The Quest Part 27

From Las Vistillas Manuel walked down to the Ronda de Segovia. As he sauntered along Aguila Street he noticed that Senor Ignacio's place was still closed. Manuel went into the house and asked in the patio for Salome.

"She must be at work in the house," they told him.

He climbed up the stairway and knocked at the door; from within came the hum of a sewing-machine.

Salome opened the door and Manuel entered. The seamstress was as pretty as ever, and, as ever, working. Her two boys had not yet entered colegio. Salome told Manuel that Senor Ignacio had been in hospital and that he was now looking around for some money with which to pay off his debts and continue his business. Leandra at that moment was down by the river, Senor Jacoba at her post, and Vidal loafing around with no desire to work. He simply couldn't be kept away from the company of a certain cross-eyed wretch who was worse than disease itself, and had become a tramp. The two of them were always seen with bad women in the stands and lunch-rooms of the Andalucia road.

Manuel told her of his experiences as a baker and how he had fallen ill; what he did not relate however, was the tale of his dismissal from the house where his mother was employed.

"That's no kind of job for you. You ought to learn some trade that requires less strength," was Salome's advice.

Manuel spent the whole morning chatting with the seamstress; she invited him to a bite and he accepted with pleasure.

In the afternoon Manuel left Salome's house with the thought that if he were a few years older and had a decent, paying position, he would marry her, even if he found himself compelled to get the tough who went with her out of the way with a knife.

Once again upon the Ronda, the first thought that came to Manuel was that he ought not to go to the Toledo Bridge, nor be in any greater hurry to reach the Andalucia road, for it was very easy to happen upon Vidal or Bizco there. He pondered the thought deeply, and yet, despite this, he took the direction of the bridge, glanced into the sands, and failing to find his friends there continued along the Ca.n.a.l, crossed the Manzanares by one of the laundry bridges and came out on Andalucia road. In a lunch-room that sheltered a few tables beneath its roof were Vidal and Bizco in company of a group of idlers playing cane.

"Hey, you, Vidal!" shouted Manuel.

"The deuce! Is it you?" exclaimed his cousin.

"As you see...."

"And what are you doing?"

"Nothing. And you?"

"Whatever comes our way."

Manuel watched them play cane. After they had finished a hand, Vidal said:

"What do you say to a walk?"

"Come on."

"Are you coming, Bizco?"

"Yes."

The three set out along the Andalucia road.

Vidal and Bizco led a thieves' existence, stealing here a horse blanket, there the electric bulbs of a staircase or telephone wires; whatever turned up. They did not venture to operate in the heart of Madrid as they were not yet, in their opinion, sufficiently expert.

Only a few days before, told Vidal, they had, between them, robbed a fellow of a she-goat, on the banks of the Manzanares near the Toledo bridge. Vidal had entertained the chap at the game of tossing coins while Bizco had seized the goat and pulled her up the slope of the pines to Las Yeserias, afterward taking her to Las Injurias. Then Vidal, indicating the opposite direction to their dupe, had shouted: "Run, run, there goes your goat." And as the youth trotted off in the direction indicated, Vidal escaped to Las Injurias, joining Bizco and his sweetheart. They were still dining on the goat's meat.

"That's what you ought to do," suggested Vidal. "Come with us. This is the life of a lord! Why, listen here. The other day Juan el Burra and El Arenero came upon a dead hog on the road to Las Yeserias. A swineherd was on his way with a herd of them to the slaughter-house, when they found out that the animal had died; the fellow left it there, and Juan el Burra and El Arenero dragged it to their house, quartered it, and we friends of his have been eating hog for more than a week. I tell you, it's a lord's life!"

According to what Vidal said, all the thieves knew each other, even to the most distant sections of the city. Their life was outside the pale of society and an admirable one, indeed; today they were to meet at the Four Roads, in three or four days at the Vallecas Bridge or at La Guindelara; they helped each other.

Their radius of activities was a zone bounded by the extreme of the Casa del Campo, where the inn of Agapito and the Alcorcon restaurants were, as far as Los Carabancheles; from here, the banks of the Abronigal, La Elipa, El Este, Las Ventas and La Conception as far as La Prosperidad; then Tetuan as far as the Puerta de Hierro. In summer they slept in yards and sheds of the suburbs.

The thieves of the city's centre were a better-dressed, more aristocratic lot; each of these had his woman, whose earnings he managed and who took good care of him. The outcasts of the heart of the city were a distinct cla.s.s with other gradations.

There were times when Bizco and Vidal had gone through intense want, existing upon cats and rats and seeking shelter in the caves upon San Blas hill, of Madrid Moderno, and in the Eastern Cemetery. But by this time the pair knew their business.

"And work? Nothing?" asked Manuel.

"Work! ... Let the cat work," scoffed Vidal.

They didn't work, stuttered Bizco; who was going to get fresh with him while he had his trusty steel in his hand?

Into the brain of this wild beast there had not penetrated, even vaguely, any idea of rights or duties. No duties, no rights or anything at all. To him, might was right; the world was a hunting wood. Only humble wretches could obey the law of labour. That's what he said: Let fools work, if they hadn't the nerve to live like men.

As the three thus conversed a man and a woman with a child in her arms pa.s.sed by. They looked dejected, like famished, persecuted folk, their glance timid and awed.

"There's the workers for you," exclaimed Vidal. "That's how they are."

"The devil take them," muttered Bizco.

"Where are they bound for?" asked Manuel, eyeing them sympathetically.

"To the tile-works," answered Vidal. "To sell saffron, as we say around here."

"And why do they say that?"

"Because saffron is so dear...."

The three came to a halt and lay down upon the sod. For more than an hour they remained there, discussing women and ways and means of procuring money.

"Got any money about you?" asked Vidal of Manuel and Bizco.

"Two reales," replied the latter.

"Well, then, invite us to something," suggested Vidal. "Let's have a bottle."

Bizco a.s.sented, grumblingly, so they arose and took their way toward Madrid. A procession of whitish mules filed past them; a young, swarthy gipsy, with a long stick under his arm, mounted upon the last mule of the procession, kept shouting at every step: "Corone, corone!"

"So long, swell!" shouted Vidal to him.

"G.o.d be with all good folk," answered the gipsy in a hoa.r.s.e voice.

They reached a road tavern beside a ragpicker's hut, stopped, and Vidal ordered the bottle of wine.

"What's this factory?" asked Manuel, pointing to a structure at the left of the Andalucia road on the way back to Madrid.

"They make money out of blood," answered Vidal solemnly.

Manuel stared at him in fright.