The dead rule

In the novel Los muertos mandan, by Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Jaime Febrer is the heir of a Mallorcan family of alcurnia and is ruined. He has squandered his meager inheritance.
The only possible solution is to agree a good marriage with an heiress who craves the reputation of the Febrer surname and who can fill the family coffers. A chueta, a young woman from a Jewish family, is willing to marry Febrer.
Febrer asks for the young woman’s hand but her “dead” make him repent. So he flees to Ibiza scared and takes refuge in a property that still belongs to him. There he will be forced to eat his lordly pride and accept the help of a pawn to survive, and ends up falling in love with the beautiful daughter of his benefactor. Again the “dead” of Febrer will speak again to dissuade him.

Jaime Febrer got up at nine in the morning. Madó Antonia, who had seen him born – a respectful servant of the glories of the family – moved from eight o’clock in the room, to wake him up. The light that penetrated through the pillar of a large window seemed scarce to him, he opened the rotten wooden leaves, devoid of glass. Then he lifted the gold-glazed red damask hangings that covered like a tent the broad majestic bed, on which several generations of Febrer had been born, procreated and died.
The night before, when she left the Casino, Jaime had instructed her with great insistence to wake him up early. He was invited to lunch in Valldemosa. “Up!” The morning was one of the best in spring; In the garden of the house the birds squealed in chorus on the flowering branches, rocked by the breeze sent by the neighboring sea over the wall.
The maid left, on her way to the kitchen, seeing that the lord finally decided to get out of bed. Jaime Febrer walked almost naked through the room, before the open window, split by a very thin column. There was no fear of being seen. The house opposite was an old palace like his; A house with few holes. In front of his window stretched a wall of indefinite color, with deep chips and remains of old paintings, but so close by the narrowness of the street, that it seemed to be able to touch with the hand.

Fragment of the work

Reference edition: Valencia, Editorial Prometeo, 1923.