The Quest Part 10

When Manuel reached the Aguila Street stairway it was getting dark. He sat down to rest a while in the Campillo de Gil Imon. From this elevated point could be seen the yellowish country, growing darker and darker with approaching night, and the chimneys and housetops sharply outlined against the horizon. The sky, blue and green above, was flushed with red nearer the earth; it darkened and a.s.sumed sinister hues,--coppery reds, purplish reds.

Above the mudwalls jutted the turrets and the cypresses of San Isidro cemetery; a round cupola stood out clearly in the atmosphere; at its top rose an angel with wings outspread, as if about to take flight against the flaming, blood-red background of evening.

Above the embanked clouds of the twilight shone a pale star in a green border, and on the horizon, animated by the last breath of day, could be discerned the hazy silhouettes of distant mountains.

CHAPTER II

The "Big Yard," or Uncle Rilo's House--Local Enmities.

When Salome finished her sewing and went off to Aguila Street to sleep, Manuel definitively settled in the home of Uncle Rilo, of Embajadores lane. Some called this La Corrala, others, El Corralon, still others, La Piltra, and it boasted so many other names that it seemed as if the neighbours spent hours and hours thinking up new designations for it.

The Corralon (Big yard)--this was the best known name of Uncle Rilo's lair,--fronted the Paseo de las Acacias, but it was not in the direct line of this thoroughfare, as it set somewhat back. The facade of this tenement, low, narrow, kalso-mined, indicated neither the depth nor the size of the building; the front revealed a few ill-shaped windows and holes unevenly arranged, while a doorless archway gave access to a narrow pa.s.sage paved with cobblestones; this, soon widening, formed a patio surrounded by high, gloomy walls.

From the sides of the narrow entrance pa.s.sage rose brick stairways leading to open galleries that ran along the three stories of the house and returned to the patio. At intervals, in the back of these galleries, opened rows of doors painted blue with a black number on the lintel of each.

Between the lime and the bricks of the walls stuck out, like exposed bones, jamb-posts and crossbeams, surrounded by lean ba.s.s ropes. The gallery columns, as well as the lintels and the beams that supported them, must formerly have been painted green, but as the result of the constant action of sun and rain only a stray patch of the original colour remained.

The courtyard was always filthy; in one corner lay a heap of useless sc.r.a.ps covered by a sheet of zinc; one could make out grimy cloths, decayed planks, debris, bricks, tiles, baskets: an infernal jumble.

Every afternoon some of the women would do their washing in the patio, and when they finished their work they would empty their tubs on to the ground, and the big pools, on drying, would leave white stains and indigo rills of bluing. The neighbours also had the habit of throwing their rubbish anywhere at all, and when it rained--since the mouth of the drain would always become clogged--an unbearable, pestilential odour would rise from the black, stagnant stream that inundated the patio, and on its surface floated cabbage leaves and greasy papers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As if to make sure that terror and tragedy should haunt the edifice, one saw, on entering,--either at the main door or in the corridor,--a drunken, delirious hag who begged alms and spat insults at everybody.

They called her Death. She must have been very old, or at least appeared so. Her gaze was wandering, her look diffident, her face purulent with scabs; one of her lower eyelids, drawn in as the result of some ailment, exposed the b.l.o.o.d.y, turbid inside of her eyeball.

Death would stalk about in her tatters, in house slippers, with a tin-box and an old basket into which she gathered her findings.

Through certain superst.i.tious considerations none dared to throw her into the street.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In general, everybody who lived here was disoriented, dwelling in that unending abjection produced by everlasting, irremediable poverty; many sloughed their occupations as a reptile its skin; others had none; some carpenters' or masons' helpers, because of their lack of initiative, understanding and skill, could never graduate from their apprenticeship. There were also gypsies, mule and dog clippers, nor was there a dearth of porters, itinerant barbers and mountebanks.

Almost all of them, if opportunity offered, stole what they could; they all presented the same pauperized, emaciated look. And all harboured a constant rage that vented itself in furious imprecations and blasphemies.

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

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

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

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

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

One day a mender would appear with his huge bag, his brace and his pliers, shouting through the streets in a husky voice: "Jars and tubs to mend ... pans, dishes and plates!" After a short stay he would be off; the following week arrived a dealer in cloth bargains, crying at the top of his lungs his silk handkerchiefs at ten and fifteen centimos; another day came an itinerant hawker, his cases laden with pins, combs and brooches, or some purchaser of gold and silver braid.

Certain seasons of the year brought a contingent of special types; spring announced itself through the appearance of mule dealers, tinkers, gypsies and bohemians; in autumn swarmed bands of rustics with cheese from La Mancha and pots of honey, while winter brought the walnut and chestnut vendors.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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