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"Of a family of caballeros; undoubtedly the very best in the island but no from Madrid, perhaps. Some sweetheart you found when you lived there." Jaime hesitated an instant, turned pale, and then said with rude energy to conceal his perturbation: "No, Antonia she's a Chueta."
The captain looked at his friend for an instant with a certain anxiety, but seeing the serenity of his eyes he was reassured and said, smiling: "Kill them, for all I care!" Then, recovering his gravity, and leaning back in his chair, while he puffed a mouthful of smoke, the Chueta added: "You are right. Let us kill the dead!
The rich Chueta, according to his brother's letter, now lived in Barcelona for the sake of his health, so he said; but undoubtedly, as Captain Pablo believed, this journey was taken for the purpose of finding a son-in-law unhampered by the prejudices which persecuted those of his race on the Island. As night closed in the Little Chaplain came with his basket of supper.
The Chueta winked one eye and smiled mischievously, sure of his cleverness in guessing the desires of his friends. Famous captain! Ever since his arrival at Can Mallorquí the entire family seemed dependent upon his orders, admiring him as a personage of immense power, tempered by eternal joviality.
"And I, poor fool, was ready to believe your nonsense! Perhaps it was also a joke that you were going to get married!" "No, Antonia, I am going to marry a Chueta. I am going to marry the daughter of Benito Valls. That is why I am going to Valldemosa." The stifled voice in which Jaime spoke, his lowered eyes, the timid accent with which he murmured these words, removed all doubt.
That affair of the Chueta girl was a thing of the past. His peasant soul rejoiced at this solution. "You are right in going. The other thing, the other thing would have been an act of madness."
She thought of her youthful days in the college surrounded by poorer girls who took advantage of every opportunity to tease her, through envy of her wealth and hatred learned from their parents. She was a Chueta.
You were at Valldemosa yesterday. You are going to marry you are going to marry a Chueta!" It cost her an effort to pronounce the word; she shuddered as she spoke it. After this a long silence reigned, one of those tragic and absolute silences which follow great catastrophes, as if the house had just tumbled down, and the echo of the last toppled wall had died away. "And what do you think of it?"
He thought he must have slept at least twelve hours, yet it was still dark. He opened a window and his head bumped cruelly; he tried to open the door, but he could not. While he had been asleep the neighbors had walled up all the windows and doors, and the Chueta had to make his escape by way of the roof, to the accompaniment of shouts of laughter from the people who thus rejoiced over their work.
The other Chuetas, cowed by centuries of persecution and scorn, concealed their origin, or tried to make it forgotten through their humble demeanor. Captain Valls took advantage of every occasion to discuss the matter, parading the name of Chueta as a title of nobility, as a challenge which he hurled at the popular bias. "I am a Jew, and what of that?" he shouted again.
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