The Police Court Dungeon—Digressions—Manuel’s Statement On the day following the death of his cousin Manuel eagerly bought the newspapers; they all had accounts of the murder at the restaurant; the customers present at the time were clearly described; Vidal’s body had been identified and it had been established that the assassin was El Bizco, a jail bird who had already been tried for two robberies, and assaults, and the alleged perpetrator of a murder committed upon the Aravaca road.
La Justa and Manuel were thrown into a terrible panic; they feared lest they should be involved in the crime and be summoned to testify; they were completely at a loss.
After much cogitation, they decided that the most sensible course would be to move off somewhere into the suburbs. La Justa and Manuel sought a place, finding one at last in a house on the Calle de Galileo, near the Tercer Depósito, in Vallehermoso.
The rent was cheap,—three duros per month. The house had two balconies, which looked out upon a large clearing or vacant lot where the stone cutters hewed large boulders. This lot was marked off by a wall of chips left over from the stone cutting, and[298] in the centre was a shack where the watchman lived with his family.
The rooms were flooded with light from sunrise to sunset. Save for the terror produced in Manuel by Vidal’s tragic end or by some inner impulse thus stirred, Manuel felt his soul quiver with eagerness to begin life anew; he hunted work and found it in a printing-shop of Chamberí. This being shut up all day within the walls of the shop was a violent trial for him; but the very violence that he was forced to practise upon himself gave him courage to persevere. La Justa, on the other hand, found the time heavy on her hands and went about forever in a glum, moody humour.
One Saturday, after a week of this exemplary life, Manuel returned to the house and did not find La Justa waiting for him. He spent a restless night hoping for her to come back; she did not appear.
The next day she did not return, either; Manuel broke into tears. He understood now that she had deserted him. This was the cruel awakening from a wondrous dream; he had flattered himself that at last they two had risen out of wretched poverty and dishonour.
During the previous days he had heard La Justa complain of headache, of lack of appetite; but never had he suspected this plot, never could he have believed that she would abandon him like this, in such cold blood.
And he felt so alone, so miserable, so cowed again! This room, inundated with sunshine, which[299] formerly he had found so cheery, now seemed sad and sombre. From the balcony he gazed out upon the distant houses with their red roofs. Far off lay Madrid, bathed in a clear, bright atmosphere under a golden sun. Some white clouds sailed slowly, majestically by, dissolving and re-forming into their fantastic shapes.
Workingmen’s families, dressed in their Sunday best, tripped by in groups; faintly there came the gay strains of the barrel-organs.
Manuel sat down upon the bed and pondered. How many excellent projects, how many plans cherished in his mind had come to nought in his soul! Here he was, only at the beginning of life, and already he felt himself without the strength to fight the battle. Not a hope, not an illusion smiled at him. Work? What for? Set up one column after another of type, walk to work and then back to the house, day in and day out, sleep,—all for what? He was bereft of plan, idea, inspiration. He stared into the merry Sunday afternoon, the splashing sunlight,—gazed at the blue heavens, the distant spires....
Immersed in his hazy thoughts Manuel did not hear the knocking at the door; it grew louder with each repetition.
“Can it be La Justa?” he thought. “Impossible.”
Yet he opened the door in the vague hope of confronting her. Two men greeted his sight.
“Manuel Alcázar,” declared one of them, “you are under arrest.”
[300]
“What for?”
“The judge will tell you. Slip into your shoes and come along with us.”
“Am I going to be locked up?” asked Manuel.
“Not unless you do something foolish. Up! Get a move on!”
The three men reached the street and walked to the Paseo de Areneros.
“We’ll take a tram,” said one of the policemen.
They entered the tram; it was so crowded that they were compelled to remain upon the platform. Reaching the Plaza de Santa Barbara they got off, and crossing two or three thoroughfares they brought up before Las Salesas; here they turned a corner, passed through a gate, and walked down a long passageway at the end of which was a dungeon. They thrust Manuel in and locked the cell from outside.
They say that solitude and silence are, as it were, the father and mother of deep thoughts. Manuel, in the midst of this silence and solitude, could not discover the most insignificant idea. And speaking of discovery, he could not discover even in the world of phenomena a place where to sit; nor was this so strange, for there wasn’t a chair or bench, however humble, in the hole. Dejected and exhausted, he sank to the ground. He lay thus for several hours; all at once a pale illumination entered from above the door, through a transom.
“They’ve put on the lights,” said Manuel to himself. “It must be night now.”
[301]
In a moment there was a din of shouts and wails.
“You’d better obey orders, now, or you’ll be the worse off for it,” said a grave voice.
“But se?or officer, I’m not the man. I’m not the man,” protested a supplicating prisoner. “Please let me go home.”
“Come along with you. Get inside!”
“In God’s name! For the love of God! I’m not the man.”
“In with you!”
There was the noise of the man being pushed into the dungeon, followed by the violent slamming of the door. The entreating voice continued to cry with wearing monotony:
“I’m not the man.... I’m not the man.... I’m not the man.”
“Good Lord, here’s a bore for you!” said Manuel to himself. “If he runs on like that all night long, I’m in for a fine time!”
Little by little his neighbour’s lamentations abated, finally subsiding into a silent weeping. From the corridor came the rhythmic footfalls of some one who was pacing up and down.
Manuel rummaged desperately through his mind for some idea, if only to amuse himself with it; he could find nothing. The one conclusion he could reach was that it had grown light.
Such a lack of ideas led him, as if by the hand, into a deep slumber, which in all likelihood did not last more than a couple of hours, yet to him seemed a year. He awoke all mauled up, with a cramp in his side; throughout his sleep he had not been able[302] to shake off the realization that he was in a cell, but his brief period of rest had been so restorative that he felt strong, ready for whatever should arise.
He still had in his pocket the wages he had received at the printing-shop. Softly he knocked at the cell door.
“What do you want?” came the query from outside.
“I’d like to step out for a moment.”
“Step out.”
He walked into the corridor.
“Could you fetch me a coffee?” he asked of a guard.
“If you pay for it....”
“Of course I’ll pay. Send for a cup of coffee and toast, and a package of cigarettes.”
“Right away,” said the guard.
“What’s the time?” asked Manuel.
“Twelve.”
“If I didn’t have to stick in that hole I’d invite you to have a coffee with me; but....”
“You can have it out here. There’s enough in one cup for two.”
A waiter came with the coffee and cigarettes. They sipped the coffee, smoked a cigarette, and the guard, already won over, said to Manuel:
“Take one of these benches in with you to sleep on.”
Manuel took a bench and stretched out at full length. On the previous day, though free, he had felt weak and crestfallen; now, though in custody,[303] he felt strong. Plans piled up in his thoughts, but he could not sleep.
Physical exhaustion consumes the strength and excites the brain; the imagination wings in the darkness as do nocturnal birds; and, again like them, it takes refuge in ruins.
Manuel did not sleep; but he dreamed and planned a thousand things; some logical, the majority of them absurd. The light of day, filtering dimly in through the transom, scattered his ideas upon the future and restored him to thoughts of the immediate present.
They would soon be along to take him before the judge. Now what was he going to answer? He’d cook up a story. Accident had brought him to the Sotillo Bridge; he did not know Calatrava. But suppose they confronted him with these people? He’d surely get all muddled. It would be better to come right out with the truth and soften it down as much as he could, so as to favour his case. He had become acquainted with Calatrava through his cousin; he saw him from time to time at the Salón; he worked in a printing-shop....
He had just about decided upon this plan when a guard entered the cell.
“Manuel Alcázar.”
“At your service.&............