The Black House—Conflagration—Flight Near the station stretched a line of carriages; the cabmen had lighted a fire. Here Jesús and Manuel warmed themselves for a moment.
“We’ll have to go to that town,” muttered Jesús.
“Which?”
“That uninhabited place the fellow was telling us about. Vaciamadrid.”
“I’m ready.”
A train had just pulled into the station, so Manuel and Jesús took up a position at the entrance, where the passengers were coming out; they hoped to earn a few coins by carrying some valise.
Manuel was lucky enough to lug a gentleman’s bundle to a carriage, for which service he received a modest fee.
Manuel and Jesús proceeded now to the Prado. They were passing the Museo when they beheld a hackman whipping up his horses, and, behind the carriage, running with all his might, Don Alonso, dressed in a suit that seemed nothing but rents and tatters.
“Hey, there!” shouted Manuel to him.
[212]
Don Alonso turned around, came to a stop and walked back to Jesús and Manuel.
“Where were you bound in such a hurry?” they asked him.
“I was after that carriage, to carry up the gentleman’s trunk for him. But I’m exhausted. My legs are caving in.”
“And what are you doing?” asked Manuel.
“Pse!... Starving to death.”
“Better times haven’t come yet?”
“Will they ever come? Napoleon met his finish at Waterloo, didn’t he? Well, my life is one continuous Waterloo.”
“What are you doing now?”
“I’ve been selling smutty books. I ought to have one here,” he added, showing Manuel a pamphlet, the title of which read: “The Wiles of Women on The First Night.”
“Is that a good one?” asked Manuel.
“Oh, so so. Let me warn you beforehand that you’re supposed to read only every other line. To think of me, fallen to such things! I, who have been director of a circus in Niu Yoc!”
“Better times are coming.”
“A few nights ago I went out staggering, famished, and made my way to an Emergency Hospital. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ I was asked by an attendant. ‘Hunger.’ ‘That’s not a disease,’ he replied. Then I went begging and now I go every night to the Salamanca quarter, and I tell passing women that a little boy of mine has just died and that I need a few reales with which to purchase[213] candles. They are horrified and usually come across with something. I’ve also found a place to sleep. It’s over yonder by the river.”
The trio ate their next meal at the María Cristina barracks, and in the afternoon the Snake-Man left for his centre of operations in the Salamanca quarter.
“I’ve made a peseta and a half today,” he said to Manuel and Jesús. “Let’s go for supper.”
They supped at the Barcelona hostelry, on the Calle del Caballero de Gracia, and spent whatever was left on whisky.
Thereupon they repaired to the spot that had been discovered by Don Alonso,—a tumbledown dwelling near the Toledo bridge. They christened it the Black House. Nothing was left of it save the four walls, which had been levelled to the height of the first story.
It stood in the centre of an orchard; for roof it had a wattle over which projected a number of beams as black and straight as smokestacks.
The three entered the ruin. They crossed the patio, leaping over débris, tiles, rotten wood and mounds of ordure. They made their way through a corridor. Don Alonso struck a match, holding it lighted in the hollow of his palms. Some gipsy families and several beggars dwelt here in secret. Some had made their beds of rags and straw; others were asleep, leaning against matweed ropes that were fastened to the wall.
Don Alonso had his special corner, to which he took Manuel and Jesús.
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The floor was damp, earthen; a few of the house walls were still standing; the holes in the roof were plugged with bunches of cane that had been gathered by the river, and with pieces of matting.
“Deuce take it all!” exclaimed Don Alonso as he stretched himself out. “A fellow has always got to be on the lookout for a place. If I could only be a snail!”
“Why a snail?” queried Jesús.
“If only to get out of paying bills for lodgings.”
“Better times are coming,” promised Manuel, ironically.
“That’s the only hope,” replied the Snake-Man. “By tomorrow our luck may have shifted. You don’t know life. Fate is to man what the wind is to the weathervane.”
“The trouble is,” grumbled Jes&uacu............