They arrived at Castro Duro. In the station they saw groups of peasants.
The travellers with their baggage went out of the station. There were
two shabby coaches at the door.
“Are you going to the Comercio?” asked one driver.
“No, they are going to the España,” said the other.
“Then you two know more than we do,” answered Alzugaray, “because we
don’t know where to go.”
“To the Comercio!”
“To the España!”
“Whose coach is this one?” asked Cæsar, pointing to the less dirty of
the two.
“The Comercio’s.”
“All right, then we are going to the Comercio.”
The coach, in spite of being the better of the two, was a rickety,
worn-out old omnibus, with its windows broken and spotted. It was drawn
by three skinny mules, full of galls. Cæsar and Alzugaray got in and
waited. The coachman, with the whip around his neck, and a young man who
looked a bit like a seminarian, began to chat and smoke.
At the end of five minutes’ waiting, Cæsar asked:
“Well, aren’t we going?”
“In a moment, sir.”
The moment stretched itself out a good deal. A priest arrived, so fat
that he would have filled the vehicle all alone; then a woman from the
town with a basket, which she held on her knees; then the postman got in
with his bag; the driver closed the little window in the coach door, and
continued joking with the young man who looked a bit like a seminarian
and with one of the station men.
“We are in a hurry,” said Alzugaray.
“We are going now, sir. All right. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye!” answered the station man and the seminarian.
The driver got up on his seat, cracked his whip, and the vehicle began
to move, with a noisy swaying and a trembling of all its wood and glass.
A very thick cloud of dust arose in the road.
“Ya, ya, Coronela!” yelled the driver. “Why do you keep getting where
you oughtn’t to get? Damn the mule! Montesina, I am going to give you a
couple of whacks. Get on there, Coronela! Get up, get up.... All right!
All right!... That’s enough.... That’s enough.... Let it alone, now! Let
it alone, now!”
“What an amount of oratory that man is wasting,” exclaimed Cæsar; “he
must think that the mules are going to go better for the efforts of his
throat. It would be an advantage if he had stronger beasts, instead of
these dying ones.”
The other travellers paid no attention to his observation, and Alzugaray
said:
“These drivers drip oratory.”
While the shabby coach was going along the highway which encircles
Castro hill, to the sound of the bells and the cracking of the whip, it
was possible to remain seated in the vehicle with comparative ease; but
on reaching the town’s first steep, crooked, rough-cobbled street, the
swinging and tossing were such that the travellers kept falling one upon
another.
The first street kept getting rapidly narrower, and as it grew narrower,
the crags in its paving were sharper and more prominent. At the highest
part of the street, in the middle, stood a two-wheeled cart blocking the
way. The coachman got down, from his seat and started a long discussion
with the carter, as to who was under obligations to make way.
“What idiots!” exclaimed Cæsar, irritated; then, calmer, he murmured,
addressing Alzugaray, “The truth is, these people don’t care about doing
anything but talk.”
As the discussion between the coachman and the carter gave signs of
never ending, Cæsar said:
“Come along,” and then, addressing the man with the bag, he asked him,
“Is it far from here to the inn?”
“No; it is right here, in the house where the café is.” THE INN
Sure enough, the inn was only a step away. They went into the damp, dark
entrance, up the crooked stairs, and down the corridor to the kitchen.
“Good morning, good morning!” they shouted.
Nobody appeared.
“Might it be on the second floor?” asked Alzugaray.
“Let’s go see.”
They went up to the next floor, entered by a gallery of red brick, which
was falling to pieces, and called several times. An old woman, from
inside a dark bedroom where she was sweeping, bade them go down to the
dining-room, where she would bring them breakfast.
The dining-room had balconies toward the country, and was full of sun;
the bedrooms they were taken to, on the other hand, were dark, gloomy,
and cavernous. Alzugaray requested the old woman to show them the other
vacant chambers, and chose two on the second floor, which were lighter
and airier.
The old woman told them she hadn’t wanted to take them there, because
there was no paper on the walls.
“No doubt, in Castro, the prospect of bed-bugs is an agreeable
prospect,” said Cæsar.
After he had washed and dressed, Cæsar started out to find and capture
Don Calixto, and Alzugaray went to take a stroll around the town. It was
agreed that they should each explore the region in his own way.