The Quest Part 15

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

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

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

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

f.a.n.n.y, Roberto, Leandro and Manuel took seats to the right of the door.

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

"Four fifteen-centimo gla.s.ses of wine."

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

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

"How's that?"

"Because this is outside the limits."

"All right; take whatever it comes to."

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

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

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

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

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

"Who are those women?" asked the painter.

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

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

"Have you seen the large jars they have here?" Leandro asked Manuel.

"Come on and take a look."

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

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

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

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

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

Roberto and f.a.n.n.y conversed in English.

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

"What's his name?" asked f.a.n.n.y.

"El Valencia."

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

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

"He's a mat maker by trade," answered Leandro, raising his voice. "A tramp that wheedles money out of low-lives; before he used to belong to the _pote_,--the kind that visit houses on Sundays, knock, and when they see n.o.body's home, stick their jimmy into the lock and zip!... But he hasn't the courage even for this, 'cause his liver is whiter than paper."

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

"And how about that white-bearded old fellow at his side?" asked f.a.n.n.y.

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

"And that other woman there?"

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

"Prost.i.tute?" asked the lady.

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

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

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

Leandro ordered some gla.s.ses of whiskey; but it was so bad that n.o.body could drink it.

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

"No."

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

"Who are these gumps?" she asked Leandro.

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

"No."