Читать книгу The Seven Pillars - Wenceslao Fernández-Flórez - Страница 10

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There was a crowd in the assembly hall of the Savings Bank when Olivan came in. He took a back seat and looked at those who were present with some surprise. When he decided to accept Theophilus Alp’s invitation to be present, he had no idea that the meeting would have the importance evident from the number and the quality of those who had assembled. Among the forty odd persons who were impatiently stirring in their seats or were whispering to each other in an unceasing monotone, guessing about the purpose of the meeting, there were representatives of the leading firms of the country in commerce and industry. Florio also recognised several politicians, and Lawel the engineer, pale and smiling, as if he were highly excited, talking with his colleagues, the famous Sike and the renowned Noke, the three forming a group at which everyone kept looking. Florio had lived with Lawel when they were abroad, and although their duties now kept them apart, they were on very friendly terms. He would have liked to approach Lawel and ask him what was the object of the meeting, but he could not get near him. He came to the conclusion that most of those present were equally ignorant. When the wealthy David, plump and large-nosed, squeezed between the rows of seats, rubbing against them with his stout body, many hands were held out to him, to stop him; but the millionaire passed on, smiling, replying to the questions only with the promising words:

“Great news! great news! very soon you’ll hear all about it.”

The arrival of the director of the Savings Bank caused an impressive silence. The doors were closed and a few persons still standing hurried to find seats. Theophilus Alp, pale and solemn, sat stiffly behind the chairman’s table, and with his eyebrows called to his side Lawel the engineer, who kept nervously twisting the bunch of papers he was carrying.

The nasal voice of the director of the Savings Bank was raised. The illustrious financier spoke with his hands on the table and his eyes turned down, but as he warmed to his speech, his twinkling little eyes fluttered like butterflies all over the room, and his hands twitched as if he were a miser counting his gold.

“Fortune,” he declared, “had capriciously selected him to make public the most remarkable event of his generation. When he had come to the end of what, he feared, must be a rather dull speech, it would be said that a new epoch had dawned for humanity, and that every one of them who shared in the gigantic enterprise would experience the high satisfaction of helping to turn to a new and propitious direction the chariot of fate of the human race, our noble human race.

“How far back into the dim centuries of history was it necessary to penetrate to find the beginning of the human longing to fly? He could not say. Perchance in the huge forests, rank and flowerless, of the end of the Tertiary Period, in which there was now evidence that Man was already leaving his footprints on the warm and moist earth, amongst monsters now extinct, the bold longing to fly was first formed in his brain. Primitive man wished to be like a bird so that he might detect and overtake the prey which his hunger demanded, or escape from the fierce pursuit of the carnivores of the forest, or when in the terrible geological convulsions of that childhood of the globe, subterranean forces raised mountain ranges and opened valleys into which tumultuous waters, the mother of life, were precipitated, and primitive man, mad with terror, fled not knowing whither, over the surface of the quaking earth, amid a throng of wild beasts sharing his terror.

“From these times, doubtless, man aspired to flight. This age-long wish inspired mythology and took haven in the souls of poets. Idolaters gave wings to their idols and Christians to their angels; literature had dedicated miles of verses to the longing to ascend into the tranquil or the stormy air, towards the pearly clouds, towards the adored woman, towards the ends of the earth.

“When the aeroplane was invented, the human race greeted with joy the attainment so long desired. But had the aeroplane truly given us dominion of the air? Unfortunately, no! The long and tragic tale of victims forbade us deceiving ourselves. Hardly a day passed without a disaster. From causes beyond the reach of perfect construction and the skill of pilots, these mechanical birds too frequently fell from the skies which we had thought conquered; man had reached the boldness of Icarus but not the tranquil security of the eagle. The frequency of accidents forbade our using the invention to the limits of its theoretical possibilities. For its effect on human life to attain the enormous influence, the incalculable power that it ought to have, every possibility of accident must be removed, and an aerial journey must become as safe—no—safer than a journey by steamer, by rail, or by motor!

“Very good; that had now been accomplished. Lawel the engineer, Lawel, whose name could now be enrolled among the great benefactors of humanity, had invented a stabiliser of perfect efficiency.

“We could now affirm,” insisted Alp, “that this invention had brought a miraculous metamorphosis to aviation. Until now it had been little more than a dangerous sport. From to-day it had become the most valuable instrument of human activity.”

Theophilus Alp made a deliberate pause which served as a safety-valve through which the murmuring astonishment of the audience escaped. A confused tumult of voices arose, threaded by audible comments. Some of those present could not reconcile their idea of Alp, a man of business, with a speech in which he had praised scientific progress, and some of the phrases in his peroration, laboriously poetical, had brought to the faces of more than one millionaire the mocking smile we give to a display of weakness. A purple-faced old man shouted out that he was about as much interested in aviation as in Chinese kites, and that for his part he would never quit the solid earth.

But Alp now resumed his speech, to an audience a little keener and more responsive. The orator announced the formation of a company to exploit Lawel’s patent in every country. The scale of the new company was immense, and when it was in full operation there would be no business to compare with it, in size and profits. Skilfully, with the mastery he always displayed in such affairs, the director of the Savings Bank drew a rapid sketch of the company’s future; its swift national and international passenger lines; its rapid transport of merchandise between the most distant parts of the globe, and arising from the new safety of the journeys, a multitude of minor services which would bring a total revenue of incalculable magnitude; hotels built by the company in the most beautiful parts of the world to which guests would be brought in thousands by the planes; gigantic planes the models of which were now in the designing rooms, to carry, at a cost almost ridiculously small, produce which up to now could not be distributed because of the slowness of transport. The company would have to found at once three of these subsidiaries, to deal respectively with fish, fruit, and dressed meat. Fruit gathered in the morning in the far South would be sold the same evening in the North with the dew still on it: fishes which were swimming one day in the Atlantic would be in the markets of Central Europe the next. Careful management would secure both very low prices and very large profits. Alp read some figures to prove his forecast. The estimates, although conservative, were most attractive, and their clearness as well as the plain honesty of the scheme were more convincing than a long speech. Leaning forward in the effort to catch every point, their eyes glowing as if they were reflecting mountains of gold, the possible investors followed Alp’s words as if they were hypnotised, the more so because now he had abandoned the glitter of rhetoric and was speaking with keen precision.

He finished reading and neither words nor applause were heard. Everyone in the audience was engaged in making his own reflections and in deciding what he was going to do. Several wrinkled their eyebrows under their sweating foreheads. Theophilus Alp added little. It was necessary to promote the company, to begin the construction of the aeroplanes, to buy land for stations and aerodromes. The complete development of the scheme would require millions. He had ventured to assemble the influential persons he saw before him, as he was confident that they were the obvious persons to carry forward the great enterprise. The Savings Bank had decided to invest a very large sum, but even that Bank did not have the honour of being the first subscriber. The first subscriber had been that honoured man, Archibald Granmont, and, moreover, he had generously provided the funds required by Lawel for the researches and experiments which had come to fruition in the invention.

All eyes were turned on Archibald Granmont, who, seated in the front row, received the homage impassively. Lawel then rose up quickly and, holding out his arm, cried:

“It is true. And I wish to make public acknowledgment of my indebtedness to Mr. Granmont.”

He sat down as abruptly, nodding his head emphatically. There was a round of enthusiastic applause, and the audience rose from the seats and broke up into groups discussing excitedly, or pressing the director of the Savings Bank for further details. It became known that Sike and Noke, the two famous scientists, were to be associated with the company. Until then Sike’s life had been passed in extreme austerity, devoted to researches on the making of hardened steels. He had abjured all forms of emotion and had never coveted wealth. Noke, whose brilliant reputation had grown parallel with Sike’s, had employed his science in inventing projectiles capable of penetrating Sike’s steels. As both were men of first-rate ability and neither had cared for anything except their science, their rivalry could have ended only with the death of one of them. When Sike put out a new steel, the trumpets of fame sounded, and telegraphists all over the world fingered their keyboards. When Noke produced his newest projectile, able to pass through the Sike’s armour-plates as if they were butter, the roar of triumph was renewed. Every newspaper in the kingdom, for such events, had published the portraits of one or the other, more than twenty times, and all the medals and orders with which a well-organised nation rewards human merit were already within the reach of the two glorious researchers.

Florio had little difficulty in getting Lawel into a corner of the hall, for attention was concentrated not on the inventor of the stabilisers but on Alp and Granmont, and after a few people had pressed his hands, the young engineer was left alone. And so he joined Olivan very gladly, and with an arm on his shoulder followed him smilingly.

“Your success delights me, Lawel,” said Olivan, “and I should think that Company as described by Alp is really going to have a great future. I have some money free—quite a big sum. I was thinking of enlarging my factory, but this scheme tempts me more. All the same, before I hand over my reserves to Alp, I’d like your opinion.”

“What do you want my opinion about?” replied the inventor, smiling.

“Oh, perhaps you don’t realise the risks we may run. Sometimes without an absolute certainty, relying only on probabilities and hopes, one may be risking not only one’s own fortune but the fortune of other people in——. But I know that you are a solid person.”

Lawel interrupted him:

“I know nothing about the business side, but I do know that my stabilisers are sound.”

Florio embraced him joyfully.

“I must get a great deal of money—a very great deal of money, the wealth of Midas. Very likely on that depends whether my life is to be happy or miserable.”

“What do you want to buy?”

“A heart.”

“You are ambitious, but an ambition like that has a big driving force. Listen to me, Florio; and it may encourage you to know that a motive very like yours has driven me to a success which I could never have dreamed of. If I had not been in love with Celia, I should have remained the rather sceptical idler you used to know, with no more money than the pittance I got from the State and with nothing to distinguish me from the common herd. I can almost say that Celia invented the stabilisers. At least the longing to win her inspired my efforts. We were introduced two years ago at a party where a number of distinguished people were dancing to relieve the want of some unfortunates... I forget whom. Celia was the loveliest of the pretty girls there, and she was not only beautiful but an heiress. There was always a devoted swarm round her, and in the swarm were the richest and smartest young men, and the bearers of the proudest titles. Amongst all these I was less than nothing. Celia kept calling me Powel or Pullman, or Kleber. At last I said to her, ‘You ought to try to remember a name which all the world will know in a few months.’ It was a silly boast, and I was ashamed of it, but from that moment I began to work to make it good. You realise that all these people here are not really interested in the stabiliser, but in the dividends that the Company will pay. And all that I really care about is Celia. Do you know what I think, my friend? The secret motive of nearly all the efforts men make is a woman.”

“That has often been said.”

“But every truth we prove for ourselves seems new and our own discovery. And I tell you that but for Celia we wouldn’t be discussing this improvement in aviation.”

Someone called away the engineer, and the friends separated.

When only a few people were left in the hall, Florio went to say good-bye to Alp. The honourable banker kept him back affectionately, with a smile on his foxy face.

“Wait a minute; I want a word with you.”

He shook hands with his friends and invited the young man to his office.

“What did you think of our scheme?” he asked.

“Excellent, Alp; I’ve made up my mind to come in.”

“You won’t regret it. Everything is going smoothly and already we have got enough money promised for a beginning. But I am particularly delighted to have your support. You heard me mention some business projects relating to the transport of fruit and meat. I have the idea that your experience would be very useful to us on that side of the scheme. Would you care to be one of our directors? You needn’t answer at once. I’ll give you a summary of what it would mean. You can examine it and, if you like the idea, please develop it and work out the details. There is no hurry. Until the lines are working regularly we can’t do anything. But I wish to have everything ready down to the minutest detail.”

He rang the bell. Then appeared timidly a young man badly dressed and worse shaved; to judge from the little of him that could be seen, it seemed as if he had opened the door only enough to let one eye and one ear pass through.

“Andres,” said Alp, “fetch the portfolio marked with Mr. Olivan’s name.”

The eye and the ear disappeared silently.

“He is my secretary,” explained the director of the Savings Bank, “... a young man who will go far. He is worth anything you might have to give him. Of course I have trained his mind since he was a mere boy, but I am not blinded by vanity in my judgment, I assure you. He has the virtue of saving in the most complete form. If his history ever comes to be written, it will be a lesson.”

Mr. Alp was about to confirm his description by an example, but the door opened again and Andres came in. He was as lean as was possible for a living body; his upper lip was pressed tightly on the lower, and as he handed over the roll of documents you could see the broadened tips of his fingers, calloused from the typewriter.

“Wait,” ordered the director.

Theophilus Alp winked at Olivan.

“Andres,” he said, pretending to be serious, “I am rather dissatisfied with your behaviour. I saw you last night outside a café drinking beer.”

“Vermouth,” corrected the secretary curtly.

“Vermouth? But that is worse.”

“A disgusting vermouth, tasting like varnish; it takes away the appetite completely.”

A smile lightened Alp’s face.

“I understand, and after it you had no appetite.”

“None.”

“This young man will go far, Olivan,” commented the director, unable to hide his satisfaction. “Never has he bought a novel, or worn an overcoat, or taken a little milliner to the pictures, or wasted any money on unnecessaries. It won’t surprise me if he owns a fortune by the time he is seventy. You will have a happy old age, Andres.”

“So I expect, sir,” said the young scarecrow with pleasure. “I am always thinking of making my old age comfortable and fortunate. When my wife, who is rheumatic, complains of what she suffers by not taking the ’bus when she has a long way to go, I tell her, ‘And isn’t it worth a sacrifice to make sure that in your old age you’ll have a three-wheeled bath-chair that you can steer yourself, with a servant to push it in the streets?’ ‘Shall I have a rug over my legs?’ she asks me. ‘Yes, a fine rug.’ Then pleasure brings tears to her eyes, and we hug each other in happiness.”

“You are a happy pair. You seem to have been born for each other.”

“So I think, sir. And I keep being more pleased that I didn’t follow the advice of some of my friends when they told me that the small size of my sweetheart should put me off her. ‘It wouldn’t take more trouble to get hold of a fine plump girl,’ they used to tell me, ‘and you would have a better bargain.’ ‘All very well,’ I thought, ‘but to have a plump woman always with you would demoralise you and lead to waste. You begin by having a plump woman, and you end by having three meals a day. And soon we would have to buy fans and have big, substantial furniture. No, thank you. My Juana will do very well. She won’t wear out too many shoes; she won’t swallow too much food, and when my jackets are old they will cut down into coats for her. She has given me a son and has suckled him as well as any other woman could do. It is true that while she was nursing it she couldn’t cry, and one day when she sweated she had nothing left to make her milk. But these were trifles.’ ”

“I should like to know,” Olivan put in, “how you came to have this passion for saving.”

Andres, in order to reflect, shut the only eye that was open.

“Probably it was from observing nature, sir,” he replied. “Nature abhors the superfluous. Atrophy is her savings bank. I could easily convince you by some of the grander phenomena of nature; it will be enough to call your attention to quite a common little fact—baldness. Nature deprives men of their hair at the age when their daughters can knit silk caps for them. ‘As they can now protect themselves against catching colds by their own means,’ she seems to say, ‘let us take their hair away from them.’ But does it end there? By no means. The unctuous bald heads don’t remain barren and useless; Nature doesn’t tolerate mere luxury. Millions and millions of flies pasture exclusively on what they can pick up on these smooth and ruddy fields, and thus Nature saves having to nourish them on other provender. I have reflected deeply on such lessons, sir, but what finally shaped my philosophy was the example of my uncle Miguel.”

“Did he also save?”

“My uncle Miguel wasted a large fortune in drinking the oldest wines, loving the most beautiful women, and in gallivanting about the world. He used to say that a banknote was a draft on happiness, and that he could not understand how anyone could be such a fool as not to cash it into pleasure at once. That is the detestable heresy of prodigals. But he went further, and held that saving only made a single rich banker out of many poor people, and that he did more for the public welfare by throwing his fortune about like a madman than those who saved every dirty copper they could scrape up.”

“What a fool!” cried Alp in real indignation.

“A fool! but it was useless trying to dissuade him. When he was fifty-five years old he turned up amongst us, broken down, as wretched as a beggar, without even enough to buy his food. He claimed that we ought to keep him out of charity. ‘Saving is the only thing!’ I shouted at him when he turned up at my house. ‘Saving is the only thing; if I reach old age, I shan’t be without a good joint on the table!’ ‘But you won’t have the teeth to eat it,’ he prophesied. ‘Give me a lump of bread and I’ll eat it thinking of a truffled pheasant I once ate in Paris; I can recall all the most savoury tastes because my palate has known them all.’ He was incorrigible. I lost sight of him until one day I was told that he was in the hospital. A motor car had knocked him down and it was necessary to amputate both his legs. The accident seemed to have brought him to reason, because he said, patting my head: ‘If everyone were like you, there wouldn’t be so many motor cars, and perhaps I wouldn’t be in this state.’ I went to see him a week later. His face was pale but showed a happy serenity. He greeted me more affectionately than ever before, and asked me to give my opinion on a pair of waterproof boots with the soles still polished that he had beside his bed. ‘They are first-rate,’ I said, and it was true. ‘So I think too,’ he agreed, looking at them affectionately, and added, ‘I have wanted them for a long time because my boots had holes in them and let in water; at last I’ve got them.’ Then he told me that he had sold his amputated legs to two doctors from Madrid to make what they called a ‘preparation.’ Having told me that, he was silent a minute or two as if it were painful to confess his faults, but in the end he wrung my hands and exclaimed, ‘You were right, Andres; blessed be saving. If I had not saved my legs until now, how could I have sold them to buy boots? God has granted me enlightenment by this sign, but I fear it is a little late.’ It was late, because he died three days afterwards. But never will I forget this valuable lesson. I shall try not to have to repent, like my poor uncle Miguel, when it is too late to repair the evil.”

And the prudent young man took out of his pocket a handkerchief which was about a quarter of the usual size and mopped up half a tear.