The New York herald., 1921-01-02
Reviewed by
w. b. MCCORMICK.

Latin-American novelists fashion
their styles after the French masters
of realism Just as their national build
ings and commercial structures take
on the forms of modern French
architecture. So 1t is not an uncom-,
mon experience in reading the first
novel Of the Venezuelan author and
poet, Rufino Blanco Fombona, to be
translated into English, to find that
Balzac Is obviously his master and
model. resemblance which we find
has already been noted by distin-
guished Brazilian writer who com
pliments the author of the Man Of
Gold for his Balzaclike scenes and
personages." Indeed, Don Camille
Irurtia, the golden man Of the title,
might have stepped out Of a page of
Balzac just as the description Of that
usurer's wretchcd home near the
Candelaria Square in Caracas has
been foreshadowed by the author Of
"Pere Goriot."
That immortal French father. whose
only fitting counterpart in our liter
ature Is King Lear. comes quickly to
mind in connection with the miser Of
Caracas. since love was the dominat-
ing passion in the lives of each, domi-
mating in the sense that it brought
both Frenchman and Venezuelan their
saving grace. Nothing could well be
more sordid than the life of Irurtia,
the usurer. before he met the three
Agualongas sisters; nothing could well
be more touching and refining than
his experience in falling in love with
the patient Rosaura Agualongas, who,
with her two sisters, proposed to sell
the family mansion in order to provide
a marriage portion for their niece, the
cocotte Olga Emmerich. Contrast the
pictures of Irurtia and Rosaura as
Fombona sketches them.
Irurtia was "lanky. skinny. little bel
lied: his wrinkly skin seemed to cover
only bones. He had long legs long
arms. a long face and a long nose. He
was short only in words, and, as rumor
had 1t, in giving. He was short. too.
in his attire. for his frock coat barely
reached to his upper thighs, and his
trousers, more wrinkled than an ac-
Gordon, scarcely came to his ankles,
as II Irurtia were forever ready to
jump over a puddle. He was gray eyed
and gray haired: his clear darting 1T
tie eyes and the whitish wisps OF his
mustache accentuated his peaked face
that had something OF the burglar
about IL, imparting to Irurtia's counte-
nance the aspect of a creature half
feline and half rodent. His face and
his hands were hairy; here and there
little islands of patches where the hair
had been scraped off. as If by one
shaving himself in haste or in the
dark. floated about in his hollow
cheeks and his bony jaws. He was
as lanky as Don Quixote, and even
grayer."
The Latin freedom of expression so
marked in this description finds
equally full play in the portrait OF
Rosaura, who had a pair of heavenly
black eyes: but Rosaura's glance was
filled with n soft glow and her very
long eye lashes and her half closed
eve lids impaired TO her a melancholy
appearance. Her skin, of dull lustre,
was of amber hue. Her nose delicate;
her lips full; her bust ample: her
arms plump. In her left check, near
the corner OF her lips. there was a
pretty little oval shaped mole. Her
hips we're gracefully curved. She was.
with her thirty-six years, an appetiz-
ing woman"
And this was the shy. exquisite
creature. as good as she was lovely.
who was to be the bait to ensnare
Irurtia and his fortune into the
clutches of Olga Emmerich. that she
might enrich her married life with the
shabby journalist" Andres Rata. In
addition to the bait OF Aunt Rosaura's
beauty Olga sought for an ally In her
schemes in Gen. Chicharra. whose pro-
totype is the unspeakable Hulot of
Cousin Bette" But the love inter-
est can only be a part Of latin
American tale when the author or IL Us
more or less of a revolutionary as Is
Fombona, an Tbanez In little. He has
| to expose" the shabby politics OF his