan or Tomas or whatever you like," 
 said my master. 
 
 "Thank you," said Faustino, "but if I am false in 
 that you would say I am false in the whole story." He 
 displayed as yet no sign of cheerfulness. 
 
 "Now listen to me, Faustino," said my master, 
 smiling at him in the most friendly fashion. "You 
 can truly give him any name you like, whether it be 
 a Spanish name or a Mexican or that of any other 
 people under the sun — I promise you it will not inter- 
 fere with my enjoyment of the story. Did you hear 
 what happened to Gazielle, the French officer who was 
 captured with all his men near San Pedro in the State 
 of Sinaloa, about two years ago, and dragged into the 
 town amid the wild, enthusiastic shouting of the popu- 
 lation? Well, they say that in his papers there were 
 found a dozen copies of a document which he was 
 going to fasten up at the casa municipal and some 
 other public buildings of San Pedro; in this document 
 he gracefully acknowledged the enthusiasm which had 
 greeted him on all sides as he rode in triumph through 
 the town. . . . But the story would be just the same, 
 to me at all events, if I were to call the officer Dubois 
 or Doucet or Gamelle. So I beg you to have no more 
 scruples with the name of your friend the good tailor." 
 
 Faustino nodded and he slowly rubbed his chin. He 
 looked like soldiers do, I should imagine, when they 
 find they have been lured into an ambuscade, that 
 they are in a marsh and that their legs are sinking 
 irretrievably. It seemed to poor Faustino that a 
 million names, of all the ages and of all the countries,
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 189 
 
 beautiful and ugly names and sacred names, were 
 hanging all around him^ ready to be plucked. He told 
 me afterwards that it was like a forest with the fruits 
 suspended from a thousand branches and across each 
 of the fruits its name was written; he did not know 
 where to look, for he was so confused, and from a 
 certain tree there hung a number of large yellow fruits 
 and on them in black letters you could see the names of 
 Satan, every fruit with one of his innumerable names; 
 for Satan, said Faustino, is in this respect alone like 
 God, that he possesses many names, as any one can 
 hear who listens to a learned priest, Faustino had 
 himself, he told me, had the great advantage at Jalapa 
 of a Spanish priest whose eloquence was marvelous 
 and whose terrific voice could make the devils in you 
 run away. This priest was such a learned man that 
 he had penetrated Satan's numerous disguises and he 
 would attack him in his sermons now by this name, 
 now by that; thus with his beautiful and mighty elo- 
 quence he called down curses, very often, on Sammael 
 and Beelzebub and Lucifer and Belial and Luzbel, on 
 the Enemy, the Persecutor, on the Lord of Darkness, 
 the Accuser, on the Tempter and the Contradictor, 
 the Prevaricator, the Malicious One, the Rebel, on 
 Agromanyus and Ahriman and Abaddon and Apollyon. 
 Many of these names, Faustino said, were written on 
 the yellow fruit which hung before his eyes. 
 
 "Shall I begin your story?" said my master. "Shall 
 we talk about the sad adventures of your friend the 
 tailor who was apprehended by the jefe?'* 
 
 "And he was in truth most skilful as a tailor," said 
 Faustino. 
 
 "But the jeje had a grudge against him," said my 
 master. 
 
 "Seiior Don Eugenio," said the man, "you know
 
 190 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 the ways of magic, you have read the story which 
 I have inside me. And you know the fate of my 
 poor, miserable friend, how he was forced to help the 
 builders of a road who were bad persons out of prison 
 with a guard of other bad ones, who were soldiers, 
 watching them. And he was made to labor at this 
 work because the jeje of the place desired his woman." 
 
 ''Your friend was not married?" asked Don 
 Eugenio. 
 
 "It would not have saved him." 
 
 "Perhaps not on earth," said Don Eugenio. "Yet 
 one must also think of heaven." 
 
 "But in heaven there will be no jejes," said Faus- 
 tino. "As for this one, he desired the woman, and so 
 furiously that he seized the poor Gregorio and made 
 him build the road with all those other villains and 
 unhappy men." 
 
 My master rose, walked over to Faustino and, in 
 the most sympathetic way, he patted him upon the 
 back. "It does you every honor," so he said, "that 
 you should be afflicted by your friend's misfortunes. 
 But before you came young Juanito and myself were 
 having a discussion about Virgil, and, with all respect 
 to your style of narration, which has merits of its own, 
 I cannot help lamenting, for your sake, that it is not 
 more like Virgil's, since it then would have a greater 
 chance of permanent survival, and for Juanito's sake, 
 at all events, I will endeavor to examine how the Latin 
 poet would have told it." 
 
 Don Eugenio cleared himself a little space upon the 
 table, and was in the act of sitting down upon it when 
 Faustino spoke. 
 
 "If your worship will pardon me," he said, "it is 
 the truth which I have told you, and I think that not 
 even a friend of your worship's can do more."
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 191 
 
 "You are an honest fellow," said my master. "And 
 yet one can be sure of this, that if two men give their 
 impressions of the same event their stories will not be 
 the same, and in proportion as the couple are more 
 honest so will their stories vary ... I sometimes 
 think," said Don Eugenio^ "that one has far to search 
 among created things in order to find differences more 
 pronounced than those which frequently exist between 
 two men. But, doubtless, you have noticed how it 
 happens that a person tries to put his own eyes into 
 some one else's head. It is absurd and it is tragic . . . 
 We should be delighted that we are so different, and 
 that what is the truth for you is not the truth for me." 
 
 "We are all different," said Faustino, in a kind of 
 reverie. "What can be done? What is there to be 
 done?" 
 
 "If you will follow my advice," said Don Eugenio, 
 "you will do nothing. And although you are the 
 cleverest man in all the world you will not make a 
 rose be like a cactus." 
 
 "They are very different," said Faustino. 
 
 Then my master moistened both his lips and said 
 that now he would go back to Virgil with the story. 
 
 "Your friend the tailor," so he said, "would be a 
 heroic person, driven from his home by the pernicious 
 jeje, and the jefe, after haying lived awhile with your 
 friend's woman, would be conscious that his mode of 
 life could not endure for ever, and in deep despair he 
 then would kill himself." 
 
 Faustino rubbed his hands; he was entirely pleased. 
 
 "And there would be a great deal more to tell," said 
 Don Eugenio. "The tailor, working at the road, would 
 fall into a kind of sleep and would behold the gods, 
 who made this country with such prodigality and splen- 
 dor, come on snow-white horses down the road. Be-
 
 192 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 tween them would be riding the heroic, pious tailor, 
 who, with their assistance, would establish Mexico 
 upon a sure foundation." 
 
 "Oh, yes, yes!" — and then Faustino checked him- 
 self, his face fell. "But," said he, "the man was only 
 one of my own friends. How could he ride with God 
 and do those other things?" 
 
 "If God desires a thing it comes to pass," said Don 
 Eugenio. "And the more impossible it seems to you 
 the purer will be your belief if you believe it. We 
 have not been called on by the Church to put our faith 
 in what we know, but in what we do not know, and 
 surely the acme of faith is that which not only does 
 not shrink from what it does not know, but extending 
 much further than that, is ready to receive into its 
 bosom the phenomena which intellect and reason and 
 experience would unhesitatingly reject. So let us have 
 the tailor riding down the road to set this country on a 
 firm foundation." 
 
 "May God live long: May He live long!" exclaimed 
 Faustino. 
 
 "All the heroes of this country would come past," 
 said Don Eugenio, "and you would have a thrilling 
 story. I need scarcely say that it would fall far short 
 of Homer, yet nevertheless even Virgil . . ." 
 
 But Faustino was quite satisfied. I never thought 
 he could behave in such a fashion, for he was by nature 
 very solemn, not to say depressed. He nearly danced 
 out of the room, and, as he went, we heard him laugh- 
 ing with great, simple happiness and rendering thanks 
 to God. But I believe he did not know as many names 
 of God as of the Devil. 
 
 "We shall now be able to go on," my master said. 
 "Oh, do you realize what it will cost me to leave all 
 these books?" He looked round very helplessly.
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 193 
 
 "But if we are not killed/' I said, "we can come 
 back to them. The soldiers will not steal them, I am 
 sure." 
 
 "And if, indeed^ we are killed — well, why should 
 we drag our dearest fellow-travelers with us? No! 
 no! no! " He tossed his head back and he looked most 
 gallant. 
 
 Then I asked him if he knew why we should share 
 the fate of that poor tailor, since there was no jeje 
 who was hostile to us. Did it not, I asked, seem fool- 
 ish of Faustino to hold up for us the story of a man 
 whose life was so unlike our own. 
 
 "Maria is a very worthy girl," my master said. "I 
 hope with all my heart that she will not come into 
 wicked hands." 
 
 And then we worked for several hours in Don 
 Eugenio's peculiar way. He once had told me that 
 the kisses of true love are turned to butterflies, and 
 now as he went wandering from one book to another, 
 fondling them and talking at random_, he did really 
 seem to be a large, benignant butterfly. 
 
 And when that day was over and the house was 
 dark, I crept out of my room and made for Don 
 Eugenio's door. This would be one of my last love- 
 nights with Maria. 
 
 He was snoring very regularly and I knocked, but 
 there was no reply. Perhaps Maria was asleep herself. 
 I knocked again_, and then with every care I turned 
 the handle of the door. I opened it just wide enough 
 to let me in. There I could see her, sitting in the 
 moonlight on her bed. She waved her hand, as if she 
 wanted me to go away. The moonlight also fell upon 
 the placid face of Don Eugenio. He was murmuring 
 while he slept. 
 
 I stood there for a long time, making various
 
 194 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 motions with my arms and head, entreating her and 
 ordering her and threatening her, but she was obsti- 
 nate. She made it clear to me that she was filled with 
 love for Don Eugenio. She bent over him as if she 
 were his mother. When she looked at me she was 
 imperious, commanding me to leave the room at once. 
 
 As I drew nearer to the bed her face became con- 
 torted and I looked away from her. 
 
 "In the name of God," she whispered, "take yourself 
 away!" 
 
 Her voice was not much louder than the voice of 
 Don Eugenio, but I could not hear what he said, at 
 least I could not hear distinctly. 
 
 I went a step nearer to his smiling face and she 
 glared round at me as if she were indeed a savage 
 thing. And I could hear a word or two of what he 
 said and then he made some incoherent sounds. It 
 had no sense, but when she gazed at him there came 
 into her rigid face the sweetness that there was in his. 
 
 And if at last he had not murmured Enriqueta's 
 name, I think Maria never would have come with me.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 On the second morning after this I was awakened 
 by the noise of horses and of men; the men were 
 shouting and were knocking with their weapons on the 
 doors. I did not stop to think of what might happen 
 to me as I ran across and threw the window open. 
 It was barely hght enough to see what was this troop 
 which filled the street and cursed and shouted, riding 
 east and riding west in terrible confusion, some who 
 flogged their horses, some who had dismounted. But 
 I knew that this was part of the Imperial army, since 
 the sound of foreign voices mingled with the others. 
 
 As they rattled on the doors and on the iron 
 window-bars I was surprised that not a single one of 
 the inhabitants appeared, and as for me, I thought it 
 would perhaps be better if I partly closed the window. 
 Then I knelt down on the floor in a position where they 
 scarcely could have seen me, and I watched them with 
 a rapt attention. They were quarreling with one 
 another, even firing at each other, and it looked as if it 
 all would end in death. But gradually most of them 
 moved on to other streets — there was a torch lit very 
 near the house, I was afraid that some of them in 
 vengeance would destroy us^ but I found the torch 
 was fixed upon a table of green cloth and several men 
 were taking from a carriage the equipment for 
 roulette. These carriages, with bankers and with 
 croupiers, were accustomed to attach themselves to 
 armies of importance. And as soon as it was ready 
 for them the calm players took their seats and certainly 
 
 195
 
 196 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 they made a favorable contrast with the frantic horse- 
 men. As the play proceeded; a few horsemen rode 
 back through the street and stopped their horses near 
 the table, so that they could watch the players, and they 
 seemed intensely interested. 
 
 Now and then a man who played would look up and 
 address a horseman, but some others of the gamblers 
 were so much absorbed that they did not turn round, 
 they merely struck a blow at any horse who laid his 
 mouth upon their shoulder. In fact, the scene was 
 such a peaceful one that I was not afraid of anything; 
 I went down to the street. With some manoeuvering 
 I managed to get in between the horsemen and the 
 players, and I stopped there for I do not know how 
 long, but while the daylight made the torch grow pale 
 and strange — they did not put it out — and by this time 
 a crowd of the inhabitants had gathered round. One 
 of the horsemen, who was French, perceived this and 
 admonished them. 
 
 "A hospitable folk! " he cried. "We march for many 
 leagues all through the night, we march along your 
 execrable roads, we that have sacrificed ourselves in 
 order to bring harmony to your distracted land — we do 
 all this, and when we knock upon your doors you keep 
 as quiet as the dead. Oh, gratitude and hospitality!" 
 
 "What are they all but pigs?" said another 
 Frenchman. 
 
 A very unsuccessful player, who was a Mexican 
 colonel, asked these two to speak no more, as it dis- 
 turbed his play. A Frenchman, who was sitting at his 
 side, removed the colonel's fire-arm very dexterously. 
 
 "You Mexicans and Spaniards, you are all the 
 same!" said the angry horseman. "You with your 
 fine phrases! For example, 'Sir, my house and wife 
 and children are at your entire disposal.' . . . Are you
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 197 
 
 not ashamed to welcome honorable men with such 
 deception and such lies? It is the same with every- 
 thing. God, what are my transgressions that they 
 brought me here?" 
 
 The colonel banged his fist on the green table and 
 declared that this could not be borne. And various 
 other players growled at him and at the Frenchman. 
 
 ''My dear sir, allow me/' said the colonel, with a 
 tremor in his voice, "allow me to inform you that we 
 have no leisure at this moment to attend to your 
 transgressions. Stop your mouth, I pray you. And I 
 have no doubt that we poor innocents of Mexico might 
 learn a great deal from the lurid things you have 
 committed." 
 
 Then a gaunt and weary-looking Austrian friar, who 
 was in the midst of the spectators at the other side of 
 the green table, lifted up his arm and solemnly called 
 on the whole assemblage to restrain their passions. 
 
 "Amen, amen!" said the banker who presided. 
 "You are officers and cavaliers, and let it not be said 
 against you that you failed in the deportment which 
 is customary round our table. I am sure," quoth he, 
 "that I shall not appeal in vain to so illustrious a 
 gathering." 
 
 But as he spoke it seemed as if his table might be 
 overturned. The Frenchman of transgressions was 
 endeavoring to make his horse go sideways towards 
 the colonel, and his rough words were directed both at 
 his opponent, at the sallow banker, at the priest, at his 
 own friends who grasped the bridle of his horse and 
 at the whole of Mexico, which was, he said, accursed. 
 Some other Mexicans and foreigners were growHng at 
 each other, but they did not come to blows. 
 
 The banker stood up in his place. "My gentle- 
 men," said he, "let us remember always that we are
 
 198 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 the army of the Empire. We may not permit our- 
 selves the license and the barbarism of the Liberals. 
 I say that in us lies the great privilege of showing all 
 the world that — that — in fine, we are not Liberal 
 barbarians, by any means. My comrades of the 
 cause! Let us conduct ourselves in such a way that 
 Mexico may be exalted and that all the foreigners may 
 venerate this land of heroes!" 
 
 ''What an imbecile!" exclaimed the Frenchman, who 
 was struggling still with his opponents. 
 
 "Seiior," said the colonel, wheeling round, "I have 
 to tell you that I perfectly agree with you. Indeed, 
 you are a man with all five senses. But this imbecile, 
 with his deafening bombardment of speech, should be 
 a deputy." 
 
 Some of the people laughed, and the antagonism 
 they had shown for one another was evaporating. 
 
 But the banker stood there with a look of quiet reso- 
 lution. It was a considerable time before the noise 
 of laughter and the shouts of approbation died away, 
 because a certain number of the players and spectators 
 made these noises for the purpose of restoring oeace. 
 At last the banker spoke again : 
 
 ''My gentlemen," said he, "let us give our attention 
 to roulette." 
 
 Then he sat down and took a handful of the coins 
 which were by his side. As he allowed them to fall 
 clattering, one by one, on to the pile he looked round 
 at his customers most cheerfully. He asked a servant 
 to put out the torch, and that was wise of him, since 
 it had given to the scene a kind of desperate appear- 
 ance, and I daresay a good many people, if by chance 
 they happen to look villainous, comport themselves 
 like villains. 
 
 With the light extinguished they all settled down to
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 199 
 
 solid play. And presently my friend, the sweetmeat- 
 seller, came amongst us and announced what he 
 brought with him. He was urgently invited by a 
 Frenchman to go back in search of coffee, and the 
 banker said that, on the contrary, he would himself 
 provide what was appropriate. He nodded to his 
 servant, who appeared to understand completely, and 
 the play continued. In the interval, before the coffee 
 and the other things arrived, some of the players took 
 the opportunity of bowing to the banker, one of them 
 got up and heartily embraced him. And a little later, 
 as the cups were being handed round, the banker stood 
 up once again and, holding out the palms of his delicate 
 hands, said that it gave him a great pleasure to be in 
 the midst of such a sympathetic gathering. The Im- 
 perial army, he was sure, would cause the chant of 
 freedom to reverberate through the remotest territory 
 of the Mexican dominion, it would give a fearful lesson 
 to its despicable foes, who were devoid of shame. 
 
 "History," he said — and he was obliged to speak 
 loudly in order to be heard above the noise of drinkers 
 and of eaters — "history has already consecrated her 
 pages to you; she will record to posterity your valiant 
 deeds. O warriors of this beloved country, you who 
 do not shrink from sacrifices and from arduous toil, 
 it is at your hands, flourishing the sword of liberty and 
 justice, that the foeman will be gloriously cut in pieces 
 and delivered to the vultures. I perceive that what I 
 say has your esteemed approval. Gentlemen, that is 
 an honor which assuredly is great, my heart is throb- 
 bing — but all this I would relinquish utterly if I could 
 bring a throb into the hearts of our immortal comrades 
 who are dead. Surviving such misfortunes, we have 
 consecrated and shall ever consecrate ourselves to 
 peace and order. We it is who choke and strangle all
 
 200 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 dissension . . . Thank you^ gentlemen of the trium- 
 phant and august Imperial army, thank you for re- 
 ceiving my remarks into your favor. When I am a 
 deputy — and I may tell you that the patriotic Govern- 
 ment has promised to confer this post upon me — then 
 I shall inform the nation in the House of Congress of 
 your brilliant merits. Also, if it is not situated in a 
 territory which is too remote, I shall proceed in person 
 to the place of which I am the deputy and there I shall 
 discourse of you." 
 
 There was a great clapping and waving of hands. 
 But the Mexican colonel had lost so much money that 
 he was impatient for the game to start. "Once we are 
 upon the road/' he pointed out, "we shall not have a 
 chance of playing. Gentlemen," said he, addressing 
 his French colleagues, "you must not judge Mexico 
 from what it is at this unhappy moment when there is 
 no time for comfort and when, to some extent, our 
 civilization has been destroyed." 
 
 He raised his cup, and, while he held it to his lips, 
 the sallow banker seized his opportunity of making 
 a few more remarks. ^'Ay de mi, ay! ay!" he cried, 
 so that everj'body's gaze was on him. "Circumstances 
 have been such," said he, "that Mexico is slightly over- 
 clouded, but, as I was saying, we are mindful of our 
 sacred obligations. We will never let the broad fields 
 of Otumba nor the fields of La Ventilla have upon 
 them the disgraceful boot of an oppressor. We, I say, 
 will never sheathe the sword. And we . . ." 
 
 "What I was going to say," burst in the colonel, 
 "is that in the famous days it was our custom to live 
 as a man should live, which is at leisure. Now we 
 have to hasten through the land with the rebellious 
 pigs in front of us or else behind us. Ah, the famous 
 days! We used to call a halt and, underneath the
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 201 
 
 shadow of some tree, without dismounting from our 
 horses, we played monte. Gentlemen, I must apolo- 
 gize that all these famous days have gone . . . Now 
 it is very seldom that we have a moment for the good 
 amenities of life. To be a soldier in this country is 
 a great, an almost unendurable fatigue. We have so 
 much to do . . . But let the game begin." 
 
 He asked a person sitting opposite to lend him money 
 and he planted a good deal of it upon the table. 
 
 While he did this and while other players were pre- 
 paring to resume, the banker cleared his throat and, 
 looking towards the distant range of mountains, he 
 spoke rather rapidly, as if it were a speech that he had 
 learned by heart; but every one was occupied, in one 
 way or another, so that he was scarcely listened to. 
 
 "An unendurable fatigue," he said. "Across Chi- 
 huahua's windy desert and across the swamps and 
 jungles. Such it is to be a soldieV. . . . Gentlemen, 
 it is to be prepared for everything, it is to stand 
 behind a tree in all the pain of hunger, till the foe 
 comes by whom you must kill ... it is to barricade 
 oneself upon a roof and stay there though the sun 
 descends in all his fury ... it is to ride through every 
 sort of country, to be jerked upon a blind horse or to 
 have no horse, and then to spend the freezing night 
 upon a rock, to make in one day two days' marches 
 and perhaps retreat to-morrow — ordered here and 
 ordered there — and in one village there are roses round 
 his neck and in another village it is death that waits 
 for him and bitter death, without a priest . . . dying 
 on his blanket with a Liberal bullet in him . . . after 
 all his faithfulness and beautiful ideals he obtains the 
 wretched death of Liberals, and he may find himself 
 not separated from the Liberals in the life to come. 
 That is the reward of his long nights when he was
 
 202 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 frozen and of his wounds that would not heal and of 
 the vigilance and of the loyalty and of the hope he 
 never lost . . . Who is that priest?" he said. "At all 
 events this is no evil city. They have not chased out 
 the priests." 
 
 The gambling had begun^ but several persons looked 
 in the direction of this priest^ who was no priest at all, 
 but Don Eugenio. And he was walking up the hill as 
 fast as possible. 
 
 "He is not dressed as if he were a priest," the 
 banker said, "and the blood also which oozes from his 
 forehead is unsuitable. But I am sure of him." 
 
 If I could only have got through the circle I would 
 have run down to my good master, but I had to stay. 
 And in these minutes of my anguish all the crowd was 
 swept with joy, because the colonel had such luck as I 
 had never seen before. His pile of money grew just 
 like the white flowers leaping from a fairy's garden; 
 every one was pleased, for he had been so out of 
 fortune. 
 
 And when my master was quite near the crowd he 
 raised his voice and told them to beware. He said it 
 twice, with such a fearful note of warning that I was 
 astonished they did not all stare at him, and that a 
 number of them had the boldness to continue with 
 their play. 
 
 "But I told you that he is a priest," explained the 
 banker. "Cavaliers and gentlemen, my gallant com- 
 rades . . ." 
 
 "There 1" cried one of those on horseback, in a tone 
 of horror. 
 
 It was a small body of the Liberal troops and they 
 were galloping along, down at the bottom of the street, 
 and they were swinging their lassos and now they 
 started simultaneously to howl.
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 203 
 
 I was thrown this way, that way, by the plunging 
 horsemen and the gamblers — if the croupiers had not 
 flung themselves upon the table it would certainly 
 have been upset — the soldiers and the crowd were in 
 a piteous confusion — and another body of the Liberal 
 troops was bearing down upon us from the opposite 
 direction. Several of the Frenchmen spurred their 
 horses up a side-street, and the other horsemen tried 
 to follow them, but were impeded by the flying crowd. 
 I could not find my master anywhere, and then the 
 Liberals, dressed in white, with lances and with mus- 
 kets, were all round us, screaming that we must hold 
 up our hands. 
 
 However, there was just time for the colonel to give 
 back the money which the person sitting opposite had 
 lent him. And that person glared with hatred and 
 with admiration of the colonel's shrewdness. 
 
 No one else was glaring but the Austrian priest — he 
 glared at them and muttered and continuously crossed 
 himself. As for the croupiers and the white-eyed gam- 
 blers and the palpitating horseman and the others, they 
 were holding up their hands submissively, without one 
 hostile look among them. Evidently they were anx- 
 ious that the Liberals should not be provoked to shoot- 
 ing. Then I tried to see what had become of that first 
 mounted Frenchman who had so deplored his being in 
 our country, but I searched for him in vain and also 
 for the banker. Some one seized me by the arm and 
 pulled me out from all those people who were waiting 
 to be searched. And I was pushed between the Liberal 
 horses and against the neck of one of them on which 
 a woman sat. She told me not to be afraid, she would 
 not hurt me. Saying that, she patted me upon the 
 head and gave me a long piece of sugar-cane, which 
 was for me and for the horse. I never had seen any
 
 204 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 woman look so warlike, though there was a smile on 
 her keen face and though her dusty hair was hanging 
 down between her shoulders. I could not help staring 
 at her, and she told me that she was the lady of an 
 officer and that she liked me and that I could go with 
 them — they were just in the middle of a grand, vic- 
 torious campaign, she said. "And we will turn you into 
 a good warrior," she announced. "Oh, you can go on 
 sucking at the sugar-cane . . . But^ let me tell you, 
 I am really not a flower which comes in every hundred 
 years, one of those rare ones." 
 
 I wanted to turn round to see the business that was 
 going on, but this extraordinary woman dominated me. 
 
 "So, will you come with us?" she said. "You never 
 will regret it, and the captain's wife will welcome you — 
 she is behind us, for a woman who is following on 
 foot — the woman of an ordinary soldier — stopped to 
 have a child beside the road. Now run away and think 
 it over. We shall ride out of this town to-night, when 
 those who are on foot have overtaken us and had a 
 little rest. Oh, it's the only life to lead, I tell you. 
 God and Liberty!" 
 
 When I had gone a little way she shouted after me 
 that if I was no fool I would not let the chance go by of 
 being in the conqueror's army. "Don Benito!" she 
 exclaimed. "That Don Benito Juarez may live long!" 
 
 "Juarez! Don Benito! God and Liberty! Down 
 with the Church! Death to the foreigners!" they 
 shouted. 
 
 And they certainly had conquered this Imperial army 
 with great ease. It was the first affray of any kind 
 which I had witnessed, and I was exceedingly per- 
 plexed. Meanwhile my feet were taking me to Don 
 Arcadio's house and there I heard the quiet voice of 
 my dear master. He was at the stable.
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 205 
 
 When I reached him he was telling some one why 
 democracy was this or that. He spoke with wisdom 
 and with humor and with eloquence and sadness — 
 but the man to whom he spoke was in the little dark 
 room underneath the stairs and^ from his voice when 
 he was interrupting, I was sure that this must be the 
 very Frenchman who had been so agitated and so 
 angry to be here in Mexico. But now he was not 
 angry, Don Eugenio had clearly put him in good 
 temper, or perhaps he was relieved to know that he 
 could stay inside the little room until the Liberals had 
 ridden off. His horse, I saw, was in the stable; but 
 the bridle and the saddle he apparently had taken with 
 him into the dark room. 
 
 And so my master, with his bleeding forehead and 
 his clothes in great disorder, was serenely occupied in 
 laying down his views about democracy. He certainly 
 would have been just as willing to discuss whatever 
 subject, be it transient or eternal, which the unseen 
 Frenchman might have raised. He would have been as 
 interested and as courteous and as diffident. It was his 
 diffidence which now particularly struck me, for the 
 Frenchman as compared with him was nothing, was a 
 creature, as our phrase is, with his tail cut off. 
 
 And when the Frenchman, who now seemed to be 
 quite happy in the darkness, undertook to show with 
 no more than the personal experience of a friend of 
 his, a French lieutenant, that there was too much 
 democracy in Mexico, my master listened with the 
 greatest patience. I was making signs to him that he 
 should come away and stop his wound from bleeding, 
 but he shook his head. 
 
 There had been a young French lieutenant who was 
 quartered in the town of Orizaba, where he grew ac- 
 quainted with a family of high position. In this family
 
 2o6 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 were two young daughters, and with one of them the 
 Frenchman fell in love. The parents and the girl 
 encouraged him; he asked his colonel for permission 
 and the French Ambassador as well — these two in- 
 quired about the family and were extremely satisfied, 
 so that the young lieutenant thought it was as good as 
 settled. He was readily accepted by the girl, her 
 parents acquiesced, and this was followed instantly by 
 the withdrawal of the usual flock of youths who had 
 been fluttering round her. The lieutenant begged that 
 there should be no great delay. Again the parents 
 acquiesced; they said the wedding of the girl and of 
 her sister could be celebrated simultaneously. Till 
 then the Frenchman had not known that there was 
 any question of the marriage of the other girl, but he 
 was told that this, unlike her sister's wedding, was 
 most urgent, and the family seemed to regard her 
 future husband with respectful admiration. He turned 
 out to be the young lieutenant's soldier-servant. 
 
 My good master said that after all it was advisable 
 to bring this conversation to a close, until there was 
 no longer any fear of being overheard by some one in 
 the Liberal ranks. At any moment one or more of 
 them might make their way into Ihe stable-yard. And 
 so he took his leave of him, and Don Eugenio told me 
 that we need not yet inform the other people of the 
 house. He fetched a bowl of water and then we went 
 back into our own room. And while he was bathing 
 his poor forehead he explained to me what he had 
 learned about the Liberal plans. They would not sack 
 the town, because they had some business elsewhere, 
 and they think, said Don Eugenio, that this town and 
 all the State of Veracruz will soon come into their pos- 
 session. 
 
 It was most extraordinary how he could have
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 207 
 
 ascertained so much in that short time. I asked him 
 if he had related it to our French officer, but he replied 
 that he believed the Frenchman would have left the 
 country long before the Liberal plans were carried to 
 success. 
 
 My master dipped a corner of his coat into the watei 
 and then held it to his head. "What I should like to 
 know," quoth he, "is why I should imagine that the 
 Liberals will do nothing^ after their complete success 
 which we have seen to-day." 
 
 Then I repeated to my master what the warlike 
 woman of the sugar-cane had told me, that the Liberal 
 troops were in the middle of a grand, victorious 
 campaign. 
 
 "Ah, there you see," said Don Eugenio, "how much 
 they fail in discipline. A military secret should be kept 
 beyond all others." 
 
 "She was very kind to me," I added, "and she asked 
 me to go with them. But, of course, I will not leave 
 you." 
 
 He had plunged his head into the ruddy water, and, 
 as he looked up at me, it was as if his glittering smile 
 had spread until it reached his forehead. 
 
 "Did I not tell you, my friend Juanito," said he, 
 "that the Liberals would lose? . . . But now," said 
 he, becoming serious, "now that my wound is better 
 you shall hear how it was given me. However, I must 
 warn you that the tale is rather long and of a semi- 
 edifying nature, so that if you would prefer to go into 
 the street and watch the various proceedings there, we 
 will postpone the tale." 
 
 I begged him to begin. 
 
 "Well, in the first place," said my master, "he who 
 threw the thing at me was our lieutenant, Esteban 
 Fuentes."
 
 2o8 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 "But he is on our side! He is not a Liberal!" I 
 cried. 
 
 "The missile hit me just as hard/' my master said. 
 "No doubt if a dispute does not go further than fierce 
 words, the missiles of a friend are those which hurt 
 the most. But when it comes to a large paper-weight 
 of Puebla onyx, as it did in this case, then the mental 
 damage is of relatively small importance . . . Now, 
 my son, you have been living with me for some time 
 and, even if I have not spoken of them, you may know 
 quite well what my opinions are on many matters. 
 You may know, for instance, that I do not think it is 
 advisable to warn the young of certain conduct, since 
 they might then be deterred from learning by their 
 personal experience, which is the only satisfying way." 
 
 "But if," I interrupted, "if a young man kills a 
 Liberal or some one else?" 
 
 "I am thinking," Don Eugenio said, "of moral con- 
 duct, but before now it has happened that by simply 
 putting somebody to death a man has risen, by re- 
 pentance, to a height which he would not have scaled. 
 We used to have at Zaragoza, in his lordship's library, 
 a fat and lovable small volume bound in red morocco 
 by Derouse and decorated with the beautiful, broad 
 dentelle border which is so characteristic of this mas- 
 ter, who also lined it with a very delicate slate-blue 
 silk. In that delightful book I found a good example 
 of a sinner who, by timely penitence, becomes a saint. 
 She was Eudoxia of Heliopolis, one of the fairest and 
 most witty women of her day. She was a courtesan 
 who had amassed a fabulous amount of gold. And no 
 one would have claimed for her that she was on th^ 
 path of righteousness. It also is quite possible that 
 if she had been no great sinner she would not have 
 suddenly set out upon this path when she had over-
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 209 
 
 heard a dialogue about the fearful and eternal tortures 
 that such people as herself would certainly inherit. 
 She besought a certain priest to tell her everything 
 about religious matters, and a week had not gone by 
 before she was so well-imbued with them that in a 
 vision she beheld a place which was reserved for her 
 among the blessed ones of God. After she was baptized 
 she retired into a house of prayer; but those who once 
 had loved the sinner felt exasperated with the penitent. 
 Among them was a youthful libertine who swore he 
 would abduct her, and he came in the disguise of a 
 pious man. She penetrated the disguise and he fell 
 dead in front of her, but then she interceded, so that 
 he was brought to life again. And she did many other 
 miracles and beneficial works, whereat the governor of 
 the province, fearing lest she might stir up the people 
 whose affection she had gained by these good works, 
 commanded that her head should be cut off. . . . So 
 there you have," said Don Eugenio, "a sinner who 
 repented and became a saint. And if you want one 
 who commited murder I can tell you of Saint Ivan of 
 the Balkans, who was a poor shepherd walking in the 
 mountains when he met a Turk and slew him. 
 Nothing else is known about this Balkan saint, so that 
 his only merit may have been the murder. Naturally 
 I can understand those people who are not in sympathy 
 with this Saint Ivan, but at any rate he was a man of 
 good intentions." 
 
 'Terhaps," said I, "the Turk blasphemed against 
 the Holy Church." 
 
 "And yet," said Don Eugenio, "I am myself not 
 overfond of those who carry out their good intentions. 
 If these people were more numerous the world would 
 be a camping-ground of prigs and other horrors. . . . 
 Well, if those who were beside Eudoxia in her child-
 
 2IO THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 hood had so dinned into her ears that one should not 
 become a courtesan^ and if the friends of the young 
 Ivan had effectively impressed upon him that one 
 should not murder, then these two would not have 
 gone the way which ultimately brought them into great 
 positions. I do not propose to warn you against 
 women; you will yield to your desires, Juanito, and 
 the time will come when you will be repenting just as 
 bitterly as I am doing at this moment. I know very 
 well that many masters do not speak of such things to 
 their pupils, but in my opinion I am not more wrong 
 than is the nightingale which loves to sing when all the 
 other birds are silent." 
 
 I entreated him to tell me how Don Esteban Fuentes 
 threw the piece of Puebla onyx. 
 
 "As I stood outside his house," said Don Eugenio, 
 "and it was dark and very cold and there was falling 
 this abominable rain of mist, the chipi-chipi, I assure 
 you that if I had not remembered some of the great, 
 famous lovers who had not been daunted by the 
 obstacles I should have gone straight back to bed. 
 Oh, triumph of intelligence! Oh, victory of the 
 spiritual within us over what is bestial ! And to have 
 the knowledge that these ancient heroes did not live in 
 vain and that with their assistance we can rise above 
 the sordidness of our surroundings! Juanito, when 
 the night was freezing me and when the rainy mist 
 was all about me, I could let my thoughts be occupied 
 with the romantic passion of Count Claros de Mont- 
 alban for Claranina, the Emperor's daughter, and the 
 grievous obstacles he had to face; I could be thinking 
 of Cristovam Falcao, the old poet who was very faith- 
 ful to his wife, although her parents caused him to 
 be shut up five years in a prison; lastly, I could dream 
 of the adventures of Theagenes and Chariclea, so that
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 211 
 
 my unhappy physical environment became as nothing 
 and was swallowed by the grandeur of my love for 
 Enriqueta. Such high thoughts are possible, my son, 
 to all of us who happen to be placed in such condi- 
 tions and if you have perseverance then there could 
 be no defeat for you, but if your perseverance is in- 
 adequate I would advise you not to dream of ancient 
 lovers, just as one advises seamen not to learn to swim 
 and thus prolong their agony. 
 
 "Well, I was brooding with a full heart on 
 Theagenes and Chariclea when the window of the 
 house was opened and I saw the young lieutenant. 
 He leaned out into the night, although it was so dis- 
 agreeable, and he removed the night-cap from his head. 
 He muttered a few bars of the Paloma song. 
 
 "I made my presence known to him, and instantly 
 he burst into a fierce invective. He employed against 
 me and against the Spanish people and against my 
 former colleagues the librarians a villainous array of 
 words, with most of which I was acquainted. It is 
 written in the story of Theagenes that 'The barbarians 
 are by nature hard to turn from their impulses'; and 
 therefore I considered that it would be best to make no 
 answer. Let him with his raving speech exhaust him- 
 self, and let me in the meantime go back to Theagenes 
 and Chariclea. Has not Heliodorus beautifully told 
 the incident when they were captured by the bandits? 
 I could see the robber-captain put his hand upon the 
 girl and bid her rise and follow him. She guessed his 
 meaning, and she tried to draw the youth along with 
 her and, putting the sword to her breast, she threat- 
 ened to kill herself unless they took both of them. 
 The captain, understanding partly what she said, and 
 more by signs, and thinking that the lad would make 
 an excellent recruit if he got well, dismounted, and
 
 212 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 made his squire do the same. He then placed the pris- 
 oners on the horses, instructed the other men to follow 
 when they had packed up the plunder, and himself 
 kept up with the horses on foot, holding up also the 
 girl or the youth if either of them was slipping off. 
 This incident meant something, for the captain seemed 
 to be a servant and the captor was choosing to wait 
 upon his captives. To such a degree, says Heliodorus, 
 can dignity and beauty master even a robber and gov- 
 ern the roughest of men! 
 
 "While I was considering this, Don Esteban Fuentes 
 grew more violent. It is extraordinary that he did 
 not wake up all the neighbors. I reflected that if 
 happily I could discuss the situation with him in a 
 calm and reasonable manner I was not without some 
 arguments in my defense that would appeal to him 
 and that would cause us very possibly to separate as 
 friends. I therefore settled to wait there in patience 
 till that moment should arrive. It would be so much 
 better than to have him in the morning stride with 
 unabated fury through Jalapa and shout everywhere 
 a most malicious and exaggerated and most odious 
 account of this my indiscretion. Thus I let my 
 thoughts go back to Heliodorus, the romantic bishop, 
 and of what he said concerning dignity and beauty 
 which can master even robbers and can govern a 
 rough man. 
 
 "I saw the noble Chariclea in her great distress, 
 when they had traveled to the swamp, and she was 
 flung into a hut to spend the night; I heard how she 
 addressed Apollo, saying that he punishes our sins too 
 hardly. 'What we have gone through,' she said, 'is 
 not sufficient for thy vengeance, — that we have lost 
 our friends, that we have been taken by pirates, in 
 danger at sea a thousand times, taken again by robbers
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 213 
 
 on land, — but what we have to expect is worse than 
 the past. Where wilt thou stay all this? If thou 
 wilt end it with an honorable death, it is well; but if 
 any one is to take from me more than I have yet 
 granted, even to Theagenes, I will forestall the out- 
 rage by hanging myself, and so I will preserve myself 
 pure even to death, and I will take with me my chas- 
 tity as a splendid winding-sheet.' 
 
 " 'Thou — thou — thou — devastator of my house,' 
 roared the lieutenant. 'It is well for thee that I have 
 not a musket in this room — thou most — thou 
 most . . .' 
 
 "After all, I meditated, we do not possess within 
 us an unlimited supply of phrases and a golden phrase 
 belongs to all the world, so that it would be foolish 
 to find fault with Heliodorus for employing that one 
 of the chastity which is a splendid winding-sheet, a 
 phrase which had been used by Dionysius the Elder, 
 tyrant of Syracuse, and revived by Theodora, the con- 
 sort of Justinian the First. 
 
 "At that moment Esteban Fuentes actually said that 
 I was the most dangerous of men and that no girl 
 was safe from me. Alas! he made me think of long 
 ago, when I was different. I was not incommoded 
 then by this majestic body, I was graceful and as 
 slender as the Indians who now regard me with the 
 eyes of admiration as I slowly move along the streets 
 — just as they regard a man whose chin they cannot 
 see behind his beard. There was a time when I was 
 able to ignore the years — a floating bird, another bird, 
 far overhead — and now they are a pack of vultures 
 who are watching m,e, the shadow of their wings op- 
 presses me. But I am talking in a fashion which does 
 not go well with my majestic and prosaic body. . . . 
 I felt that it was cruel of the young lieutenant to
 
 214 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 remind me of those days — an old man, doubtless, 
 should be grateful that he is not older — and if I had 
 possessed the strength of will I would have answered 
 him. I was so miserable with the thought of my old 
 age and my infirmities that I could not prevent myself 
 from weeping. I was weeping for the dear delights 
 which would return no more. 
 
 " 'Ah!' cried the young lieutenant, 'you perceive the 
 error of your ways and you repent.' 
 
 "I only wanted to be left alone with my sad thoughts 
 and in the general misery of the night. The rain of 
 mist was like a brother to my tears, and in the black- 
 ness and the cold about me I could hide myself and 
 not be noticed. 
 
 " 'So it is I,' said the insufferable lieutenant, 'who 
 have brought you to repentance.' He seemed rather 
 sorry for me. 
 
 "But I could not tolerate him any longer. I would 
 not give way to mere abuse, as he had done, but I 
 would speak to him with dignity. What I proposed 
 to do was to remind him that, above such miserable 
 creatures as himself and me, there was the everlasting 
 word of God. A little time before, when I was con- 
 scious only of Don Esteban Fuentes and myself, I 
 managed, with the help of those old famous lovers, 
 to retain my dignity and my composure; now when 
 I was conscious also of Almighty God — what could 
 I do? 
 
 "Don Esteban invited me to come this evening to 
 a farewell feast, and I accepted, Juanito, for myself 
 and you, and let us take the poor French officer." 
 
 "I am very glad," said I, "that you forgave Don 
 Esteban Fuentes." 
 
 "Some of the invectives he assailed me with were 
 picturesque," said Don Eugenic.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 But our Frenchman was unable to go with us to the 
 feast. That afternoon the warlike lady of a Liberal 
 officer — we never knew which of the officers it was — 
 came marching into Don Arcadio's house to tell me 
 that I could go with them, as she had suggested. If 
 I followed her advice, she said, I would not hesitate. 
 And she remarked in her deep voice that I ought to 
 be flattered at the way in which she had remembered 
 me, but she was one of the most steadfast women 
 of the land, she said. I was to think it over carefully 
 while she walked round the house. When she came 
 back she had the Frenchman with her. He was carry- 
 ing his horse's bridle and the saddle, and he seemed 
 in a great hurry to be gone. So did the woman. At 
 the same time, said the officer, he would not care to 
 go without returning thanks to Don Eugenio and also 
 to the owner of the house, whom he had not yet seen. 
 And could I find these gentlemen and could I find 
 some food and could I run about the town in order 
 to be sure that every Liberal had departed? Then 
 they told me that they were in a tremendous hurry, 
 and I fetched my master, Don Arcadio, Faustino and 
 Maria and old Captain Bartolme. And I was so 
 much interested that I did not go into the town, but 
 stayed to listen. I suppose that as these two, the 
 warlike woman and the Frenchman, passed so rapidly 
 and so completely from us and became the phantoms 
 of two people who had been beside us for a day, I 
 ought not to write much about them, though my mas- 
 ter used to say that, whatever might occur in the 
 
 215
 
 2i6 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 hereafter, we were all of us of equal unimportance in 
 this world of phantoms. 
 
 Till the moment when they met, the officer had been 
 resolved to sail from Veracruz on any vessel he could 
 catch; I do not know precisely what had been the 
 woman's resolutions. But they were determined now, 
 they told us, to betake themselves to an estate belong- 
 ing to the woman, where a factory could be erected 
 near the waterfall, and thus a fortune could quite 
 easily be made. 
 
 I was astonished that she had divulged all this and 
 that the factory had been arranged so quickly. 
 
 "It will be a profitable thing/' the Frenchman said. 
 
 "And patriotic also," said the woman. "If we had 
 more factories in Mexico there would be far less idle- 
 ness and poverty and discontent and revolution." 
 
 "We shall have a huge success," the Frenchman 
 said. "At present one is under the necessity of draw- 
 ing calico and cloth and wool and many iron goods 
 from Europe, while the powder and the bullets that 
 you make are miserably bad as well as dear. It is for 
 us to make both these commodities, the powder and 
 the bullets, satisfactorily." 
 
 They told us more about their schemes and some one 
 said that if all Mexican antagonists would imitate them 
 and go into partnership, there soon would be no coun- 
 try half as peaceful. 
 
 But the Frenchman waved his forefinger from side 
 to side and, with a very knowing smile, he said they 
 would have customers enough for powder and for 
 bullets. 
 
 And the woman said her husband would be pleased 
 when he came back to his estate — for it was his — and 
 found that there was so much money for him. 
 
 And Faustino muttered to himself that this was a
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 217 
 
 far better and more usual and less risky way of get- 
 ting gold than to go down for it into the State of 
 Tamaulipas. 
 
 When the couple rode away I followed them, in 
 dread lest anything should happen, but I think the 
 people of the town believed the woman had been looted 
 by the Frenchman and they merely shrugged their 
 shoulders at his curious taste and said that foreigners 
 were very strange. 
 
 But as for me, I thought old Captain Bartolme was 
 stranger still, because when Don Eugenio and myself, 
 that evening, were going to the feast, he said that he 
 would likewise go. He said that, at the risk of being 
 murdered, he must see his old friend Enriqueta once 
 again. Now we were all upon the point of separation 
 — God knew what He had in store for us. And so he 
 came, while Don Arcadio and Faustino and Maria 
 stopped at home. 
 
 My master walked between us, and his observations 
 were of notable lucidity: 
 
 "We are going to a farewell feast," he said, "because 
 our patron wishes to go on a journey in pursuit of gold. 
 I think it is quite probable that he will find some gold, 
 since he already has abundance of it. But from what 
 I know of him he will forget to share the spoil with 
 us; if I request a small amount, so that I shall not 
 be completely destitute in the few years which I may 
 live, he probably will make me drink ten fortunes in a 
 soup, so that I may have everlasting life. The mad- 
 ness of our patron and his blasphemy are terrible 
 afflictions, but the qualities which make me look upon 
 this expedition with foreboding are his beautiful de- 
 tachment and his exaltation. I have come into a time 
 of life when the material things are of importance, and, 
 so far as I can see, the best that I can hope for from
 
 2i8 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 this journey is that I will add to my experience, which 
 is already more than ample. I know very well how 
 grand I should appear if I could face the grievous 
 prospect with a smile, as, under other circumstances, 
 did the early Christian martyrs. But I am doubtful 
 whether it is in me to hold out until the time for start- 
 ing. And I feel that now the moment has arrived 
 when I must overeat and overdrink myself, which is 
 assuredly permitted if your purpose is a noble and a 
 philosophic one. In this way I shall suffocate the 
 growing weakness that I have within me. I shall make 
 myself insensible. And even when my body would 
 revolt I shall continue, if the physical and if the moral 
 pain is great I shall continue, so that it may quite 
 obliterate my mind and all its fears." 
 
 Old Captain Bartolme was looking sad and happy at 
 the same time, but far happier than I had seen him 
 look of late. "Ah, yes," said he, "I have not yet 
 forgotten the good food and drink with which the 
 father of this Juanito entertained me. I have eaten 
 them in memory — the well-fried chickens and the 
 chocolate with goat's milk and the small white pyra- 
 mids of grease and the delicious cakes of honey and 
 the ducks — those poultry-men who walk about Jalapa 
 and exclaim: 'Ducks, oh my soul, hot ducks!' I swear 
 they never knew how I regarded those of Father Pedro. 
 Have you heard, senor my comrade, what the feast 
 will be to-night? I am a storm-tossed vessel . . ." 
 
 "So am I," said Don Eugenio. "But are you going 
 with us into Tamaulipas?" 
 
 The old man shrugged his shoulders. "I am igno- 
 rant," he said, "of what will happen to me." 
 
 "You are to be envied," said my master. 
 
 So they went on talking of what they would do that 
 night and afterwards, but not with one word did they
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 219 
 
 mention Enriqueta. And my heart went out to both 
 of them, and if I could have had my way they would 
 have each received an Enriqueta and a better one 
 than she was. I saluted all the people in the street 
 because I felt so friendly towards them, and though 
 several of them called me names and others crossed 
 themselves, for thinking I was mad — what did I care? 
 
 And on the bench outside the house there was Don 
 Esteban Fuentes sitting in his uniform and with his 
 legs stretched out. 
 
 ''Hola!" he cried, "a welcome to you! I am hor- 
 ribly fatigued, for I have ridden over all the town 
 and to the outskirts in a hunt for Liberals, that abom- 
 inable, evil-smelling crowd. But we have swept them 
 all away. And now we shall be merry." The lieu- 
 tenant yawned. 
 
 "Sir," said my master, as he made a beautiful, old- 
 fashioned bow, "we have resolved to put aside our 
 sorrows and to let your table be a scene of mirth. 
 I only hope our sorrows and our apprehensions, which 
 are great, will not come to the surface. Is it your 
 desire that we should now go in?" 
 
 Don Esteban Fuentes stretched himself again and 
 rose. He seemed to be amused, and to my master and 
 old Captain Bartolme he said that neither of them 
 need have apprehensions, for he was a cavalier and 
 would not poison any guest of his, not even if the 
 guest had previously wanted to deprive him of his 
 mistress. 
 
 "I am not aware," he said to Don Eugenio, "what 
 is the code in Spain, according to which I presume you 
 conduct yourself in these matters. But in Mexico a 
 person of position either kills his man at once or kills 
 the mistress and the man. If he does neither it is 
 not considered very chivalrous that he should keep his
 
 220 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 vengeance for another time. Moreover, as my colonel 
 always says, if anybody of position kills the man or 
 kills the mistress he is acting contrary to law, v/hich is 
 a bad example to the lower people." 
 
 Then he pushed against the door and we all followed 
 him into the house, into a little room which had a 
 mirror and some rocking-chairs, and it was lighted by 
 two candles that were placed in brackets on the mirror. 
 The lieutenant blew them out and begged us to go 
 forward to the next room and I think we all were glad 
 that there was not much furnitture, because the room 
 was really dark. But in the next one we perceived a 
 lighted table with some dishes down the middle of it 
 and an Indian woman gazing at them. The lieutenant 
 ordered her to go and bring down Enriqueta. 
 
 He was taking off his sword when she came in and 
 so he did not notice properly the solemn look she had. 
 And in a tone of heartiness he bade us all to take our 
 seats. The Indian woman waddled back with some 
 tortillas, very hot and round and crisp. She made a 
 little heap of them beside our host, and he proceeded 
 to give everybody one by simply throwing them all 
 round the table. He did not appear to aim, but not- 
 withstanding a tortilla fell just at the left of each of us. 
 
 "Aha," said Don Eugenio, "if you can plant the 
 bullets in a person with such accuracy, then the Lib- 
 erals who have gone may all congratulate themselves." 
 
 "May the Devil catch them!" the lieutenant said. 
 "I drink to their confusion!" And he raised his glass. 
 He looked so fierce that all of us, excepting Don 
 Eugenio, were anxious. Enriqueta, who was sitting 
 at his left side — Don Eugenio was at his right and 
 I was next to Don Eugenio and Captain Bartolme was 
 next to Enriqueta — she leant forward and besought 
 him with her eyes to calm himself.
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 221 
 
 My master was transferring from his plate to mine 
 a piece of chicken; I have never seen his hand more 
 steady. 
 
 "Drink, now drink to their death!" cried our host. 
 "That they ma}^ come to years of confusion! And I 
 mean what I say!" 
 
 "And that is why we are not drinking," Don 
 Eugenio said. "We are too sorry for them. When 
 that other celebrated warrior, Julius Caesar, changed 
 the calendar the first year had the name of 'year of 
 confusion.' It was four hundred and forty-five days 
 in length; and can you really find it in your heart 
 to wish the poor folk such a lengthened life?" 
 
 "Oh, what does he mean?" groaned the lieuten-^ 
 ant. 
 
 Captain Bartolme was sipping from his glass. 
 
 "In such an admirable wine as this," declared my 
 master, "I submit that we should not drink evil things 
 to any one. I never saw a wine of such a color and 
 in such long bottles." Then he drank a little and 
 he nodded gravely. "Sir," he said, "it is a most 
 historic wine. I will confess that I did not ascribe 
 to you such perspicuity. How did you come to buy 
 it?" 
 
 "But I never bought it." 
 
 "Then we have to thank a noble ancestor of yours. 
 What foresight! — to go sailing to the West with a 
 few hundred glorious bottles." 
 
 The lieutenant lay back in his chair and looked 
 as if he would explode. "Oh, what a man!" he cried. 
 "Oh, what a man!" 
 
 "Yes," Don Eugenio said enthusiastically. "He was 
 the magnificent conquistador. I can imagine how he 
 paced the deck with Ponce de Leon, who was seeking 
 for the fount of everlasting youth, and your great
 
 222 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 ancestor was bringing a supply of it in thin, green 
 bottles. That is greatness!" 
 
 "Oh, stop, stop!" cried the lieutenant. " 'Tis too 
 much." 
 
 "Not half enough, sir," said my master. "Such a 
 man deserves the title. And I tell you that if only 
 it is granted me to come back safely to this town, I 
 shall devote myself to writing the biography of your 
 unknown, far-seeing ancestor. To think that in the 
 bishop's library at Zaragoza I was spending all those 
 years in writing Saint Eugracia's life! And if I had 
 accomplished it, what use would it have been as an 
 example to the pious? Nobody who says he is a 
 Christian runs the slightest risk of being fastened to 
 a horse's tail or having iron bars put through his thighs 
 or having his liver torn out. In fact, I am sorry 
 to say that it is the enemies — the honest, open enemies 
 — of Christendom who stand in gravest peril of these 
 things. . . . But as for the unequaled foresight of 
 your ..." 
 
 "Look now," said the lieutenant, banging with his 
 hand upon the table, "it is I who had the foresight. 
 When this wine was being taken up towards the capi- 
 tal, we lay in wait and seized a cart or two, and I 
 obtained my proper share. What is the good of having 
 Emperors who are extravagant and get their wine sent 
 all the way from Hungary, unless one can participate? 
 . . . And you, my dear sir, have been very much in 
 error." 
 
 Don Eugenio was taking a luxurious, long draught 
 of it and with his eyes shut. He drank very slowly. 
 And when he put down the glass his eyes were like 
 those of our famous Indian, Cuauhtemoc, when Cortes 
 burned his feet, for they were proud and melancholy. 
 
 "I have met some people in my wanderings," he
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 223 
 
 said, 'Vho ostentatiously proclaimed it to the world 
 that they had never stolen anything; and if, indeed, 
 they spoke the truth they were unnatural, for men 
 are thieves, and those who keep themselves from steal- 
 ing fall in consequence into another sin. Let us, for 
 example, take the very common theft, that of a woman. 
 Do not the red lips of Enriqueta and her irresponsible 
 gay laugh, her fruit-like shoulders, and the lovely 
 curves of her body — not to mention other things — 
 make her an object of desire?" 
 
 "I am not laughing," Enriqueta said. 
 
 "Which adds a grief to our desire and strengthens 
 it," said Don Eugenio. "But is there any one," he 
 said, as he turned back his face to the lieutenant, "is 
 there any one who, contemplating such a woman, can 
 refrain from having a desire within him? It is not 
 worth while reflecting on those people who are quite 
 or nearly quite indifferent to the desire, but I suspect 
 those men who actively are up in arms against it. 
 Such a sentiment of virtue does not live in ordinary 
 men, but in those others who have lost their health 
 and hope or who were never granted them by God. 
 Whatever virtue of this kind I may possess I certainly 
 have not acquired through studying the precepts of 
 religion or through listening to the admonitions of the 
 moralizers, who, in Spain, are beautifully eloquent; 
 but in so far as I am broken by fatigue and suffering 
 I find this virtue settles down upon me and I do 
 not wish to steal a woman, but I fall into the heavy 
 sin of pride. And so do those men who discover that 
 they do not wish to steal the objects which in other 
 days they hankered after. Would you not be all too 
 proud, my friend, if you perceived that you no longer 
 had the wish to steal the Emperor's wine? But if 
 you are a thief of wine you may offend your Emperor,
 
 224 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 whereas if you are proud you will assuredly offend 
 your God." 
 
 "I once met a man," said the lieutenant, "who was 
 very ill indeed. He told me that the doctor said that 
 during six months he must keep from woman, wine, 
 and song. I asked him if he would obey the doctor, 
 and he said he would begin by leaving off the song." 
 
 The aged woman reappeared with fresh tortillas, and 
 our host again distributed them as before. 
 
 "Another thing," said my good master, "is that 
 here in Mexico especially the art of thieving should 
 not cease. I love the old traditions and the old ways of 
 a country. One may travel through the towns of 
 Andalucia as they are; for me the real Andalucia is 
 the land of Abdul Hassan, who is still besieged in 
 Seville by the hosts of Saint Fernando. I have heard 
 of pilgrims who devoutly walk along the narrow streets 
 and to the famous churches of Assisi; but the town 
 as it will always be to me is the Assisi of that golden 
 morning on which Francis and his comrades came back 
 with the blessing of the great Pope Innocent and were 
 so eager to return with the good news that they forgot 
 to eat and thus arrived exhausted in the valley, though 
 they still were singing. Once when I was in Toledo 
 I was very much distressed, because the population 
 did not seem to notice those who were the only real 
 people of the place and who were striding past me with 
 the ruffles round their haughty necks and with their 
 ancient but still serviceable swords. It seems to me 
 that Mexico would break entirely with her past if 
 stealing were to be in future practised in a furtive 
 way, without an air and with no humor. Long live 
 Mexico!" 
 
 He drank and so did all of us. Old Captain Bar- 
 tolme was moving his chair nearer to the chair of
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 225 
 
 Enriqueta. But she only looked at the lieutenant or 
 at Don Eugenic. 
 
 "Well, I am sorry we are going to separate," said 
 the lieutenant to my master, "for you Spaniards have 
 the gift of talking. That is why you came into the 
 world. But, anyhow, please pass the bottle." 
 
 "Sir," said Don Eugenio in his courteous way, "it 
 would require a great amount of talking if we are to 
 speculate on why we came into the world. And as we 
 find ourselves at present, I believe it will be wiser if we 
 do not launch into the seas of arguing, but simply say 
 that we are here to do the will of God. That, after all, 
 is the sole certainty." 
 
 "Oh, nonsense!" said Don Esteban. "I know why 
 I am here. A country must have officers to keep good 
 order and preserve it from the Liberals. That is what 
 I have to do, and that is what I shall do, seiior the 
 librarian, and if it is God's will I am glad. But I 
 shall do it anyhow." He looked a little fierce. 
 
 And Enriqueta laid a hand upon his arm. "My 
 love," she said, "of course it is God's will that you 
 should be a fine lieutenant. Everything we do is 
 God's will, I am sure, and so that must be why He 
 put us in the world. I prayed to God that it might 
 be His will that I might leave Gonzalez, the disgusting 
 shopkeeper of Colorado, just as I had left this poor 
 old Captain Bartolme. And as I had been faithful to 
 them for so long I was rewarded and my prayer was 
 heard, and here I am with you forever. That is why 
 I came into the world." 
 
 The lieutenant looked at her with scorn. "How 
 can a woman be so ignorant," said he, "as to believe 
 that God is interested in such matters? It is very 
 ignorant and also very vile." 
 
 But Don Eugenio reproved him, saying that his wine
 
 226 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 was far superior to his philosophical ideas. "You 
 assert," he said, "that you are in the world in order to 
 destroy a part of it and, on the other hand, you venture 
 to deny this woman's claim, that she is here to love 
 another part. It seems to me that you might take 
 unto yourself the theories of a few of the barbarian 
 fellows who have stated why men come into the world. 
 They are, at all events, not so pernicious as your 
 own. The natives of some southern island, I dare 
 say, believe that they are put there so that they should 
 eat roast pig and other people will maintain that the 
 Creator wants them to be wreathed in flowers and 
 dance all day long in His honor, and the wicked early 
 Lutherans believed that they were in great measure 
 on this world so that they should throw ridicule and 
 odium upon the Pope. 'Sooner Turks than Papists' 
 was their cry. But though it was deplorable that they 
 should think they came here for an object such as this, 
 I do not blame them, O lieutenant, as I must blame 
 you for saying that your purpose here, the reason 
 why you have been given an immortal soul, is to de- 
 stroy another man. Behold an instance of the curse 
 of thinking! If you cherish thoughts of that kind 
 you must be condemned, but if you are a thoughtless 
 warrior who goes plunging into battle and defends the 
 hearths and altars of his country and kills other men 
 and is himself brought down, he surely reaches the 
 most high degree of charity. But your belief is in- 
 finitely worse than that of Enriqueta, who has told 
 us that she was put in the world to spread her love. 
 I see what you are going to say. But even if she had 
 been spreading it a trifle widely and with insufficient 
 care, I shall not find it difficult to show that if this 
 hour should be the last for you and her, one would 
 be justified in thinking of her future with more con-
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 227 
 
 fidence. An army of exuberant lovers who now dwell 
 in everlasting bliss could march before you and their 
 serried ranks would almost make you think that if 
 this attribute is of importance in the final reckoning 
 it is on the credit side. Of course there is a French- 
 man living now, Jules Simon, who has said that no- 
 body will ever understand the reason why a cause pro- 
 duces an effect; but while this may be true of mundane 
 matters it need not restrain us from believing that 
 excessive love is rarely an excessive handicap to our 
 eternal prospects. Shall I go for good examples to 
 the saints who were at one time much preoccupied 
 with earthly love, or shall I talk of people who re- 
 sembled them a great deal but who are, for various 
 reasons, not included in the hierarchy of saints? It 
 would be simple for me to display to your astonished 
 eyes, young man, a list of persons whom the Church 
 considers holy and who . . ." 
 
 ''Every one is holy," interrupted the lieutenant with 
 his mouth full. "I once heard a lunatic say that. 
 But go on with your discourse." 
 
 "I am having the most pleasant evening of my life," 
 said Captain Bartolme, with humble gratitude. 
 
 "Shall I describe to you," said Don Eugenio, "how 
 courtesans have been selected as fit candidates, when 
 they were purged, for the most lofty honors. In the 
 sacred books are numerous examples, both of women 
 and of their male counterparts. I will not speak of 
 them to-night, since you are in the mood, I fear — a 
 mood that I have far too often — which regards these 
 blessed ones with smiles. There is doubtless here and 
 there a saint whose joyous life is of the kind which, 
 notwithstanding, edifies all mortal men; but the 
 Church has warned us that the number of these saints 
 is limited. And therefore I shall run no risk this eve-
 
 228 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 ning and I shall say no word about the drastic method 
 which Saint Peter of Alcantara employed against his 
 passion of the flesh. But I should like to give you 
 from the ranks of the profane an instance of the ten- 
 derness with which it pleases God to look upon a 
 person who is built for loving. Well, this person is 
 myself, and if, in your opinion, I should be more 
 modest, I reply that I do not propose to glorify myself. 
 Nihil es, nihil potes, nihil vales. Dear lieutenant, I 
 will cause you to admit, I think, that there are mo- 
 ments in our lives which the majority of human beings 
 would condemn and which God welcomes. I suppose 
 you will agree that everybody has occasions when he 
 is more anxious to set out upon the path of righteous- 
 ness?" 
 
 "How long ago were you converted?" asked Don 
 Esteban. 
 
 "I only wish," said my good master, "to allude to 
 one occasion in my life when this grand process was 
 at work. . . . You will not have heard that once in 
 Aragon, among the mountains, I was an apprentice 
 with my uncle's company of smugglers, who were cele- 
 brated and successful. If it had not been for an 
 unfortunate event I might have stayed with them and 
 never known the seminary or his lordship's library at 
 Zaragoza or the agitating bookstalls of Madrid or this 
 flamboyant land of yours. And in the mountains I 
 had also had a very fortunate experience, when I 
 recognized that God is full of kindliness and pardon 
 for the sins of overmastering love. We were a party 
 of three men and we were coming back, well laden, 
 over one of the high rocky passes when we found 
 ourselves confronted by some travelers on horseback, 
 evidently people of importance. And they may have 
 been inclined to set some hostile frontiersman upon
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 229 
 
 our track, because they may have had ideas on law 
 and order which — I am so glad to say — I subsequently 
 came to have myself. At any rate we knew it would 
 be better to make sure of them and so we tied their 
 wrists and ankles very firmly, all except those of a 
 girl who stood upon the road defying us, and she was 
 beautiful. Her attitude and her wild eyes and her 
 denunciation of us made her look like one of those 
 old warrior-women, like Thomyris or like Menalippe, 
 who would only yield to Hercules, and when I gazed 
 at her I felt within me the same violence and fury 
 as she had herself." 
 
 "Go on! Make haste!" cried the lieutenant. 
 "What succeeded?" 
 
 "She was beautiful," said Don Eugenio, "and my 
 companions were as much attracted to her as I was 
 myself. And while we were discussing in a friendly 
 way what we would do with her, the woman did not 
 cease reviling us and looking splendid. She made 
 much more noise than all the other members of her 
 party put together. And my comrades and myself 
 resolved at last that we would vote respectably for 
 him who was to have the right to her. We settled 
 that it would not be allowed for any one to vote for 
 his own name. I caught the woman's eye while we 
 were making these arrangements and she knew that 
 we were serious and that it was no longer wise to 
 stand there in such indiscriminate rebellion; at all 
 events with glances and with little gestures she con- 
 veyed to me that I must be the man. Meanwhile, 
 the other two were voting very solemnly and each 
 one voted for the other. And they called to me, and 
 suddenly it struck us that we should elect the one 
 for whom I voted. Juan de la Cruz, who was grizzled 
 and unclean, thought that my vote would be for San-
 
 230 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 tiago who was younger and more like myself, and so 
 he took a pistol from his pocket and Santiago followed 
 his example. 'Now, be careful what you do!' cried 
 Juan de la Cruz, 'Freedom of election! Liberty and 
 the Democracy!' cried Santiago, who repeated some 
 expressions he had heard. The luckless travelers all 
 seemed to have forgotten their misfortune, they were 
 staring like Galicians in a theater. Then Juan de la 
 Cruz warned me as well that I should have a care, 
 but Santiago waved his empty hand above his head 
 and shouted 'Liberty and the Democracy!' And I 
 could see that the dear woman was extremely troubled; 
 she had got two fingers pressing hard against her 
 lower lip. Then Juan de la Cruz let fly against a 
 rock, perhaps to demonstrate that he was loaded, and 
 the smoke and dust did not allow me to see very 
 well what happened next. I only know that they 
 both fired and hit each other in the legs, and as they 
 cursed and yelled they both fell down, but Santiago 
 in a shrill voice cried his 'Freedom of election! Lib- 
 erty and the Democracy ! ' And I made after the dear 
 woman. But my mind was not so taken up with her 
 that I omitted to see God's benevolence. I will not 
 say that I had more love for the woman than had 
 Juan de la Cruz or Santiago, but I was the one whom 
 she preferred. She and I alone could not have brought 
 this thing to pass, and in believing that it was the 
 work of God I may have been mistaken, but I hope 
 that He did not refuse my thanks." 
 
 "The one who shouted 'Freedom of election!' " said 
 old Captain Bartolme, "had he not got a second 
 bullet?" 
 
 I was wondering if Don Eugenio still was fond of 
 her and therefore had concealed her name. 
 
 "But," said Enriqueta, "if the woman stood there
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 231 
 
 screaming at you and denouncing you she must have 
 been most horrible to look at. What you should have 
 done . . ." 
 
 Then the lieutenant came to Don Eugenio's rescue, 
 for he flung a large tortilla into Enriqueta's face. And 
 then he flung another one into the face of Captain 
 Bartolme. It was impossible to keep from laughing 
 at their ludicrous appearance, and they spluttered not 
 so much because of the tortillas being warm as of 
 the shock. And then they tried to brush the yellow 
 fragments all away, and the lieutenant, who was now 
 most jovial, threw another one at Enriqueta's hands. 
 He would have hurled one at the Captain, but he had 
 no more. And suddenly he shouted for the Indian 
 woman. My good master was upon the point of in- 
 terceding on behalf of those two people, but Don 
 Esteban announced that we would have a different 
 entertainment, and he told the Indian woman to bring 
 in the cocks. 
 
 "Here in this room," he said to Don Eugenio, "we 
 will have a cock-fight. It shall not be said that I did 
 not provide an entertainn.ent which is worthy of you. 
 Sir," he said impressively, "one does not often have 
 a private combat, for it is a large expense, but I will 
 give this in your honor." 
 
 "Long live our Don Esteban!" cried Enriqueta. 
 "He is great and generous and noble!" 
 
 And the aged woman came back with two baskets 
 which she put down on the floor. 
 
 We all got up and clustered round the baskets, but 
 Don Esteban said that he wanted to explain. It would 
 be foolish if the struggle, so he said, were over in as 
 short a time as in a cock-pit, seeing that we only had 
 two cocks. And therefore we would not excite them 
 very much against each other: we would not pluck
 
 232 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 any of their feathers out and we would not pour pulque 
 on their wounds. He said that Don Eugenio might 
 choose whichever bird he wanted, and the wagering 
 should not exceed an ounce or two of gold. 
 
 My master waited till the baskets had been opened. 
 Then he told me to select a cock for him. And I was 
 very, very careful, though I really could not judge of 
 the capacities of two strange cocks, and yet I knew a 
 good deal more than my dear master, who had never 
 had one underneath his arm in all his life. At last 
 I thought that one of them would prove the champion 
 and I picked him up and gave him to my master; 
 but the hands of my poor master trembled violently 
 and he tried his best to look as if he did not feel 
 abhorrence. 
 
 The lieutenant said magnanimously that I might 
 instruct my master. "Speak into his ear," he said, 
 "whatever good advice you know." 
 
 And for that purpose we withdrew out of the circle 
 which had formed itself. We went as far away as 
 possible, but all the time I feared the cock would fall 
 or fly out of my master's hands. I could not think of 
 anything to tell him, save that he should throw the 
 bird as firmly as he could against the other one. 
 However, just as we were getting back into the circle, 
 where Don Esteban was holding his cock ready, a most 
 painful sound came from the throat of our bird, all his 
 feathers seemed to be erect and, with his beak half- 
 open, he had the appearance of a cock who is about to 
 kill the other at the end of a fluctuating fight. And so 
 it was — with a most horrid screech he flew at the 
 lieutenant's cock, they both rose in the air together, 
 and the other bird was dead and ours was crowing. 
 
 The lieutenant naturally was beside himself with
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 233 
 
 rage. He stormed and cursed and stamped his feet 
 and shouted at my master incoherently, and then he 
 seized our cock. He glanced at him, his rage became 
 more vehement than ever. Finally, when he could 
 speak, he told my master he was the most cruel cock- 
 fighter in all the world. My master's nails were not 
 inordinately long, but in his agitation they had pene- 
 trated the cock's legs and this had caused the animal 
 to be so fierce. 
 
 I will not say what savage words he uttered. 
 
 And my master told him that he quite agreed and 
 that in one sense he had been a cruel person. "There 
 is conduct," so he said, "which has not been inspired 
 by a malicious sentiment, and yet produces a result 
 that is deplorable. I think of Voltaire, who was more 
 than ever certain of the innocence of Calas and of the 
 good faith, so cruel, of the Parliament of Toulouse. 
 And I think, sir, that my cruelty, not being of the 
 calculated sort, but due entirely to my nervousness, 
 you might have treated it with some indulgence. I 
 must even ask you to forgive me if I say that such 
 an outcry on account of what you know quite well 
 was inadvertent cruelty is not harmonious with the 
 views that your profession lays upon you. I presume 
 that you do not dissociate yourself from that most 
 eminent commander who was never tired of praising 
 cruel conduct in a war; he held that if one were 
 engaged with despicable foes there would in a short 
 time be peace, and if it was a gallant foe he would 
 become implacable against your cruelty and then you 
 would salute him and in this way peace would also 
 come." 
 
 "I never heard of him in all my life," said the 
 lieutenant. "But what you were doing with that cock,
 
 234 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 it is abominable. It is . . ." He was working him- 
 self up again into a passion. He paced up and down 
 the room. 
 
 "My friend," said Don Eugenio, "if you do not 
 desire to pay me what you owe, then do not pay me. 
 But I would be pleased if you will give it to this poor 
 old Captain. He is in distress. You said an ounce 
 or two of gold." 
 
 Then as the Captain met the glare in the lieutenant's 
 eye he quailed and muttered something and began to 
 move towards the door. And Enriqueta beckoned to 
 him that he must not go. But she was powerless. 
 And Don Eugenio, who was seated upon one of those 
 big baskets, told the Captain that if he was going 
 back to Colorado he should there receive whatever 
 gold could be extracted from Don Esteban. 
 
 ^'Carajof" snarled Don Esteban, "that eminent com- 
 mander you were talking of is like some colonels I 
 know very well. They are the most ridiculous com- 
 manders ever seen, except those on the other side. 
 And if you think that I will pay you gold — when two 
 men find it easiest to come to an agreement it is for 
 the robbery of some one else." 
 
 "Do not reply to that lewd villain!" called out 
 Enriqueta. "Let us all disdain to speak to him! And 
 he shall never see me any more!" She really looked 
 superb. "But you will have some faithful friends," 
 she said, "who wait for you in Colorado. There we 
 are all friends with one another and if we have paltry 
 cocks like those we throw them out into the jungle. 
 We are frank with one another; as we say in Mexico, 
 we take our garments off." 
 
 Then she put her arm around the neck of Captain 
 Bartolme and so they disappeared. And the lieutenant 
 did not try to stop them. He pretended to be quite
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 235 
 
 indifferent and, as he strode about the room, he gave 
 a jerky laugh. My master, still upon his basket, gazed 
 at the lieutenant with a lack of sympathy. And I 
 was sitting at the table near to the victorious cock, 
 which was engaged in pecking at the relics of our 
 feast. The other cock lay where it had been slain, 
 and the lieutenant kicked it very viciously across the 
 room. 
 
 "Young man," said Don Eugenio, "this is the first 
 time I have occupied myself with fighting-cocks, and 
 it may be that, if I had occasion to continue at the 
 game, I should get over the disgust I feel. But I shall 
 always think with horror of the way in which you 
 treat that poor, dead thing. . . . O cock," said Don 
 Eugenio, "the man for whom you fought has utterly 
 disgraced himself. He is the kind of soldier who 
 throws insult at a hero, not remembering that you 
 might have led an amorous, triumphant life, and that 
 for his sake you gave everything. It was no quarrel of 
 your own, beloved cock, in which you fell, but merely 
 so that this man should be gratified, and for a moment. 
 Fare you well. And I am glad that you were spared 
 the knowledge of the miscreant's deed; I think that 
 if you had been only wounded when he kicked you and 
 not dead, your loyal gallant heart would then have 
 broken. Fare you well." My master did not wipe 
 away the tears which ran down both his cheeks. 
 
 And the lieutenant was a picture of unhappiness. 
 He stood near Don Eugenio and his fingers worked 
 convulsively. "What can I do? What can I do?" 
 said he. 
 
 "You interrupt my grief," said Don Eugenio. "You 
 remind me of your Emperor's brother, Francis Joseph. 
 One day at the Zoological Gardens in Vienna he ar- 
 rived in front of where the eagles are. He burst
 
 236 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 into a flood of tears, and the officials looked at one an- 
 other anxiously. 'Your Majesty,' said one of his smart 
 aides, 'if there is anything the matter . . .' 'Poor, 
 poor eagle,' sobbed the Emperor. 'What can I do? 
 What can I do?' The Chief Inspector of the Gardens 
 ventured to assure his Sovereign that this eagle was 
 quite reconciled to his captivity. 'Oh, my poor, mis- 
 erable bird,' sobbed Francis Joseph. 'I am truly sorry 
 for you. It is dreadful, dreadful.' 'But indeed,' said 
 the Inspector, 'if your Majesty would graciously ob- 
 serve with what an appetite he will consume his rab- 
 bits . . .' Yet the Emperor was inconsolable. 'He 
 is a bird,' said the Inspector, 'whom we have been 
 very proud of. There is scarcely such another in the 
 mountains of Your Empire.' 'No, no, that is false!' 
 cried Francis Joseph. 'He is a poor, pitiable creature.' 
 'But what is wrong with him, if I may ask Your 
 Apostolic Majesty?' said the Inspector. 'Oh, you must 
 be drunk,' the Emperor answered, 'or you would have 
 seen that he has only got one head!' " 
 
 Of course, the atmosphere was changed completely 
 by this tale, and the lieutenant, sitting down upon the 
 other basket, told my master with a cheerful earnest- 
 ness that they need not be very sorry for this cock, 
 because the end of many other cocks in Mexico had 
 been more painful. He described the practice of sus- 
 pending them by one leg from a pole, right in the 
 middle of the street. And usually round the creature's 
 neck there is a string of coins, which are sometirnes 
 counterfeit. And then the cavaliers come galloping 
 along and rise up in their stirrups and endeavor to 
 pull off the creature's head. 
 
 But in the middle of all this my master put his 
 hands against his ears. I knew that he was trying 
 strenuously to regard this matter, as he did all others.
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 237 
 
 from the point of view most favorable for the people 
 whom he disapproved of. "As I said before," quoth 
 he, "I possibly might overcome this feeling of disgust. 
 It is a sport which often brings the cock an instan- 
 taneous death, and for the men it has some obvious 
 advantages which lotteries and monte and the rest of 
 them do not possess. We have it sharply brought to 
 our attention that a being may at any instant lie in 
 death or be in the enjoyment, as is yonder cock, of all 
 good things. We recognize that our life also is a 
 wonderful adventure, and, in recognizing that, we fling 
 aside the dullness and the emptiness and the banalities. 
 It seems to me that, as one thinks about a cock-fight 
 after it is over, one can hardly keep oneself from 
 hearing the loud trumpets of defeat or victory that 
 will be blowing over us at any moment. And no longer 
 do we think our lives are dull, which is a thought that 
 pleases neither God nor Devil. 
 
 "I will tell you that I have regretted that the father 
 of my Juanito should have an establishment of fight- 
 ing-cocks. I do not know this country very well and 
 thus it is impossible for me to have the confidence 
 which Juanito's father had. His father said that with 
 some knowledge of the Latin language he would be 
 appointed to a post of honor and emolument. For 
 my part, I have always feared lest Juanito would be 
 in the end obliged to join in breeding cocks. But now 
 these cocks appear to me in a far nobler aspect. It 
 is no disgrace for Father Pedro to be busied with such 
 animals. No, on the contrary. And if I were not an 
 obscure and impotent old man, and if I were not being 
 dragged about by Don Arcadio, this Noahcite, I would 
 in some way let the name of Father Pedro ring across 
 the seas. But who will ever hear about this house 
 of fighting-cocks?
 
 238 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 "I wonder," Don Eugenio said — not waiting for an 
 observation which I might have made — "I wonder 
 when it was that cocks began to be esteemed for this or 
 any other virtues. One remembers that Saint Clement 
 celebrates the cock as symbol of the resurrection and 
 he is depicted on the tombs of early Christians. As 
 the day and night were thought of as an image of 
 the resurrection — 'Dies et nox,' said Saint Clement, 
 'resurrectionem nobis declarant: cubat nox, exsurgit 
 dies' — it was natural that as a symbol of the resurrec- 
 tion one should take the cock, the herald of the day. 
 Also, I am pleased that I have not forgotten that they 
 used him as a symbol of Christian vigilance. It all 
 comes back to me from my vague, miscellaneous 
 studies in the library at Zaragoza. You, sir, will not 
 contradict me if I venture to assert that Gregory the 
 Great and Saint Eucherius laid it down concerning 
 cocks that they are as the preachers who, amid the 
 shadows of this life, announce the life that is to come. 
 I cannot call to mind exactly where Eucherius says 
 these words, because we had at Zaragoza more than 
 one of his distinguished volumes. In the De Con- 
 temptu Mundi my discerning bishop very ardently 
 admired the beauty of the stjde and the great delicacy 
 of the sentiments; and as he was himself most humble 
 he was always apprehensive lest he should be shown 
 to be deficient in the former. So, wh^'n he prepared 
 his Pastorals, he used to fortify his style by studying 
 attentively this elevated work. 
 
 "Eucherius likewise is the author of the Acts of the 
 Martyrdom of Saint Maurice and Ms Comrades. It is 
 all related by Eucherius in a very honest fashion and 
 with his accustomed literary excellence, while he re- 
 frains from buttressing his tale with miracles, such
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 239 
 
 as the one we have from other sources which describes 
 how at the building of Agaunum's great basilica there 
 was among the laborers a pagan who continued work- 
 ing on a Sunday and how then the company of gleam- 
 ing martyrs came back from their grave to fling him 
 down and fall upon him in the charitable goodness 
 of their hearts, because it made him forthwith vow 
 that he would be a Christian. When I talk approv- 
 ingly," said Don Eugenio, ''of these martyrs it is only 
 of their good intentions, for I think they ought not 
 to have used the man so scurvily; they ought to have 
 instructed him and shown him how the Sunday should 
 be spent; and after this, had he been stubborn and 
 rebellious to their merciful teaching, then in God's 
 name let him fall under the censure. But to knock 
 him down with no preliminaries, that is not a method 
 of conversion which can be attributed to saints with- 
 out a great offense to their charity. However, as I 
 said, Eucherius does not write a word about this 
 miracle, and yet there are some learned men who say 
 emphatically and with many proofs that one must dis- 
 believe his tale and that there was no martyrdom and 
 therefore that it was ridiculous and sacrilegious to con- 
 struct a church upon the spot and let the pilgrims 
 come in multitudes. But we shall never know for 
 certain if the martyrdom did not occur and if it is 
 an oriental legend; there have been a number of es- 
 teemed historians who pondered over the same texts 
 for years and years, and came to opposite conclusions. 
 We are told by certain writers that the students who 
 do not believe these old traditions are afraid to bring 
 upon themselves the hatred of the monks and friars 
 who make trade of these impostures among silly 
 women."
 
 240 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 "I have just been thinking of her," interrupted the 
 lieutenant. "If we go into the town we may find En- 
 riqueta somewhere." 
 
 "Very likely. On the other hand/' said Don Eu- 
 genio, "you will admit that people are too quick to 
 cast aspersions on all kinds of ancient men and women 
 on the ground that their achievements seem improba- 
 ble. God, what a reason! We ourselves, who are so 
 far removed from being saints, do we not find our- 
 selves, with God's assistance, doing deeds to-day which 
 yesterday would have appeared impossible? And 
 learned men, I say, can spend their time far better 
 than in proving to us that a saint whom we have 
 venerated is no saint at all. The Master of the Saints 
 will surely know how to dispose of any prayers that 
 we send up to the saints or holy ones who were in- 
 vented by some monkish chronicler, and so we can 
 do things much worse than praying to Saint Chris- 
 topher or Saint Longinus or the Eleven Thousand Vir- 
 gins or the Martyrs of the Theban Legion, under 
 Maurice, as to all of whom there has been acriminious 
 dispute." 
 
 "I should be very glad to find her," quoth Don 
 Esteban, as he got up. "Come, let us go." 
 
 "I would not hinder you," said Don Eugenio. "By 
 all means let us walk about the town until the watch- 
 men grow suspicious. I am sure that Enriqueta has 
 escaped. And if you can forget her ... By the way," 
 said my good master, "I am going to take with me 
 to Tamaulipas a brown book which I have bought, 
 the Security against Oblivion which a man called 
 Robles wrote a hundred years ago, here in this coun- 
 try. It is the official 'Life' of an archbishop, and I 
 think it may console us in the perils of that expedi- 
 tion. At any rate it is a very foolish expedition, and
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 241 
 
 it will be difficult for me to keep that calmness and 
 serenity which are appropriate to my condition. If I 
 cannot soothe my fellow-travelers and myself I shall 
 recite some passages from this most edifying book, and 
 thus we shall regain our equanimity." 
 
 But as he said these words and was proceeding 
 slowly from the room that cock flew from the table 
 and, perhaps in consequence of something it had drunk 
 or eaten, hurled itself against my master's face. And 
 all confused and spitting feathers from his mouth and 
 in a voice of loathing he addressed the bird: 
 
 "Thou reprobate and graceless one, is this the way 
 in which to celebrate thy victory? O natives of the 
 town of Sybaris, held up to mockery because you could 
 not bear the crowing of the cocks and therefore ban- 
 ished them. O citizens of Sybaris, you did not act 
 with weakness but with mighty wisdom!" 
 
 The lieutenant said that we should lose all chance 
 of finding Enriqueta if we did not go. He said that 
 he knew many of the watchmen and they would not 
 tell him lies, and we would find the fugitives. 
 
 We never found them. The lieutenant tramped 
 along in front of us and I ran after him and Don 
 Eugenio came next, and he was out of breath. When- 
 ever I turned round to see if I could help him he 
 commanded me, by means of a brusk movement of 
 his arm, to hasten on. The streets were so deserted 
 at this hour that even when he was extremely far 
 behind us I could hear his stumbling, heavy footsteps 
 and his groaning and his panting, and at intervals he 
 made again the noise of spitting feathers from his 
 mouth.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 When our procession left Jalapa, on the second 
 morning after this, the town was very agitated by 
 some awful rumors. It was being said that now the 
 Liberals were returning and that this time they would 
 sack the place, and also that the patron saint of the 
 Imperialists was so displeased with Maximilian having 
 taken to himself a German Jesuit as confidant that she 
 would henceforth help the other side, and also there 
 was in the market-square a Belgian of the bodyguard 
 who said aloud that he and his companions had so 
 often thrashed the Mexicans — he meant, of course, the 
 Liberals — that they probably had learned the art them- 
 selves and he was going to leave the cursed country. 
 Those who heard him were in such a terrible excite- 
 ment that they did not stop to have a single word 
 with him. The women and the men were hurrying 
 about in a distracted fashion; it was being noised 
 abroad that women would be made to promenade the 
 plaza with their children, so that if the Liberals be- 
 sieged the town they would, through motives of high 
 chivalry, not aim into the plaza. This was quite a 
 new idea which Maximilian's European soldiers had 
 suggested to the governor of the town; the Liberals 
 knew nothing of it. And amid this general confusion 
 there was hardly any one who looked a second time 
 at us, and that is how we rode away. If there had 
 not been all this turmoil, I am sure a good part of 
 the population would have followed Don Arcadio's 
 mule and would have asked Faustino, who was walk- 
 
 242
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 243 
 
 ing with a baggage-mule, if he would tell them our in- 
 tentions. On the next three animals were Don Eu- 
 genio and Maria and myself — I think Faustino got 
 the mules, and as there was one for the girl she 
 mounted it and came with us. 
 
 And what did I care when we left the town behind 
 us and no single person of our company said anything? 
 If this had been a funeral procession, I would still 
 have had my thoughts immensely occupied with that 
 long map from Don Arcadio's wall which he had rolled 
 up till it looked as if it were a lance, and which he 
 carried fastened to his back. The colored people on 
 it, and the trees which were like long, brown rivers, 
 and the writing everywhere which looked like flowers 
 that a child would paint, and then the gods and the 
 extraordinary mountains and a chief whose legs and 
 arms were covered with the plumage of gay birds — all 
 these had sent me dreaming from the day when first 
 I saw them, and to think that we were actually going 
 to travel in accordance with this marvelous affair! A 
 flame was rushing up and down my body, and I mur- 
 mured a few bars of that old song, the dear Paloma. 
 
 Don Eugenio turned round in his saddle and was 
 evidently pleased. "You sing that song," he said, "at 
 the right moment. Have I told you of the jefc whom 
 I heard not long ago inside a drinking-shop where 
 he explained to any one who cared to listen how he 
 had remained so honest? He related that in moments 
 of temptation, when a wicked man was trying hard 
 to bribe him or when, in some other way, the hands 
 of Justice were in danger of not working freely, he 
 would hum a portion of that song and thus the pa- 
 triotic fervor would come over him and he would 
 utterly reject the tempters. And he also said he did 
 not know what happened in the House of Congress
 
 244 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 in the capital, but he believed they ought to station 
 there a choir perpetually chanting this Paloma, even 
 if it had the usual result of making deputies inaudible." 
 
 Our patron, Don Arcadio, had reined his mule back, 
 so that he was riding level with the pair of us. "Of 
 course," he said, ''if it is true that all the various 
 ingredients of earth can be transmuted into one an- 
 other, then there will no longer be a reason for es- 
 teeming gold above the rest of them. I should be 
 pleased to pull this metal down and others like it 
 from their pedestals. I should be so much nearer my 
 great object." 
 
 "On the other hand," said Don Eugenio — there 
 was a grim line of laughter round his lips — "I am 
 more than half afraid," he said, "that you would be 
 much further from it. Surely you would rouse to des- 
 peration all those people who are thickly crusted round 
 with gold and are esteemed for nothing else. And 
 they have always been brought up to think that they 
 are firm upon their pedestals. They are a million 
 times more numerous than those great golden statues 
 in the Babylonian temple and the statues of Lucullus 
 and of Pompey." 
 
 "Which have been pulled down," said Don Arcadio. 
 His mule put back its ears and kicked my master's 
 animal. There had not been the smallest provocation, 
 and my master's mule did not retaliate. "Where are 
 those golden statues now?" asked Don Arcadio, after 
 he had composed himself again upon his saddle. 
 
 "If it comes to that," said Don Eugenio, "I have 
 heard that in Arabia at one time there were flourishing 
 a thousand and twenty-five poets, and although I have 
 not read their works I am prepared to wager that a 
 good proportion of them sang about the change and 
 transitoriness of things. And there was one person
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 245 
 
 in my own country, Lope de Vega, who went so far 
 as to proclaim that the sea and play and love and 
 fortune are unrecognizable as such without change. 
 What a great man," said my master, "is that poet! 
 He is commonly belittled by this world of little men, 
 because he wrote in such prodigious quantities. I 
 think your mule is going to kick again." 
 
 "He drags my arms out of their sockets," Don 
 Arcadio said. "I hope he will grow tamer by and by." 
 
 "There was a famous writer in Madrid," said Don 
 Eugenio. "He used to patronize our bookstall, and 
 I can remember how he told us, drawing himself up 
 to his full height and speaking with a voice that trem- 
 bled, how he told us that if Spain possessed an army 
 which was worth its pay, like England's army, and 
 some battleships as good as England's and, beyond 
 all else, as much in the Exchequer as there was in 
 England's, then would Lope de Vega be as famous as 
 Shakespeare. ... I do not assert," said Don Eugenio, 
 "that Lope de Vega and Shakespeare will pass away, 
 but in the end the golden statues are pulled down and 
 I imagine that the men who pull them are themselves 
 not seldom crushed. But, sir, what is your special 
 reason for desiring to be that kind of reformer?" 
 
 Don Arcadio shook his head. "Well," he explained 
 with care, "it is not statues, it is gold that I am want- 
 ing to pull down. My special reason is that — it is like 
 a saying of our Liberal statesmen: liberty and the 
 Democracy!' And I am more a Liberal than most of 
 them, because I mean it. I wish to apply to all the 
 substances of earth what they pretend, or most of 
 them pretend, it is their aim to practise upon human 
 beings. Why should gold or princes be regarded as 
 above their fellows?" 
 
 "Really," said my master, "this is most enjoyable.
 
 246 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 How melancholy we all were at the beginning of the 
 ride! And now, caramba! I feel so exhilarated that 
 I do not care how much I moralize. I do not care how 
 humble are my illustrations. I suggest that as the 
 representative of aristocracy we take that mule of 
 yours. If he may lead the others he will be content 
 and probably he is a most efficient leader and, if cir- 
 cumstances did not thwart him, he would certainly 
 be leading now. With all respect to you, dear friend, 
 and your great work of transmutation, it is less than 
 likely that you will be able to transmute one mule into 
 another mule, one prince into another man. And I will 
 even beg to doubt if you will ever be successful in 
 transmuting gold, for you have had long rows of prede- 
 cessors." 
 
 "Ha!" cried Don Arcadio triumphantly, "but you 
 are wrong! If you put certain naked princes in a 
 crowd of naked people, do you think that any one will 
 know who is a prince?" 
 
 "I am astonished," said my master, "that you should 
 be satisfied with such an argument that goes no fur- 
 ther than the surface. Look, if you have got the 
 power, more deeply into all those naked ones and you 
 will recognize that some of them are real princes." 
 
 "But the princes of this world are never chosen in 
 that manner," Don Arcadio pointed out. 
 
 "And more's the pity. Though there would be one 
 enormous obstacle," said Don Eugenio, "for how should 
 we restrict the number of electors? I think only 
 those should have the suffrage who themselves are 
 eligible for election. Surely I have told you the old 
 proverb that it is the nightingale alone which under- 
 stands the rose. But more and more the suffrage is 
 extended, so that even if the real prince were chosen 
 by some accident and were to sit unclothed adminis-
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 247 
 
 tering equity, then he would have no glamour in the 
 eyes of his unworthy audience." 
 
 "And as the people who are in the seats of 
 princes . . ." 
 
 "Oh, I quite agree with you, alas," said Don 
 Eugenio, "they should not be there; but even if the 
 people who revere them are a crowd of fools and we 
 are not, should we not make ourselves the greater 
 fools if, having nothing to set up, we try to pull the 
 princes down? And in the golden statues of antiquity 
 there often was, so I have read, a covering of gold on 
 bronze or wood; the people worshiped with more ardor 
 and emotion since they thought the statue was of solid 
 gold. And if the gold which should have been inside 
 the statue had been taken by a thief, would he not 
 have been a far greater thief who could have taken 
 from the people their illusions? I believe," said Don 
 Eugenio, "that a prayer is often grander and more 
 lovely than the god. We said a little time ago that 
 all things pass away, and yet I like to think that 
 lovely thoughts have children and endure forever." 
 
 We had now come to a path so narrow that the 
 mules could only go in single file and I am sure that 
 Don Arcadio's was very pleased. The branches over- 
 head were almost meeting one another, while the blue 
 and yellow flowers which hung down from them were 
 being struck by Don Arcadio's long map. He must 
 have studied it acutely in Jalapa, since he was so 
 certain that this was the proper path for us. But I 
 for one was not particularly anxious that we should 
 not lose the way; I will confess that the ingenious and 
 grandiose designs in Don Arcadio's head were not as 
 dear to me as Don Arcadio would have wished. Ah, 
 no, he probably did not think I was capable of fol- 
 lowing such beautiful, august, and philosophical ideas.
 
 248 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 But all the benefits which they would soon or late con- 
 fer upon humanity I should — this I am sure he had 
 decided — I should to the full enjoy when he himself 
 was dead. The path meandered through the under- 
 growth, and as I was the last of the procession I could 
 sometimes not see any one except Maria who was just 
 in front of me, and when I was enabled to catch sight 
 of Don Arcadio and his map my heart was warm with 
 kindly thoughts for him; but chiefly I was hoping 
 that we would get off our animals and gather round 
 the map and then consult and argue and discuss and 
 speculate, as if we were a band of real brigands. 
 
 It would happen now and then that we emerged 
 into an open space, from which we could look out 
 beyond the palm-trees and the other trees to where 
 they lost themselves in the pale distance. But we 
 likewise saw the mountain ranges on our left and these 
 it was that we would have to cross and they did not 
 look any nearer than from Don Arcadio's house. We 
 only walked our mules, because Faustino was on foot. 
 And it was not a path for rapid riding, even if the 
 mules had wanted to go quickly. Now and then, I 
 say, we found ourselves on a green, open space, but 
 very seldom did we see a bamboo hut with some one 
 strolling round it, very seldom did we hear the voice 
 of pigs which told us that there was a hut inside the 
 jungle, still more seldom did we meet a traveler— this 
 country was but thinly populated. 
 
 Still we did come to a village after several hours 
 and the people of it led us to the ptdque shop, which 
 was their inn. Outside it hung a painting, not a very 
 good one, of the Holy Family; but otherwise that inn 
 was not more glorious than any of its neighbors, which 
 were all constructed of bamboo and with a thatch of 
 palm-leaves. Don Arcadio ascertained that the pro-
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 249 
 
 prietor had nothing we could eat, not even beans nor 
 pineapples, but merely jars of pulque which, said Don 
 Arcadio, would not be helpful to assist us on the way, 
 and so he ordered that we should proceed right through 
 the village and should halt beside the first stream 
 we encountered. We had not a large supply of food 
 upon Faustino's mule — since it was necessary for us 
 to bring clothing for the nights and also sundry tools 
 which were to dig the gold of Tamaulipas — but we 
 should be able without doubt, said Don Arcadio, to 
 replenish our supply of food in other places. And we 
 passed all through the village, being only followed by 
 some children and some dogs and the proprietor — a 
 melancholy person — of the pulque shop. I wondered 
 what reproaches he would level at us, but when we 
 arrived outside the village and beheld a stream of 
 water and got off our mules, this man assisted Don 
 Arcadio and Don Eugenio, who were naturally rather 
 stiff, to leave their saddles. Yet he did not speak, 
 except to mutter at a child or two who were already 
 bathing in the stream. But when my master stretched 
 himself luxuriously on the water's bank and said that 
 now we surely had come to the end of all our troubles, 
 this man only sighed and said "Which end?" And 
 presently he went back to the village. 
 
 We remained an hour or two, reposing. That is, 
 all of us reposed with the exception of the Noahcite. 
 My master was unloosening the stirrup which he had 
 upon his right foot — an old stirrup made of steel and 
 silver — when he happened to remark that it would be 
 a most uninteresting world in which the metals could 
 all be transmuted into one another. But he did not 
 think, he said, and with profound respect for Don 
 Arcadio, that this consummation would be ever brought 
 about. "In fact," he said, "I have a notion that your
 
 250 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 metals take upon themselves an individuality, so that 
 one piece of silver is not just the same as every other 
 piece." 
 
 The Noahcite was thoroughly aroused. He sat bolt 
 upright and expressed himself with vigor. 
 
 But my master spoke at the same time, nor did 
 he bother to lift up his voice. He had detached the 
 spur, and now as he lay down beside the Noahcite 
 he made himself as comfortable as he could, he drew 
 his hat down on his eyes and said: 
 
 ''Of course I do not know as much of metals as of 
 books. You may have noticed that a man is not the 
 same in every work. The treasures of invention and 
 of eloquence may not be gathered always by the great- 
 est of us, and the learned Vossius was right when he 
 condemned a critic who denied that Xenophon was 
 author of the Expedition of Cyrus, because forsooth 
 the critic was unable to discern in it all those inimitable 
 strokes of eloquence which are the mark of that illus- 
 trious historian." 
 
 The Noahcite was talking loudly and his arms were 
 moving up and down. 
 
 "They said of him," quoth Don Eugenio, "that he 
 had all the sweetness which a man can have. Perhaps 
 he did not soar into the heights with Plato nor de- 
 scend into the secret causes with Thucydides." And 
 then my master fell asleep. 
 
 I do not know how long the Noahcite continued to 
 discourse about his metals. When Maria came with 
 me into a shady spot a little further down the river 
 he was talking in a very mournful fashion, being evi- 
 dently grieved that Don Eugenio should go on living 
 in such error. And for his part Don Eugenio had a 
 smile upon the lower portion of his face, the only
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 251 
 
 portion that there was exposed. And in his sleep he 
 murmured, "All the sweetness, sweetness." 
 
 When we started off again we knew that we would 
 have to camp that night on this side of the mountains 
 — ^we would not come near another village. And as 
 we were unaccustomed to such lengthy rides, we all 
 of us were very glad when Don Arcadio's mule stopped 
 suddenly as it was crossing a small open space and 
 then lay down upon a pile of moss. The Noahcite 
 himself received no injury, but he accepted Don 
 Eugenio's suggestion that this would be a delicious 
 and convenient place for an encampment. In five 
 minutes we were all collecting twigs of wood and in a 
 very short time after this Maria had begun to cook 
 our evening meal. This was to be the first meal and 
 the last of Don Arcadio's famous expedition.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 It has never caused me grief that I am so incapable 
 of writing on our scenery. The editors and other 
 journalists of Mexico are nearly always poets, and the 
 students, both of medicine and law, seem to have 
 ample time to spare for poetry, and I have heard of 
 some great General or Minister or Bishop coming to 
 a town of which the mayor receives him with the 
 recitation of a poem he himself has written, while the 
 schoolmaster is asked to hand a copy of his ceremonial 
 poem to the great man's adjutant or secretary, to the 
 end that it may be perused at leisure. So you see that 
 if we are deficient here in certain things, in poets we 
 are wonderfully well-provided. I believe that many 
 of our splendid swarms of poets have described the 
 scenery, and who am I that I should hope to follow 
 them? It is a subject that is too magnificent for 
 such a one as I. And yet I always think with sorrow 
 of that evening in our expedition when the baseless 
 mountains seemed to float in air and to have wreathed 
 around their summits a faint garland of no color I had 
 ever seen, it was the color of the dreams, perhaps, 
 of grandfathers when they have played with little 
 children. And the sky was like a flock of shadows 
 gathering in fields of ivory. I think with grief about 
 that evening on account of the calamitous events I 
 am about to tell you and also on account of the divine 
 events, a pageant so tremendous on the treetops and 
 the mountains and the sky that even in the middle 
 of our panic and the clash of arms, of which you will 
 
 252
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 253 
 
 be learning soon, I had to gaze in wonderment around 
 me. Well, it seems that as I am no poet I will place 
 the scenery before you like a corpse to gaze at; and 
 I have been told that in the foreign countries where 
 the law does not prevent one from dissecting corpses 
 one regards with pity and contempt the people who 
 are satisfied with gazing. 
 
 First of all, when we had finished supper, we un- 
 rolled the map and spread it on the ground; Faustino 
 took a piece of burning wood out of the fire and held 
 it over this or that part of the map, as Don Arcadio 
 directed. No one, except Don Arcadio himself, knew 
 how to read the map and he explained it to us very 
 well. 
 
 And afterwards, when Don Eugenio was lying there 
 — his back supported by his saddle — and Maria and 
 Faustino and myself were putting blankets round the 
 fire or getting other twigs of wood or doing nothing, 
 Don Arcadio walked to and fro in meditation. Then 
 my master started speaking and we gradually all as- 
 sembled near him, that is, we sat round the fire, and 
 in the darting light of it I could perceive that every 
 one was listening intently. 
 
 "There must be many people," so he said, "who 
 have imagined that if they could wander in the open 
 country, with a few companions, they would free them- 
 selves from all the squalor and the wickedness and 
 cruelty of towns. Who has not heard them speaking 
 of the wilderness as though it were a place of healing, 
 where the wind would drive away whatever evil may 
 have settled on them and where they would presently 
 develop virtues? Bueno, we are in the wilderness, and 
 it is seemly that we should consider what is going 
 to happen. If we do not find ourselves improving, 
 ought we to be very much ashamed? And will the
 
 254 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 shame be forced upon us by the sight of other and 
 more edifying people? Or shall we be blind to all 
 their greatness? 
 
 "I believe," said Don Eugenio, "that the inhabitants 
 of places such as this are naturally just as wayward, 
 just as noble or abandoned as the dwellers in a town. 
 And we are clearly meant to take this view, because, 
 whatever else may be uncertain as to Adam and his 
 faults for which we still are suffering, his existence — 
 if he did exist — was in the country." 
 
 "I am not uncertain as to Noah," said the Noahcite. 
 
 "But when the people of the town go out into the 
 country," said my master, "they are in a state of 
 freedom or of lawlessness — whichever you may like 
 to call it — that they have not known before. They 
 are as travelers in Spain who ask the landlord of a 
 little hostelry v/hat he can give them, and the answer 
 is that he can give them everything and then, on being 
 pressed, he adds, 'Of what Your Grace has in his 
 saddle-bags.' If you want all your furniture of laws 
 out in the country, you must take them with you. 
 And do you believe," said Don Eugenio, "that the 
 greater lawlessness in which these country-people live 
 has the effect of making them more virtuous? They 
 are restricted and are supervised far less than dwellers 
 in the town, and so are able to give far more play to all 
 their appetites and passions. Being deeply stirred, as 
 are the townsmen, by the elementary demands for 
 food and women, they are not so much debarred from 
 taking either; even if the conscientious king or presi- 
 dent sees fit to make the town laws applicable to the 
 country, he will not apply them. It may be, of course, 
 that when the average countryman has taken all he 
 wants of food, or land-producing food, and women, 
 he is satisfied and settles down into a creditable life,
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 255 
 
 whereas the townsman is prevented, more or less, 
 from reaching a condition of satiety. And if that is 
 the general case one might advance the theory that 
 the laws should be removed a little from the towns- 
 man, so that in the first place he should be more 
 natural, and in the second that he should attain the 
 country person's happy state. In fact, the laws have 
 been so frequently condemned by philosophic people, 
 seeing that they make life duller and less natural and 
 altogether less attractive that I scarcely know why 
 we maintain them. And if lawless people wax in 
 virtue, while the people who live under laws are con- 
 stantly at odds with them, does it not seem advisable 
 to brush these laws away? Then life would be worth 
 living for a townsman and he would in time become 
 as satisfied and virtuous as any dweller in the country. 
 Ah, but there is a most grave objection, for the virtue 
 which flows into us when we are satisfied is not much 
 more worth having than the virtue which grows under 
 a policeman's eye. And, by the way, there is another 
 school of thought which says that virtue does not 
 flourish if it is not under the command of laws. 'Take 
 the severe restraint away,' says Seneca, 'and what will 
 then become of virtue? — Imperia dura tolle, quid virtus 
 erit?' He would have told us that we are mistaken 
 when we praise the virtues of the country-people on 
 the ground that they are relatively lawless. And he 
 would not have extolled the virtue which is the result 
 of satisfied desire. I hope," said Don Eugenio, "that 
 you appreciate how much I feel all this, since nobody 
 is more aware than I am of how little virtue I possess 
 and how much that exceeds the quantity there was in 
 me before my body and my spirit had been battered 
 for so long and thrown from side to side and made 
 into uninteresting ruins. . . . But we talk of satisfied
 
 256 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 desire, and is there such a thing? With most of us 
 I fancy that it means that we have come into the state 
 when the desire in us has withered. And, by all the 
 saints, how can we be without desire? O let not our 
 desires grow blunt or satisfied! We should be as the 
 glow-worm when the passionate beauty of his light 
 goes out. O let there be such laws and such restric- 
 tions over us that we are always striving, always serv- 
 ing, always adding to the beauty of the world . . ." 
 
 "And so," said Don Arcadio, with a puzzled air, 
 "you want us to be under laws and you were saying 
 that you did not want us to be under them so much. 
 Is that not so?" 
 
 "My friend," said Don Eugenio, "the only attri- 
 bute of greatness which I have in me is that I do not 
 fear to contradict myself ... I have arrived at the 
 conclusion that the great laws which protect from us 
 such things as other people's food and women are 
 most excellent — the little laws about a thousand other 
 things I do not speak of. God be thanked that we 
 are constantly repressed by those great laws, and it 
 is God perhaps and not the wisdom of our ancestors 
 who first established them. Can you imagine that a 
 single race of men would have deprived themselves 
 of the enjoyment of these two commodities, unless 
 they had been under the impression that this was the 
 will of God or of the Devil? I do not pretend to 
 know how these repressive and most admirable laws 
 began to be established, but if it was owing to the 
 Devil's influence — which I consider very likely — there 
 is not the smallest reason for us to repine, since it 
 would be repugnant to our common sense if we did 
 not believe that God employs the Devil, when he can 
 be profitably used, and that if God were not more 
 satisfied than otherwise He would before now have
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 257 
 
 destroyed him. Well, if I were asked to paint a 
 portrait of the Earliest Great Legislator I should not 
 be much disposed to let him have a venerable and 
 inspired appearance; on the contrary, I should depict 
 a savage who is in the throes of physical discomfiture 
 produced by an excessive yielding to these two desires 
 or one of them. And in the sluggish brain of that 
 poor man we have the source of subsequent great 
 laws. The ignorance in which he was himself envel- 
 oped should not make our gratitude less hearty: if 
 he thought it was the Devil working in him I believe 
 that ultimately it was God. Because the work of this 
 man and of his successors looks as if it were an acci- 
 dent we should not blasphemously think it is so. I 
 have seen a beautiful, eld bridge that spans a road 
 and joins the chapter-house of a cathedral to the 
 vicar's close. The two ends of the bridge were not 
 exactly opposite each other, for which reason it was 
 necessary for the bridge to turn at a slight angle; 
 furthermore, the ground was not so high at one side, 
 so that there the arch was built upon a lower level. 
 And the whole affair was most divinely picturesque. 
 No doubt a modern architect would say that this was 
 accidentally achieved — and I am sure that he himself 
 would have corrected both the inequalities and have 
 destroyed the beauty. I believe that when the Archi- 
 tect of Things produces His incomparable work it does 
 not rest on accident. 
 
 "As for these relatively lawless people of the open 
 country," said my master, "it behoves us to regard 
 them not with feelings of aversion but with pity. They 
 are far less fortunate than we are. And, who knows? 
 perhaps we shall be able to persuade a few of them 
 to bow to our own stricter laws, which are so great 
 a blessing."
 
 258 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 Scarcely had my master said these words when we 
 were conscious of a troop of men among the trees. 
 I tried to think how soon they would burst in upon 
 us and assassinate us, but they seemed to stop. We 
 sat in the most perfect silence, gazing at each other. 
 And I felt the blood jerk to and fro inside Maria's 
 hand. 
 
 Of course we had some weapons, but they were not 
 lying near us round the fire, except Faustino's long 
 machete, which was useful for the cutting off of 
 branches. And we sat there just as if we never would 
 get up again. . . . The people who were watching us 
 were all so silent and the night was growing dark. I 
 shivered as I looked into the fire, which now seemed 
 smaller and more ruddy, but this may have been be- 
 cause of the surrounding darkness. Anyhow, as I 
 looked up again I thought I could see many ruddy 
 eyes that glared and flashed among the trees. And 
 then Faustino crossed himself and started muttering 
 about his sins. I heard him groan that if he had 
 been better this would not have happened. 
 
 But my splendid master interrupted him. He tried 
 to speak in his most ordinary voice. "My dear Faus- 
 tino, I should like to tell you of a boy," he said, "who 
 swore that he would do one good act every day, and 
 it was near the point of midnight on a certain day 
 and he could think of nothing good which he had done. 
 He therefore gave his white mouse to the cat." 
 
 "Alas, alas, I have done nothing," said Faustino. 
 "But nevertheless I will be of good cheer"— he 
 straightened himself and bit his lower lip— "because 
 I have such faith in God. I am sure that if he likes 
 He can protect us in this horrible position." 
 
 "Why then did He bring us into it?" said Don 
 Arcadio.
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 259 
 
 I was so glad that they were speaking. It might 
 even happen, so I thought, that if the people in the 
 dark observed how good and harmless were my master 
 and the Noahcite and all of us they would be kind. 
 And then I hoped they would emerge, because I really 
 was inquisitive to see them. 
 
 Don Eugenio rolled over on his side and with his 
 face towards the fire. "Ah, well," he said, in a loud 
 voice, "I think we ought to go to sleep or we shall 
 not be ready for the road to-morrow morning. Now 
 may God have pity on us always." And he actually 
 shut his eyes, as if he were in his own comfortable bed. 
 
 But Don Arcadio was rather agitated still. He 
 shifted first to this side, then to that, and then he 
 burst out with some words that were not wise. "Yes, 
 that is it," said he, "and may God recollect how you 
 have pity on the lawless people of the countryside." 
 
 "I have pity on them," said my master, opening 
 his eyes and speaking very clearly, "I have pity on 
 them if their gold miscarries, that is, if by chance the 
 gold which we are going to fetch from Tamaulipas 
 does not find its way into the pockets of the gallant 
 country -people." 
 
 Then I heard a whispering among the trees. It was 
 a hurried consultation, and in a very little time the 
 noise increased, as they were not by any means of 
 one opinion. Here and there a word was audible and 
 oaths and exclamations — until one man spoke in rough 
 command and said that they would go back to the 
 place where they had left their animals and there, 
 he said, they would take counsel. And his comrades 
 very soon obeyed him; we could hear them talking 
 as they went. 
 
 We looked at one another and the same thought 
 came into our heads; but all of us, save Don Arcadio,
 
 26o THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 knew it was hopeless to attempt to run away from 
 them in such a country. 
 
 "If only one could pack the mules," said Don 
 Arcadio. 
 
 We did not answer him, and my good master said 
 that, as presumably we should that night have little 
 sleep, we ought to take this opportunity, while they 
 were arguing about us. It would not astonish him, 
 he said, if they assisted us by slaying one another. 
 
 "If they were religious people," said Faustino, "it 
 would be so simple. But they are the Liberals, I am 
 sure, and they will not respect the holy Catholic re- 
 ligion." 
 
 "Well, if you have always done so," said my master, 
 "then you can await your destiny without uneasiness. 
 Come, let us try to sleep." 
 
 "Sefior," he said, "it shall be so. But there was 
 some one in Jalapa who once told me that when he 
 was fighting with an enemy and they were all of them 
 good Catholics it was so different. His troop was being 
 hunted, it was nearly captured. Then it came into a 
 village, and as they were riding past the church, one 
 of the troop leaped from his horse and asked a man to 
 lead it to the stream and there to wait for him. He 
 ran himself into the church — all this was in our State 
 of Veracruz — and fortunately there was some one in 
 the inside, sweeping it. He made that man go with 
 him to the sacristy — he held out his revolver at him — 
 in the sacristy they took some garments of the priest 
 and these the soldier put upon himself; they found 
 the little table with its white cloth and they also found 
 the bell — these things he forced the village man to 
 carry and to march before him out into the open air. 
 And I must not forget that in his own hands he was 
 carrying the Holy Sacrament, with the revolver hidden
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 261 
 
 somewhere up his sleeve. As they went slowly from 
 the church, which was a blue and white one ..." 
 
 "But, my dear Faustino," said my master, "I assure 
 you I believe the tale as if I had been there myself." 
 
 "And it was in the State of Veracruz," Faustino 
 said. "As they went slowly from the church the peo- 
 ple of the village who perceived them knelt with one 
 accord and prayed. They did not stop to look into 
 the face of either of them. And the troop of enemies 
 came galloping along and in a moment they were off 
 their horses and were kneeling and were praying. 
 Very slowly did the man walk with the Sacrament, 
 and in the end he slipped behind a house, he took 
 those garments off and ran to where the horse was 
 hidden. After that he only had to ride by certain 
 forest paths to where his comrades were expecting 
 him." 
 
 We spoke of other things a little. Then we tried 
 to hear what they were doing, and then suddenly their 
 captain called to us in his rough voice and he was not 
 far off. He told us that if we delivered to them such 
 things as they wanted they would not molest us. We 
 might think it over, he announced, for several minutes, 
 and he told us that he was called Bustamante. 
 
 "Bustamante! He is the most powerful in all the 
 region," said Faustino, who was filled with awe. "Oh, 
 would that it were true that God can write straight 
 lines on paper ruled with crooked ones." 
 
 "It seems to me," said Don Eugenio, "from the 
 way in which the Senor Bustamante spoke that we had 
 better keep our minds upon the earth. Suppose one 
 of your water-sellers lets the water be abstracted from 
 the small jug which he has in front of him and from 
 the large one which he has behind him. You might 
 think at first that he would be a useless man, but I
 
 262 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 believe that they are largely used in Mexico to carry 
 messages. Now there are times when we must not 
 allow the hero in us to display himself." 
 
 "Oh, if we fight them," said Maria, "they will send 
 us all into the other life." 
 
 "And I would sooner go to Tamaulipas," said my 
 master. "Shall we say that we agree to their condi- 
 tions?" 
 
 "What is all our property," quoth Don Arcadio, 
 "compared with the fulfilment of my plans? I very 
 willingly agree." 
 
 "Seizor Bustamante!" said my master in his loud 
 voice. "Have the goodness to approach. We are at 
 your disposal." 
 
 Bustamante shouted that we should stand up and 
 hold our hands above our heads. And as he and his 
 followers came out into the open space we saw that 
 they were numerous. They had their black and red 
 striped rugs which fell down from their shoulders to 
 their feet, but the sombreros showed that they were 
 Liberal soldiers. . . . What they wanted chiefly were 
 the money and the weapons. Don Arcadio and Faus- 
 tino helped in placing these and other things around 
 the fire. They treated us much better than I had 
 expected, which perhaps was partly owing to the pru- 
 dence of the Noahcite and of Faustino, who obeyed 
 their slightest wish and evidently did not want to hide 
 a single thing. The Noahcite inquired if they would 
 like to have some bottles of old brandy, but the captain 
 thanked him and declined it. 
 
 "Notwithstanding," said Don Arcadio, "let us drink 
 each other's health." 
 
 And as they drank they all became so cordial, they 
 loudly praised us and they twined their arms around 
 us and they said that never had they been with trav-
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 263 
 
 elers as pleasant as ourselves, and never had they 
 tasted any beverage more pleasant than this brandy. 
 Don Arcadio ordered that another bottle and another 
 should be opened. He himself was kissed on both his 
 cheeks by Bustamante, who invited him to join their 
 band. But Don Arcadio said that he must go to 
 Tamaulipas. 
 
 "We have heard all that about your gold!" cried 
 Bustamante. "You will never find it! Go with us, 
 I say!" 
 
 His comrades, who were drinking rapidly, exhorted 
 us to go with them. "We find more gold above the 
 surface," they declared, "than you will ever get in 
 Tamaulipas." 
 
 "But, my friends," said Don Arcadio, "I know where 
 it was hidden by the natives. And I have my reasons 
 why I wish to find it. One of them is that I shall 
 present a portion of the gold to you." 
 
 They laughed at him, they patted him upon the 
 back, they drank his health again and urged my master 
 to persuade him to go with their merry band. 
 
 "Caramba! if we go with you or if we do not go," 
 my master said, "it is not I who want to march to 
 Tamaulipas. In comparison with Don Arcadio I am 
 very ignorant about the metals, but I do know that, 
 according to Agricola, the medieval German, twelve 
 men who were taking buried silver from a mine, the 
 Crown of Rose, were killed by a great spirit that was 
 temporarily inside a horse's body. I am certain there 
 are many more examples. But in loyalty I am obliged 
 to follow Don Arcadio." 
 
 Some of them approved so thoroughly of my dear 
 master that they called out, "May the Spaniard live!" 
 And some of them had fallen to the ground and some 
 were singing. Then it was that the large Aztec map
 
 264 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 was found between the blankets of the Noahcite, and 
 he who found it swore this was a secret map which 
 gave all their positions and that Don Arcadio was a 
 spy of the Imperialists. At once there rose a pan- 
 demonium: "Let him be hanged!" "The traitors!" 
 "Strip them to the uttermost!" "Oh, fools that we 
 have been!" "They are the instruments of the ac- 
 cursed Archduke!" "Liberty and the Democracy!" 
 "Let all of them be hanged!" "This brandy has been 
 poisoned!" "We are in a trap!" "The vile conspira- 
 tors!" "Crowned devils!" "They are worse than 
 North Americans!" "Will they escape?" "Oh, spare 
 the pretty kitten!" "Long live Juarez and the Revo- 
 lution!" "So they would deceive us!" "But we are 
 not foolish!" "Kill them!" "After they are tor- 
 tured!" 
 
 Then they flung themselves upon us. And with 
 ropes and cords they started tying up our hands. 
 One villain gave my master such a blow that a long 
 stream of blood came from his forehead. And I do 
 not think my master had opposed him in the slightest. 
 . . . When we all were lying there so helplessly they 
 told us that if any one endeavored to escape he would 
 be shot. They settled down between us and the fire, 
 on which they piled more wood ; two men were posted 
 on the outskirts of the open space, they leaned against 
 the trees and watched us. 
 
 "What is this, you shameless one?" cried Busta- 
 mante, who had overheard some angry words which 
 Don Arcadio was muttering to himself. "My com- 
 rades! He has dared to say that we are brigands! 
 We, the soldiers of the revolution! We, who are re- 
 establishing the social guarantees!" 
 
 A comrade here and there growled bloodthirsty ad- 
 vice, but they did not themselves rise up to cut off
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 265 
 
 any part of Don Arcadio's body. The most sensible 
 of all of them said it was opportune for every one to 
 sleep, and the Imperialists, he said, were made like 
 that — to them there was no difference, for they were 
 so depraved, there was no difference between a brigand 
 who takes anything and Liberal soldiers who give 
 everything and are prepared to give their lives. "Lib- 
 erty and the Democracy!" said he. "And now let 
 everybody go to sleep." 
 
 They spoke no more and even the two sentinels 
 appeared to have obeyed his bidding. At all events 
 they did not stop me when I rolled myself to where 
 my master lay. The blood was now no longer flowing 
 from his wound and he had both his eyes shut, though 
 I could not see if he was sleeping. . . . How repulsive 
 and how cruel was the world, I never, never, never 
 would do anything but loathe it, after what had hap- 
 pened to my dear old master. 
 
 There was now a little wind among the treetops, 
 and the sky on which their dark forms seemed to 
 move was growing paler. And the wind was gently 
 driving the large clouds. 
 
 I saw the hated bodies of our foemen more dis- 
 tinctly. How I wished that every one would be 
 plunged down into the darkness of the lowest hell. 
 
 A silver lace was thrown across the summits of the 
 trees and now the mountains rising up behind them 
 had mysterious caves between the blackness. And the 
 moon came over the black mountain range, and on 
 each sailing cloud it was as if a lamp were lit, and 
 I shall never see a sight as beautiful.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 Don Eugenio was sitting by me and he had awak- 
 ened me; the others all seemed to be busy rolling up 
 the rugs or putting burdens on our mules. And as 
 they walked about they spoke to one another very 
 little and they ate their food, and I saw one who gave 
 the Noahcite a kick. 
 
 My master's face was very mournful as he put his 
 hand on mine and told me that I must observe most 
 carefully what he was going to say. This was for the 
 moment, so he said, the thing which was most pressing. 
 Then he told me that Maria now belonged to Busta- 
 mante and that if a word or glance of mine displeased 
 the captain he would probably assassinate me. 
 
 I was horrified to hear that this big blustering fellow 
 had so soon succeeded, even though Maria was Maria. 
 Could she not have been more faithful to me and to 
 Don Eugenio? Yes, really when I looked at my dear 
 master's mournful face and at the wound upon his 
 brow, I was indignant with Maria more especially be- 
 cause she had abandoned him. 
 
 "Poor Don Eugenio," said I, "and it was you that 
 rescued her. She is a monster of ingratitude." 
 
 He smiled a little. "If," said he, "we had applied 
 ourselves more thoroughly to Roger Bacon, who was 
 a great alchemist and chemist also, then perhaps we 
 could explain by chemistry why the affections of a 
 woman alter. Mind you, it would not console me. 
 And in this case other agencies were brought to bear. 
 But I am grieved that we were cut off in the middle 
 of our geological researches. I believe the chief law 
 
 266
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 267 
 
 of that science, which is the phenomenon of the in- 
 ternal heat of mines, is at the bottom of Bacon's entire 
 chemical theory. It would have remained for us to 
 study the internal heat of men and women. I am 
 grieved that we have not applied ourselves to this 
 most fascinating subject." 
 
 One of Bustamante's followers came up and roughly 
 ordered Don Eugenio to place himself among the rest, 
 between the riders. 
 
 "But are you not grieved," I said, as we were doing 
 what this man commanded, "are you not a little 
 grieved because Maria has deserted you?" 
 
 "I ordered her to do it," said my master. "And 
 remember to be very careful, as I told you." 
 
 But there was no risk of any indiscretion, for Maria 
 rode beside her lover, far ahead of us, and we four 
 luckless ones on foot were in the middle of the caval- 
 cade. Thank heaven that the road was very bad for 
 horses, which prevented them from going fast; in fact, 
 the horses often were obliged to stop and test a boulder 
 with their front legs — this was one of the old Spanish 
 highways that had fallen into disrepair. What we 
 most suffered from was the uncertainty about our fate. 
 And we should have been glad to know where we were 
 being taken to. The horsemen just in front of us and 
 just behind us merely uttered a contemptuous word 
 from time to time, and later on they scarcely spoke 
 to us at all. And so it came about that Don Eugenio 
 was able to explain to me how he had managed with 
 Maria. 
 
 "It was in the middle of the night," he said, "that 
 I was roused by those two persons, who requested 
 me to go with them into the jungle. Bustamante's 
 manner had completely changed — he brought back to 
 my mind a certain picture in the Soul-Combat of Pru-
 
 268 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 dentius, the Christian poet; we had a good copy of 
 this book at Zaragoza, with uncolored illustrations of 
 the tenth century, and Bustamante did indeed resemble 
 one of the five anxious Virtues who are interviewing 
 Avarice. You probably will not believe me, but when 
 I looked at the girl I saw in her an even greater 
 similarity to Avarice, whose hands are open and whose 
 eyes are very round and whose expression is so inno- 
 cent. They whispered that if I would go with them 
 into the jungle I could settle what they had to put 
 before me and they would infallibly abide by my 
 decision. It appeared that she had been rejecting his 
 advances; and the captain told me that in matters 
 of this kind he was extremely chivalrous. He never 
 took a girl, he said, against her will, and he believed 
 that this characteristic had made him famous through- 
 out the region. Well, Maria had referred him to my- 
 self; if I agreed then she would raise no further ob- 
 stacle. Of course I could have given my consent im- 
 mediately and saved myself some inconvenience, but 
 I thought it would be more becoming if I went with 
 them into the jungle. Now I do not know if I was 
 right or wrong, but I was under the impression that 
 Maria would consent as soon as I had said the slight- 
 est word and thus I was a little sore that I should 
 have been roused so needlessly. Aye, that is how 
 they irritate us. It is doubtful whether I should have 
 been able to preserve the proper frame of mind if I 
 had not remembered what some holy ones have said 
 concerning women. First of all, if we should be dis- 
 posed to think ourselves superior to them and there- 
 fore to rejoice, we have the salutary words of Saint 
 John Chrysostom, the Archbishop of Constantinople: 
 'We are ordained,' said he, 'to rule over them; not 
 merely that we may rule, but that we may rule in
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 269 
 
 goodness also; for he that ruleth ought especially to 
 rule in this respect, by excelling in virtue; whereas 
 if he is surpassed he is no longer the ruler.' And, 
 with regard to the waywardness of women, I remem- 
 bered happily the words of that sagacious Father who 
 advised us to suspect a woman if her actions seemed 
 all clear and open; such a woman, said that Father, 
 was an emissary of the Devil and no real woman who 
 inherited from Eve some trace of sin and who might 
 also hope she would inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 This Father whose well-balanced writings, my dear 
 Juanito, I commend to you most warmly — wise men 
 will be guided by them after you and I and this 
 ridiculous old Noahcite are totally forgotten — well, 
 this Father says, in one of his main chapters, that it 
 is most excellent to have one's own opinion, though 
 it is a thing for which one has to pay. And it is his 
 opinion that the woman you need not suspect is she 
 who on the one hand does not ostentatiously lay all 
 her actions bare, and on the other hand does not con- 
 ceal them absolutely. She in whom we place our con- 
 fidence must regulate her actions towards us even as 
 she regulates her dress. I may inform you that the 
 average man is not attracted nor repelled by what is 
 in a woman's soul; the voice that speaks to him im- 
 periously is the body of a woman. And the woman 
 knows it, whether he does or does not. She has the 
 sense to take the average man, beyond all others, 
 into her consideration, and she usually lets him see 
 of her a little less than he believes he would like 
 to see. 'Strong and perfect as are Urim and Thummin 
 on the breastplate of the high priest,' says that ven- 
 erated Father, 'just as strong and perfect is the man 
 who knoweth what he wants.' The robes of women 
 seem to the philosopher to be designed not so much
 
 270 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 for the purpose of obscuring and of veiling the fine 
 texture and the outlines of her body as the texture and 
 the outlines of the thoughts of man. Now they have 
 said that the most futile error of a human being is 
 to prophesy, for he is ignorant of what the future 
 has in store; and yet is it not much more foolish for 
 a man to guess and guess at what he knows already? 
 Think of all the years which men have spent in pon- 
 dering about a woman's body. And before you think 
 of judging any woman, ask yourself if you would like 
 her to be judging you. 
 
 "Bueno, we went out into the jungle. Bustamante 
 walked in front, to show the way to us; Maria and 
 myself walked hand in hand. He led us carefully and 
 we kept close behind him. Underneath the trees the 
 ground was very soft and mossy, but we did not seat 
 ourselves till Bustamante thought we had gone far 
 enough to talk without arousing any one. However, 
 we did very little talking and the little that there was 
 was very friendly. I reminded him of what Cervantes 
 says, that things which cost a trifle are not much 
 esteemed. He said he loved her more than any woman 
 he had ever owned. And I said that a woman's love 
 is far too often cast like sunbeams on a dunghill and 
 the dunghill then becomes, I said, more disagreeable. 
 But if he really loved Maria there must be some good- 
 ness in him. And he asked Maria to embrace me, 
 which she did, and then I left them." 
 
 While my master was discoursing to me in this 
 memorable fashion we continued to advance, as best 
 we could, along that ancient highway. At a certain 
 point it made abruptly for the mountain barrier, and 
 we struck off towards the lowlands. Then a horseman 
 was so kind as to inform us that we also should be 
 going over there to Tamaulipas, but we had to cross
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 271 
 
 the boundary a little further down. It was much 
 pleasanter for us to walk along these meadows than it 
 had been on the road. And fortunately they were 
 saving up their horses, so that we were not compelled 
 to walk more rapidly. The meadows had upon them, 
 here and there, a cow — perhaps the owner of them was 
 a Liberal, and so we let them graze in peace. But 
 suddenly we heard a shot, and saw that one of them 
 was lying on her side and kicking. It was Bustamante 
 who had done this, for Maria's sake. He had been 
 asking her, as we learned presently, what he could 
 give her to display the greatness of his love; and she, 
 who might have easily obtained the silver decorations 
 on his hat or some of his gay buttons or a piece or 
 two of gold, was moved to think of something higher. 
 She had heard that people in the large towns some- 
 times drink the milk of cows, which is procured in tins 
 from foreign countries,* and she said that it would 
 give her much delight to have a cup of cow's milk. 
 That is why her lover Bustamante shot the cow. And 
 while this matter was attended to, we others walked a 
 little way and then sank down upon a slope amid green 
 bushy shrubs and brilliant floripundio flowers. The 
 horsemen waited on their animals till Bustamante 
 should arrive, and when he came he was in such good 
 humor that he said we would have our siesta in this 
 place and would not march away until Maria wished 
 it. He dismounted, as did all the others. 
 
 Soon they were all lounging on the grass or lying 
 prostrate with their hats upon their faces, to protect 
 themselves from insects. One or two of them repaired 
 a saddle or began to clean a gun, but far the busiest 
 person was Maria, who had started with enormous 
 
 * See Note II., p. 305.
 
 272 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 zeal to make tortillas. On her knees she rubbed and 
 rubbed the flour and did not once look up, for she 
 was anxious not to meet the eyes of her old friends. 
 We four sat down together; I remember it as well 
 as if it happened yesterday how Don Eugenio, to make 
 himself more comfortable, took out from his breast 
 the several books which he was carrying — some of 
 the pious ones from Zaragoza and that other one which 
 was about a Mexican Archbishop and which was en- 
 titled "Safeguard against Oblivion." Bustamante 
 stood behind Maria, to encourage her — his eyes were 
 glowing — and at last when she had made a few tortillas 
 and some other food had been unpacked we, most 
 of us, were eating. We were eating in an indolent 
 and airy fashion, for it was extremely hot, and there 
 was not much conversation. We four prisoners were 
 treated nonchalantly; they were talking to us just as 
 much as to each other and in fact we all were at our 
 ease. Then Bustamante, who was seated now beside 
 Maria and was looking at her very tenderly — not 
 caring whether any one observed it — Bustamante 
 turned to Don Arcadio and told him casually that 
 he thought his execution would take place on the next 
 morning, that is, if we came that night to San Geronimo 
 in Tamaulipas, where the trial would be held. 
 
 It was extraordinary how calm the Noahcite was. 
 Perhaps he had been sure that this would happen; 
 but I never thought that he could so control himself. 
 The work to which he had devoted all his life would 
 now be wasted. And he did not seem to care. And, 
 on the other hand, he did not let a supercilious smile 
 be on his lips; I had been told that heroes when they 
 were condemned invariably wore it. Don Arcadio's 
 face was serious, but not more serious than usual. As 
 I gazed at him I told myself that he was much more
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 273 
 
 difficult to understand than Don Eugenio. But al- 
 though I did not understand him properly, there may 
 be clever people who, from my description, will know 
 more of him than ever was vouchsafed to me. 
 
 Then Bustamante spoke: "In years that have gone 
 by," said he, "when I was no politician and no patriot 
 I used to be a shoemaker, and I have made for you 
 and for your father and your brother who are dead. 
 It grieves me that I have to put an end to you." 
 
 "But if you think I am a spy," said Don Arcadio, 
 very simply, "then you have no choice." 
 
 "Caramba," said the captain, "I will not allow you 
 to be shot in that way, without honor. Since I was 
 so well-acquainted with your family and you, I will 
 arrange a very noble ceremony for to-morrow morning. 
 And when you see your father and your brother after- 
 wards, I hope that you will all three be so generous as 
 to pray for me who need your prayers. It is myself 
 that I am speaking of." He had been growing more 
 and more affected. Now he turned his back abruptly 
 on the Noahcite, and I could see his shoulders twitch- 
 ing. 
 
 As for poor Faustino, he sat helplessly and hope- 
 lessly beside us. Tears were following each other 
 down his cheeks, but he did not make any sound. And 
 Don Eugenio cleared his throat and said that he would 
 read a little from a book. 
 
 "It is a lesson for us all," said he, "to contemplate 
 the grandeur of the Noahcite. His very lofty aim is 
 unachieved, alas ! and he does not revile his fate. But 
 if he thinks that all of him will be forgotten, he may 
 like to hear a passage from this book." 
 
 "May the Devil seize you!" Bustamante cried. He 
 shook his fist above his head, but did not turn his body 
 round towards us. "Will you leave the man alone,
 
 274 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 for he is in a corner out of which he never will escape. 
 I pity him, I tell you." 
 
 "And I pity you," said Don Eugenio serenely, "if 
 you think that there is no escape. Whether he dies 
 sooner or dies later, he will not be killed entirely. As 
 for you, permit me to remind you of the very foolish 
 Pluches who wrote the Spectacle de la Nature and 
 said — he was an enemy of Newton's — that if the great 
 mass had such a power of attraction he could not com- 
 prehend how anybody could escape out of a corner 
 of Notre Dame. . . . This book," my master said, "is 
 by Antonio de Robles, a notary public, a commissary 
 of the Holy Office, an ecclesiastical judge and so forth." 
 
 Practically every one was staring at my master on 
 account of his rebuke to Bustamante. I suppose that 
 they had never heard their leader spoken to in such a 
 way. And one or two of them were smiling grimly, 
 but I was uncertain of the reason. 
 
 Then the Noahcite addressed my master: "I am 
 interested in your book," said he, "but I should like 
 to tell you that since yesterday a change has come 
 to my philosophy. What I have hitherto pursued was 
 knowledge, all the knowledge of the human race, and 
 thus I was to grasp at happiness, which I would then 
 bestow on all the world. But I have come to the 
 conclusion that a greater thing than happiness is 
 beauty. I am glad that I discovered this in time. 
 Well, I am ready for your admirable book, and pray 
 do not stop to congratulate me or to comment on 
 my new pursuit. These gentlemen would like to hear 
 what you have got to read." 
 
 "So be it," Don Eugenio said. "I see the date is 
 1757. I will try to find the profitable passages," he 
 said; and for a long time, while he did so, everybody 
 watched him. But Maria went on making the tortillas,
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 275 
 
 which were passed from hand to hand, as also were 
 the strips of meat. I did not know how long we 
 would remain, but no one seemed to be in any hurry 
 to depart — they lay among the gorgeous flowers, and 
 they slowly ate and watched my master. He was 
 eating while he read; he searched and searched the 
 book, and his expression always grew more fixed. So 
 concentrated was he on his task that I am sure he 
 did not know his hand was carrying from time to 
 time some food into his mouth. And when at last 
 he spoke to us his mouth was rather full. 
 
 "Unhappily," he said, "this man, Antonio de Robles, 
 does not appear to have, as I had confidently hoped, 
 a general safeguard against oblivion. He considers 
 only his particular Archbishop, who will be remem- 
 bered, so he says, because of certain merits. By the 
 way, have we not all of us observed that if a person 
 is the subject of a brief discussion he may have been 
 favorably judged, whereas if the discussion is a long 
 one he will have been judged severely? And I think 
 that the Archbishop would have made himself more 
 safe against oblivion if Antonio de Robles had put 
 down a series of demerits. Here," said Don Eugenio, 
 "in the twentieth chapter is the list of qualities: 'His 
 aloofness and his understanding, his humility, his 
 inimitable temperance and mortification, his purity 
 and chastity, his wonderful haranguing and the sacred 
 exercises of his soul' " — at this point Don Eugenio 
 paused and finished what was in his mouth — " 'the 
 gift of tears, which he was even wont to shed while 
 he was sleeping.' Is it necessary to read on? I must 
 admit that if a man is capable of shedding tears for 
 his iniquities or any other thing while he is sleeping, 
 everybody — except the individual who may be called 
 upon to share his bed — must unreservedly admire him.
 
 276 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 How will such a man of marvels be forgotten? Yes, 
 it seems to me that you will never find a greater man 
 among the holy ones, or in the words of Augustine: 
 Si Sanctorum singulorum perquirerem vitas, ut puto 
 majorem neminem invenirem." And my master, who 
 at first lost his patience with the book, had now re- 
 gained his equanimity. He turned back to the early 
 pages, and his smile was like a blessing. He was per- 
 fectly absorbed. 
 
 And when, at Bustamante's signal, every one pre- 
 pared to start again, then Don Eugenio got up. He 
 did not seem to know what he was doing, and the 
 happy smile remained upon his face until Faustino 
 brought the mule to him, and then he was astonished. 
 But Faustino told him that we all — himself included — 
 would be riding now, in order to reach San Geronimo 
 that night. 
 
 We sped through numbers of green meadows and 
 the trees went flying past us. All the afternoon we 
 hurried on — there was no road at all, and I am not 
 sure if we were avoiding any villages. We rode down 
 two ravines, that were both steep and rocky; we 
 climbed up on the side opposite. And towards the 
 fall of night I grew so tired that I did not for a time 
 brush off a yellow insect from my hand, though he 
 was drawing blood. I merely looked at him. And 
 it was in the dark when finally we found ourselves 
 upon a road, and then the palm-trees gave way to a 
 hedge of cactus — we were in the place called San 
 Geronimo. 
 
 This was in the possession of the Liberals, and in 
 a very little time we had an escort of white figures 
 who rose up from where they had been sitting near 
 the hedge or came out of their little houses. As they 
 walked along beside us, some of our men told them
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 277 
 
 of a series of great exploits, ending up with the defeat 
 and capture of ourselves. I was so weary that I 
 could not notice much, but over everything there was 
 the stolid silence of these villagers. They were so 
 different from the natives of Jalapa and so like too 
 many people of my native Colorado. 
 
 Then we halted. I could see two men with torches 
 who had come to speak to Bustamante. And instead 
 of taking us to some place where we could lie down, 
 they and the rest of us went to the largest house, the 
 house of the alcalde. They were going to hold the 
 trial of the Noahcite. 
 
 Outside the house there was a great deal of con- 
 fusion, as the followers of Bustamante all got off their 
 horses and in vain they looked for any one who would 
 take care of them. The whole of San Geronimo was 
 pushing into the alcalde's house. They did not mind 
 how much the followers of Bustamante cursed them. 
 And the men with torches even struck at one or two. 
 I heard the shout of somebody who said that he had 
 lived in San Geronimo for sixty years and let them 
 try their culprit in another place, said he, if they 
 intended to deprive the people of their rights. Then 
 I saw Bustamante pushing in with Don Arcadio and 
 some others. 
 
 In the midst of all the turmoil and as I was standing 
 with my mule, a horseman threw his reins around 
 my head and then another did the same, and several 
 others put their reins into my hands. I found myself 
 with half a dozen animals to watch, but they all looked 
 as weary as I was myself. And when Maria's voice 
 was in my ear and she was making me some propo- 
 sitions I let all the reins drop, for I knew these crea- 
 tures would not run away. Maria wanted me to lift 
 her up, because the windows were so high. And after-
 
 278 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 wards, she said, she would lift me up also, and in that 
 way we would see the whole of Don Arcadio's trial. 
 
 I went with her very eagerly, until we came to 
 where some of the natives had assembled, underneath 
 a window, and we followed their example : I bent down, 
 Maria stood upon my back and with her hand she 
 grasped the iron bars. She told me that she could 
 see very well indeed. But I was being pushed about 
 by other people who had reached the window after us. 
 Maria said that our three friends were all together, 
 but the people who surrounded us began to make so 
 great a noise that neither she nor I could hear what 
 those inside the room were saying. And Maria was 
 so heavy that I wished we had not come. I touched 
 her legs and said that it would be better if we went 
 away, but she pretended not to hear me. 
 
 "Bustamante speaks!" she cried, "and he is waving 
 both his arms." 
 
 "Oh, you nephew of the Devil!" growled a man 
 beside me. "You are keeping me away. And who 
 are you?" 
 
 He and the others started arguing, for some said 
 that as strangers we must be received with courtesy 
 and others swore that they would not allow us to 
 remain. Of course, with all this added noise it was 
 impossible for any one to hear a word of Don Arcadio's 
 trial. And I wondered why the men inside the room 
 did not throw water on us or inform us in some other 
 way that we must have respect for Justice. 
 
 Suddenly I thought that as Maria had been so un- 
 faithful to me, why should I be helping her in such a 
 slavish manner? No, I would not for another moment. 
 And I moved away, I staggered out from all those 
 people, out into the doorway of another house, and 
 soon Maria came and sat down at my side.
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 279 
 
 "We only have to listen to them," so she said, "and 
 it will be as if we saw it all ourselves." 
 
 "Oh, you nephew of the Devil 1" I exclaimed. I 
 shook her off and she began to cry. 
 
 "If — if," she sobbed, "you really loved me, if 
 you . . ." 
 
 And I asked her roughly to be quiet. 
 
 "You would know," she sobbed, "how difficult it is 
 to be a girl. You are the one I love, by all the saints." 
 
 "And what of Bustamante?" 
 
 She was pouring kisses over me, and in my ear she 
 murmured that we would escape together, like the man 
 whom Don Eugenio was talking of. 
 
 We sat there very peacefully and we paid no atten- 
 tion to the varied noises. Once I thought that I could 
 hear Faustino, then again it was a whirl of sound. 
 And we were happy. I believe we sat there for a long 
 time. 
 
 Somewhere in the night a bird was singing, and I 
 shivered, for I thought of Don Arcadio. 
 
 "Oh, kiss me, kiss me," sighed Maria,
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 We stayed there till the crowd of natives at the 
 window suddenly dissolved itself and passed into the 
 night. They went in almost perfect silence, and the 
 people who were streaming out of the alcalde's house 
 were so subdued that I could hope that Don Arcadio's 
 fate was undecided. Surely if they had resolved to 
 shoot him as a spy they would have shrieked their 
 "Liberty and the Democracy!" or some such words 
 of triumph. But when I ran forward to a little group 
 I heard them say at once that it would be in a few 
 hours. Well, why had they not triumphed over the 
 poor Noahcite? I thought that the most likely ex- 
 planation was that Don Eugenio had pleaded for him. 
 
 Bustamante came on to the steps of the alcalde's 
 house; he looked as stern as possible, and he was tug- 
 ging his mustache. But, nevertheless, Maria made 
 her way towards him. And he nodded at her. 
 
 I did not feel absolutely confident about the fate of 
 Don Eugenio, and when at last the flow of people from 
 the house was finished and the door was shut and he 
 had not emerged I was afraid to question anybody. 
 But when I reached the back of the alcalde's house I 
 heard my name; and there was my dear master in 
 the blackness of a cellar dungeon. He had seen me 
 passing overhead as he looked out into the night of 
 stars. But when I tremulously asked what they were 
 going to do with him, he told me that the other two 
 were in the dungeon also; they were utterly exhausted 
 and asleep. He did not know if there would be a 
 
 280
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 281 
 
 priest for Don Arcadio's confession, and he was en- 
 deavoring to make himself as worthy as he could 
 for this last office. 
 
 "You may know," said he, "that if there is no 
 priest available, the Catholic father of a dying child 
 must christen it himself; the water may be ordinary 
 clean water. And I think, for Don Arcadio's con- 
 fession, that it is incumbent on me to remove out of 
 my mind as much uncleanliness as possible. Oh, I 
 have never thought of my untoward life with half the 
 sorrow that I feel at present. But, in spite of it, I 
 am afraid that I would also fall asleep if I sat down." 
 
 "But is your life in jeopardy?" I asked. 
 
 He shook his head. "Now go away, my son," said 
 he, "and come back here soon after dawn." 
 
 I had to ask him if he did not think it horrible that 
 Don Arcadio, who was such a blameless man and so 
 benevolent, should have to die in this way. And my 
 master said that if I wanted to prolong his life he 
 would advise me to secure the flesh of winged serpents. 
 He informed me that he had it out of Roger Bacon how 
 they were employed with great effect by Tantalus, 
 a man who was attached to the person of the King of 
 India. But if Plato and Aristotle failed to prolong 
 their existence it v/as not surprising, for they were 
 ignorant even of the quadrature of the circle which 
 Bacon declares to have been well known at his time, 
 and which is indefinitely inferior to the grand medical 
 doctrine of Tantalus. 
 
 As he was saying this my master laughed. He 
 laughed in such a fashion that I could not bear to look 
 at him. He put his hand out through the iron bars 
 and gripped me round the wrist, in order to encourage 
 me. And then I crept away. 
 
 It seemed to me, as I went wandering along the
 
 282 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 dark, deserted roads of San Geronimo, that in this 
 world there was no justice anywhere. Why should a 
 man like Don Arcadio be executed, for although I 
 did not understand his beautiful, great, philanthropic 
 scheme, of course it must be understood by God, and 
 why did God allow him to be murdered? Surely there 
 could be no God, I thought; and as the watchman 
 strode along he raised his melancholy voice and cried, 
 "It wants an hour to midnight, it is calm and very 
 dark." He carried an old soldier's lance upon his 
 shoulder, and the iron tip of it was faintly gleaming 
 in the starlight. There was no trace of the moon, but 
 all the sky was lit with stars and they were shining 
 very brilliantly. "It wants an hour to midnight," 
 cried the watchman, "it is calm and very dark." He 
 walked across an open space — I followed him — and 
 I could see him quite distinctly. He himself must 
 have perceived that it was lighter, for his lance turned 
 backwards and he was examining the sky; but he 
 continued with the same announcement, "It is calm 
 and very dark." And as I looked at all those stars 
 they seemed to me to be ilie eyes of God. And I 
 stood still and gazed at them. The watchman passed 
 away from me, so that I could no longer see him, but 
 I still could hear him calling, "Calm and very dark." 
 I found a shelter underneath a hedge of cactus, and 
 at daybreak I was wakened by the noise of some ex- 
 cited people. They were arguing with one another very 
 vehemently, and I heard them say it was a scandal 
 and an outrage. They were gathered round a thin, 
 tall, nervous-looking fellow, and he clearly was amused. 
 They shouted at him, but his answer was to hold up 
 all the fingers of one hand. "It is exorbitant! You 
 are a sinful man of avarice! Oh, wait," they cried, 
 "until you have the yellow fever! Do you think that
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 283 
 
 we have endless money?" And they shouted other 
 things. 
 
 One old dilapidated woman stood apart, and in a 
 cracked voice she was saying, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus." 
 I could see that she was counting on her fingers. And 
 when she had thus invoked the name sufficiently she 
 lifted up her miserable voice and sang: 
 
 ''Get thee, Satan, far from me. 
 Near my death-bed thou shalt not be, 
 Seeing that upon the day 
 Of Holy Cross I used to say 
 A thousand times Jesus, Jesus, 
 Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus." 
 
 Then she continued with the recitation of her kind of 
 rosary. And all the time those angry persons were 
 entirely taken up with the tall man. He shook his 
 head and smiled at them, the more they objurgated 
 him. "And only for the reason that you are a friend 
 of the alcalde! It is monstrous! Why should you 
 have such a place instead of us? For God's sake, will 
 you sell it for three ounces?" But the man held all 
 his fingers up and went on smiling. "Wait until your 
 luck deserts you! Then in our turn we shall laugh!" 
 so they exclaimed. "And why should you be of the 
 firing-party more than Tomas or Angel or Cristobalito 
 or any of us? Vaya, will you sell the place or will 
 you not? Oh, wretched miser! But one cannot have 
 a hide without the claws." 
 
 The poor old woman halted in her invocation. She 
 was staring at her hands and muttering, because the 
 noise had caused her to forget how often she had said 
 the name of Jesus. And she looked upon those people 
 with reproachful eyes. 
 
 "Well, how much will you sell it for?" cried one.
 
 284 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 "You hold yourself as if you had the place by merit? 
 Have you ever shot a gun in all your life?" 
 
 "And which of you can shoot indeed? Aha," de- 
 clared the tall man, "you will not insult me very easily. 
 Now I must go and talk to the alcalde. Will you let 
 me pass along?" 
 
 They clustered round him, so that he could not 
 escape, and while he shouted they were shouting back. 
 The poor old woman, in the meantime, rolled away to 
 a more quiet place. 
 
 "Fucha!" called a voice, "then I will pay two 
 ounces and Angel two. What do you say?" 
 
 He looked thoughtful. And again they all spoke at 
 the same time; but before they went away it had been 
 settled that he should receive four ounces and that 
 those two persons should have his place in the firing- 
 party. 
 
 I went hastily to where I had been speaking with my 
 master, but he was not in the dungeon and the other 
 two were not there either. As I peered in through the 
 bars I saw that it was empty, and I could see very well 
 because some light was entering by the open door in 
 the wall opposite. Two followers of Bustamante hap- 
 pened to be going past, and when they saw me they 
 inquired if ghosts were living in that cellar. And they 
 laughed at me and crossed themselves. 
 
 But when I asked them eagerly for news of Don 
 Eugenio and the others, they explained that we were 
 to assemble in a field outside the village. They would 
 show me where it lay. 
 
 And on the road they asked me who I was and 
 where I came from and where I was going to. They 
 asked me many other questions in a kindly way and 
 did not seem to mind the vagueness of my answers, 
 if indeed I answered them at all. We overtook 3
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 285 
 
 number of pedestrians and several men on horseback — 
 these were the officials — and at last we came into a 
 field from which the mist had not all gone, though it 
 was very warm already. In the next field, so they 
 told me, I would find my friends who had been brought 
 there by an escort. But as I ran on I saw that in the 
 middle of the field my master and the Noahcite were 
 sitting on a pile of stones ; Faustino stood beside them 
 and the escort was a long way off. Since it is 
 customary for a man in Mexico to make a speech 
 before they shoot him, whether he is guilty of a crime 
 or whether he has been a politician, they had all retired 
 from Don Arcadio and the others, so that he could 
 make his preparations for a worthy speech. When I 
 came up to them my master motioned me to sit down 
 at his side. 
 
 Faustino happened to be speaking, in a tone of grim 
 determination: "They shall pay for it," said he, 
 "and they shall pay a hundred-fold. The birds 
 shall . . ." 
 
 "Thank you, thank you," interrupted Don Arcadio, 
 "you have been more than faithful to me, dear 
 Faustino, during all these years, and you would never 
 rest, I know, until you had avenged me. But how 
 ugly is the thought of vultures tearing up the flesh of 
 Bustamante. And I want my last thoughts to be 
 turned towards the beautiful. Have I not told you 
 that it is no longer happiness but beauty which I am 
 pursuing." 
 
 "My dear friend," said Don Eugenio, "I used to 
 think that you were mad, but now I think it is with a 
 celestial madness, and that God is talking through you. 
 Otherwise how could you at this last, when you are 
 going to lose your life, go so serenely on a new pur- 
 suit?"
 
 286 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 "But I have found life!" Don Arcadio cried. "He 
 who has turned his eyes to that which is worth more 
 than life itself, he surely has found life!" 
 
 My master had been weeping, but a smile now 
 flickered on his face. 
 
 "It seems to me," said Don Arcadio, "that we shall 
 not discover what life's beauty is if we believe that 
 it lies in the loveliness and strength of body or in 
 loveliness and brilliance of the mind. The beauty of 
 our life is in pursuing with the greatest zeal that 
 beauty which is out beyond us and which we can never 
 reach. I say it wants the greatest zeal, because a 
 glimpse of everlasting beauty may well bring the tears 
 into our eyes. You, my dear friend," said he, his 
 hand on Don Eugenio's arm, "what were you weeping 
 for? . . . But I will leave you for a little time," he 
 said. 
 
 And as he walked away from us towards another 
 rock and there sat down, a hundred paces off, I could 
 not keep myself from shuddering. His words I had 
 not understood, but I was thinking of that most 
 abominable firing-party which would utterly destroy 
 the beauty of his body. 
 
 Then my master clenched his fist and looked up 
 at Faustino, and "By all the holy saints," he said, 
 "that man shall not be killed. We must prevent 
 it!" 
 
 But Faustino threw his hands out. 
 
 "We must talk to them. There may be something 
 noble left in Bustamante." 
 
 "May the vultures tear it out," Faustino said, in 
 bitterness. 
 
 "I tell you," said my master, "if I have to give 
 myself instead of him, I do not care. But Don 
 Arcadio shall not be killed. Just when he has become
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 287 
 
 a sane man, after all these years. And he is so 
 divinely sane. He shall not, shall not die." 
 We heard the quavering voice of that old woman: 
 
 ''Get thee, Satan, far from me, 
 Near my death-bed thou shalt not be, 
 Seeing that . . ." 
 
 "Oh, what can I do?" cried Don Eugenio. "This 
 is a most wretched country." 
 
 "And he has not been confessed," Faustino said, in 
 desolation. "Oh, what can I do?" 
 
 The voice of the old woman still continued: 
 
 "Of Holy Cross I used to say 
 A thousand times Jesus. Jesus, 
 Jesus . . ." 
 
 "Ah, look there!" cried Faustino. "Look at them!" 
 
 A mob of people, some on foot and some on horse- 
 back, was advancing towards us. It was a large crowd, 
 though I could not see distinctly for the sun was daz- 
 zling. It had burst through the last fragments of the 
 mist and nobody, I think, could have avoided seeing 
 that it was a warrior much more gay and splendid 
 than those countrymen of ours whom it endeavored to 
 conceal from us. 
 
 Don Eugenio whispered to me that I was to run into 
 the village and bring out the priest. He knew there 
 was none, but he did not wish me to remain there. 
 
 And as I was racing back towards the village I was 
 shouting at the sunlight, I was laughing at it — so 
 Maria told me later on — and I was running with my 
 head now this way, so she told me, and now that, as 
 if I were afraid of being struck.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 Maria told me many other things while she was sit- 
 ting on my bed. I was so feeble and so happy that I 
 did not even want to know why I was there. It was 
 sufficient that Maria should be smiling down upon me, 
 and her smile was drawing me out of a dark abyss 
 ... I do not like those people who will not acknowl- 
 edge how profound a love they have for any friend 
 until they lose him, but I am not sure if you do not 
 look more profoundly into anybody's heart if you your- 
 self are nearly lost. When you are lying there so 
 prostrate and so feeble, vv^hen you have let your little 
 energies and obstinacies slip away from you, then you 
 no longer set up a resistance to the love which from 
 the heart of the dear friend is pouring over you. How 
 strange it is that when your body is so powerless you 
 should be far more likely to perceive what a tre- 
 mendous and eternal power the wings of love can grant 
 to you. It is a fact — such is our country — that a 
 Mexican has often said to a beloved person that his 
 feeling for her is unparalleled in all the universe. We 
 Mexicans may have the Spanish blood in us diluted or 
 imaginary, but all that does not diminish in the least 
 some Spanish traits — and they believed that what they 
 said was true and often the beloved person also thought 
 that it was true — what would you more? But as for 
 me, I must say that I did not know how great a love 
 there was between Maria and myself until those days 
 in San Geronimo. It was the weakness of my body 
 
 288
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 289 
 
 and my growing love which hindered me from paying 
 much attention to the words she said. I did not greatly 
 mind what accident had brought me to that room, so 
 long as I could happily remain there. 
 
 It was a bare room, like any other, and from time 
 to time the owners of the house — an oldish couple — 
 would come in and look at me and gravely nod 
 their heads. But all my food was brought me by 
 Maria. 
 
 And one day she said that Don Eugenio was l5^ng 
 in another house. Both he and I were getting well 
 again, she said. It was the death of Don Arcadio 
 which had overwhelmed us. 
 
 "For a week or so," quoth she, "poor Don Eugenio 
 was worse than you. We had to rope him to the bed. 
 And in the middle of his imprecations, which were 
 terrible, he laughed and sang together — as you did 
 yourself when you were running down the street before 
 that execution." 
 
 I remembered in a flash about the vultures that 
 Faustino spoke of, and I prayed that they might feast 
 on Bustamante. 
 
 But Maria said that Bustamante had permitted her 
 to nurse the pair of us. "One must not be ungrateful," 
 said Maria. "And he never punished Don Eugenio," 
 she said, "for any of the fearful things he uttered. 
 Don Eugenio has been calling down on Bustamante's 
 head a list of punishments that we in Mexico had never 
 heard of and he cursed him with round Spanish oaths, 
 or else they may have been from learned books; at any 
 rate the people who were loitering outside the house 
 could listen easily, and what he said was carried up to 
 Bustamante, if by chance he was not present. All I 
 recollect," pursued Maria, "are two words: Anathema 
 sit! Whatever he might say he ended up with those
 
 290 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 two words. And there is in the town^ which is three 
 hours away, a diligent young schoolmaster. He left 
 his school and came here on a horse, and now he stays 
 with Don Eugenio, putting down those imprecations 
 on a piece of paper. He is one who studies everything, 
 and now he will not leave where Don Eugenio is, but 
 with the spectacles upon his long, thin nose he gazes 
 at him, and he waits for words." 
 
 "But is my master still in the same state?" said I. 
 "You told me he was getting well again." 
 
 "Because he curses," said Maria. "For a time he 
 was quite gentle, he was humble and devout, so that 
 we were afraid that he was going to die. But now, the 
 gods be thanked, he has returned to imprecations, and 
 it is a certain sign that he is getting well. As soon as 
 you are strong enough, my Juanito, you shall come 
 with me to listen. They are all so full of admiration 
 in that room and very happy — it is like an entertain- 
 ment — all except one man, who is severe and says that 
 Don Eugenio, if he should die in this condition, will 
 be lost for ever. But the schoolmaster is fighting with 
 that man. He loves our Don Eugenio because of his 
 great language, and he also says that he is very like 
 the early Christians, who were careful, first of all, in 
 their assemblies to consign the pagans and the heretics 
 to execration and to physical chastisement, or if these 
 should not be brought about, then to damnation for 
 eternity." 
 
 "I wish," said I, "that we could go to Don 
 Eugenio." 
 
 "And then he laughed and sang and prayed, but 
 always in delirium. And then one day he sobbed 
 unceasingly, and after that he was quite humble — it 
 was then we thought that he would die. You should 
 have heard him singing the old Litany:
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 291 
 
 'Kyrie, eleison. 
 Christe, eleison. 
 Kyrie, eleison.' 
 
 "He was a little out of breath, but while he paused we 
 others sang the next piece very heartily: 
 
 'Christe, audi nos. 
 Christe, exaudi nos. 
 Pater de ccelis Deus, 
 
 miserere nobis.' 
 
 "While we were singing that he beat the time. And 
 he went on alone : 
 
 'Fili, Redemptor mundi Deus, 
 
 miserere nobis. 
 
 Spiritus Sancte Deus, 
 
 miserere nobis. 
 
 Sancta Trinitas, unus Deus, 
 
 miserere nobis.' 
 
 "The schoolmaster, who led our singing, feared that 
 Don Eugenio would wear himself away. 'Dear Sir,' 
 said he, 'let us proceed now to the end of it. A man 
 may die of singing just as well as of . . .' 
 
 "'What a glorious death!' said Don Eugenio, and 
 he went on: 
 
 'Sancta Maria, ora pro nobis. 
 Sancta Dei Genitrix, ora pro nobis.' 
 
 Another sort of smile came over him. 'A glorious 
 death!' said he. 'That woman who was rushing up 
 and down the corridor — it was a good inn of Castile 
 and I was coming from the capital — ah, years ago. 
 Well, she was rushing up and down — and do you know
 
 292 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 what sort of traveler was lying in her room, and dead?' 
 
 " 'I do not know/ said the severe man. 'I am very 
 much surprised at your behavior.' 
 
 " 'It was years ago,' said Don Eugenio, 'and, more- 
 over, I did nothing. She ran up and down the corridor 
 as if she were distracted. She was making very wild 
 and incoherent sounds — I put my head out — she was 
 in her night-attire and barefoot. When I urged her to 
 be calm, to tell me calmly what had happened, she 
 could not control herself; but finally she said that Don 
 Fulano, who was old, was lying on her bed, a corpse.' 
 
 " 'It would be well,' said the severe man, 'if you 
 would remember that you may yourself at any moment 
 be a corpse.' 
 
 " 'And when they arose early in the morning,' said 
 Don Eugenio, 'behold, they were all dead corpses.' 
 
 "I believe he was repeating this from Holy Scripture. 
 
 " 'Well,' said he, 'I told the woman that she was 
 disturbing every one and that it would be better if she 
 came with me to the proprietor, as I myself did not 
 know what to do in such a case. While we were going 
 she continued with her lamentations, and while I was 
 knocking at the door of the proprietor she moaned;, 
 and yet he did not hear us, for he had a heavy sleep. 
 I knocked,' said Don Eugenio, 'more loudly, so that 
 he awakened and replied. I told him what had hap- 
 pened and I asked him what we ought to do, but he 
 said only: "Glorious death!" and then rolled over on 
 his side and went to sleep again.' 
 
 "The telling of this tale," pursued Maria, "caused 
 him to forget how weak he was." If he had not been 
 weak, thought I, he would not have recited such a 
 mediocre tale; but on the other hand my master's life 
 was lovely, like a flower that blooms and fades, not like 
 the painting of a flower.
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 293 
 
 "But as he finished it/' quoth Maria, "he lay there 
 with his eyes shut, smiling faintly. Thereupon the 
 schoolmaster said that he need not, anyhow, sing all the 
 litany, he might sing the conclusion of it. Don 
 Eugenio did not answer him, but only frowned. He 
 said again that Don Eugenio might omit the rest, and 
 your good master said that he was very sorry he could 
 not so much as reach the 'Mater immaculata,' and it 
 was a hundred years ago exactly, so he said, it was in 
 1 766 that Pope Clement XIII granted Spain the privi- 
 lege of adding this after the 'Mater intemerata.' What 
 a man is Don Eugenio!" 
 
 "There cannot be in all the world," I said, "a more 
 delightful and more gracious soul. If you and I, 
 Maria," so I said, "can see how excellent a man he is, 
 you may be sure that if we had the understanding we 
 should see much more than that. And we shall never 
 meet with any one who equals him in grandeur or in 
 charm of thought, who can surpass him for gay wis- 
 dom and for real virtue. He does not, like many 
 others, feign to be more wicked than God made 
 him . . ." 
 
 "Juanito, my dear love," she murmured. 
 
 I was like a stone from which a fire was leaping, and 
 I had not known that it was in me. But this world 
 is a good place, I think, because it may be given to us 
 once or twice to come in contact with a person who 
 will make us live. 
 
 ". . . and he never," I continued, "injured any one, 
 you may be sure, except himself. All other men he 
 is prepared to serve — he is a river which brings to the 
 land its fruitfulness and rolls along beneath the wil- 
 lows, meditating, and which flings itself down cataracts 
 in laughter. Yes, that is our Don Eugenio; and in the 
 daytime he reflects what is in heaven and earth, like
 
 294 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 one of those clear streams, and in the night he is the 
 brother of old darkness and the stars." 
 
 Maria was still sitting on my bed. And now she 
 threw herself into my arms. "How splendidly you 
 speak!" said she. 
 
 When I could speak again I pointed out that every- 
 thing which I possessed had come from Don Eugenio. 
 
 "My dear one, my most Holy Sacrament, my little 
 lamp of olive oil ! " said she. 
 
 We stayed there for a time in happiness, and later 
 on she said that if I had the strength I might go with 
 her to the house where Don Eugenio lay. And, leaning 
 on her arm, I went there — fortunately it was not far 
 distant. 
 
 In the room was Don Eugenio, fastened to the bed 
 with ropes, and he was talking vehemently. Several 
 persons whom I had not seen before were round about 
 him, and Faustino was there also, looking most 
 dejected. 
 
 When my master saw me he broke off in his tirade 
 and "Oh, you villainous young man!" he cried. "You 
 that have forged the Apostolic Letters and that gave 
 a judgment which was odiously unjust and stole my 
 concubine. You have adulterated food and drink, you 
 have uprooted all the boundary-stones and so you shall, 
 I vow you shall, be punished by canonical and civil 
 law. What have you done?" He glared at me. "And 
 why? Carajo, tell me, monster of ingratitude, the boy 
 I loved— the— the . . ." 
 
 A man — he was the schoolmaster — made signs to me 
 that I should go. Maria likewise had been thinking 
 that it would be better, and she pulled me out into the 
 open air. She told me that I need not feel uneasy as 
 to anything; his violence was one of the best symp- 
 toms and would soon subside.
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 295 
 
 We started walking round the house, and underneath 
 a window, sitting on the ground, was Bustamante. He 
 was stroking his mustache. 
 
 He was amused to see me. "You and I," said he, 
 "we are the objects of his hatred. But you seem to 
 care! He is a lunatic at present. It is nothing, 
 Juanito. It will pass away, and that reminds me, I am 
 going to-morrow." 
 
 "Juanito has been very ill," Maria said, "and he 
 cannot be without me yet." 
 
 "Ah, well, he shall have the best of all our horses, 
 after mine, and you shall have a good one," Busta- 
 mante said. And, turning with a pleasant smile to me, 
 he added that he liked me and that he would charge 
 himself with looking after me. "To-morrow we must 
 march towards the north," he said, "for that is what 
 Juarez orders." 
 
 And by this time Don Eugenio was less furious. 
 We could hear him talking with determination: "It is 
 like a storm and we are being blown about. It is a 
 stormy world," said he. 
 
 "May God protect us," said Faustino. 
 
 "Yes, but I would rather swim among the waves 
 which throw you here and there, and fling you down 
 and scream at you and fight with you than I would 
 swim in a calm, placid sea. Oh, it is splendid to be 
 fighting!" said my master. 
 
 "God protect you," said Faustino. 
 
 "From iniquity and evil thoughts," said Don 
 Eugenio. "It seems to me that I was talking with 
 great roughness — was it against Bustamante? Well, 
 he did us wrong. But, nevertheless, if anybody mur- 
 ders me I hope that I will say: 'God be your 
 judge.' "
 
 296 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 "Amen. That is," Faustino said, "if God will judge 
 him better than they do in Mexico." 
 
 "Do not be blasphemous," said the severe man, in 
 a rasping voice, "God is the judge of all the world. 
 He is immeasurably better than all other judges." 
 
 "That is true," Faustino said, "but why does He 
 leave Mexico to them?" 
 
 And for a time Faustino, the severe man, Don 
 Eugenio, and some others were disputing, and one could 
 not profit much by listening to them. Bustamante 
 asked Maria and myself to go with him down to the 
 stables, so that we could see the horses he intended us 
 to have. I would have pleaded with him that we might 
 remain at San Geronimo, I would if necessary have 
 defied him, for I loathed the very thought of going, 
 but Maria looked into my eyes, and off we went. And 
 when we reached the stables, Bustamante was most 
 gracious; he assisted us to mount those admirable 
 horses, and he said that if we liked we could, in order 
 to get used to them, go for a ride round San Geronimo. 
 
 So we proceeded for some distance down a shady 
 road, and then Maria turned up through a wood of 
 palms and other trees, and after coming to the ridge 
 we went along it. Underneath us, to the right, we saw 
 the gayly-colored church of San Geronimo, and there 
 was also the alcalde's house. Maria told me that I 
 never would see San Geronimo again, because we two 
 were going to escape. I trembled with excitement and 
 with love for her, but how could I leave Don Eugenio? 
 And then she said that Bustamante certainly would 
 leave him, as he was too ill to travel. We would all 
 be joined together later on, she said. 
 
 Well, there was nothing for me but to go with her. 
 I think she must have somehow learned about the 
 country, for she never showed the slightest hesitation,
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 297 
 
 and she said that we were on the road to Colorado. 
 She had thought of everything, how we would live 
 together in my native village, and how Don Eugenio 
 would come to live with us. To her it all seemed very 
 simple and I will confess that when we tied our horses 
 up and rested in the middle of a wood, I was as ready 
 as Maria to rejoice in what was going to happen. It 
 would be delicious to have Don Eugenio sitting always 
 happily on the veranda of my home. And what an 
 honor for my parents ! Then Maria said she knew my 
 mother would receive her very well, since she had saved 
 me from becoming one of Bustamante's followers. 
 
 And, thanks to Bustamante's horses, we achieved 
 the journey in three days, and you can easily imagine 
 the reception that we had. Old Captain Bartolme was 
 just outside the village, sitting there amid a cluster of 
 white flowers as if he knew that we were coming. 
 And he told us with a candid smile that my good 
 parents had invited him to make his home with them, 
 because he was acquainted with so many stories of my 
 doings in Jalapa. If they had not shown him this 
 great hospitality, he said, then his old age would have 
 been wretched, since the woman Enriqueta had trans- 
 ferred her faithfulness, he said, to her old friend Gon- 
 zalez of the shop. 
 
 While he was talking to us a few other people gath- 
 ered round, and he assumed an air of big importance, 
 for he had been with us in Jalapa. Thus he was too 
 busy to inquire about the Noahcite or Don Eugenio. 
 He said that now we would advance into the village 
 and he marched, with pomp, in front of our two horses. 
 He did not appear to have misgivings as to his position 
 at my parents' hearth now that I had returned. It 
 seemed to me as if the poor old man who strutted there 
 in front of us so proudly should have held himself
 
 298 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 more like a captive who is well aware that by the 
 Ley de Fuga those who are behind will shoot him down 
 for trying to escape and even if he does not try to do so. 
 
 In the first words that my parents uttered I was told 
 how they had promised to the wonder-working Virgin 
 of Chichicaxtle that^ if I came back again to Colorado, 
 they would not attempt to make me a learned man 
 above my station, but that, on the contrary, they would 
 persuade me to become a breeder of the fighting-cocks. 
 And that is what I have been doing ever since. 
 
 A few days after my return I traveled with my 
 father and Maria to the cursed village San Geronimo. 
 Our object was, of course, to fetch my master; but he 
 was not in the village. Nobody could tell us whither 
 he had gone, and he had left no message for me. All 
 that we could ascertain was that he and Faustino were 
 still in the village after Bustamante left. 
 
 Perhaps he found a pleasant refuge here in Mexico, 
 perhaps he and Faustino have been wandering for all 
 these years, perhaps he went to Veracruz and took the 
 boat for Spain; and this I think is the more probable, 
 as he would otherwise have surely come to Colorado. 
 May God have protected him! And may God have 
 provided him — I say this with extreme sincerity — a 
 worthier historian. 
 
 Much of what he taught me I have not remembered, 
 much of his delightful conversation has now vanished 
 and beyond recall, but my whole life, and I believe the 
 lives of those around me, are made nobler by the frail 
 and fading recollections of him that I still possess.
 
 NOTE I 
 
 A tale extremely similar to this one came from Northern 
 France in the year 191 6, the burial-party being British and 
 their clients German. But those people who are fond of 
 tracing stories to their Buddhist source will certainly not be 
 astonished that the same one should appear in our time, both 
 in Northern France and Mexico. It may be that some 
 readers will be interested if I deal with that part of the 
 story — making it more simple — which depicts the man deny- 
 ing his own death (the "Mortuus Loquens," as he is called 
 by Poggio, that curious, irascible old humanist), and if I try 
 to trace a step or two of its career down to our army and to 
 Mexico from the original. . . . We need not argue here if 
 folk-tales all originate in India, but a very good case is made 
 out by Mr. Clouston {Popular Tales and Fictions. Edin- 
 burgh, 2 vols., 1887) for tracing all European drolls or 
 comic folk-tales from the East. Many of them, as Mr. 
 Clouston points out, can be found in the early Buddhist 
 books, especially in the Jatakas or Birth-stories which are 
 said to have been related to his disciples by Gautama, the 
 illustrious founder of Buddhism, as incidents which occurred 
 to himself and others in former births, and were afterwards 
 put into a literary form by his followers. There are two 
 old stories in Ceylon which have a near affinity to jests of 
 the "Mortuus Loquens" class, and which may be regarded as 
 in the straight line of ancestry. The first of them deals with 
 a rich man, the employer of twenty-five idiots, whose daily 
 task it was to cut the plaintain leaves from which the 
 servants ate and drank. One day the twenty-five had an 
 idea that the task might be accomplished easily by one of 
 them. "Let us therefore lie down," they said, "on the soil 
 and sleep like dead men, and let him who first utters a sound 
 or opens his eyes undertake the work." And when they 
 were discovered in that state the master, thinking they were 
 
 299
 
 300 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 dead, ordered his servants to dig a deep hole and bury them. 
 A grave was then dug and the idiots were, one by one, 
 thrown into it; and when they were being covered up a tool 
 that one of the servants was using hit an idiot on the leg so 
 that he moaned. Thereupon all the others exclaimed "You 
 were the first to utter a sound, therefore from henceforth 
 you must take upon yourself the duty of providing the 
 plaintain leaves." . . . The second story from Ceylon (cf. a 
 paper on "Comparative Folk-lore," by W. Goonetilleke in 
 The Orientalist, 1, p. 122) is in a Hindu work entitled 
 Bharataka Dwatrinsati, Thirty-two tales of Mendicant 
 Monks. One Dandaka, a monk, is cutting the bough of a 
 tree on which he sits, although some travelers warn him that 
 if it breaks he will fall down and be killed. Eventually he 
 does fall down and then he thinks how wise the travelers 
 were, since everything they prophesied has come to pass; 
 and he believes that he is dead. His comrades carry him 
 towards the cremation-place, and at a spot where the road 
 branches they are undecided whether to go to the right or 
 the left, and in the midst of the dispute the "dead" monk 
 says: "Friends, quarrel not among yourselves; when I was 
 alive I always went by the left road." Then some of them 
 say: "He always spoke the truth. Let us therefore take the 
 left road." Certain passers-by declare that they are going 
 to burn a man who is not dead. The monks reply that he 
 is verily a corpse, and Dandaka himself persistently asserts 
 that he is dead; he relates with the most solemn protesta- 
 tions the prophecy of the travelers and how it was fulfilled 
 . . . From the East the tale of "Mortuus Loquens" would 
 be brought to Europe by Crusaders or by Mongol mission- 
 aries or by other travelers. The most eminent of folk- 
 lorists are arguing the point, often with considerable wit and 
 ferocity, as to the spread of Indo-European tales, but how 
 these traveled they have not decided yet, nor indeed whether 
 they are not survivals of primitive myths and legends, the 
 common heritage of the whole Aryan race. However, ^ye 
 observe that the Chinese possess a variant of our tale; in 
 the Hsias Lin Kuang Cki collection of humorous anecdotes 
 there is a story of a man who spoke when he should have
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 301 
 
 behaved as if he were a corpse. The author, by the way, 
 of this tale is unknown, for in China all literature, as Pro- 
 fessor Giles points out, is pure; novels and stories are not 
 classed as literature, and so the authors of such works have 
 no ambition to attach their names. One sees in consequence 
 a great falling-off from what may be regarded as the national 
 standard; they excuse themselves by saying that the tales 
 portray real life and therefore to omit the ordinary frailties 
 of mortals would be to produce an incomplete and inade- 
 quate picture. This tale is concerned with a woman who, 
 when she was entertaining a paramour during the absence 
 of her husband, was startled by hearing the latter knock at 
 the house-door. She hurriedly bundled the man into a rice- 
 sack, which she concealed in a corner of the room ; but when 
 her husband came in he caught sight of it and asked in a 
 stern voice: "What have you got in that sack?" His wife 
 was too terrified to answer; and after an awkward pause, 
 a voice from the sack was heard to say: "Only rice" . . . 
 With regard to the diffusion of these Aryan Household 
 Tales it will be safer if we do not cleave to any school, but 
 if we hold that much may be due to the identity everywhere 
 of early fancy and something as, for example, Mr. Andrew 
 Lang maintains, to transmission. The Aryan people has 
 itself been scattered widely, from Ceylon to Iceland ; and in 
 Powell and Magnusson's Legends of Iceland (Second series, 
 p. 627) there is another variant of our tale: a woman makes 
 her husband believe that he is dressed in fine clothes when 
 he is naked; another persuades her husband that he is dead, 
 and as he is being carried to the burial-ground he perceives 
 the naked man who asserts that he is dressed, and in reply 
 to him exclaims: "How I should laugh if I were not dead!" 
 . . . But although the tale may thus have come overland 
 into the great mass of German and Scandinavian folk-lore, 
 we can also trace it more easily to England by another 
 route. Traveling with the Arabs westward it assumed that 
 form of two thieves who pretended they were dead. "I 
 wonder," says a passer-by, "which of the two died first." 
 "It was myself," says one of them. In Turkey of the four- 
 teenth century we find the tale attributed to the Khoja
 
 302 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 Nasr-ed-Dur, that perfectly historic buffoon who was in close 
 relation to Tamerlane, the wild and celebrated conqueror. 
 The Khoja is said to have asked his wife what the signs 
 are by which a man is known to be dead. She told him that 
 when his body and hands are cold, then he is dead. It 
 happened that one very wintry day he was ascending a hill, 
 and his feet and hands were very cold, remembering the 
 words of his wife, he thought he was dead and laid himself 
 down on the hill. Meanwhile, a number of wolves ap- 
 proached his donkey and tore it to pieces, so that the Khoja 
 cried out: "Oh, ye wolves, eat the donkey, for the owner is 
 dead ; if I were alive be sure I would have made it hot for 
 you!" In Borrow's version of this tale {The Turkish Jester, 
 Ipswich, 1884), the man exclaims: "The ass is dead, it 
 seems, and not the master." . . . Going further westward 
 the Arabs took to Spain this tale, which there received a 
 characteristically sardonic twist. It is applied to Andres 
 Vesalius, the court-physician of Charles V, when he was 
 dissecting a Spanish cavalier whom he had attended in his 
 illness. When Vesalius thrust his knife into the gentleman's 
 bosom, the latter shouted so that it was seen he was not 
 dead, but very soon (cf. Selected Works of the Friar D. 
 Benito Jeronimo Fey 00 of Montenegro) he expired, because 
 the blow had been a shrewd one . . . But while repeating 
 this in order to show that the story was current in sixteenth 
 century Spain, one should add that there are grounds for 
 supposing that it was applied to Vesalius by his enemies. 
 Throughout his life of fifty years the founder of modern 
 anatomy was forced to wrestle with the prejudices of his 
 age. A surgeon of the Imperial armies before he was twenty, 
 he was not allowed to dissect a corpse, and therefore was 
 obliged to haunt the Cemetery of the Innocents at Paris and 
 to struggle with the dogs upon the dunghills, it is said, for 
 their decaying prey. He was attacked as well by his old 
 master Sylvius in a fiery pamphlet, and by others of the 
 school of Galen ; and it is alleged that, owing to his misad- 
 venture with the Spanish cavalier, the Inquisition ordered 
 that he should be burned alive, and that this penalty was 
 commuted into a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. However, it is
 
 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 303 
 
 much more likely that the Inquisition was displeased with 
 him because, in their opinion, he did works of magic, and it 
 is improbable that any living man would be considered dead 
 by the wise author of the De Corporis humani jabrica. One 
 fancies that, apart from any pious motives which he may 
 have had, the pilgrimage appealed to him as a relief from 
 the unending persecution which he suffered. As he was 
 returning, to assume the professorship of anatomy at Padua, 
 his boat was wrecked and he succumbed at Zante . . . From 
 Spain the "Mortuus Loquens" tale would naturally be trans- 
 ferred to Mexico . . . And England, which may have been 
 reached through the German-Scandinavian route, was ap- 
 proached from Italy, where Poggio (who seems to have inter- 
 cepted it in the fifteenth century as it passed from Turkey 
 to Spain), gave such a reputation to all kinds of stories, 
 original and otherwise, that the most famous authors have 
 made themselves his channels of transmission. Thus the 
 celebrated Ming tale. No. 268 of his Facetice or Collection 
 of good jokes and tales, with which the old Florentine had 
 bantered his frequent victim Francesco Filelfo, is repeated 
 in Rabelais, in the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, in Ariosto, in 
 the Ducento Novelle of Celio Malespini, in La Fontaine and 
 elsewhere, yet none of them acknowledged their indebted- 
 ness to Poggio — perhaps they wanted the tale to return to 
 the wistful vagueness of folk-lore, perhaps they were imbued 
 with the afore-mentioned Chinese sentiment, and, while 
 chivalrously allowing their own names to be branded, yet 
 refused to reveal the name of the, so far as they knew, real 
 author of this totally impure and hence unliterary tale. 
 Some authors, on the other hand, who do refer to Poggio 
 and who seem to us more honestly out-spoken, certainly 
 are quite out-spoken: Gesner says that it is opus turpissi- 
 mum et aquis incendioque dignissimum, while the Abbot 
 Tritheme and Erasmus (who knew how to admire Poggio's 
 erudition and style) are no less severe. The wandering old 
 scholar, who was much given to laughter and invective, came 
 back to his own town and was upbraided for his laxity of 
 morals; he decided that his friends should not appeal to 
 him in vain and that he would henceforward lead a regular
 
 304 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 existence. So he put aside the mistress who had borne him 
 fourteen children, married a young girl and wrote, among 
 other works, his Facetix. These latter circulated all through 
 Italy, France, Spain, Germany, England; they were read by 
 all such as understood Latin and were thoroughly appreci- 
 ated, he tells us, by all men of letters. In certain of the 
 stories there is no obscenity, and this applies to the "Mor- 
 tuus Loquens," of which the English version is No. 48 of 
 the 1567 edition of the Mery Tales and Quicke Answers, a 
 jest-book that is supposed to have been used by Shakespeare. 
 We are told of "a felowe dwellynge at Florence, called 
 Nigniaca, whiche was not verye wyse, nor all a foole, but 
 mery and iocunde." A party of young men persuaded him 
 that he was sick, that he was dying, finally that he was 
 dead. And when they were carrying his bier through the 
 city a taverner's boy uttered a very harsh judgment upon 
 the corpse, so that the latter put his head out and, "I wys, 
 horeson," said he, "if I were alyve nowe, as I am dead, I 
 wolde prove the a false Iyer to thy face." ... So we have 
 followed the story in some of its variants as it traveled from 
 the East. The latest manifestation of it was in that incident 
 of the late war; and if the German, who then played the 
 part of "Mortuus Loquens" to the burial-party and ^denied 
 his death, was a student of comparative folk-lore, he must 
 certainly have found the situation of surpassing interest. 
 
 H. B.
 
 NOTE II 
 
 It is not my business to defend Juanito from the charge 
 of anachronism, and I would not make this observation here 
 unless I thought that certain critics, who have either over- 
 looked or tolerated any other lapses into which he may have 
 fallen, will now feel obliged to register a protest. They will 
 admit that C. N. Horsford prepared condensed milk by the 
 addition of lactose in 1849, ^Iso that commercially success- 
 ful milk condensation began in 1856, but is it likely, they 
 will ask, that Mexico imported such an article as early as 
 1866? Well, they may be surprised to hear what luxuries 
 were sent to Maximilian and Carlota's Court and thus be- 
 came the fashion. But if no tins of milk had gone by 1866 
 and if therefore Juanito's account of the above incident is 
 somewhat inaccurate, one may remind the critic that the 
 great Diccionario Enciclopedico Hispano-Americano (Barce- 
 lona, 1887) does not treat this quality of his with harsh- 
 ness. It explains that an anachronism is produced by vari- 
 ous causes, such as either the author's ignorance, which is 
 often justifiable, or else his wish to satisfy the taste of an 
 ill-educated public, or else the levity which commonly arises 
 from the very traits that are essential to those people who 
 devote themselves to writing works of the imagination. 
 Anachronisms, it adds, are a very grave and unbearable 
 defect in didactic treatises, whereas in literature, and above 
 all if unaccompanied by other and more serious faults, they 
 have a very secondary importance. Then there is Quintana 
 (1772-1857) who maintains that authors show by their oc- 
 casional anachronisms how they are possessed of the two 
 sterling attributes: facility and abandon. We shall attach 
 the proper weight to this opinion if we recollect that Manuel 
 Jose Quintana was not only a great poet but a most illus- 
 trious historian. Majestic in his narrative as Livy, pro- 
 found as Tacitus in judging man and the event, dexterous 
 
 305
 
 3o6 THE HOUSE OF THE FIGHTING-COCKS 
 
 as Sallust in his methods of assembling these and placing 
 them in relief, this indefatigable gentleman was famous, 
 among many other things, for having reached perfection in 
 the matter of good taste. 
 
 H. B.
 
 
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