“Never mind them, never mind them!” the fallen cacique would reply, with a condescending smile.  “They aren’t so bad as you imagine.  They’ll sing their Marseillaise for a time and shout themselves hoarse.  Why shouldn’t they, if they’re content with so little?  Other days are coming.  The Carlists will see to it that our cause triumphs.”

In don Ramon’s judgment, the Doctor was a good sort, though his head may have been a bit turned by books.  He knew him very well:  they had been schoolmates together, and Rafael’s father had never cared to join the hue and cry against Doctor Moreno.  The one thing that seemed to bother him was that, as soon as the Republic was proclaimed, the Doctor’s friends were eager to send him as a deputy to the Constituent Assembly of ’73.  That lunatic a deputy!  Whereas he, the friend and agent of so many Conservative ministries, had never dared think of the office for himself, because of the fairly superstitious awe in which he held it!  The end of the world was surely coming!

But the Doctor had refused the nomination.  If he were to go to Madrid, what would become of the poor people who depended on him for health and protection?  Besides, he liked a quiet, sedentary life, with his books and his studies, where he could satisfy his desires without quarrels and fighting.  His deep convictions impelled him to mingle with the masses, and speak in public places—­where he proved to be a successful agitator, but he refused to join party organizations; and after a lecture or an oration, he would spend days and days with his books and magazines, alone save for his sister—­a docile, pious woman who worshipped him, though she bewailed his irreligion—­and for his little daughter, a blonde girl whom Rafael could scarcely remember, because her father’s unpopularity with the “best people” kept the little child away from “good society.”

The Doctor had one passion—­music; and everybody admired his talent for that art.  What didn’t the man know, anyhow?  According to dona Bernarda and her friends, that remarkable skill had been acquired through “evil arts.”  It was another fruit of his impiety!  But that did not prevent crowds from thronging the streets at night, cautioning pedestrians to walk more softly as they approached his house; nor from opening their windows to hear better when that devil of a doctor would be playing his violoncello.  This he did when certain friends of his came up from Valencia to spend a few days with him—­a queer, long-haired crew that talked a strange language and referred to a fellow called Beethoven with as much respect as if he were San Bernardo himself.

“Yes, don Andres,” said Rafael.  “I remember Doctor Moreno very well.”  And his ears seemed to tingle again with the diabolical melodies that had floated in to the side of his little bed on terrible nights still fresh in his memory.