The Snow—More Tales From Don Alonso—Las Injurias—The Asilo del Sur Manuel slept like a log the whole of the following morning. Indeed, when he got up it was past three in the afternoon.
He knocked at Jesús’s door. La Fea was at the machine and La Salvadora was sitting in a tiny chair ripping some skirts; the tot was playing on the floor.
“Where’s Jesús?” asked Manuel.
“I guess you know better than we do,” retorted La Salvadora, her voice quivering with anger.
“I ... left him ...; then I met a friend....” Manuel forced himself to invent a lie. “Perhaps he’s at the shop,” he added.
“No. He’s not at the printing shop,” replied La Salvadora.
“I’ll go look for him.”
Manuel left the hostelry of Santa Casilda in shame. He walked toward the heart of the city and asked for his friend at the tavern on the Calle de Tetuán.
“He was here,” answered the waiter, “until the place closed. Then he went off as drunk as a lord, I don’t know where.”
Manuel returned to the house, and went back to[189] bed with the intention of going to the printing shop on the next day. But the following day he awoke late again. He was overcome by an inertia that seemed impossible to conquer.
He came upon La Salvadora in the corridor.
“Haven’t you gone to the shop today, either?” she asked.
“No.”
“Very well, then. Don’t trouble yourself ever to come back here again,” rasped the girl, furiously. “We don’t need any tramps. While we’re here slaving away, you fellows go out for a gay time. I’m telling you, now, don’t ever show up here again, and if you see Jesús, tell him the same for his sister and for me.”
Manuel shrugged his shoulders and left the house. It had been snowing all day. In the Puerta del Sol gangs of street-sweepers and hose men were clearing away the drifts; the filthy water ran along the gutters.
Several times Manuel stepped into the Café de Lisboa, hoping to come upon Vidal. Not finding him there he had a bite at a tavern, after which he went for a stroll through the streets. It got dark very early. Madrid, enveloped in snow, was deserted. The Plaza de Oriente looked unreal, somewhat like a scene set upon a stage. The monarchs of stone wore white cloaks. The statue in the centre of the square stood out nobly against the sky of grey. From the Viaduct there was a view of white expanses. Toward Madrid lay a heap of yellowish structures and black roofs, of towers jutting[190] into the milky heavens, reddened by a luminous irradiation.
Manuel returned to the house in low spirits; he threw himself into bed.
“Tomorrow I’m going back to the shop,” he said to himself. But on the morrow he did not go back. He rose very early with that intention, and was actually about to enter the printery when the idea occurred to him that the boss might raise a rumpus, so he turned away. “If not here, then I’ll find work elsewhere,” he thought, and he turned his steps back in the direction of the Puerta del Sol, proceeding thence to the Plaza de Oriente, through the Calle de Bailén, and the Calle de Ferraz to the Paseo de Rosales. The avenue was silent and deserted.
From this point could be viewed the entire landscape white under the snow, the dark groves of the Casa de Campo, and the round hills bristling with black pine trees. The pallid sun hovered in a leaden sky. Near the horizon, in the direction of Villaverde, shone a strip of clear blue sky in a pink mist. Profound silence everywhere. Only the strident whistle of the locomotives and the hammering in the workshops of the Estación del Norte disturbed that calm. Not a footfall resounded on the pavement.
The houses along the avenue displayed snowy adornments upon balustrade and coping; the trees seemed to flatten under that white mantle.
That afternoon Manuel returned toward the[191] printing-shop, ventured inside and asked the pressman for Jesús.
“He got a fierce call-down from the boss,” was the answer.
“Did he fire him?”
“Maybe not! Go up now and take your medicine.”
Manuel, about to go up, paused.
“Has Jesús gone already?”
“Yes. He must be in the corner tavern.”
And he really was. He sat before a table drinking a glass of whisky. There was a sad, doleful expression upon his face. He was a prey to his sombre thoughts.
“What are you doing?” asked Manuel.
“Oh, it’s you, is it?”
“Yes. Did the old cripple discharge you?”
“Yes.”
“Were you thinking of anything?”
“Pse!... There’s nothing doing, anyway. Come on, let’s have a glass or two.”
“No, not for me.”
“You’ll do as you’re told. I’ve got only forty céntimos, which is as good as nothing. Hey, waiter! A couple of glasses.”
They drank and then walked off in the direction of the Santa Casilda hostelry. It was still snowing. Jesús, his cheeks hectic, coughed desperately.
“I warn you: Salvadora, that little kid, will raise holy hell,” said Manuel. “Such a temper she has!”
“Well, what do they want? To have us saving[192] up money all our lives? I’m glad that the kid is in the house, for she can take care of La Fea, who is the unhappier of the two.... And you,—how much have you got left from your pay?” asked the compositor of Manuel.
“Me? Not even a button.”
At this reply Jesús was so deeply moved that he seized his companion by the arm and assured him in the most ardent outbursts that he esteemed him and loved him as a brother.
“And may I be damned!” he concluded, “if I’m not willing to do anything under the sun for you. For this telling me that you haven’t even a button is worth more to me than all the deeds of the hero of Cascorro.”[4]
Manuel, affected by these words, asseverated in a husky voice that though he was a vagabond and a good-for-nothing, he was ready to perform any sacrifice for so staunch a friend.
In order to celebrate such tender protestations of amity, they both lurched into a tavern on the Calle de Barrionuevo and gulped down a few more glasses of whisky.
They reached the Santa Casilda hostelry dead drunk. The house janitor came out to meet them, demanding of each the rent for his room. Jesús answered jestingly that they gave him no money because they had none to give. He rejoined that either they paid or they could take to the street,[193] whereupon the compositor dared him to throw them out.
The man’s wife, who might have been a soldier, took them both by the shoulder and shoved them into the street.
“Lord, oh Lord! The weaker sex!” mumbled Jesús. “That’s what they call the weaker sex!... And they can throw a fellow out of the house.... And where’s a guy going to get two duros?... Well, what do you say to that, Manuel? Hey? The weaker sex.... How do you like such a figurative manner of speech?... It’s we who are the weaker, and they simply abuse their strength.”
They began to stagger along the street; neither felt the cold.
From time to time Jesús would pause and deliver a diatribe; a man would laugh as they passed by, or a youngster, from some doorway, would call after them and send a snowball in their direction.
“I wonder whom they’re laughing at?” thought Manuel.
The Ronda was silent, white, cut by a dark stream of water left by the carts. The large flakes came falling down, interweaving in their descent; they danced in the gusts of wind like white butterflies. During the intervals of calm they would glide slowly, softly through the greyish atmosphere, like the gentle down from the neck of a swan.
Afar, in the mist, lay the white landscape of the suburbs, the gently curving slopes, the houses and the cemeteries of the Campo de San Isidro. Against this background everything stood out more distinct[194] than ordinarily: the roofs, the mudwalls, the trees, the lanterns thickly hooded in snow.
In this whitish ambient the black smoke belched forth by the chimneys spread through the air like a threat.
“The weaker sex. Hey, Manuel?” continued Jesús, harping upon his fixed idea. “And yet they can show a fellow to the door.... It’s as if they said the weak snow.... Because you tread upon it.... Isn’t that so?... But the snow makes you cold.... And then who’s the weaker, you or the snow?... You, because you catch cold. That’s all a fellow does in this world,—catch cold.... Everything is cold, understand?... Everything.... Like the snow.... Do you see how white it is, eh? It looks so good, so affectionate ... the weaker sex.... Well, touch it, and you freeze.”
They squandered their last céntimos on another glass of whisky, and from that moment they were no longer conscious of their doings.
The following morning they awoke frozen through and through, in a shed of the Cattle Market situated near the Paseo de los Pontones.
Jesús was coughing horribly.
“You stay here,” said Manuel to him. “I’m going to see whether I can pick up something to eat.”
He went out to the Ronda. The snow had ceased. Several gamins were amusing themselves by throwing snowballs at one another. He went up the Calle del águila; the cobbler’s was closed. It[195] then occurred to Manuel to hunt out Jacob; he turned toward the Viaduct and was walking along absent-mindedly when he felt some one grab him by the shoulders and cry:
“Stay thy hand, Abraham. Where are you bound?”
It was the Snake-Man, the illustrious Don Alonso.
Manuel told him what straits he and Jesús were in.
“Don’t give up; better times are coming,” mumbled the Snake-Man. “Have you any place to go to?”
“A shed.”
“Good. Let’s go there. I’ve got a peseta. That’s enough to get the three of us a bite.”
They went into a chop house on the Calle del águila where, for two reales, they received a pot of stew; they bought bread and then the pair made quickly for the shed. They ate, laid aside something for the night, and after their meal Don Alonso tore loose several pickets from a fence and succeeded in starting a fire inside the shed.
That afternoon it began to rain in torrents; the Snake-Man considered it his duty to enliven the company, so he told one tale after the other, always commencing with his eternal refrain of “Once in America....”
“Once in America”—(and this is the least unlikely tale of all he told)—“we were sailing down the Mississippi on a steamer. And let me tell you, those steamboats rock so little that you can[196] play billiards on them. Well, we were sailing along and we reach a certain town. The boat stops and we see a mob of people on the wharf of that village. We draw nearer and we behold that they’re all Indians, with the exception of a few guards and Yankee soldiers.
“I” (and Don Alonso added this information proudly) “who was the director, said to my musicians, ‘We must start a lively tune,’ and right away, Boom! Boom! Tra, la, la!... You can’t imagine the shouts and the shrieks and the croaking of that crowd.
“When the band had stopped playing, a big fat Indian squaw with her head full of cock feathers steps up to me and begins to make ceremonial greetings. I asked one of the Yankees, ‘Who is this lady?’ ‘She’s the queen,’ he said, ‘and she wants a little more music.’ I saluted the queen. Most excellent lady! (And I made an elegant series of Versaillesque bows, setting one foot back.) I said to the members of the band, ‘Boys, a little more music for her Majesty.’ They started up again, and the queen, highly pleased, saluted me with her hand on her heart. I did the same. Most excellent lady!
“We put up our portable circus in a few hours and I withdrew to ponder over the programme. I was the director. ‘We’ll have to give The Mounted Indian,’ I said to myself. Even though it’s a discredited number in the cities, they can’t know it here. Then I’ll exhibit my ecuyères, acrobats, equilibrists, pantomimists and, as a finale, the clowns, who will be[197] the climax of the show. The fellow who was to play The Mounted Indian I tipped off and said, ‘See here, make yourself up to look as much like our audience as possible.’ ‘Don’t worry about that, director,’ he answered. Boys! It was a sensational success. When the ‘Indian’ appeared, what a racket of applause!”
Don Alonso mimed the number; he crouched, imitating the movements of one about to mount a horse; he sank his head in his chest, staring at a fixed point and imitated the whirling of a lasso above his head.
“The Mounted Indian,” continued Don Alonso, “won the applause of the other Indians. I’m positive that not one of them knew how to ride a horse. Then there was an acrobatic number, followed by a variety of others, until the time for the clowns came around. ‘Here’s where there’s pandemonium,’ I thought to myself. And surely enough, all they had to do was appear when a wild tumult broke loose. ‘They’re having a wonderful time,’ I said to myself, when in comes a boy. ‘Director, Se?or Director!’ ‘What’s the trouble?’ ‘The whole audience is leaving.’ ‘Leaving?’ And indeed, they were. The Indians had become scared at sight of the clowns, and imagined that they were evil spirits come there to spoil the performance for them. I jump into the ring, and send the clowns stumbling off. Then, to efface the bad impression, I performed several sleight-of-hand tricks. When I began to belch ribbons of flame from my mouth, Lord, what a triumph! The whole house was astounded.[198] But when I palmed a couple of rings and then drew out of my coat pocket a fish-bowl filled with live fishes, I received the greatest ovation of my career.”
Don Alonso was silent. Jesús and Manuel prepared to go to sleep, stretched out on the ground, huddled into a corner. The rain came down in bucketfuls; the water drummed loudly upon the roof of the shed; the wind whistled and moaned from afar.
It began to thunder, and it was for all the world as if some train were crashing headlong down a metal slope, so continuous, so violent was the thundering.
“A fine tempest!” grunted Jesús.
“Bah! Tempests on land!” sniffed Don Alonso. “Cheap stuff! Tempests on land are mere imitations. At sea,—that’s where you want to witness a tempest, at sea! when the waves come sweeping over the masts.... Even on the lakes. On Lake Erie and Lake Michigan I’ve been through tremendous storms, with waves as high as houses. But I must admit that the wind goes down almost at once and in a little while the water is as smooth as the pond of the Retiro. Why, once yonder in America....”
But Manuel and Jesús, weary of American tales, pretended to be fast asleep and the former Snake-Man sank into disconsolate silence, thinking of the days when he palmed the Indians’ rings and drew forth fish-bowls.
They could not sleep; several times they had to[199] get up and change their places, for the water leaked through the roof.
On the following morning, when they left their hole, it was no longer raining. The snow had been melted completely. The Cattle Market was transformed into a swamp; the pavement of the Ronda, into a sea of mud; the houses and the trees dripped water; everything was black, miry, abandoned; only a few wandering, famished, mud-stained dogs were sniffing about in the heaps of refuse.
Manuel pawned his cape and on the advice of Jesús protected his chest with several layers............