Cæsar lived simply; he had a room in an hotel in the Carrera de San
Jerónimo, where he received calls; but nobody ever found him there
except in business hours.
He used to go now and then to Alzugaray’s house, where he would talk
over various matters with his friend’s mother and sister; he would find
out about everything, and go away after giving them advice on questions
of managing their money, which they almost always observed and followed.
Of all people, Ignacio Alzugaray was the most incredulous in regard
to his friend; his mother and his sister believed in Cæsar as in an
oracle. Cæsar 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 passing the limits of a cordial friendship.
Cæsar 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 Canalillo 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, passed near
the Rubio Institute, 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 Institute, and a valley containing market-gardens, and the
ranges of the Moncloa shooting school.
Cæsar would walk on by the winding road, and stop to look at the
Cemetery of San Martín on the right, with its black cypresses and its
yellowish walls.
Then he would follow the twists of the Canalillo, and pass in front of
the third Reservoir, to the Amaniel road.
That was where Cæsar 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.
Cæsar 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 Cæsar a lot of things, many of which could have existed only in
his imagination, but which were entertaining.