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Updated: May 14, 2025
Doña Pepa had died, and Labarta, working off the tearful heaviness of his low spirits, bade her farewell in a long canticle. Ulysses ran his eyes over the enclosed newspaper clipping containing the last verses of the poet. The stanzas were in Castilian. A bad sign!... After that there could be no doubt that his end must be very near.
Since she could no longer be with the man who had brought her to this country, she wanted to return to her own people. The poet Labarta would look after her properties that were not so valuable nor numerous as the income of the notary had led them to suppose.
Of the many deeds which had stretched along the scenes of the mare nostrum, the most famous in the captain's opinion was the unheard-of epic of Roger de Flor which he had known from childhood through the stories told him by the poet Labarta, by the Triton, and by that poor secretary who was always dreaming of the great past of the Catalan marine.
Labarta wished to accompany him to the door but he sank down in his seat, obedient to the affectionate despotism of his companion who was always fearing the greatest catastrophes for him. Poor Doña Pepa!... Ferragut felt inclined to laugh and to weep at the same time upon receiving a kiss from, her withered mouth whose down had turned into pin points.
At the mere sight of a uniform his soul always thrilled with the amorous tenderness of a child's nurse when she finds herself courted by a soldier. "Fine!" said Labarta. "Captain of what?... Of artillery?... Of the staff?..." A pause. "No; captain of a ship." Don Esteban looked up at the roof, raising his hands in horror.
On that account they who were already old were not listening to their sons who were trying to tempt them with the convenience of life in the capital. They needed to live near the coast in agreeable contact with the dark and ponderous monster which had rocked them so maternally when it might just as easily have dashed them to pieces. The only one who protested was Labarta.
The notary, who for long years had been friendly with Labarta, kept trying to direct him with his practical spirit, like the boy who guides a blind man. A modest income inherited from his parents was enough for the poet to live upon. In vain his friend brought him cases that represented enormous fees.
With no less devotion did the lad regard all the souvenirs of glory that adorned his house wreaths of golden leaves, silver cups, nude marble statuettes, placques of different metals upon plush backgrounds on which glistened imperishably the name of the poet Labarta. All this booty the tireless Knight of Letters had conquered by means of his verse.
"What do you want to be?" Labarta asked his godson. His mother's supplicating glance seemed desperately to implore the little fellow: "Say Archbishop, my king." For the good señora, her son could not make his début in any other way than in a church career. The notary always used to speak very positively from his own viewpoint, without consulting the interested party.
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