Selected Stories of Bret Harte by Bret Harte (mobi ebook reader .txt) 📖

“I ought to warn you that Miss Mannersley already looks upon your performances at the sala as something outre and peculiar, and if I were you I shouldn't do anything to deepen that impression.”

“You are saying she ees shock?” said Enriquez, gravely.

I felt I could not conscientiously say that she was shocked, and he saw my hesitation. “Then she have jealousy of the senoritas,” he observed, with insufferable complacency. “You observe! I have already said. It is ever so.”

I could stand it no longer. “Look here, Harry,” I said, “if you must know it, she looks upon you as an acrobat—a paid performer.”

“Ah!”—his black eyes sparkled—“the torero, the man who fights the bull, he is also an acrobat.”

“Yes; but she thinks you a clown!—a GRACIOSO DE TEATRO—there!”

“Then I have make her laugh?” he said coolly.

I don't think he had; but I shrugged my shoulders.

“BUENO!” he said cheerfully. “Lofe, he begin with a laugh, he make feenish with a sigh.”

I turned to look at him in the moonlight. His face presented its habitual Spanish gravity—a gravity that was almost ironical. His small black eyes had their characteristic irresponsible audacity—the irresponsibility of the vivacious young animal. It could not be possible that he was really touched with the placid frigidities of Miss Mannersley. I remembered his equally elastic gallantries with Miss Pinkey Smith, a blonde Western belle, from which both had harmlessly rebounded. As we walked on slowly I continued more persuasively: “Of course this is only your nonsense; but don't you see, Miss Mannersley thinks it all in earnest and really your nature?” I hesitated, for it suddenly struck me that it WAS really his nature. “And—hang it all!—you don't want her to believe you a common buffoon., or some intoxicated muchacho.”

“Intoxicated?” repeated Enriquez, with exasperating languishment. “Yes; that is the word that shall express itself. My friend, you have made a shot in the center—you have ring the bell every time! It is intoxication—but not of aguardiente. Look! I have long time an ancestor of whom is a pretty story. One day in church he have seen a young girl—a mere peasant girl—pass to the confessional. He look her in her eye, he stagger”—here Enriquez wobbled pantomimically into the road—“he fall!”—he would have suited the action to the word if I had not firmly held him up. “They have taken him home, where he have remain without his clothes, and have dance and sing. But it was the drunkenness of lofe. And, look you, thees village girl was a nothing, not even pretty. The name of my ancestor was—”

“Don Quixote de La Mancha,” I suggested maliciously. “I suspected as much. Come along. That will do.”

“My ancestor's name,” continued Enriquez, gravely, “was Antonio Hermenegildo de Salvatierra, which is not the same. Thees Don Quixote of whom you speak exist not at all.”

“Never mind. Only, for heaven's sake, as we are nearing the house, don't make a fool of yourself again.”

It was a wonderful moonlight night. The deep redwood porch of the Mannersley parsonage, under the shadow of a great oak—the largest in the Encinal—was diapered in black and silver. As the women stepped upon the porch their shadows were silhouetted against the door. Miss Mannersley paused for an instant, and turned to give a last look at the beauty of the night as Jocasta entered. Her glance fell upon us as we passed. She nodded carelessly and unaffectedly to me, but as she recognized Enriquez she looked a little longer at him with her previous cold and invincible curiosity. To my horror Enriquez began instantly to affect a slight tremulousness of gait and a difficulty of breathing; but I gripped his arm savagely, and managed to get him past the house as the door closed finally on the young lady.

“You do not comprehend, friend Pancho,” he said gravely, “but those eyes in their glass are as the ESPEJO USTORIO, the burning mirror. They burn, they consume me here like paper. Let us affix to ourselves thees tree. She will, without doubt, appear at her window. We shall salute her for good night.”

“We will do nothing of the kind,” I said sharply. Finding that I was determined, he permitted me to lead him away. I was delighted to notice, however, that he had indicated the window which I knew was the minister's study, and that as the bedrooms were in the rear of the house, this later incident was probably not overseen by the young lady or the servant. But I did not part from Enriquez until I saw him safely back to the sala, where I left him sipping chocolate, his arm alternating around the waists of his two previous partners in a delightful Arcadian and childlike simplicity, and an apparent utter forgetfulness of Miss Mannersley.

The fandangos were usually held on Saturday night, and the next day, being Sunday, I missed Enriquez; but as he was a devout Catholic I remembered that he was at mass in the morning, and possibly at the bullfight at San Antonio in the afternoon. But I was somewhat surprised on the Monday morning following, as I was crossing the plaza, to have my arm taken by the Rev. Mr. Mannersley in the nearest approach to familiarity that was consistent with the reserve of this eminent divine. I looked at him inquiringly. Although scrupulously correct in attire, his features always had a singular resemblance to the national caricature known as “Uncle Sam,” but with the humorous expression left out. Softly stroking his goatee with three fingers, he began condescendingly: “You are, I think, more or less familiar with the characteristics and customs of the Spanish as exhibited by the settlers here.” A thrill of apprehension went through me. Had he heard of Enriquez' proceedings? Had Miss Mannersley cruelly betrayed him to her uncle? “I have not given that attention myself to their language and social peculiarities,” he continued, with a large wave of the hand, “being much occupied with a study of their religious beliefs and superstitions”—it struck me that this was apt to be a common fault of people of the Mannersley type—“but I have refrained from a personal discussion of them; on the contrary, I have held somewhat broad views on the subject of their remarkable missionary work, and have suggested a scheme of co-operation with them, quite independent of doctrinal teaching, to my brethren of other Protestant Christian sects. These views I first incorporated in a sermon last Sunday week, which I am told has created considerable attention.” He stopped and coughed slightly. “I have not yet heard from any of the Roman clergy, but I am led to believe that my remarks were not ungrateful to Catholics generally.”

I was relieved, although still in some wonder why he should address me on this topic. I had a vague remembrance of having heard that he had said something on Sunday which had offended some Puritans of his flock, but nothing more. He continued: “I have just said that I was unacquainted with the characteristics of the Spanish-American race. I presume, however, they have the impulsiveness of their Latin origin. They gesticulate—eh? They express their gratitude, their joy, their affection, their emotions generally, by spasmodic movements? They naturally dance—sing—eh?” A horrible suspicion crossed my mind; I could only stare helplessly at him. “I see,” he said graciously; “perhaps it is a somewhat general question. I will explain myself. A rather singular occurrence happened to me the other night. I had returned from visiting