Part 56 (2/2)

”Salutations!” replied Caesar.

VI. UNCLE CHINAMAN

CIDONES

Caesar impatiently awaited Senor Peribanez's reply, so that he might return to Madrid. He was fed up with Don Calixto's conversation and his wife's, and with the familiarity they had established with him.

Alzugaray, on the other hand, was entertained and content. Amparito's father showed a great liking for him and took him everywhere in his automobile.

Caesar, in order to satisfy his requirements for isolation, had begun to get up very early and take walks on the highway. He almost always walked too far, and was done up for the whole day, and at first he slept badly at night.

He wanted to see, one by one, the parts of his future realm, the scene where his initiative was to bear seed and his plans to be realized.

A lot of ideas occurred to him: to build a bridge here, to take advantage there of the fall of the river and establish a big electric plant for industrial purposes. He would have liked to change everything he saw, in an instant.

To think of these sleeping forces irritated him: the waterfall, lost without leaving its energy anywhere; the ravine, which might be transformed into an irrigation reservoir; the river, which was flowing gently without fertilizing the fields; the land around the hermitage, which might have been converted into a park, with a bright, gay schoolhouse; all these things that could be done and were not done, seemed to him more real than the people with whom he talked and lived.

One morning Caesar walked to Cidones; the sun shone strongly on the highway, and he reached the town choked and thirsty.

The streets of Cidones were so narrow, so cold and damp, that Caesar s.h.i.+vered on entering the first one, and he turned back, and instead of going inside that polypus of dark clefts, he walked around it by the road. On a small house with an arbour, which was on a corner, he saw a sign saying: 'Cafe Espanol'; and went in.

THE CAFe ESPAnOL.

The cafe was dark and completely empty, but at one end there was a balcony where the sun entered. Caesar crossed the cafe and sat down near the balcony.

He called several times, and clapped his hands, and a girl appeared.

”What do you want?” she asked.

”Something to drink. A bottle of beer.”

”I will call Uncle Chinaman.”

The girl went out, and soon after a thick, chubby man came in, with a bottle of beer in his hand, the label of which he showed to Caesar, asking him if that was what he wanted.

”Yes, sir; that will do very well.”

The man opened the bottle with his corkscrew, put it on the table, and as he seemed to have a desire to enter into conversation, Caesar asked him:

”Why did the girl tell me that Uncle Chinaman would come? Who is the Chinaman?”

”The Chinaman, or Uncle Chinaman, as you like; I am.”

”My dear man!”

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