Po Baroja

---

CHAPTER I

Can Better Times Have Come at Last?—Vidal’s Proposals

When Manuel awoke next morning it was already twelve. For so long his first sensations, upon awakening, had been of cold, hunger or anguish, that now, finding himself under a blanket, sheltered, in a narrow room with little light in it, he wondered whether he were dreaming.

Then all at once the suicide at the Virgen del Puerto came to his mind; there followed his encounter with Vidal, the dance at the Romea and the conversation with La Rabanitos in the bun shop.

“Can better times have come at last?” he asked himself. He sat up in bed, and catching sight of his rags strewn across a chair, was at a loss. “If they find me dressed like this, they’ll throw me out,” he thought. And in his hesitancy he slipped back under the sheets.

It must have been almost two when he heard the door to his room being opened. It was Vidal.

“Why, man! Do you know what time it is? Why don’t you get up?”

“If they see me with those things on,” replied Manuel, pointing to his shreds and patches, “they’ll throw me out.”

“The truth is that you can’t very well dress in the height of fashion,” commented Vidal, contemplating his cousin’s wardrobe. “A fine pair of dancing slippers,” he added, lifting up a misshapen, mud-caked boot by the laces and holding it comically aloft the better to observe it. “The latest style worn by sewer-men. As to socks, none; drawers, the same, of the same cloth as the socks. You’re splendidly outfitted!”

“As you see.”

“But you can’t stay here for ever. You’ve got to get out. I’ll fetch you some of my own clothes. I think they’ll fit you.”

“Yes. You’re a bit taller.”

“Very well. Wait a moment.”

Vidal left the room and soon returned with some of his own clothes. Manuel dressed hastily. The trousers were somewhat too long for him and had to be rolled up at the bottom; on the other hand, the shoes were not high enough, and were tight.

“You have a small foot,” murmured Manuel. “You were born to be a gentleman.”

Vidal thereupon thrust forward his well-shod foot with a certain feminine pride.

“Some young women would give a great deal to have a pair of pinreles[5] like these, wouldn’t they? I don’t like a woman with big feet. Do you?”

“I? My boy, I like them all sizes, even the old ones. There’s so little to choose from.... Give me a newspaper, will you. I want to wrap up these precious garments of mine.”

“What for?”

“So’s they won’t be discovered here. That spoils a fellow’s name. I’ll throw them into the street. Likely as not, the chap who picks them up will think he’s come upon a windfall.”

Manuel wrapped up the rags with great care, made a neat package, tied it with twine and took it in his hand.

“Shall we start?”

“Come along.”

They went out. It seemed to Manuel that everybody’s gaze was fixed upon him and upon the package that he was carrying. He did not dare to leave it anywhere.

“Get rid of it. Don’t be a simpleton,” said Vidal, and snatching the bundle from Manuel’s hand he threw it over a wall into a lot.

The two youths walked through the Calle de la Magdalena to the Plaza de Anton MartÍn and went into the CafÉ de Zaragoza.

They took seats. Vidal ordered two coffees and toast.

“How self-possessed he is,” thought Manuel.

The waiter returned with the order and Manuel threw himself ravenously upon one of the slices.

“Good Lord!” exclaimed Vidal, gazing at him from time to time. “What a vagabond’s face you have!”

“Why?”

“How do I know? Because you have.”

“What’s a fellow going to do about it? He looks like what he is.”

“But have you been working? Have you learned a trade?”

“Yes. I’ve been a servant, a baker, a ragpicker, a typesetter, and now a tramp. And of all these things, I can’t say which is the worst.”

“You must have gone hungry many a time, eh?”

“Uf!... Plenty.... If only they were the last times!”

“They surely will be, man. They will, if you really want them to be.”

“What do you mean? By going to work again?”

“Or some other way.”

“Well, I don’t know any other way of making a living, boy. Either work or steal; either be wealthy or beg alms. I’ve lost the habit of working; I haven’t the nerve to rob. I’m not rich; so I’ll have to go out begging. Unless I enlist in the army one of these days.”

“All this chatter of yours,” replied Vidal, “is pure rot. Can anybody say that I work? No. That I rob or beg alms? Not that, either. That I’m rich? Hardly.... Yet you see, I get along.”

“You sure do. You must have some secret.”

“Maybe.”

“And might a fellow know what that secret is?”

“If you knew it, would you tell me?”

“Why, man ... you’ll see. If I had a secret and you wanted to rob it from me, to tell the truth I’d keep it to myself. But if you didn’t mean to steal it from me altogether, but simply to use it for your own livelihood and not prevent me from using it, too, then I’d certainly let you know what it was.”

“Right you are. You’re frank enough.... What the devil! See here, I’d do anything for you, and I don’t mind letting you in on how we fellows live. You’re a queer, good-natured duck. You’re not one of those brutes who think of nothing but murdering and assassinating folks. I’ll tell you openly—why shouldn’t I?—I’m not much of a hero....”

“Nor I!” exclaimed Manuel.

“Bah! You’re brave. Even El Bizco had respect for you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“You don’t say!”

“As you wish. But getting back to what we were talking about: you and I,—especially me—were born to be rich. But as cursed luck would have it, we’re not. It’s impossible to make a fortune by working, and nobody can tell me different. To save up anything at all, you’ve got to poke yourself into a corner and work away like a mule for thirty years. And how much does a fellow manage to get together? A few measly pesetas. Total: nothin’. You can’t make money? Then you’ve got to see to it that you take it from somebody else, and take it without danger of doing time.”

“And how do you manage that?”

“That’s the question. There’s the rub. See here: When I came to the heart of the city from Casa Blanca, I was a petty-thief, a pickpocket. For nothing at all they sent me up for two weeks to the cage in El Abanico, and when I think of it, kid, I get goose-flesh. I was more afraid than ashamed of being a robber, that’s a fact; but what was I to do? One day, when I stole some electric bulbs from a house on the Calle del Olivo, the janitress, an ugly old hag, caught me in the act and began to run after me, crying, ‘Stop thief! Stop thief!’ I grew wings on my feet, as you may imagine. Reaching the San Luis church I dropped the bulbs, slipped in among the crowd in church and crouched into a pew; they didn’t catch me. But ever since that day, boy, I’ve been scared out of my wits. Yet, as you see, despite my fright, I haven’t changed my ways.”

“Did you go back to stealing bulbs?”

“No, sirree. I stayed in the Apolo patio with that flower-girl that La Rabanitos hated so much. Do you remember?”

“I sure do.”

“There was an interesting girl for you. Well, I was staying there when once I saw a fat guy in a white waistcoat chatting with some skirts. There were many people about; I side up to him, get a hold of his watch chain, tug at it gently till I pull the watch out of his pocket, then turn the ring so as to loosen it. As the chain was rather heavy there was the danger that, on separating it from the watch I’d hit the gentleman in the belly and so let him see that he’d been picked; but at this very moment there was some applause, people began to shove into the theatre; so I loosened the chain and made my escape. I was making off opposite San JosÉ for the Calle de las Torres, when I felt a hand clutch mine. Boy, didn’t I break into a sweat ...! ‘Let me go!’ I said.—‘Shut up, or I’ll call a cop!’ says the other guy. (And I shut up.) ‘I saw you lift that duffer’s watch,’ he says. ‘I?’—‘Yes, you. You’ve got the watch in your trousers pocket. So don’t be foolish and come on have a drink on me in the BrÍgido tavern.’—‘Come on,’ says I to myself. ‘This is a clever guy who must be in the game.’ We went into the tavern and there the fellow spoke straight from the shoulder. ‘See here,’ he says to me. ‘You want to get on at any cost, don’t you? But you hate the Abanico, and I can easily understand that, for you’re no idiot. Very well, then; how do you expect to get on? What weapons have you for the struggle in life? You’re nothing but a fledgling; you don’t know people; you don’t the world. You come to my house tomorrow; I’ll take you to a shop where they sell ready made clothes, you’ll buy a suit, a hat, and a trunk, and I’ll recommend you to a good boarding-house. I’ll see to it that you make plenty of money, for you can just bet the softest snap in the world is getting the dough where there’s plenty of it. Now hand over that watch. They’d fool you.’”

“And did you hand it over to him?”

“Yes. Next day....”

“You must have been left empty-handed....”

“The next day I was already making money.”

“And who’s this man?”

“Marcos Calatrava.”

“Old Cripple? The soldier’s friend?”

“That’s the guy. So now you know. What he said to me, I say to you. Do you want to join the gang?”

“But what am I supposed to do?”

“That depends on the business in hand.... If you accept, you’ll live an easy life, have a swell dame ... and there’ll be no danger.... It’s up to you.”

“I don’t know what to say, boy. If it means being up to rascality, I almost prefer living as I am.”

“Man! That depends upon what you call rascality. Do you call deceiving rascality? Then you have to deceive. There’s no other way out. Either work or trick people out of it, for as to being presented with money, make up your mind they don’t do such things.”

“Yes, that’s true enough.”

“Why, my boy, everything is trickery. Business and robbery are the same thing. The only difference is that in business you’re a respectable person, while for robbery they take you to jail.”

“Do you really believe so ...?”

“Sure I do. What’s more, I believe that there are only two kinds of men in the world: the first live well and rob either labour or money; the second live badly and are robbed.”

“Say, you’re talking sense, you are!”

“You bet.... It’s eat or be eaten. Well, what do you say?”

“What should I say? I accept. Another Society like the Three.”

“Don’t make any comparisons. We don’t want to recall the other one. There’s no Bizco in this combination.”

“But there’s a Cripple.”

“Yes, but a Cripple who has guts.”

“Is he the chief of the party?”

“I’ll tell you the truth, kid.... I don’t know. I deal with the Cripple, the Cripple deals with the Master, and the Master with Lord knows whom. What I do know is that higher up, at the very top, there are some big guns. Let me give you one word of advice: see, hear, and keep your mouth shut. If you ever get wind of anything, let me know; outside, not a word. Understand?”

“I get you.”

“It’s all a matter of cleverness in this game,—keeping your eyes open and not letting anybody put anything over on you. If things go well, within a few years we can be on Easy street, as respectable as any one could wish.... A cinch....”

“Listen,” said Manuel. “Have you come up yet for military service? For I’ll be damned if I know whether I have.”

“Sure. I was dismissed. You’d better see to that. Otherwise they’ll seize you as a deserter.”

“Pse!”

“We’ll let Old Cripple know about it.”

“When shall we see him?”

“He ought to be here in a moment.”

And surely enough, shortly after, the Cripple entered the cafÉ. Vidal, in a few words, told him what he had proposed to his cousin.

“Will he do?” asked Calatrava, eyeing Manuel sharply.

“Yes. He’s cleverer than he looks,” answered Vidal, laughing.

Manuel drew himself up proudly to his full height.

“Very well; we’ll see. For the present he won’t have very much to do,” answered the Cripple.

Thereupon Calatrava and Vidal entered upon a discussion of their private affairs, while Manuel passed the time with a newspaper.

After they had finished talking, Calatrava left the cafÉ and the two cousins were once more alone.

“Let’s go to the CÍrculo,” suggested Vidal.

The CÍrculo was on one of the central thoroughfares. They went in; the ground floor contained a billiard and pool room, and several restaurant tables.

Vidal took a seat at one of these, struck a bell, and to the waiter who answered this summons, said:

“For two.”

“Right away.”

“Listen,” added Vidal, to Manuel: “From the moment we get into here, not a word. Ask me nothing; say nothing. Whatever you need to know, I’ll tell you.”

They ate; Vidal chattered about theatres, clubs, things that Manuel had never heard about. He remained silent.

“Let’s take coffee upstairs,” said Vidal.

Near the counter there was a door; from this rose a very narrow winding stairway to the mezzanine. The stairway led to a door of ground glass. Vidal pushed it open and they walked into a corridor flanked with green screens.

At the end of this passage, a man sat at a table, writing. He looked up at Vidal and Manuel and then resumed his work. Vidal opened another door, drew aside a heavy curtain and made way for them both.

They found themselves in a large room with three little balconies that looked out upon the street and three others giving upon the patio. On the side toward the street stood a large green table, sunken in at the two longer sides; near the patio was a smaller table, illuminated by two lamps, around which were crowded some thirty or forty persons. There was a deep silence; nothing was heard save the voices of the two croupiers and the sounds of their rakes scraping in the money laid upon the green carpet.

After each play there would be a discussion among the players. Then the monotonous voice of the banker would say:

“Faites vos jeux, messieurs.”

The murmur of conversation would cease and the silence would be so great that one might hear the shuffling of the cards between the fingers of the croupier.

“This looks like a church, doesn’t it?” whispered Vidal. “As one of the gentlemen who comes here says, gambling is the only religion that’s left.”

They had some coffee and a glass of whiskey.

“Have you any cigars?” asked Vidal.

“No.”

“Have one. Watch this game closely. I’m going.”

“Might a fellow know what it’s called?”

“Sure. Baccarat. Listen: at eight, in the CafÉ de Lisboa.”

Vidal went out and Manuel was left alone. He watched the money pass to and fro between the bank and the players, the players and the bank. Then he amused himself by watching the gamblers. The participants were so intent upon their game that no one paid any attention to his neighbour.

Those who were seated had in front of them heaps of silver and chips which they placed upon the carpet. The croupier would lay out the French cards and shortly afterward pay out or take in the money thus placed.

Those who were standing around the table, the majority of whom were not taking part in the game, seemed as deeply interested as, if not more so than, the persons seated and playing heavily.

They were specimens of poverty and horrible sordidness; they wore threadbare coats, greasy hats, baggy trousers spattered with mud.

Their eyes were aflame with the passion of the game, and they followed the progress of the plays with their arms clasped behind their backs and their bodies bent forward, holding in their breath.

The scene finally bored Manuel. He gazed into the street from the balconies. He watched players leave and new ones take their places. Toward nightfall he left for the CafÉ de Lisboa.

Vidal arrived; they ate supper, and as they did so, Manuel expressed his doubts as to the game.

“That’s all right. You’ll pick it up soon enough,” assured Vidal. “Besides, the first few days I’ll give you a little card with information as to when you’re to play.”

“Fine. And the money?”

“Here’s enough for tomorrow. Fifty duros.”

“Is this good money?”

“Show it to anybody you please.”

“Then this is a scheme something like El Pastiri’s?”

“The very thing.”

The following afternoon, with the fifty duros that his cousin gave him and according to the instructions written upon a card, he played and won twenty duros, which he handed over to Vidal.

A few days later he was summoned to a barracks, sent to an office, where his name was asked, and then was told to go.

“You’ve been dismissed,” said Vidal.

“Good,” replied Manuel gleefully. “I’m glad I’m not going to be a soldier.”

He continued to visit the CÍrculo on every day that he was sent there. At the end of a certain time he knew every one of the personnel. There were numerous employees attached to the place; several dandified croupiers with neat, perfumed hands; a number of bullies, as many pimps and still others who kept watch over all visitors and the pimps as well.

These were all specimens who lacked anything like a moral sense,—who, some through poverty and hard life, others through inclination to a disorderly existence, had ruined and beclouded their conscience and broken the mainspring of will.

Without clearly realizing it, Manuel felt repugnance for these surroundings and vaguely heard the protest of his conscience.

---

CHAPTER II

El Garro—Marcos Calatrava—The Master—Confidences

One night Manuel left the CÍrculo in company of a puny, sickly looking fellow. They were both bound in the same direction; they entered the CafÉ de Lisboa; there the dwarf met a corpulent woman and sat down at a table with her. Manuel approached his cousin.

“What were you talking about to him?” asked Vidal.

“Nothing. About indifferent matters.”

“I warn you that he’s one of the police.”

“Is that so?”

“I should say.”

“But I saw him at the CÍrculo.”

“Yes. He goes there to collect graft. He’s married to that fatty he’s with now; her name’s La Chana, and she’s an old hand at swindling. She used to live on the Calle de La VisitaciÓn when I went around with Violeta. At that time La Chana ran a ‘fence.’ She knew every inspector on the force and lived with a bully called The Minister who was killed on the Calle de AlcalÁ. Watch out for El Garro; if he asks you anything, don’t answer a word. On the other hand, if you can pump anything out of him, by all means do so.”

The next day El Garro again managed to join Manuel, asking who he was and where he came from. Manuel, now on his guard, told him a string of lies with a face of the utmost innocence, pretending to be the dupe of Vidal and the Cripple.

“I want to tip you off that those fellows are a pair of shrewd birds,” said the police agent.

“Gee! You don’t say!”

“Uf! It would be better if they were out of sight! The Cripple, especially, is as crooked as they make them. Don’t get mixed up with him, for he’s likely to do anything.”

“Is that how wild he is?”

“You just bet. I know his history, all right, though he doesn’t know that I do. His name is Marcos Calatrava, and he comes of good family. Only two years ago he was studying medicine.”

El Garro related the entire life story of Marcos. At first he had been an excellent student. Then all at once he became a habituÉe of dives and dens, in one of which he once stole a cape. He was unfortunate enough to be caught red-handed; they took him off to the Model Prison and he stayed there two months. The following year he made up his mind to give up studying, and since they no longer sent him money from home he began a life of bullying around gambling resorts and joints. During a fight he was stabbed, and for a while this cooled his enthusiasm for swaggering. When he got well he went to see the Mother Superior of the San Carlos Sisters of Charity and asked her for some money. He wished to become a monk, he said; he had been touched by the divine grace. With his honeyed speech he convinced the woman; he not only got the money from her, but also a letter to the prior of a monastery of Burgos.

Calatrava squandered the money and within two or three months was at the point of starvation. Hereupon he organized a company of strolling players whom he exploited in the most conscienceless manner, and about a year or so after he had received the letter from the Mother Superior, during a period of terrible famine, he came upon it at the bottom of a trunk and made up his mind to use it. As he was a man of rapid decisions, he did not hesitate, took the train without a ticket, and arrived at Burgos amongst the freight. He presented himself at the monastery and entered as a novice. Within a short time he requested them to send him among the towns collecting alms. At first he was excellent, even distinguishing himself for his zeal. Soon, however, he began to commit barbarities, scandalizing the pious inhabitants of the villages. When the prior, who had been apprised of his exploits, sent him an order to return to the monastery, Calatrava, paying no attention to the command, continued to swindle the townsfolk. When they were about to apprehend him, he returned to Madrid. After three or four months in the capital he exhausted all his money and his credit, and decided to enlist in the medical section of the army and go off to the Philippines.

An army physician, seeing how clever and ready to assist this Marcos was, tried to help him complete his course and placed him as an interne in the military hospital at Manila.

At once Calatrava set about robbing the hospital pharmacy of medicines, bandages, apparatus,—whatever he could lay hands upon to sell. He was discharged; he asked for permanent papers and gave himself up to exploiting the gamblers in the Manila dives. As he was so fastidious, life there soon became impossible for him, whereupon he fell back upon a military club and succeeded in having them raise a collection for him. With that money he returned to Spain.

Once in Madrid he was soon out of funds again, but as he was not of the kind who drown in a little water, he enlisted in a battalion of volunteers en route to Cuba. Marcos won distinction through his bravery in many a battle, rose soon to a sergeantcy, when a bullet entered his leg and they had to amputate it in the Havana Hospital. The fellow now returned to Spain, with no future ahead of him and only a ridiculous pension to fall back upon.

Here he went around pretending to be one of the secret service, tramping the streets, until he took up with a partner and dedicated himself to burial swindles, which, despite the extent of their practice, still yield results to professional imposters. At one time he formed a society of espadistas and domestics for the robbing of houses; he forged notes; then there was no deceit or swindle to which he would not stoop; and as he was a nimble-witted, clear-eyed fellow, he made a methodical study of all the known methods of trickery; he weighed the pros and the contras of each and every one, and found that they all had their disadvantages.

“At last,” concluded El Garro, “he met the Master, who has retired. I don’t know myself where they got the money for these dives; but the fact is that they have them.”

“Are there more than one of these CÍrculos?” asked Manuel.

“This is the only one that’s open to the public. But they have the house belonging to the Colonel’s wife, where much more gambling goes on. That’s where the Master is every night. Haven’t you ever been to that house?”

“No.”

“They’ll take you there, all right. If you have any money to lose, between Vidal and the Cripple they’ll take you there. Then the Colonel’s wife, since she’s launching her daughter as a dancer, is going to open a salon.”

“Is this Colonel’s wife a Cuban?” asked Manuel.

“Yes.”

“Then I know her. And I know a friend of hers, too, whose name is Mingote.”

The agent eyed Manuel with a certain suspicion.

“Then you may say,” he went on, “that you know the worst scoundrels in Madrid. Mingote is at present with Joaquina la Verdeseca. They run a high-toned house of assignation. Women come there and leave their photographs. It was Mingote who organized that celebrated ball. It cost a duro to get in, and at the end they raffled off a woman: the daughter of Mingote’s mistress.”

A few days after this conversation Manuel, leaving the CÍrculo and coming upon Vidal, felt the need of confiding to his cousin the dissatisfaction he felt with this sort of life. That night Vidal was in a gloomy mood himself and confided several sad tales to Manuel, too.

They went to a theatre, but there was no audience to speak of; they entered a cafÉ, and after spending a terribly cold night Vidal suggested that they go to La Concha’s, on the Calle de Arlaban, for a bite.

Manuel was averse, for he felt neither like eating nor like doing anything else. He tagged after Vidal, however. It was very warm inside; they took seats and Vidal ordered a couple of whiskys and cutlets.

“A fellow must forget,” he said, after giving his order.

Manuel made a gesture of displeasure and emptied a glass of wine that Vidal had poured out.

Then he told the story that El Garro had related to him. His cousin drank in every word.

“I didn’t know Calatrava’s life history,” he confessed, after Manuel had finished.

“Well, tit for tat,” answered Manuel. “You tell me, now, who is this Master?”

“The Master ... is a colossus. Did you ever read ‘Rocambole?’”

“No.”

Vidal paused a while; the figure of Rocambole[6] struck him, no doubt, as most fit for a likeness to the Master.

“Very well. Then imagine a man like the Cripple. Get me? But ever so much cleverer; a man who can imitate any handwriting, who knows four or five languages, who’s always master of himself, who can wear a workman’s smock or a frock coat with the same ease, who can talk to a lady and appear the finest of gentlemen, and then gossip with a street-walker and seem a loafer; and add to this that he’s a sort of clown, that he plays the accordion, that he can imitate a train, make funny motions and mock at everybody. And yet, with all this, boy, you can catch him sometimes half in tears at sight of a half-naked ragamuffin on the street, or because a little girl has asked him for an alms.”

“And what’s his name?”

“How should I know? Nobody does. Some folks say that they knew his father and mother, but it’s not so. I’ve wondered myself whether he mightn’t be the illegitimate son of some noble, but I can’t altogether believe that, for if it had really been so, it would be shocking that they should have arrested him, as they did, when he was seventeen.”

“He began early.”

“Yes. They arrested him without cause. He was in the employ of a fellow who’d managed some swindle, and they shut him up in the Saladero together with his employer. He tells the story himself. One day, it seems, the judge was about to take a deposition from some prisoner, and as the clerk was copying the deposition he was taken suddenly ill and they had to remove him to his home. The judge asked the jailer whether they had any prisoner who could copy down from dictation, whereupon the jailer summoned the Master. He sat down in the clerk’s chair, looked over the documents and began to write. The judge, after the deposition was over, casts a glance at the papers and opens his eyes in amazement. It was impossible to tell where the Master had begun and where the clerk had left off; the handwriting of one and the other was the same.

“What a clever rogue!”

“When the Master told this story, he said that if the judge hadn’t been a stupid ass, he would not have met such a bad end; but the only thing that occurred to the judge was to declare that this boy was a dangerous fellow and that they’d have to keep a close watch upon him. The Master, who noticed that they became even more watchful, and this after he had done them a favour, naturally got angry. Later, in the Saladero, he became acquainted with a notorious forger, and between the two of them, in the prison itself, they did a Frenchman out of forty thousand duros through a burial certificate.”

“The scoundrels!”

“They got away with five or six tricks of the sort. At last it was discovered that they were the culprits and they were prosecuted on fresh charges. They asked one of them: ‘Who wrote this?’ So one of them answered, ‘I’. Then they asked the other, ‘Who wrote this?’ And he too answered, ‘I.’ They simply couldn’t discover which it really was. Then it occurred to the judge to have each of them put into a separate room and made to write the letter through which they had learned that a burial was being prepared. And, boy! The two wrote in the same handwriting, and even made the same erasures. Just imagine how clever that fellow must be, if several times, when there have been balls and banquets at the Royal Palace, he has forged invitations, has put on a dress suit and gone off to the king’s residence, rubbing elbows with dukes and marquises.”

“The deuce you say!” exclaimed Manuel, with admiration. “And is his companion of the Saladero still living?”

“No. I believe he died in America.”

“Has the Master ever been to America?”

“He’s been everywhere. He’s travelled over half the globe, and in every corner of it he has left behind him some ten or a dozen forgeries.”

“He must be rich.”

“You just bet.”

“And what does he do with his money?”

“That’s something I don’t know. He doesn’t go in much for good times, nor has he any women. The Cripple told me once that the Master has a daughter who’s being brought up in France, and that he would leave her a fortune.”

“And where does this man live?”

“Over toward ChamberÍ. I think he spends the days there reading and playing the guitar, and kissing his daughter’s photograph.”

“I’d be curious to find out just what he does.”

“Don’t you try. I once felt the same curiosity. One day I saw him leave a bowling alley on the Cuatro Caminos. ‘Let’s see what this guy is up to,’ I said to myself. I went there the next day and met him. He was in a jovial mood, playing, chatting, gesticulating. It seemed that he hadn’t recognized me. The next day the Cripple says to me:

“‘Don’t return to the place you visited yesterday, unless you want to break with me forever.’ I took the hint and never returned.”

The life of this unknown master, so pure and simple, yet so embroiled in swindlery and deception, was exceedingly curious. Manuel listened to his cousin as one who listens to a fairy tale.

“And the Colonel’s wife?” he asked.

“Nothing.... A gawky skirt. She was the mistress of a watchmaker, who got tired of her because she’s such an ordinary thing, and then she tied up with that soldier. She’s a wicked, filthy old creature.”

“She’s wicked, to be sure. That’s how she struck me from the first day I laid eyes on her.”

“Wicked? She’s a wolf, and has an awful temper. She’s capable of the lowest tricks. Formerly, when some young gentleman would follow one of her daughters, she’d have him come into the house and there she told him that as to her daughters, there was nothing doing. They could have her, though. Now she hangs around the barracks. She’s the cheapest of indecent hags.... But what she’s doing with her son is even worse.”

“What’s that?”

“Nothing. Just for the fun of it they dress him up as a girl and paint him up and don’t call him Luis, which is his real name, but Luisita la Ricopelo.”

“Christ!” muttered Manuel, bringing his fist down upon the table. “That’s too much. That ought to be reported.”

Three men and a girl took seats at the side table.

One of them was a rouged old man with a face seamed with soft wrinkles and an air of repugnant cynicism; the other looked like a wig-maker, with his carefully groomed side-whiskers and his curled hair; the third, bald, with a red nose and yellow, matted hair, looked like the symbol of decrepit youth.

The girl was very pretty; she had a thin nose, very fine lips, black hair, evenly parted; she wore a pearl-coloured cape with a collar of feathers; her mantilla was caught up in her chignon, framing her face and falling across her bosom.

Her features betrayed a constant restlessness and a sarcastic expression; she could not keep quiet for a moment; even when she listened, she fidgeted about and nervously moved her lips.

The cheeks of the entire quartet were aglow and their eyes glittered. The bearded fellow kept asking the girl one question after the other; she answered with the utmost impudence.

Manuel and Vidal cocked their ears to catch the conversation.

“And you really believe in free love?” said the bearded fellow.

“Sure.”

“Wouldn’t you like to get married?”

“No, sirree.”

“She’s a cold fish,” interrupted he of the side-whiskers. “She doesn’t understand matters of affection.”

“Bah. I don’t believe that.”

“The trouble with the poor girl is that she’s very ... brutish,” muttered the old man in a whisky-soaked voice.

“And your wife?” she asked, hitching about in her seat and looking at the old man out of cold, jesting eyes. The girl gave the impression of some wasp or other creature endowed with a sting. Whenever she was about to say something she changed position, stung her interlocutor, and sat back, content and calm for a moment.

The old man mumbled a string of blasphemies. The fellow with the red whiskers continued his interrogatory of the girl:

“But haven’t you ever loved anybody?”

“Not a bit of it. What for?”

“Haven’t I told you she’s as cold as marble?” muttered the chap who looked like a wig-maker.

“When I first became acquainted with that guy,” she went on, laughing and pointing to the fellow with the side-whiskers, “I had a man who paid for my room, and the landlady passed as my mother. Besides, I had other gentleman friends; well, you see, nobody saw anything wrong.”

“That’s terrible,” exclaimed the bearded old man, filling a glass with wine and gulping it down. “They don’t care a bit for us, and here we imagine that they have a heart. But really, in all truth, tell me, haven’t you ever loved anybody?”

“Nobody. Nobody.”

“Haven’t I told you,” repeated the wig-maker’s double, “that she’s as cold as marble? If you only knew the crazy things I’ve done for her! I would ask for her timidly at the porter’s lodge; a month would go by before I plucked up the courage to speak to her; and finally, after I’d got her, I discovered that she was the kind of woman to whom a fellow may say: ‘Are you free tomorrow at such and such an hour?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well, then, see you tomorrow.’”

“Just as one would speak to a piano-tuner,” interjected the bearded gentleman, discovering some relation or other between people and pianos. “It’s awful,” he added. And then, in an access of anger, he pounded his fist down upon the table and set all the glasses dancing.

“What’s the matter with you?” asked the old fellow.

“Nothing. This piggish human brood of ours ought to be destroyed. I feel that I’m an anarchist.”

“Bah! I think you feel drunk,” interrupted he of the side-whiskers.

“Holy God! Just because you happen to be an indecent bourgeois given up to business....”

“You’re more bourgeois than I am.”

The man with the red nose and the yellow beard lapsed into an indignant silence; then, turning to the girl, he said to her in an angry voice:

“Tell that imbecile that when a man of talent speaks he ought to keep his mouth shut. It’s really our fault, for we give him the right of belligerency.”

“Poor man!”

“Idiot!”

“You’re more of a bore than any of the articles you write!” shouted he of the side-whiskers. “And yet, if all this pride you pretend were only truly felt, it would be well. But you don’t feel it. You’re an unfortunate wretch who recognize your own imbecility; you spend your whole life boring us stiff with the recitation of articles you’ve already published,—articles that aren’t even your own, for you steal them right and left....”

At this the bearded gentleman turned so pale that his interlocutor cut short his remarks. The trio continued their conversation in ordinary tones.

All at once the old man broke out into a howl.

“Then he can’t be a respectable person!” he cried.

“Why not?” asked the woman.

“Because he can’t. He must be a carpenter, a street-sweeper, a thief, or the son of a bad mother, for I can’t see what reason a respectable person can have for getting up in the morning.”

Manuel and Vidal had their supper. Shortly afterward the girl and her three escorts rose from their places.

“And now a fellow goes home,” grumbled he of the red whiskers in a funereal tone, “makes his bed, gets in, lights a cigarette, drinks a glass of water, urinates and falls asleep. Life is disgusting.”

As the quartet went into the street, Vidal followed after.

“I’m going to find out who she is,” he explained to Manuel. “See you tomorrow.”

“So long.”

---

CHAPTER III

La Flora and La Aragonesa—La Justa—The Grand Opening of the SalÓn ParÍs

The next day Vidal told his cousin that he had found out who the girl was. Her name was Flora, she lived on the Calle del Pez and went to a fashion shop on the Calle de Barquillo; the place was really a disguised house of assignation. Vidal meant to win La Flora.

He had already made some progress toward this conquest when Calatrava, who was satisfied with Manuel and Vidal, invited them one Sunday afternoon to a house on the Calle del Barquillo, where they would meet some good-looking girls and take them to Los Viveros. That afternoon was filled for Manuel with terrible emotions. Calatrava, Vidal and Manuel rode to the fashion shop in a carriage. They were shown up into a small parlour, regularly furnished. In a short while La Flora appeared, accompanied by a tall woman with black eyes and citreous complexion,—a really fetching wench who aroused intense enthusiasm in Calatrava.

“Let’s wait till another one shows up,” suggested Vidal.

They chatted for a while, waiting. Footfalls were heard in the corridor; a curtain was drawn aside, disclosing a woman. It was La Justa, paler than before, her eyes blacker than ever, her lips red. Manuel stared at her in amazement; she turned her shoulder upon him and tried to sneak out.

“What’s your hurry?” asked Vidal.

She made no reply.

“Very well. Let’s be going,” said Calatrava.

They left the parlour, and walked down the stairs; Vidal helped La Flora into the carriage that was waiting for them; Manuel entered with La Justa; in another carriage sat Calatrava and the tall, black-eyed woman. They rode toward the Puerta del Sol, and afterward, through the Plaza de Oriente to La Bombilla.

In their carriage, Vidal and Flora were talking away without pause for breath; La Justa and Manuel were silent as the tomb.

The lunch was a sad affair for this couple; when it was finished, Vidal and Calatrava disappeared. La Justa and Manuel remained seated before the table, at a loss for words. Manuel was penetrated by a grievous sadness, the complete annihilation of existence.

Toward nightfall the three couples returned to Madrid and had supper in a room of the CafÉ Habanero.

They all exchanged confidences; each recounted his life and miracles, with the exception of La Justa, who did not open her mouth.

“I entered the business,” said La Flora, “because it was all I had ever seen in my own house. I never knew what a father or mother meant; until I was fifteen I lived with some aunts of mine who were as bad as myself. Only they were a happier sort. The elder of them had a boy, and she’d leave him in the drawer of a bureau, which she had turned into a bed. They hadn’t any clothes, and if one went out the other would have to stay home; they wore the same pair of shoes and the same skirts. Whenever they found themselves without funds they would write to a woman who ran a house, would answer her call, and come back happily with their money. They wanted to place me in a shop, but says I, ‘Nothing doing; if I must go to work, me for the gay life,’ and I went into the business.”

The other woman, she who was tall and beautiful, spoke with a certain bitterness. They called her Petra la Aragonesa.

“As for me,” she began, “I was dishonoured by a young gentleman; I lived in Zaragoza, and went right into the business. As my father lives there, and is a carpenter, and my brothers as well, I thought of coming to Madrid so as to spare them the shame. So a chum of mine and myself planned to make the journey together. We each had about ten duros or more when we reached Madrid. At the station we take a carriage, stop at a cafÉ, eat, and then start out doing the streets. At a certain corner, I believe it was on the Plaza de los Mostenses, in a lane that I couldn’t place or name for the life of me, we see a house with the windows all lit up, and hear the sound of a barrel-organ. In we go; two fellows started to dance with us and took us off to a house in the Calle de San Marcos.

“The next day, when I got up, my man says to me: ‘Go on and bring the money you’ve got with you, and we’ll eat right here.’ I answered that there was nothing doing. Then another guy showed up and took us through the house; it was rigged up fine, with sofas and mirrors. He offered us some whisky and cake, and invited us to remain there. I didn’t want to take anything, and left the place. The other girl gave every peseta she had to her man, and stayed. Afterward that guy took everything she earned and beat her into the bargain.”

“And is your companion still living at that house?” asked Vidal.

“No. They transferred her to a house in Lisbon for forty-five dollars.”

“Why did she go?”

La Aragonesa shrugged her shoulders.

“The fact is that the women in this business are beastly stupid,” said Vidal. “They have no sense, they don’t know their rights, nor nothing.”

“And how about you?” asked Calatrava of La Justa.

The girl shrugged her shoulders but did not part her lips.

“She must be some Russian princess,” snarled La Flora.

“Not a bit of it,” retorted La Justa dryly. “I’m just what you are. A common woman.”

They finished their supper and each couple went off in a different direction. Manuel accompanied La Justa as far as the Calle de Jacometrezo, where she lived.

As they reached the entrance to the house Manuel was about to take leave, averting his glance, when she said to him: “Wait.” The watchman opened for them, she gave him ten cÉntimos, he gave her a long wax match after lighting it in his lantern, and she and Manuel began to ascend the staircase. The flickering light of the wax match made the shadows of the two fall alternately huge and small upon the walls. Reaching the third floor La Justa opened a door with a latch-key and they both entered a narrow room with an alcove. La Justa lighted an oil lamp and sat down; Manuel followed her example.

Never had Manuel felt so wretched as on that night. He could not understand why La Justa had asked him to come up with her; he felt inhibited in her presence and did not dare to ask her anything.

After they had exchanged a few indifferent words, Manuel managed to say to her:

“And your father?”

“He’s well.”

All at once, without any warning, La Justa burst into tears. She must have been overwhelmed by an irrepressible desire to tell Manuel her life’s story, and so she did, with many a sigh and broken word.

The butcher’s son, after taking her out of the shop where she worked, had dishonoured her and infected her with a loathsome disease; then he abandoned her and escaped to Madrid. A single recourse remained open to her: she must go to the hospital. When her father went to San Juan de Dios and saw her lying flat on her back with rubber tubes thrust into her open groins, he was on the point of killing her then and there, and in a voice vibrating with fury declared that his daughter was dead to him. She burst into disconsolate tears; a woman in a neighbouring bed said to her: “Why don’t you go into the business?” But her only answer was to weep harder than ever. When she was discharged she went back to the workshop, but the forelady would have none of her. It was now night, and she left the place ready for anything. She happened to be on the Calle Mayor; a man happened by, swinging a cane, and said to her: “Come along with me.” They walked down the street together, and that man brought her to the station; they climbed to the top story and walked through a dark corridor into a room lighted by electricity. It was full of women who were chatting and laughing with the officials. At the end of some time a gentleman began to read a list and the women filed out. Only some twenty or thirty of the most filthy and tattered remained. They were ordered down several flights of stairs and locked into a cell.

“I spent a desperate night there,” concluded La Justa. “The next day they took me to be examined and gave me a certificate.”

Manuel could not find a word of solace; La Justa, sensing his coldness, mastered her emotion. They continued to chat. Then Manuel tranquilly gave an account of his own adventures; one recollection interwove with another, and they talked and talked unwearyingly. As they sat thus conversing the flame of the lamp flickered for a moment and with a gentle sputter went out.

“That, too, is accident,” said La Justa.

“No. It must have run out of oil,” replied Manuel. “Very well. I guess I’ll be going.”

He rummaged through his pockets. There were no matches.

“Haven’t you any matches?” she asked.

“No.”

Manuel got up and groped about; he stumbled against the table, then, striking a chair, he paused.

La Justa opened the balcony shutter that faced the street, thus allowing Manuel sufficient light to find his way to the door.

“Have you the house key?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then how am I to get out?”

“We’ll have to call the watchman.”

They walked out to the balcony; the night was cold, the sky studded with stars. They waited for the watchman’s lantern to appear.

La Justa nestled close up to Manuel; he placed his arm around her waist. They spoke no more; they closed the shutters and hastened through the darkness toward the alcove.

They must accept things as they came. Manuel promised La Justa that he would find some honest means of earning a modest living, and that he’d take her out of this life at once. La Justa wept tears of deep emotion upon Manuel’s shoulder. Despite the fascinating plans of regeneration which they formulated that night, Manuel made no efforts whatsoever; the one thing he did was to come and live with La Justa. At times the couple were filled with deep repugnance for the life they led, and would quarrel and hurl insults at each other upon the slightest provocation; but they made peace directly after.

Every night, while Manuel slept in that hole after many hours at the gambling den, La Justa would return exhausted with her round of the cafÉs, restaurants and houses of assignation. In the livid light of daybreak her checks were of a filthy hue and her smile was the essence of sadness.

There were times when she fell staggering into the room, dead drunk; as she entered the house and stumbled alone up the stairs, she was filled with a haunting fear and deep remorse. Dawn brought to her, as it were, an awakening of conscience.

Reaching the room, she would open the door with her latch-key, enter and lie down beside him, trembling with the cold but careful not to waken him.

Manuel grew quickly accustomed to this new life and the new friendships it brought; he was too lazy and too timorous to make any attempt at changing. Some Sunday afternoons La Justa and he would go for a stroll to the Cuatro Caminos or the Puerta de Hierro, and when they did not quarrel they discussed their illusions,—a change of luck that would fall into their laps without any effort on their part, as a gift from Providence.

During this winter the proprietors of the CÍrculo installed upon the lower floor, which was formerly occupied by the cafÉ, a new venture,—the SalÓn ParÍs; upon the list of the sensational beauties who would grace the salon appeared dancers and singers of the most widespread reputation: the Dahlias, Gardenias, Magnolias, and so forth. In addition, as a special attraction, there was announced the dÉbut of Chuchita, the daughter of the Colonel’s wife. Both as mother and as impresaria she was doing her best to exploit her child. On the day of the child’s first public performance the mother distributed the claque over the whole house. Vidal, the Cripple and Manuel, in their capacity as chief claqueurs, occupied one of the first rows of seats.

“You’ll all applaud, won’t you?” asked the Colonel’s wife.

“Don’t you worry,” answered Calatrava. “And if anybody doesn’t like it, just look at the fine argument I’m carrying.” He showed his cudgel.

Chuchita followed a hypnotizer upon the bill; she appeared to a salvo of applause. She danced without any suggestion of grace, and no sooner had she finished her song and danced the tango that followed it, than the stage was littered with floral wreaths and other gifts. After the conclusion of the part in which Chuchita appeared, Manuel and Vidal joined a number of newspaper men, among whom were two friends of the sculptor Alex, and together they all proceeded to offer their congratulations to the father of Chuchita.

They summoned the watchman and went into the house. The servant asked them to pass to the Colonel’s room. That worthy was in bed, calmly smoking. They all trooped into the bedchamber.

“Congratulations, dear Colonel.”

The gentleman who was such a stickler for military honour received these felicitations without any realization of the sarcasm that flowed beneath.

“And how was it? Really, how was it?” asked the father from his bed.

“Very good. At first a trifle timid, but very soon she let loose.”

“That’s it. Dancers are like soldiers; as soon as they reach the field of battle, their courage rises.”

Everybody, the journalists and the rabble that had tagged after them, greeted the epigram with derisive laughter. They left the colonel and went back to the SalÓn ParÍs.

The Colonel’s wife, Chuchita and her blond sister, accompanied by a Senator, a newspaper man and a well-known bull-fighter, were getting ready for supper in one of the CÍrculo’s private rooms.

According to popular gossip, Chuchita showed a decided inclination toward the bull-fighter, and the Colonel’s wife not only did not seek to dissuade her, but had actually sent for the torero so that Chuchita’s dÉbut might be in every way a pleasant event for the child....

The opening of the SalÓn ParÍs gave Manuel and Vidal opportunity to make new acquaintances.

Vidal had become friends with Chuchita’s brother, who hung about the theatre as a pimp, and the youngster took Vidal and Manuel to the dancers’ greenroom.

When La Justa discovered the sort of friends Manuel was now consorting with she raised a terrible row. La Justa had become bent upon making Manuel’s life intolerable, and when she wasn’t upbraiding him and telling him that he was nothing but a loafer who sponged on her earnings, she was exhibiting the wildest jealousy. Whenever she had one of these outbursts Manuel would shrug his shoulders resignedly, while La Justa, plunged for the nonce into the depths of despair, would throw herself prone upon the floor and lie there motionless, as if dead. Then her paroxysm of anger would pass, and she would be so quiet....

CHAPTER IV

An Execution—On the Sotillo Bridge—Destiny

It was a night in August; Manuel, Vidal, La Flora and La Justa had just left El Dorado theatre, when Vidal suggested:

“They’re executing a soldier at daybreak. Shall we take it in?”

“Sure. Let’s go,” answered La Flora and La Justa.

It was a balmy, beautiful night.

They went up the Calle AlcalÁ and entered the Fornos. At about three they left the CafÉ and took an open hack for the place of the execution.

They left the carriage opposite the Model Prison.

It was too early. It had not yet dawned.

They circled around the prison by a side-street that was no more than a ditch running through the sand and finally reached the clearings near the Calle de Rosales. The structure of the Model Prison, viewed from these desolate fields, assumed an imposing appearance; it looked like a fort bathing there in the blue, spectral illumination of the arc lights. From time to time the sentinels sang out a prolonged watchword that produced a terrible impression of anguish.

“What a sad house!” murmured Vidal. “And to think of all the people shut up in it!”

“Pse.... Let them all be shot,” replied La Justa, indifferently.

But Vidal could not feel this disdain, and grew indignant at La Justa’s remark.

“Then what do they rob for?” she countered.

“And you, why do you ...?”

“Because I need to eat.”

“Well, they need to eat, too.”

La Flora now recalled that as a little girl she had witnessed the execution of La Higinia. She had gone with the janitress’s daughter.

“There’s where the scaffold was,” and she pointed to the middle of a wall opposite the death-house. “The clearings were jammed with people. La Higinia came along dressed all in black, leaning against the Brethren of Peace and Charity. She must have been dead from fright already. They sat her down on the stool and a priest with a raised cross in his hand stood before her; the executioner tied her feet with rope, catching her skirts in the knot; then he blindfolded her with a black handkerchief and getting behind her gave two turns to the wheel. Right away he removed the handkerchief from her face and the woman fell stiff upon the boards.

“Then,” concluded La Flora, “the other girl and myself had to run off, for the guards charged the crowd.”

Vidal paled at this detailed recital of an execution.

“These things take the life out of me,” he said, placing one hand over his heart.

“Then why did you want to come here?” asked Manuel. “Do you want to turn back?”

“No. No.”

They proceeded to the Plaza de Moncloa. At one of the corners of the prison was a seething throng. Day was breaking. A border of gold was beginning to glow on the horizon. Through the Calle de la Princesa came trooping a company of artillery; it looked phantasmal in the hazy light of dawn. The company came to a halt before the prison.

“Now let’s see whether they’ll give us the slip and shoot him somewhere else,” muttered a little old fellow, to whom the idea of getting up so early in the morning and then being cheated out of an execution must have appeared as the height of the disagreeable.

“They’re executing him over toward San Bernardino,” announced a ragamuffin.

There was a general stampede for the scene of the execution. And indeed, just below some clearings near the Paseo de Areneros the soldiers had formed into a square. There was an audience of actors, night-owls, chorus-girls and prostitutes seated around in hacks, and a throng of loafers and beggars. The barren area was fairly vast. A grey wagon came rumbling along at top speed directly into the centre of the square; three figures stepped down, looking from the distance like dolls; the men beside the criminal removed their high hats. The soldier who was to be executed could not be seen very well.

“Down with your heads!” cried the crowd at the rear. “Let everybody have a chance to see!” Eight cavalrymen stepped forward with short rifles in their hands and took up a position in front of the condemned man. Not exactly opposite him, naturally, for, moving along sideways like an animal with many feet, they proceeded several metres. The sun shot brilliant reflections from the yellow sand of the clearing, from the helmets and the belts of the soldiers. No voice of command was heard; the rifles took aim.

“Put down your heads!” came again in angry accents from those who were in the third and fourth row of the spectators.

A detonation, not very loud, rang out. Shortly afterwards came another.

“That’s the finishing touch,” muttered Vidal.

The audience broke up and made off toward Madrid. There was the roll of drums and the blare of bugles. The sun glowed in the window panes of the houses nearby. Manuel, Vidal and the two women were walking through the Paseo de Areneros when they heard the crack of another discharge.

“He wasn’t dead yet,” added Vidal, paler than ever.

The four became moody.

“I tell you what,” spoke up Vidal. “I have an idea for wiping away the unpleasant impression this has made upon us. Let’s go for a little excursion and lunch this afternoon.”

“Where?” asked Manuel.

“Over by the river. It’ll remind us of the good old days. Eh. What do you say?”

“Right-o.”

“La Justa won’t be busy?”

“No.”

“Settled, then. At noon we’ll all meet at SeÑora Benita’s restaurant, near the Pier and Sotillo Bridge.”

“Agreed.”

“And now let’s be off to catch a snooze.”

Which they did. At twelve Manuel and La Justa left the house and made their way to the restaurant. The others had not yet arrived.

They sat down upon a bench; La Justa was in bad humour. She bought ten cÉntimos’ worth of peanuts and began to nibble at them.

“Want any?” she asked Manuel.

“No. They get into my teeth.”

“Then I don’t want any, either,” and she threw them to the ground.

“What do you buy them for, if you throw them away afterward?”

“Because I feel like it.”

“Suits me. Do as you please.”

For an appreciable period they sat there waiting, neither breaking the silence. La Justa, at last beyond her patience, got up.

“I’m going home,” she said.

“I’ll wait,” replied Manuel.

“Go ahead, then, and may they darn you with black thread, you thief.”

Manuel shrugged his shoulders.

“And give you blood pudding.”

“Thanks.”

La Justa, who was on the point of leaving, caught sight just then of Calatrava and La Aragonesa, and Vidal in company of La Flora. She paused. Calatrava had a guitar with him.

An organ-grinder happened to be passing the restaurant. The Cripple stopped him and they danced to his tunes, Vidal with La Flora, La Justa with Manuel.

Now new couples appeared, among them a fat, flat-nosed virago dressed in ridiculous fashion and accompanied by a fellow with mutton-chop whiskers and the general appearance of a gipsy. La Justa, who was in an insolent, provocative mood, began to laugh at the fat woman. The aggrieved party replied in a depreciative, sarcastic voice, scoring each word:

“These cheap fly-by-nights....”

“The dirty whore!” muttered La Justa, and began to sing this tango in a lowered voice, turning toward the fat woman as she did so:

“Low-life!” grunted the virago.

The man with the gipsy appearance went over to Manuel and informed him that that lady (La Justa) was insulting his own, and this was something he could not permit. Manuel was well aware that the man was in the right; yet, despite this, he made an insolent reply. Vidal intervened, and after many an explanation on both sides, it was decided that nobody had been insulted and the matter was composed. But La Justa was bent upon trouble and got into a scrape with one of the organ grinders, who was an impudent rascal by very virtue of his calling.

“Shut up, damn it all!” shouted Calatrava at La Justa. “And you, too, close your trap,” he cried to the organ grinder. “For if you don’t, you’re going to feel this stick.”

“Let’s better go inside,” suggested Vidal.

The three couples proceeded to a veranda furnished with tables and rustic chairs; a wooden balustrade ran along the side that overlooked the Manzanares river.

In the middle of the stream were two islets mantled with shining verdure, between which a number of planks served as a bridge from one bank to the other.

Lunch was brought, but La Justa had no appetite, nor would she deign a reply to any questions. Shortly afterward, for no reason whatsoever, she burst into bitter tears, amidst the cruel bantering of La Flora and La Aragonesa. Then she grew calm and was soon as happy and jovial as could be.

They ate a sumptuous meal and left for a moment to dance on the road to the tunes of the barrel organ. Several times, it seemed to Manuel, he caught sight of El Bizco in front of the restaurant.

“Can it be Bizco? What can he be looking for around here?” he asked himself.

Toward nightfall the three couples went in, turned on the light in their room and sent for whisky and coffee. For a long time they chatted. Calatrava related with evident delight a number of horrors out of the war with Cuba. In that conflict he had satisfied his natural instincts of cruelty, slicing negroes, razing mills, spreading fire and destruction in his path.

The three women, especially La Aragonesa, were filled with enthusiasm by his tales. All at once Calatrava lapsed into silence, as if some sad memory had stemmed his garrulousness.

Vidal took up the guitar and sang the Espartero tango with deep feeling. Then he hummed the tune of La Tempranica very charmingly, enunciating the phrases sharply so as to give them fuller savour, and placing his hand over the orifice at times so as to mute the sound. La Flora struck a number of merry poses while Vidal, affecting a gipsy style, sang on:

Then Marcos Calatrava seized the instrument. He was no player like Vidal; he could simply strum a few chords gently, monotonously. Marcos sang a Cuban song,—sad, languid, filled with a communicative longing for some tropical land. It was a lengthy narrative that evoked the negro danzÓn, the glorious nights of the tropics, the fatherland, the blood of slain soldiers, the flag, which brings tears to one’s eyes, the memory of the rout ... an exotic, yet intimate piece, exceedingly sorrowful,—and something beautifully plebeian and sad.

At the sound of these songs Manuel was inspired with the great, proud, gory idea of the fatherland. He pictured it as a proud woman, with glittering eyes and terrible gesture, standing beside a lion....

Then Calatrava sang, to the monotonous accompaniment of his strumming, a very languorous, doleful song of the insurgents. One of the stanzas, which Calatrava sang in the Cuban dialect, ran as follows:

For some reason which Manuel could not fathom, the incongruous mixture that appeared in the song filled him with a vast sadness....

It was darkling outside. Afar, the saffron-hued soil was gleaming with the dying quivers of the sun, which was hidden by clouds that looked like fiery dragons; a tower here, a tree there, yonder a ramshackle shanty, broke the straight, monotonous line of the horizon. The western sky was a caldron of flames.

Then came darkness; the fields sank into gloom and the sun disappeared.

Over the tiny plank bridge that reached from one bank to the other passed a procession of dark women with bundles of clothes under their arms.

Manuel was overwhelmed by an all-engulfing anguish. From the distance, out of some restaurant, came the far-off droning of a guitar.

Vidal ran out of the veranda.

“I’m coming!” he cried.

A moment ... and a wail of despair rang out. They all jumped to their feet.

“Was that Vidal?” asked La Flora.

“I don’t know,” answered Calatrava, laying the guitar upon the table.

There was a din of voices in the direction of the river. All the patrons of the place dashed over to the balcony that looked out upon the Manzanares. Upon one of the green islets two men were engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle. One of them was Vidal; he could be recognized by his white Cordovan hat. La Flora, making sure it was he, uttered a shriek of terror. In an instant the two men had separated and Vidal fell headlong to the ground, without a sound. The other man placed his knee upon the fallen man’s back and must have plunged his dirk into him some ten or a dozen times. Then he ran into the river, reached the other side and disappeared.

Calatrava and Manuel let themselves down over the veranda balustrade and ran across the plank bridge to the little island.

Vidal was stretched face downward in a pool of blood. The dirk was thrust into his neck, near the nape. Calatrava pulled at the handle, but the weapon must have penetrated into the vertebrae. Then Marcos turned the body half way around and placed his hand over the man’s heart.

“He’s dead,” he pronounced, calmly.

Manuel eyed the corpse with horror. The dying light of evening was reflected in its widely opened eyes. Calatrava replaced the body in the position in which they had found it. They returned to the restaurant.

“Let’s be off at once,” said Marcos.

“And Vidal?” asked La Flora.

“He’s given up the ghost.”

La Flora broke into a wail, but Calatrava seized her violently by the arm and enforced silence.

“Come on ... clear out,” he ordered. With the utmost self-composure he paid the bill, took his guitar and they all left the restaurant.

It was now night; in the distance, Madrid, a pale coppery hue, rose against the soft, melancholy, azure sky which was streaked in the west by long purplish and greenish bands. The stars began to shine and twinkle languidly; the river shot back silvery reflections.

Silently they crossed the Toledo Bridge, each one given up to his own meditations and fears. At the end of the Paseo de los Ocho Hilos they found two carriages; Calatrava, La Aragonesa and La Flora stepped into one, and La Justa and Manuel got into the other.

CHAPTER V

The Police Court Dungeon—Digressions—Manuel’s Statement

On the day following the death of his cousin Manuel eagerly bought the newspapers; they all had accounts of the murder at the restaurant; the customers present at the time were clearly described; Vidal’s body had been identified and it had been established that the assassin was El Bizco, a jail bird who had already been tried for two robberies, and assaults, and the alleged perpetrator of a murder committed upon the Aravaca road.

La Justa and Manuel were thrown into a terrible panic; they feared lest they should be involved in the crime and be summoned to testify; they were completely at a loss.

After much cogitation, they decided that the most sensible course would be to move off somewhere into the suburbs. La Justa and Manuel sought a place, finding one at last in a house on the Calle de Galileo, near the Tercer DepÓsito, in Vallehermoso.

The rent was cheap,—three duros per month. The house had two balconies, which looked out upon a large clearing or vacant lot where the stone cutters hewed large boulders. This lot was marked off by a wall of chips left over from the stone cutting, and in the centre was a shack where the watchman lived with his family.

The rooms were flooded with light from sunrise to sunset. Save for the terror produced in Manuel by Vidal’s tragic end or by some inner impulse thus stirred, Manuel felt his soul quiver with eagerness to begin life anew; he hunted work and found it in a printing-shop of ChamberÍ. This being shut up all day within the walls of the shop was a violent trial for him; but the very violence that he was forced to practise upon himself gave him courage to persevere. La Justa, on the other hand, found the time heavy on her hands and went about forever in a glum, moody humour.

One Saturday, after a week of this exemplary life, Manuel returned to the house and did not find La Justa waiting for him. He spent a restless night hoping for her to come back; she did not appear.

The next day she did not return, either; Manuel broke into tears. He understood now that she had deserted him. This was the cruel awakening from a wondrous dream; he had flattered himself that at last they two had risen out of wretched poverty and dishonour.

During the previous days he had heard La Justa complain of headache, of lack of appetite; but never had he suspected this plot, never could he have believed that she would abandon him like this, in such cold blood.

And he felt so alone, so miserable, so cowed again! This room, inundated with sunshine, which formerly he had found so cheery, now seemed sad and sombre. From the balcony he gazed out upon the distant houses with their red roofs. Far off lay Madrid, bathed in a clear, bright atmosphere under a golden sun. Some white clouds sailed slowly, majestically by, dissolving and re-forming into their fantastic shapes.

Workingmen’s families, dressed in their Sunday best, tripped by in groups; faintly there came the gay strains of the barrel-organs.

Manuel sat down upon the bed and pondered. How many excellent projects, how many plans cherished in his mind had come to nought in his soul! Here he was, only at the beginning of life, and already he felt himself without the strength to fight the battle. Not a hope, not an illusion smiled at him. Work? What for? Set up one column after another of type, walk to work and then back to the house, day in and day out, sleep,—all for what? He was bereft of plan, idea, inspiration. He stared into the merry Sunday afternoon, the splashing sunlight,—gazed at the blue heavens, the distant spires....

Immersed in his hazy thoughts Manuel did not hear the knocking at the door; it grew louder with each repetition.

“Can it be La Justa?” he thought. “Impossible.”

Yet he opened the door in the vague hope of confronting her. Two men greeted his sight.

“Manuel AlcÁzar,” declared one of them, “you are under arrest.”

“What for?”

“The judge will tell you. Slip into your shoes and come along with us.”

“Am I going to be locked up?” asked Manuel.

“Not unless you do something foolish. Up! Get a move on!”

The three men reached the street and walked to the Paseo de Areneros.

“We’ll take a tram,” said one of the policemen.

They entered the tram; it was so crowded that they were compelled to remain upon the platform. Reaching the Plaza de Santa Barbara they got off, and crossing two or three thoroughfares they brought up before Las Salesas; here they turned a corner, passed through a gate, and walked down a long passageway at the end of which was a dungeon. They thrust Manuel in and locked the cell from outside.

They say that solitude and silence are, as it were, the father and mother of deep thoughts. Manuel, in the midst of this silence and solitude, could not discover the most insignificant idea. And speaking of discovery, he could not discover even in the world of phenomena a place where to sit; nor was this so strange, for there wasn’t a chair or bench, however humble, in the hole. Dejected and exhausted, he sank to the ground. He lay thus for several hours; all at once a pale illumination entered from above the door, through a transom.

“They’ve put on the lights,” said Manuel to himself. “It must be night now.”

In a moment there was a din of shouts and wails.

“You’d better obey orders, now, or you’ll be the worse off for it,” said a grave voice.

“But seÑor officer, I’m not the man. I’m not the man,” protested a supplicating prisoner. “Please let me go home.”

“Come along with you. Get inside!”

“In God’s name! For the love of God! I’m not the man.”

“In with you!”

There was the noise of the man being pushed into the dungeon, followed by the violent slamming of the door. The entreating voice continued to cry with wearing monotony:

“I’m not the man.... I’m not the man.... I’m not the man.”

“Good Lord, here’s a bore for you!” said Manuel to himself. “If he runs on like that all night long, I’m in for a fine time!”

Little by little his neighbour’s lamentations abated, finally subsiding into a silent weeping. From the corridor came the rhythmic footfalls of some one who was pacing up and down.

Manuel rummaged desperately through his mind for some idea, if only to amuse himself with it; he could find nothing. The one conclusion he could reach was that it had grown light.

Such a lack of ideas led him, as if by the hand, into a deep slumber, which in all likelihood did not last more than a couple of hours, yet to him seemed a year. He awoke all mauled up, with a cramp in his side; throughout his sleep he had not been able to shake off the realization that he was in a cell, but his brief period of rest had been so restorative that he felt strong, ready for whatever should arise.

He still had in his pocket the wages he had received at the printing-shop. Softly he knocked at the cell door.

“What do you want?” came the query from outside.

“I’d like to step out for a moment.”

“Step out.”

He walked into the corridor.

“Could you fetch me a coffee?” he asked of a guard.

“If you pay for it....”

“Of course I’ll pay. Send for a cup of coffee and toast, and a package of cigarettes.”

“Right away,” said the guard.

“What’s the time?” asked Manuel.

“Twelve.”

“If I didn’t have to stick in that hole I’d invite you to have a coffee with me; but....”

“You can have it out here. There’s enough in one cup for two.”

A waiter came with the coffee and cigarettes. They sipped the coffee, smoked a cigarette, and the guard, already won over, said to Manuel:

“Take one of these benches in with you to sleep on.”

Manuel took a bench and stretched out at full length. On the previous day, though free, he had felt weak and crestfallen; now, though in custody, he felt strong. Plans piled up in his thoughts, but he could not sleep.

Physical exhaustion consumes the strength and excites the brain; the imagination wings in the darkness as do nocturnal birds; and, again like them, it takes refuge in ruins.

Manuel did not sleep; but he dreamed and planned a thousand things; some logical, the majority of them absurd. The light of day, filtering dimly in through the transom, scattered his ideas upon the future and restored him to thoughts of the immediate present.

They would soon be along to take him before the judge. Now what was he going to answer? He’d cook up a story. Accident had brought him to the Sotillo Bridge; he did not know Calatrava. But suppose they confronted him with these people? He’d surely get all muddled. It would be better to come right out with the truth and soften it down as much as he could, so as to favour his case. He had become acquainted with Calatrava through his cousin; he saw him from time to time at the SalÓn; he worked in a printing-shop....

He had just about decided upon this plan when a guard entered the cell.

“Manuel AlcÁzar.”

“At your service.”

“Proceed to the judge’s room.”

The two men filed down a long corridor and the guard knocked at a door.

“Have we your grace’s permission?” asked the guard.

“Come in.”

They entered an office with two large windows that afforded a view of the trees on the square. Before the desk was the judge, seated in a high-backed chair. Opposite the desk was a closet in the Gothic style, filled with books. A clerk kept entering and leaving, carrying heaps of documents under his arm; the judge would ask him a stray question and then hurriedly sign a paper.

When he had finished, the guard, cap in hand, approached the judge and informed him in a few words as to Manuel. The magistrate threw a hurried glance at the boy, who, at that moment, was thinking:

“I’ll have to tell the truth; for, if I don’t, they’ll tear it out of me and it’ll be so much the worse.”

This decision infused him with a great tranquillity.

“Step closer,” said the judge.

Manuel came over to the desk.

“What’s your name?”

“Manuel AlcÁzar.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-one.”

“Trade?”

“Typesetter.”

“Do you swear to answer the truth to all questions put to you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you do, then may Heaven reward you for it; if you don’t, may it visit proper punishment upon you. What did you do on the day of the crime?”

“On the night before, Vidal and myself, together with two women, went to see the execution of a soldier. After that we slept for a while in the morning, and at eleven I went with a woman to the restaurant near the Sotillo Bridge, where we had an appointment with Vidal.”

“What relation are you to the murdered man?”

“I was his cousin.”

“Did you ever quarrel with him?”

“No, sir.”

“How did you make a living up to the day on which Vidal died?”

“I lived on gambling.”

“What did you do to live on gambling?”

“I played with the money that was given to me, at the CÍrculo de la Amistad, and I handed over my winnings sometimes to Vidal and other times to a lame fellow named Calatrava.”

“What offices did Vidal and this cripple fill at the CÍrculo?”

“The Cripple was secretary to the Master, and Vidal was secretary to the Cripple.”

“What’s the Cripple’s real name?”

“Marcos Calatrava.”

“Through whom did you come to know the Cripple?”

“Through Vidal.”

“Where?”

“At the Majo de las Cubas tavern, over on the Calle Mayor.”

“How long since is this?”

“A year.”

“Who took you into the CÍrculo de la Amistad?”

“Vidal.”

“Do you know a fellow nicknamed El Bizco?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How do you come to know him?”

“He was a friend of Vidal’s when we were kids.”

“Wasn’t he a friend of yours, too?”

“Friend? No. I never had any use for him.”

“Why?”

“Because he struck me as a bad one.”

“Just what do you mean by that?”

“What everybody means; that he was hard-hearted and that he tortured anybody who was weaker than himself.”

“Have you a sweetheart?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is she a public woman?”

“Yes, sir,” stammered Manuel, trembling with grief and rage.

“What’s her name?”

“Justa.”

“Where does she live?”

“I don’t know. She left my house day before yesterday.”

“Where did you get to know her?”

“At the home of a ragpicker where I was a servant.”

“What’s that ragpicker’s name?”

“SeÑor Custodio.”

“Is it you who are responsible for her being a prostitute?”

“Not I, sir.”

“When you made her acquaintance, was she already a public woman?”

“No, sir. When I made her acquaintance she was a modiste; a man took her away from home; when I met her for the second time, she was already on the streets.”

As he spoke these words, Manuel’s voice trembled and the tears fought to issue from his eyes.

The judge contemplated him coldly.

“Whose suggestion was it to go to the restaurant near the Sotillo Bridge?”

“Vidal’s.”

“Did you see El Bizco hanging around the restaurant?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Didn’t that surprise you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you know that El Bizco had murdered a woman on the Aravaca road?”

“Vidal told me.”

“After that crime of El Bizco’s, did you ever speak to him?”

“No, sir.”

“Never?”

“No, sir.”

“Be very careful of what you say,” and the judge fixed his stare upon Manuel. “After the death of that woman, didn’t you ever—not even once—speak to El Bizco?”

“No, sir,” and Manuel firmly sustained the judge’s stare.

“Didn’t it strike you as strange that El Bizco should be hanging around the restaurant?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then why didn’t you let Vidal know?”

“Because my cousin had told me never to mention El Bizco to him.”

“Why?”

“Because he was afraid of him. I knew this, and I didn’t want to scare him.”

“When you saw that he was going, why didn’t you warn him that it might be El Bizco?”

“It never occurred to me.”

“What did you do when you heard Vidal’s outcry?”

“I ran out to the restaurant veranda together with three women and the Cripple, and from there we saw Vidal and El Bizco on the little island, fighting.”

“How did you know it was they?”

“From Vidal’s cry, and also because he was wearing a white Cordovan hat.”

“What time was it when this happened?”

“I couldn’t say exactly. It was just getting dark.”

“How did you recognize El Bizco?”

“I didn’t make him out; I thought it might be him.”

“Did Vidal have any money on his person?”

“I don’t know.”

“How long did the struggle last?”

“A moment.”

“Didn’t you men have time to run to his assistance?”

“No, sir. Very soon after we ran to the balcony, Vidal fell to the ground, and the other fellow made for the river and disappeared.”

“Very well. What happened after that?”

“The Cripple and myself hurdled the balustrade, jumped into the river and ran over to the island. The Cripple grabbed Vidal’s hand and said, ‘He’s dead.’ Then we both went back to the restaurant and left.”

The judge turned to the clerk:

“You will read him this declaration later, and have him sign it.”

He then rang the bell and the guard appeared.

“He is to continue in solitary.”

Manuel left the office, walking out erect. Several of the judge’s expressions had cut him to the soul, but he was satisfied with his deposition; they hadn’t got him all mixed up.

He returned to the dungeon and stretched out upon the bench.

“The judge wants to make me out as an accomplice in the crime. Either that fellow is mighty stupid or mighty wicked. Well, let’s hope for the best.”

At noon the dungeon door opened to admit two men. One was Calatrava; the other, El Garro.

“Hello, kid; I’ve just read in the papers that you were arrested,” said Calatrava.

“As you see. Here they’ve got me.”

“Have you made a statement?”

“Yes.”

“What did you say?”

“Say! What did you think I’d say? The truth.”

“Did you mention my name?”

“I should say so. I mentioned you, the Master and the whole crowd.”

“The hell you did! What a beast!”

“Not at all. Did you imagine that I was going to rot here, though I wasn’t in any way to blame, while the rest of you walked the streets in freedom?”

“You deserve to stick here forever,” exclaimed Calatrava. “Yes, for being such an idiot and a squealer.”

Manuel simply shrugged his shoulders. Calatrava and El Garro exchanged inquiring glances and then left the dungeon.

Manuel went back to his bench. The afternoon was half gone when once more the door opened, admitting the guard. He brought a dish of stew, some bread, and a bottle of wine.

“Who has sent me this?” asked Manuel.

“A girl named Salvadora.”

The memory suffused Manuel with tenderness, and since tenderness did not take away his appetite, he ate his fill and then stretched out on the bench.

CHAPTER VI

What Happened In the Judge’s Office—The Chapter House

Several hours later the judge received three urgent letters. He opened them, and at once rang a bell.

“Who brought these letters?” he asked of the guard.

“A lackey.”

“Is there any plain-clothes man about?”

“There’s El Garro.”

“Send him in.”

The agent entered and came over to the judge’s desk.

“In these letters,” began the judge, “there is reference to the deposition just made by that boy arrested yesterday. How does it come that any one should have knowledge of his declaration?”

“I don’t know.”

“Has this boy been speaking with anybody?”

“Nobody,” answered El Garro, calmly.

“In this letter, two ladies whom the minister can refuse nothing, ask him, and he in turn asks me, to quash this entire matter. What interest can these two ladies have in the affair?”

“I don’t know. If I knew who they were, perhaps....”

“They are SeÑora de Braganza and the Marchioness of BuendÍa.”

“Ah, then I understand the whole thing. The proprietors of the CÍrculo where the boy used to work are anxious lest he speak of the gambling house. One of the proprietors is the Colonel’s wife, who must have gone to see these ladies, and then the ladies must have had recourse to the minister.”

“And what’s the connection between the Colonel’s wife and these ladies?”

“She lends out money. This SeÑora de Braganza once forged her husband’s name, and the Colonel’s wife has the document in her possession.”

“And the marchioness?”

“As to her, that’s another matter. You know that her most recent lover was Ricardo Salazar.”

“The former deputy?”

“Yes, and a dyed-in-the-wool rascal. One or two years ago, when the relations between Ricardo and the marchioness were still in the early stages, the marchioness would receive from time to time a letter which read: ‘I have in my possession a note addressed by you to your lover, in which you say this and that (pretty intimate things). If you don’t come across with a thousand pesetas, I’ll see that your husband gets that letter.’ She was scared out of her wits, and paid three, four, five times, until on the advice of a lady friend, and in agreement with an officer, they apprehended the man who brought the letters. And it turned out that he was sent by Ricardo Salazar himself.”

“By the lover?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a gallant cavalier for you!”

“When the marchioness and Ricardo fell out....”

“On the discovery of this plot with the letter?”

“No. The marchioness forgave him for that. They had a quarrel because Ricardo asked for money which the marchioness couldn’t or wouldn’t give him. Salazar owed three thousand duros to the Colonel’s wife, and that lady, who is nobody’s fool, said to him: ‘You hand me over the marchioness’s letters and we’ll cancel your debt.’ Ricardo handed them over, and ever since that day the marchioness is bound hand and foot to the Colonel’s wife and her associates.”

The judge arose from his chair and walked slowly about the room.

“Then there’s an impersonal note from the director of El Popular, asking me not to prosecute this case. What connection can there be between the gambling den and the owner of that paper?”

“He’s one of the partners. In case the den should be discovered, the newspaper would start a strong campaign against the government.”

“How’s a man going to administer justice under such conditions!” muttered the judge, pensively.

El Garro gazed ironically at the magistrate.

At this moment the telephone bell rang; the ringing continued for an appreciable while.

“With your permission?” asked a clerk.

“What is it?”

“A message from the minister, asking whether the case has been disposed of according to his desires.”

“Yes, tell him yes,” grumbled the judge, ill-humouredly. Then he turned to the agent. “This youngster we’ve arrested,—isn’t he in any way involved in the crime?”

“Absolutely none,” answered El Garro.

“Is he the dead man’s cousin?”

“Yes, your honour.”

“And he knows El Bizco?”

“Yes. He was a friend of his.”

“Could he help the police in the capture of El Bizco?”

“I’ll see to that part of it. Shall the prisoner be set free?”

“Yes. We must capture El Bizco. Aren’t his whereabouts known?”

“He must be in hiding around the suburbs.”

“Isn’t there any agent who knows the suburban hangouts well?”

“The best of them is a fellow named Ortiz. If you will kindly give me a note to the Chief to place Ortiz under my orders, I’ll guarantee that El Bizco will be in a cell within a week.”

The judge summoned a clerk, ordered him to write the letter, and handed it to El Garro.

El Garro left the judge’s office and had Manuel released from the dungeon.

“Must I make another declaration?” asked the boy.

“No. You’re to sign the one you made and then you’re free. Come along, now.”

They went out into the street. At the Court House entrance Manuel caught sight of La Pea and La Salvadora; the latter had lost her ordinarily dour expression.

“Are you free already?” they asked him.

“It looks like it. How did you learn that I’d been arrested?”

“We read it in the papers,” answered La Fea, “and she thought of bringing you food.”

“And JesÚs?”

“In the hospital.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“His chest ... he’s much better now.... Come right home, won’t you? We live over on Mellizo Lane, near the Calle de la Arganzuela.”

“All right.”

“So long, then.”

“Good-bye, and many thanks.”

El Garro and Manuel turned the corner and entering a portal with a bronze lion on either side, climbed a short staircase.

“What’s this?” asked Manuel.

“This is the Chapter House.”

They passed along a corridor, between black screens, into a room where two men sat writing. El Garro asked for El Gaditano.

“He must be out there,” they informed him.

The agent and Manuel continued on their way. The corridors swarmed with men who were scurrying to and fro in great haste. Others were motionless, in quiet attendance. These were ragged toilers, women garbed in black, sad old ladies bearing the stamp of poverty,—a frightened, timorous, humble rout.

The men who were scurrying back and forth carried letter-files and documents under their arms; all or almost all of them wore a lofty, proud expression. There was the judge who strode by in his cap and black frock coat, gazing indifferently through his spectacles; there was the clerk, not quite so grave and more jovial, who would call over some one, whisper into his ear, go into the office, sign a document and come out again; there was the young lawyer who asked how his cases were getting along; there were the procurator, the attorneys, the clerks, the office boys.

And here, too, thrusting this drove of humble and poverty-stricken human cattle toward the shambles of Justice, appeared the usurer, the policeman, jewel brokers, moneylenders, landlords....

They all had an understanding with the office boys and the clerks, who saw to their affairs; these employÉs would pigeon-hole troublesome cases, arrange or embroil a suit and send a fellow to prison or take him out,—all for a small consideration.

What an admirable machinery! From the lowest to the highest of these pettifoggers, with or without a toga, they knew how to exploit the humble, the poor in spirit, and how to protect the sacred interests of society by seeing to it that the needle on the balance of justice always inclined toward the side of wealth....

El Garro found El Gaditano, and asked him:

“Listen, it was you who took down this boy’s declaration, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, kindly put down that it is not known who killed his cousin; that it is supposed to be El Bizco, but that’s all. And then order him released.”

“Very well. Step into the office.”

They passed into a small room with a window at the rear. Against one of the longer walls was a closet, on top of which lay a number of articles involved in recent robberies and seizures, among them a bicycle.

El Gaditano came in, drew a bundle of documents from the closet and began to write rapidly.

“ ... That he’s a cousin of the dead man and that it is supposed that the author of this crime is a fellow nicknamed El Bizco; isn’t that it?”

“That’s it,” corroborated El Garro.

“Very well. Have him sign here.... Now, here.... That’s all.”

The agent took leave of El Gaditano; Manuel and El Garro went out into the street.

“Am I free now?” asked Manuel.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“They’ve set you free on one condition: that you help in the capture of El Bizco.”

“I’m not a member of the police force.”

“Very well, then. Have your choice: either you help to capture El Bizco or you go back to the dungeon.”

“Nothing doing. I’ll help to capture El Bizco.”

CHAPTER VII

La Fea and La Salvadora—Ortiz—Old Friends

The two men strolled through the Calle del Barquillo into the Calle de AlcalÁ.

“They’re not going to catch me again,” thought Manuel. But at once it occurred to him that the texture of the law was so stout and close-woven that it was exceedingly difficult not to be enmeshed in it, no matter how careful a fellow might be.

“You haven’t yet told me to whom I owe my freedom,” exclaimed Manuel.

“To whom you owe your freedom? To me,” answered El Garro.

Manuel made no comment.

“And now, where are we bound to?” he asked.

“The Campillo del Mundo Nuevo.”

“We’ve got a long journey ahead of us, then.”

“At the Puerta del Sol we’ll take the tram for La Fuentecilla.”

Which they did. They got off at the end of the line and proceeded along the Calle de Arganzuela. At the end of this street, to their right, having reached the Plaza that constitutes El Campillo del Mundo Nuevo, they stopped. They passed through a long corridor into a wide patio ringed by galleries.

El Garro walked into the first open door and asked in a voice of authority:

“Does a police officer by the name of Ortiz live here?”

Out of the depths of a gloomy corner where two men were toiling near a furnace, came the answer from one of them:

“What are you bothering me about? Ask the janitor.”

The two men were making rolled wafers. Out of a caldron that was filled with a white pasty mass, they were extracting ladlefuls and throwing them on to a pair of boards that closed like nippers. Once these nippers were closed they placed them in the fire, heated them on one side, then on the other, withdrew them, opened them, and on one of the boards appeared the wafer as round as a seal. Rapidly the man would roll it up with his finger and place it in a box.

“So you don’t know whether Ortiz lives here or not?” asked El Garro again.

“Ortiz?” came a voice out of the black depths, where nothing was visible. “Yes. He lives here. He’s the manager of these houses.”

Through the black hole Manuel glimpsed two men lying on the floor.

“Well, if he’s the manager, he was in the patio a moment ago.”

El Garro and Manuel went into the courtyard and the agent caught sight of the captain on the gallery of the first floor.

“Hey, Ortiz!” he shouted.

“What do you want? Who’s calling me?”

“It’s me, Garro.”

The officer hurried down into the patio.

“Hello, there, SeÑor Garro! What brings you here?”

“This youngster is a cousin of the fellow that was killed near the Sotillo Bridge. He knows the murderer, who’s a cutpurse nicknamed El Bizco. Do you want to take charge of his capture?”

“Why, man.... If those are the orders....”

“No, the question is, whether you have the time and want to do it. I have a letter here from the judge to your colonel, asking that you take charge of the capture. If you haven’t the time, speak up.”

“There’s time, and to spare.”

“Then I’ll leave the letter with your colonel this very day.”

“Certainly. I suppose there’ll be a reward in the case, eh?”

“Don’t let that trouble you. Here’s the boy; don’t let him out of your sight and have him go with you wherever you go.”

“Very well.”

“Anything else?”

“Nothing.”

“Good-bye, then, and good luck.”

“Good-bye.”

El Garro left the house; Manuel and Ortiz were left face to face.

“You’re not to leave my side until we capture El Bizco. Understand?” said the captain to Manuel.

This Ortiz, noted as a pursuer of gamins and bandits, was a typical specimen of the criminal. He had black, clipped moustaches; beetling eyebrows that met over his flat nose; an upper lip that drew inwards, revealing his teeth to the very roots; a narrow forehead with a deep scar in the middle.

He dressed in country fashion, with dark clothes and a cap. There was something aggressive about him that recalled a bull dog,—something ferocious that suggested a wild boar.

“Aren’t you going to let me out?” asked Manuel.

“No.”

“There were some lady friends I had to see.”

“Lady friends don’t count hereabouts. Who are they? Some street walkers, I’ll bet....”

“No. They’re the sisters of a certain typesetter, a friend of mine. They were neighbours of mine in the Santa Casilda hostelry.”

“Ah! So you lived there?”

“Yes.”

“Then I must know them, too.”

“I don’t know. They’re the sisters of a compositor, JesÚs by name.”

“La Fea?”

“Yes.”

“I know her. Where does she live?”

“Over on Mellizo Lane.”

“It’s right near here. Let’s go to see her.”

They went out. Mellizo Lane was up off the Calle de la Arganzuela, in the vicinity of the hog slaughter-house. The whole lane, which at its beginning was boarded up on both sides and obstructed by huge slabs heaped one upon the other, could boast but a solitary house of decent size. This was situated at the end of the alley. Before the house, in a large yard, some caÑis were fussing about with their mules and donkeys; in the galleries, old gipsies and young, swart, with shining eyes and gay-hued raiment, were flitting around.

They asked a gipsy where La Fea lived and he replied that she would be found at number 6, second floor.

On the door of the room was a cardboard sign bearing the announcement: “Machine Sewing.”

They knocked, and a blond youngster appeared.

“This is La Salvadora’s little brother,” said Manuel.

La Fea came to the door and received Manuel with joyous effusiveness. She bowed to Ortiz.

“And La Salvadora?” asked Manuel.

“In the kitchen. She’s coming right away.”

It was a bright room, with a window through which entered the last rays of the setting sun.

“This ought to be a very cheery place,” said Manuel.

“The sun shines here from dawn to sunset,” answered La Fea. “We’d like to move, but we can’t find a place like this.”

The room was redolent of peacefulness and industriousness; there were two new sewing machines, a pine closet and some flower-pots upon the window ledge.

“And JesÚs is still in hospital?”

“At the San Carlos Clinic,” answered La Fea.

He had not wished to be a burden to the family; though La Salvadora would have cared for him at home, he had taken it into his head to go to the hospital. Fortunately he was now feeling very much improved and he was soon to be discharged.

At this juncture La Salvadora came in. She looked very pretty and wore an air of independence. Greeting Manuel and Ortiz, she sat down before the machine and began to sew.

“Will you stay with us for supper?” asked La Fea of Manuel.

“No. I can’t. They won’t let me.”

“If you will promise me,” interjected Ortiz, “that this man will come to me whenever I send for him, even at two in the morning, I’ll give him his freedom.”

“Certainly. We give you our word,” declared La Fea.

“Very well, then. I’ll go. Tomorrow, at nine in the night, sharp, at my house. Agreed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“With military punctuality!”

“With military punctuality.”

Ortiz then went off, and Manuel was left in the room with the two seamstresses.

La Salvadora, who adopted a very disdainful attitude toward Manuel, seemed to feel offence because he stared at her improved looks with a certain complacency. Enrique, La Salvadora’s little brother, was well-developed and very charming; he played with Manuel and told him, in his childish language, a number of things about his sister and his aunt, as he called La Fea.

After they had had supper, and the child had been put to bed, they visited the room of an embroiderer in the neighbourhood, where Manuel found two old friends of his: Aristas and AristÓn.

Aristas had forgotten his gymnastic enthusiasm and had gone into the distribution of newspapers.

He scurried over half of Madrid leaving the papers at one place and another. AristÓn had taken his position as a supernumerary. In the morning Aristas distributed newspapers, distributed serial issues, distributed prospectuses; in the afternoon he would paste up posters, and at night he would go to the theatre. He was extraordinarily active; he never paused for rest; he organized parties and dances; on Sundays he gave performances with an amateur company; he knew by heart the whole of “Don Juan Tenorio,” “El puÑal del godo,” and other romantic dramas; he had two or three mistresses, and at every hour of the day and night he was talking, speechifying, ordering things about and radiating a wholesome, communicative joy.

AristÓn, his necromania somewhat moderated, worked as a fitter in a factory and received good wages. Manuel found it very good to be back again with his friends.

He noticed, or at least thought he noticed, that AristÓn was paying court to La Fea and that he was for ever calling her Joaquina, which was her real name. La Fea, finding herself the object of these attentions, became as a result almost good-looking.

That night Manuel returned to his house on the Calle de Galileo. La Justa had not yet come back. Aristas found work for him in a printery on the Carrera de San Francisco.

CHAPTER VIII

On The Track of El Bizco—The Outskirts—The Ideal of JesÚs

After spending the day at work in the printing shop, Manuel reported at nine in the night at Ortiz’s home.

“That’s the way I like it,” said the chief to him. “With military punctuality.”

Ortiz armed himself with a revolver, which he placed in his belt; a stick, which he secured to his wrist with a thong; a rope. To Manuel he gave a cudgel, and they left together.

“Let’s make a round of these chop-houses,” said the guard to Manuel. “And you keep your eye peeled for El Bizco.”

As they walked up the Calle de Arganzuela they struck up a conversation.

Ortiz was a member of the police who was genuinely enamoured of his profession. His father had belonged to the force before him, and the instinct of pursuit flowed as strong in their veins as in the veins of a hunter dog.

According to the tale he told, Ortiz had been a carbineer on the MÁlaga coast, eternally at war with the smugglers, until he came to Madrid and joined the police department.

“I’ve done more than any one else of them,” he declared, “but they don’t promote me because I haven’t any pull. It was the same way with my father. He caught more thieves than the whole police department of Madrid put together, but nothing doing. He never advanced beyond the grade of captain. Then they transferred him to the sewer district and he saw to every squabble they had down there.... Yet he never carried a revolver or a stick, like me. Only his blunderbuss. He was a soldier, he was.”

They happened to be passing a tavern, so they went in, had a glass of wine, and in the meantime Manuel scrutinized the men who were gathered about the tables.

“There’s nobody here that you’re looking for,” said the tavern-keeper to the policeman.

“I see that there isn’t, TÍo Pepe,” answered Ortiz, extracting some coins from his pocket to pay for the drinks.

“My treat,” said the man behind the counter.

“Thanks. Good-bye!”

They left the tavern and reached the Plaza de la Cebada.

“Let’s go over to the CafÉ de Naranjeros,” suggested the captain. “Though it’s not likely that our bird is flying thereabouts. Still, often where you least expect....”

They entered the cafÉ; there were only a few men chatting with the singers. From the doorway Ortiz shouted in:

“Hey, Tripulante, can I see you for a second?”

A young man who looked as if he came from good family arose and came over to Ortiz.

“Do you know a thug called El Bizco?”

“Yes, I believe I do.”

“Does he hang around this district?”

“No, not hereabouts.”

“Really?”

“He really doesn’t. He must be down below. You can take my word for that.”

“I do, man. Why not? Listen, Tripulante,” added Ortiz, seizing the youth by the arm. “Watch out, eh? You’ll slip, if you don’t.”

Tripulante burst into laughter, and placing the index finger of his right hand upon his lower eyelash, he whispered:

“On the track!... And mum’s the word, comrade!”

“Very well. Keep your eyes open just the same, in case he shows up. Remember we know you.”

“Leave that to me, seÑor Ortiz,” replied the youth. “I’ll keep a sharp watch.”

The officer and Manuel left the cafÉ.

“He’s a slippery article, as clever as any crook. Let’s go further down. Perhaps El Tripulante is right.”

They reached the Ronda de Toledo. The night was beautiful, atwinkle with stars. Afar, some bonfires lighted the sky. Out of the chimney of the Gas House belched a huge black swirl of smoke, like the powerful exhalation of some monster. They sauntered along the Calle del Gas, which, as if to provide a contrast to its name, was illuminated by oil-lamps; skirting the Casa Blanca they descended to Las Injurias. They crossed a narrow street and fairly stumbled against the night watchman.

Ortiz told him what mission brought them there; he gave him a description of El Bizco. The sereno, however, informed them that nobody answering to that description was to be found in that vicinity.

“We can make inquiries, if you gentlemen wish.”

The three penetrated a narrow passageway that led to a mud-strewn patio.

There was a light in the window of one of the houses, and they drew near to reconnoitre. By the illumination of a candle stub that was placed upon a kitchen shelf they made out a tattered old woman squatting on the floor. At her side, blanketed with rags, slept two boys and a little girl.

They left the patio and walked down an alley.

“There’s a family here that I don’t know,” said the sereno, and he knocked at the door with the tip of his pike. There was a delay in opening.

“Who is it?” asked a woman’s voice from within.

“The law,” answered Ortiz.

The door was opened by a woman in tatters, with nothing underneath. The watchman walked straight in, followed by Manuel and Ortiz; the place was filled with an atrocious, overpowering stench. Upon a wretched bed improvised out of shreds and paper refuse lay a blind woman. The sereno thrust his pike under the bed.

“You can see for yourselves. He isn’t here.”

Ortiz and Manuel left the Las Injurias district.

“El Bizco lived over in Las Cambroneras for a time,” suggested Manuel.

“Then there isn’t much use in looking for him there,” replied Ortiz. “But no matter. Heave, ho, my lads! Let’s try it, anyway.”

They strolled along the Paseo de YeserÍas. On both sides of the Toledo Bridge gleamed the gas-lamps; here and there a narrow ribbon of the river sent back reflections from its dark waters. From the direction of Madrid, out of the Gas House chimneys issued red flames like dragons of fire. From the distance came the whistle of a locomotive; along the banks of the Canal the silhouettes of the trees writhed upward into the gloom of the night.

They found the sereno of Las Cambroneras and asked after El Bizco.

“I’ll talk tomorrow with Paco el CaÑÍ and find out. Where shall we meet tomorrow?”

“In La Blasa’s tavern.”

“Fine. I’ll be there at three.”

They crossed the bridge once more and went into Casa Blanca.

“We’ll see the administrator,” said Ortiz. They entered a causeway; to one side, they knocked at a place the half-opened door of which showed a chink of light. A man in shirt-sleeves came out.

“Who is it?” he shouted.

Ortiz gave his credentials.

“No such chap is around here,” answered the caretaker. “I’m positive as to that; I have every one of my tenants listed in this notebook, and I know them.”

Leaving Casa Blanca, Ortiz and Manuel made for Las PeÑuelas, where Ortiz had a long conversation with the sereno. Then they visited a number of the taverns in the neighbourhood; the places were filled with customers, though the doors were closed.

As they went through the Calle del Ferrocarril, the sereno pointed out the spot where they had discovered the quartered body of the woman in a sack. Ortiz and the watchman discussed this and other crimes that had been committed in the vicinity, then they separated.

“That watchman is a corker,” said Ortiz. “He’s cudgelled every bully and thug out of Las PeÑuelas.”

It was already late when they had left the taverns, and Ortiz thought that they might postpone their hunt to the next day. He remained in the Campillo del Mundo Nuevo and Manuel, tramping across half of Madrid, returned to his house.

Early the next morning he went to work at the printery, but when he told them that he could not come that afternoon, he was discharged.

Manuel went to La Fea’s for a bite.

“They’ve fired me from the printing shop,” he announced, upon entering.

“You must have come in late,” snapped La Salvadora.

“No. Ortiz told me yesterday that I’d have to go along with him this afternoon; I told them so at the printery and they fired me on the spot.”

La Salvadora smiled with sarcastic incredulousness, and Manuel felt his cheeks turning red.

“You needn’t believe it if you don’t want to, but that’s the truth.”

“I haven’t said a word, have I, man?” retorted La Salvadora, mockingly.

“I know you didn’t, but you were laughing at me.”

Manuel left La Fea’s in a huff, sought out Ortiz, and together they made their way to Las Injurias.

It was a mild afternoon and the sun was glorious. They took chairs just outside La Blasa’s tavern. In a lane opposite to them the men were sprawling in the doorways of their houses; the women, with their ragged skirts gathered about them, were skipping from one side to the other, their feet splashing in the stinking sewage that ran like a black stream through the middle of the street. Here and there a woman had a cigarette in her mouth. Big grey rats darted about over the mud, pursued by a number of gamins with sticks and stones.

Ortiz exchanged a few words with the proprietress of the resort and shortly afterward the sereno of the Cambroneras district appeared. He saluted Ortiz, they drained a few glasses, and then the sereno said:

“I had a talk with Paco el CaÑÍ. He knows El Bizco. He says the fellow’s not hereabouts. He believes he must be in La Manigua, or California, or some place of the sort.”

“Quite possible. Very well, gentlemen, see you later.” And Ortiz got up, followed by Manuel. They walked up to the square at the Toledo Bridge, crossed over the Manzanares river and set out on the AndalucÍa cart-road. A few days before, Manuel had gone there for lunch with Vidal and Calatrava. There were the same gangs of thugs in the doorways of the restaurants; some knew Ortiz and invited him to a glass.

They reached a district bordering the river,—a heap of wretched hovels, without chimneys, without windows, with wattled roofs. Clouds of mosquitos hovered above the grass on the banks.

“This is El Tejar de Mata Pobre,” said Ortiz.

These miserable shacks housed some ragpickers and their families. All the denizens of the poverty-ridden settlement,—a dirty, yellowish crew they made,—were consumed by fevers, whose germs thrived in the black, muddy waters of the river. Nobody there had ever heard of El Bizco. Manuel and Ortiz went on. At a short distance from this spot appeared another, upon a rise in the ground, composed of huts and their poultry-yards.

“The Tinsmiths’ quarter,—that’s what this is called,” informed Ortiz.

It was like a village reared upon dung and straw. Each of the houses, built of all manner of dÉbris and offal, had its yard, delimited by fences made of old, rusty cans flattened out and nailed against posts. Here, urban poverty blended with the poverty of the country; upon the ground of the yards the old baskets and the cardboard hat boxes rubbed against the notched sickle and the rake. Some of the houses gave the impression of relative comfort; these had a look of industriousness about them. Heaps of straw were piled up in their yards and hens scratched the soil.

Ortiz approached a man who was repairing a cart.

“Listen, friend. Do you happen to know a chap named El Bizco? A red, ugly....”

“Are you from the police?” asked the man.

“No. Oh, no, sir.”

“Well, you look as if you were. But that’s your affair. I don’t know this Bizco,” and the man turned his back upon them.

“We’ve got to have a care around here,” whispered Ortiz. “If they ever find out what we’ve come for, we’ll get a drubbing that we’ll remember.”

They left the Tinsmiths’ quarter, crossed the river by a bridge over which the railroad ran, and continued along the banks of the Manzanares.

On the meadows by the stream, which were dazzling with verdure, the cows were at pasture. Some ragged figures were walking slowly, cautiously along, hunting crickets.

Manuel and Ortiz reached some country houses called La China; the officer made inquiries of a gardener. The man did not know El Bizco.

Leaving this place, they sat down upon the grass to rest. It was growing dark; Madrid, a reddish yellow, with its spires and domes, aglow with the last quivering rays of the setting sun, rose out of the distance. The glass panes of the Observatory flashed flame. A huge ball of copper, on the top of some edifice, beamed like a sun over the grimy roofs; here and there a star was already shining in the Prussian blue arch of heaven; the Guadarrama range, dark violet in the dusk, broke the distant horizon with its whitish peaks.

Ortiz and Manuel hastened back to the city. By the time they had reached the Paseo de Embajadores, it was night; they had a glass at the Manigua restaurant and kept their eyes open in the meantime.

“Have supper with me,” suggested Ortiz. “Tonight we’ll resume the hunt. We’ve got to ransack all Madrid.”

Manuel had supper with the officer and his family in the house at El Campillo del Mundo Nuevo. Thereupon they visited nearly every tavern on the Calle del MesÓn de Paredes and the Calle de Embajadores, afterward going into the little cafÉ on the Calle de la Esgrima. The whole place was thronged with vagabonds; as the officer and Manuel took their seats, the news was quickly spread from one customer to the other. A boy who sat at a nearby table showing a ring and a comb made haste to conceal them as soon as he caught sight of Ortiz. The officer noticed this move and called to the boy.

“What do you want?” asked the youngster, suspiciously.

“I want to ask you something.”

“Speak up, then.”

“Do you know a chap called El Bizco?”

“No, sir.”

Ortiz then asked the youth a number of other questions; he must have been convinced that the boy did not know El Bizco, for he muttered:

“Nobody knows where he is.”

They went into one tavern after the other. As they were walking through the Calle del Amparo, Ortiz made up his mind to search a lodging house that had a red lantern hanging from one of its balconies.

They went in and climbed a plank stairway with wobbly steps, lit by a lantern embedded in a wall. On the first floor were rooms for assignations; on the second was the public dormitory. Ortiz pulled the bell wire and a repulsive hag answered the summons with a candle in her hand, a white kerchief on her head and in battered shoes; this was the woman in charge.

“We belong to the police and we want to look this place over. With your kind permission, we’ll step in.”

The woman shrugged her shoulders and made way for them to enter.

They passed through a short corridor which ended in a long, narrow room, with low wooden platforms on either side and two rows of beds. Over the centre hung an oil-lamp that hardly illuminated the spacious hall. The floor, which was of brick, twisted to one side.

Ortiz asked for the candle and went along the row of beds, shedding its light upon each successive face.

Some were snoring outrageously; others, still awake, permitted themselves to be peered at. The bedsheets revealed bare shoulders, herculean chests, the sunken thorax of sickly folk....

“Is there anybody downstairs?” asked Ortiz of the matron.

“Not on the first floor. There must be somebody in the rooms off the vestibule.”

They went down to the entrance. A door led to a damp cellar. In a corner lay a beggar asleep in his shreds and patches.

On the day following this expedition, Manuel, returning in the afternoon to La Fea’s, found JesÚs sitting down and chatting with his sister and La Salvadora.

At sight of him Manuel was overcome by a certain emotion. The lad was still very weak and pale. The two youths examined each other closely, and chatted about the life they had led since their last meeting. Then they passed to present affairs, and Manuel explained his situation and the duties that bound him to Ortiz.

“Yes, I know. They’ve told me all about it already,” said JesÚs. “But I refused to believe it. So they let you go free on condition that you’d help capture El Bizco? And you agreed?”

“Yes. If I hadn’t they’d have kept me locked up. What was I to do?”

“Refuse.”

“And rot in prison?”

“And rot in prison, rather than play a friend such a scurvy trick.”

“El Bizco is no friend of mine.”

“But he was, from what you say....”

“Friend? No....”

“Then a comrade in your loafing days.”

“Yes.”

“So you’ve become a member of the police?”

“Man!... Besides, the victim was my cousin, remember.”

“A fine man you are for anybody to rely on!” added the compositor sarcastically.

Manuel was silent. He believed that he had done ill to purchase his freedom at such a price. El Bizco was a bandit; but the fellow had never done him any harm. That was true.

“The worst of it is, I can’t turn back,” said Manuel. “Nor can I escape, for that Ortiz would come here and it would be just like him to take off your sister and La Salvadora to prison.”

“Why?”

“Because they told him they’d be responsible for me.”

“Bah, that’s easy to get around! They tell him that you were here; that they warned you not to forget to do the same as on other days, and that that’s all they know. That’s all.”

“What do you think of the plan?” asked Manuel of La Fea, vacillating.

“Do as you please. I think JesÚs must know what he’s talking about, and I don’t think they can do anything to us.”

“There’s another thing,” added Manuel. “I can’t live for a very long time in hiding. I’ll have to work so as to get food, and they’ll catch me.”

“I’ll take you to a printing shop I know,” answered JesÚs.

“But they might suspect. No, no.”

“Then you prefer to be an informer?”

“There’s one thing I’m going to do right away: I’m going this very moment to see somebody who can fix the whole business.”

“Wait a minute.”

“No, no. Let me alone.”

Manuel left with the resolution to speak with the Cripple and the Master. He hurried over to the CÍrculo. He was admitted, ran to the first flight, and said to the man who was stationed at the door to the gambling room:

“The Master? Is he in his office?”

“No, Don Marcos is there.”

Manuel knocked at the door and walked in. Calatrava was at a desk together with an employee, counting white and red chips. At sight of Manuel, Marcos turned an icy stare upon him.

“What have you come here for? Squealer!” he cried. “You’re not wanted here.”

“I know that.”

“You’re fired. And you needn’t expect any back pay, either.”

“No. I don’t.”

“Then what do you want?”

“I’ll tell you. El Garro, your police friend, let me go free on condition that I’d help in the capture of the man who killed Vidal, and they keep me going and coming at all hours of the day and night. I’m sick and tired of it all, and I don’t want to become a stool-pigeon.”

“Well, what has all this got to do with me?”

“What’s more, if I don’t show up at the house of the captain under whose order El Garro placed me, they’ll arrest me and take me off to jail.”

“Good enough. You’ll learn there not to wag your tongue so freely.”

“Not a bit of it. What I’ll do there is tell them just how folks are cheated in this establishment....”

“You’re crazy. You’re sucking around for a couple of drubbings.”

“No. I want you to tell El Garro that I don’t care to be chasing El Bizco around. What’s more, I want you to tell him to quit hounding me. Now you know just what to do.”

“What I’m going to do is give you a couple of kicks this very minute, you informer!”

“We’ll see about that.”

The Cripple lurched over to Manuel with his closed fist and aimed a blow at him; but Manuel was agile enough to seize him by the arm, shove him backwards, make him lose his balance and send him falling across the table, which was overturned with a formidable crash. Calatrava regained his feet; he was in a fury and made for Manuel once more; but the noise had brought some men, who separated them. It was at this juncture that the Master appeared in the doorway of the office.

“What’s the trouble?” he asked, eyeing Calatrava and Manuel severely. “You fellows get out of here,” he ordered, turning to the spectators.

The three were left alone, and Manuel explained the reason of the squabble.

The Master, after hearing the story, turned to Calatrava.

“Is all this he’s been telling you true?”

“Yes. But he came here with demands and threats....”

“Very well. We won’t discuss that.” Then addressing himself to Manuel. “So you don’t want to help the police? You’re right. You may go. I’ll tell El Garro not to bother you.”

An hour later, Manuel and JesÚs had left the house for a walk. It was a stifling hot night; they went towards the Ronda.

They chatted. Manuel was filled with a gnawing irritation against the whole world,—a hatred that up to then had lain dormant was now awaking in his soul against society, against mankind....

“Let me tell you,” he concluded, “and I mean it. I wish it would rain dynamite for a whole week and that then the Eternal Father himself would fall from heaven, a heap of ashes.”

In his fury he invoked every destructive power, that this miserable society of ours might be reduced to a mound of smouldering ruins.

JesÚs listened attentively to his diatribe.

“You’re an anarchist,” he said.

“I?”

“Yes. I’m one, too.”

“You?”

“Yes.”

“Since when?”

“Ever since I’ve seen the infamies committed in the world; ever since I’ve seen how coldly a piece of humanity is given over to death; ever since I’ve seen how men die friendless on the streets and in the hospital,” answered JesÚs with a certain solemnity.

Manuel was silent. Mutely the two friends sauntered along the Ronda de Segovia, selecting a bench in the gardens of La Virgen del Puerto.

The heavens over them were studded with stars; the milky way lay white across the immense blue vault. The geometric figure of the Great Bear shone high up in the sky. Arcturus and Vega glowed softly in that ocean of planets.

Far off, the dark fields, furrowed by lines of lights, looked like the water of a harbour; the rows of lights seemed like the piers of a wharf.

The damp, warm air was saturated with the scents of wild plants—odours set free by the heat.

“How many stars!” exclaimed Manuel. “What can they be?”

“They’re worlds and worlds without end.”

“I don’t know why it soothes me so to see the sky so beautiful. Listen, JesÚs. Do you believe that there are people in those worlds yonder?” asked Manuel.

“Perhaps. Why not?”

“And prisons, too, judges, gambling houses and police?... Hey? Do you?”

JesÚs did not answer the question. Then, in a calm voice he spoke of a vision of an idyllic humanity,—a sweet, pious, noble and childishly simple vision.

In this dream, Man, guided by a new idea, attained to a superior state.

No more hatred, no more rancour. No more judges, nor policemen, nor soldiers, nor authority, nor fatherland. In the vast prairies of the world, free men laboured in the sunlight. The law of love has supplanted the law of duty, and the horizon of humanity becomes ever wider, ever a softer blue....

And JesÚs continued speaking of a vague ideal of love and justice, of industry and piety. These words of his, chaotic, incoherent as they were, fell like a solacing balm upon Manuel’s lacerated heart.... Then the two lapsed into a long silence, immersed in their own thoughts, contemplating the night.

The heavens were aglow with an august beatitude, and the vague sensation of the immensity of space, the infinitude of these imponderable worlds, spread a delicious tranquillity over their hearts....

THE END