His Only Son by Leopoldo Alas

Author:Leopoldo Alas
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781681370194
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2016-09-02T04:00:00+00:00

13

THE CONCERT did not finish until one in the morning, and as was the custom in the town, instead of everyone going their separate ways, the young men began earnestly dancing, to the great delight of the young women, who had put up with the two or three hours of music in the hope that afterward they would be able to dance for another two or three hours. Emma was determined to stay until not another living soul remained. As for Marta, she was too busy to think about time. She was so preoccupied with pursuing her prey, with hunting down the wild beast to whom she had surrendered herself body and soul, that she could no longer see or hear what was in front of her eyes; for her, there was no one else in the world but Don Juan Nepomuceno with his gray side-whiskers! Long before the concert ended, they had gone their own way, sitting in one corner of the room, where Marta was revealing her soul, as well as a little, or a lot, of very white breast, to that sentimental administrator and future manager of the chemical factory. Körner, although initially deep in conversation with Mochi and subsequently with the brigadier general and the chief highways engineer, was keeping a watchful eye on the couple and feeling very pleased with his daughter. He wholeheartedly applauded the skill and delicacy displayed by his worthy offspring when first one, then two or three of the town’s most distinguished young men went over to her to ask the favor of a waltz or some such thing, and were politely and coldly dismissed by the sturdy German, who wasn’t dancing because . . . and she would then supply a hastily cobbled-together and deliberately unconvincing excuse. She had to be crystal-clear with Nepomuceno, even at the risk of offending those dancers, which she perhaps enjoyed doing anyway, because this was by way of a sign making her real reason for those snubs transparently obvious, namely, that it was more important to her to be there talking to Nepomuceno than leaping about and arousing who knows what appetites in those splendid and usually red-faced and red-blooded young men.

After Marta’s second refusal, which was accompanied by a knowing look and a smile directed at Nepomuceno alone, he finally understood and was deeply grateful to her for the sacrifice she was making for his sake; and he would have melted with sheer pleasure, had he not done so already, thanks to Marta’s dizzying nearness and the spiritual and non-spiritual things that she was saying to him; and above all, thanks to the way their knees happened occasionally, or, rather, quite often, to brush against each other.

“What eloquence, what natural warmth she gives off!” Don Juan was thinking, applying the same verb to both warmth and eloquence.

Marta was speaking to Nepomuceno about the ideal and about ideals, but somehow managed to slip in accounts of incidents and autobiographical descriptions that almost always referred to the solemn act of her dressing or undressing or lying half asleep or sleepless in bed.

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