Roberto In Quest of a Woman--El Tabuenca and his Inventions--Don
Alonso or the Snake-Man.
A few months later Roberto appeared in the Corrala at the hour when
Manuel and the shoe-shop employés were returning from their day's
work.
"Do you know Señor Zurro?" Roberto asked Manuel.
"Yes. He lives here on this side."
"I know that. I'd like to have a talk with him.
"Then knock at his door. He must be in."
"Come along with me."
Manuel knocked and Encarna opened; they went inside. Señor Zurro was
in his room, reading a newspaper by the light of a large candle; the
place was a regular storehouse, cluttered with old secretaries,
dilapidated chests, mantlepieces, clocks and sundry other items. It
was close enough to stifle a person; it was impossible to breathe or
to take a step without stumbling against something.
"Are you Señor Zurro?" asked Roberto.
"Yes."
"I have come at the suggestion of Don Telmo."
"Don Telmo!" repeated the old man, rising and offering the student a
chair. "Have a seat. How is the good gentleman?"
"Very well."
"He's an excellent friend of mine," continued Zurro. "I should say so.
Well, young man, let me know what you wish. It's enough for me that
you come from Don Telmo; that assures you my best services."
"I should like to learn the whereabouts of a certain girl acrobat who
lived about five or six years ago in a lodging-house of this vicinity,
or in Cuco's hostelry."
"And do you know this girl's name?"
"Yes."
"And you say that she used to live in Cuco's hostelry?"
"Yes, sir."
"I know somebody who lives there," murmured the second-hand dealer.
"Yes, that's so," said Encarna.
"That man with the monkeys. Didn't he live there?" asked Señor Zurro.
"No; he lived in la Quinta de Goya," answered his daughter.
"Well, then.... Just wait a moment, young man. Wait a moment."
"Isn't it Tabuenca that lives there, father?" interrupted Encarna.
"That's the fellow. That's it. El Tabuenca. You go and see him. And
tell him," added Señor Zurro, turning to Roberto, "that I sent you.
He's a grouchy old fellow, as testy as they make 'em."
Roberto took leave of the second-hand man and his daughter, and in
company of Manuel walked out to the gallery of the house.
"And where's this Cuco's hostelry?" he asked.
"Over there near Las Yeserías," answered Manuel.
"Come along with me, then; we'll have supper together," suggested
Roberto.
"All right."
They both went on to the hostelry, which was situated upon a
thoroughfare that was deserted at this hour. It was a large building,
with an entrance-vestibule in country style and a patio crowded with
carts. They questioned a boy. El Tabuenca had just come, he told them.
They walked into the vestibule, which was illuminated by a lantern.
There was a man inside.
"Does anybody live here by the name of Tabuenca?" asked Roberto.
"Yes. What is it?" asked the man.
"I'd like to have a talk with him."
"Well, talk away, then, for I'm Tabuenca."
As the speaker turned, the light of the oil lantern hanging upon the
wall struck him full in the face; Roberto and Manuel stared at him in
amazement. He was a yellow, shrivelled specimen; he had an absurd
nose, as if it had been wrenched from its roots and replaced by a
round little ball of meat. It seemed that he looked at the same time
with his eyes and with the two little nasal orifices. He was
clean-shaven, dressed pretty decently, and wore a round woollen cap
with a green visor.
He listened grumpily to what Roberto had to say; then he lighted a
cigar and flung the match far away. Doubtless because of the exiguity
of his organ, he found it necessary to stop the windows of his nose
with his fingers in order to smoke.
Roberto thought at first that the man had not understood his question,
and he repeated it twice. Tabuenca gave no heed; but all at once,
seized with the utmost indignation, he snatched the cigar furiously
from his mouth and began to blaspheme in a whining, gull-like voice,
shrieking that he couldn't make out why folks pestered him with
matters that didn't concern him a particle.
"Don't shout so," said Roberto, provoked by this rumpus. "They'll
imagine that we've come here to assassinate you, at the very least."
"I shout because I please to."
"All right, man; shout away to your heart's content."
"Don't you talk to me like that or I'll push in your face," yelled
Tabuenca.
"_You'll_ push in _my_ face?" retorted Roberto, laughing;
then, turning to Manuel, he added, "These noseless fellows get on my
nerves and I'm going to let this flat-nose have it."
Tabuenca, his mind made up, withdrew and returned in a short while
with a rapier-cane, which he unsheathed; Roberto looked in every
direction for something with which he might defend himself, and found
a carter's stick; Tabuenca aimed a thrust at Roberto, who parried it
with the stick; then another thrust, and Roberto, as again he parried
it, smashed the lantern at the entrance, leaving the scene in
darkness. Roberto began to strike out right and left and he must have
landed once upon some delicate part of Tabuenca's anatomy, for the man
began to shout in horrible tones:
"Assassins! Murder!"
At this, several persons came running into the zaguán, among them a
stout mule-driver with an oil-lamp in his hand.
"What's the trouble?" he asked.
"These murderers are after my life," bellowed Tabuenca.
"Not a bit of it," replied Roberto in a calm voice. "The fact is, we
came here to ask this fellow a civil question, and without any reason
at all he began to yell and insult me."
"I'll smash your face for you!" interjected Tabuenca.
"Well suppose you try it, and don't stand there talking all day about
it!" Roberto taunted,
"Rascal! Coward!"
"It's you who are the coward. You've got as little guts as you have
nose."
Tabuenca spat out a series of insults and blasphemies, and turning
around, left the place.
"And who's going to pay me for this broken lantern?" asked the
mule-driver.
"How much is it worth?" asked Roberto.
"Three pesetas."
"Here they are."
"That Tabuenca is a loud-mouthed imbecile," said the mule-driver as he
took the money. "And what was it you gentlemen wished?"
"I wanted to ask about a woman that lived here some years ago; she was
an acrobat."
"Perhaps Don Alonso, Titiri, would know. If you'll be so kind, tell me
where you're going, and I'll have Titiri look you up."
"All right. You tell him that we'll be waiting for him at the San
Millán café at nine o'clock," said Roberto.
"And how are we going to recognize this fellow?" asked Manuel.
"That's so," said Roberto. "How are we going to know him?"
"Easy. He goes around nights through the cafés with one of those
apparatuses that sings songs."
"You mean a phonograph?"
"That's it."
At this juncture an old woman appeared in the entrance, shouting:
"Who was the dirty son of a bitch that broke the lantern?"
"Shut up, shut up," answered the mule-driver. "It's all paid for."
"Come along!" said Manuel to Roberto.
They left the inn and strode off at a fast clip. They entered the San
Millán café. Roberto ordered supper. Manuel knew Tabuenca from having
seen him in the street, and as they ate he explained to Roberto just
what sort of fellow he was.
Tabuenca made his living through a number of inventions that he
himself constructed. When he saw that the public was tiring of one
thing, he would put another on the market, and so he managed to get
along. One of these contraptions was a wafer-mold wheel that revolved
around a circle of nails among which numbers were inscribed and
colours painted. This wheel the owner carried about in a pasteboard
box with two covers, which were divided into tiny squares with numbers
and colours corresponding to those placed around the nails, and here
the bets were laid. Tabuenca would carry the closed box in one hand
and a field table in the other. He would set up his outfit at some
street corner, give the wheel a turn and begin to mutter in his
whining voice;
"'Round goes the wheel. Place your bets, gentlemen.... Place your
bets. Number or colour ... number or colour.... Place your bets."
When enough bets were placed,--and this happened fairly
often,--Tabuenca would set the wheel spinning, at the same time
repeating his slogan: "'Round goes the wheel!" The marble would bounce
amidst the nails and even before it came to a stop the operator knew
the winning number and colour, crying: "Red seven...." or "the blue
five," and always he guessed right.
As Manuel spoke on, Roberto became pensive.
"Do you see?" he said, all at once, "these delays are what provoke a
fellow. You have a capital of will in bank-notes, gold-pieces, in
large denominations, and you need energy in céntimos, in small change.
It's the same with the intelligence; that's why so many intelligent
and energetic men of ambition do not succeed. They lack fractions, and
in general they also lack the talent to conceal their efforts. To be
able to be stupid on some occasions would probably be more useful than
the ability to be discreet on just as many other occasions."
Manuel, who did not understand the reason for this shower of words,
stared open-mouthed at Roberto, who sank again into his meditations.
For a long time both remained silent, when there came into the café a
tall, thin man with greyish hair and grey moustache.
"Can that be Titiri, Don Alonso?" asked Roberto.
"Maybe."
The gaunt fellow went from table to table, exhibiting a box and
announcing: "Here's a novelty. Here's somethin' new."
He was about to leave when Roberto called him.
"Do you live at Cuco's hostelry?" he asked.
"Yes, sir."
"Are you Don Alonso?"
"At your service."
"Well, we've been waiting for you. Take a seat; you'll have coffee
with us."
The man took a seat. His appearance was decidedly comical,--a blend of
humility, bragodoccio and sad arrogance. He gazed at the place that
Roberto had just abandoned, in which remained a scrap of roast meat.
"Pardon me," he said to Roberto. "You're not intending to finish that
scrap? No? Then.... with your permission--" and he took the plate, the
knife and the fork.
"I'll order another beefsteak for you," said Roberto.
"No, no. It's one of my whims. I imagine that this meat must be good.
Would you kindly let me have a slice of bread?" he added, turning to
Manuel. "Thanks, young man. Many thanks."
The man bolted the meat and bread in a trice.
"What? Is there a little wine left?" he asked, smiling.
"Yes," replied Manuel, emptying the bottle into the man's glass.
"All right," answered the man in ill-pronounced English as he gulped
it down. "Gentlemen! At your service. I believe you wished to ask me
something."
"Yes."
"At your service, then. My name is Alonso de Guzmán Calderón y Téllez.
This same fellow that's talking to you now has been director of a
circus in America; I've travelled through all the countries and sailed
over every sea in the world; at present I'm adrift in a violent
tempest; at night I go from café to café with this phonograph, and the
next morning I carry around one of these betting apparatuses that
consists of an _Infiel_[1] Tower with a spiral. Underneath the
tower there's a space with a spring that shoots a little bone ball up
the spiral, and then the bone falls upon a board perforated with holes
and painted in different colours. That is my livelihood. I! Director
of an equestrian circus! This is what I've descended to; an assistant
to Tabuenca. What things come to pass in this world!"
[Footnote 1: i.e. Faithless. A pun on Eiffel.]
"I should like to ask you," interrupted Roberto, "if during your
residence in Cuco's hostelry you ever made the acquaintance of a
certain Rosita Buenavida, a circus acrobat."
"Rosita Buenavida! You say that her name was Rosita Buenavida?... No,
I don't recall.... I did have a Rosita in my company; but her name
wasn't Buenavida (i. e., Goodlife); she'd have been better named
Evil-life and evil habits, too."
"Perhaps she changed her name," said Roberto impatiently. "What age
was the Rosita that you knew?"
"Well, I'll tell you; I was in Paris in '68; had a contract with the
Empress Circus. At that time I was a contortionist and they called me
the Snake-Man; then I became an equilibrist and adopted the name of
Don Alonso. Alonso is my name. After four months of that Pérez and
I--Pérez was the greatest gymnast in the world--went to America, and
two or three years later we met Rosita, who must have been about
twenty-five or thirty at that time."
"So that the Rosita you're talking about should be sixty-odd years old
today," computed Roberto. "The one I'm looking for can't be more than
thirty at most."
"Then she's not the one. Caramba, how sorry I am!" murmured Don
Alonso, seizing the glass of coffee and milk and raising it to his
lips as if he feared it were going to be wrested from him. "And what a
sweet little girl she was! She had eyes as green as a cat's. Oh, she
was a pretty chit, a peach."
Roberto had sunk into meditation; Don Alonso continued his chatter,
turning to Manuel:
"There's no life like a circus artist's," he exclaimed. "I don't know
what your profession is, and I don't want to disparage it; but if
you're looking for art.... Ah, Paris, the Empress Circus,--I'll never
forget them! Of course, Pérez and I had luck; we created a furore
there, and I needn't mention what that means. Oh, that was the
life.... Nights, after our performance, we'd get a note: 'Will be
waiting for you at such and such a café.' We'd go there and find one
of your high-life women, a whimsical creature who'd invite a fellow to
supper... and to all the rest. But other gymnasts came to the Empress
Circus; the novelty of our act wore off, and the impresario, a Yankee
who owned several companies, asked Pérez and me if we wanted to go to
Cuba. 'Right ahead,' said I. 'All right.'"
"Have you been in Cuba?" asked Roberto, roused from his abstraction.
"I've been in so many places!" replied the Snake-Man. "We embarked at
Havre," continued Don Alonso, "on a vessel called the Navarre, and we
were in Havana for about eight months; while we were performing there
we struck it big, Pérez and I, and won twenty thousand gold pesos in
the lottery."
"Twenty thousand duros!" exclaimed Manuel.
"Right-o! The next week we had lost it all, and Pérez and I were left
without a centavo. A few days we lived on guava-fruit and yam, until
we fell in with some gymnasts on the Havana wharf who were down on
their uppers. We joined them. They weren't at all bad performers;
among them were acrobats, clowns, pantominists, bar artists, and a
French ecuyére; we formed a company and made a tour through the island
towns; and some magnificent tour that was. How they did welcome us and
treat us in that country! 'Come right in, friend, and have a glass.'
'Many thanks.' 'The gentleman mustn't displease me; let's have a drink
in that cantine, eh? ...' And the drink flowed to your heart's
content. As I was the only one in the troupe that knew how to
figure--for I've had an education," interposed Don Alonso, "and my
father was a soldier--they named me director. In one of the towns I
reinforced the company with a ballerina and a strong man. The dancer's
name was Rosita Montañés; she's the one I thought of when you
mentioned the Rosita you were looking for. This Montañés was Spanish
and had married the strong man, an Italian whose real name was
Napoleon Pitti. The couple had with them as secretary a
Galician,--very intelligent chap, but as an artist, detestable. And
between Rosita and him they deceived Hercules. This wasn't very hard,
for Napoleon was one of the ugliest men I've ever laid eyes on. As for
strength, there was never his match; he had a back as solid as a front
wall; his ears were flattened from blows got in prize-fighting; he was
a barbarian for fair, and you know what they say: 'Tell a man by his
talk and a bullock by his horn.' And believe me, this little Galician
chap led Hercules by the horn, all right. The cursed smarty fooled me,
too, though not as he did Hercules, for I've always been a bachelor,
thank the Lord, partly through fear and partly through design. Nor
have I ever lacked women," added Don Alonso, boastfully.
"What was I saying, now? Oh, yes. I didn't know any English; the
damned lingo isn't very hard, but I simply couldn't get it into my
head. So I needed an interpreter, and I appointed the Galician as
secretary of the company and ticket-seller. We had been together for
almost a year when we reached an English island near Jamaica. The
governor of the island, the queerest Englishman there ever was, with a
pair of side-whiskers that looked like flames leaping from his cheeks,
summoned me as soon as we landed. As there was no site for our
performances, he made alterations in the municipal school, which was a
regular palace; he ordered all the partitions removed and the ring and
tiers of seats installed. Only the negroes of the town went to that
school, and what need had those creatures of learning to read and
write?
"We stayed there a month, and despite the fact that we had rent free
and that we played to full houses every afternoon, and that we had
practically no expenses, we didn't make any profit. 'How can it be?' I
kept asking myself.--A mystery."
"And what was the reason?" asked Manuel.
"I'm coming to that. First I must explain that the governor with the
flaming side-whiskers had fallen in love with Rosita, and without
beating around the bush he had taken her off to his palace. Poor
Hercules roared and crushed the dishes with his fingers, drowning his
grief and his rage by committing all sorts of barbarities.
"The governor, a generous sort, invited the Galician and me to his
residence, and there, in a garden of cedars and palms, we would draw
up the program of the performances, and amuse ourselves at
target-practice while we smoked the finest tobacco and drank glass after
glass of rum. We paid court to Rosita and she'd laugh like a madwoman,
and dance the tango, the _cachucha_ and the _vito_, and she'd fail the
Englishman an awful number of times. One day the governor, who treated
me as a friend, said to me: 'That secretary of yours is robbing you.'
'I think he is,' I answered. 'Tonight you'll have the proof.'
"We finished the performance; I went off home, had supper and was
about to go to bed when a little negro servant comes in and tells me
to follow him; all right; I follow; we both leave; we draw near the
circus house, and in a nearby saloon I see the governor and the town
chief of police. It was a very beautiful moonlit night, and there was
no light in the saloon; we wait and wait, and soon a figure appears,
and steals in through a window of the schoolhouse. '_Forwer_'
whispered the governor. That means Forward," interpreted Don Alonso.
"The three of us followed and entered noiselessly through the same
window; on tiptoe we reached the entrance to the former school, which
served as the circus vestibule and contained the ticket-office. We see
the secretary with a lantern in his hand going through the money-box.
'Surrender in the name of the authorities!' shouted the governor, and
with the revolver that he held in his hand he fired a shot into the
air. The secretary was paralyzed at the sight of us; then the governor
aimed the gun at the fellow's chest and fired again point blank; and
the man wavered, turned convulsively in the air and fell dead.
"The governor was jealous and the truth is that Rosita was in love
with the secretary. I never in my life saw grief as great as that
woman's when she found her lover dead. She wept and dragged along
after him, uttering wails that simply tore your soul in two. Napoleon,
too, wept.
"We buried the secretary and four or five days later the chief of
police of the island informed us that the school could no longer serve
as a circus and that we'd have to clear out. We obeyed the order, for
there was no way out of it, and for another couple of years we
wandered from town to town through Central America, Yucatan, Mexico,
until we struck Tampico, where the company disbanded. As there was no
outlook for us there, Pérez and I took a vessel for New Orleans."
"Beautiful town, eh?" said Roberto.
"Beautiful. Have you been there?"
"Yes."
"Man, how happy I am to hear it!"
"What a river, eh?"
"An ocean! Well, to continue my story. The first time we performed in
that city, gentlemen, what a success! The circus was higher than a
church; I said to the carpenter; 'Place our trapeze as high as
possible,' and after giving him these orders I went off for a bite.
"During our absence the impresario happened along and asked: 'Are
those Spanish gymnasts going to perform at such a height?' 'That's
what they said,' answered the carpenter. 'Let them know, then, that I
don't want to be responsible for such barbarity.'
"Pérez and I were in the hotel, when we received a message calling us
to the circus at once."
"'What can it be?' my companion asked me. 'You'll see,' I told him.
'They're going to demand that we lower the trapeze.'
"And so it was. Pérez and I go to the circus and we see the
impresario. That was what he requested.
"'Nothing doing,' I told him. 'Not even if the President of the
Republic of the United States himself comes here, together with his
esteemed mother. I won't lower the trapeze an inch.' 'Then you'll be
compelled to.' 'We'll see.' The impresario summoned a policeman; I
showed the fellow my contract, and he sided with me; he told me that
my companion and I had a perfect right to break our necks...."
"What a country!" murmured Roberto, ironically.
"You're right," agreed Don Alonso in all seriousness. "What a country.
That's what you call progress!
"That night, in the circus, before we went on, Pérez and I listened to
the comments of the public. 'What? Are these Spaniards going to
perform at such an altitude?' the people were asking each other.
'They'll kill themselves.' And we listened calmly, all the time
smiling.
"We were about to enter the ring, when along comes a fellow with
sailor's chinwhiskers wearing a flat-brimmed high hat and a carrick,
and in a twanging voice he tells us that we're in danger of having a
terrible accident performing 'way up there, and that, if we wish, we
can take out life insurance. All we'd have to do is to sign a few
papers that he had in his hand. Lord! I nearly died. I felt like
choking the fellow.
"Trembling and screwing up our courage, Pérez and I entered the ring.
We had to put on a little rouge. We wore a blue costume decorated with
silver stars,--a reference to the United States flag; we saluted and
then, up the rope.
"At first I thought that I was going to slip; my head was going
'round, my ears were humming; but with the first applause I forgot
everything, and Pérez and I performed the most difficult feats with
most admirable precision. The public applauded wildly. What days those
were!"
And the old gymnast smiled; then he made a bitter grimace; his eyes
grew moist; he blinked so as to dry a tear that at last escaped and
coursed down his earth-coloured cheek.
"I'm an old fool; but I can't help it," Don Alonso murmured in
explanation of his weakness.
"And did you stay in New Orleans?" asked Roberto.
"Pérez and I signed a contract there," replied Don Alonso, "with a big
circus syndicate of New York that had about twenty or thirty companies
touring all America. All of us gymnasts, ballet-dancers, ecuyéres,
acrobats, pantominists, clowns, contortionists, and strong men
travelled in a special train.... The majority were Italians and
Frenchmen."
"Were there good-looking women, eh?" asked Manuel.
"Uf! ... Like this ..." replied Don Alonso, bringing his fingers all
together. "Women with such muscles! ... There was no other life
anything like it," he added, reverting to his melancholy theme. "You
had all the money and women and clothes you wanted.... And above all,
glory, applause...."
And the gymnast went into a trance of enthusiasm, staring rigidly at a
fixed point.
Roberto and Manuel gazed at him in curiosity.
"And Rosita,--didn't you ever see her again?" asked Roberto.
"No. They told me that she had got a divorce from Napoleon so that she
could marry again, in Boston, some millionaire from the West. Ah,
women.... Who can trust them? ... But gentlemen, it's already eleven.
Pardon me; I'll have to be going. Thanks ever so much!" murmured Don
Alonso, seizing Roberto and Manuel by the hands and pressing them
effusively. "We'll meet again, won't we?"
"Oh, yes, we'll see each other," replied Roberto.
Don Alonso picked up his phonograph and wound in and out among the
tables, repeating his phrase: "Novelty! Something new!" Then, after
having saluted Roberto and Manuel once more, he disappeared.
"Nothing. I can't discover a thing," grumbled Roberto. "Good-bye. See
you again."
Manuel was left alone, and musing upon Don Alonso's tales and upon the
mystery surrounding Roberto, he returned to the Corralón and went to
bed.