CHAPTER II
DON SYLVA DE TORRÉS
Guaymas is quite a new town, built somewhat from day to day according to the fancy of the emigrants, and hence no regular lines of streets have been maintained. However, we had better mention here that, with the exception of a few houses to which that name may be fairly given, all the rest are frightful dens, built of mud, and deplorably dirty.
In the Calle de la Merced, the principal, or to speak more truthfully, the only street in the town (for the others are only alleys), stood a one-storied house, ornamented with a balcony, and a peristyle supported by four pillars. The front was covered by a coating of lime of dazzling whiteness, and the roof was flat.
The proprietor of this house was one of the richest mineros in Sonora, and possessor of a dozen mines, all in work; he also devoted himself to cattle breeding, and owned several haciendas scattered over the province, the smallest of which was equal in size to an English county.
I am certain that, if Don Sylva de Torrés had wished to liquidate his fortune, and discover what he was really worth, it would have realised several millions.
Don Sylva had come to live in Guaymas some months back, where he ordinarily only paid flying visits, and those at lengthened intervals. This time, contrary to his usual custom, he had brought his daughter Anita with him. Hence the entire population of Guaymas was a prey to the greatest curiosity, and all eyes were fixed on Don Sylva's house, so extraordinary did the conduct of the hacendero appear.
Shut up in his house, the doors of which only opened to a few privileged persons, Don Sylva did not seem to trouble himself the least in the world about the gossips; for he was engaged in realising certain projects, whose importance prevented him noticing what was said or thought of him.
Though the Mexicans are excessively rich, and like to do honour to their wealth, they have no idea of comfort. The utmost carelessness prevails among them. Their luxury, if I may be allowed to employ the term, is brutal, without any discernment or real value.
These men, principally accustomed to the rude life of the American deserts, to struggle continually against the changes of a climate which is frequently deadly, and the unceasing aggressions of the Indians, who surround them on all sides, camp rather than live in the towns, fancying they have done everything when they have squandered gold and diamonds.
The Mexican houses are in evidence to prove the correctness of our opinion. With the exception of the inevitable European piano, which swaggers in the corner of every drawing room, you only see a few clumsy butacas, rickety tables, bad engravings hanging on the whitewashed walls, and that is all.
Don Sylva's house differed in no respect from the others; and the master's horses on returning to the stable from the watering place, had to cross the salón, all dripping as they were, and leaving manifest traces of their passage.
At the moment when we introduce the reader into Don Sylva's house, two persons, male and female, were sitting in the saloon talking, or at least exchanging a few words at long intervals.
They were Don Sylva and his daughter Anita. The crossing of the Spanish and Indian races has produced the most perfect plastic type to be found anywhere. Don Sylva, although nearly fifty years of age, did not appear to be forty. He was tall, upright, and his face, though stern, had great gentleness imprinted upon it. He wore the Mexican dress in its most rigorous exactness; but his clothes were so rich, that few of his countrymen could have equalled it, much less surpassed it.
Anita who reclined on a sofa, half buried in masses of silk and gauze, like a hummingbird concealed in the moss, was a charming girl of eighteen at the most, whose black eyes, modestly shaded by long velvety lashes, were full of voluptuous promise, which was not gainsaid by the undulating and serpentine outlines of her exquisitely modelled body. Her slightest gestures had grace and majesty completed by the ravishing smile of her coral lips. Her complexion, slightly gilded by the American sun, imparted to her face an expression impossible to render; and lastly her whole person exhaled a delicious perfume of innocence and candour which attracted sympathy and inspired love.
Like all Mexican women when at home, she merely wore a light robe of embroidered muslin; her rebozo was thrown negligently over her shoulders, and a profusion of jasmine flowers was intertwined in her bluish-black tresses. Anita seemed in deep thought. At one moment the arch of her eyebrows was contracted by some thought that annoyed her, her bosom heaved and her dainty foot, cased in a slipper lined with swan's down, impatiently tapped on the ground.
Don Sylva also appeared to be dissatisfied. After directing a severe glance at his daughter, he rose, and drawing near her, said,
"You are mad, Anita: your behaviour is extravagant. A young, well-born girl ought not, in any case to act as you have just done."
The young Mexican girl only answered by a significant pout, and an almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders.
Her father continued,
"Especially," he said, laying a stress on each word, "in your position as regards the Count de Lhorailles."
The girl started as if a serpent had stung her, and fixing an interrogatory glance on the hacendero's immovable face, she replied,
"I do not understand you, my father."
"You do not understand me, Anita? I cannot believe it. Have I not formally promised your hand to the count?"
"What matter, if I do not love him? Do you wish to condemn me to lifelong misery?"
"On the contrary, I regarded your happiness in this union. I have only you, Anita, to console me for the mournful loss of your beloved mother. Poor child! You are still, thank Heaven, at that happy age when the heart does not know itself, and when the words 'happiness, unhappiness,' have no meaning. You do not love the count, you say. All the better your heart is free. When, at a later date, you have had occasion to appreciate the noble qualities of the man I give you as husband, you will then thank me for having insisted on a marriage, which today causes you so much vexation."
"Stay, father," the girl said with an air of vexation. "My heart is not free, and you are well aware of the fact."
"I know, Doña Anita de Torrés," the hacendero answered severely, "that a love unworthy yourself and me cannot enter your heart. Through my ancestors I am a Christiano Viejo; and if a few drops of Indian blood be mingled in my veins, what I owe to the memory of my ancestors is only the more deeply engraved on my mind. The first of our family, Antonia de Sylva, lieutenant to Hernando Cortez, married, it is true, a Mexican princess of the family of Moctecuhzoma, but all the other branches are Spanish."
"Are we not Mexicans then, my father?"
"Alas! My poor child, who can say who we are and what are we? Our unhappy country, since it shook off the Spanish yoke, has been struggling convulsively, and is exhausted by the incessant efforts of those ambitious men, who in a few years will have robbed it even of that nationality which we had so much difficulty in achieving. These disgraceful contests render us the laughing stocks of other people, and above all, cause the joy of our greedy neighbours, who with their eyes invariably fixed upon us, are preparing to enrich themselves with our spoils, of which they have pilfered some fragments already by robbing us of several of our rich provinces."
"But, father, I am a woman, and therefore unaffected by politics. I have nothing to do with the gringos."