The Enemies of Women (Los enemigos de la mujer). Vicente Blasco Ibanez

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СКАЧАТЬ days, her mother had talked to her about wonderful marriages, and of princes who in former times used to marry shepherdesses, but who were in search nowadays of millionaires' daughters.

      Michael Fedor felt somewhat embarrassed at meeting this girl in his palace. She looked at him so boldly, with such a dominating expression, as though everything and everyone should bow before her!

      She had beauty of a type more fascinating than conventional. Her complexion, slightly tinged with a strange golden orange color, her large eyes a trifle slanting, her luxuriant hair, which, fleeing its bondage of hairpins, seemed alive and coiling like a cluster of snakes, gave her an exotic charm. The rest of her body revealed a modern physical education. Her limbs were firm and agile from continued exercise and play.

      Doña Mercedes seemed to urge Alicia and Michael toward each other from the first meeting.

      "Don't stand on formality," she said in a motherly way. "You are cousins."

      Although Michael didn't succeed in making out this relationship, he endeavored to treat the young girl in a friendly manner, while the Creole mother smiled as she already pictured Alicia with the coronet of a princess, bowing before the Czar. Princess Lubimoff was in one of her kindly moods; for the moment she did not believe in caste and privileges, to the extent that she would again have given money to the long-haired individuals who used to visit her. She accepted her friend's ambitious projects tolerantly and without comment.

      The Prince, meanwhile, was telling the Colonel his impressions.

      "Too much of a young lady! I like the others better."

      Don Marcos, having been Michael's companion in wide and joyous travels, knew whom the boy meant by "the others"; for Prince Lubimoff had begun very young to nibble at the grapes of life.

      On other occasions it irritated him that, with her unabashed demeanor of a foolish virgin, she should seem so much like "the others."

      "She's worse than a boy. If you only knew, Colonel, the things she says to me!"

      As for Alicia she was not wholly satisfied with the young Prince. She was accustomed to seeing other men make an effort to be gracious and show her flattering attentions, while Michael manifested a haughty character, like her own, arguing with her, and even daring to contradict her.

      Occasionally, accompanied by Toledo, they went out together for a gallop in the Bois de Boulogne. All this was torture for Don Marcos, who had been a mountain warrior! But his present position called for certain duties. So he rode along as well as could be expected from a colonel of infantry.

      Alicia was a tireless rider. At the residence in the Champs-Élysées, Doña Mercedes had frequently been obliged to look for her in the stables, where she made herself at home among the hostlers and coachmen, and talked with professional authority as she supervised the grooming of the horses. Afterwards, when she came back into the drawing room her hair would have a decidedly horsey odor. Back in her native land she had mounted a horse and clung to it before she knew how to walk. In Paris she boldly made her way among the vehicles, knocked down the passersby occasionally, and often found her mad gallops intercepted by the police.

      The Colonel endeavored to keep up with her. He never said anything, but his heart was heavy. The Prince protested against her racing in this fashion, which might have been all very well on her native plains. The girl's retorts widened the breach between them, with feelings of hostility. "No one is going to talk to me like that, not even my mother," she said. "I'm old enough to know what I ought to do." She was fifteen.

      One morning in the Bois, coming to a cross road that happened to catch her fancy, Alicia started her horse for the Avenue without consulting her companion.

      "No, this way," Michael called in a commanding voice.

      "I don't like that; this is the way!" she answered aggressively.

      The Prince made an effort to cut her off by crossing ahead of her, and she spurred her horse against Michael's with a shock that brought the two animals to their knees. The Colonel, who was behind them, caught an exchange of angry glances, and harsh words. Alicia raised her whip, and struck the Prince across the shoulders.

      "You do that to me!" shouted Michael furiously.

      The face of this scion of the old Cossack Lubimoff underwent a rapid series of expressions, finally taking an aspect of extreme ugliness and savagery. His nostrils seemed to dilate even more than usual. He raised his whip and struck, but Toledo had put his horse between the two, receiving the tip of the lash on his cheek, which began to bleed. The sight of blood and the thought that the blow was intended for her, drove the young woman mad with rage.

      "Brute! Savage! … Russian!"

      This seemed too mild, and she stopped for a moment, to think up a greater insult. Her childhood memories helped her; the legend she had heard from the half-breeds back in her own land inspired her with a new affront, as if Michael Fedor were Fernan Cortes.

      "Spaniard! … Murderer of Indians!"

      And fearing a new lashing after that supreme insult, she fled at a mad pace without stopping until she reached the Arch of Triumph.

      After this incident Doña Mercedes lost all hope of her daughter's becoming a Lubimoff.

      "A Russian Princess!" she said scornfully. "Why, everyone is a Prince in Russia! … A mere English baron is better, or a French or Spanish count."

      Michael was in a mood no more conciliatory when the Colonel lectured him.

      "I don't want to hear anything more about that wench!" said he.

      And the Princess, in one of her petulant moments averred that she considered this word the proper one. These relatives of Sir Edwin had always seemed to her very ordinary people. Likewise it seemed to her very natural that her son should think of going back to Russia to fill his station as a Prince. The life of caste and privilege there was more suitable to his rank than the democratic ways of Paris, where certain American Indians, because they had millions, could imagine they were the equals of the Lubimoffs.

      Prince Michael remained in Russia until he was twenty-three. His military studies were passed brilliantly, according to Toledo, and the boy succeeded in distinguishing himself among the most famous cavalry officers of the Guard. He took prizes in exhibitions of horsemanship. With his revolver he could pot coins held up at fifty paces by his comrades. He wielded the sabre with a skill that his Cossack ancestor and General Saldaña would have admired. Every morning in the courtyard of his Petersburg palace he found awaiting him a life-sized dummy made of the firm sticky clay used by sculptors. He would stay for half an hour in front of it, going through his exercises. It was not enough to be able to strike one's enemy. The important thing was to strike well, with the greatest possible depth and force. And the head and limbs of the dummy went flying, severed by the steel blade. The study of military science was all well enough for those in the infantry or the artillery—sons of clerks and merchants!

      At first the Colonel was astonished at the magnificence and extravagance of Russian life. Finally he came to take it all quite naturally, as though he had been accustomed to something similar from his earliest boyhood. "My son, remember the name you bear," the Princess used to write to the Prince. "Do not disgrace it. Spend according to what you are." And the son, without asking her for anything, followed her advice faithfully by coming to a direct understanding with the Russian administrators. Don Marcos figured that the Lieutenant in the Guard was spending something over СКАЧАТЬ