The Enemies of Women (Los enemigos de la mujer)

"Castro?.. Oh, yes! He lived with me for a few days, but he went away."

Still obsessed by his marvelous combination, he talked in an absent-minded manner without showing the slightest interest in what he was saying. Castro had expressed a desire to live with him; he had told him so, late one afternoon in the Casino, and Spadoni had left Villa Sirena to accompany him. It was the least a friend could do!

"But when did he go? Where is he?"

"He went day before yesterday, and must be in Paris. A fool trip! Imagine, your Highness, during the last few days he had an extraordinary run of luck, winning as high as twenty thousand francs. If he had only gone on! But he wouldn't! He was in a hurry. He gave me five hundred francs, and I lost them immediately; it was very little money for my combination. I think he was going to be a soldier; he kept talking to me about the Foreign Legion. You can expect almost any foolishness from him. A man who is winning and runs away!.."

Then, as though the disordered workings of his brain were functioning logically for a few seconds, he added, with a smile of cunning:

"Doña Clorinda also went to Paris. She left two days before him… Oh, your Highness! How I think of what you told us at the lunch once about women! I know them, Prince: They are all enemies to be feared."

And he pointed spitefully to What the Palm Tree said to the Century Plant.

In vain the Prince kept questioning him. The pianist did not know anything more, and Castro's fate did not arouse his curiosity. He had gone to Paris, to be a soldier, and Spadoni had so many friends, already, who were soldiers!

The "General" being a woman, aroused more interest in him; she stimulated his love of gossip.

"I think," he said, with a smile that showed his hate for women, "that she went away out of jealousy, out of pique. The Duchess de Delille took that Lieutenant away from her, though the 'General' had been the one to introduce them. It seems even that this Lieutenant has had a duel…"

The pianist grew pale, looking at Lubimoff with an expression of terror. His look was like that of a person who is talking aloud when he imagines himself alone, and then suddenly notices that some one is listening to him. He sat there embarrassed and stammering:

"I don't know … people tell so many lies!.. Women's gossip!"

Lubimoff felt a like embarrassment on realizing that even Spadoni had taken up his adventure with delight.

He felt there was no use in continuing the conversation with an imbecile like that. He arose, and the pianist, still trembling at his own indiscretion, showed similar signs of haste to end the visit.

"And Novoa?" asked the Prince on reaching the outer door. "Has he also left?"

No; he was still in Monaco, working at the Museum, when he did not have any more urgent business. They met very seldom. How could they see each other if he, Spadoni, on account of his poverty, refrained from entering the gambling rooms?

"He goes on playing, your Highness; but very badly, with the timidity of a novice, and for that reason he loses. He isn't made of the same stuff that we are, we who are true gamblers."

And the pianist drew himself up to his full height as he said this, as though he had never lost and possessed all the secrets of chance.

"I sent him two tickets for this afternoon's concert: one for him and the other for that Señorita Valeria, the Duchess's companion. Poor man! Always doing something silly, like a young lover!"

But his smile, which was that of a superior person exempt from such humiliations, disappeared, as he realized that once more he was saying something offensive to the Prince.

The latter passed close to the tomb again, but without seeing it, or even remembering the unknown General. Castro had gone!.. Castro wanted to become a soldier!..

After going down along the Monegetti road as far as the parade ground of La Condamine, he ascended once more the gently sloping avenue that leads up to Monaco. After his long seclusion, this walk aroused a certain pleasant tingling in his muscles.

Finding himself between the two turrets that mark the entrance to the gardens, the memory of Alicia flashed across his brain. There, a little farther on, they had gotten out of their carriage; behind the trees was a bench on which he first had told her of his love; below, at the edge of the rocks, lay the solitary path along which they had passed as though treading on air, wrapped in the twilight and with lips joined. Then, had come the tearing of her dress, the sweet comical difficulties in mending it, and the pearl pin of the Princess… Only a few weeks had passed, and these happenings seemed to belong to another happier race of beings, to have taken place on a different planet, bathed in a light that was different from the light of earth.

He made an effort to forget. At present he was standing on an asphalt square, opposite the steps of the Museum of Oceanography. For the first time he noticed the architectural decorations of the white building. They had adopted as an ornamental motif the cluster of twisting arms of the octopus, the semi-circular striations of sea-shells, the trailing filmy umbrella form of the jelly-fish. He observed the sculptural groups symbolizing the powers of the Ocean, or the arts of the navigators, he read the names carved on the frieze of the edifice, and the titles of ships famous for scientific explorations.

He stood there motionless for a long time, seeking a pretext to justify his visit. Finally he went up the steps of the building, and found himself in a deep, cool shade like that of a Cathedral, but without the stale, musty odor of shut-in places, and with a whiff of salt air coming from the nearby sea. He knew the stately edifice: on one side was the vast hall for the lectures and scientific assemblies, like that of a parliament building, with lamp shades of frosted crystal affecting the different shapes of animals from the ocean depths; in the middle of the vestibule was the statue of Prince Albert, dressed as a sailor and leaning on the rail of the bridge of his yacht; on the opposite side and on the upper floors, were the collections gathered during the voyages of the famous scientific explorer: thousands of fishes and molluscs, gigantic skeletons of whales, some kaiaks and fishing implements from the polar seas. On the lower floors, under his feet, in that second palace which, clinging to the cliff, descended to the sea, were the aquaria, where the mysterious creatures of the depths continued their lives in crystal cages amid the silver bubbles of running water.

The gate-keeper in a long blue coat, and a kepis with red braid, started to offer him a ticket, but paused on seeing that he was stopping at the turn-stile, asking for Novoa.

"He went out a moment ago. Perhaps you may find him in the neighborhood of the palace. Almost every day, before lunch, he makes the rounds of 'the rock'."

"The Rock," for the inhabitants of Monaco, is the nickname of the high promontory on which Monaco is situated, and "to make the rounds" means to follow the circle of gardens and abandoned bulwarks, which, starting from the palace of the Princes, returns to it, after completely embracing the old city.

Lubimoff followed the outer line of the San Martino gardens. He did not dare enter them; he was afraid of coming across the bench where he and Alicia had been that afternoon. He entered the City streets, narrow, without sidewalks, and paved with wide stones, as in many towns in Italy.

The dwellings, which were old and lofty, recalled the time when ground was precious on a peninsula narrowly enclosed by its fortifications. Some of the houses were pierced by tunnels and at the end of the archway, one could see the sunlight and the whiteness of the next street. The largest buildings were convents, or religious schools. Above the roofs, the bells slowly tolled as in a Spanish village; in the streets there were many sacred images lighted by tiny lamps.

When the paving stones resounded with human footsteps, the shutters all opened half way. A carriage caused many heads to appear at the windows. The few passersby were often canons from the cathedral, Barefoot Brothers with a crown of hair about their shaven scalps, or nuns with huge starched butterflies on their heads.

Only a little door separated the old city from the other situated on the heights opposite, with its Casino, its hotels, its orchestras, and its wealthy pleasure-loving crowd. A short ride by street car was sufficient to give one the illusion of having suddenly slipped back two centuries. Lubimoff recalled the expressions of surprise awakened in people by several of these barefoot brothers crossing the Casino Square on their way down to Monte Carlo.

He passed under a covered archway that joined two houses. A large open space, like a plain, opened in front of him. It was the Palace Square. Opposite it rose the lordly dwelling of the Grimaldi, a jumble of buildings dating back to different periods, which recalled the palaces of certain sovereign princes in ancient Italy. It was of a dark rose color, cut by the Archway of the Loggias, and was flanked by towers of white stone surmounted by battlements. He knew this edifice likewise. It was a mere show-place, and quite uninhabited, since the Prince, during his short visits to his domains, preferred to live on board his yacht.

The first thing that attracted his attention was the guard. The soldiers of Monaco, old French gendarmes, had gone to the war, and a national militia was taking the place of the Prince's army. It was composed of actual citizens of the "Rock," where citizens must be descendants of at least four generations resident in Monaco. They alone could contribute to the ideal defense of the principality, since they enjoyed the advantages of belonging to a country, unique in the world, where all who were born there, had bread and work assured them, thanks to the Casino.

Lubimoff admired the warlike guard, an old man with a white mustache, and stooping, almost humped, shoulders, dressed in a dark tan overcoat and a derby hat. A red and white arm band was his entire uniform. On his shoulder he carried an ancient gun which because of its tremendously long bayonet seemed even more enormous and heavy than it was. He might have rested beside a sentry box, painted with the Monaco colors; but he preferred to pace incessantly up and down, like a squirrel in a cage, looking in every direction to see if any one were trying to enter the palace of the absent sovereign. Other men who were fathers and even grandfathers, dressed in their Sunday clothes, were patiently waiting on a bench for their turn to exercise the honorable function.

The most notable thing on this esplanade was the artillery, a collection of XVIII century cannon placed there as an ornament, like the panoplies of a drawing room. On both sides of the entrance to the palace six huge, magnificent cannon, cast in green statue bronze, and chiseled like museum pieces, were drawn up in a row. Around their mouths, the metal curved backward forming a leafy design like that of a capital on a column; the other end was surmounted by a Medusa's head. The barrels of these hollow columns were ornamented with the three fleurs de lis of the ancient French Monarchy; the handles on each cannon were two dolphins, and all the pieces displayed the pretentious motto: Nec pluribus impar of Louis XIV, with another more somber one: Ultima ratio regum.

The Prince smiled at the latter motto.

"These days, artillery," he said to himself, "is no longer 'the last argument of kings', but it is of peoples. We have progressed somewhat."

Each of these green cannon had its own name, just as a ship or a regiment. One was named Nero, another Tiberius; farther on Robust and the Snorer opened their round mouths.

On the parapets enclosing the large square on both sides, other more modest, but equally huge and ancient cannon, thrust their mouths out upon the harbor or the open sea. The solid balls of these cannon formed pyramids, and parasitical vegetation had crept in between these iron spheres.

Behind the palace, like the back-drop on a stage, rose the French Mountain of the Tete du Chien, with the windows in the barracks of the Blue Devils, the Chasseurs Alpins, gleaming on its rounded summit. The Monaco plateau was simply the lowest step in the great stairway which the Alps let fall to the sea. Above, clouds were caught amid the peaks, covering them momentarily with a shadow ominous of storm. Below, amid the rose-colored walls and the white towers of the Grimaldi, rose the tropical palms, the cocoanut and plantain trees, giving this Ligurian castle the luxurious aspect of Brazilian farm.

Lubimoff was seated between the cannon, on the parapet that overlooks the open sea, when he saw Novoa strolling along the bulwarks that rise above the harbor.

On recognizing the Prince, the professor hastened forward with outstretched hands.

How likable the Professor seemed! His frank manners had never been so attractive to Michael as they were then. Novoa was greatly pleased at this meeting, attributing it to chance, and the Prince did not see fit to mention his visit to the Museum, so that Novoa would now know that he had come in search of him.

Mechanically they began to promenade between the row of guns and the trees that cast a pallid shade on one side of the Square.

It was Lubimoff who began to talk, questioning Novoa, showing an interest in his affairs and greeting his laments with a kindly smile.

The Professor appeared unhappy. This place with its gay, pleasant life was fatal for study. To think that back in his own country, he had imagined himself making useful discoveries in the mysteries of the ocean! The Casino spread its influence in every direction, reaching even the Museum of Oceanography. Often, while he was studying the plancton, a new idea would occur to him as to how he might penetrate the mysterious workings of the trente et quarante series. Mornings he worked with his thoughts fixed on Monte Carlo; and no sooner did afternoon come, than he felt an irresistible desire to go there. It was useless for him to invent pretexts to remain there on the "Rock." He had lost sums that for him were enormous, and he needed to get them back. He was worried at the thought of the money he had received from home as an advance payment on the modest fortune inherited from his parents.

"Some days, common sense tells me that I ought to return to Spain, and I immediately want to act on that good advice. Unfortunately there are certain things that keep me here and shatter my will power."

"I know what you mean," said Michael smiling. "First of all, there is love."

Novoa blushed, and then accepted the words of the Prince with a comic look of embarrassment. Yes; there was something in that, but love had its disillusionments, the same as gambling.