Fermina Marquez (1911) Read Free Page A

dives during these famous nights and pay the girls there to beat them. And these unhappy creatures who doubtless went hungry, acquiesced in this degradation! Today on calm reflection I think this was pure myth, some incident distorted by the imagination of a depraved child. But I well recall the distress this story threw us into, the first time it was related to us. The majority of us were spoilt children and this is what degrades character the most and what hardens the soul, but several amongst us shed tears of indignation and pity on learning of this thing; we used to think about it constantly in spite of ourselves and at night, before falling asleep, it was like a suffocating weight which our hands sought to lift off our chests . . .
Santos, quite on the contrary, was welcome everywhere. No sooner did he enter a restaurant, his head held high, his hat tilted back, than there was always a beautiful woman in some merry group to say: "Well, here's my hearthrob." Santos Iturria was indeed very good-looking. Between eighteen and nineteen years of age, he already had the build, the full-fledged vigour, the confident air of a twenty-five-year-old man. A liveliness normal for his age added, by contrast, a further charm to his appearance. His face was not exactly long, but large, and was always closely shaved which emphasized the characteristics of cleanliness and candour his whole person exuded. His colouring was light, even a little pink. His chestnut hair with its hint of waviness nobly crowned his high
brow. But his eyes above all were remarkable: they were blue, but a deep blue which was almost black. They astonished. And all the more so since their unfaltering, manly expression full of gay insolence entirely belied his very long, dark, almost feminine eyelashes.
Santos learnt about life by going to Montmartre to amuse himself in this way. Initially, there had been a certain churlishness in his manners and occasionally he had put himself in the wrong. One evening, as Demoisel and he were running up the stairs of a fashionable restaurant behind a young ladyfriend of theirs, they came across a group of men who were descending this same staircase. The young woman went past, but Santos, wishing to follow, dashed after her and knocked into an elderly man who immediately stood in his way saying: "Sir, I have let the lady go by but it is for you who are young to give way to me now. People have no idea ..."
The old boy persisted in his reprimand for a few moments and Demoisel was already laughing at the thought of the sharp riposte that Santos was about to make. But Santos meekly listened right to the end. Then he bowed, stepped aside and said unaffectedly: "You are right to rebuke me. I apologize to you Sir."
Somebody on the nearby landing shouted out: "Bravo Sir, you know how to play the game!"
"As for you, I didn't ask for your opinion," retorted Santos and he went past.
Soon, he was able to move with ease in this rather intricate world. He even became a force for the good here: a champion of the disreputable woman and the pet hate of one or two of those mincing fellows seen hanging around certain beautiful girls too much.
These young men are extremely elegant. You enter into conversation with them and they first announce that they are "sons of privileged families" in the process of ruining themselves; they are on the brink of being sought in justice and once they have "squandered" everything, they will blow
their brains out. Only, and this is very curious, they will also say: "I am going to tell you an anecdote!" or else, "The atmosphere is heavy this evening"; they have confided that they studied at Janson and yet they have no foreign accent. So you observe them more closely and you note that they appear ill at ease in their tails and speak to the waiters as rudely as is possible. And then when a wealthy man, a serious client, seems to find their woman companion pleasing, you see them disappear on some pretext or other, allowing