Nacre's Promise

Chapter IX : Rebellion

Cuevas-Blancas, 1894.

That year, autumn slowly came and the first golden leaves began to twirl in the air and dazzle the landscape with dazzling reflections. The heat became more bearable, which facilitated the weekly trips Diego made between the estate and Barcelona.

These trips allowed him to meet gentlemen who went, like him, regularly to the city. By dint of riding towards the same destination, they began to sympathize and to meet so that the road seemed shorter.

Diego thus met a neighbor, Estéban Martinez, who very recently acquired an estate bordering Cuevas-Blancas. Coming from a modest background, he had made his fortune in America before returning to his native region. By dint of telling each other their lives on each trip, they had exhausted the subject and began to talk about politics.

Diego knew his father's conservative inclination and he discovered, with his traveling companion, a liberal political commitment which opened up new horizons for him. Estéban was an opponent of the regime. He did not recognize any legitimacy in the king whose return to power had caused the previous republic to disappear and wished to suppress the caciques [1] which he considered a heresy.

These local notables who, because of their fortune or the influence they derived from their profession, allowed themselves to manipulate the electorate in rural areas, held too much power, according to him.

The cacique was keen to get a job, to allow a son to be exempted from military service, to settle a problem with the administration, or to provide the appropriate care necessary for a patient who could not afford it. His generosity thus earned him the recognition of the poorest who would do nothing without consulting him and who, of course, would vote according to his instructions.

For Estéban, only a democratic republic could restore a social and financial balance. The electorate should be free to choose in their soul and conscience who should represent them.

The trips multiplied, winter succeeded autumn, but it was so mild that it took time to settle. In this region, usually temperate, the cold bit more than usual and, in living memory, few people could say that they had ever seen snow fall on these Mediterranean lands. Diego and Estéban continued their travels, becoming more and more accomplices.

One day when Estéban was very angry because of an unfair punishment inflicted on one of his friends, he confided to Diego that there was a local resistance advocating the reestablishment of the Republic. He himself was part of it and he campaigned to defend human rights and sometimes to allow the abandonment of decisions that the resistance described as undemocratic.

Diego, despite his birth, shared these ideas from his earliest childhood since his father was a fervent defender of morality and honesty. He regarded each worker as an essential part of his exploitation and preserved the rights of each in a natural way because that is how his parents had educated him.

The cause of the resistance fighters was noble and Diego, feeling close to them through his personal convictions, promised to think about how he could make himself useful in this community. He ends up opening it up to his friend.

— Estéban, I want to join your community and make myself useful to your cause. What do you think ? As I go to Barcelona every week to supervise the management of my grandfather's factory, I have the possibility of passing messages in all discretion since my journeys are professional.

— That would be perfect, Estéban admitted, so we would have recent news that would allow us to better organize ourselves in the event of a conflict or problem. I am speaking to our assembly about it and you will have your answer next week. Does this prospect suit you, amigo?