Caesar or Nothing Part 61

Of all people, Ignacio Alzugaray was the most incredulous in regard to his friend; his mother and his sister believed in Caesar as in an oracle. Caesar often thought that he ought to fall definitely in love with Ignacio's sister and marry her; but neither he nor she seemed to have set upon pa.s.sing the limits of a cordial friendship.

Caesar told the Alzugaray family how he lived and caused them to laugh and wonder.

He had rented a fairly large upper story in a street in Valle Hermoso, for five dollars. The days he had nothing to do he went there. He put on an old, worn-out fur coat, which was still a protection, a soft hat, took a stick, and went walking in the environs.

His favourite walk was the neighbourhood of the Ca.n.a.lillo and of the Dehesa de Amaniel.

Generally he went out of his house on the side opposite the Model Prison, then he walked toward Moncloa, and taking the right, pa.s.sed near the Rubio Inst.i.tute, and entered the Cerro del Pimiento by an open lot which he got into through a broken wall.

From there one could see, far away, the Guadarrama range, like a curtain of blue mountains and snowy crests; on clear days, the Escorial; Aravaca, the Casa de Campo, and the Sierra de Gredos, which ran out on the left hand like a promontory. Nearby one saw a pine grove, close to the Rubio Inst.i.tute, and a valley containing market-gardens, and the ranges of the Moncloa shooting school.

Caesar would walk on by the winding road, and stop to look at the Cemetery of San Martin on the right, with its black cypresses and its yellowish walls.

Then he would follow the twists of the Ca.n.a.lillo, and pa.s.s in front of the third Reservoir, to the Amaniel road.

That was where Caesar would have built himself a house, had he had the idea of living retired.

The dry, hard landscape was the kind he liked. The mornings were wonderful, the blue sky radiant, the air limpid and thin.

The twilight had an extraordinary enchantment. All that vast extent of land, the mountains, the hills of the Casa de Campo, the cypresses of the cemetery, were bathed in a violet light.

In winter there were hunters of yellow-hammers and goldfinches in these regions, who set their nets and their decoys on the ground, and spent hours and hours watching for their game.

On Sunday, in particular, the number of hunters was very large. They went in squads of three; one carried a big bundle on his shoulder, which was the net all rolled up; another the decoy cages, fastened with a strap; and the third a frying-pan, a skin of wine, and some kindling for a fire.

Caesar used to talk with the guards at Amaniel, with the octroi-officers, and he got to be great friends with a little hunchback, a bird hunter.

It was curious to hear this hunchback talk of the habits of the birds and of the influence of the winds. He knew how the gold-finches, yellow-hammers, and linnets make their nests, and the preference some of them have for coltsfoot cotton, and others for wool or for cow's hair.

He told Caesar a lot of things, many of which could have existed only in his imagination, but which were entertaining.

ONE DAY AT CHRISTMASTIME

One day at Christmastime Alzugaray went in the morning to look for Caesar. He knew where to find him and walked direct to the Calle de Galileo. At the house, they told him that Caesar was eating in a tavern close at hand.

Alzugaray went into the place and found his friend the Deputy seated in a coner eating. He had the appearance of a superior workman, an electrician, carver, or something of the sort.

"If people find out you behave so extravagantly, they will think you are crazy," said Alzugaray.

"Pshaw! n.o.body comes here," replied Caesar. "The political world and this are separate worlds. This one belongs to the people who have to shoulder the load of everything, and the other is a world of villains, robbers, idiots, and fools. Really, it is difficult to find anything so vile, so inept, and so useless as a Spanish politician. The Spanish middle cla.s.s is a warren of rogues and villains. I feel an enormous repugnance to brushing against it. That is why I came here now and then to talk to these people; not because these are good, no; the first and the last of them are riff-raff, but at least they say what they mean and they blaspheme navely."

"What are you going to do after lunch?" Alzugaray asked him. "Have you got a sweetheart in one of the old-clothes shops of the quarter?"

"No. I was thinking of taking a walk; that's all."

"Then come along."

They left the tavern and went along a street between sides of sand cut straight down, and started up the Cerro del Pimiento. The soft, vague mist allowed the Guadarrama to stand out visible.

"This landscape enchants me," said Caesar.

"It seems hard and gloomy," responded Alzugaray.

"Yes, that is true; hard and gloomy, but n.o.ble. When one is drenched with a miserable political life, when one actually forms a part of that Olympus of madmen called Congress, one needs to be purified. How miserable, how vile that political life is! How many faces pale with envy there are! What low and repugnant hatreds! When I come out nauseated by seeing those people; when I am soaked with repugnance, then I come out here to walk, I look at those serious mountains, so frowning and strong, and the mere sight of them seems like a purifying flame which cleanses me from meanness."

"I see that you are as absurd as ever, Caesar. It would never occur to anybody to come and comfort himself with some melancholy mountains, out here between an abandoned hospital, which looks like a leper-asylum, and a deserted cemetery."

"Well, these mountains give me an impression of energy and n.o.bility, which raises my spirits. This leper-asylum, as you call it, sunken in a pit, this deserted cemetery, those distant mountains, are my friends; I imagine they are saying to me: 'One must be hard, one must be strong like us, one must live in solitude....'"

They did not continue their walk much further, because the night and the fog combined made it difficult to see the path along the Ca.n.a.lillo, which made it possible to fall in, and that would have been disagreeable.

They returned the way they had come. From the top of a hill they saw Madrid in the twilight, covered with fog; and in the streets newly opened between the sides of sand, the lights of the gas-lamps sparkled in a nimbus of rainbow....

X. POLITICAL LABOURS

MONEY ON THE EXCHANGE

Although Caesar did not distinguish himself especially in Congress, he worked hard. His activities were devoted mainly to two points: the stock exchange and Castro Duro.

Caesar had found a partner to play the market for him, a Bilboan capitalist, whom he had convinced of the correctness of his system.

Senor Salazar had deposited, in Caesar's name, thirty thousand dollars.

With this sum Caesar played for millions and he was drawing an extraordinary dividend from his stocks.

Their operations were made in the name of Alzugaray, whose job it was to go every month to see the broker, and to sign and collect the certificates. Caesar gave his orders by telephone, and Alzugaray communicated them to the broker.

Alzugaray often went to see Caesar and said to him:

"The broker came to my house terrified, to tell me that what we are going to do is an absurdity."

"Let it alone," Caesar would say. "You know our agreement. You get ten percent of the profits for giving the orders. Do not mix in any further."

Often, on seeing the positive result of Caesar's speculations, Alzugaray would ask him:

"Do you find out at the Ministry what is going to happen?"

"Pshaw!" Caesar would say; "the market is not a capricious thing, as you think. There are signs. I pay attention to a lot of facts, which give me indications: coupons, the amount shares advance, the calculation of probabilities; and I compare all these scientific data with empirical observations that are difficult to explain. In such a situation, events are what make the least difference to me. Is there going to be a revolution or a Carlist war?... I am careless about it."

"But this is impossible," Alzugaray used to say. "Excuse me for saying so, but I don't believe you. You have some secret, and that is what helps you."

"How fantastic you all are!"' Caesar would exclaim; "you refuse to believe in the rational, and still you believe in the miraculous."

"No, I do not believe in the miraculous; but I cannot explain your methods."

"That's clear! Am I to explain them to you! When you don't know the mechanism of the market! I am certain that you have never considered the mechanism of the rise produced by the reintegration of the coupon, or the way that rise is limited to double its value. Tell me. Do you know what that means?"