Part 61 (1/2)
Of all people, Ignacio Alzugaray was the most incredulous in regard to his friend; his mother and his sister believed in Caesar as in an oracle. Caesar often thought that he ought to fall definitely in love with Ignacio's sister and marry her; but neither he nor she seemed to have set upon pa.s.sing the limits of a cordial friends.h.i.+p.
Caesar told the Alzugaray family how he lived and caused them to laugh and wonder.
He had rented a fairly large upper story in a street in Valle Hermoso, for five dollars. The days he had nothing to do he went there. He put on an old, worn-out fur coat, which was still a protection, a soft hat, took a stick, and went walking in the environs.
His favourite walk was the neighbourhood of the Ca.n.a.lillo and of the Dehesa de Amaniel.
Generally he went out of his house on the side opposite the Model Prison, then he walked toward Moncloa, and taking the right, pa.s.sed near the Rubio Inst.i.tute, and entered the Cerro del Pimiento by an open lot which he got into through a broken wall.
From there one could see, far away, the Guadarrama range, like a curtain of blue mountains and snowy crests; on clear days, the Escorial; Aravaca, the Casa de Campo, and the Sierra de Gredos, which ran out on the left hand like a promontory. Nearby one saw a pine grove, close to the Rubio Inst.i.tute, and a valley containing market-gardens, and the ranges of the Moncloa shooting school.
Caesar would walk on by the winding road, and stop to look at the Cemetery of San Martin on the right, with its black cypresses and its yellowish walls.
Then he would follow the twists of the Ca.n.a.lillo, and pa.s.s in front of the third Reservoir, to the Amaniel road.
That was where Caesar would have built himself a house, had he had the idea of living retired.
The dry, hard landscape was the kind he liked. The mornings were wonderful, the blue sky radiant, the air limpid and thin.
The twilight had an extraordinary enchantment. All that vast extent of land, the mountains, the hills of the Casa de Campo, the cypresses of the cemetery, were bathed in a violet light.
In winter there were hunters of yellow-hammers and goldfinches in these regions, who set their nets and their decoys on the ground, and spent hours and hours watching for their game.
On Sunday, in particular, the number of hunters was very large. They went in squads of three; one carried a big bundle on his shoulder, which was the net all rolled up; another the decoy cages, fastened with a strap; and the third a frying-pan, a skin of wine, and some kindling for a fire.
Caesar used to talk with the guards at Amaniel, with the octroi-officers, and he got to be great friends with a little hunchback, a bird hunter.
It was curious to hear this hunchback talk of the habits of the birds and of the influence of the winds. He knew how the gold-finches, yellow-hammers, and linnets make their nests, and the preference some of them have for coltsfoot cotton, and others for wool or for cow's hair.
He told Caesar a lot of things, many of which could have existed only in his imagination, but which were entertaining.
ONE DAY AT CHRISTMASTIME
One day at Christmastime Alzugaray went in the morning to look for Caesar. He knew where to find him and walked direct to the Calle de Galileo. At the house, they told him that Caesar was eating in a tavern close at hand.
Alzugaray went into the place and found his friend the Deputy seated in a coner eating. He had the appearance of a superior workman, an electrician, carver, or something of the sort.
”If people find out you behave so extravagantly, they will think you are crazy,” said Alzugaray.
”Pshaw! n.o.body comes here,” replied Caesar. ”The political world and this are separate worlds. This one belongs to the people who have to shoulder the load of everything, and the other is a world of villains, robbers, idiots, and fools. Really, it is difficult to find anything so vile, so inept, and so useless as a Spanish politician. The Spanish middle cla.s.s is a warren of rogues and villains. I feel an enormous repugnance to brus.h.i.+ng against it. That is why I came here now and then to talk to these people; not because these are good, no; the first and the last of them are riff-raff, but at least they say what they mean and they blaspheme navely.”
”What are you going to do after lunch?” Alzugaray asked him. ”Have you got a sweetheart in one of the old-clothes shops of the quarter?”
”No. I was thinking of taking a walk; that's all.”
”Then come along.”
They left the tavern and went along a street between sides of sand cut straight down, and started up the Cerro del Pimiento. The soft, vague mist allowed the Guadarrama to stand out visible.