Spanish Satire

MR. WITT AMONG THE REBELS--Ramon J. Sender--Houghton Mifflin ($2.50).

At the southeast tip of Spain the city of Cartagena lies against the base of great treeless hills, facing its superb harbor, its two great forts and the Mediterranean. There in July 1873, in the fifth month of the first Spanish Republic, a group of revolutionaries hoisted the red flag. Because they could not find a pure red one they used the flag of Turkey, with its crescent stained out in blood. The frigates lying in port joined the revolt. From Madrid the central Republican Government, run by high-minded incompetents, badgered by conspiracies Right & Left, sent troops against the city. Six months later Cartagena fell, before it could get its socialist experiments running or, as one of its leaders proposed, declare its allegiance to the U. S. But suppressing it turned out to be too much for the staggering Republic, which fell soon after.

Laid against this background of Spanish disorder, Mr. Witt Among The Rebels is a deft little novel that can be read as a political study, as a love story about a discreet Englishman and an elemental Spanish girl, or as a cool satire on liberals. When the revolution broke out, Mr. Witt was a consulting engineer in the naval arsenal, a cultured, book-collecting, slightly bald Victorian gentleman of 53, whose one adventurous act had been to marry Milagritos, 18 years younger than himself. Warm-blooded and grey-eyed, Milagritos was a lovely puzzle for Mr. Witt. At once serene and violent, free in her manner but irreproachable in her conduct, she was indolent, simple, with a streak of exuberance and humor that could be disconcerting to a prudent husband. They had been married for 15 years and, except for the fact that each blamed the other because they had no children, they were content.

But as the revolution changed from a matter of singing in the streets to a grim and hopeless siege, a subtle change came over them. Mr. Witt, who stayed in his shaded study, ate oranges, made wise remarks to the English consul and watched the shells exploding in the blue waters of the bay, grew mysteriously old, suspicious, weary. Milagritos, who prepared bandages, went with the rebel fleet on its biggest battle, seemed to grow younger, prettier, less communicative. When Milagritos' cousin was sentenced to be shot, Mr. Witt raced to save him, although he had always been mildly disturbed by Milagritos' affection for the boy. But when he finally had the power to stop the execution, he remembered little ambiguous remarks Milagritos had made, wondered if her cousin was her lover. A terrible creeping apathy left Mr. Witt sitting by, inert, trembling, preoccupied, while the cousin went to his death. Then, to square himself with his conscience, Mr. Witt had to believe that Milagritos had betrayed him. At last this upright, self-respecting gentleman spent his nights prowling like a baffled thief around his own house, rummaging through his wife's papers for evidence of her guilt, while the shells fell on the doomed and starving city.

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