At The End Of The Last Chapter, When Describing My One Sight Of The
Famous Jester, Don Eusebio, In His
Glory, attended by a body-guard
with drawn swords who were ready to cut down any one of the spectators
Who failed to remove his hat or laughed at the show, I said it was on
the eve of the fall of the President of the Republic, or Dictator,
"the Tyrant," as he was called by his adversaries when they didn't
call him the "Nero of South America" or the "Tiger of Palermo" - this
being the name of a park on the north side of Buenos Ayres where Rosas
lived in a white stuccoed house called his palace.
At that time the portrait, in colours, of the great man occupied the
post of honour above the mantelpiece in our _sala_, or drawing-room -
the picture of a man with fine clear-cut regular features, light
reddish-brown hair and side-whiskers, and blue eyes; he was sometimes
called "Englishman" on account of his regular features and blonde
complexion. That picture of a stern handsome face, with flags and
cannon and olive-branch - the arms of the republic - in its heavy gold
frame, was one of the principal ornaments of the room, and my father
was proud of it, since he was, for reasons to be stated by and by, a
great admirer of Rosas, an out-and-out Rosista, as the loyal ones were
called. This portrait was flanked by two others; one of Dona
Encarnacion, the wife, long dead, of Rosas; a handsome, proud-looking
young woman with a vast amount of black hair piled up on her head in a
fantastic fashion, surmounted by a large tortoiseshell comb.
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