Fermina Marquez (1911)

Fermina Marquez (1911) Read Free Page B

Book: Fermina Marquez (1911) Read Free
Author: Valery Larbaud
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their place to be taken without getting upset. And then you understand (but too late) with whom you have been dealing . . .
Santos Iturria could not stand these fellows of the demi-monde. He began by rejecting their overtures with a briskness that did credit to his courage. With great ostentation, he would congratulate the one whose love was sincere on the tact with which he left the way clear for the suitor whose love came at a price in such-and-such a circumstance he recalled. To another, he would speak of love and money with an offensive insistence. His conversation was elegant and highly vivacious; ungossipy but full and adorned with comic expressions, tremendous jokes, delivered with an earnestness which was quite hilarious. And the tone of his voice itself which had something musical would give an added zest to these jests. Soon he took the offensive against these fine fellows he did not like. And with these witless folk, who were quick to anger and to use ugly language, he had a rare time of it. They were his enemies and his butts. He drove them wild. He persecuted them. He made them feel that he was always ready to cuff them as soon as they became crude. And they themselves did not dare to behave boorishly for fear of being shown the door. In these onslaughts of impertinence, Santos invariably had people — both men and women — laughing with him. This was liable to end in real disaster. And one night in the roadway, Santos received a shocking blow on the back of the head. However, Demoisel dealt with the assailant so thoroughly that he did not come back again. Santos recovered from this by spending a few days in the infirmary; as far as everybody was concerned, he had taken a fall in the gymnasium.
Thus, to return Fermina Marquez her bracelet was not really very difficult for Santos. Throughout evening prep and even going upstairs to the dormitory, he played with this bracelet. And the following day when the girl held out her hand to us, the trinket was on her arm. This filled us with pride: Iturria's audacity lent distinction to all of us.

VI
    We were now the girl's habitual escort. There were ten or so of us. All those who came near her, those to whom she spoke, with whom she larked about, made up a sort of love's following around-her; these were her knights. So the knights of Fermina Marquez were admired by all the pupils and even possibly by the youngest of the monitors. We would no longer bring back the smell of tobacco smoked on the sly from those wonderful walks in the grounds, but rather the fragrance of the young South American girls. Was it geranium or mignonette? It was an indefinable scent, a scent which conjured up blue, mauve, white and pink dresses; large, floppy straw hats; dark hair in ringlets or curled like shells; black eyes so huge that the whole sky must be mirrored in them.
Pilar was only a child; her fingers were always stained with ink, her elbows, chafed — those blatant, fatuous signs of little girls aged between eleven and thirteen. But Fermina really was a grown-up girl. It is for this reason that her appearance had something which so affected us. A girl! On seeing her, we would want to clap our hands and dance around her. So what is it that sets her apart from a young woman to such an extent? I watch a young woman, a young mother surrounded by her children, and she watches me in turn and recognizes me: it is my hand which drew her and only released her once I had received her kiss. She watches me and has all these images stored within her: I am a man, similar to the father of her children. Whereas for the girl, I am an unfamiliar person, a strange country, an enigma. A poor, unfamiliar person, all clumsiness and stammers in her presence; a pitiful mystery who loses his entire composure at a peal of her laughter.
And yet we are not so unfamiliar to each other: when life leaves me quite alone with myself, I discover aspirations and feelings of a woman within me; and I am sure that those

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