Each neighbour could leave his tools and things in the section of the gallery that bounded his dwelling; from the looks of this area one might deduce the grade of poverty or relative comfort of each family,—its predilections and its tastes.

This space usually revealed an attempt at cleanliness and a curious aspect; here the wall was whitewashed, there hung a cage,—a few flowers in earthenware pots; elsewhere a certain utilitarian instinct found vent in the strings of garlic put out to dry or clusters of grape suspended; beyond, a carpenter's bench and a tool-chest gave evidence of the industrious fellow who worked during his free hours.

In general, however, one could see only dirty wash hung out on the balustrades, curtains made of mats, quilts mended with patches of ill-assorted colors, begrimed rags stretched over broomsticks or suspended from ropes tied from one post to the other, that they might get a trifle more light and air.

Every section of the gallery was a manifestation of a life apart within this communism of hunger; this edifice contained every grade and shade of poverty: from the heroic, garbed in clean, decent tatters, to the most nauseating and repulsive.

In the majority of the rooms and holes of La Corrala one was struck immediately by the resigned, indolent indigence combined with organic and moral impoverishment.

In the space belonging to the cobbler's family, at the tip of a very long pole attached to one of the pillars, waved a pair of patch-covered trousers comically balancing itself.

Off from the large courtyard of El Corralon branched a causeway heaped with ordure, leading to a smaller courtyard that in winter was converted into a fetid swamp.

A lantern, surrounded with a wire netting to prevent the children from breaking it with stones, hung from one of the black walls.

In the inner courtyard the rooms were much cheaper than those of the large patio; most of them brought twenty-three reales, but there were some for two or three pesetas per month: dismal dens with no ventilation at all, built in the spaces under stairways and under the roof.

In some moister climate La Corrala would have been a nest of contagion: the wind and sun of Madrid, however,—that sun which brings blisters to the skin,—saw to the disinfection of that pesthole.

As if to make sure that terror and tragedy should haunt the edifice, one saw, on entering,—either at the main door or in the corridor,—a drunken, delirious hag who begged alms and spat insults at everybody. They called her Death. She must have been very old, or at least appeared so. Her gaze was wandering, her look diffident, her face purulent with scabs; one of her lower eyelids, drawn in as the result of some ailment, exposed the bloody, turbid inside of her eyeball. Death would stalk about in her tatters, in house slippers, with a tin-box and an old basket into which she gathered her findings. Through certain superstitious considerations none dared to throw her into the street.

On his very first night in La Corrala Manuel verified, not without a certain astonishment, the truth of what Vidal had told him. That youngster, and almost all the gamins of his age, had sweethearts among the little girls of the tenement, and it was not a rare occurrence, as he passed by some nook, to come upon a couple that jumped up and ran away.

The little children amused themselves playing bull-fight, and among the most-applauded feats was that of Don Tancredo. One tot would get down on all fours, and another, not very heavy, would mount him and fold his arms, thrust back his chest and place a three-cornered hat of paper upon his erect, haughty head.

He who was playing the bull would approach, roar loudly, sniff Don Tancredo and pass by without throwing him over; a couple of times he would repeat this, and then dash off. Whereupon Don Tancredo would dismount from his living pedestal to receive the plaudits of the public. There were wily, waggish bulls who took it into their heads to pull both statue and pedestal to the ground, and this would be received amidst shouts and huzzahs of the spectators.

In the meantime the girls would be playing in a ring, the women would shout from gallery to gallery and the men would chat in their shirtsleeves; some fellow, squatting on the floor, would scrape away monotonously at the strings of a guitar.

La Muerte, the old beggar, would also cheer the evening gatherings with her long discourse.

La Corrala was a seething, feverish world in little, as busy as an anthill. There people toiled, idled, guzzled, ate and died of hunger; there furniture was made, antiques were counterfeited, old embroideries were fashioned, buns cooked, broken porcelain mended, robberies planned and women's favours traded.

La Corrala was a microcosm; it was said that if all the denizens were placed in line they would reach from Embajadores lane to the Plaza del Progreso; it harboured men who were everything and yet nothing: half scholars, half smiths, half carpenters, half masons, half business men, half thieves.

In general, everybody who lived here was disoriented, dwelling in that unending abjection produced by everlasting, irremediable poverty; many sloughed their occupations as a reptile its skin; others had none; some carpenters' or masons' helpers, because of their lack of initiative, understanding and skill, could never graduate from their apprenticeship. There were also gypsies, mule and dog clippers, nor was there a dearth of porters, itinerant barbers and mountebanks. Almost all of them, if opportunity offered, stole what they could; they all presented the same pauperized, emaciated look. And all harboured a constant rage that vented itself in furious imprecations and blasphemies.

They lived as if sunk in the shades of a deep slumber, unable to form any clear notion of their lives, without aspirations, aims, projects or anything.

There were some whom a couple of glasses of wine made drunk for half a week; others seemed already besotted, without having had a sip, and their countenances constantly mirrored the most absolute debasement, whence they escaped only in a fleeting moment of anger or indignation.

Money was to them, more often than not, a misfortune. Possessing an instinctive understanding of their weakness and their frail wills, they would resort to the tavern in quest of courage; there they would cast off all restraint, shout, argue, forget the sorrows of the moment, feel generous, and when, after having bragged to the top of their bent they believed themselves ready for anything, they discovered that they hadn't a centimo and that the illusory strength imbibed with the alcohol was evaporating.

The women of the house, as a rule, worked harder than the men, and were almost always disputing. For thirty years past they had all shared the same character and represented almost the same type: foul, unkempt, termagacious, they—shrieked and grew desperate upon the slightest provocation.

From time to time, like a gentle sunbeam amidst the gloom, the souls of these stultified, bestial men,—of these women embittered by harsh lives that held neither solace nor illusion,—would be penetrated by a romantic, disinterested feeling of tenderness that made them live like human beings for a while; but when the gust of sentimentalism had blown over, they would return to their moral inertia, as resigned and passive as ever. The permanent neighbours of La Corrala were situated in the floors surrounding the large courtyard. In the other courtyard the majority were transients, and spent, at most, a couple of weeks in the house. Then, as the saying was among them, they spread wing.

One day a mender would appear with his huge bag, his brace and his pliers, shouting through the streets in a husky voice: "Jars and tubs to mend ... pans, dishes and plates!" After a short stay he would be off; the following week arrived a dealer in cloth bargains, crying at the top of his lungs his silk handkerchiefs at ten and fifteen centimos; another day came an itinerant hawker, his cases laden with pins, combs and brooches, or some purchaser of gold and silver braid. Certain seasons of the year brought a contingent of special types; spring announced itself through the appearance of mule dealers, tinkers, gypsies and bohemians; in autumn swarmed bands of rustics with cheese from La Mancha and pots of honey, while winter brought the walnut and chestnut vendors.

Of the permanent tenants in the first courtyard, those who were intimate with Senor Ignacio included: a proof-corrector, nick-named El Corretor; a certain Rebolledo, both barber and inventor, and four blind men, who were known by the sobriquets El Calabazas, El Sapistas, El Erigido and El Cuco and dwelt in harmony with their respective wives playing the latest tangos, tientos and zarzuela ditties on the streets.

The proof-reader had a numerous family: his wife, his mother-in-law, a daughter of twenty and a litter of tots; the pay he earned correcting proof at a newspaper office was not enough for his needs and he used to suffer dire straits. He was in the habit of wearing a threadbare macfarland,—frayed at the edges,—a large, dirty handkerchief tied around his throat, and a soft, yellow, grimy slouch hat.

His daughter, Milagros by name, a slender lass as sleek as a bird, had relations with Leandro, Manual's cousin.

The sweethearts had plenty of love quarrels, now because of her flirtations, now because of the evil life he led.

They could not get along, for Milagros was a bit haughty and a climber, considering herself a social superior fallen upon evil days, while Leandro, on the other hand, was abrupt and irascible.

The cobbler's other neighbour, Senor Zurro, a quaint, picturesque type, had nothing to do with Senor Ignacio and felt for the proof-reader a most cordial hatred. El Zurro went about forever concealed behind a pair of blue spectacles, wearing a fur cap and ample cassock.

"His name is Zurro (fox)," the proof-reader would say, "but he's a fox in his actions as well; one of those country foxes that are masters of malice and trickery."

According to popular rumour, El Zurro knew what he was about; he had a place at the lower end of the Rastro, a dark, pestilent hovel cluttered with odds and ends, second-hand coats, remnants of old cloth, tapestries, parts of chasubles, and in addition, empty bottles, flasks full of brandy and cognac, seltzer water siphons, shattered clocks, rusty muskets, keys, pistols, buttons, medals and other frippery.

Despite the fact that surely no more than a couple of persons entered Senor Zurro's shop throughout the livelong day and spent no more than a couple of reales, the second-hand dealer thrived.

He lived with his daughter Encarna, a coarse specimen of some twenty-five years, exceedingly vulgar and the personification of insolence, who went walking with her father on Sundays, bedecked with jewelry. Encarna's bosom was consumed with the fires of passion for Leandro; but that ingrate, enamoured of Milagros, was unscathed by the soul-flames of the second-hand dealer's daughter.

Wherefore Encarna mortally hated Milagros and the members of her family; every hour of the day she branded them as vulgarians, starvelings, and insulted them with such scoffing sobriquets as Mendrugo, "Beggar's Crumb," which was applied by her to the proof-reader, and "The Madwoman of the Vatican," which meant his daughter.

It was not at all rare for such hatreds, between persons forced almost into living in common, to grow to violent rancour and malevolence; thus, the members of one and the other family never looked at each other without exchanging curses and wishes for the most disastrous misfortunes.



CHAPTER III

Roberto Hastings at the Shoemaker's—Procession of Beggars—Court of Miracles.

One morning toward the end of September Roberto appeared in the doorway of The Regeneration of Footwear, and thrusting his head into the shop exclaimed:

"Hello, Manuel!"

"Hello, Don Roberto!"

"Working, eh?"

Manuel shrugged his shoulders, indicating that the job was not exactly to his taste.

Roberto hesitated for a moment, but at last made up his mind and entered the shop.

"Have a seat," invited Senor Ignacio, offering him a chair.

"Are you Manuel's uncle?"

"At your service."

Roberto sat down, offered a cigar to Senor Ignacio and another to Leandro, and the three began to smoke.

"I know your nephew," said Roberto to the proprietor, "for I live in the house where Petra works."

"You do?"

"And I wish you'd let him off today for a couple of hours."

"All right, senor. All afternoon, if you wish."

"Fine. Then I'll call for him after lunch."

"Very well."

Roberto watched them work for a while, then suddenly jumped up and left.

Manuel could not understand what Roberto wanted, and in the afternoon waited for him with genuine impatience. Roberto carne, and the pair turned out of Aguila Street down toward the Ronda de Segovia.

"Do you know where La Doctrina is?" Roberto asked Manuel.

"What Doctrina?"

"A place where herds of beggars meet every Friday."

"I don't know."

"Do you know where the San Isidro highway is?"

"Yes."

"Good. For that's where we're going. That's where La Doctrina is."

Manuel and Roberto walked down the Paseo de los Pontones and continued in the direction of Toledo Bridge. The student was silent and Manuel did not care to ask any questions.

It was a dry, dusty day. The stifling south wind whirled puffs of heat and sand; a stray bolt of lightning illuminated the clouds; from the distance came the rumble of thunder; the landscape lay yellow under a blanket of dust.

Over the Toledo Bridge trudged a procession of beggars, both men and women, each dirtier and more tattered than the next. Out of las Cambroneras and las Injurias streamed recruits for this ragged army; they came, too, from the Paseo Imperial and from Ocho Hilos, and by this time forming solid ranks, they trooped on to the Toledo Bridge and tramped up the San Isidro highway until they reached a red edifice, before which they came to a halt.

"This must be La Doctrina," said Roberto to Manuel, pointing to a building that had a patio with a statue of Christ in the centre.

The two friends drew near to the gate. This was a beggars' conclave, a Court of Miracles assembly. The women took up almost the entire courtyard; at one end, near a chapel, the men were huddled together; one could see nothing but swollen, stupid faces, inflamed nostrils, and twisted mouths; old women as fat and clumsy as melancholy whales; little wizened, cadaverous hags with sunken mouths and noses like the beak of a bird of prey; shamefaced female mendicants, their wrinkled chins bristling with hair, their gaze half ironical and half shy; young women, thin and emaciated, slatternly and filthy; and all, young and old alike, clad in threadbare garments that had been mended, patched and turned inside out until there wasn't a square inch that had been left untouched. The green, olive-coloured cloaks and the drab city garb jostled against the red and yellow short skirts of the countrywomen.

Roberto sauntered about, peering eagerly info the courtyard. Manuel trailed after him indifferently.

A large number of the beggars was blind; there were cripples, minus hand or foot, some hieratic, taciturn, solemn, others restless. Brown long-sleeved loose coats mingled with frayed sack-coats and begrimed smocks. Some of the men in tatters carried, slung over their shoulders, black sacks and game-bags; others huge cudgels in their hands; one burly negro, his face tattooed with deep stripes,— doubtless a slave in former days,—leaned against the wall in dignified indifference, clothed in rags; barefoot urchins and mangy dogs scampered about amongst the men and women; the swarming, agitated, palpitating throng of beggars seethed like an anthill.

"Let's go," said Roberto. "Neither of the women I'm looking for is here.... Did you notice," he added, "how few human faces there are among men! All you can read in the features of these wretches is mistrust, abjection, malice, just as among the rich you find only solemnity, gravity, pedantry. It's curious, isn't it? All cats have the face of cats; all oxen look like oxen; while the majority of human beings haven't a human semblance."

Roberto and Manuel left the patio. They sat down opposite La Doctrina, on the other side of the road, amid some sandy clearings.

"These doings of mine," began Roberto, "may strike you as queer. But they won't seem so strange when I tell you that I'm looking for two women here; one of them a poor beggar who can make me rich; the other, a rich lady, who perhaps would make me poor."

Manuel stared at Roberto in amazement. He had always harboured a certain suspicion that there was something wrong with the student's head.

"No. Don't imagine this is silly talk. I'm on the trail of a fortune,—a huge fortune. If you help me, I'll remember you."

"Sure. What do you want me to do?"

"I'll tell you when the right moment comes."

Manuel could not conceal an ironic smile.

"You don't believe it," muttered Roberto.

"That doesn't matter. When you'll see, you'll believe."

"Naturally."

"If I should happen to need you, promise you'll help me."

"I'll help you as far as I am able," replied Manuel, with feigned earnestness.

Several ragamuffins sprawled themselves out on the clearing near Manuel and Roberto, and the student did not care to go on with his tale.

"They've already begun to split up into divisions," said one of the loafers who wore a coachman's hat, pointing with a stick to the women inside the courtyard of La Doctrina.

And so it was; groups were clustering about the trees of the patio, on each of which was hung a poster with a picture and a number in the middle.

"There go the marchionesses," added he of the coachman's hat, indicating several women garbed in black who had just appeared in the courtyard.

The white faces stood out amidst the mourning clothes.

"They're all marchionesses," said one.

"Well, they're not all beauties," retorted Manuel, joining the conversation. "What have they come here for?"

"They're the ones who teach religion," answered the fellow with the hat. "From time to time they hand out sheets and underwear to the women and the men. Now they're going to call the roll."

A bell began to clang; the gate closed; groups were formed, and a lady entered the midst of each.

"Do you see that one there?" asked Roberto. "She's Don Telmo's niece."

"That blonde?"

"Yes. Wait for me here."

Roberto walked down the road toward the gate.

The reading of the religious lesson began; from the patio came the slow, monotonous drone of prayer.

Manuel lay back on the ground. Yonder, flat beneath the grey horizon, loomed Madrid out of the mist of the dust-laden atmosphere. The wide bed of the Manzanares river, ochre-hued, seemed furrowed here and there by a thread of dark water. The ridges of the Guadarrama range rose hazily into the murky air.

Roberto passed by the patio. The humming of the praying mendicants continued. An old lady, her head swathed in a red kerchief and her shoulders covered with a black cloak that was fading to green, sat down in the clearing.

"What's the matter, old lady? Wouldn't they open the gate for you?" shouted the fellow with the coachman's hat.

"No.... The foul old witches!"

"Don't you care. They're not giving away anything today. The distribution takes place this coming Friday. They'll give you at least a sheet," added he of the hat mischievously.

"If they don't give me anything more than a sheet," shrilled the hag, twisting her blobber-lip, "I'll tell them to keep it for themselves. The foxy creatures! ..."

"Oh, they've found you out, granny!" exclaimed one of the loafers lying on the ground. "You're a greedy one, you are."

The bystanders applauded these words, which came from a zarzuela, and the chap in the coachman's hat continued explaining to Manuel the workings of La Doctrina.

"There are some men and women who enrol in two and even three divisions so as to get all the charity they can," he went on. "Why, we—my father and I—once enrolled in four divisions under four different names.... And what a rumpus was raised! What a row we had with the marchionesses!"

"And what did you want with all those sheets," Manuel asked him.

"Why! Sell 'em, of course. They re sold here at the very gate at two chules apiece."

"I'm going to buy one," said a coachman from a nearby hackstand, approaching the group. "I'll give it a coating of linseed oil, then varnish it and make me a cowled waterproof."

"But the marchionesses,—don't they see that these people sell their gifts right away?"

"Much they see!"

To these idlers the whole business was nothing more than a pious recreation of the religious ladies, of whom they spoke with patronizing irony.

The reading of the religious lesson did not last quite an hour.

A bell rang; the gate was swung open; the various groups dissolved and merged; everybody arose and the women began to walk off, balancing their chairs upon their heads, shouting, shoving one another violently; two or three huckstresses peddled their wares as the tattered crowd issued through the gate in a jam, shrieking as if in escape from some imminent danger. A few old women ran clumsily down the road; others huddled into a corner to urinate, and all of them were howling at the top of their lungs, overcome by the necessity of insulting the women of La Doctrina, as if instinctively they divined the uselessness of a sham charity that remedied nothing. One heard only protests and manifestation of scorn.

"Damn it all! These women of God...."

"And they want a body to have faith in 'em."

"The old drunkards."

"Let them have faith, and the mother that bore 'em."

"Let 'em give blood-pudding to everybody."

After the women came the men,—blind, maimed, crippled,—in leisurely fashion, and conversing solemnly.

"Huh! They don't want me to marry!" grumbled a blind fellow, sarcastically, turning to a cripple.

"And what do you say," asked the latter.

"I? What the deuce! Let them get married if they have any one to marry 'em. They came here and bore us stiff with their prayers and sermons. What we need isn't sermons, but hard cash and plenty of it."

"That's what, man ... the dough,—that's what we want."

"And all the rest is nothing but ... chatter and chin music.... Anybody can give advice. When it comes to bread, though, not a sign of it."

"So say I!"

The ladies came out, prayer-books in hand; the old beggar-women set off in pursuit and harassed them with entreaties.

Manuel looked everywhere for the student; at last he caught sight of him with Don Telmo's niece. The blonde turned around to look at him, and then stepped into a coach. Roberto saluted her and the coach rolled off.

Manuel and Roberto returned by the San Isidro highway.

The sky was still overcast; the air dry; the procession of beggars was advancing in the direction of Madrid. Before they reached the Toledo Bridge, at the intersection of the San Isidro highway and the Extremadura cartroad, Roberto and Manuel entered a very large tavern. Roberto ordered a bottle of beer.

"Do you live in the same house where the shoe shop is?" asked Roberto.

"No. I live over in the Paseo de las Acacias, in a house called El Corralon."

"Good. I'll come to visit you there, and you already understand that whenever you happen to go to any place where poor folk or criminals gather, you're to let me know."

"I'll let you know. I was watching that blonde eye you. She's pretty."

"Yes."

"And she has a swell coach."

"I should say so."

"Well? Are you going to marry her?"

"What do I know? We'll see. Come, we can't stay here," said Roberto, stepping up to the counter to pay.

In the tavern a large number of beggars, seated at the tables, were gulping down slices of cod and scraps of meat; a piquant odour of fried bird-tripe and oil came from the kitchen.

They left. The wind still blew in eddies of sand; dry leaves and stray bits of newspaper danced madly through the air; the high houses near the Segovia Bridge, their narrow windows and galleries hung with tatters, seemed greyer and more sordid than ever when glimpsed through an atmosphere murky with dust.

Suddenly Roberto halted, and placing his hand upon Manuel's shoulder said:

"Listen to what I say, for it is the truth. If you ever want to accomplish anything in life, place no belief in the word 'impossible.' There's nothing impossible to an energetic will. If you try to shoot an arrow, aim very high,—as high as you can; the higher you aim, the farther you'll go."

Manuel stared at Roberto with a puzzled look, and shrugged his shoulders.



CHAPTER IV

Life In the Cobbler's Shop—Manuel's Friends.

The months of September and October were very hot; it was impossible to breathe in the shoe shop.

Every morning Manuel and Vidal, on their way to the shoemaker's, would talk of a thousand different things and exchange impressions; money, women, plans for the future formed everlasting themes of their chats. To both it seemed a great sacrifice, something in the nature of a crowning misfortune in their bad luck, to have to spend day after day cooped up in a corner ripping off outworn soles.

The languorous afternoons invited to slumber. After lunch especially, Manuel would be overcome by stupor and deep depression. Through the doorway of the shop could be seen the fields of San Isidro bathed in light; in the Campillo de Gil Imon the wash hung out to dry gleamed in the sun.

There came a medley of crowing cocks, far-off shouts of vendors, the shrieking of locomotive whistles muffled by the distance. The dry, burning, atmosphere vibrated. A few women of the neighbourhood came out to comb their hair in the open, and the mattress-makers beat their wool in the shade of the Campillo, while the hens scampered about and scratched the soil.

Later, as evening fell, the air and the earth changed to a dusty grey. In the distance, cutting the horizon, waved the outline of the arid field,—a simple line, formed by the gentle undulation of the hillocks,—a line like that of the landscapes drawn by children, with isolated houses and smoking chimneys. Here and there a lone patch of green grove splotched against the yellow field, which lay parched by the sun beneath a pallid sky, whitish and murky in the hot vapours rising from the earth. Not a cry, not the slightest sound rent the air.

At dusk the mist grew transparent and the horizon receded until, far in the distance, loomed the vague silhouettes of mountains not to be glimpsed by day, against the red background of the twilight.

When they left off working in the shop it was usually night. Senor Ignacio, Leandro, Manuel and Vidal would turn down the road toward home.

The gas lights shone at intervals in the dusty air; lines of carts rumbled slowly by, and across the road, in little groups, tramped the workmen from the neighbouring factories.

And always, coming and going, the conversation between Manuel and Vidal would turn upon the same topics: women and money.

Neither had a romantic notion, or anything like it, of women. To Manuel, a woman was a magnificent animal with firm flesh and swelling breast.

Vidal did not share this sexual enthusiasm; he experienced, with all women, a confused feeling of scorn, curiosity and preoccupation.

As far as concerned money, they were both agreed that it was the choicest, most admirable of all things; they spoke of money— especially Vidal—with a fierce enthusiasm. To him, the thought that there might be anything—good or evil—that could not be obtained with hard cash, was the climax of absurdity. Manuel would like to have money to travel all over the world and see cities and more cities and sail in vessels. Vidal's dream was to live a life of ease in Madrid.

After two or three months in the Corralon, Manuel had become so accustomed to the work and the life there that he wondered how he could do anything else. Those wretched quarters no longer produced upon him the impression of dark, sinister sadness that they cause in one unaccustomed to live in them; on the contrary, they seemed to him filled with attractions. He knew almost everybody in the district. Vidal and he would escape from the house on any pretext at all, and on Sundays they would meet Bizco at the Casa del Cabrero and go off into the environs: to Las Injurias, Las Cambroneras, the restaurants of Alarcon, the Campamento, and the inns on the Andalucia road, where they would consort with thieves and rogues and play with them at cane and rayuela.

Manuel did not care for Bizco's company; Bizco sought only to hobnob with thieves. He was forever taking Manuel and Vidal to haunts frequented by bandits and low types, but since Vidal seemed to think it all right, Manuel never objected.

Vidal was the link between Manuel and Bizco, Bizco hated Manuel, who in turn, not only felt enmity and repugnance for Bizco, but showed this repulsion plainly. Bizco was a brute,—an animal deserving of extermination. As lascivious as a monkey, he had violated several of the little girls of the Casa del Cabrero, beating them into submission; he used to rob his father, a poverty-stricken cane-weaver, so that he might have money enough to visit some low brothel of Las Penuelas or on Chopa Street, where he found rouged dowagers with cigarette-stubs in their lips, who looked like princesses to him. His narrow skull, his powerful jaw, his blubber-lip, his stupid glance, lent him a look of repellant brutality and animality.

A primitive man, he kept his dagger—bought in El Rastro—sharp, guarding it as a sacred object. If he ever happened across a cat or dog, he would enjoy torturing it to death with oft-repeated stabs. His speech was obscene, abounding in barbarities and blasphemies.

Whether anybody induced Bizco to tattoo his arms, or the idea was original with him, cannot be said; probably the tattooing he had seen on one of the bandits that he ran after had suggested a similar adornment for himself. Vidal imitated him, and for a time the pair gave themselves up enthusiastically to self-tattooing. They pricked their skins with a pin until a little blood came, then moistened the wounds with ink.

Bizco painted crosses, stars and names upon his chest; Vidal, who didn't like to prick himself, stippled his own name on one arm and his sweetheart's on the other; Manuel didn't care to inscribe anything upon his person, first because he was afraid of blood, and then because the idea had been Bizco's.

Each harboured a mute hostility against the other.

Manuel, always with a chip on his shoulder, was disposed to show his enemy challenge; Bizco, doubtless, noticed this scornful hatred in Manuel's eyes, and this confused him.

To Manuel, a man's superiority consisted in his talent, and, above all, in his cunning; to Bizco, courage and strength constituted the sole enviable qualities; the greatest merit of all was to be a real brute, as he would declare with enthusiasm.

Because of the great esteem in which he held craft and cunning, Manuel felt deep admiration for the Rebolledos, father and son, who also lived in the Corralon. The father, a dwarfed hunchback, a barber by trade, used to shave his customers in the sunlight of the open, near the Rastro. This dwarf had a very intelligent face, with deep eyes; he wore moustache and side-whiskers, and long, bluish, unwashed hair. He dressed always in mourning; in winter and summer alike he went around in an overcoat, and, by some unsolved mystery of chemistry his overcoat kept turning green while his trousers, which were also black, kept quite as plainly turning red.

Every morning Rebolledo would leave the Corralon carrying a little bench and a wooden wall-bracket, from which hung a brass basin and a poster. Reaching a certain spot along the Americas fence he would attach the bracket and put up, beside it, a humorous sign the point of which, probably, he was the only one to see. It ran thus:

MODERNIST TONSORIAL PARLOUR Antiseptic Barber Walk in Gents. Shaving by Rebolledo. Money Lent

The Rebolledos were very skilful; they made toys of wire and of pasteboard, which they afterward sold to the street-vendors; their home, a dingy little room of the front patio, had been converted into a workshop, and they had there a vise, a carpenter's bench and an array of broken gew-gaws that were apparently of no further use.

The neighbours of the Corralon had a saying that indicated their conception of Rebolledo's acute genius.

"That dwarf," they said, "has a regular Noah's ark in his head."

The father had made for his own use a set of false teeth. He had taken a bone napkin-ring, cut it into two unequal parts, and, by filing it on either side, had fitted the larger to his mouth. Then with a tiny saw he made the teeth, and to simulate the gums he covered a part of the former napkin-ring with sealing-wax. Rebolledo could remove and insert the false set with remarkable ease, and he could eat with them perfectly, provided, as he said, there was anything to eat.

Perico, the son of the dwarf, promised even to outstrip his father in cleverness. Between the hunger that he often suffered, and the persistent tertian fevers, he was very thin and his complexion was citreous. He was not, like his father, deformed, but slender, delicate, with sparkling eyes and rapid, jerky motions. He looked, as the saying is, like a rat under a bowl.

One of the proofs of his inventive genius was a mechanical snuffler that he had made of a shoe-polish tin.

Perico cherished a particular enthusiasm for white walls, and wherever he discovered one he would sketch, with a piece of coal, processions of men, women and horses, houses puffing smoke, soldiers, vessels at sea, weaklings engaging in struggle with burly giants, and other equally diverting scenes.

Perico's masterpiece was the Don Tancredo triptych, done in coal on the walls of the narrow entrance lane to La Corrala. This work overwhelmed the neighbours with admiration and astonishment.

The first part of the triptych showed the valiant hypnotizer of bulls on his way to the bull-ring, in the midst of a great troop of horsemen; the legend read: "Don Tancredo on his weigh to the bulls." The second part represented the "king of bravery" in his three-cornered hat, with his arms folded defiantly before the wild beast; underneath, the rubric "Don Tancredo upon his pedestal." Under the third part one read: "The bull takes to flight." The depiction of this final scene was noteworthy; the bull was seen fleeing as one possessed of the devil amidst the toreros, whose noses were visible in profile while their mouths and both eyes were drawn in front view.

Despite his triumphs, Perico Rebolledo did not grow vain, nor did he consider himself superior to the men of his generation; his greatest pleasure was to sit down at his father's side in the patio of La Corrala, amidst the works of old clocks, bunches of keys and other grimy, damaged articles, and ponder over the possible utilization of an eye-glass crystal, for example, or a truss, or the rubber bulb of a syringe, or some similar broken, out-of-order contrivance.

Father and son spent their lives dreaming of mechanical contraptions; they considered nothing useless; the key that could open no door, the old-style coffee-pot, as queer as some laboratory instrument, the oil lamp with machine attachment,—all these articles were treasured up, taken apart and put to some use. Rebolledo, father and son, wasted more ingenuity in living wretchedly than is employed by a couple of dozen comic authors, journalists and state ministers dwelling in luxury.

Among the friends of Perico Rebolledo were the Aristas, who became intimate with Manuel.

The Aristas, two brothers, sons of an ironing-woman, were apprentices in a foundry of the near-by Ronda. The younger passed his days in a continuous capering, indulging in death-defying leaps, climbing trees, walking on his hands and performing acrobatic stunts from all the door transoms.

The elder brother, a long-legged stutterer whom they called Ariston in jest, was the most funereal fellow on the planet; he suffered from acute necromania; anything connected with coffins, corpses, wakes and candles roused his enthusiasm. He would like to have been a gravedigger, the priest of a religious confraternity, a cemetery warden; but his great dream,—what most enchanted him,—was a funeral; he would imagine, as a wonderful ideal, the conversations that the proprietor of a funeral establishment must have with the father or the inconsolable widow as he offered wreaths of immortelles, or as he went to take the measure of a corpse or strolled amidst the coffins. What a splendid existence, this manufacturing of last resting-places for men, women and children, and afterward accompanying them to the burial-ground. For Ariston, details relating to death were the most important matter in life.

Through that irony of fate which almost always exchanges the proper labels of things and persons, Ariston was a supernumerary in one of the vaudeville theatres, through the influence of his father, who was a scene-shifter, and the job disgusted him, for in such a playhouse nobody ever died upon the stage, nobody ever came out in mourning and there was no weeping. And while Ariston kept thinking of nothing but funereal scenes, his brother dreamed of circuses, trapezes and acrobats, hoping that some day fate would send him the means to cultivate his gymnastic talents.



CHAPTER V

La Blasa's Tavern.

The frequent quarrels between Leandro and his sweetheart, the Corrector's daughter, very often gave the neighbours of the Corrala food for gossip. Leandro was an ill-tempered, quarrelsome sort; his brutal instincts were quickly awakened; despite his habit of going every Saturday night to the taverns and restaurants, ready for a rumpus with the bullies and the ruffians, he had thus far managed to steer clear of any disagreeable accident. His sweetheart was somewhat pleased with this display of valour; her mother, however, regarded it with genuine indignation, and was forever advising her daughter to dismiss her Leandro for good.

The girl would dismiss her lover; but afterwards, when he returned in humility, ready to accede to any conditions, she relented.

This confidence in her power turned the girl despotic, whimsical, voluble; she would amuse herself by rousing Leandro's jealousy; she had arrived at a particular state, a blend of affection and hatred, in which the affection remained within and the hatred outside, revealing itself in a ferocious cruelty, in the satisfaction of mortifying her lover constantly.

"What you ought to do some fine day," Senor Ignacio would say to Leandro, incensed by the cruel coquetry of the maiden, "is to get her into a corner and take all you want.... And then give her a beating and leave her soft as mush. The next day she'd be following you around like a dog."

Leandro, as brave as any bully, was as meek as a charity-pupil in the presence of his sweetheart. At times he recalled his father's counsel, but he would never have summoned the courage to carry it through.

One Saturday afternoon, after a bitter dispute with Milagros, Leandro invited Manuel to make the rounds that night together with him.

"Where'll we go?" asked Manuel.

"To the Naranjeros cafe, or to the Engrima restaurant."

"Wherever you please."

"We'll make the rounds of those dives and then we'll wind up at La Blasa's tavern."

"Do the hard guys go there?"

"I should say. As tough as you make 'em."

"Then I'll let Roberto know,—that fellow who came for me to take him to la Doctrina."

"All right."

After work Manuel went off to the boardingrhouse and took counsel with Roberto.

"Be at the San Millan cafe about nine in the evening," said Roberto, "I'll be there with a cousin of mine."

"Are you going to take her there?" Manuel asked in astonishment.

"Yes. She's a queer one, a painter."

"And is this painter good-looking?" asked Leandro.

"I can't say. I don't know her."

"Damn my sweet—— ... ! I'd give anything to have this woman come along, man."

"Me, too."

They both went to the San Millan cafe, sat down and waited impatiently. At the hour indicated Roberto appeared in company of his cousin whom he called Fanny. She was a woman between thirty and forty, very slender, with a sallow complexion,—a distinguished, masculine type; there was about her something of the graceless beauty of a racehorse; her nose was curved, her jaw big, her cheeks sunken and her eyes grey and cold. She wore a jacket of dark green taffeta, a black skirt and a small hat.

Leandro and Manuel greeted her with exceeding timidity and awkwardness; they shook hands with Roberto and conversed.

"My cousin," said Roberto, "would like to see something of slum life hereabouts."

"Whenever you wish," answered Leandro. "But I warn you beforehand that there are some pretty tough specimens in this vicinity."

"Oh, I'm prepared," said the lady, with a slight foreign accent, showing a revolver of small calibre.

Roberto paid, despite Leandro's protests, and they left the cafe. Coming out on the Plaza del Rastro, they walked down the Ribera de Curtidores as far as the Ronda de Toledo.

"If the lady wishes to see the house we live in, this is the one," said Leandro.

They went into the Corralon; a crowd of gamins and old women, amazed to see such a strange woman there at such an hour, surrounded them, showering Manuel and Leandro with questions. Leandro was eager for Milagros to learn that he had been there with a woman, so he accompanied Fanny through the place, pointing out all the holes of the wretched dwelling.

"Poverty's the only thing you can see here," said Leandro.

"Yes, yes indeed," answered the woman.

"Now if you wish, we'll go to La Blasa's tavern."

They left the Corralon for Embajadores lane and walked along the black fence of a laundry. It was a dark night and a drizzle had begun to fall. They stumbled along the surrounding path.

"Look-out," said Leandro. "There's a wire here."

He stepped upon the wire to hold it down. They all crossed the path and passed a group of white houses, coming to Las Injurias.

They approached a low cottage with a dark socle; a door with clouded broken panes stuffed with bundles of paper, through which shone a pallid light, gave entrance to the dwelling. In the opaque transparency of the glass appeared from time to time the shadow of a person.

Leandro opened the door and they all went in. A stuffy, smoky wave of atmosphere struck them in the face. A kerosene lamp, hanging from the ceiling and covered with a white shade, provided light for the tiny, low-roofed tavern.

As the four entered, the customers greeted them with an expression of stupefaction; for a while the habituees whispered among themselves, then some, resumed their playing as others looked on.

Fanny, Roberto, Leandro and Manuel took seats to the right of the door.

"What'll you have?" asked the woman at the counter.

"Four fifteen-centimo glasses of wine."

The woman brought the glasses in a filthy tray, and set them upon the table. Leandro pulled out sixty centimos.

"They're ten apiece," corrected the woman in ill-humoured tones.

"How's that?"

"Because this is outside the limits."

"All right; take whatever it comes to."

The woman left twenty centimos on the table and returned to the counter. She was broad, large-breasted, with a head that set deep in between her shoulders and a neck composed of some five or six layers of fat; from time to time she would serve a drink, always getting the price in advance; she spoke very little, with evident displeasure and with an invariable gesture of ill-humour.

This human hippopotamus had at her right a tin tank with a spigot, for brandy, and at her left a flask of strong wine and a chipped jar covered with a black funnel, into which she poured whatever was left in the glasses by her customers.

Roberto's cousin fished out a phial of smelling salts, hid it in her clamped hand and took a sniff from time to time.

Opposite the place where Roberto, Fanny, Leandro and Manuel were seated, a crowd of some twenty men were packed around a table playing cane.

Near them, huddled on the floor next the stove, reclining against the wall, could be seen a number of ugly, scraggly-haired hags, dressed in corsages and ragged skirts that were tied around their waists by ropes.

"Who are those women?" asked the painter.

"They're old tramps," explained Leandro. "The kind that go to the Botanical Garden and the clearings outside the city."

Two or three of the unfortunates held in their arms children belonging to other women who had come there to spend the night; some were dozing with their cigarettes sticking from the corner of their mouths. Amid the old women were a few little girls of thirteen or fourteen, monstrously deformed, with bleary eyes; one of them had her nose completely eaten away, with nothing but a hole like a wound left in its place; another was hydro-cephalous, with so thin a neck that it seemed the slightest movement would snap it and send her head rolling from her shoulders.

"Have you seen the large jars they have here?" Leandro asked Manuel. "Come on and take a look."

The two rose and approached the group of gamblers. One of these interrupted his game.

"Please make way?" Leandro said to him, with marked impertinence.

The man drew in his chair sourly. There was nothing remarkable about the jars; they were large, embedded in the wall, painted with red-lead; each of them bore a sign denoting the class of wine inside, and had a spigot.

"What's so wonderful about this, I'd like to know?" asked Manuel.

Leandro smiled; they returned as they had come, disturbing the player once more and resuming their seats at the table.

Roberto and Fanny conversed in English.

"That fellow we made get up," said Leandro, "is the bully of this place."

"What's his name?" asked Fanny.

"El Valencia."

The man they were speaking about, hearing his sobriquet mentioned, turned around and eyed Leandro; for a moment their glances crossed defiantly; Valencia turned his eyes away and continued playing. He was a strong man, about forty, with high cheek bones, reddish skin and a disagreeably sarcastic expression. Every once in a while he would cast a severe look at the group formed by Fanny, Roberto and the other two.

"And that Valencia,—who is he?" asked the lady in a low voice.

"He's a mat maker by trade," answered Leandro, raising his voice. "A tramp that wheedles money out of low-lives; before he used to belong to the pote,—the kind that visit houses on Sundays, knock, and when they see nobody's home, stick their jimmy into the lock and zip!... But he hasn't the courage even for this, 'cause his liver is whiter than paper."

"It would be curious to investigate," said Roberto, "just how far poverty has served as centre of gravity for the degradation of these men."

"And how about that white-bearded old fellow at his side?" asked Fanny.

"He's one of those apostles that cure with water. They say he's a wise old fellow.... He has a cross on his tongue. But I believe he painted it there himself."

"And that other woman there?"

"That's La Paloma, Valencia's mistress."

"Prostitute?" asked the lady.

"For at least forty years," answered Leandro with a laugh.

They all looked closely at Paloma; she had a huge, soft face, with pouches of violet skin, and a timid look as of a humble beast; she represented at least forty years of prostitution and all its concomitant ills; forty years of nights spent in the open, lurking about barracks, sleeping in suburban shanties and the most repulsive lodgings.

Among the women there was also a gypsy who, from time to time, would get up and walk across the tavern with a saucy strut.

Leandro ordered some glasses of whiskey; but it was so bad that nobody could drink it.

"Hey, you," called Leandro to the gipsy, offering her the glass. "Want a drink?"

"No."

The gypsy placed her hands upon the table,—a pair of stubby, wrinkled hands incrusted with dirt.

"Who are these gumps?" she asked Leandro.

"Friends of mine. Will you drink or not?" and he offered her the glass again.

"No."

Then in a shrill voice, he shouted:

"Apostle, will you have a drink?"

The Apostle rose from his place amongst the gamblers. He was dead drunk and could hardly move; his eyes were viscous, like those of an angered animal; he staggered over to Leandro and took the glass, which trembled in his grasp; he brought it to his lips and gulped it down.

"Want more?" asked the gypsy.

"Sure, sure," he drooled.

Then he began to babble, showing the stumps of his yellow teeth, but nobody could understand a word; he drained the other glasses, rested his forehead against his hand and slowly made his way to a corner, into which he squatted, and then stretched himself out on the floor.

"Do you want me to tell your fortune, princess?" asked the gipsy of Fanny, seizing her hand.

"No," replied the lady drily.

"Won't you give me a few coins for the churumbeles?"

"No."

"Wicked woman! Why won't you give me a few coins for the churumbeles?"

"What does churumbeles mean?" asked the lady.

"Her children," answered Leandro, laughing.

"Have you children?" Fanny asked the gipsy.

"Yes."

"How many?"

"Two. Here they are."

And the gipsy fetched a blond little fellow and a girl of about five or six.

The lady petted the little boy; then she took a duro from her purse and gave it to the gipsy.

The gipsy, parting her lips in amazement and bursting forth into profuse flattery, exhibited the duro to everybody in the place.

"We'd better be going," advised Leandro. "To pull one of those big coins out in a dive like this is dangerous."

The four left the tavern.

"Would you like to make the rounds of this quarter?" asked Leandro.

"Yes. Let's," said the lady.

Together they wound in and out of the narrow lanes of Las Injurias.

"Watch out, the drain runs in the middle of the street," cautioned Manuel.

The rain kept falling; the quartet of slummers entered narrow patios where their feet sank into the pestiferous slime. Along the entire extension of the ravine black with mud, shone but a single oil lamp, attached to the side of some half crumbled wall.

"Shall we go back?" asked Roberto.

"Yes," answered the lady.

They set out for Embajadores lane and walked up the Paseo de las Acacias. The rain came down harder; here and there a faint light shone in the distance; against the intense darkness of the sky loomed the vague silhouette of a high chimney....

Leandro and Manuel accompanied Fanny and Roberto as far as the Plaza del Rastro, and there they parted, exchanging handshakes.

"What a woman!" exclaimed Leandro.

"Nice, eh?" asked Manuel.

"You bet. I'd give anything to have a try at her."



CHAPTER VI

Roberto In Quest of a Woman—El Tabuenca and his Inventions—Don Alonso or the Snake-Man.

A few months later Roberto appeared in the Corrala at the hour when Manuel and the shoe-shop employes were returning from their day's work.

"Do you know Senor Zurro?" Roberto asked Manuel.

"Yes. He lives here on this side."

"I know that. I'd like to have a talk with him.

"Then knock at his door. He must be in."

"Come along with me."

Manuel knocked and Encarna opened; they went inside. Senor Zurro was in his room, reading a newspaper by the light of a large candle; the place was a regular storehouse, cluttered with old secretaries, dilapidated chests, mantlepieces, clocks and sundry other items. It was close enough to stifle a person; it was impossible to breathe or to take a step without stumbling against something.

"Are you Senor Zurro?" asked Roberto.

"Yes."

"I have come at the suggestion of Don Telmo."

"Don Telmo!" repeated the old man, rising and offering the student a chair. "Have a seat. How is the good gentleman?"

"Very well."

"He's an excellent friend of mine," continued Zurro. "I should say so. Well, young man, let me know what you wish. It's enough for me that you come from Don Telmo; that assures you my best services."

"I should like to learn the whereabouts of a certain girl acrobat who lived about five or six years ago in a lodging-house of this vicinity, or in Cuco's hostelry."

"And do you know this girl's name?"

"Yes."

"And you say that she used to live in Cuco's hostelry?"

"Yes, sir."

"I know somebody who lives there," murmured the second-hand dealer.

"Yes, that's so," said Encarna.

"That man with the monkeys. Didn't he live there?" asked Senor Zurro.

"No; he lived in la Quinta de Goya," answered his daughter.

"Well, then.... Just wait a moment, young man. Wait a moment."

"Isn't it Tabuenca that lives there, father?" interrupted Encarna.

"That's the fellow. That's it. El Tabuenca. You go and see him. And tell him," added Senor Zurro, turning to Roberto, "that I sent you. He's a grouchy old fellow, as testy as they make 'em."

Roberto took leave of the second-hand man and his daughter, and in company of Manuel walked out to the gallery of the house.

"And where's this Cuco's hostelry?" he asked.

"Over there near Las Yeserias," answered Manuel.

"Come along with me, then; we'll have supper together," suggested Roberto.

"All right."

They both went on to the hostelry, which was situated upon a thoroughfare that was deserted at this hour. It was a large building, with an entrance-vestibule in country style and a patio crowded with carts. They questioned a boy. El Tabuenca had just come, he told them. They walked into the vestibule, which was illuminated by a lantern. There was a man inside.

"Does anybody live here by the name of Tabuenca?" asked Roberto.

"Yes. What is it?" asked the man.

"I'd like to have a talk with him."

"Well, talk away, then, for I'm Tabuenca."

As the speaker turned, the light of the oil lantern hanging upon the wall struck him full in the face; Roberto and Manuel stared at him in amazement. He was a yellow, shrivelled specimen; he had an absurd nose, as if it had been wrenched from its roots and replaced by a round little ball of meat. It seemed that he looked at the same time with his eyes and with the two little nasal orifices. He was clean-shaven, dressed pretty decently, and wore a round woollen cap with a green visor.

He listened grumpily to what Roberto had to say; then he lighted a cigar and flung the match far away. Doubtless because of the exiguity of his organ, he found it necessary to stop the windows of his nose with his fingers in order to smoke.

Roberto thought at first that the man had not understood his question, and he repeated it twice. Tabuenca gave no heed; but all at once, seized with the utmost indignation, he snatched the cigar furiously from his mouth and began to blaspheme in a whining, gull-like voice, shrieking that he couldn't make out why folks pestered him with matters that didn't concern him a particle.

"Don't shout so," said Roberto, provoked by this rumpus. "They'll imagine that we've come here to assassinate you, at the very least."

"I shout because I please to."

"All right, man; shout away to your heart's content."

"Don't you talk to me like that or I'll push in your face," yelled Tabuenca.

"You'll push in my face?" retorted Roberto, laughing; then, turning to Manuel, he added, "These noseless fellows get on my nerves and I'm going to let this flat-nose have it."

Tabuenca, his mind made up, withdrew and returned in a short while with a rapier-cane, which he unsheathed; Roberto looked in every direction for something with which he might defend himself, and found a carter's stick; Tabuenca aimed a thrust at Roberto, who parried it with the stick; then another thrust, and Roberto, as again he parried it, smashed the lantern at the entrance, leaving the scene in darkness. Roberto began to strike out right and left and he must have landed once upon some delicate part of Tabuenca's anatomy, for the man began to shout in horrible tones:

"Assassins! Murder!"

At this, several persons came running into the zaguan, among them a stout mule-driver with an oil-lamp in his hand.

"What's the trouble?" he asked.

"These murderers are after my life," bellowed Tabuenca.

"Not a bit of it," replied Roberto in a calm voice. "The fact is, we came here to ask this fellow a civil question, and without any reason at all he began to yell and insult me."

"I'll smash your face for you!" interjected Tabuenca.

"Well suppose you try it, and don't stand there talking all day about it!" Roberto taunted,

"Rascal! Coward!"

"It's you who are the coward. You've got as little guts as you have nose."

Tabuenca spat out a series of insults and blasphemies, and turning around, left the place.

"And who's going to pay me for this broken lantern?" asked the mule-driver.

"How much is it worth?" asked Roberto.

"Three pesetas."

"Here they are."

"That Tabuenca is a loud-mouthed imbecile," said the mule-driver as he took the money. "And what was it you gentlemen wished?"

"I wanted to ask about a woman that lived here some years ago; she was an acrobat."

"Perhaps Don Alonso, Titiri, would know. If you'll be so kind, tell me where you're going, and I'll have Titiri look you up."

"All right. You tell him that we'll be waiting for him at the San Millan cafe at nine o'clock," said Roberto.

"And how are we going to recognize this fellow?" asked Manuel.

"That's so," said Roberto. "How are we going to know him?"

"Easy. He goes around nights through the cafes with one of those apparatuses that sings songs."

"You mean a phonograph?"

"That's it."

At this juncture an old woman appeared in the entrance, shouting:

"Who was the dirty son of a bitch that broke the lantern?"

"Shut up, shut up," answered the mule-driver. "It's all paid for."

"Come along!" said Manuel to Roberto.

They left the inn and strode off at a fast clip. They entered the San Millan cafe. Roberto ordered supper. Manuel knew Tabuenca from having seen him in the street, and as they ate he explained to Roberto just what sort of fellow he was.

Tabuenca made his living through a number of inventions that he himself constructed. When he saw that the public was tiring of one thing, he would put another on the market, and so he managed to get along. One of these contraptions was a wafer-mold wheel that revolved around a circle of nails among which numbers were inscribed and colours painted. This wheel the owner carried about in a pasteboard box with two covers, which were divided into tiny squares with numbers and colours corresponding to those placed around the nails, and here the bets were laid. Tabuenca would carry the closed box in one hand and a field table in the other. He would set up his outfit at some street corner, give the wheel a turn and begin to mutter in his whining voice;

"'Round goes the wheel. Place your bets, gentlemen.... Place your bets. Number or colour ... number or colour.... Place your bets."

When enough bets were placed,—and this happened fairly often,—Tabuenca would set the wheel spinning, at the same time repeating his slogan: "'Round goes the wheel!" The marble would bounce amidst the nails and even before it came to a stop the operator knew the winning number and colour, crying: "Red seven...." or "the blue five," and always he guessed right.

As Manuel spoke on, Roberto became pensive.

"Do you see?" he said, all at once, "these delays are what provoke a fellow. You have a capital of will in bank-notes, gold-pieces, in large denominations, and you need energy in centimos, in small change. It's the same with the intelligence; that's why so many intelligent and energetic men of ambition do not succeed. They lack fractions, and in general they also lack the talent to conceal their efforts. To be able to be stupid on some occasions would probably be more useful than the ability to be discreet on just as many other occasions."

Manuel, who did not understand the reason for this shower of words, stared open-mouthed at Roberto, who sank again into his meditations.

For a long time both remained silent, when there came into the cafe a tall, thin man with greyish hair and grey moustache.

"Can that be Titiri, Don Alonso?" asked Roberto.

"Maybe."

The gaunt fellow went from table to table, exhibiting a box and announcing: "Here's a novelty. Here's somethin' new."

He was about to leave when Roberto called him.

"Do you live at Cuco's hostelry?" he asked.

"Yes, sir."

"Are you Don Alonso?"

"At your service."

"Well, we've been waiting for you. Take a seat; you'll have coffee with us."

The man took a seat. His appearance was decidedly comical,—a blend of humility, bragodoccio and sad arrogance. He gazed at the place that Roberto had just abandoned, in which remained a scrap of roast meat.

"Pardon me," he said to Roberto. "You're not intending to finish that scrap? No? Then.... with your permission—" and he took the plate, the knife and the fork.

"I'll order another beefsteak for you," said Roberto.

"No, no. It's one of my whims. I imagine that this meat must be good. Would you kindly let me have a slice of bread?" he added, turning to Manuel. "Thanks, young man. Many thanks."

The man bolted the meat and bread in a trice.

"What? Is there a little wine left?" he asked, smiling.

"Yes," replied Manuel, emptying the bottle into the man's glass.

"All right," answered the man in ill-pronounced English as he gulped it down. "Gentlemen! At your service. I believe you wished to ask me something."

"Yes."

"At your service, then. My name is Alonso de Guzman Calderon y Tellez. This same fellow that's talking to you now has been director of a circus in America; I've travelled through all the countries and sailed over every sea in the world; at present I'm adrift in a violent tempest; at night I go from cafe to cafe with this phonograph, and the next morning I carry around one of these betting apparatuses that consists of an Infiel[1] Tower with a spiral. Underneath the tower there's a space with a spring that shoots a little bone ball up the spiral, and then the bone falls upon a board perforated with holes and painted in different colours. That is my livelihood. I! Director of an equestrian circus! This is what I've descended to; an assistant to Tabuenca. What things come to pass in this world!"

[Footnote 1: i.e. Faithless. A pun on Eiffel.]

"I should like to ask you," interrupted Roberto, "if during your residence in Cuco's hostelry you ever made the acquaintance of a certain Rosita Buenavida, a circus acrobat."

"Rosita Buenavida! You say that her name was Rosita Buenavida?... No, I don't recall.... I did have a Rosita in my company; but her name wasn't Buenavida (i. e., Goodlife); she'd have been better named Evil-life and evil habits, too."

"Perhaps she changed her name," said Roberto impatiently. "What age was the Rosita that you knew?"

"Well, I'll tell you; I was in Paris in '68; had a contract with the Empress Circus. At that time I was a contortionist and they called me the Snake-Man; then I became an equilibrist and adopted the name of Don Alonso. Alonso is my name. After four months of that Perez and I—Perez was the greatest gymnast in the world—went to America, and two or three years later we met Rosita, who must have been about twenty-five or thirty at that time."

"So that the Rosita you're talking about should be sixty-odd years old today," computed Roberto. "The one I'm looking for can't be more than thirty at most."

"Then she's not the one. Caramba, how sorry I am!" murmured Don Alonso, seizing the glass of coffee and milk and raising it to his lips as if he feared it were going to be wrested from him. "And what a sweet little girl she was! She had eyes as green as a cat's. Oh, she was a pretty chit, a peach."

Roberto had sunk into meditation; Don Alonso continued his chatter, turning to Manuel:

"There's no life like a circus artist's," he exclaimed. "I don't know what your profession is, and I don't want to disparage it; but if you're looking for art.... Ah, Paris, the Empress Circus,—I'll never forget them! Of course, Perez and I had luck; we created a furore there, and I needn't mention what that means. Oh, that was the life.... Nights, after our performance, we'd get a note: 'Will be waiting for you at such and such a cafe.' We'd go there and find one of your high-life women, a whimsical creature who'd invite a fellow to supper... and to all the rest. But other gymnasts came to the Empress Circus; the novelty of our act wore off, and the impresario, a Yankee who owned several companies, asked Perez and me if we wanted to go to Cuba. 'Right ahead,' said I. 'All right.'"

"Have you been in Cuba?" asked Roberto, roused from his abstraction.

"I've been in so many places!" replied the Snake-Man. "We embarked at Havre," continued Don Alonso, "on a vessel called the Navarre, and we were in Havana for about eight months; while we were performing there we struck it big, Perez and I, and won twenty thousand gold pesos in the lottery."

"Twenty thousand duros!" exclaimed Manuel.

"Right-o! The next week we had lost it all, and Perez and I were left without a centavo. A few days we lived on guava-fruit and yam, until we fell in with some gymnasts on the Havana wharf who were down on their uppers. We joined them. They weren't at all bad performers; among them were acrobats, clowns, pantominists, bar artists, and a French ecuyere; we formed a company and made a tour through the island towns; and some magnificent tour that was. How they did welcome us and treat us in that country! 'Come right in, friend, and have a glass.' 'Many thanks.' 'The gentleman mustn't displease me; let's have a drink in that cantine, eh? ...' And the drink flowed to your heart's content. As I was the only one in the troupe that knew how to figure—for I've had an education," interposed Don Alonso, "and my father was a soldier—they named me director. In one of the towns I reinforced the company with a ballerina and a strong man. The dancer's name was Rosita Montanes; she's the one I thought of when you mentioned the Rosita you were looking for. This Montanes was Spanish and had married the strong man, an Italian whose real name was Napoleon Pitti. The couple had with them as secretary a Galician,—very intelligent chap, but as an artist, detestable. And between Rosita and him they deceived Hercules. This wasn't very hard, for Napoleon was one of the ugliest men I've ever laid eyes on. As for strength, there was never his match; he had a back as solid as a front wall; his ears were flattened from blows got in prize-fighting; he was a barbarian for fair, and you know what they say: 'Tell a man by his talk and a bullock by his horn.' And believe me, this little Galician chap led Hercules by the horn, all right. The cursed smarty fooled me, too, though not as he did Hercules, for I've always been a bachelor, thank the Lord, partly through fear and partly through design. Nor have I ever lacked women," added Don Alonso, boastfully.

"What was I saying, now? Oh, yes. I didn't know any English; the damned lingo isn't very hard, but I simply couldn't get it into my head. So I needed an interpreter, and I appointed the Galician as secretary of the company and ticket-seller. We had been together for almost a year when we reached an English island near Jamaica. The governor of the island, the queerest Englishman there ever was, with a pair of side-whiskers that looked like flames leaping from his cheeks, summoned me as soon as we landed. As there was no site for our performances, he made alterations in the municipal school, which was a regular palace; he ordered all the partitions removed and the ring and tiers of seats installed. Only the negroes of the town went to that school, and what need had those creatures of learning to read and write?

"We stayed there a month, and despite the fact that we had rent free and that we played to full houses every afternoon, and that we had practically no expenses, we didn't make any profit. 'How can it be?' I kept asking myself.—A mystery."

"And what was the reason?" asked Manuel.

"I'm coming to that. First I must explain that the governor with the flaming side-whiskers had fallen in love with Rosita, and without beating around the bush he had taken her off to his palace. Poor Hercules roared and crushed the dishes with his fingers, drowning his grief and his rage by committing all sorts of barbarities.

"The governor, a generous sort, invited the Galician and me to his residence, and there, in a garden of cedars and palms, we would draw up the program of the performances, and amuse ourselves at target- practice while we smoked the finest tobacco and drank glass after glass of rum. We paid court to Rosita and she'd laugh like a madwoman, and dance the tango, the cachucha and the vito, and she'd fail the Englishman an awful number of times. One day the governor, who treated me as a friend, said to me: 'That secretary of yours is robbing you.' 'I think he is,' I answered. 'Tonight you'll have the proof.'

"We finished the performance; I went off home, had supper and was about to go to bed when a little negro servant comes in and tells me to follow him; all right; I follow; we both leave; we draw near the circus house, and in a nearby saloon I see the governor and the town chief of police. It was a very beautiful moonlit night, and there was no light in the saloon; we wait and wait, and soon a figure appears, and steals in through a window of the schoolhouse. 'Forwer' whispered the governor. That means Forward," interpreted Don Alonso.

"The three of us followed and entered noiselessly through the same window; on tiptoe we reached the entrance to the former school, which served as the circus vestibule and contained the ticket-office. We see the secretary with a lantern in his hand going through the money-box. 'Surrender in the name of the authorities!' shouted the governor, and with the revolver that he held in his hand he fired a shot into the air. The secretary was paralyzed at the sight of us; then the governor aimed the gun at the fellow's chest and fired again point blank; and the man wavered, turned convulsively in the air and fell dead.

"The governor was jealous and the truth is that Rosita was in love with the secretary. I never in my life saw grief as great as that woman's when she found her lover dead. She wept and dragged along after him, uttering wails that simply tore your soul in two. Napoleon, too, wept.

"We buried the secretary and four or five days later the chief of police of the island informed us that the school could no longer serve as a circus and that we'd have to clear out. We obeyed the order, for there was no way out of it, and for another couple of years we wandered from town to town through Central America, Yucatan, Mexico, until we struck Tampico, where the company disbanded. As there was no outlook for us there, Perez and I took a vessel for New Orleans."

"Beautiful town, eh?" said Roberto.

"Beautiful. Have you been there?"

"Yes."

"Man, how happy I am to hear it!"

"What a river, eh?"

"An ocean! Well, to continue my story. The first time we performed in that city, gentlemen, what a success! The circus was higher than a church; I said to the carpenter; 'Place our trapeze as high as possible,' and after giving him these orders I went off for a bite.

"During our absence the impresario happened along and asked: 'Are those Spanish gymnasts going to perform at such a height?' 'That's what they said,' answered the carpenter. 'Let them know, then, that I don't want to be responsible for such barbarity.'

"Perez and I were in the hotel, when we received a message calling us to the circus at once."

"'What can it be?' my companion asked me. 'You'll see,' I told him. 'They're going to demand that we lower the trapeze.'

"And so it was. Perez and I go to the circus and we see the impresario. That was what he requested.

"'Nothing doing,' I told him. 'Not even if the President of the Republic of the United States himself comes here, together with his esteemed mother. I won't lower the trapeze an inch.' 'Then you'll be compelled to.' 'We'll see.' The impresario summoned a policeman; I showed the fellow my contract, and he sided with me; he told me that my companion and I had a perfect right to break our necks...."

"What a country!" murmured Roberto, ironically.

"You're right," agreed Don Alonso in all seriousness. "What a country. That's what you call progress!

"That night, in the circus, before we went on, Perez and I listened to the comments of the public. 'What? Are these Spaniards going to perform at such an altitude?' the people were asking each other. 'They'll kill themselves.' And we listened calmly, all the time smiling.

"We were about to enter the ring, when along comes a fellow with sailor's chinwhiskers wearing a flat-brimmed high hat and a carrick, and in a twanging voice he tells us that we're in danger of having a terrible accident performing 'way up there, and that, if we wish, we can take out life insurance. All we'd have to do is to sign a few papers that he had in his hand. Lord! I nearly died. I felt like choking the fellow.

"Trembling and screwing up our courage, Perez and I entered the ring. We had to put on a little rouge. We wore a blue costume decorated with silver stars,—a reference to the United States flag; we saluted and then, up the rope.

"At first I thought that I was going to slip; my head was going 'round, my ears were humming; but with the first applause I forgot everything, and Perez and I performed the most difficult feats with most admirable precision. The public applauded wildly. What days those were!"

And the old gymnast smiled; then he made a bitter grimace; his eyes grew moist; he blinked so as to dry a tear that at last escaped and coursed down his earth-coloured cheek.

"I'm an old fool; but I can't help it," Don Alonso murmured in explanation of his weakness.

"And did you stay in New Orleans?" asked Roberto.

"Perez and I signed a contract there," replied Don Alonso, "with a big circus syndicate of New York that had about twenty or thirty companies touring all America. All of us gymnasts, ballet-dancers, ecuyeres, acrobats, pantominists, clowns, contortionists, and strong men travelled in a special train.... The majority were Italians and Frenchmen."

"Were there good-looking women, eh?" asked Manuel.

"Uf! ... Like this ..." replied Don Alonso, bringing his fingers all together. "Women with such muscles! ... There was no other life anything like it," he added, reverting to his melancholy theme. "You had all the money and women and clothes you wanted.... And above all, glory, applause...."

And the gymnast went into a trance of enthusiasm, staring rigidly at a fixed point.

Roberto and Manuel gazed at him in curiosity.

"And Rosita,—didn't you ever see her again?" asked Roberto.

"No. They told me that she had got a divorce from Napoleon so that she could marry again, in Boston, some millionaire from the West. Ah, women.... Who can trust them? ... But gentlemen, it's already eleven. Pardon me; I'll have to be going. Thanks ever so much!" murmured Don Alonso, seizing Roberto and Manuel by the hands and pressing them effusively. "We'll meet again, won't we?"

"Oh, yes, we'll see each other," replied Roberto.

Don Alonso picked up his phonograph and wound in and out among the tables, repeating his phrase: "Novelty! Something new!" Then, after having saluted Roberto and Manuel once more, he disappeared.

"Nothing. I can't discover a thing," grumbled Roberto. "Good-bye. See you again."

Manuel was left alone, and musing upon Don Alonso's tales and upon the mystery surrounding Roberto, he returned to the Corralon and went to bed.



CHAPTER VII

The Kermesse on Pasion Street—"The Dude"—A Cafe Chantant.

Leandro eagerly awaited the kermesse that was to take place on Pasion street. In former years he had accompanied Milagros to the nocturnal fair of San Antonio and to those of the Prado; he had danced with her, treated her to buns, presented her with a pot of sweet basil; but this summer the proof-reader's family seemed very much determined upon keeping Milagros away from Leandro. He had learned that his sweetheart and her mother were thinking of going to the kermesse, so he procured a pair of tickets and told Manuel that they two would attend.

So it happened. They went, on a terribly hot August night; a dense, turbid vapour filled all the streets in the vicinity of the Rastro, which were decorated and illuminated with Venetian lanterns.

The festival was celebrated upon a large vacant lot on Pasion street. Leandro and Manuel entered as the band from the Orphan Asylum was playing a habanera. The lot, aglare with arc-lights, was bedecked with ribbons, gauze and artificial flowers that radiated from a pole in the centre to the boundaries of the enclosure. Before the entrance door there was a tiny wooden booth adorned with red and yellow percale and a number of Spanish flags; this was the raffle stand.

Leandro and Manuel took a seat in a corner and waited. The proof-reader and his family did not arrive until after ten; Milagros looked very pretty that night; she had on a light costume with blue figuring, a kerchief of black crape and white slippers. She wore her gown somewhat decollete, as far as the smooth, round beginnings of her throat.

At this moment the band from the Orphan Asylum blared forth the schottisch called Los Cocineros (The Cooks). Leandro, stirred by the strains, invited Milagros out for a dance, but the maiden made a slight gesture of annoyance.

"You might soil my new costume," she murmured, and put her kerchief around her waist.

"If you dance with another fellow he'll soil it, too," replied Leandro in all humility.

Milagros did not heed his words; she danced with her skirt gathered in one hand, answering him in peevish monosyllables.

The schottisch over, Leandro invited the family to refreshments. To the right of the entrance there were two decorated staircases, which led to another lot about six or seven metres above the grounds where the dance was being held. On one of the stairways, which were both aglow with Spanish flags, was a signpost reading "Refreshments: Entrance" upon the other, "Refreshments: Exit."

They all went upstairs. The refreshment-parlour was a spacious place, with trees and illumination of electric globes that hung from thick cables. Seated at the tables was a motley crowd, speaking at the top of their voices, clapping their hands and laughing.

They had to wait a long while before a waiter brought them their beer; Milagros ordered an ice, and as there were none, she would have nothing.

She sat there thus, without opening her mouth, considering herself grievously offended, until she met two girls from her shop and joined them, whereupon her displeasure vanished in a trice. Leandro, at the first opportunity, left the proof-reader and, rejoining Manuel, set off in quest of his sweetheart. In the lot next to the entrance, where the dancing was going on, couples resting between numbers strolled around in leisurely fashion. Milagros and her two friends, arms linked, came by in jovial mood, followed closely by three men. One of them was a rough-looking youth, tall, with fair moustache; the other a stupid fellow, of ordinary appearance, with dyed moustache, shirt-front and fingers sparkling with diamonds; the third was a knave with, cheek-whiskers, half gipsy and half cattle-dealer, with every ear mark of the most dangerous mountebank.

Leandro, noticing the manoeuvres of the masculine trio, thrust himself in between the maidens and their gallants, and turning to the men impertinently asked:

"What's up?"

The trio pretended not to understand and lagged behind.

"Who are they?" asked Manuel.

"One of them's Lechuguino (the dude)," answered Leandro in a loud voice, so that his sweetheart should hear. "He's at least fifty, and he comes around here trying to play the dashing young blade; that runt with the dyed moustache is Pepe el Federal (the Federalist), and the other is Eusebio el Carnicero (the Butcher), a fellow who owns quite a number of questionable horses."

Leandro's blustering outburst appealed to one of the maidens, who turned to look at the youth and smiled at him; but Milagros was not in the least affected, and looking back, she repeatedly sought the group of three men with her glance.

At this juncture there appeared the fellow whom Leandro had designated with the sobriquet of Lechuguino, in company of the proof-reader and his wife. The three girls approached them, and Lechuguino invited Milagros to dance. Leandro glanced in anguish at his sweetheart; she, however, whirled off heedlessly. The band was playing the pas double from the Drummer of the Grenadiers. Lechuguino was an expert dancer; he swept his partner along as if she were a feather and as he spoke, brought his lips so close to hers that it seemed as if he were kissing her.

Leandro was at an utter loss and suffered agonies; he could not make up his mind to leave. The dance came to an end and Lechuguino accompanied Milagros to the place where her mother was sitting.

"Come. Let's be going!" said Leandro to Manuel. "If we don't, I'm sure to do something rash."

They escaped from the fair and entered a cafe chantant on Encomienda Street. It was deserted. Two girls were dancing on a platform; one dressed like a maja, the other, like a manolo.

Leandro, absorbed in his thoughts, said nothing; Manuel was very sleepy.

"Let's get out of here," muttered Leandro after a short while. "This is too gloomy."

They walked to the Plaza del Progreso, Leandro with head bowed, as pensive as ever, and Manuel so sleepy that he could hardly stand.

"Over at the Marina cafe," suggested Leandro, "there must be a high old time."

"It would be better to go home," answered Manuel.

Leandro, without listening to his companion, walked to the Puerta del Sol, and the two very silently turned into Montera Street and around the corner of Jardines. It was past one. As the pair walked on, prostitutes in their gay attire accosted them from the doorways in which they lurked, but looking into Leandro's grim countenance and Manuel's poverty-stricken features the girls let them walk on, following them with a gibe at their seriousness.

Midway up the narrow, gloomy street shone a red lamp, which illuminated the squalid front of the Marina cafe.

Leandro shoved the door open and they went inside. At one end the platform, with four or five mirrors, glittered dazzlingly; the floor was so tightly jammed with rows of tables thrust against either wall that only a narrow passage was left in the middle.

Leandro and Manuel found a seat. Manuel rested his forehead against his palm and was soon asleep; Leandro beckoned to one of the two singers, who were gaily dressed and were conversing with some fat women, and the two singers sat down at his table.

"What'll you have?" asked Leandro.

"Canary-seed for me," answered one of them,—a slender, nervous type with small eyes that were ringed with cosmetics.

"And what's your name?"

"Mine? Maria la Chivato,"

"And that girl's?"

"La Tarugo."

Tarugo, who was a buxom, gipsy-like Malaguena, sat down beside Leandro, and they started a conversation in hushed tones.

The waiter approached.

"Let's have four whiskies," ordered Chivato. "For this chap is going to drink, too," she added, turning to Manuel and seizing his arm. "Hey, you there, lad!"

"Eh!" exclaimed the boy, waking up without a notion of his whereabouts. "What do you want?"

Chivato burst into laughter.

"Wake up, man, you'll lose your express! Did you come in this afternoon on the mixed train?"

"I came on the ..." and Manuel let loose a stream of obscenity.

Then, in very ugly humour, he began to stare in every direction, making all manner of efforts not to fall asleep.

At a table set aside a man who looked like a horse-dealer was discussing the flamenco song and dance with a cross-eyed fellow bearing every appearance of an assassin.