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Updated: May 26, 2025
Besides, doña Bernarda invited Remedios to the Brull place frequently, and rarely indeed did Rafael come home of an afternoon without finding that timid maiden there a dull, handsomish sort of girl, dressed up in clothes that did cruel injustice to a peasant beauty rapidly transformed, by her father's good luck, into a young "society" girl. "But, mama," said Rafael, smiling.
Those simple people were thinking of the wonders they had learned in their childhood at their mothers' knees; times in former centuries, when it had been enough for San Bernardo to appear on a river road, to start the flood down again, draining off from the orchard lands as water leaks from a broken pitcher. The alcalde, a liegeman of the Brull dynasty, was in a quandary.
The patrimony of the House of Brull went down and down, but its prestige rose higher and higher. The sacks of money filled by the old man at the cost of so much roguery were shaken empty over all the District; nor were several assaults upon the municipal treasury sufficient to bring them back to normal roundness.
And Brull, proud at being noticed thus, would dash out like a streak of lightning while the bells were ringing and the ushers were running about summoning the deputies to vote.
The little boys who in those days used to be hiding behind the wide portal, waiting for a chance to play with the son of the powerful don Ramón Brull, were now the grown men, the sinewy orchard workers, who had been parading from the station to his house, waving their arms, and shouting vivas for their deputy Alcira's "favorite son."
My congratulations to the Honorable don Rafael Brull. Come right in, I su señoría." From Valencia to Játiva, in all that immense territory covered with rice-fields and orange groves which Valencians embrace under the general and rather vague designation of La Ribera, there was no one unfamiliar with the name of Brull and the political power it stood for.
He had been seen by several persons, in spite of his precautions. "Well, is the Hon. don Rafael Brull, member from Alcira, satisfied with his morning's work? Don't you think the laugh your enemies have raised deserves an encore!" For all his bitter sarcasm the old man spoke in a faltering voice, and seemed on the verge of tears.
The only time he entered into voluntary relations with "the Party" was when he took his pen in hand and manufactured for the Brull weekly a series of articles on "Law and Morality" and "Liberty and Faith," the rehashings of a faithful, industrious plodder at school, prolix commonplaces seasoned with what metaphysical terminology he remembered, and which, from the very reason that nobody understood them, excited the admiration of his fellow partisans.
Rafael could see him as clearly as if he were sitting there in front of him; with that huge, black, curly beard; those large, burning eyes that always shone with an inner fire; and that tall, angular figure that seemed taller than ever as young Brull evoked it from the hazes of his early years. Perhaps the Doctor had been a good fellow, who knows!
"Just as I said!... I know everyone in the city. My name is Rafael Brull. I'm the son of don Ramón, who was mayor of Alcira many times." At last he had let it out! The poor fellow had been dying to reveal his name, tell who he was, pronounce that magic word so influential in the District, certain it would be the "Open Sesame" to that wonderful stranger's grace!
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