The Proem

by O. Henry

　　

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By the CarpenterThey will tell you in Anchuria, that President Miraflores, of thatvolatile republic, died by his own hand in the coast town of Coralio;that he had reached thus far in flight from the inconveniences ofan imminent revolution; and that one hundred thousand dollars,government funds, which he carried with him in an American leathervalise as a souvenir of his tempestuous administration, was neverafterward recovered.For a ~real~, a boy will show you his grave. It is back of the townnear a little bridge that spans a mangrove swamp. A plain slab ofwood stands at its head. Some one has burned upon the headstone witha hot iron this inscription:RAMON ANGEL DE LAS CRUZESY MIRAFLORESPRESIDENTE DE LA REPUBLICADE ANCHURIAQUE SEA SU JUEZ DIOSIt is characteristic of this buoyant people that they pursue no manbeyond the grave. "Let God be his judge!"--Even with the hundredthousand unfound, though they greatly coveted, the hue and cry wentno further than that.To the stranger or the guest the people of Coralio will relate thestory of the tragic end of their former president; how he stroveto escape from the country with the publice funds and also with DonaIsabel Guilbert, the young American opera singer; and how, beingapprehended by members of the opposing political party in Coralio,he shot himself through the head rather than give up the funds, and,in consequence, the Senorita Guilbert. They will relate furtherthat Dona Isabel, her adventurous bark of fortune shoaled by thesimultaneous loss of her distinguished admirer and the souvenirhundred thousand, dropped anchor on this stagnant coast, awaitinga rising tide.They say, in Coralio, that she found a prompt and prosperous tidein the form of Frank Goodwin, an American resident of the town,an investor who had grown wealthy by dealing in the products ofthe country--a banana king, a rubber prince, a sarsaparilla, indigoand mahogany baron. The Senorita Guilbert, you will be told, marriedSenor Goodwin one month after the president's death, thus, in thevery moment when Fortune had ceased to smile, wresting from hera gift greater than the prize withdrawn.Of the American, Don Frank Goodwin, and of his wife the natives havenothing but good to say. Don Frank has lived among them for years,and has compelled their respect. His lady is easily queen of whatsocial life the sober coast affords. The wife of the governor of thedistrict, herself, who was of the proud Castilian family of Monteleony Dolorosa de los Santos y Mendez, feels honored to unfold her napkinwith olive-hued, ringed hands at the table of Senora Goodwin. Wereyou to refer (with your northern prejudices) to the vivacious pastof Mrs. Goodwin when her audacious and gleeful abandon in light operacaptured the mature president's fancy, or to her share in thatstatesman's downfall and malfeasance, the Latin shrug of the shoulderwould be your only answer and rebuttal. What prejudices there werein Coralio concerning Senora Goodwin seemed now to be in her favor,whatever they had been in the past.It would seem that the story is ended, instead of begun; that theclose of tragedy and the climax of a romance have covered the groundof interest; but, to the more curious reader it shall be some slightinstruction to trace the close threads that underlie the ingeniousweb of circumstances.The headpiece bearing the name of President Miraflores is dailyscrubbed with soap-bark and sand. An old half-breed Indian tends thegrave with fidelity and the dawdling minuteness of inherited sloth.He chops down the weeds and ever-springing grass with his machete, heplucks ants and scorpions and beetles from it with his horny fingers,and sprinkles its turf with water from the plaza fountain. There isno grave anywhere so well kept and ordered.Only by following out the underlying threads will it be made clearwhy the old Indian, Galves, is secretly paid to keep green the graveof President Miraflores by one who never saw that unfortunatestatesman in life or in death, and why that one was wont to walkin the twilight, casting from a distance looks of gentle sadness uponthat unhonored mound.Elsewhere than at Coralio one learns of the impetuous careerof Isabel Guilbert. New Orleans gave her birth and the mingledFrench and Spanish creole nature that tinctured her life with suchturbulence and warmth. She had little education, but a knowledge ofmen and motives that seemed to have come by instinct. Far beyond thecommon woman was she endowed with intrepid rashness, with a love forthe pursuit of adventure to the brink of danger, and with desire forthe pleasures of life. Her spirit was one to chafe under any curb;she was Eve after the fall, but before the bitterness of it was felt.She wore life as a rose in her bosom.Of the legion of men who had been at her feet it was said thatbut one was so fortunate as to engage her fancy. To PresidentMiraflores, the brilliant but unstable ruler of Anchuria, she yieldedthe key to her resolute heart. How, then, do we find her (as theCoralians would have told you) the wife of Frank Goodwin, and happilyliving a life of dull and dreamy inaction?The underlying threads reach far, stretching across the sea.Following them out it will be made plain why "Shorty" O'Day, of theColumbia Detective Agency, resigned his position. And, for a lighterpastime, it shall be a duty and a pleasing sport to wander with Momusbeneath the tropic stars where Melpomene once stalked austere. Nowto cause laughter to echo from those lavish jungles and frowing cragswhere formerly rang the cries of pirate's victims; to lay aside pikeand cutlass and attack with quip and jollity; to draw one savingtitter of mirth from the rusty casque of Romance--this were pleasantto do in the shade of the lemon-trees on that coast that is curvedlike lips set for smiling.For there are yet tales of the Spanish Main. That segment ofcontinent washed by the tempestuous Caribbean, and presenting to thesea a formidable border of tropicle jungle topped by the overweeningCordilleras, is still begirt by mystery and romance. In past times,buccaneers and revolutionists roused the echoes of its cliffs, andthe condor wheeled perpetually above where, in the green groves,they made food for him with their matchlocks and toledos. Taken andretaken by sea rovers, by adverse powers and by sudden uprising ofrebellious factions, the historic 300 miles of adventurous coast hasscarcely known for hundreds of years whom rightly to call its master.Pizarro, Balboa, Sir Francis Drake, and Bolivar did what they couldto make it a part of Christendom. Sir John Morgan, Lafitte and othereminent swashbucklers bombarded and pounded it in the name ofAbaddon.The game still goes on. The guns of the rovers are silenced; but thetintype man, the enlarged photograph brigand, the kodaking touristand the scouts of the gentle brigade of fakirs have found it out, andcarry on the work. The hucksters of Germany, France, and Sicily nowbag in small change across their counters. Gentlemen adventurersthrong the waiting-rooms of its rulers with proposals for railwaysand concessions. The little ~opera-bouffe~ nations play atgovernment and intrigue until some day a big, silent gunboat glidesinto the offing and warns them not to break their toys. And withthese changes comes also the small adventurer, with empty pockets tofill, light of heart, busy-brained--the modern fairy prince, bearingan alarm clock with which, more surely than by the sentimentalkiss, to awaken the beautiful tropics from their centuries' sleep.Generally he wears a shamrock, which he matches pridefully againstthe extravagant palms; and it is he who had driven Melpomene tothe wings, and set Comedy to dancing before the footlights of theSouthern Cross.So, there is a little tale to tell of many things. Perhaps to thepromiscuous ear of the Walrus it shall come with most avail; for init there are indeed shoes and ships and sealing-wax and cabbage-palmsand presidents instead of kings.Add to these a little love and counterplotting, and scattereverywhere throughout the maze a trail of tropical dollars--dollarswarmed no more by the torrid sun than by the hot palms of the scoutsof Fortune--and, after all, here seems to be Life, itself, with talkenough to weary the most garrulous of Walruses.

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