The Kermesse on Pasión Street--"The Dude"--A Café Chantant.
Leandro eagerly awaited the kermesse that was to take place on Pasión
street. In former years he had accompanied Milagros to the nocturnal
fair of San Antonio and to those of the Prado; he had danced with her,
treated her to buns, presented her with a pot of sweet basil; but this
summer the proof-reader's family seemed very much determined upon
keeping Milagros away from Leandro. He had learned that his sweetheart
and her mother were thinking of going to the kermesse, so he procured
a pair of tickets and told Manuel that they two would attend.
So it happened. They went, on a terribly hot August night; a dense,
turbid vapour filled all the streets in the vicinity of the Rastro,
which were decorated and illuminated with Venetian lanterns.
The festival was celebrated upon a large vacant lot on Pasión street.
Leandro and Manuel entered as the band from the Orphan Asylum was
playing a _habanera_. The lot, aglare with arc-lights, was
bedecked with ribbons, gauze and artificial flowers that radiated from
a pole in the centre to the boundaries of the enclosure. Before the
entrance door there was a tiny wooden booth adorned with red and
yellow percale and a number of Spanish flags; this was the raffle
stand.
Leandro and Manuel took a seat in a corner and waited. The
proof-reader and his family did not arrive until after ten; Milagros
looked very pretty that night; she had on a light costume with blue
figuring, a kerchief of black crape and white slippers. She wore her
gown somewhat decolleté, as far as the smooth, round beginnings of her
throat.
At this moment the band from the Orphan Asylum blared forth the
schottisch called _Los Cocineros_ (The Cooks). Leandro, stirred
by the strains, invited Milagros out for a dance, but the maiden made
a slight gesture of annoyance.
"You might soil my new costume," she murmured, and put her kerchief
around her waist.
"If you dance with another fellow he'll soil it, too," replied Leandro
in all humility.
Milagros did not heed his words; she danced with her skirt gathered in
one hand, answering him in peevish monosyllables.
The schottisch over, Leandro invited the family to refreshments. To
the right of the entrance there were two decorated staircases, which
led to another lot about six or seven metres above the grounds where
the dance was being held. On one of the stairways, which were both
aglow with Spanish flags, was a signpost reading "Refreshments:
Entrance" upon the other, "Refreshments: Exit."
They all went upstairs. The refreshment-parlour was a spacious place,
with trees and illumination of electric globes that hung from thick
cables. Seated at the tables was a motley crowd, speaking at the top
of their voices, clapping their hands and laughing.
They had to wait a long while before a waiter brought them their beer;
Milagros ordered an ice, and as there were none, she would have
nothing.
She sat there thus, without opening her mouth, considering herself
grievously offended, until she met two girls from her shop and joined
them, whereupon her displeasure vanished in a trice. Leandro, at the
first opportunity, left the proof-reader and, rejoining Manuel, set
off in quest of his sweetheart. In the lot next to the entrance, where
the dancing was going on, couples resting between numbers strolled
around in leisurely fashion. Milagros and her two friends, arms
linked, came by in jovial mood, followed closely by three men. One of
them was a rough-looking youth, tall, with fair moustache; the other a
stupid fellow, of ordinary appearance, with dyed moustache,
shirt-front and fingers sparkling with diamonds; the third was a knave
with, cheek-whiskers, half gipsy and half cattle-dealer, with every
ear mark of the most dangerous mountebank.
Leandro, noticing the manoeuvres of the masculine trio, thrust himself
in between the maidens and their gallants, and turning to the men
impertinently asked:
"What's up?"
The trio pretended not to understand and lagged behind.
"Who are they?" asked Manuel.
"One of them's Lechuguino (the dude)," answered Leandro in a loud
voice, so that his sweetheart should hear. "He's at least fifty, and
he comes around here trying to play the dashing young blade; that runt
with the dyed moustache is Pepe el Federal (the Federalist), and the
other is Eusebio el Carnicero (the Butcher), a fellow who owns quite a
number of questionable horses."
Leandro's blustering outburst appealed to one of the maidens, who
turned to look at the youth and smiled at him; but Milagros was not in
the least affected, and looking back, she repeatedly sought the group
of three men with her glance.
At this juncture there appeared the fellow whom Leandro had designated
with the sobriquet of Lechuguino, in company of the proof-reader and
his wife. The three girls approached them, and Lechuguino invited
Milagros to dance. Leandro glanced in anguish at his sweetheart; she,
however, whirled off heedlessly. The band was playing the _pas
double _from the _Drummer of the Grenadiers_. Lechuguino was
an expert dancer; he swept his partner along as if she were a feather
and as he spoke, brought his lips so close to hers that it seemed as
if he were kissing her.
Leandro was at an utter loss and suffered agonies; he could not make
up his mind to leave. The dance came to an end and Lechuguino
accompanied Milagros to the place where her mother was sitting.
"Come. Let's be going!" said Leandro to Manuel. "If we don't, I'm sure
to do something rash."
They escaped from the fair and entered a café chantant on Encomienda
Street. It was deserted. Two girls were dancing on a platform; one
dressed like a _maja_, the other, like a _manólo_.
Leandro, absorbed in his thoughts, said nothing; Manuel was very
sleepy.
"Let's get out of here," muttered Leandro after a short while. "This
is too gloomy."
They walked to the Plaza del Progreso, Leandro with head bowed, as
pensive as ever, and Manuel so sleepy that he could hardly stand.
"Over at the Marina café," suggested Leandro, "there must be a high
old time."
"It would be better to go home," answered Manuel.
Leandro, without listening to his companion, walked to the Puerta del
Sol, and the two very silently turned into Montera Street and around
the corner of Jardines. It was past one. As the pair walked on,
prostitutes in their gay attire accosted them from the doorways in
which they lurked, but looking into Leandro's grim countenance and
Manuel's poverty-stricken features the girls let them walk on,
following them with a gibe at their seriousness.
Midway up the narrow, gloomy street shone a red lamp, which
illuminated the squalid front of the Marina café.
Leandro shoved the door open and they went inside. At one end the
platform, with four or five mirrors, glittered dazzlingly; the floor
was so tightly jammed with rows of tables thrust against either wall
that only a narrow passage was left in the middle.
Leandro and Manuel found a seat. Manuel rested his forehead against
his palm and was soon asleep; Leandro beckoned to one of the two
singers, who were gaily dressed and were conversing with some fat
women, and the two singers sat down at his table.
"What'll you have?" asked Leandro.
"Canary-seed for me," answered one of them,--a slender, nervous type
with small eyes that were ringed with cosmetics.
"And what's your name?"
"Mine? María la Chivato,"
"And that girl's?"
"La Tarugo."
Tarugo, who was a buxom, gipsy-like Malagueña, sat down beside
Leandro, and they started a conversation in hushed tones.
The waiter approached.
"Let's have four whiskies," ordered Chivato. "For this chap is going
to drink, too," she added, turning to Manuel and seizing his arm.
"Hey, you there, lad!"
"Eh!" exclaimed the boy, waking up without a notion of his
whereabouts. "What do you want?"
Chivato burst into laughter.
"Wake up, man, you'll lose your express! Did you come in this
afternoon on the mixed train?"
"I came on the ..." and Manuel let loose a stream of obscenity.
Then, in very ugly humour, he began to stare in every direction,
making all manner of efforts not to fall asleep.
At a table set aside a man who looked like a horse-dealer was
discussing the _flamenco_ song and dance with a cross-eyed fellow
bearing every appearance of an assassin.
"There's no more artists," the horse-dealer was saying. "Once upon a
time folks came here to see Pinto, Canito, the Feos, the
Macarronas.... Now what? Now, nothing. Pullets in vinegar."
"That's what," agreed the cross-eyed assassin, very seriously.
"That's the musician," said Chivato, pointing to the latter.
The two singers did not remain very long at the table with Leandro and
Manuel. The cross-eyed fellow was already on the platform; he began to
tune the guitar, and six women sat down around him in a row, beginning
to clap hands in time to the music; Tarugo rose from her seat and
started a side dance, and was soon wiggling her hips convulsively; the
singer commenced to gargarize softly; at intervals he would be silent
and then nothing would be heard save the snapping of Tarugo's fingers
and the clatter of her heels, which played the counterpoint.
After the Malaga singer had finished, a gipsy youth with a chocolate
complexion got up and executed a tango and a negro dance; he twisted
himself in and out, thrust his abdomen forward and his arms back. He
wound up with effeminate undulations of his hips and a most
complicated intertwining of arms and legs.
"That's what you call art!" commended! the horse-dealer.
"See here, I'm going," grumbled Manuel.
"Wait a minute; we'll have another drink."
"No. I'm going."
"All right; let's come. Too bad!"
At that moment a corpulent singer with a powerful neck, and the
cross-eyed guitarist with the assassin's face, came forward to the
public, and while the one strummed the guitar, suddenly muting the
strings by placing his hands over them, the other, his face flushed,
the veins of his neck standing out tensely, and his eyes bulging from
their sockets, poured forth a guttural wail that was doubtless of most
difficult execution, for it reddened him to the very forehead.