The novice held his breath, but the colonel and the judge shook hands cordially, the soldier, an old bachelor, inquiring about the health of the judge’s family.
“Ah, thank heaven!” breathed Tadeo. “I’m the one who made them friends.”
“What if they should invite us to go in?” asked the novice timidly.
“Get out, boy! I never accept favors!” retorted Tadeo majestically. “I confer them, but disinterestedly.”
The novice bit his lip and felt smaller than ever, while he placed a respectful distance between himself and his fellow townsman.
Tadeo resumed: “That is the musician H⸺; that one, the lawyer J⸺, who delivered as his own a speech printed in all the books and was congratulated and admired for it; Doctor K⸺, that man just getting out of a hansom, is a specialist in diseases of children, so he’s called Herod; that’s the banker L⸺, who can talk only of his money and his hoards; the poet M⸺, who is always dealing with the stars and the beyond. There goes the beautiful wife of N⸺, whom Padre Q⸺ is accustomed to meet when he calls upon the absent husband; the Jewish merchant P⸺, who came to the islands with a thousand pesos and is now a millionaire. That fellow with the long beard is the physician R⸺, who has become rich by making invalids more than by curing them.”
“Making invalids?”
“Yes, boy, in the examination of the conscripts. Attention! That finely dressed gentleman is not a physician but a homeopathist sui generis—he professes completely the similis similibus. The young cavalry captain with him is his chosen disciple. That man in a light suit with his hat tilted back is the government clerk whose maxim is never to be polite and who rages like a demon when he sees a hat on anyone else’s head—they say that he does it to ruin the German hatters. The man just arriving with his family is the wealthy merchant C⸺, who has an income of over a hundred thousand pesos. But what would you say if I should tell you that he still owes me four pesos, five reales, and twelve cuartos? But who would collect from a rich man like him?”
“That gentleman in debt to you?”
“Sure! One day I got him out of a bad fix. It was on a Friday at half-past six in the morning, I still remember, because I hadn’t breakfasted. That lady who is followed by a duenna is the celebrated Pepay, the dancing girl, but she doesn’t dance any more now that a very Catholic gentleman and a great friend of mine has—forbidden it. There’s the death’s-head Z⸺, who’s surely following her to get her to dance again. He’s a good fellow, and a great friend of mine, but has one defect—he’s a Chinese mestizo and yet calls himself a Peninsular Spaniard. Sssh! Look at Ben-Zayb, him with the face of a friar, who’s carrying a pencil and a roll of paper in his hand. He’s the great writer, Ben-Zayb, a good friend of mine—he has talent!”
“You don’t say! And that little man with white whiskers?”
“He’s the official who has appointed his daughters, those three little girls, assistants in his department, so as to get their names on the payroll. He’s a clever man, very clever! When he makes a mistake he blames it on somebody else, he buys things and pays for them out of the treasury. He’s clever, very, very clever!”
Tadeo was about to say more, but suddenly checked himself.
“And that gentleman who has a fierce air and gazes at everybody over his shoulders?” inquired the novice, pointing to a man who nodded haughtily.
But Tadeo did not answer. He was craning his neck to see Paulita Gomez, who was approaching with a friend, Doña Victorina, and Juanito Pelaez. The latter had presented her with a box and was more humped than ever.
Carriage after carriage drove up; the actors and actresses arrived and entered by a separate door, followed by their friends and admirers.
After Paulita had gone in, Tadeo resumed: “Those are the nieces of the rich Captain D⸺, those coming up in a landau; you see how pretty and healthy they are? Well, in a few years they’ll be dead or crazy. Captain D⸺ is opposed to their marrying, and the insanity of the uncle is appearing in the nieces. That’s the Señorita E⸺, the rich heiress whom the world and the conventos are disputing over. Hello, I know that fellow! It’s Padre Irene, in disguise, with a false mustache. I recognize him by his nose. And he was so greatly opposed to this!”
The scandalized novice watched a neatly cut coat disappear behind a group of ladies.
“The Three Fates!” went on Tadeo, watching the arrival of three withered, bony, hollow-eyed, wide-mouthed, and shabbily dressed women. “They’re called—”
“Atropos?” ventured the novice, who wished to show that he also knew somebody, at least in mythology.
“No, boy, they’re called the Weary Waiters—old, censorious, and dull. They pretend to hate everybody—men, women, and children. But look how the Lord always places beside the evil a remedy, only that sometimes it comes late. There behind the Fates, the frights of the city, come those three girls, the pride of their friends, among whom I count myself. That thin young man with goggle-eyes, somewhat stooped, who is wildly gesticulating because he can’t get tickets, is the chemist S⸺, author of many essays and scientific treatises, some of which are notable and have captured prizes. The Spaniards say of him, ‘There’s some hope for him, some hope for him.’ The fellow who is soothing him with his Voltairian smile is the poet T⸺, a young man of talent, a great friend of mine, and, for the very reason that he has talent, he has thrown away his pen. That fellow who is trying to get in with the actors by the other door is the
