Читать книгу The Quest - Pío Baroja - Страница 6

Table of Contents

Oh, love, love!—What's Don Telmo Doing?—Who is Don

Telmo?—Wherein the Student and Don Telmo Assume Certain

Novelesque Proportions.

The Baroness was hardly ever seen in the house, except during the early hours of the morning and the night. She dined and supped outside. If the landlady was to be credited, she was an adventuress whose position varied considerably, for one day she would be moving to a costly apartment and sporting a carriage, while the next she would disappear for several months in the germ-ridden hole of some cheap boarding-house.

The Baroness's daughter, a child of some twelve or fourteen years, never appeared in the dining-room or in the corridor; her mother forbade all communication with the lodgers. Her name was Kate. She was a fair girl, very light-complexioned and exceedingly winsome. Only the student Roberto spoke to her now and then in English.

The youth was enthusiastic over her.

That summer the Baroness's streak of bad luck must have come to an end, for she began to make herself some fine clothes and prepared to move.

For several weeks a modiste and her assistant came daily, with gowns and hats for the Baroness and Kate.

Manuel, one night, saw the modiste's assistant go by with a huge box in her hand and was smitten.

He followed her at a distance in great fear lest she see him. As he stole on behind, he wondered what he could say to such a maiden if he were to accompany her. It must be something gallant, exquisite; he even imagined that she was at his side and he racked his brain for beautiful phrases and delicate compliments, yet nothing but commonplaces rewarded his search. In the meantime the assistant and her box were lost in the crowd and he could not catch sight of them again.

The memory of that maiden was for Manuel as an enchanting music, a fancy upon which were reared still wilder fancies. Often he made up tales in which always he figured as the hero and the assistant as the heroine. While Manuel bemoaned the harshness of fate, Roberto, the blond student, gave himself up likewise to melancholy, brooding upon the Baroness's daughter. The student was forced to endure jests especially from Celia, who, according to certain evil tongues, was trying to rouse him from his habitual frigidity. But Roberto gave her no heed.

Some days later the house was agog with curiosity.

As the boarders came in from the street, they greeted each other jokingly, repeating in the manner of a pass-word: "Who is Don Telmo? What's Don Telmo doing?"

One day the district police-commissioner came and spoke to Don Telmo, and some one heard or invented the report that the two men were discussing the notorious crime on Malasana Street. Upon hearing this news the expectant inquisitiveness of the boarders waxed great, and all, half in jest and half in earnest, arranged to keep a watch upon the mysterious gentleman.

Don Telmo was the name of the cadaverous old fellow who wiped his cups and spoons with his napkin, and his reserved manner seemed to invite observation. Taciturn, indifferent, never joining the conversation, a man of few words who never made any complaints, he attracted attention by the very fact that he seemed intent upon not attracting it.

His only visible occupation was to wind the seven or eight clocks of the house and to regulate them when they got out of order,—an event of common occurrence.

Don Telmo had the features of a very sad man,—one in profound sorrow. His livid countenance betrayed fathomless dejection. He wore his white beard and his hair short; his brows fell like brushes over his grey eyes.

In the house he went around wrapped in a faded coat, with a Greek bonnet and cloth slippers. When he went out he donned a long frock coat and a very tall silk hat; only on certain summer days would he wear a Havana hat of woven straw.

For more than a month Don Telmo was the topic of conversation in the boarding-house.

In the famous trial of the Malasana Street crime a servant declared that one afternoon she saw Doña Celsa's son in an aqueduct of the Plaza de Oriente, talking with a lame old man. For the guests this man could be none other than Don Telmo. With this suspicion they set about spying upon the old man; he, however, had a sharp scent and sniffed the state of affairs at once; the boarders, seeing how bootless their attempts were proving, tried to ransack his room; they used a number of keys until they got the door open and when they had forced an entrance, discovered nothing more that a closet fastened by a formidable safety-lock.

The Biscayan and Roberto, the blond student, opposed this campaign of espionage. The Superman, the priest, the salesmen and the women of the establishment made up that the Biscayan and the student were allies of Don Telmo, and, in all probability, accomplices in the Malasana Street crime.

"Without a doubt," averred the Superman, "Don Telmo killed Doña Celsa

Nebot; the Biscayan poured oil over the body and set it afire, and

Roberto hid the jewels in the house on Amaniel Street."

"That cold bird!" replied Celia. "What could he do?"

"Nothing, nothing. We must keep on their track," said the curate.

"And get some money out of that old Shylock," added the Superman.

This espionage, carried on half in joke and half in all seriousness, wound up in debates and disputes, and as a result two groups were formed in the house; that of the Sensible folk, comprised by the three criminals and the landlady, and that of the Foolish, in which were enrolled all the rest.

This limitation of sides forced Roberto and Don Telmo into intimacy, so that the student changed his place at the table and sat next to the old man.

One night, after eating, while Manuel was removing the service, the plates and the cups, Don Telmo and Roberto were engaged in conversation.

The student was a dogmatic reasoner, dry, rectilinear, never swerving from his point of view; he spoke but little, but when he did speak, it was in a sententious manner.

One day, discussing whether or not young men should be ambitious and look to the future, Roberto asserted that the first was the proper course.

"Well, that isn't what you're doing," commented the Superman.

"I am absolutely convinced," replied Roberto, "that some day I'm going to be a millionaire. I am engaged in constructing the machinery that will bring me a fortune."

The Superman posed as a man of the world who had seen many things; upon hearing this he permitted himself a scoffing remark concerning Roberto's ability, and the youth retorted in so violent and aggressive a manner that the journalist lost his composure and blurted out a string of apologies.

Afterwards, when Don Telmo and Roberto were left alone at the table, they continued talking, and from the general theme as to whether young folk should or should not be ambitious, they passed on to the student's hopes of some day being a millionaire.

"I'm convinced that I shall be one," said the boy. "In my family there have been a number of individuals with great luck."

"That's all very well, Roberto," muttered the old man. "But one must know how to become wealthy."

"Don't imagine that my hope is illusory; I'm going to inherit, and not a small amount, either; I'm heir to a vast sum … millions…. The foundations of my work and the framework are already completed; all I need now is money."

Don Telmo's countenance was crossed by an expression of disagreeable surprise.

"Don't worry," replied Roberto, "I'm not going to ask you for it."

"My dear boy, if I had it, I'd give it to you with pleasure, and free of interest. They think I'm a millionaire."

"No. I tell you I'm not trying to get a céntimo from you. All I ask is a bit of advice."

"Speak, then, speak. I'm all attention," answered the old man, resting an elbow upon the table.

Manuel, who was taking off the tablecloth, cocked his ears.

At that juncture one of the salesmen entered the dining-room, and Roberto, who was about to say something, grew silent and looked impertinently at the intruder. The student was an aristocratic type with blond hair, thick and combed back, and moustache of glittering white, like silver; his skin was somewhat tanned by the sun.

"Won't you continue?" asked Don Telmo.

"No," answered the student, staring at the salesman. "For I don't want anybody to hear what I have to say."

"Come to my room, then," replied Don Telmo. "There we can talk undisturbed. We'll have coffee up in my room. Manuel!" he ordered. "Bring us two coffees."

Manuel, who was deeply interested in discovering what the student had to say, dashed out into the street on his errand. He was more than a quarter of an hour in returning with the coffee, and supposed that Roberto by this time had finished his story.

He knocked at Don Telmo's door and was resolved to linger there as long as possible, that he might catch all he could of the conversation. He began to dust Don Telmo's lamp-table with a cloth.

"And how did you ascertain that," Don Telmo was asking, "if your family didn't know it?"

"Quite by accident," answered the student. "A couple of years ago, about this time of the year, I wished to give a present to a sister, who is a protegée of mine, and who is very fond of playing the piano. It occurred to me, three days before her birthday, to purchase two operas, have them bound and send them to her. I wanted to have the book bound immediately, but at the shops they told me there was no time; I was walking along with my operas under my arm in the vicinity of the Plaza de las Descalzas when in the back wall of a convent I caught sight of a tiny bookbinder's shop,—like a cave with steps leading down. I asked the man,—a gnarled old fellow,—whether he would bind the book for me in a couple of days, and he said 'Yes.' 'Very well,' I told him, 'then I'll call within two days.'—'I'll send it to you; let me have your address.' I gave him my address and he asked my name. 'Roberto Hasting y Núñez de Letona.'—'Are you a Núñez de Latona?' he inquired, gazing at me curiously. 'Yes, sir.'—'Do you come from la Rioja?'—'Yes, and suppose I do?' I retorted, provoked by all this questioning. And the binder, whose mother was a Núñez de Latona and came from la Rioja, told me the story I've just told you. At first I took it all as a joke; then, after some time, I wrote to my mother, and she wrote back that everything was quite so, and that she recalled something of the whole matter."

Don Telmo's gaze strayed over toward Manuel.

"What are you doing here?" he snarled. "Get out; I don't want you going around telling tales…."

"I'm no tattle-tale."

"Very well, then, get a move on."

Manuel went out, and Don Telmo and Roberto continued their conversation. The boarders showered Manuel with questions, but he refused to open his mouth. He had decided to join the group of the Sensible ones.

This friendship between the old man and the student served as an incitement for the continuation of the espionage. One of the salesmen learned that Don Telmo drew up contracts of sales on reversion and made a living by lending money on houses and furniture, and at other such usurious business.

Some one saw him in the Rastro in an old clothes shop that probably belonged to him, and invented the tale that he had gold coins concealed in his room and that he played with them at night upon the bed.

It was also discovered that Don Telmo frequently paid visits to a very elegant, good looking young lady, who was, according to some, his sweetheart, and to others, his niece.