Sandoval—Sánchez Gómez’s “Toads”—Jacob and Jesús. Manuel and Roberto left the station together.
“Are you going to begin your old life all over again?” asked Roberto. “Why don’t you make up your mind once and for all to go to work?”
“Where? I’m no good at hunting for a job. Do you know anything I could get? Some printing shop....”
“Would you be willing to go in as an apprentice, without any pay?”
“Yes. What will it be?”
“If you’ve no objections, I’ll take you this instant to the head of a certain newspaper. Come along.”
They ascended to the Plaza de San Marcial, then went on through the Calle de los Reyes to the Calle de San Bernardo; reaching the Calle del Pez they entered a house. They knocked at a door on the main floor; a scrawny woman appeared, informing them that the gentleman whom Roberto had called for was asleep and had left word not to be disturbed.
“I’m a friend of his,” answered Roberto. “I’ll wake him up.”
The two made their way through a corridor to a[126] dark room that reeked foully with iodoform. Roberto knocked.
“Sandoval!”
“What’s the trouble? What’s the matter?” shouted a powerful voice.
“It’s I; Roberto.”
There came the sounds of a man in his underclothes stepping out of bed and opening the shutters of the balcony; then they could see him return to his spacious bed.
He was a man of about forty, chubby-cheeked, corpulent, with a black beard.
“What’s the time?” he asked, stretching his limbs.
“Ten.”
“The devil, you say! As early as that? I’m glad you woke me; I’ve so many things to do. Shout down the corridor for me, will you.”
Roberto yelled a sonorous “Eh!” whereupon a painted girl walked into the room in evident ill-humor.
“Go fetch my clothes,” ordered Sandoval, and with an effort he sat up in bed, yawned stupidly and began to scratch his arms.
“What brings you here?” he queried.
“Well, you remember you told me the other day that you needed a boy in the office. I’ve brought you this one.”
“Why, man, I’ve already hired another.”
“Then there’s nothing to be done.”
“But I believe they need one at the printing shop.”
“Sánchez Gómez doesn’t think much of me.”
[127]
“I’ll talk to him. He can’t refuse me this.”
“Will you forget?”
“No, no I’ll not.”
“Bah! Write him; that would be better.”
“Very well. I’ll write him.”
“No. This very moment. Just a few words.”
As they spoke, Manuel observed the room with intense curiosity; it was unbelievably upset and filthy. The furniture comprised—the bed, a commode, an iron washstand, a shelf and two broken chairs. The commode and the shelf were heaped with papers and books whose binding was falling away. On the chairs lay petticoats and dresses. The floor was littered with cigar stubs, scraps of newspaper and pieces of absorbent cotton that had been used in some cure or other. Under the table reposed an iron wash bowl that had been converted into a brasier and was full of ashes and cinders.
When the servant-girl returned with Sandoval’s shirt and outer garments he got up in his drawers and began a search amidst his papers for a cake of soap, finally locating it. He washed himself in the basin of the washstand, which was brimming with dirty water wherein swam wisps of woman’s hair.
“Would you mind throwing out the water?” asked the journalist humbly of the maid.
“Throw it out yourself,” she snarled, leaving the room.
Sandoval went out into the corridor in his drawers, basin in hand, then returned, washed, and began to dress.
[128]
Here and there on the books lay a grimy comb, a broken toothbrush reddened with blood from gums, a collar edged with dirt, a rice-powder box full of dents with the puff black and hardened.
After Sandoval had dressed he became transformed in Manuel’s eyes; he took on an air of distinction and elegance. He wrote the letter that was asked of him, whereupon Roberto and Manuel left the house.
“He’s in there cursing away at us,” commented Roberto.
“Why?”
“Because he’s as lazy as a Turk. He’ll forgive anything except being made to work.”
Again they found themselves on the Calle de San Bernardo, and entered a lane that cut across. They paused before a tiny structure that jutted out from the line of the other buildings.
“This is the printing-shop,” said Roberto.
Manuel looked about him. Not a sign, no lettering, no indication whatsoever that this was a printery. Roberto thrust aside a little gate and they walked into a gloomy cellar that received its scanty light through the doorway leading to a dank, dirty patio. A recently whitewashed partition that bore the imprints of fingers and entire hands divided this basement into two compartments. In the first were packed a heap of dustladen objects; the other, the inner one, seemed to have been varnished black; a window gave it light; nearby rose a narrow, slippery stairway that disappeared into the ceiling. In the middle of this second compartment a bearded fellow,[129] dark and thin, was mounted beside a large press, placing the paper, which there appeared as white as snow, over the bed of the machine; another man was receiving it. In a corner the oil motor that supplied the power to the press was toiling painfully on.
Manuel and Roberto climbed the stairway to a long, narrow room which received light through two windows that looked into the patio.
Against the wall of the room, and in the middle as well, stood the printer’s cases, over which hung several electric lights wrapped in newspaper cones that served as shades.
Three men and a boy were at work before the cases; one of the men, a lame fellow in a long blue smock, a derby, with a sour face and spectacles on his nose, was pacing up and down the room.
Roberto greeted the lame fellow and handed him Sandoval’s letter. The man took the letter and growled ill-naturedly:
“I don’t know why they come to me with matters of this kind. Damn it all!...”
“This is the youngster who is to learn the trade,” interrupted Roberto, coldly.
“Learn hell ...” and the cripple spat out ten or a dozen curses and a string of blasphemies.
“Are you in bad humor today?”
“I’m as I darn please.... This cursed daily grind.... It drives me to desperation.... Understand?”
“Indeed, I do,” replied Roberto, adding, in a stage “aside” such as is heard by the entire auditorium,[130] “What patience one requires with this animal!”
“This is certainly a joke,” continued the cripple, unheedful of the “aside.” “Suppose the kid does want to learn the trade. What’s that got to do with me? And suppose he has nothing to eat? How does that concern me? Let him go to the deuce out of here ... and good riddance.”
“Are you going to teach him or not, Se?or Sánchez? I’m a busy man and have no time to waste.”
“Ah! No time to waste! Then clear out, my fine fellow. I don’t need you here at all. Let the kid remain. You’re in the way here.”
“Thanks. You stay here,” said Roberto to Manuel. “They’ll tell you what you have to do.”
Manuel stood perplexed; he saw his friend disappear, looked around him in every direction, and seeing that nobody paid any attention to him, he walked over to the stairway and descended two steps.
“Eh! Where are you going?” shouted the lame man after him. “Do you want to learn the trade or not? What do you call this?”
Manuel was more confused than ever.
“Hey, you, Yaco,” shouted the cripple, turning to one of the men at the cases. “Teach this kid the case.”
The man he had called,—a puny fellow, very swarthy, with a black beard,—was working away with astonishing rapidity. He cast an indifferent glance in Manuel’s direction and resumed his work.
The youngster stood there motionless. Seeing[131] him thus, the other typesetter, a blond young fellow with a sickly look, turned to his bearded companion jestingly and said to him in a queer sing-song:
“Ah, Yaco! Why don’t you teach the boy the position of the letters?”
“Teach him yourself,” retorted he whom they called Yaco.
“Ah, Yaco, I see that the law of Moses makes you people very selfish, Yaco. You don’t want to wa............