The Torrent | Page 8

to their reprimands. He did not want a
boy of his to be shoved about hither and thither like a mere machine.
"Plenty of brass buttons," he exclaimed with the scorn of a man never
to be taken in by external show, "and plenty of gold braid! But after all,
a slave, a slave!"
No, he wanted to see his son free and influential, continuing the
conquest of the city, completing the family greatness of which he had
laid the foundations, getting power over people much as he himself had
gotten power over money. Ramón must become a lawyer, the only
career for a man destined to rule others. It was a passionate ambition
the old pettifogger had, to see his scion enter through the front door and
with head proudly erect, the precincts of the law, into which he had
crawled so cautiously and at the risk, more than once, of being dragged
out with a chain fastened to his ankle.
Ramón spent several years in Valencia without getting beyond the
elementary courses in Common Law. The cursed classes were held in
the morning, you see, and he had to go to bed at dawn--the hour when
the lights in the pool-rooms went out. Besides, in his quarters at the
hotel he had a magnificent shotgun--a present from his father; and

homesickness for the orchards made him pass many an afternoon at the
pigeon traps where he was far better known than at the University.
This fine specimen of masculine youth--tall, muscular, tanned, with a
pair of domineering eyes to which thick eyebrows gave a touch of
harshness--had been born for action, and excitement; Ramón simply
couldn't concentrate on books!
Old Brull, who through niggardliness and prudence had placed his son
on "half rations," as he put it, sent the boy just money enough to keep
him going; but dupe, in turn, of the wiles he had formerly practiced on
the rustics of Alcira, he was compelled to make frequent trips to
Valencia, to come to some understanding with money lenders there,
who had advanced loans to his son on such terms that insolvency might
lead Ramón to a prison cell.
Home to Alcira came rumors of other exploits by the "Prince," as don
Jaime called his boy in view of the latter's ability to run through money.
In parties with friends of the family, don Ramón's doings were spoken
of as scandalous actually--a duel after a quarrel at cards; then a father
and a brother--common workingmen in flannel shirts!--who had sworn
they would kill him if he didn't marry a certain girl he had been taking
to her shop by day and to dance-halls by night.
Old Brull made up his mind to tolerate these escapades of his son no
longer; and he made him give up his studies. Ramón would not be a
lawyer; well, after all, one didn't have to have a degree to be a man of
importance. Besides the father felt he was getting old; it was hard for
him to look after the working of his orchards personally. He could
make good use of that son who seemed to have been born to impose his
will upon everybody around him.
For some time past don Jaime had had his eye on the daughter of a
friend of his. The Brull house showed noticeable lack of a woman's
presence. His wife had died shortly after his retirement from business,
and the old codger stamped in rage at the slovenliness and laziness
displayed by his servants. He would marry Ramón to Bernarda--an
ugly, ill-humored, yellowish, skinny creature--but sole heiress to her

father's three beautiful orchards. Besides, she was conspicuous for her
industrious, economical ways, and a parsimony in her expenditures that
came pretty close to stinginess.
Ramón did as his father bade him. Brought up with all the ideas of a
rural skinflint, he thought no decent person could object to marrying an
ugly bad-tempered woman, so long as she had plenty of money.
The father-in-law and the daughter-in-law understood each other
perfectly. The old man's eyes would water at sight of that stern,
long-faced puritan, who never had much to say in the house, but went
into high dudgeon over the slightest waste on the part of the domestics,
scolding the farmhands for the merest oversight in the orchards,
haggling and wrangling with the orange drummers for a centime more
or less per hundredweight. That new daughter of his was to be the
solace of his old age!
Meantime, the "prince" would be off hunting every morning in the
nearby mountains and lounging every afternoon in the cafe; but he was
no longer content with the admiration of the idlers hanging around a
billiard table, nor was he taking part in the game upstairs. He was