The Salvation of Pisco Gabar and Other Stories by Geoffrey Household Read Free Book Online Page B

unknown foreground. His left arm was holding a girl round the middle. There was a locomotive about a yard behind him, and the closed gates of a crossing about a yard ahead. Above the locomotive was a crimson aeroplane, and alongside an automobile full of Mexican hats and more guns. It was a remarkable bill.
    Don Macario excused himself, bade us a courteous farewell, and swung out of the tavern with the air of an old soldier going into action. His jaw was set. He walked as if he had spurs on his boot heels. I could almost hear them click.
    â€œI am needed,” he said.
    The innkeeper winked at Ramon, and poured out two more chiquitos.
    â€œHe is there every evening,” he said. “Well, well—I hope that when I am his age I will get as much pleasure out of something. You don’t go?”
    â€œNo,” said Ramon. “ Es para niños —it is for children!”
    The following day I paid a formal call on Don Macario. I found him walking with long, swift strides up and down the garden, his hands clasped behind him.
    â€œWalk with me awhile,” he said. “Exercise is good for the spirit.”
    I fell into step with him. There were a table and chair on the lawn, and on the table a book open, face downwards to mark the place. It was the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius in the Greek.
    â€œDo you read much?” I asked.
    â€œNo. When I was a boy I used to read a lot. But since then, no. There is much to do. You do not know how much there is to do in house and garden when it is all you have. Look! To-day I have mended the roof of the pigeon house. Padre Tomas, my confessor, told me it would be good for me.”
    â€œI hear you are very fond of the cinema,” I said.
    â€œ El cine? I should say so! What a wonder! And to think that there are men in America who live such lives! Ay de mi, they do not mend the pigeon house. No, señor; they ride, they ride!”
    He planted himself astride the chair, and hitched it a few paces forward between his knees.
    â€œSo!”
    The gesture startled me. Then I laughed. I was becoming accustomed to his sudden dramatic poses. They were, I supposed, humorous. But it was clear that the cinema was giving him the mental food for which, unknown to himself, he had longed during thirty years of house, garden, and Padre Tomas.
    He was romantic; but poverty and, perhaps, shyness had forced him into celibacy. Indeed his face was lined like that of a priest. Yet the mouth, although it turned down at the corners, was full and eager, and his large eyes had no peace in them. He never met my glance, save when he wished to impress me with his courtesy. Then he would look me full in the eyes gravely and calmly. He was never anything else but courteous, but he would keep that look for the formal occasions—asking me if I would accept a pigeon from him, for example, or insisting that I should pass first when I had opened a door for him.
    He certainly was a funny old boy. He would have made a fine country gentleman, with his chivalry and his love of horses, if only he had had the money to indulge the tastes that his traditions had given him. Chivalry, I thought, perhaps explained his love of el cine. The ideals of the silent cinema were much the same as those of the old romances. If there is a maiden to be rescued, it matters little who rescues her. In legend he was always an armored knight; on the screen he might be a prince of the blood prepared to shed it in gallant duel, or a sheriff with inextinguishable revolver.
    Don Macario was much in my thoughts during the following weeks; but I was busy, and they were perfunctory thoughts. I gave to him that terse and kindly psychology with which we are content to sum up our friends, and made no attempt at spiritual understanding. We are lazy creatures. We watch our fellows as a man looks through a window at distant dancers. They are pleased to dance. Well, he knows why. He has danced himself. But he does not hear the