-Xxiv- · I

A little later, the numb and drowsy life of the Pazos underwent a metamorphosis. A certain sorceress entered there more powerful than Señora María the Sabia: politics, if that name is deserved by the tangle of intrigues and wretched squabbles that receives it in country villages. Everywhere the mantle of politics covers selfish and base interests, apostasies, and villainies; but at least, in populous capitals, the surface, the appearance, and at times the stakes of the contest present a character of grandeur. The magnitude of the arena ennobles the struggle; cupidity rises to ambition, and the material end is on occasion sacrificed to the ideal end of victory for victory’s sake. In the countryside, not even through hypocrisy or histrionics is the slightest elevated and general purpose simulated. Ideas do not enter into play, but only persons, and upon the meanest ground: rancours, hatreds, bickerings, miserable gain, microbiological vanity. A naval battle in a puddle.

It must be acknowledged, however, that in the era of the Revolution, political exaltation, faith in theories carried to fanaticism, succeeded in infiltrating everywhere, cleansing with hurricane gusts the mephitic atmosphere of daily intrigues in the villages. Spain lived then hanging upon a debate in the Cortes, upon a cry raised here or there, in the workshops of an arsenal or along the winding paths of a mountain; and every fortnight or every month, deep questions, problems that the legislator, the statesman, and the sociologist need to mature slowly, to meditate perhaps for whole years before solving them, were agitated, debated, and sought to be definitively resolved, which a multitude in revolution decides in a few hours by means of a heated parliamentary discussion or a clamorous street demonstration. Between breakfast and dinner a society was reformed, was made anew; smoking a cigar, men discovered new principles, and at the bottom of the maelstrom fought the two great racial solutions, both strong because rooted in something secular, slowly seasoned in the warmth of history: absolute monarchy and constitutional monarchy, the latter disguised for the moment as democratic monarchy.

The shock of the collision reached everywhere, without excepting the wild mountains that encircled the Pazos de Ulloa. There too people played at politics. In the taverns of Cebre, on fair days, one heard talk of freedom of worship, individual rights, abolition of conscription, federation, plebiscite—pronunciation not guaranteed, of course. The priests, on concluding their services, funerals, and solemn Masses, lingered in the churchyard, debating with warmth certain recent and eloquent symptoms, the first appearance of those famous four sacristans, and other trifles. The young gentleman of Limioso, an inveterate traditionalist like his father and grandfather, had made two or three mysterious expeditions toward the Miño, crossing the Portuguese frontier, and it was whispered that he held interviews in Tuy with certain birds of his feather; it was asserted also that the young ladies of Molende were busily occupied in making cartridge boxes and I know not what other warlike gear, and at every turn received secret warnings that a search was about to be made in their house.

Nevertheless, those who understood the matter and were practical in it realized that any armed attempt on Galician territory would end in smoke, and that however many rumours might run concerning armaments and organization in Portugal, arrivals of troops, appointments of officers, and so forth, the real battle to be fought there would not be in the fields, but at the ballot-boxes; not on that account any less bloodless. The country was then ruled by the two formidable local bosses, the one an attorney and the other the town-clerk of Cebre; this little town and its surrounding region trembled beneath the power of both. Perpetual antagonists, their struggle, like that of the Roman dictators, was destined to end only with the ruin and death of one of them. To write the chronicle of their exploits, their revenges, their maneuvers, would be a never-ending tale. Lest anyone should think their deeds were a matter for laughter, it is important to observe that some of the roadside crosses the traveler encountered along the paths, a blackened roof here and there, a man buried for life in a penal prison, could give account of so fierce an antagonism.

It should be understood that neither of the two adversaries had any political convictions, not caring a fig for whatever was then debated in Spain; but, through strategic necessity, each represented and personified a tendency and a party: Barbacana, a Moderate before the Revolution, now declared himself a Carlist; Trampeta, a Unionist under O’Donnell, was advancing toward the furthest confines of victorious Liberalism.

Barbacana was graver, more authoritarian, more obstinate and implacable in personal revenge, surer in dealing the blow, more greedy and hypocritical, concealing better his treacherous schemes for stripping the wretched tenant of his last crust; he was, moreover, a man who preferred to employ legal means and handle the law-codes, saying that there is no surer way of finishing off an enemy than to bury him in paperwork: if not so many crosses lined the roads through Barbacana’s fault, the foul prisons of the district in former days, and nowadays the ramparts of Ceuta and Melilla, could reveal how far his influence extended. On the other hand, Trampeta, if in justification of his nickname he did not disdain legal entanglements, was accustomed to proceed with greater precipitation and violence than Barbacana, securing his retreat less skillfully; wherefore his adversary had several times caught him between two stools, and had within an ace of annihilating him. Trampeta possessed by way of compensation a great fertility of resource, extreme audacity, and unexpected expedients for extricating himself from the most serious embarrassments. Barbacana was better fitted for preparing an ambush from his room, keeping out of sight himself afterwards; Trampeta, for executing it in person and with success. The district detested both, but Barbacana inspired greater dread because of his gloomy disposition. On that occasion Trampeta, entrusted with representing the dominant and official ideas, believed himself secure of impunity, even though he should set fire to half Cebre and cudgel, prosecute, and distrain the goods of the other half. Barbacana, with the superiority of his intelligence and even of his education, understood two things: first, that he had leaned against a stouter wall, against people who do not abandon their friends; second, that whenever the whim took him to pass over with arms and baggage to the opposite camp, he would always succeed in sinking Trampeta. He had already laid his plans for the approaching election of deputies.

Trampeta, with dizzying activity, was smoothing the way for the government candidate. Very frequently he went to the provincial capital to confer with the Governor. On such occasions the town-clerk, calculating that a forewarned man is worth two, neither forgot his pistols nor omitted to have himself escorted by his most determined henchmen, for he was well aware that Barbacana had men of mettle at his disposal, such as the formidable One-Eyed of Castrodorna. Every journey was a harvest for the worthy clerk, and very profitable to his own folk: little by little Barbacana’s creatures were falling, and the tobacco-shops, the bailiffships, the wardenship of the prison, the road-menders, the whole official staff of Cebre, were being arranged to Trampeta’s liking. Only the judge he could not touch, protected in high places by a kinsman of the judge’s lady, a person of consequence. He also obtained that a blind eye should be turned to many things, that eyes should be closed to others, and that with respect to some a total blindness should supervene; and with this, and with the broad powers with which he found himself invested, he declared, laying his hand upon his heart, that he answered for the election in Cebre.

During this period Barbacana played dead, confining himself to supporting feebly, as though out of mere formality, the candidate proposed by the Carlist committee of Orense, and recommended by the Archpriest of Loiro and the most active priests, such as those of Boán, Naya, and Ulloa. It was readily perceived that Barbacana had no faith in success. The candidate was an excellent gentleman from Orense, well educated, a most consistent traditionalist, but without roots in the district and with the reputation of possessing little political astuteness. His own coreligionists were not on good terms with him, considering him more a man of the study than of action and intrigue.

Matters standing thus, it began to be noticed that Primitivo, the chief huntsman of the Pazos, came to Cebre very frequently; and as everything is noticed there, it was observed also that, besides the customary visits to the taverns, Primitivo spent long hours at Barbacana’s house. The latter lived almost blockaded in his domicile, for Trampeta, emboldened by the intoxication of power, uttered threats, asserting that Barbacana would receive his due in some sunken lane. Nevertheless, the lawyer ventured forth in company with Primitivo, and influential priests and subordinate bosses were seen coming and going, many of whom went also to the Pazos: some to dine, others in the afternoon. And as there is no secret well kept among three, and still less among three dozen, the district and the government soon learned the great news: the committee’s candidate was retiring willingly, and in his place Barbacana was supporting, under the title of Independent, Don Pedro Moscoso, known as the Marquis of Ulloa.

From the moment he learned of the plot, Trampeta seemed attacked by Saint Vitus’s dance. He redoubled his journeys to the capital: his explanations and commentaries in the Governor’s office were something to hear.

“It is all engineered,” said he, “by that fattened hog of an Archpriest, joined with that rebel the priest of Boán, and egging on the usurer the steward of the Pazos, who in turn brings into the dance that ill-bred puppy the young master, who is carrying on with his daughter. A fine candidate!” he exclaimed frantically, “a fine candidate the Neos have chosen! At least the other was an honest man!” And he raised his voice considerably on reaching this word honesty.

The Governor, seeing that the boss had completely lost his coolness, understood that the business was in an evil plight, and asked him sternly:

“Did you not answer for the election, against any candidate who might present himself?”

“Yes, sir, yes, sir...” retorted Trampeta hastily. “But just consider: who could count upon such an extraordinary thing?”

Stumbling in his speech from sheer rage and spite, he insisted that no one could have imagined that the Marquis of Ulloa, a young squire who thought of nothing but hunting, would turn politician; that, despite the great influence of his house and the considerable prestige his name exercised among the peasantry, the mountain gentry, and the clergy, the attempt would not matter a straw if Barbacana had not taken it upon himself and were not aided by a powerful subaltern boss who formerly fluctuated between Barbacana’s party and Trampeta’s, but on this occasion had decided; and this was the very steward of the Pazos, a resolute man and crafty as a fox, who commanded numerous sure votes, for many people owed him money, who had fleeced the house of Ulloa at whose expense he was stealthily enriching himself, and that this solemn scoundrel, leaning upon the great prosecutor Barbacana, would carry off the district if the matter were not handled with an iron hand and without mercy.

Anyone who knows anything of electoral machinery will not doubt that the Governor set the telegraph to work so that without loss of time, and whatever influences might intervene, the judge of Cebre and the few creatures of Barbacana remaining in the district should be removed. The Governor wished to triumph in Cebre without resorting to extraordinary measures and arbitrary acts of consequence, for he knew that if it was improbable that armed bands should ever rise there, human blood, on the other hand, often stained the polling tables and ballot boxes; but the new combination compelled him to stop at no means, and to confer upon the illustrious Trampeta unlimited powers...

While the town-clerk was making ready, the lawyer was not asleep. The young master’s acceptance had at first driven him wild with delight. Don Pedro had no political ideas, even though he leaned toward absolutism, believing naively that with it would come the restoration of things that flattered his pride of race, such as entails and primogeniture; apart from this, he leaned toward the indifferent skepticism of the peasants, and was incapable of dreaming, like the chivalrous hidalgo of Limioso, of the quixotic feat of crossing the frontier of the Miño at the head of two hundred men. But in default of political passion, his vanity impelled him to accept the candidacy. He was the first person in the district, the most important, the one of most illustrious descent: his family from time immemorial had stood at the head of the local nobility; upon this the Archpriest of Loiro laid stress to convince him that the representation of the district belonged to him. Primitivo did not display much eloquence in supporting the Archpriest’s demonstration: he confined himself to saying, using an expressive plural and clenching his fist: