The Quest by Pio Baroja

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The Baroness's daughter, a child of some twelve or fourteen years,
never appeared in the dining-room or in the corridor; her mother
forbade all communication with the lodgers. Her name was Kate. She was
a fair girl, very light-complexioned and exceedingly winsome. Only the
student Roberto spoke to her now and then in English.

The youth was enthusiastic over her.

That summer the Baroness's streak of bad luck must have come to an
end, for she began to make herself some fine clothes and prepared to
move.

For several weeks a modiste and her assistant came daily, with gowns
and hats for the Baroness and Kate.

Manuel, one night, saw the modiste's assistant go by with a huge box
in her hand and was smitten.

He followed her at a distance in great fear lest she see him. As he
stole on behind, he wondered what he could say to such a maiden if he
were to accompany her. It must be something gallant, exquisite; he
even imagined that she was at his side and he racked his brain for
beautiful phrases and delicate compliments, yet nothing but
commonplaces rewarded his search. In the meantime the assistant and
her box were lost in the crowd and he could not catch sight of them
again.

The memory of that maiden was for Manuel as an enchanting music, a
fancy upon which were reared still wilder fancies. Often he made up
tales in which always he figured as the hero and the assistant as the
heroine. While Manuel bemoaned the harshness of fate, Roberto, the
blond student, gave himself up likewise to melancholy, brooding upon
the Baroness's daughter. The student was forced to endure jests
especially from Celia, who, according to certain evil tongues, was
trying to rouse him from his habitual frigidity. But Roberto gave her
no heed.

Some days later the house was agog with curiosity.

As the boarders came in from the street, they greeted each other
jokingly, repeating in the manner of a pass-word: "Who is Don Telmo?
What's Don Telmo doing?"

One day the district police-commissioner came and spoke to Don Telmo,
and some one heard or invented the report that the two men were
discussing the notorious crime on Malasana Street. Upon hearing this
news the expectant inquisitiveness of the boarders waxed great, and
all, half in jest and half in earnest, arranged to keep a watch upon
the mysterious gentleman.

Don Telmo was the name of the cadaverous old fellow who wiped his cups
and spoons with his napkin, and his reserved manner seemed to invite
observation. Taciturn, indifferent, never joining the conversation, a
man of few words who never made any complaints, he attracted attention
by the very fact that he seemed intent upon not attracting it.

His only visible occupation was to wind the seven or eight clocks of
the house and to regulate them when they got out of order,--an event
of common occurrence.

Don Telmo had the features of a very sad man,--one in profound sorrow.
His livid countenance betrayed fathomless dejection. He wore his white
beard and his hair short; his brows fell like brushes over his grey
eyes.

In the house he went around wrapped in a faded coat, with a Greek
bonnet and cloth slippers. When he went out he donned a long frock
coat and a very tall silk hat; only on certain summer days would he
wear a Havana hat of woven straw.

For more than a month Don Telmo was the topic of conversation in the
boarding-house.

In the famous trial of the Malasana Street crime a servant declared
that one afternoon she saw Dona Celsa's son in an aqueduct of the
Plaza de Oriente, talking with a lame old man. For the guests this man
could be none other than Don Telmo. With this suspicion they set about
spying upon the old man; he, however, had a sharp scent and sniffed
the state of affairs at once; the boarders, seeing how bootless their
attempts were proving, tried to ransack his room; they used a number
of keys until they got the door open and when they had forced an
entrance, discovered nothing more that a closet fastened by a
formidable safety-lock.

The Biscayan and Roberto, the blond student, opposed this campaign of
espionage. The Superman, the priest, the salesmen and the women of the
establishment made up that the Biscayan and the student were allies of
Don Telmo, and, in all probability, accomplices in the Malasana Street
crime.

"Without a doubt," averred the Superman, "Don Telmo killed Dona Celsa
Nebot; the Biscayan poured oil over the body and set it afire, and
Roberto hid the jewels in the house on Amaniel Street."

"That cold bird!" replied Celia. "What could he do?"

"Nothing, nothing. We must keep on their track," said the curate.

"And get some money out of that old Shylock," added the Superman.

This espionage, carried on half in joke and half in all seriousness,
wound up in debates and disputes, and as a result two groups were
formed in the house; that of the Sensible folk, comprised by the three
criminals and the landlady, and that of the Foolish, in which were
enrolled all the rest.

This limitation of sides forced Roberto and Don Telmo into intimacy,
so that the student changed his place at the table and sat next to the
old man.

One night, after eating, while Manuel was removing the service, the
plates and the cups, Don Telmo and Roberto were engaged in
conversation.

The student was a dogmatic reasoner, dry, rectilinear, never swerving
from his point of view; he spoke but little, but when he did speak, it
was in a sententious manner.

One day, discussing whether or not young men should be ambitious and
look to the future, Roberto asserted that the first was the proper
course.

"Well, that isn't what you're doing," commented the Superman.

"I am absolutely convinced," replied Roberto, "that some day I'm going
to be a millionaire. I am engaged in constructing the machinery that
will bring me a fortune."

The Superman posed as a man of the world who had seen many things;
upon hearing this he permitted himself a scoffing remark concerning
Roberto's ability, and the youth retorted in so violent and aggressive
a manner that the journalist lost his composure and blurted out a
string of apologies.

Afterwards, when Don Telmo and Roberto were left alone at the table,
they continued talking, and from the general theme as to whether young
folk should or should not be ambitious, they passed on to the
student's hopes of some day being a millionaire.

"I'm convinced that I shall be one," said the boy. "In my family there
have been a number of individuals with great luck."

"That's all very well, Roberto," muttered the old man. "But one must
know how to become wealthy."

"Don't imagine that my hope is illusory; I'm going to inherit, and not
a small amount, either; I'm heir to a vast sum ... millions.... The
foundations of my work and the framework are already completed; all I
need now is money."

Don Telmo's countenance was crossed by an expression of disagreeable
surprise.

"Don't worry," replied Roberto, "I'm not going to ask you for it."

"My dear boy, if I had it, I'd give it to you with pleasure, and free
of interest. They think I'm a millionaire."

"No. I tell you I'm not trying to get a centimo from you. All I ask is
a bit of advice."

"Speak, then, speak. I'm all attention," answered the old man, resting
an elbow upon the table.

Manuel, who was taking off the tablecloth, cocked his ears.

At that juncture one of the salesmen entered the dining-room, and
Roberto, who was about to say something, grew silent and looked
impertinently at the intruder. The student was an aristocratic type
with blond hair, thick and combed back, and moustache of glittering
white, like silver; his skin was somewhat tanned by the sun.

"Won't you continue?" asked Don Telmo.

"No," answered the student, staring at the salesman. "For I don't want
anybody to hear what I have to say."

"Come to my room, then," replied Don Telmo. "There we can talk
undisturbed. We'll have coffee up in my room. Manuel!" he ordered.
"Bring us two coffees."

Manuel, who was deeply interested in discovering what the student had
to say, dashed out into the street on his errand. He was more than a
quarter of an hour in returning with the coffee, and supposed that
Roberto by this time had finished his story.

He knocked at Don Telmo's door and was resolved to linger there as
long as possible, that he might catch all he could of the
conversation. He began to dust Don Telmo's lamp-table with a cloth.

"And how did you ascertain that," Don Telmo was asking, "if your
family didn't know it?"

"Quite by accident," answered the student. "A couple of years ago,
about this time of the year, I wished to give a present to a sister,
who is a protegee of mine, and who is very fond of playing the piano.
It occurred to me, three days before her birthday, to purchase two
operas, have them bound and send them to her. I wanted to have the
book bound immediately, but at the shops they told me there was no
time; I was walking along with my operas under my arm in the vicinity
of the Plaza de las Descalzas when in the back wall of a convent I
caught sight of a tiny bookbinder's shop,--like a cave with steps
leading down. I asked the man,--a gnarled old fellow,--whether he
would bind the book for me in a couple of days, and he said 'Yes.'
'Very well,' I told him, 'then I'll call within two days.'--'I'll
send it to you; let me have your address.' I gave him my address and
he asked my name. 'Roberto Hasting y Nunez de Letona.'--'Are you a
Nunez de Latona?' he inquired, gazing at me curiously. 'Yes, sir.'--
'Do you come from la Rioja?'--'Yes, and suppose I do?' I retorted,
provoked by all this questioning. And the binder, whose mother was a
Nunez de Latona and came from la Rioja, told me the story I've just
told you. At first I took it all as a joke; then, after some time, I
wrote to my mother, and she wrote back that everything was quite so,
and that she recalled something of the whole matter."

Don Telmo's gaze strayed over toward Manuel.

"What are you doing here?" he snarled. "Get out; I don't want you
going around telling tales...."

"I'm no tattle-tale."

"Very well, then, get a move on."

Manuel went out, and Don Telmo and Roberto continued their
conversation. The boarders showered Manuel with questions, but he
refused to open his mouth. He had decided to join the group of the
Sensible ones.

This friendship between the old man and the student served as an
incitement for the continuation of the espionage. One of the salesmen
learned that Don Telmo drew up contracts of sales on reversion and
made a living by lending money on houses and furniture, and at other
such usurious business.

Some one saw him in the Rastro in an old clothes shop that probably
belonged to him, and invented the tale that he had gold coins
concealed in his room and that he played with them at night upon the
bed.

It was also discovered that Don Telmo frequently paid visits to a very
elegant, good looking young lady, who was, according to some, his
sweetheart, and to others, his niece.

On the following Sunday Manuel overheard a conversation between the
old man and the student. In a dark room there was a transom that
opened into Don Telmo's room, and from this position he played the
eavesdropper.

"So he refuses to furnish any more data?" Don Telmo was asking.

"Absolutely," said the student. "And he assures me that the reason for
the name of Fermin de Nunez de Latona not appearing in the parish
register was--forgery; that this was effected by a certain Shaphter,
one of Bandon's agents, and that afterwards the curates took advantage
of it to acquire possession of some chaplaincies. I am certain that
the town where Fermin Nunez was born was either Arnedo or Autol."

Don Telmo carefully inspected a large folio document: the genealogy of
Roberto's family.

"What course do you think I ought to pursue?" asked the student.

"You need money; but it's so hard to find that!" muttered the old man.
"Why don't you marry?"

"And what good would that do?"

"I mean some wealthy woman...."

Here Don Telmo lowered his voice to an inaudible pitch and after a few
words they separated.

The espionage of the boarders became so obstructive to the men spied
upon that the Biscayan and Don Telmo served notice on the landlady of
their removal. Dona Casiana's desolation, when she learned of their
decision, was exceedingly great; several times she had to resort to
the closet and surrender herself to the consolations of the beverage
of her own concoction.

The boarders were so disappointed at the flight of the Biscayan and of
Don Telmo that neither the altercations between Irene and Celia nor
the stories told by the priest Don Jacinto, who stressed the smutty
note, were potent enough to draw them from their silence.

The bookkeeper, a jaundiced fellow with an emaciated face and a beard
like that of a monumental Jew, exceedingly taciturn and timid, had
burst into speech in his excitement over the intrigues invented and
fancied in the life of Don Telmo; now he became from moment to moment
sallower than ever with his hypochondria.

Don Telmo's departure was paid for by the student and Don Manuel. As
far as the student was concerned they dared no more than twit him on
his complicity with the old man and the Biscayan; at Manuel, however,
they all kept screeching and scolding when they weren't kicking him.

One of the salesmen,--the fellow who was troubled with his stomach,
exasperated by the boredom, the heat and his uncertain digestion,
found no other distraction than insulting and berating Manuel while he
served at table, whether or not there were cause.

"Go on, you cheap fool!" he would say. "You're not worth the food you
eat! Clown!"

This refrain, added to others of the same tenor, began to weary
Manuel. One day the salesman heaped the insults and the vilification
upon him more plentifully than ever. They had sent the boy out for two
coffees, and he was slow in returning; on that particular day the
delay was not due to any fault of his, for he had been kept waiting a
long time.

"They ought to put a pack-saddle on you, you ass!" shouted the agent
as Manuel entered.

"You won't be the one to do it!" retorted the boy impudently, as he
placed the cups upon the table.

"I won't? Do you want to see me?"

"Yes, I do."

The salesman got up and kicked Manuel in the shins; the poor boy saw
stars. He gave a cry of pain and then, furious, seized a plate and
sent it flying at the agent's head; the latter ducked and the
projectile crossed the dining-room, crashed through a window pane and
fell into the courtyard, where it smashed with a racket. The salesman
grabbed one of the coffee-pots that was filled with coffee and milk
and hurled it at Manuel with such good aim that it struck the boy in
the face; the youth, blinded with rage and by the coffee and milk,
rushed upon his enemy, cornered him, and took revenge for the insults
and blows with an endless succession of kicks and punches.

"He's killing me! He's killing me!" shrieked the agent in feminine
wails.

"Thief! Clown!" shouted Manuel, employing the street's choicest
repertory of insults.

The Superman and the priest seized Manuel by the arms, leaving him at
the mercy of the salesman, who, beholding the boy thus corralled,
tried to wreak vengeance; but when he was ready to strike, Manuel gave
him such a forceful kick in the stomach that the fellow vomited up his
whole meal.

Everybody took sides against Manuel, except Roberto, who defended him.
The agent retired to his room, summoned the landlady, and told her
that he refused to remain another moment as long as Petra's son was in
the house.

The landlady, whose chief interest was to retain her boarder,
communicated her decision to her servant.

"Now see what you've done. You can't stay here any longer," said Petra
to her son.

"All right. That clown will pay for these," replied the boy, nursing
the welts on his forehead. "I tell you, if I ever meet him I'm going
to smash in his head."

"You take good care not to say a word to him."

At this moment the student happened to enter the dining-room.

"You did well, Manuel," he exclaimed, turning to Petra. "What right
had that blockhead to insult him? In this place every boss has a right
to attack his neighbour if he doesn't do as all the others wish. What
a cowardly gang!"

As he spoke, Roberto blanched with rage; then he grew calm and asked
Petra:

"Where are you going to take Manuel now?"

"To a cobbler's shop that belongs to a relative of mine on Aguila
street."

"Is it in the poorer quarters?"

"Yes."

"I'll come to see you some day."

Before Manuel had gone to bed, Roberto appeared again in the
dining-room.

"Listen," he said to Manuel. "If you know any strange place in the
slums where criminals get together, let me hear. I'll go with you."

"I'll let you know, never you mind."

"Fine. See you again. Good-bye!"

Roberto extended his hand to Manuel, who pressed it with deep
gratitude.

PART TWO

CHAPTER I

The Regeneration of Footwear and The Lion of The Shoemaker's
Art--The First Sunday--An Escapade--El Bizco and his Gang.

The inhabitant of Madrid who at times finds himself by accident in the
poor quarters near the Manzanares river, is surprised at the spectacle
of poverty and sordidness, of sadness and neglect presented by the
environs of Madrid with their wretched Rondas, laden with dust in the
summer and in winter wallowing in mire. The capital is a city of
contrasts; it presents brilliant light in close proximity to deep
gloom; refined life, almost European, in the centre; in the suburbs,
African existence, like that of an Arab village. Some years ago, not
many, in the vicinity of the Ronda de Sevilla and of el Campillo de
Gil Imon, there stood a house of suspicious aspect and of not very
favourable repute, to judge by popular rumour. The observer ...

In this and other paragraphs of the same style I had placed some hope,
for they imparted to my novel a certain phantasmagoric and mysterious
atmosphere; but my friends have convinced me I ought to suppress these
passages, arguing that they would be quite in place in a Parisian
novel, but not in one dealing with Madrid,--not at all. They add,
moreover, that here nobody goes astray, not even if one wishes to.
Neither are there here any observers, nor houses of suspicious aspect,
nor anything else. In resignation, then, I have excised these
paragraphs, through which I hoped some day to be elected to the
Spanish Academy; and so I continue my tale in more pedestrian
language.

It came about, then, that on the day following the row in the
dining-room of the lodging-house, Petra, very early in the morning,
woke Manuel and told him to dress.

The boy recalled the scene of the previous day; he verified it by
raising his hand to his forehead, for the bruises still pained him,
and from his mother's tone he understood that she persisted in her
resolve to take him to the cobbler's.

After Manuel had dressed, mother and son left the house and went into
the bun-shop for a cup of coffee and milk. Then they walked down to
Arenal Street, crossed the Plaza del Oriente, and the Viaduct, thence
through Rosario Street. Continuing along the walls of a barracks they
reached the heights at whose base runs the Ronda de Segovia. From this
eminence there was a view of the yellowish countryside that reached as
far as Jetafe and Villaverde, and the San Isidro cemeteries with their
grey mudwalls and their black cypresses.

From the Ronda de Segovia, which they covered in a short time, they
climbed up Aguila Street, and paused before a house at the corner of
the Campillo de Gil Imon.

There were two shoe shops opposite one another and both closed.
Manuel's mother, who could not recall which was her relative's place,
inquired at the tavern.

"Senor Ignacio's over at the big house," answered the tavern-keeper.
"I think the cobbler's come already, but he hasn't opened the shop
yet."

Mother and son had to wait until the shop was opened. The building was
not the tiny, evil-boding one, but it looked as if it had an atrocious
desire to cave in, for here and there it, too, showed cracks, holes
and all manner of disfigurements. It had a lower and upper floor,
large and wide balconies the balustrades of which were gnawed by rust
and the diminutive panes of glass held in place by leaden strips.

On the ground floor of the house, in the part that faced Aguila
Street, there was a livery-stable, a carpenter's shop, a tavern and
the cobbler's shop owned by Petra's relation. This establishment
displayed over the entrance a sign that read:

_For The Regeneration of Footwear._

The historian of the future will surely find in this sign proof of
how widespread, during several epochs, was a certain notion of
national regeneration, and it will not surprise him that this idea,
which was launched in the aim to reform and regenerate the Constitution
and the Spanish people, came to an end upon the signboard of a shop on
a foresaken corner of the slums, where the only thing done was the
reformation and regeneration of footwear.

We will not deny the influence of this regenerating theory upon the
proprietor of the establishment _For The Regeneration of Footwear;_
but we must point out that this presumptuous legend was put up in token
of his defiance of the cobbler across the way, and we must register
likewise that it had been answered by another, and even more
presumptuous, one.

One fine morning the workmen in the establishment for _The
Regeneration of Footwear_ were dumfounded to find staring them in
the face the sign of the rival shop. It was a beautiful signboard about
two metres long, bearing this inscription:

_The Lion of the Shoemaker's Art_

This in itself was quite tolerable; the terrible, annihilating thing
about it was the painting that sprawled over the middle of the board.
A handsome yellow lion with the face of a man and with wavy mane,
standing erect; in his front paws he held a boot, apparently of
patent-leather. Beneath this representation was printed the following:
_You may break, but never unstitch it._

This was a crushing motto: A lion (wild beast) trying to unseam the
boot made by the Lion (shoemaker), and powerless before the task! What
a humiliation for the lion! What a triumph for the shoemaker! The
lion, in this case, was _For The Regeneration of Footwear,_
which, as the saying goes, had been compelled to bite the dust.

In addition to Senor Ignacio's sign there was, in one of the balconies
of the large house, the bust of a woman, made probably of pasteboard,
with lettering beneath: _Perfecta Ruiz: Ladies' Hair Dressing;_
on the side walls of the main entrance there hung several
announcements unworthy of occupying the attention of the
aforementioned historian, in which were offered low-priced rooms with
or without bed, amanuenses and seamstresses. A single card, upon which
were pasted horizontally, vertically and obliquely a number of cut-out
figures, deserved to go down in history for its laconicism. It read:

_Parisian Styles. Escorihuela, Tailor._

Manuel, who had not taken the trouble to read all these signs, went
into the building by a little door at the side of the livery-stable
entrance, and walked through the corridor to a very filthy courtyard.

When he returned to the street the cobbler's shop had already been
opened. Petra and her boy entered.

"Isn't Senor Ignacio in?" she asked.

"He'll be here in a second," answered a youngster who was piling up
old shoes in the middle of the shop.

"Tell him that his cousin is here,--Petra."

Senor Ignacio appeared. He was a man of between forty and fifty, thin
and wizened. Petra and he got into conversation, while the boy and a
little urchin continued to heap up the old shoes. Manuel was looking
on, when the boy said to him:

"Come on, you. Lend a hand!"

Manuel pitched in, and when the three had ended their labours, they
waited for Petra and Senor Ignacio to finish chatting. Petra was
recounting Manuel's latest exploits to her cousin and the cobbler
listened smilingly. The man bore no signs of gruffness; he was blond
and beardless; upon his upper lip sprouted a few saffron-hued hairs.
His complexion was leathery, wrinkled; the deep furrows of his face,
and his wearied mien, gave him the appearance of a weakling. He spoke
with a certain ironic vagueness.

"You're going to stay here," said Petra to Manuel.

"All right."

"He's an amiable rogue," exclaimed Senor Ignacio, laughing. "He agrees
right away."

"Yes; he takes everything calmly. But, look--" she added, turning to
her son, "if ever I find out that you carry on as you did yesterday,
you'll hear from me!"

Manuel said good-bye to his mother.

"Were you very long in that town of Soria with my cousin?" Senor
Ignacio asked.

"Two years."

"And did you work very hard there?"

"I didn't work at all."

"Well, sonny, you can't get out of it here. Come. Sit down and get
busy. These are your cousins," added Senor Ignacio, indicating the
youth and the little boy.

"They are a pair of warriors, too."

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