CHAPTER IV,

Dolores the Scandalous--Pastiri's Tricks--Tender Savagery--A Modest Out-of-the-way Robbery.

After a week spent in sleeping in the open Manuel decided one day to rejoin Vidal and Bizco and to take up their evil ways.

He inquired after his friends in the taverns on the Andalucia cart-road, at La Llorosa, Las Injurias, and a chum of El Bizco, who was named El Chingui, told him that El Bizco was staying at Las Cambroneras, at the home of a well-known thieving strumpet called Dolores the Scandalous.

Manuel went off to Las Cambroneras, asked for Dolores and was shown a door in a patio inhabited by gipsies.

Manuel knocked, but Dolores refused to open the door; finally, after hearing the boy's explanations, she allowed him to come in.

Dolores' home consisted of a room about three metres square; in the rear could be made out a bed where El Bizco was sleeping in his clothes, beside a sort of vaulted niche with a chimney and a tiny fireplace. The furnishings of the room consisted of a table, a trunk, a white shelf containing plates and earthenware pots, and a pine wall-bracket that supported an oil-lamp.

Dolores was a woman of about fifty; she wore black clothes, a red kerchief knotted around her forehead like a bandage and another of some indistinct colour over her head.

Manuel called to El Bizco and, when the cross-eyed fellow awoke, asked after Vidal.

"He'll be here right away," said El Bizco, and then, turning upon the old lady, he growled: "Hey, you, fetch my boots."

Dolores was slow in executing his orders, whereupon El Bizco, wishing to show off his domination over the woman, struck her.

The woman did not even mumble; Manuel looked coldly at El Bizco, in disgust; the other averted his gaze.

"Want a bite?" asked El Bizco of Manuel when he had got out of bed.

"If you have anything good...."

Dolores drew from the fire a pan filled with meat and potatoes.

"You take good care of yourselves," murmured Manuel, whom hunger had made profoundly cynical.

"They trust us at the butcher's," said Dolores, to explain the abundance of meat.

"If you and I didn't work hard hereabouts," interjected El Bizco, "much we'd be eating."

The woman smiled modestly. They finished their lunch and Dolores produced a bottle of wine.

"This woman," declared El Bizco, "just as you behold her there, beats them all. Show him what we have in the corner."

"Not now, man."

"And why not?"

"Suppose some one should come?"

"I'll bolt the door."

"All right."

El Bizco bolted the door. Dolores pushed the table to the middle of the room, went over to the wall, pulled away a sc.r.a.p of kalsomined canvas about a yard square, and revealed a gap crammed with ribbons, cords, lace edging and other objects of pa.s.s.e.m.e.nterie.

"How's that?" said El Bizco. "And it's all of her own collecting."

"You must have quite a bit of money there."

"Yes. It's worth quite a bit," agreed Dolores. Then she let the strip of canvas fall into place against the excavation in the wall, fastened it and drew up the bed before it. El Bizco unbolted the door. In a few moments there was a knock.

"That must be Vidal," said El Bizco, adding in a low voice, as he turned to Manuel, "See here, not a word to him."

Vidal strutted in with his carefree air, expressed his pleasure at Manuel's coming, and the three left for the street.

"Are you going to be around here?" asked the old woman.

"Yes."

"Don't come late, then, eh?" added Dolores, addressing Bizco.

The cross-eyed bully did not deign to make any reply.

The three chums went to the square that faces Toledo bridge; near by, at a stand owned by Garatusa, a penitentiary graduate who ran a "fence" for thieves and didn't lose any money at it, they had a drink and then, walking along Ocho Hilos Avenue they came to the Ronda de Toledo.

The vicinity of El Rastro was thronged with Sunday crowds.

Along the wall of Las Grandiosas Americas, in the s.p.a.ce between the Slaughter-house and the Veterninary School, a long row of itinerant hawkers had set up their stands.

Some, garbed like beggars, stood dozing motionless against the wall, indifferently contemplating their wares: old pictures, new chromographs, books; useless, damaged, filthy articles which they felt sure none of the public would purchase. Others were gesticulating and arguing with their customers; several repulsive, grimy old women with huge straw hats on their heads, dirty hands, arms akimbo and indecencies quivering upon their lips, were chattering away like magpies.

The gipsy women in their motley garments were combing their little brunettes and their black-skinned, large-eyed _churumbeles_ in the sun; a knot of vagrants was carrying on a serious discussion; mendicants wrapped in rags, maimed, crippled, were shouting, singing, wailing, and the Sunday throng, in search of bargains, scurried back and forth, stopping now and then to question, to pry, while folks pa.s.sed by with faces congested by the heat of the sun,--a spring sun that blinded one with the chalky reflection of the dusty soil, glittering and sparkling with a thousand glints in the broken mirrors and the metal utensils displayed in heaps upon the ground. To add to this deafening roar of cries and shouts, two organs pierced the air with the merry wheeze of their blending, interweaving tones.

Manuel, El Bizco and Vidal strolled to the head of El Rastro and turned down again. At the door of Las Americas they met Pastiri sniffing around the place.

Catching sight of Manuel and the other two, the fellow of the three cards approached and said:

"Shall we have some wine?"

"Sure."

They entered one of the taverns of the Ronda. Pastiri was alone that day, as his companion had gone off to the Escorial; since he had no one to act as his confederate in the game he hadn't made a centimo.

Now, if they would consent to act as bait to induce the inquisitive onlookers to play, he'd give them a share of the profits.

"Ask him how much?" said El Bizco to Vidal.

"Don't be an idiot."