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The Quest

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"Your mother's dying. Stay here, and I'll be back at once with the
extreme unction."

The priest ordered the merrymakers in the dining-room to cease their
racket and the whole house became silent.

Nothing could be heard now save cautious footfalls, the opening and
closing of doors, followed by the stertorous breathing of the dying
woman and the tick-tock of the corridor clock.

The priest arrived with another who wore a stole and administered all
the rites of the extreme unction. After the vicar and the sacristan
had gone, Manuel looked at his mother and saw her livid features, her
drooping jaw. She was dead.

The youngster was left alone in the room, which was dimly lighted by
the oil lamp; there he sat on the trunk, trembling with cold and fear.

He spent the whole night thus; from time to time the landlady would
enter in her underclothes and ask Manuel something or offer some bit
of advice which, for the most part, he did not understand.

That night Manuel thought and suffered as perhaps he never thought and
suffered at any other time; he meditated upon the usefulness of life
and upon death with a perspicacity that he had never possessed.
However hard he might try, he could not stem the flood of thoughts
that merged one with the other.

At four in the morning the whole house was in silence, when there was
heard the rattle of a latchkey in the stairway door, followed by
footsteps in the corridor and then the querulous tinkling of the
music-box upon the vestibule-table, playing the Mandolinata.

Manuel awoke with a start, as from a dream; he could not make out
where the music was coming from; he even imagined that he had lost his
head. The little organ, after several hitches and asthmatic sobs,
abandoned the Mandolinata and began to roll off in double time the
duet between Bettina and Pippo from _La Mascotte_:

_Will you forget me, gentle swain,
Dressed in this lordly finery?_

Manuel left the bedroom and asked, through the darkness:

"Who is it?"

At the same moment voices were heard from every room. The music-box
cut short the duet from _La Mascotte_ and launched spiritedly
into the strains of Garibaldi's hymn. Suddenly the music stopped and a
hoarse voice shouted:

"Paco! Paco!"

The landlady got up and asked who was making all that racket; one of
the men who had just entered the house explained in a whisky-soaked
voice that they were students who boarded on the third floor, and had
just come from the ball in search of Paco, one of the salesmen. The
landlady told them that some one had died in the house and one of the
drunkards, who was a student of medicine, said he would like to view
the corpse. He was persuaded to change his mind and everybody went
back to his place. The next day Manuel's sisters were notified and
Petra was buried....

On the day after the interment Manuel left the boarding-house and said
farewell to Doña Casiana.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I don't know. I'll see."

"I can't keep you here, but I don't want you to starve. Come here from
time to time."

After walking about town all the morning, Manuel found himself at noon
on the Ronda de Toledo, leaning against the wall of Las Americas, at a
loss to know what to do with himself. To one side, likewise seated
upon the turf, was a loathsome, terribly ugly, flat-nosed gamin, with
a clouded eye, bare feet, and a tattered jacket through whose rents
could be glimpsed his dark skin, which had been tanned by the sun and
wind. Hanging from his neck was a canister into which he threw the
cigarette ends that he gathered.

"Where do you live?" Manuel asked him.

"I haven't any father or mother," answered the urchin, evasively.

"What's your name?"

"The Orphan."

"And why do they call you that?"

"Why! Because I'm a foundling."

"And didn't you ever have a home?"

"No."

"And where do you sleep?"

"Well, in the summer I sleep in the caves, or in yards, and in winter,
in the asphalt caldrons."

"And when they're not doing any asphalting?"

"In some shelter or other."

"All right, then. But what do you eat?"

"Whatever I'm given."

"And do you manage to do well?"

Either the foundling did not understand the question or it appeared
quite silly to him, for he merely shrugged his shoulders. Manuel
continued his curious interrogatory.

"Aren't your feet cold?"

"No."

"And don't you do anything?"

"Psch! ... whatever turns up. I pick up stubs, I sell sand, and when I
can't earn anything I go to the María Cristina barracks."

"What for?"

"What for? For a meal, of course."

"And where's this barracks?"

"Near the Atocha station. Why? Would you like to go there, too?"

"Yes, I would."

"Well, let's come along then, or we'll miss mess time."

The two got up and started on their journey. The Orphan begged at the
stores on the road and was given two slices of bread and a small coin.

"Will you have some, _ninchi?_" he asked, offering Manuel one of
the slices.

"Hand it over."

By the Ronda de Atocha they reached the Estación de Mediodía.

"Do you know the time?" asked the Orphan.

"Yes. It's eleven."

"Well then, it's too early to go to the barracks."

Opposite the station a lady, from the seat of a coach, was making a
speech proclaiming the wonders of a salve for wounds and a specific
for curing the toothache.

The Orphan, biting away at his slice of bread, interrupted the speech
of the lady in the coach, shouting ironically:

"Give me a slice to take away my toothache!"

"And another one to me!" added Manuel.

The husband of the speechmaker, an old fellow wearing a very long
raglan and standing amidst the crowd of spectators listening with the
greatest respect to what his better half was saying, grew indignant
and speaking but half Spanish, cried:

"If I catch you your teeth'll ache for fair."

"This gentleman came from Archipipi," interrupted the Orphan.

The old codger tried to catch one of the urchins. Manuel and the
Orphan ran off, dodging the man in the raglan and planting themselves
opposite him.

"Impudent rascals," shouted the gentleman. "I'll give you a hiding and
maybe your teeth won't really ache by the time I'm through with you."

"But they hurt already," chorused the ragamuffins.

The old fellow, exasperated beyond endurance, gave frantic chase to
the urchins; a group of idlers and news-vendors jostled against him as
if by accident, and the pursuer, perspiring freely and wiping his face
with his handkerchief, went off in search of an officer.

"Fakir, froggie, beggar!" shouted the Orphan derisively at him.

Then, laughing at their prank, they returned to the barracks and took
place at the end of a line composed of poverty-stricken folk and
tramps who were waiting for a meal. An old woman who had already eaten
lent them a tin in which to place their food.

They ate and then, in company of other tattered youngsters climbed the
sandy slopes of San Blas hill to get a view from that spot of the
soldiers on Atocha avenue.

Manuel stretched out lazily in the sun, filled with the joy of finding
himself absolutely free of worriment, of gazing upon the azure sky
which extended into the infinite. Such blissful comfort induced in him
a deep sleep.

When he awoke it was already mid-afternoon and the wind was chasing
dark clouds across the heavens. Manuel sat up; there was a knot of
gamins close by, but the Orphan was nowhere to be seen.

A dense black cloud came up and blotted out the sun; shortly afterward
it began to rain.

"Shall we go to Cojo's cave?" asked one of the boys.

"Come on."

The entire band of ragamuffins broke into a run in the direction of
the Retiro, with Manuel hard after them. The thick raindrops fell in
slanting, steel-hued lines; a stray sunbeam glittered from the sky
through the dark violet clouds which were so long that they looked
like huge, motionless fishes.

Ahead of the ragamuffins, at an appreciable distance, ran two women
and two men.

"They're Rubia and Chata with a couple of hayseeds," said one of the
gamins.

"They're running to the cave," added another.

The boys reached the top of the hill; before the entrance to the cave,
which was nothing but a hole dug out of the sand, sat a one-legged man
smoking a pipe.

"We're going in," announced one of the urchins to Cojo.

"You can't," he replied.

"And why not?"

"Because you can't."

"Man! Let's get in until the rain stops."

"Impossible."

"Why? Are Rubia and Chata inside?"

"What do you care if they are?"

"Shall we give those hayseeds a scare?" asked one of the ragamuffins,
whose ears were covered by long black locks.

"Just try it and see," growled Cojo, seizing a rock.

"Come on to the Observatory," said another. "We won't get wet there."

The gang turned back, hurdled a wall that stood in their path and took
refuge in the portico of the Observatory on the Atocha side. The wind
was blowing from the Guadarrama range so that they were in the lee.

For the afternoon and part of the evening the rain came pouring down;
they passed the time chatting about women, thefts and crimes. Two or
three of these youngsters had a home to go to, but they didn't care to
go. One, who was called El Mariané, related a number of notable tricks
and swindles; others, who displayed prodigious skill and ingenuity,
roused the gathering to enthusiasm. After this theme had been
exhausted, a few suggested a game of cané, and the idler with the long
black locks, whom they called El Canco, sang in a low feminine voice
several _flamenco_ songs.

At night, as it grew cold, they lay down quite close to each other
upon the ground and continued their conversations. Manuel was repelled
by the malevolent spirit of the gang; one of them told a story about
an aged fellow of eighty, "old Rainbow," who used to sleep furtively
in the Manzanares laundry in a hole formed by four mats; one night
when an icy cold wind was blowing they opened two of his mats and the
next day he was found frozen to death; El Mariané recounted how he had
been with a cousin of his, a cavalry sergeant, in a public house and
how the sergeant mounted upon a naked woman's back and gashed her
thighs with his spurs.

"The fact is," concluded El Mariané, "there's nothing like making
women suffer if you want to keep 'em satisfied."

Manuel listened in astonishment to this counsel; his mind reverted to
that seamstress who came to the landlady's house, and then to Salomé,
and it occurred to him that he would not care to have made them love
him by inflicting pain. He fell asleep with these notions whirling in
his head.

When he awoke he felt the cold penetrating to his very marrow. Day was
breaking and the rain had ceased; the sky, still dim, was strewn with
greyish clouds. Above a hedge of shrubs shone a star in the middle of
the horizon's pale band, and against this opaline glow stood out the
intertwined branches of the trees, which were still without leaves.

The whistles of the locomotives could be heard from the nearby
station; toward Carabanchel the lantern lights were paling in the dark
fields, which could be glimpsed by the vague luminosity of nascent
day.

Madrid, level, whitish, bathed in mist, rose out of the night with its
many roofs, which cut the sky in a straight line; its turrets, its
lofty factory chimneys; and amidst the silence of the dawn, the city
and the landscape suggested the unreality and the motionlessness of a
painting.

The sky became clearer, growing gradually blue. Now the new white
houses stood out more sharply; the high partition-walls, pierced
symmetrically by tiny windows; the roofs, the corners, the
balustrades, the red towers of recent construction, the army of
chimneys, all enveloped in the cold, sad, damp, atmosphere of morning,
beneath a low zinc-hued sky.

Beyond the city proper, afar, rolled the Madrilenian plain in gentle
undulations, toward the mists of dawn; the Manzanares meandered along,
as narrow as a band of silver; it sought the Los Angeles hill,
crossing barren fields and humble districts, finally to curve and lose
itself in the grey horizon. Towering above Madrid the Guadarrama
loomed like a lofty blue rampart, its summits capped with snow.

In the midst of this silence a church bell began its merry pealing,
but the chimes were lost in the somnolent city.

Manuel felt very cold and commenced pacing back and forth, rubbing his
shoulders and his legs. Absorbed in this operation, he did not see a
man in a boina, with a lantern in his hand, who approached him and
asked:

"What are you doing here?"

Without replying, Manuel broke into a run down the hill; shortly
afterward the rest of the gang came scurrying down, awaked by the
kicks of the man in the boina.

As they reached the Velasco Museum, El Mariané said:

"Let's see if we can't play a dirty trick on that damned Cojo."

"Yes. Come on."

By a side path they climbed back to the spot where they had been on
the previous afternoon. From the caves of San Blas hill came a few
ragamuffins crawling out on all fours; frightened by the sound of
voices and thinking, doubtless, that the police had come to make a
raid, they set off on a mad run, naked, with their ragged clothing
under their arms.

They made their way to Cojo's cave; El Mariané proposed that as a
punishment for his not having let them go in the day before, they
should pile a heap of grass before the entrance to the cave and set
fire to the place.

"No, man, that's monstrous," objected El Canco. "The fellow hires out
his cave to Rubia and Chata, who hang around here and have customers
in the barracks. He has to respect his agreements with them."

"Well, we'll have to give him a lesson," retorted El Mariané. "You'll
see." Whereupon he crawled into the cave and reappeared soon with El
Cojo's wooden leg in one hand and a stewpot in the other.

"Cojo! Cojo!" he shouted.

At these cries the cripple stuck his head out of the entrance to the
cave, dragging himself along on his hands, bellowing blasphemies in
fury.

"Cojo! Cojo!" yelled El Mariané again, as if inciting a dog. "There
goes your leg! And your dinner's following after!" As he spoke, he
seized the wooden leg and the pot and sent them rolling down the
slope.

Then they all broke into a run for the Ronda de Vallecas. Above the
heights and valleys of the Pacífico district the huge red disk of the
sun rose from the earth and ascended slowly and majestically behind a
cluster of grimy huts.




CHAPTER III

Meeting with Roberto--Roberto Narrates the Origin of a Fantastic
Fortune.


Manuel was compelled to return to the bakery in quest of work, and
there, thanks to Karl's intercession with the proprietor, the boy
spent a while as a substitute for a delivery-man.

Manuel understood that this was hardly a suitable thing for him as a
regular position, and that it would get him nowhere; but he was at a
loss what to do, what road to take.

When he was left without a job, he managed to exist as long as he had
enough to pay for a chop-house meal. There came a day when he was
stranded without a céntimo and he resorted to the María Cristina
barracks.

For two or three days he had been taking up his position among the
beggars of the breadline, when once he caught sight of Roberto
entering the barracks. He did not go over to him, as he feared to lose
his place, but after eating he waited until Roberto came out.

"Don Roberto!" hailed Manuel.

The student turned deathly pale; at sight of Manuel he regained his
composure.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"You can see for yourself. I come here to eat. I can't find work."

"Ah! You come here to eat?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I come for the same reason," murmured Roberto, laughing.

"You?"

"Yes. I have been cheated out of my rightful fortune."

"And what are you doing now?"

"I'm working on a newspaper, waiting until there's a vacancy. At the
barracks I made friends with a sculptor who comes here for his meals,
too, and we both live in a garret. I laugh at such things, for I am
convinced that some day I'm going to be wealthy, and when I am, I'll
recall these hard times with pleasure."

"He's beginning to rave already," thought Manuel.

"Then you don't believe that I'm going to be a rich man some day?"

"Certainly. Of course I do!"

"Where are you going?" asked Roberto.

"Nowhere in particular."

"Let's take a stroll."

"Come on."

They walked down to Alfonso XII Street and went into the Retiro; when
they had gone as far as the end of the carriage drive they sat down on
a bench.

"We'll drive along here in a carriage when I become a millionaire,"
said Roberto.

"You mean you.... As for me...." replied Manuel.

"You, too. Do you imagine that I'm going to let you stand in the
barrack's bread line when I have my millions?"

"He's truly a bit off his base," thought Manuel, "but he has a kind
heart." Then he added. "Have your affairs been making much progress?"

"No, not much. The question is still pretty well tangled. But it will
be straightened out, mark my word."

"Do you know that that circus chap with the phonograph showed up one
day with a woman named Rosa?" said Manuel. "I went hunting for you to
see whether she was the one you were talking about."

"No. The one I was looking for is dead."

"Then your case is all cleared up?"

"Yes. But I need money. Don Telmo was ready to lend me ten thousand
duros on condition that I'd give him half of the fortune as soon as I
entered into possession of it, if I won. But I refused."

"How foolish."

"What's more, he wants me to marry his niece."

"And you didn't want to?"

"No."

"But she's pretty."

"Yes. But she's not to my taste."

"What? Are you still thinking of the Baroness's daughter?"

"How could I forget her! I've seen her. She is exquisite."

"Yes. She's certainly good-looking."

"Only good-looking! Don't blaspheme. The moment I saw her, my mind was
made up. It's sink or swim for me."

"You run the risk of being left with nothing."

"I know that. I don't care. All or nothing. The Hastings have always
been men of will and resolution. And I'm inspired by the example of
one of my relatives. It's an invigorating case of pertinacity. You'll
see."

"My uncle, the brother of my grandfather, was employed in a London
business house and learned, through a sailor, that a chest filled with
silver had been dug up on one of the islands in the Pacific; it was
supposed that it came from a vessel that had left Peru for the
Philippines. My uncle succeeded in finding out the exact spot where
the ship had been wrecked, and at once he gave up his position and
went off to the Philippines. He chartered a brig, reached the spot
indicated,--a reef of the Magellan archipelago,--they sounded at
several points and after hard work dredged up only a few shattered
chests that contained not a trace of anything. When their food supply
gave out they were forced to return, and my uncle reached Manila
without a farthing. He got a position in a business house. After a
year of this a fellow from the United States proposed that they should
go out together in quest of the treasure, and my uncle accepted, on
the condition that they'd share the profits equally. On this second
voyage they brought up two huge, very heavy chests, one filled with
silver ingots, the other with Mexican gold pieces. The Yankee and my
uncle divided the money and each one's share amounted to more than one
hundred thousand duros. But my uncle, who was an obstinate fellow,
returned to the site of the shipwreck and this time he must have
located the treasure, for he came back to England with a colossal
fortune. Today the Hastings, who still live in England, are
millionaires. Do you remember that Fanny who came to the tavern in Las
Injurias with us?"

"Yes."

"Well, she's one of the wealthy Hastings of England."

"Then why didn't you ask them for some money?" queried Manuel.

"No, never. Not even if I were dying of hunger, and this despite the
fact that they've often offered to help me. Before coming to Madrid I
sailed almost around the world in a yacht belonging to Fanny's
brother."

"And this fortune that you expect to own, is it also on some island?"
asked Manuel.

"It seems to me that you're of the kind that have no faith," answered
Roberto. "Before the crowing of the cock you would deny me three
times."

"No. I know nothing of your affairs; but if you should ever need me,
I'll be ready to serve you, and gladly."

"But you doubt my destiny, and are wrong to do so. You imagine that
I'm a bit daft."

"No, no, sir."

"Bah! You think that this fortune that I'm to inherit is all a hoax."

"I don't know."

"Well, it isn't. The fortune exists. Do you remember I was once
talking with Don Telmo, in your presence, about a conversation I had
with a certain book-binder in his house?"

"Yes, sir. I remember."

"Well, that conversation furnished me with the clew to all the
investigations I afterward conducted; I won't tell you how I went
about collecting data and more data, little by little, for that would
bore you. I'll put the thing for you in a nutshell."

As he finished his sentence Roberto arose from the bench upon which
they were seated and said to Manuel:

"Let's be going; that fellow yonder is hanging around trying to hear
what we're talking about."

Manuel got up, surer than ever that Roberto was crazy on that point;
they walked by El Angel Caído, reached the Meteorological Observatory
and from there left for the hills that lie opposite the Pacífico and
the Doña Carlota districts.

"We can talk here," murmured Roberto. "If any one comes along, let me
know."

"Don't worry on that score," assured Manuel.

"Well, as I was telling you, that conversation provided the foundation
of a fortune that will soon be mine; but see how clumsy a fellow can
be and how ill things look when they're too near. Until a full year
after I had had that conversation I made no attempt to start my case.
The first efforts I made about two years ago. The idea came to me on
one Carnival day. I was giving lessons in English and studying at the
University; of the little money I earned I had to send some to my
mother and the rest went toward my upkeep and my tuition fees. This
Carnival day,--a Tuesday, I remember,--I had no more than three
pesetas to my name; I had been working so hard and so steadily,
without a moment's let-up, that I said to myself: 'Yes, sir. Today I'm
going to do something foolish. I'm going to disguise myself. And
surely enough, on San Marcos Street I hired a domino and a mask for
three pesetas, and I went out on to the street with not a céntimo in
my pocket. I began to walk down toward La Castellana and as I reached
the Cibeles fountain I stopped and asked myself in astonishment: 'Why
did I have to spend the little money I had on me for a disguise, when
I know nobody anyway?'

"I was about to return and get rid of my disguise, but there were so
many people in the crowd that I had to float with the tide. I don't
know whether you've ever noticed how lonesome one feels on these
Carnival days amidst the throngs of people. This solitude in the crowd
is far more intense than solitude in a forest. It brought to my mind
the thousand absurdities one commits; the sterility of my own life.
'I'm going to waste my life in some grubbing profession,' I said to
myself. 'I'll wind up by becoming a teacher, a sort of English
instructress. No; never that. I must seek an opportunity and the means
to emancipate myself from this petty existence, or else plunge into
tragic life.' It also occurred to me that it was very possible that
the opportunity had come to me without my knowing how to take
advantage of it, and at once I recalled my conversation with that
book-binder. I decided to go into the matter until I saw it more
clearly. Without any hope, you'll understand, but simply as an
exercise of the will. 'I need more will-power,' I said to myself,
'with which to conquer the details that come up every moment rather
than to perform some great sacrifice or be capable of an instant of
abnegation. Sublime moments, heroic acts, are rather the deeds of an
exalted intelligence than of the will; I have always felt it in me to
perform some great deed such as taking a trench or defending a
barricade or going to the North Pole; but, would I be capable of
finishing a daily stint, composed of petty provocations and dull
routine? Yes,' said I to myself, and with this resolution I mingled
with the masked merrymakers and returned to Madrid while the rest were
at the height of their fun."

"And have you been working ever since?"

"Ever since, and with rapid persistency. The book-binder didn't care
to give me any details, so I installed myself in the Casa de
Canónigos, asked for the Libro de Turnos and there from day to day I'd
look over list after list until I found the date of the lawsuit; from
there I went to Las Salesas, located the archive and I spent an entire
month in a garret opening dockets until I found the documents. Then I
had to get baptismal certificates, seek recommendations from a bishop,
run hither and thither, intrigue, scurry to this place and that, until
the question began to clear up, and with all my documents properly
arranged I presented my claim at London. During these two years I laid
the foundations for the tower to the top of which I'll climb yet."

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