🚂 Memorias de un vagón de ferrocarril 📖✨ | Eduardo Zamacois

🚂 Memorias de un vagón de ferrocarril 📖✨ | Eduardo Zamacois

Welcome to Now for Stories. Today we invite you to embark on a fascinating literary journey through the pages of Memories of a Railway Car, a work by renowned writer Eduardo Zamacois. Published at the beginning of the 20th century, this short novel transports us to the life and stories that intertwine within a train car. With his agile style and subtle irony, Zamacois offers us a human and social portrait of the era, where passengers become protagonists of stories both small and large. Prepare to discover them with us. Chapter 1. Fortunately for me, I was born in a first-class carriage, and my achievements attest to the strength and nobility of my origins. In the good provincial stations , and even more so in the border ones, where cosmopolitan types accustomed to travel abound, my distinguished appearance and the dark patina given to me, first by my varnishers and then by the harsh weather and dust of the roads, speak of my long vagrant history and attract people’s curiosity. I come from France, from the famous workshops of Saint Denis, but I was built with materials from different countries, and this kind of “international protoplasm”—let’s call it that—that integrates me, coupled with my erratic lifestyle, prevents me from strongly feeling that “love of country” in whose name blind humanity has torn itself apart so many times. The Company that brought me to Spain paid—according to the exchange rate that day—20,000 duros for me. I deserve it. I am almost entirely made of pieces of mahogany and oak that, after losing all the water in their woody fibers over several years in drying sheds, were severely hardened under the flame of the blowtorch; only certain details and ornaments of my body are oak, and I am covered with a plank of teak, a wood very similar to pine that comes from Northern Europe and is impervious to atmospheric changes. My net weight—I mean, when empty—exceeds thirty-six tons. I am more than eighteen meters long and three meters and fifty centimeters high, and the breadth of my concave roof possesses the majesty of a vault. For many months, numerous highly skilled blacksmiths, carpenters, cabinetmakers, upholsterers, plumbers, lampworkers, electricians, stove-makers, and glaziers worked on my construction, and their marvelously skillful hands infused me with exceptional solidity and a rare harmony of proportions. My fellow travelers, soon after meeting me, rightly began to call me “The Cabal.” I am spacious, comfortable, and, despite the weight of my frame, I tremble nimbly, with very slight jolts, on my four-axle chassis. Not all cars of my rank could boast as much. There exists among us an aristocracy that I will unhesitatingly accuse of being upstarts: among them are cars younger than I, made of imperfectly dried planks. I call them “bazaar” cars. They look good, but they lack strength: their members soon resent the work; they creak, groan, their doors do not close properly, their windows cease to adjust, their tired springs become demoralized… Moreover, because they were built in haste and without love, they lack certain complementary details indispensable to their ornamentation and to the perfect comfort of the travelers. And the true distinction is in the “details”… “First-class” units are divided into two categories: I belong to the best, the most ancient and pure aristocracy, and the letters A A. adorning my doors proclaim my lineage. The “dressing room” occupies one end of my cabin, and in the center—the least hectic place—I have a “bed compartment.” My interior, divided into six compartments, is beautiful and soft, caressing, comforting, full of provisions; feminine, in short: the seats, which can easily be widened and converted into beds; the soft cushions; the restful curvature of the backrests; the armrests on which the traveler can rest an arm; the ashtrays; the small table that adorns the window; the curtains, which modify the light solar; the heating pipes; the alarm bells; the beveled mirrors; the polychrome advertisements and photographs of famous places that adorn my passage; the silence and precision with which the doors close and fit into their frames…; everything, in short, reveals in me a “homebody” soul. In winter, especially at night, when the cold frosts the windows and the machine sends me generous streams of warmth, and all my tenants are asleep, and the hands of lovers search for each other, jealous and feverish, under the blankets, then my compartments seem like bedrooms on whose gray hue my lanterns, half-closed, like indolent eyelids, shed an almost imperceptible drizzle of light. Beautiful and resounding contrast!… Outside of me, the movement, the struggle, the danger, the darkness, the thunderous roar of the bridges, the deafening din of the tunnels, the rain, the hail, the snow, the icy winds, the endless conquest of the land; and, within, the peace, the repose, the well-being of comfortable attitudes, the warm air, “the joy of arrival,” with which every traveling soul went to sleep. Ah!… When I examine myself and listen to myself living like this, with this double life so full, so useful, I think that I, all “my self,” welcoming and good, is a heart. I could not determine exactly when my personality began, for my consciousness arose, as in children, by imperceptible degrees. They began to build me according to one of the best models, but without assembling my limbs, because the French track is twenty centimeters narrower than the Spanish one, and my builders needed to transport me to the Peninsula, which was where I was to serve. This is the period we can call fetal. Already completely finished, but disjointed, disjointed, and amorphous, I crossed the border on two trucks and arrived in Irún. There they organized my pieces, joined them, spliced ​​them, and locked them together very solidly, glued me, pegged me, varnished me, dressed me; there my figure acquired the silhouette, the balance of profiles, that were to constitute my personality. I am, therefore, Spanish, since I was “born” in Spain, but of French origin. When, slowly, with the gentleness of a slow awakening, I began to understand myself as separate from the bodies that surrounded me and distinct from them; When the miraculous idea of ​​”I” illuminated me like a torch, and I was able to say, “I am… I exist…” I was already mounted on the sturdy mechanisms of axles, wheels, bearings, and brakes with which I was to walk later, and the vital entrails of my powerful frame, as well as the roof and windows, were fitted and finished. Evidently—I cannot otherwise explain the rapid increase in my inner sense—the intelligent fingers of the blacksmiths and carpenters who built my strongest pieces, minute by minute, left within me throbs of thought and will, and tremors of flesh. Each blow of the hammer they dealt me ​​was like an appeal to my still-numb sensitivity; the saws freed me from the useless pieces; The planes and rasps that polished my planking made me look more elegant, and the bronze screws that secured my limbs were like ideas digging into me. During the vague dawn of my intelligence, those workers were abhorrent to me. I hated them and at the same time feared them, because as they formed my conscience, what they did to me caused me greater suffering. Early in the morning, eight or ten of them entered me, armed with various instruments of torture: some wielding saws, some a chisel, some a brace, a chisel, a scrubber, a pair of pliers, a drill, or a hammer. The sawdust, which is my blood, soiled everything. In order to fit the various parts of my frame together properly, my tormentors mutilated me, oppressed me, and gashed me in countless ways. The repellents drove the nails so deep that their heads disappeared inside me; The insatiable planes tore off my skin, which fell in shavings; the drills pierced me like remorse. Wounded, scraped, battered, my body vibrated, and with each new hammer blow my bruised insides seemed to rupture. Thus, through blows and pain—like conscience in men—my conscience was born. Then, those brusque, broad-shouldered giants with sullen brows were replaced by more meticulous, silent, polished, and less cruel workers. They were the cabinetmakers, electricians, smokers, upholsterers, glaziers, plumbers, bronze workers , and painters I spoke of earlier. They all, in a frenzy, scraped me, filed me, poked me, bit me… they never stopped correcting me!… and when it seemed they had nothing more to add, they started again: some, to “rectify” a line, removed a few shavings, others drove a screw in… They all, in a word, hurt me; but I understood that they all also did me good, and this conviction inflamed me. More than the desire to live, the noble desire to be beautiful was inflaming me, like those women who, in exchange for appearing pretty, accept the worst tortures of fashion: narrow shoes, heavy hats that impede circulation at the temples… Day by day I recognized myself as more complete, firmer, more adorned and beautiful, in short; and also more conscious. I was like a brain that is filling with ideas. Each one of those workers gave me—without knowing it—a particle of their soul; These intelligent , vibrant elements, full of radioactivity, coupled with one another, and so my spirit, still in a nebulous state, emerged from the synthesis of them all. To the artistic urge to be beautiful was soon added another, of a higher moral standing: that of being good, that of being useful… It was born because, from where I was, I saw the trains arriving or leaving the station pass by many times a day; and when I noticed that all their units, whether first, second, or third class, looked quite similar to me, I deduced that in the future my mission would be, like theirs, to transport people from one place to another. When the glaziers filled the opening of my windows with magnificent, single-pane glass, I vibrated with joy: “Now I have eyes,” I said to myself, “and dust won’t be able to get inside me.” When the insulators laid the heating pipes along the corridor and under my seats, and the upholsterers carpeted me and lined my interior with soft mattresses, I thought: “Those who travel with me will no longer feel cold.” When they provided me with “alarm devices,” I felt the comfort of not being helpless; and when the electrician installed the dynamo and the magic wires that distribute the light, it seemed to me that the sun had just entered me. I am very human: the heating ducts , for example, are my arteries; the pipes and drains of my “powder room,” my intestines; the electrical wires, my nerves; my voice, the rattling of my muscles. One day they stopped hammering inside me and adding ornaments. My makers and “servants”—I can call them that— scrupulously swept and dusted my interior, polished my bronzes, scrubbed my glass until it was so spotless that it blended with the clear air, burnished the varnish on my paneling, and silenced my ironwork with special greases. Divine youth! Everything within me displayed a joy: the soft, light gray tint of the seats; the immaculate whiteness of the simple crochet work covering the backrests; the steel bars of the luggage racks; the gleaming doorknobs and walls; the thick red and blue carpet that stretched the length of my hallway, a lush meadow… I was joyful too; I trembled; I was afraid. Why?… Of what?… “You have begun to live,” a voice secretly told me. Another night passed. Dawn broke; oh, with what trepidation I awaited that dawn! Around me, many other wagons brought from France were being assembled, and the bustle of the workers was great. Suddenly, several big men, positioned behind me, pushed me, and, for the first time, once—oh, sublime spell of “the first time”!—my wheels turned, powerful and silent, over the shining rails. A marvelous June sun lit up the landscape. As I moved forward, everything around me began to change: everything familiar until then began to decompose, and new vistas opened up before me. The sensation of movement, which I had not yet known, produced in me a delirious amazement and joy. Until then, I had been still, and now I was moving. I appreciated my strength. Movement!… What is movement?… I was, in those moments, the same person I had been; and yet, I was “another.” Without changing, I had what I had never had, and “being,” with all the power of a present indicative, “I was leaving.” Inexplicable paradox !… Evidently the eagles that propelled me transmitted their strength to me… So strength is something capable of separating itself from matter, since it passes from one body to another without deforming them! So if the spirit is strength, it can enjoy an independent and separate life!… Realizing that I was detached from the earth, I received the revelation of my destiny, which was to wander, never putting down roots. As long as my vagrant life lasted, I would be, as a kind of protest or constant reaction against the stillness of those trees that gave me their lumber; in the face of their eternal repose, my eternal wandering; in the face of their silence, my scandal. Within me, neither the screws nor the centuries-old mahogany and oak trees groaned; everything was happily fitted together and just right; nothing was superfluous, nothing remained idle; my rolling was quiet and elastic, and I experienced pride in my strong health, my well-formed organism, my perfect eurhythmy. I continued walking away from the workshops, and for a moment, the joy of existing and “feeling myself” intoxicated me. Nearing the station, and lined up alongside the main railway lines, there were some old wagons without wheels, stuck in the ground and converted into guardhouses. “They’re useless cars,” I thought. And I didn’t have a single sympathy for them. Powerful tremors of anxiety and joy shook me and prevented me from meditating. The air was fresh, fragrant, and as if drenched in light. Around me were immense green fields, trees… so many trees!… that in the laughing light of the sun looked like emeralds; White houses, red roofs… a bridge… and, in the distance, outlined against the purest celestial sapphire, a procession of dark mountains—the Pyrenees—and on the other side, the sea… “Soon,” I said to myself, “I will know all this… because it will all pass by me…” I felt myself vibrating, proud, happy, master of the world. The routes of the horizon were going to be mine. My joy, overflowing with vigor, was that of a racehorse entering a hippodrome. Chapter 2. I can only too well guess the surprise that these “confessions” of mine will produce. “How?” men will exclaim. “Is it possible that objects we consider inanimate enjoy a conscious and reasoning life, analogous to our own? That is indeed the case; and I will try to explain how the precise notion that “I exist” was born in me, and how that which seems dead lives on. Life and Death are the two gestures, the two masks, of an absolute force; and Creation, like a three-coiled serpent corresponding to the three kingdoms of Nature. Consequently—and I know this well because I come from below, from the trees and the iron mines—Death, truly, does not exist; Death is nothing more than a “change of form,” a “change of attitude,” that the Unique Energy adopts in order to continue living. Otherwise: for Life—this noun we must always write with a capital letter—dying is… changing clothes… From the structure of a stone to the structure and composition of Einstein’s brain, intelligence traces a scale with more rungs than Jacob’s famous one; but let us not doubt that Einstein’s brain has something of stone in it, nor that in stones there exist infinitesimal particles, “microns” of light, of the great light that shines under the skull of the famous German. My cosmogony is very simple: The Universe is an infinite Force that occupies infinity, and incessantly works on itself to improve itself, thereby drawing closer to the Light. When the entire universe is Light—that is to say, Intelligence, Balance, Serenity—movement will cease, and Life will immerse itself in the delight of contemplating itself, and then Death will “die,” because nothing will feel the need to renew itself. This Force is formed by the myriads of millions of stars that populate space, each of which represents “an idea” of the infinite brain. These, which I will call Idea Worlds, come and go, and attract each other and light up or go out in space, exactly the same as the small ideas in the human brain. And, as time passes, these Idea Worlds, thanks to the constant bustle of Death and Life, are refined. Because Life, in its highest concept—which is the one I explain here—is reduced to the eternal aspiration of matter to become spirit. Let us examine the history of our planet, similar, no doubt, to that of other worlds: In its beginnings, geology presents it as an enormous bonfire. It was all fire, that is, verb, action, desire to be, will; a will is nothing more than a torch. When the vapors of that portentous conflagration turned into torrential downpours and the Earth’s crust began to solidify, the first minerals were born. Matter is the base, the most clumsy; and this foundation, still insecure, trembles, cracks, liquefies again in the flames, and once again cools and reemerges. These were the rudimentary gestures, the initial stammerings of Death; Death appeared the first time a stone lost its shape. Millions of centuries later—Time lavishes its wealth—the dawn of the plant kingdom begins. The earthly organism imperceptibly becomes more complicated, entangled, and subdivided; cosmic evolution always moves from the indefinite to the absolute, from the nebulous and homogeneous to the heterogeneous and precise. What we call “inorganic”—which is not “absolutely” so— becomes a plant, and, in turn, plants return to the earth. It is evident that, as Life advances, Death perfects its craft. After the plant kingdom, which is to serve as its nourishment, comes the animal kingdom. Death laughs, it is content. Later, infinitely later, the first human being is born; rudimentary, instinctive human being, who moves within the boundaries of animality. The idea of ​​civilization flourishes much later, and will become more exasperated day by day, because Life—as I said before—is the insatiable longing that Matter suffers to become Spirit. I will clarify my theory with an example: In man—I have had occasion to observe it a thousand times—the physical part declines with age. Assuming that an old man and a young man possess identical degrees of intelligence, the old man will always demonstrate greater spirituality in his tastes than the young man. Disorganization, ruin, come from below, from the earth: the life that is extinguished first in the individual is sexual; then, stomach or vegetative life; and when everything in him is already collapsed and almost obscured, the brain still shines. The same thing happens in the world: matter is transmuted into vegetable matter, vegetables into animal flesh, and the nutritive elements of the latter into cerebral activity; an oyster can be inspiration in the brain of an engineer. Then, when that brain, that matter, which lived in close contact with thought, returns to the earth, it will perfect the earth, because, decomposing in it, it will transmit something of its distinction to it. And so I affirm that an apparatus built with earth from Father La Chaise’s cemetery must be better, more sensitive and precise, more intelligent —to say it once and for all—than another, apparently equal, manufactured with elements from any field. The Earth was, indisputably, in its remote beginnings, more clumsy, “more brutal,” than it is today. Twenty thousand years ago, Edison could not have invented the phonograph, nor could Hertzian waves have been invented. would have produced, because then matter vibrated badly. Fortunately, that matter has died and been resurrected billions of times, and each of its existences helped to refine and ennoble it. I have repeatedly heard men speak of the current “clemency” of their customs. “Before,” they say, “humanity was more cruel.” They attribute this greater kindness to a greater degree of culture. True: but isn’t culture an exasperation of sensitivity? Little by little, matter—all matter—has become more sensitive: animals , plants… even stones!… feel more than before. Everything cooperates with Civilization: Civilization is nothing more than the result of our fear of suffering. The miraculous victories of physics and biology loosen the tightest knots of the Supreme Mystery, and unsuspected powers emerge, steering the dynamism of the atoms. I am very well situated in life to discourse on all this, for I know men, and I also remember the soul of the forests and mines from which I come. Nothing is lost, nothing is sterile, and even the faintest sound a dry leaf makes when it falls reverberates throughout the cosmos, because one movement does not end until another movement begins. Who has not heard of the “intra-atomic” vigor of bodies?… Do you know what psychometry teaches about the “emanations of soul or thought”—I will call them that—that living beings leave behind in objects that appear dead? And the cabals of Colonel Rochas concerning what he calls the “exteriorization of sensitivity”?… Have you read what Dr. Carlos Russ has said about the magnetic force of the gaze? Or to the ability that, according to Professor Russell, certain woods, particularly Scotch pine, oak, beech, sycamore, and ebony, have to impress photographic plates “in the dark”?… And don’t we also know that steel engravings, after a certain time, communicate their image to the glass that covers them?… One day, still distant, but which will come, man will obtain possession of the Absolute; and on that day humanity will translate the song of the rivers and the language of the mountains. How can we doubt Science? Edison holds the voice of the dead on a cylinder, and thanks to him, lips that no longer move continue speaking; Marconi launches the human word over the seas without the need for conducting wires; Friesse Greeve seizes movement and holds it—oh paradox!—on a celluloid tape, and Curie scientifically demonstrates the possibility that Moses appeared before his people with his prophetic forehead adorned with light. And if sound vibrations stop on phonograph records, and Russell’s research proves that objects fix their image on the wall where their shadow was projected for several years—which would serve to explain the sadness of antique mirrors—why should it surprise us that I have gleaned something from the lives of the countless thousands of people who lived within me?… Have you seen the resolutely human expression that gloves acquire with use? A glove, fallen on the floor, is like a severed hand; the hand transmitted to it its nervousness and its eloquence, its soul… This is my case. To the sensitivity inherent in the woods of which I am formed, must be added that which I received, through contagion, from the workers who made me. I retain images, like photographic plates, and I collect sounds, just as I do phonograph cylinders, and I am likewise accessible to the emotions of smell, touch, and taste. In me, however, the organs of perception are not circumscribed and delimited, as in humans. Instead of five senses, I possess one sense that summarizes their functional nature: a sense that, like an epidermis, covers my entire body; a sense that is my soul, my conscience, my self; and with which, at the same time, I hear, see, smell, and touch… and thus “my whole self” is found whole and simultaneously in each of my parts. My psychology, although elementary, satisfies me. Evidently, the social life of animals is more active, more intense, but this very thing exhausts them and forces them to sleep; whereas I, except for very rare moments, never sleep, and so, living less than they, perhaps live longer. Everything I know—very little—I learned by listening to my travelers converse, and by reading the newspapers and books they read. Every person who entered my life—and there were many in the forty years of my existence—was a “new idea” to me. I spied on their attitudes, listened to their every word, tried, in short, to memorize them… And this persevering study gradually brought me closer to them and instilled in me a life very similar to that of humans. Humans suspect nothing of this. If, in the peace of the night, as we stand still at any station, one of my limbs creaks, they never imagine that in that noise there could be pain, a memory, or a comment. They “hear the silence,” but their sensitivity doesn’t capture what the silence is saying. Sometimes they want to understand… but they don’t go beyond that. Many times, two lovers, finding themselves alone, have kissed; and after kissing, they looked around, thinking that someone might have seen them. Which was true, because I had seen them! But this emotion in them never rose above the category of divination or premonition, and it quickly vanished. Authors like to write their “Memoirs” when they begin to feel old; at that delicately melancholic age when Life, separating itself a little from them, becomes a memory. Presbyopes don’t see well up close; at a distance, they do; and presbyopia doesn’t appear, in men with normal sight, before the age of forty. One would think it a companion of experience and disillusionment. Whereupon Nature–a subtle ironist–seems to say to them: “Life!… It’s not that it’s bad!… But since you can’t follow it, look at it from afar. It’s better… I didn’t do this: my life is written in pieces, quickly, disorderly, as I lived it. Like it, these pages are an improvisation. Chapter 3. A long time has passed since my first trip, and I would be lying if I said I’ve been happy. Life treated me badly, I worked too hard, and reality was always painfully short of dreams. To live is to spoil an illusion. Since I was born an aristocrat, I detest the common people, in whom the inclination toward the ugly is instinctive. I detest those individuals, enriched by a twist of fortune but devoid of social culture, who soil the cleanliness of my couches with the shoe polish or mud from their boots and the grease from their lunches , and throw away their lit cigarette butts and spit on my carpet. Oh! The first time I was hit by such a spit, I would have liked to derail, break into a thousand pieces, die… I am also capricious and a bit of an artist, and because of that, I am bothered by the supervision exercised over me by the station clocks, the invariable automatism of my movements, and the monotony of my predetermined itineraries and my “official” paths, 1.67 meters wide… Because my free wandering is only apparent: freedom is something precious that I carry and bring, but that does not belong to me; freedom is for me what money is for those bank collectors, who handle millions daily and walk half-barefoot; what love is to the poor “undressable” ones who live off love and in love… and without love!… That’s why , from a very young age, I became a fatalist, and men, upon closer examination of the intimate mechanisms of their lives, would be too, since all wills, even the most wayward, follow immutable trajectories, and even races have–like us–in their Destiny, a locomotive that pulls them along. On the other hand, and this relieves me and makes up for the disappointments I’ve noted, I have fully enjoyed the disturbing emotions of travel, and the selfless affection, the fraternal solidarity that binds all the units of a convoy, and is a derivative of that other immense submissive love that we all profess to the machine. This affection of a loving servant—affection all slavery—I began to feel that beautiful June day when I was taken to join the Madrid-Hendaye express train; a distinction that—I later learned—earned me the hatred of several colleagues who, although of distinguished class, worked on lower-category trains. Which proves that envy and jealousy exist everywhere , despite the great consumption of these two impurities by men… Shortly after I was outside the workshops, one of those small, active pilot engines that take care of organizing the convoys and are like the housekeepers of the stations, seized me and, through a maze of rails crisscrossed like the threads of a mesh, dragged me until I was positioned on the international route. Then she gave a short whistle and left, puffing; she seemed to be scolding. I looked at her; I found her movements amusing, her squat body, which pulsed with the vivacity of a petite, industrious woman. I stood alone, next to the platform. On the same track, behind me, there were other cars; in front, far away, was the locomotive, mine, “my owner,” the one that was to guide me toward the horizon. She was standing next to a water tank, drinking; she was accompanied by a baggage car and a sleeping car. Her appearance was frightening: she was gigantic, extremely powerful, and her black, sweaty back, burnished by the sun, stood out against the pyramid of coal of the tender. I thought I could feel the heat of her burning, throbbing insides. She belonged to the colossi of the “4000 series.” I heard her throbbing : she breathed authority, impatience, impetus… “Will she hurt me?” I thought. Like children at birth, the first impression I received from life was one of pain. I waited a long time; the afternoon was waning, and my interior was filling with shadows. The engine had disappeared. Suddenly, I saw it: it was approaching, rolling backward, pushing the sleeping car that was about to collide with me. The prudence of its movement reassured me; however, when I understood that the impact was about to happen, I trembled with fear; I would have liked to flee… but how could I move? When I received the blow—brief, sharp, like an order—I retreated several meters; then the car that had pushed me reached me again with a second, gentler shove, and I continued to retreat until I reached the cars behind me. Thus, suddenly, I recognized myself positioned in the center of the convoy, composed of nine units. Immediately, several platform porters, with singular alacrity, rushed to tie me to my two closest traveling companions, and I then understood the usefulness of some limbs whose use I had never heard of before. The metal plates that, under the cover of a bellows, a kind of leather tunnel, established a passage between them and me, produced in me, as they crossed, the emotion of a handshake; and the irons and chains that, by holding us together, seemed to strengthen our friendship, were expressive to me like roots or fingers. Nevertheless , I felt uneasy; those increasingly forceful compressions unsettled me; I feared being crushed to death, and at the same time, pride in my strength was rising within me, which alternately resisted and reacted. The engine—I later learned that it was called “The Suspicious One” because of the fear with which it entered the curves—began to apply the brakes; it immediately loosened them and tightened them again, ensuring its obedience. All these unexpected and new operations frightened me . Then a heat, a terrible heat, invaded me, and other strange tremors shook me. The train manager came to inspect me, followed by a plumber, an electrician, and one of those employees who in railway jargon are called “routes.” They began to recognize me. The heating pipe was burning hot; they couldn’t put their fingers in it, and this satisfied them. The “alarm device” was working perfectly; I felt it in the sudden violence with which the shoes pressed against my wheels. My examiners turned the little switches on the light, and I was filled with white clarity; all the panes of my windows went up and down smoothly. All the sliding doors of my compartments closed tightly; a torrent of clean water had invaded the pipes and tanks of the powder room. “Nice car!” I remember one of those men exclaiming as he left. I hadn’t yet dared to communicate with any of the comrades I was with; their age, their scarred bodies, their weary experience inhibited me. I was a child; I, a newcomer, had no right to bother these veterans of the roads. They, too, showed no desire to talk. A grave silence weighed on the brightly lit and empty convoy. Finally—how grateful I was!—the sleeping car spoke to me: “What’s the rookie saying?” “I’m scared,” I replied. The car behind me was interested in the conversation. “What did the rookie answer?” it asked. I repeated. “I say I’m scared.” “You’ll be even more afraid,” exclaimed the sleeping man, “when we start walking: you don’t know what it’s like to go here!… And you can be glad they put you in the middle of the train: it’s where the walking is best!” The passengers were arriving and spreading out along the convoy. My first passenger was a woman, which seemed a good omen to me. After her many others got on, and in a few minutes my luggage nets and seats were occupied. Deuce-loads of trunks were passing by… I felt ill: the heating, the electricity, the heat radiated by my occupants, caused me a congestive restlessness. I waited impatiently for the signal to move; I needed air!… At seven o’clock, sharp, we left. The engine whistled. “We’re leaving now,” observed the sleeping man. To leave!… A divine and terrible word in which the concepts of “being” and “not being” converged. To leave is to convert Space into Time, because whoever walks, as they arrive, leaves, and thus performs the miracle of not being completely anywhere. And I was walking! I saw the platforms, which seemed to slide backward; the arch of the station canopy that drew an enormous eyebrow against the twilight sky; the signal discs on each of whose windows, white, green, or red, bore a warning… Since then, how many lessons and how many adventures the years have brought me!… I know the main Spanish regions well; I have crossed all the mountain ranges, from the Cantabrian to the Mariana, and all its rivers have flowed beneath my wheels, from the Bidasoa to the Guadalquivir. For nearly ten consecutive years I worked on the Madrid-Hendaye line , one of the most beautiful and toughest on the Peninsula; I then moved to the Galician “mail” line, and after a brief stint on the Asturias track, the Madrid, Zaragoza and Alicante Company bought me, and I worked for eight years on the Seville line. Later, I learned about the Valencia line. Recently, for fifteen years, I was one of the nine carriages on the Madrid-Barcelona express. I have also traveled along the Catalan coast as far as Cerbere. I therefore have ample reason to experience the tumultuous hustle and bustle of the railways. I will first speak of the engine: In the past, railway companies would name their locomotives after cities or rivers. With the desire for speed that characterizes modern life, that picturesque custom died out, and the primitive names were replaced by numbers; numbers speak more about speed than letters. But we, the carriages, continue to designate the engines we have worked with by means of nicknames or appellations inspired by their character. Besides “La Recelosa”, whose invincible fear of the abyss made the convoy smile, I will remember “La Fanfarrona”, who died in the terrible crash at Venta de Baños; “La Tirones”, so named because of the very strong impact she gave us when starting off, and the jolts she inflicted on us when stopping; the poor thing braked poorly and also died tragically; “La Caliente”, who scorched our heating pipes like no other; “La Económica”, who surprised the drivers and stokers with how little coal she used; “La Impetuosa,” whom we have nicknamed “The Royal Household” since the summer she took the King and Queen to Santander; although old, she still works; “The Watering Can,” “The Dwarf,” “The Millanes,” “The Fearless One”… Dictionaries offer no words that express the proud poise, the optimistic confidence, inspired in the carriages by one of those enormous German or American locomotives, whose price tag is no less than two hundred thousand pesetas, and which, with their strength and their one hundred and twenty tons of weight, can immobilize the train almost instantly, or drag it at speeds of ninety or even one hundred kilometers per hour. The engine is the soul of the convoy, its charging will, its verb. All initiatives and all responsibilities are hers. She will whistle for “clear way,” she will know whether to advance or stop, and at night her enormous eyes—one white, one purple—will clarify the inky mystery of the roads. She sends us sacred warmth and listens. the calls of our rescuers. She propels us forward and with her brakes, she restrains us. A heroic spirit of sacrifice compels her to always march ahead, as if braving the risks of the road; many times, when taking a curve, she plunges alone. However, wherever she passes, her entourage can advance as well. In the collisions—I have suffered more than one—she was the first victim, and immediately her shattered mass, reddish and smoking, rose before the convoy like a shield. She is the unit and the cars are the zeros; the cars are “female,” although grammar includes them in the masculine gender. When she launches into some dizzying race, we follow her happily and docilely, faithfully transmitting to us the vigor she commands us, and the twisted column of smoke from her chimney has, in our eyes, the defiant petulance of a heron. To disobey her would be tantamount to death. But who would argue with her orders ? when its strength is that of Destiny. The locomotive is the male, it is the sun… The affection of some cars for others does not have this admiring aspect: it is as sincere as that, but more straightforward, more intimate, more “equal to equal”; for, in the end, although the sleeping passengers believe they deserve more than we, those of “first class,” just as we disdain our comrades in “second,” and these in “third,” and the “third” in “third” the cars, who in turn insult and despise each other according to the quality of the loads they usually carry—for our vanity, like that of men, grabs at even the smallest thing to make a fool of ourselves and show off—the truth is that we are all brothers, for in the face of danger we are worth the same, and that our vulgarity and passivity oblige us to constant harmony and obedience. The units of the so-called “luxury” trains almost never uncouple ; both due to the effect of nature The negligence of the individuals in charge of its cleaning, as well as the shortage of ” rolling stock” that the companies frequently complain about. So the convoy arriving in Madrid in the morning, coming, for example, from Barcelona, ​​will be the same one that, at nightfall, after nine or ten hours of rest, leaves for Barcelona. This undoubtedly strengthens the bonds of our mutual affection, and a daily coexistence of months and even years allows us to get to know each other intimately. We know when we are braking well or poorly, when the steam pipes are clear, when the track presents dangers, and if any of us, climbing a slope or rounding a curve, needs help… I, traveling on the Hendaye express, came to recognize the atmospheric changes in the creaking of the car that rolled in front of me. We nicknamed it “Lady Catastrophe” for having derailed several times, and all of us, although we loved it, made fun of it: it was an old car that the The northern dampness was a real affliction. Its planks swelled, and during the rainy season, the unfortunate ship groaned and swayed from right to left in a peculiar way that never fooled me. The mixed-car and freight trains were constantly being redesigned : at some stations, cars were added, at others, they were removed; They are flood-fed organisms, devoid of majesty and designed exclusively to serve commerce and the poor “third-class” travelers. Their apathetic and cowardly herd-like appearance has always inspired pity in me. Their locomotives are old and driven by the least skilled drivers; each car has a different color and size, and those used for hauling livestock give off pestilential odors. When the train stops, the poorly connected cars collide violently with each other. It’s clear that they are the pariahs of the Company and, when it comes to working without pleasure, they don’t like each other! On the contrary, we, the “distinguished,” fraternize well and are adventurous and cheerful, like a troupe of comedians. My excellent companions on the Seville route considered themselves such , and we used to joke around with each other in our brief moments of rest. The locomotive was “La Empresa”; The last van, being the oldest, we called “The Beard”; a “first” was “The Baritone,” and the sleeping one, an eyewitness to countless bedroom scenes, “The Leading Lady.” Although they knew my real name, because I was so new and handsome, they nicknamed me “The Representative.” At the transit stations we would whisper: “The Company seems tired; today we arrived thirty minutes late. ” “The Leading Lady is extremely tired. ” “She must not have slept. ” “How could she sleep, if a newlywed boarded her last night in Córdoba ? I have fought a lot, but I have also laughed a lot on all the roads of Spain. However, the convoy I remember with the most fervent affection is the first one: the Madrid-Hendaye express. It consisted of the mail car—the car of souls, because only ideas travel in it—; the two luggage vans, two sleeping cars nicknamed the “Sommier Brothers,” and four first-class carriages: “The Shy One,” who couldn’t get over his fear of tunnels and years later ended up in the same derailment in which “La Tirones” met her death; “Lady Catastrophe,” the dean; “The Presumptuous One,” who moved around a lot, particularly on flat ground; “The Misanthrope,” to whom we gave this epithet because of his extremely limited inclination to speak; and me. They all live in my memory, and I can’t recall them without emotion. They were my childhood, and at their side, fortified by them—they were all older than me—I faced my first risks. How much experience–which is “first-class” wisdom–I accumulated during my long exoduses!… How I learned to know life and to break it down!… I have been a mobile inn for soldiers, priests, nuns, comedians, students, bullfighters, ministers, thieves, lovers, lazy rich people, and jaded people fleeing from themselves…; and they lived with me for so long, so often I was touched by the breath of their misfortunes and their desires, that now envy, ambition, betrayal, avarice, hypocrisy, dissimulation… all that poisonous bunch of vipers that slumber in the depths of the human soul are familiar to me and… why deny it?… they are almost mine too. Furthermore, in that “speed,” in that perpetual restlessness, the crowning feature of my moral architecture, there is much anxiety, impatience, fear, fury… I wouldn’t be surprised, then, if my readers sometimes forgot that it’s a wagon that’s speaking: because my confessions are so human, so many juices of evil and pain coursing through them, that they seem the work of man. Chapter 4. How much struggle and the fear of dying age us! The emotions that danger gives us, how deeply they pierce the soul!… When I embarked on my first journey, I was a child, and upon arriving in Madrid, fourteen hours later, I could consider myself of age. I was tired, covered in smoke and dust, tragically dirty inside and out, but proud of my endurance. All night my wheels worked without overheating, and my dynamo, my heating, and my cleaning pipes worked well. Therefore, my courage, like that of the soldiers who went on campaign, was “proven”; what another wagon I could do it myself. My personality, congested with pride , had risen to its feet. The caboose was still running under the awning of the Irún station when The Shy Guy, who was behind me, began to tremble. His fear unsettled me. “Is something wrong?” I asked him. “The tunnels,” he stammered, “they’re already starting… horrible!… I can’t handle them…”
I fell silent: I didn’t know what tunnels were, or what bridges were… Besides, I couldn’t think: the locomotive was accelerating its speed and I was putting all my attention into driving smoothly. I heard it whistle; between the ever-higher cliffs that lined the road, its scream rattled deafeningly. I inquired: “Why is La Recelosa whistling?” The Shy One repeated: “The tunnels… the tunnels… Pretend you’re dead and they’re burying you!” I couldn’t hear his last words, because suddenly I saw, beneath my wheels, a void, full of clarity. I felt myself in the air; I seemed to be flying…; however, there the roar of the express was louder. “We’re over the Oyarzun!” shouted a sleeping man. Almost at the same time, that strange clarity, coming from below, and the other clarity, that of twilight, instantly faded. A horrible darkness enveloped us; the noise was deafening; the smoke from the engine enveloped us, and we felt it sliding over our roofs, swirling, sticky, and hot. Suddenly, as if by magic , the roar calmed, the refreshing breath of fresh air, the joy of the sky beginning to shatter… “You know what a tunnel is!” the sleeping man next to me told me , amused by my innocence. Brother Sommier was mistaken: I still didn’t know what a tunnel was; I had entered it so unexpectedly and walked through it in such a dazed state that “I didn’t see it”; my troubled conscience couldn’t grasp the impression. The image of the bridge didn’t reappear clearly in my mind either. Preoccupied with everything that was happening inside me, the Pasajes and San Sebastián stations escaped me unnoticed. In the ten kilometers that separate Tolosa from Beasaín, we went through four tunnels and crossed the Oria fifteen times. But I remained half- conscious: our progress was too rapid; the sensations, all strong and new, followed one another and, accumulating, blurred. My very eagerness to understand prevented me from understanding. I could barely see, I could barely hear. Added to this, the fear of going off the rails occupied my entire mind: I was like that of bad riders, who, hampered by the reins and the stirrups, and fearful of being thrown to the ground by their mount, pay no attention to the scenery. It wasn’t until beyond Miranda de Ebro that I began to calm down. Unfortunately, with calm came fear. We often call blindness heroism, and fear a greater understanding. And I was beginning to understand! Crossing a bridge was like throwing the three hundred tons our convoy weighed onto two iron bands ; skirting an abyss, trusting ourselves to the slippery and felonious grace of a curve, was risking a fall. Crossing a tunnel was like shouldering a mountain. On bridges, the express train, whose shadow trembled far below, on the glass of a river or the arid oak forest of a hollow, had something of a bird about it; and, when it burrowed underground, something of a reptile: beneath the earth, where everything is black, oozing, and damp, it seemed like a worm; and on viaducts, where everything is light, air, and freedom, it seemed like an arrow. In the horror of the tunnels, one pities the miners; in the joy of the bridges, one envies the birds… Already in Castile, at the time of the full moon—it was close to midnight— tranquility returned to me. With its enormous, echo-free horizon, the Iberian plateau invites contemplation. Across it, the trains run silently, the smoke disappears, and the august repose of the plain saturates souls with equilibrium. When I left Medina del Campo, where an employee, armed with a lantern, examined me and oiled the wheels, I felt fine. I had traveled, almost without stopping, more than four hundred kilometers, and yet, I was tired. The sleeping man was interested in me; I appreciated it in the help he gave me, more than once, during difficult moments along the way. “How are you doing, kid?” he inquired. “Fine. ” “Does your body hurt? ” “No. ” “You’re tough, kid, because La Tirones, which pulls us from Miranda, is very rough on the uptake.” I hadn’t realized that in Miranda de Ebro La Recelosa had been replaced by La Tirones, which was lighter and had a faster speed. Brother Sommier informed me that this change was mandatory, and that in Avila we would change engines again. “From Avila to Madrid,” he added, “La Caliente will take us, which, like La Recelosa, belongs to the “four thousand series.” It’s one of the Company’s highest-powered locomotives .” We were approaching the Ataquines station, the last town in the province of Valladolid. El Tímido intervened in the conversation; He was jovial: “As soon as we pass Burgos,” he exclaimed, “it makes no difference to me which machine to which. I adore Castile; I adore this noble and frank land—land without deceit—where one walks in a straight line; in Castile you see danger coming, and you can avoid it. But in mountainous countries, death strikes you treacherously: the mountain is dissimulation, the ambush… And I’m not the only one who thinks this way: just ask El Presumido, who’s coming up behind, and who, as soon as we pass the three tunnels of La Brújula and cross the Arlanzón, begins to sway more than a singer. El Tímido and I became fraternal comrades. He also came from the workshops of Saint Denis, and although he had been in Spain for more than twenty years , he longed for France, where there are hardly any tunnels. It had been repaired and varnished several times, until the weather and smoke painted it black for good. Our companions thought he was neurasthenic, but it wasn’t neurasthenia but rheumatism that afflicted him, and hence his fear of traveling underground . I loved him very much; he had a spring in his step and never slowed down on the uphill slopes. Once past Avila, the relic of nine gates and ninety- six towers, El Tímido spoke to me with evident terror about the Lagartera viaduct , which was followed by three tunnels, the last of which, called the Navalgrande, was over a thousand meters long. According to my correspondent, it was a dangerous passage. He said so much that he managed to worry me. “Shut up!” I begged him; “what good will it do to scare me?” He ignored me: like all those who are apprehensive, he found pleasure in transmitting his fear. “You have to see it,” he repeated, “you have to see it; one day that damned thing will swallow us all.” It was beginning to get light. Without knowing why, my companion’s omens filled me with terror. What if his prediction came true? I felt broken, condemned to eternal decay and eternal shadow, beneath the enormous mountain, and I wanted to flee. I jerked my foot, trying to tear myself away from the rails. “What are you doing?” the sleeping people murmured sulkily. Without responding, I made a second effort; I preferred to derail than to continue. We were about to launch ourselves onto the viaduct, and La Caliente began to whistle; then she slammed on the brakes, and my wheels skidded. I had a new burst of rebellion, however. “What are you doing, boy?” the sleeping person repeated. And El Tímido: “Go on, go on… In this line of work, you obey or you die. Go on!” A sleeping person pulled me; El Tímido pushed me; La Caliente had just taken away my willpower. Furious, convulsive, dragged by the invincible imperative of inertia, I crossed the viaduct; but upon glimpsing the mouth of the first tunnel, I began—I can’t explain how—a retreating gesture that spread uncomfortably to the entire convoy. Thanks to my rebellion, there was a stormy clash of speed bumps. Behind and in front of me, a murmur of distrust and anger arose: the mail coach, the vans, The Sommier Brothers, The Bashful One, The Show-Off, Lady Catastrophe, all grumbled. Even The Misanthrope protested: “What’s going on? Who’s stopping?” Thus, driven, bruised, defenseless, I sank into the Navalgrande tunnel, and when I emerged from it, a joy that instantly resolved in resignation and obedience, it possessed me. I was ashamed of my cowardice. “I will never rebel again,” I decided. Reinvigorated by this noble determination, I launched myself through the Port of Avila, reached the heights of Herradón, and at exactly seven in the morning I arrived in Madrid. While our passengers left, and the platform porters unloaded our vans, the Sommier Brothers questioned me: “How are you feeling?” “Fine,” I replied. The entire convoy was worried about me. “Are you tired? ” “No. ” “Nothing hurts? ” “Nothing. ” And it was true! My health was perfect. Not a single screw had moved in my athletic frame. My companions watched me, admired me. “I propose,” said a sleeping man, “that we call this handsome young man El Cabal.” Everyone nodded; And so, without further ceremony, I was baptized. The unity of effort and the shared destiny of the carriages are striking; but, undoubtedly, the best part of the journey, despite its tiring rattling, is the journey itself, and the most beloved part, its beginning. That “first station” holds for me an inexpressibly disturbing interest . How I remember it!… It’s nighttime: a cold sting sweeps the polished asphalt of the platform; some travelers rush with their luggage, others chat in small groups in front of my open doors. Two Civil Guards pass by under their patent leather hats; an old man pushes a cart with pillows that evoke sensations of fatigue and sleep, and a lantern on which the word “Telegraphs” can be read brings to mind the fear of bad news. Then come the two-colored mail sacks : there go the newspapers, disseminators of current events, and the letters, with their palpitations of love or ambition, which the train will later drop off at the transit stations as if distributing handshakes. I observe: the anguish of so many hearts attracts me; all faces are moved, eyes shine with tenderness, melancholy seems to harden all mouths: it is the most pathetic moment of journeys that, separating men, parody death. Upon leaving the departure station, the express train stretches sullenly: we always hear some creaking wood, some numb hinge protesting. But, soon, all their movements begin to harmonize: without realizing it, the vehicles establish a rhythm so cadenced, so harmonious, that sometimes it modulates a song; the light on the left of the rear van encourages us; it seems to say: “Let’s all go.” The wheels quickly warm up and fall silent, and the entire convoy vibrates with that adventurous joy—an instinctive desire to move—that I would call “the pleasure of leaving.” Readers with sedentary habits may not appreciate these ramblings of mine, and I assure you I will do nothing to make them understand me, for I would fail; for, after all, one is born a wanderer as one is born an artist: but vagabonds, my brothers, will understand me, and their adherence is enough. In its evolution, my soul has followed the same trajectory as the soul of children. Like them, I was first interested in landscapes, which filled my memory with simple images and whose rudimentary psychology immediately impressed me: however dull and distracted my powers as an observer, I could not confuse the yellowish desolation—the pallor of drama—of Castile with the green joy of the Basque region. Later, my investigative curiosity was directed toward individuals. I have seen in those small stations where the express trains pass without stopping, surprising rustic faces, representative faces, synthesized faces that summarized the entire history of a region. Those faces, those silhouettes, foams of centuries, pierced my soul and I will remember them for as long as I live. I declare, however, that the study of the landscape is also laborious and difficult, and that my knowledge of the Hispanic provinces, although limited to the very little that can be seen from a railroad track, involves many years of work. The men—mostly frivolous and fatuous people—rarely go beyond the surface of things. I’ve learned this from listening to my guests chat. Those who, simply because they lived in Buenos Aires, speak of America, of all of America, as if “all of America” were Buenos Aires; those who, having learned three hundred English words, say: “I know English”; and the tourist who, for the second time, travels to Madrid from Hendaye, doesn’t approach the windows because “he already knows the way”… Such petulance is exasperating. For nine or ten years—I said it before— I have traveled that route, and I am still not certain that I know it completely. In people, what impresses us most quickly are their features; the analysis of their souls will begin later. Of landscapes, on the other hand, what first captivates us is the general outline, the broad lines: the mountain, the plain, the sea… The glimpse of the details—the details are the bridge, the tunnel, the hamlet that will suddenly turn white behind a hill—comes later. When will men recognize the mystery of exegesis that lies in everything? A happy memory can easily assimilate the details of an itinerary. Anyone remembers, for example, that coming from Irún, the exit of a tunnel reveals the blue bay of Pasajes; that beyond San Sebastián lies Hernani, birthplace of the soldier Juan de Urbieta, and that the famous Pancorbo Gorge is one of the most beautiful rugged corners in the world. We will recognize, from far away, the towers of Burgos Cathedral ; and the profiles of Dueñas, the sad one, despite the lushness of its surroundings; and the bustling bustle of travelers that enlivens the platforms of Miranda de Ebro, Venta de Baños, and Medina del Campo; and the story of the Castillo de la Mota, where Cesare Borgia was imprisoned and Isabella the Catholic ended her days; and how, even before reaching Pozuelo, the silhouette—forming the horizon—of Madrid will appear before us. Many thousands of people know all this; the Guidebooks tell us so… The arduous and meritorious thing is to approach the soul of things, for which we will need to scrutinize them countless times, since “once” can only reveal “one aspect” of the thing studied. Within each landscape, the least scrupulous investigation will surprise three… four… eight dissimilar landscapes: depending on where we stand, whether it is day or night, winter or summer; depending on whether we find it drenched in rain or bathed in sunshine, the panorama will be different. Furthermore, we will have to surprise him in analogous circumstances of time and light, and our impressions will not be faithfully reproduced either, because the observer’s states of mind are never the same. See, then, how far we live from everything. Since experience granted me greater mental distinction, it was humanity that attracted me. I began my examination with the “personnel” of the express trains: the engineer, the fireman, the train manager, who rides in the front car and is responsible for any accidents; the direct supervisor, whose position is the rear car; the route supervisors; and the inspector. When I believed I knew them well, I applied myself to the scrutiny and classification of the travelers. Thus I formed my soul. I received much from my authors, from those who made me; the primitive subsoil of my conscience is theirs; but I owe infinitely more to certain individuals who traveled with me. Ordinary people, like ordinary books, teach nothing, and, as their image fades from our minds, their memory disappears from our minds. But I will always remember others, and the fire of their violent souls still gnaws at me. I have even been infected by the “gold fever” of the great loan sharks I have transported from one city to another; and I have known the sleepless restlessness of a certain cashier who was escaping to France with half a million pesetas stolen from a bank, and who, upon being arrested in Hendaye, committed suicide and stained one of my stirrups with his blood. And I have carnally vibrated with some lovers who, in the wee hours of the morning, when all my tenants were asleep, made their compartment a bridal chamber; and I have also trembled with pain with the despair of a jealous man who took me to Oviedo to go kill a woman who had deceived him. How that man suffered! He went alone, and this circumstance allowed me to get closer to his grief. At times he shed copious tears, and his anguish was so intense that it seemed to choke him; at other times he bit his hands and clutched his face; at times he remained motionless, and in the darkness his eyes, terribly bulging, his eyes that seemed to be gazing at a corpse, were phosphorescent… Social life has covered humanity with monotony and boredom. Ah! But I assure you that men are extremely interesting when they believe themselves alone. Solitude clothes them in light. No masterful book is worth more than a naked soul. Chapter 5. I hardly feel the boredom of long walks, which my companions often complain about, and it is the care I take to always keep my attention occupied that frees me from it. When I tire of looking outward at the landscape, I isolate myself to get to know myself and hear what’s going on inside me. Life certainly offers solemn hours, tragic moments of the first order, but, in general, it seems highly comical to me; the triviality of the farce had to correspond to the smallness of the figures, and it couldn’t be otherwise. All this amuses me. Sometimes, if I could laugh at what I observe, I would do so out loud. My own self is imbued with comedy. This hilarious force of mine comes not from my constitution—I have all the seriousness of a royal youth—but from the analogy that men planted in me. Let me explain: Every night, as I left Madrid or Irún, an employee hung metal signs over the doors of my compartments that read: “No Smoking” and “Ladies Reserved.” When the number of passengers was low, the attendant would often add a third sign, with this single mysterious word: “For Rent.” In the early days of my life, I, innocently, attached great importance to these details. I was certainly very glad to have a no-smoking area with me, because the cigarette smoke clung to my upholstery and bothered me almost as much as the smoke from the machine. I was also pleased with the ladies-only section, as women don’t spit and are generally cleaner and more delicate than men. As
for the “For Rent,” it filled me with a romantic disquietude. Who would be traveling there? A king? A fugitive millionaire? A thief? A sick person? Little by little, and gracefully, these beautiful imaginings began to crumble. One winter night, I picked up a gentleman of extremely distinguished bearing on the Briviesca platform . He was wrapped in a brand-new fur coat and carrying a small satchel. This last detail furthered my sympathy; I detest those stingy travelers who, to avoid paying excess baggage, burden my nets with blankets, hat boxes, and extremely heavy suitcases. That gentleman, after looking around , entered the empty “Non-Smoking” compartment and closed the door. Then he drew the curtains and dimmed the light a little. His bearded, aquiline face expressed deep satisfaction. “He likes to travel alone and seeks to isolate himself,” I mused; “I can clearly see the refinement in him!… What was my surprise when I saw him open his satchel, take out a quarter-sized “London,” and light it!… Undoubtedly, that gentleman was suffering from something wrong. If I had been able to, I would have shouted to him: “Sir, you’re in the wrong position: you can’t smoke there!” The journey continued monotonously. My guests were asleep, or trying to sleep. I was running with all my lights off. The frost had silvered my windows, and my roof felt the weight of the snow. It was terribly cold. Fortunately, with La Recelosa, the heating worked well. However , Lady Catastrophe, who was rolling behind me, was complaining: “I’m freezing,” she moaned; “I still haven’t managed to warm up my wheels . ” In Burgos, I picked up two more travelers, also on the main road. I watched them wander down the corridor, hesitant under the hostile impression of the closed little doors. “We can go in here,” one of them suggested; “there’s no one there. ” He was referring to the “Ladies’ Reserved.” I shuddered; I felt disobeyed, and the outrage stirred my anger. The other replied: “Not there; a traveler might come in and… Listen: this “No Smoking” sign must be empty. ” I thought: “I’m glad! Because then the man in the overcoat will have to give up his tobacco.” They opened the door and advanced, almost groping, in the darkness. Then the gentleman in the fur coat, who was still smoking, revived the light. The three men greeted each other: “Good night.” The newcomers began to unfold their blankets; they placed their pillows in the places they deemed best; they were sleepy. There was a long silence, during which everyone looked at each other out of the corner of their eyes. “The gentleman in the overcoat” thought that good manners required him to say: “If the smoke bothers you, I’ll stop smoking.” I was stunned to hear the other people reply: “No way! We’re smokers too. ” They smiled at each other; they recognized each other; the vice they shared made them brothers. The gentleman in the overcoat, with the aquiline, bearded face, continued: “Whenever I travel at night, I choose the “No Smoking” section so I can lie down and sleep, because in Spain, this prohibition scares away the public. ” His listeners burst out laughing, and each lit a fig. “We’re making the same calculation!” exclaimed the oldest. And you see how wrong we all are !… In Spain, what is forbidden is an ornament we hang on certain actions to make them sweeter… “In Italy,” commented the gentleman with the bearded, aquiline face, “it is ‘vietato fumare’ even in cemeteries—whose poor guests, it seems, no harm could be done—and on trains, the ‘fumatori’ are forced to close the door of their apartments so that the smoke doesn’t reach the corridor. This gives an idea of ​​the poor quality of Italian tobacco: ours is different!… Besides, our women—and this is decisive—like smokers…” Minutes later, the inspector appeared: precisely when he arrived, the smoke was so thick it could be chewed. In the light of my two lights, the air appeared blue. One of the passengers, while his ticket was being punched, asked mockingly: “Can we continue smoking?” The inspector smiled and accepted the offered tobacco: “As long as it doesn’t hurt you.” As he left, he closed the door again and took down the “No Smoking” sign, which he slipped into one of his pockets. He was an understanding man ; a man who “took charge.” I was astonished and furious, but then, faced with such incongruity, I finally burst out laughing. The “Ladies’ Reserved” also gave me another disappointment. A tall young woman had climbed into this department in Madrid whose beauty—and perhaps more than her beauty, her provocative elegance— strongly attracted the attention of men. As I mounted my stirrups, I discovered, perhaps intentionally, an impeccable leg, dressed in silk; a rare, distinguished, and strong perfume followed her like a sensual trail. She was going to Hendaye; she was French. Barely had the convoy set off when a waiter from the dining car began to walk around the train, informing the public that “the first table was about to begin.” As soon as my hostess heard the announcement, she put down the novel she was reading and, with an easy, springy gait, headed for the dining room. On more than one occasion, the Sommier Brothers, whose experience in romantic affairs was unquestioned, had assured me that the dining car, with its opportunities for flirtation and the intoxication of its liquors, was an exceptional snitch, a unique master in the pious art of rigging wills. “Five percent of the temporary couples who occupy our beds,” they said, “met in it. As I learned later, “in the carriages we tell each other everything,” the protagonist In the episode I’m narrating, she happened to sit at one of the little tables labeled “for two,” opposite an arrogant, blond, young man dressed in a tracksuit. He looked like a Yankee, and had that calm, yet energetic, and sweet face of a great film actor. The two must have gotten along quickly and deeply, because after dinner, he accompanied her to her apartment. They immediately said goodbye, exchanging a few words that no one could hear except me, who—as I explained elsewhere—can see and hear through every pore. “Just past Segovia,” she murmured, “you can come…” Moments later, Doña Catastrophe, malicious and expert, said to me: “Hey, Cabal, is a blonde, very well-perfumed French lady traveling with you ? ” “Yes; she just came back from the dining room. ” “The same one!” Did you notice that she was accompanied by a hunky American with the build of a boxer? My affirmative response delighted Lady Catastrophe. “Bravo!” she exclaimed jovially. “I’ll bet you a bet he’ll be there tonight , visiting. Let me know!” Indeed, beyond Ontanares, the blond young man reappeared. Seeing my deserted passage, his eyes brightened and dazzled. With an indifferent and composed air, he arrived at the door where Adventure awaited him. “Come in…” a voice whispered from inside. I admired his youth, his healthy beauty; I also admired his fortune. “A man like him,” I thought, playing with the phrase, “is always a ‘ladies’ reserve’…” This entanglement and many others of a similar nature have assured me that the ‘Ladies’ Reserve’ is the least suitable place for a woman to travel alone. As for the “Rented Room,” I’ll say that it’s usually a compartment the inspectors try to keep empty so that, after the ticket confiscation is over, they can go to sleep peacefully. And what can I say about my dressing room, or toilet room, except that it is, of all my quarters, the dirtiest?… As far as cleanliness is concerned, I divide travelers into three categories: those who primp, polish, and scrub themselves, as if they were in a bathhouse; those who simply wet their faces lightly and soap their hands; and those who don’t even remember to wash. Of the first group, there is one—almost always a man—who, as soon as day breaks, leaves his apartment armed with all kinds of toiletries and locks himself—or rather, barricades himself—in the dressing room. He goes, as usual, prepared to wash scrupulously, shave, change his tie and underwear , and polish his nails. Moments later, another passenger, animated by the same intentions and armed with a toiletry bag, leaves his seat, goes to the water closet, and upon realizing it is occupied, decides to wait. He thinks: “I have the one.” And this consideration relieves him. Soon a third traveler appears, then another, then two more… and all, with the same self- conscious air, approach the small door of the water closet, struggle for a moment with the lock, murmur a mechanical “It’s occupied,” and docilely go to take their number in the line of those waiting. They all carry something in their hands: this one a comb, that one a towel, that one a bar of soap; someone carries a newspaper… and the need that torments each one casts a comical affliction on their still sleepy faces. Ten, fifteen minutes pass; “the queue” is beginning to grow impatient. A voice asks: “But hasn’t anyone left yet?” And the comments, of dubious taste, begin: “Whoever’s inside must have died. I’ve been waiting for a quarter of an hour and I’m “the fifth”… “Who knows if it’s some lady who’s locked herself in there to give birth !” The gentleman at the head of the queue is amused by the general bad mood; he doesn’t care that there are many discontents: he’s always “the one”… Five more minutes pass; someone talks about going in search of the security guard to unravel the mystery, which is beginning to resemble a soap opera. from the _Water Closet_. Suddenly, the door—oh!—of the dressing room opens, and a young man appears, looking at his successors unhappily, as if reproaching them for the haste they have been forced to make on his account. Everyone looks at him out of the corner of their eyes with envy, with hatred. That young gentleman is perfectly combed, clean, and is using a handkerchief he has just unfolded to remove the powder with which he had dried his face after shaving. Behind him, a strong scent of Cologne lingers, like a gust of spring, in the dense atmosphere—the atmosphere of a bedroom—of the corridor. Chapter 6. Travelers frequently speak among themselves of “the amusement they had at the theater.” I do not know exactly what a theater is, nor will I ever know: but from everything I have heard, I gather that I have no need of one, for I myself am “a theater.” Because all social life is farce, and wherever there are two men, or a man and a woman, or two women, there will be a stage. It was mid-September; the summer had been rainy and cool, and the dispersion of bathers began early. In San Sebastián, the playwright Ricardo Méndez Castillo and a then-very famous singer called Conchita “the Witch” had boarded me . They had been living together for some time; I knew them from having driven them on several occasions, and both she, for being gracious and pretty, and he, for being witty and devilish, were very pleasant to me. I saw them almost every year several times; either in Madrid, or in Medina del Campo, waiting for a train, or in Venta de Baños, when they were going to Galicia, or in Miranda, because their theatrical duties required them to travel a lot. When they boarded my convoy, before settling in they would walk around all the cars, looking for a place they liked, and eventually they would stay with me. Why? Did they recognize me?… No, surely. It was because, without them realizing it, I magnetically attracted them. Men often say: “I have the habit of going to such and such a place.” And they believe that habit is a subconscious inclination of their spirit that, arbitrarily, leads them to perform certain acts. There is no such thing: habit is not born in man; habit is an action that comes to him from outside; it is the captivation exerted on him by objects—walls, furniture, trees—among which he lived for a few hours and to which he found himself sympathetic. A habit—gentlemen psychologists—is nothing more than the sympathy that man leaves with things… So it happened that, as always, stealthily summoned by me, Ricardo Méndez Castillo and Conchita “the Witch” took up residence within me. Following them into the same compartment were a rather pretty, modestly dressed girl and a young man whose thick black hair, a scarf , and a corduroy suit with bellows pockets gave him the classic profile of a Montmartre artist. Barely seated, they began to chat excitedly in French: happy to be together, they laughed, whispered in each other’s ears, shook hands… Conchita “the Witch,” who, like all single women, attached great importance to marriage, wanted to know the playwright’s opinion: “Do you believe them,” she asked, “husband and wife?” Without hesitation, Ricardo replied, “I don’t think so.” Despite this categorical affirmation, she hesitated; in her childish mind, simple clothing and marriage were similar ideas. For Conchita “the Witch,” being married or being virtuous was like going without a corset… With this curiosity, which obsessed her without reason, the singer never took her dark eyes off her traveling companions. She noticed that they were of the same age: this discovery and her inclination—very common among disqualified women—to believe that love does not exist outside of legality, encouraged her to say: “Well… I assure you that this girl is married. ” “If she is,” interrupted Ricardo, who was in no mood to chat, “she’s with someone else. ” Conchita “the Witch” laughed. When she and Méndez Castillo returned from dinner, they found that there was no other man in their compartment. less light than the very meager light coming from the traffic. The other couple hadn’t gone to the dining car: perhaps because they were short on money; perhaps because they were avoiding being seen. Conchita and Ricardo stretched out on the seat, close to each other, ready to sleep. Meanwhile, the gentleman in the velvet “completo” and his companion, sleepless, were making out. To be closer together, she, tilting her body slightly, placed both legs on his knees. Believing Ricardo and Conchita to be asleep, they kissed voraciously; they exchanged more kisses than words. Conchita “the Witch” watched them through the latticework woven between her half-closed eyelids by her ebony eyelashes. It seemed to her that those spied on, despite the fervent affection they showed each other, were arguing about something: he was proposing, begging, insisting. She, whose pupils had a sensual glow, refused. He persisted with overwhelming tenacity : “Yes, yes… Just a moment!… Yes…” And she: “I dare not; be quiet… Calm down…” They talked, swallowing each other’s breaths, barely moving their lips, as if in ecstasy. At dawn, he went out into the traffic, reached an empty apartment; he came back: his eyes flashed felinely. “Come,” he murmured from the doorway. She made a negative gesture, laced with anguish. It was clear that her resolve to resist was fading. He continued, in an imperceptible voice, almost breathing: “Don’t be afraid… there’s no one there…” And she: “I dare not…” Her hands were cold, and she was so agitated that I could feel her trembling in her seat. He begged tirelessly, his voice cloudy: “Come… come…” The summoned woman, livid, her lips parted, refused with her head, and the darkness infused her face with a mystical, strong, almost dramatic beauty; a beautiful, hallucinatory, ghostly expression. Although exhausted by desire, he was still able to stammer: “Come… Juliet… in the name of how we have loved each other!… Juliet… ” These words were victorious. The woman stood up, on tiptoe, and went out into the corridor. Arm in arm, they left. Méndez Castillo, who had heard the entire conversation in his sleep, sat up: “Thank God!” he exclaimed, half-joyful and half-humored, “that the young man in the scarf carried out his request: that way, when they return, they will have nothing to talk about and they will leave us alone.” With a whip, he woke Conchita “the Witch,” who was sleeping: “See?…” She opened her eyes, frightened, searching for the missing people: “Have they left?” “Yes,” replied the playwright, “but they will return. Are you convinced now that they love each other too much to be married?” The next morning, upon arriving at El Escorial, the young man in the corduroy suit and with the long hair said goodbye to his companion with a somewhat ceremonial hug and kiss, greeted Méndez Castillo and Conchita, taking off his hat, and went down to the platform. Concha, always curious, who had leaned out of a window to examine him better, was amazed to see him get into the car behind me. The singer hurried to tell Ricardo about her discovery. She had had a revelation. “He said goodbye to her and to us,” he said, “to throw us off the scent: but he’s still there behind him.” “Now I’m convinced they’re not married!” he replied, “I imagine the play isn’t over yet: I can guess one last scene. Conchita “the Witch” was deeply interested, and I was as interested as she was, or even more so… When we arrived in Madrid, among the many people waiting for the express, Méndez Castillo immediately spotted, almost in front of me and with the expectant face of a man waiting, searching, the sculptor Pedro Guisola, whom I also knew from having taken him to Vitoria once. The playwright, with youthful agility, leaped onto the platform; the two artists embraced; an old and fraternal friendship existed between them. “Pedro!” “Dear Ricardo!” “Where are you from? ” “From San Sebastián, with Conchita. What are you doing here?” “I’m waiting for my wife.” Pedro Guisola courteously stepped forward to shake the hand, laden with gems, that Concha “the Witch” was extending to him from one of my windows. Behind the singer, Julieta, rigid and livid, smiled at the sculptor with an indefinable, icy grimace… “But… what’s this?” exclaimed Guisola; “Oh, what a coincidence!” The young woman nodded. Ricardo and Conchita “the Witch” quickly looked at each other: her eyes held a smile; his, who was sentimental and loved his friend, held a tear. “But you made the trip with my wife!” concluded the sculptor. Pedro Guisola offered Concha a hand to help her down my stirrups. He took Julieta in his arms, and while he kissed her, he repeated: “What a coincidence! The two people you traveled with are like brothers to me. What a coincidence! But how could you not recognize Ricardo? A famous writer, whose portrait is everywhere!” With a certain flair—that man was a bit theatrical all his life—he proceeded to introduce his friends. He showed himself to be ceremonious: “The famous playwright Méndez Castillo…” Ricardo bowed. “The very famous Conchita “the Witch”… And I’ll say no more, because her name, made of applause and light, needs no praise.” And he added gravely: “My lady… ” Concha and Julieta exchanged a handshake in which, more than a greeting, there was a complicity. Julieta understood: the singer would never tell what she had seen. Everyone was laughing; everyone seemed delighted to meet each other. But the only one who was happy and laughing from the heart at that moment was Pedro Guisola. Chapter 7. It will soon be six years since I have been traveling the Madrid-Hendaye route almost daily , and despite still being a teenager, I have greatly corrected that picturesque concept of life that I formed at the beginning of my career . Of course, feeling myself inflexibly placed between a wagon that pushes me—and which, in turn, is pushed—and another wagon that drags me—because it too is being dragged—I have lost the beautiful faith I had in free will. Beautiful and deceptive chimera!… Whoever, for the first time, spoke of you, did they not understand that everything is linked? Didn’t he see that man, the caterpillar, the star, are links in a chain, units of the universal convoy?… I am convinced that all beings, both those with sedentary habits and those with erratic existences, live the same life, more or less: because traveling is not only about moving physically, but also about aspiring, dreaming, since more than our body, it is our soul that wanders; from which it follows that many beings, without moving from their place, wander everywhere, as astronomers and artists find it; and others, even while in perpetual motion, barely move at all, because they come and go with the lamps of their understanding turned off. Which demonstrates, once again, that nothing remains outside of us, or very little remains. My youth, however, prevails over the monorhythm of sensations: I am still interested in records that warn of the dangerous contingency of stations and crossings; in the different ways locomotives whistle ; the grace with which the railway contours the mountains; the feverish urge to run, to arrive, that the plain inspires in us; for us, a straight road is like a stab delivered to the horizon: and, above all this, the hallucinatory poetry, the serialized bewitchment , of the fog–the divine muse of closed eyes–that on land, as on the sea, every two steps raises before us the anguish of indecision… I continue to serve La Caliente, La Tirones, and La Recelosa; I love them, and my comrades as much or more than I do. They show themselves to be strong, selfless, hardworking; without them, we would be worth very little: we lack initiative, decisiveness: for the same reason, when at some station in transit the locomotive leaves us to go on some maneuver, the convoy, alone and without a guide, experiences the emotion of The isolation of a woman abandoned by her lover on the road. “I,” Doña Catástrofe often tells me, “need to know that we have a machine; to “feel it”; its name doesn’t matter to me. I’m like those widows who, just so they won’t be alone, marry anyone. Doña Catástrofe and El Misántropo are the scholars of the Company: through them I learned the royal adventures that made the island of Los Faisanes famous; and that Legazpi, the conqueror of the Philippine archipelago, was born in Zumárraga; and that Arévalo and Olmedo were, in the medieval centuries, “the keys to Castile.” The conversations of El Presumido, who, despite his age, had elevated the way of telling anecdotes to the category of art, had a captivating picturesque interest. El Presumido was one of the first “racing” cars that arrived in Spain. “If only you had known those times!” he would say. The locomotives moved at a donkey’s pace, and the trains derailed or crashed every twenty-four hours. I was despairing. On one occasion, a minister—or senator—I don’t remember exactly, whom all his friends affectionately called “Don José” traveled with me. We left Madrid, and shortly before reaching Segovia, Don José, who was smoking while leaning out of a window, greeted a gentleman—who I later learned managed several of his estates—and who had come to wait for him on horseback at a level crossing. The rider responded to the nobleman’s greeting, doffing his hat with a courteous bow, and then adjusted his mount’s gait to match the train’s progress. “How are the crops coming along?” Don José inquired. His reporter would reply: “It’s a joy to see them: if it keeps raining just enough, as it has been up to now, we’ll have a good harvest.” “And the locusts?” “They haven’t shown up yet, God willing…” They continued in this way for half an hour, one asking and the other answering, until, exhausted in conversation, the rustic exclaimed: “Well, Don José, give me permission to go, because night is falling and I’m in a hurry.” And taking off his hat and spurring his horse, he went ahead. He also told us that there are no beggars in Dueñas, because in the old city where Isabella the Catholic and Ferdinand of Aragon met for the first time, there is a tradition that no one, who is not the owner of a donkey, can marry… With these and other stories of cheerful humor, El Presumido–a notorious liar–used to sweeten the monotony of the road for us. In general, our job is boring because the people who come and go with us are; Our tedium is an exact reflection of theirs; our boredom is made up of their yawns. Let’s compare an empty carriage to a brain: in that case, I consider each person who enters me to be an idea; and the series of people I welcome on each journey, from the starting station to the terminal station, like reading a book full of types, full of ideas… But, I insist: if all these ideas are gray, are vulgar, what has my spirit achieved with them if not to become gray and impregnated with vulgarity? Fortunately—albeit very rarely—the little devils of the Tragic or the Grotesque come out onto the road, and with a few drops of the tasty liquor of the Unexpected, they encourage us to believe that originality has not left the world. That night we left Madrid under a terrible snowfall. In Avila, it was snowing even more heavily; the Sierra of that name, the Malagón, and the Paramera, had lost their outlines and resembled an immense plain. A new silence, the profound silence of the mountain ranges, surrounded us. We were running late, despite having “four-wheel drive.” At La Cañada, which marks the highest point of the line, La Caliente had skidded like never before, and the cold was so intense that the red light on the caboose went out twice. Lady Catastrophe muttered curses behind me. We were all silent, numb, and this weakness dictated gloomy thoughts. In Avila, La Caliente—which had barely lived up to its name— left, and the convoy was left alone. On a side track, I saw a pilot engine. that—I can’t explain why I forgot—had been left out in the open. Her appearance saddened me: dull, defenseless, in the middle of the snow, she seemed to me like an old heart frozen by age in the incalculably cold snows of experience and memories. “Someday,” I thought, ” I’ll be like that.” And I sighed. It’s curious! Often our love for our neighbor is nothing more than an anticipated compassion for ourselves… La Tirones was taking a while; according to what I heard some men say, she didn’t yet have the necessary pressure due to the temperature, which was too low. Lady Catastrophe grumbled. “Since that one’s been taking so long to come,” she alluded to the engine, “I’m going to be frozen. ” Finally, La Tirones hooked up with us, and, about an hour late, we set off. The locomotive was skidding and seemed to be braking worse than ever. “This damn thing,” I mused, “is going to give us a bad time tonight.” Every now and then, for no apparent reason, he would speed up or slow down, causing the cars to bump into each other roughly. “La Tirones has had a drink and is drunk,” El Presumido would say. “Slander!” Little by little, he calmed down, and our pace returned to normal. Seen from a bird’s-eye view, the train, with its white roofs, must have looked like an enormous snake crawling under the snow. We were running well. From Avila to Sanchidrián, we gained four minutes. The terrain was calming down, and when we spotted the fortress of Arévalo, made famous by the cruelty of Don Pedro de Castilla, we felt that La Tirones, until then unsafe, had just taken control of the train. A tranquility that soon turned into sleep and torpor invaded us. For a long time, we all ran rhythmically, silent, half-asleep… Beyond Viana, minutes before crossing the Duero, the locomotive began to whistle in a way that woke us all up: it whistled, without interruption, with those short whistles that signal imminent danger. “What’s going on?” we asked each other. The fact that there was a double track removed our fear of a collision. Nevertheless, something unusual must be happening. The road was almost straight, and the tender, loaded with coal, prevented us from seeing ahead. Our anxiety grew; despite the intense cold, some terrified passengers leaned out of their windows. Everyone asked themselves: “Why is the engine screaming like that?” The tender told the lead van: “A man has just thrown himself onto the track.” And the news spread with electric speed through the convoy. After a brief interval of silence, La Tirones, with two short, consecutive whistles, ordered the brakes to be applied, an order that the train manager and the brakeman in the last car carried out with zealous diligence. But this unanimous goodwill came too late. La Tirones had just reached the suicide, and the express shuddered with fear, with disgust. All of us would have liked, so as not to stain the wheels with blood, to jump over the corpse. It wasn’t possible! And as the cars, at the same time as they passed over the body, moved it, each car inflicted a new and horrifying mutilation on the dead man. La Tirones split his chest and feet; his entrails escaped, and his heart fell, precisely, onto one of the rails, before the wheels of the Presumido. I crushed his skull, and I still hear the cracking of his bones. My other companions smashed his spine, collarbones, legs, arms into countless pieces … When we entered the bridge, we all had blood, brains, scraps of flesh in our ironwork, and we all felt a little like murderers. The convoy continued: behind, far away, between the two rails, the tortured body, crushed, folded, gelatinous, mixed with earth and snow , forming an amorphous heap, half red, half white… During the whole journey the memory of the terrible scene tormented me. The corpse was that of an individual of about thirty years of age, shaved, dressed as a worker. I saw him… I saw him well, when, with my first wheel of the On my left, I crushed his head; to add to my horror, his eyes, though dead, seemed to be staring at me: they were bulging, blue, and each one had a clot of blood. But was it true that I had crushed that man’s skull? I wanted to prove myself wrong, but I couldn’t. Yes! His head creaked beneath my enormous weight; I felt it give way, open, like a grenade; my wheels, breaking that forehead, had extinguished a light. A fierce remorse invaded me; my planks, always so resigned, so silent, began to groan. Suspecting what was happening to me, Lady Catastrophe tried to comfort me: “Don’t worry, Cabal!” she exclaimed; “What’s our fault in what happened? If that man wanted to kill himself, that’s his problem. Bah! This was nothing ; worse incidents happen on the roads.” Calm down, considering that this won’t be the only time you’ll be stained with blood. My comrade’s affectionate but trivial reflections couldn’t console me; when I arrived in Hendaye, I felt ill, and the thought that, twenty-four hours later, I would be revisiting the same place where the suicide occurred aggravated my malaise. If I could, I would have asked the train employees to take me off the convoy so I could rest for a few days. Meanwhile, it was snowing… snowing… like I’ve never seen snow before. The Pyrenean humps, the trees, the houses, the international bridge—everything had disappeared under the same white shroud. The earth, the sky, the sea were lost in the melancholy of the same color. At midmorning, La Recelosa returned us to the “Noble and Loyal, Very Meritorious and Generous Town of Irún,” where we were to rest for eight or nine hours. The express, as always, was left alone, cold. Our horizon was extremely narrow; Mount San Marcial and the outlines of Fuenterrabía hid in the fog. Everything was dead, everything was white… As I had heard, the color of mourning varies according to people: for the Chinese, the color of sorrow and death is yellow; for the Arabs, violet; for Europeans, black. I thought: “Black!… And why not white?” The exemplary whiteness is that of snow, and snow is death. Despite what custom dictates, I affirm that white is closer to sorrow than black, and thus, a burial in the darkness of night seems less sad than one surrounded by the light of morning, on a snowy field. There is an evident opposition between European mourning and the psychology of colors. Black, which greedily absorbs the seven changes of the solar spectrum, is warm: it is the color of coal, of iron, of young hair. The topsoil, the best, hottest, most fertile soil, is black. In Africa—they assert—as in Brazil, nature is so vigorous, the germination of its genetic sap so abundant, that it darkens the green of the trees. The most violent race, the most full of instincts, is black. Shakespeare didn’t understand that Othello had blue eyes. But snow is the true sister of death, and, consequently, its most exact symbol. The coldness of corpses, that penetrating, indescribable coldness, never forgotten by those who have felt it, is comparable only to the acute frigidity of snow. Even dead cheeks , cheeks without blood, have the color of snow. Stillness calls for death, and snow is stillness. The sun quickly dissolves corpses: it rots them, fills them with worms, and, reduced to dust, returns them to the torrent of universal life. Snow, on the other hand, adores the dead and for years respects their form and every last gesture of their agony. To the shepherds who one winter night took the wrong path and fell down a cliff, the snow welcomed them into its mattress of snowy white fleece, covered them, clung tightly to their limbs, gently immobilized their hearts, closed their eyelids, and gave their lips a smiling expression. Two, three, five months later, when spring began to thaw and the voice of the torrents It resurfaced growling from the depths of the riverbeds, the corpses still smiling… Like death, snow equalizes everything: its flakes erase boundaries, and gently raise the depths of the abysses to the height of the mountains. Snow does not consent to inequalities, nor does it tolerate preeminence. With it, heaven and earth vanish in the immensity of the same white embrace. It is the great avenger of justice. In winter, even the mountain ranges take on the appearance of a plain. Beneath its shroud, everything falls silent, motionless: the sap in the trunks stops, the waters of the streams rise , the lakes become mirrors. There are no winds, no colors: a kind of stiff smoke invades space. Snow is also silence. Beneath it, the fields, the terraces, the towns lose their voice. It seems as if a gravestone covers them: no one leaves their house; the roads are deserted; The cries cease; the trams and vehicles roll slowly; pedestrians walk noiselessly over the ermine carpet that covers the streets. A funereal aroma, a vapor of peace, rises from the earth. The cities take on the profiles of graveyards: at night, under the livid astral light, the rectangular, white, slanted roofs resemble tombstones. Snow, winter’s splendorous mantle; snow, the enemy of the vagabonds who beg from town to town; snow, which exasperates the voracity of wolves and precipitates them upon the vagabond, is death. That is why it should be the emblem of mourning. Nature wills it so. When the sun goes out, the earth, transformed into an immense pantheon, will be covered in snow. The volcanoes will fall silent, the winds will sleep, and the waves, for the first time, will be at rest. The sea will freeze. Everything still, everything cold, everything white… I had reached this point in my melancholic musings when the sharp, impatient blow that La Recelosa, already ready to leave, dealt to the convoy brought me back to reality. Our lights came on, and with the warmth the engine sent our way, we recovered: The Misanthrope, The Shy One, The Show-Off, the Sommier Brothers, Lady Catastrophe, we were all back in our good humor. The dining car attracted attention with its festive cheer: gleaming glassware, clean tablecloths, waiters in tails… At the scheduled time, we set off in search of the six hundred-odd kilometers that separated us from Madrid; And the dizzying parade of stations began: Rentería, Pasajes, San Sebastián, Hernani, Urnieta, Andoaín, Villabona, Tolosa, Alegría, Legorreta, Villafranca, Beasaín, Ormaiztegui… After El Pinar, someone asked, uneasily: “Do you remember? ” “Yes, yes,” we all replied. We felt a misgiving, a repugnance, about passing by the tragic site. It wouldn’t take us even two minutes to arrive. As soon as we left the bridge over the Duero, La Tirones began to whistle. Why?… Was she trying to tell us something, or was her cry a greeting she was piously directing to the dead man?… Suddenly, almost simultaneously, we exclaimed: “Here it is!” And the express, the whole of it, instinctively, experienced a jolt that woke the passengers. Chapter 8. Summer was beginning. According to my calculations, we must have arrived in mid-June , because nights before, from the vantage point of the Puente de los Franceses, over the Manzanares, we had seen the colored lanterns and heard the music of the historic and much-celebrated San Antonio de la Florida festival. The time of departure was approaching and the scarcity of passengers promised us a peaceful journey, a hope that spread a certain joy through the convoy. Due to some maneuver I don’t remember what, the arrangement of the cars was modified, and I ended up at the head of the train, behind the front van. It was the first time I had been placed so far forward. “You’re in a good position, Cabal!” shouted my companion who had taken my place. “Why?” I replied. “Because there the dust of the road will bother you less, and the smoke from the machine, even inside the tunnels, will pass over you without barely touching you. “You’re older than I am,” I replied, “and you’ll have reason to speak as you do; but don’t deny that the shocks of La Caliente will be felt more here , and that, in the event of a collision, I am the unit most exposed to death.” My correspondent exclaimed sententiously: “And where did you see that all the favorable circumstances, or all the unfavorable requirements, were together? They are distributed throughout the world in almost equal proportions, and thus the art of being happy consists in remembering the good moments a lot, and the bad ones not at all or very little. Everything is pre-established, Cabal; universal life is a mathematical operation, in which there is never a number left over or missing. The Book of Destiny is the only book where everything is “all right.” I didn’t answer. I felt optimistic and agile. The warmth of the temperature invited me to walk; Beyond the station’s canopy, made of iron, zinc, and glass, the cerulean vastness of the sky was beginning to fill with stars. It was one of those nights when the air smells of wet earth, resins, and flowers; when rabbits, enamored of the moon, hop like happy elves as the trains pass by, and the rocks, on which the moss paints monstrous features, look like masks… My passengers couldn’t have numbered twelve. Leaning out of a window was a dark-skinned woman, busty and buttocks-length, but still slender, dressed in a blue skirt and a white blouse. Her slender forearms, adorned with clinking bracelets, intrigued the curiosity of onlookers. Her husband had stopped to rent pillows for the journey and buy newspapers. He was a man of reasonable height and well-dressed, though not elegant. He looked thirty-five years old and had every appearance of an honest, wealthy, and solid bourgeois. I was also interested in a certain gentleman, already in his fifties, with a distinguished appearance, clear, disappointed eyes—eyes that had seen a lot—who was pacing back and forth across the platform. Why did that guy worry me? He only glanced at the lady with the bracelets once, and from the very care I seemed to take not to look at her, I could have sworn he was there for her. The lady was saying to her husband: “Get in, Adelardo, we’re leaving now; the start signal has been given…” He seemed uneasy. He got on with me just as the locomotive, meekly, started off. I looked back and was surprised not to see the gentleman who had captured my attention minutes before. I immediately asked the companion following me: “Hey, Misanthrope, is there a tall man with a gray mustache, dressed in gray… cosmopolitan type… with his yellow gloves tucked into the opening of his vest with you?” “I know who you’re talking about,” interrupted The Misanthrope. He’s traveling behind me on El Tímido. Are you interested? Yes; because I think we’re carrying a cheated-on husband on board. One? she repeated; you’re kind! If only one cheated-on husband traveled on each train, the Devil would have nothing to do. Don Adelardo and his wife had sat with their backs to the engine, and they lowered the window next to them, which was enough to make them dislike me, for I have a horror of dust. If I hate summer, it’s because everyone travels with their windows open. Listening to them talk, I understood at once that it was he who loved and she who, mercifully, allowed herself to be loved. Every now and then, with somewhat cloying solicitude, he inquired: “Are you all right?… Does the air bother you?… Do you want me to put a pillow behind your head?” His inferiority was evident. She refused with a gesture, while her plump lips remained closed in an imperceptibly disdainful pout. I meditated: “If you think you can conquer her with your attentions, you are mistaken: Love does not surrender to courtesy, nor to talent, nor to beauty, nor even to affection; Love does not pay, does not reciprocate; it gives…; let us not ask God for charity, nor good education, nor affection; Love is a delicious rebel who, three-quarters of the time, “does not have reason for being”… She asked, at the same time nonchalantly and affectionately: “Did you buy any books? Because when you leave, I’ll be bored…” She stifled a yawn. He exclaimed: “Oh, yes! Here: it’s the only thing I could find.” He offered her a delicately bound volume. The lady in the white blouse and blue skirt looked at her husband in an indefinable way. There was a moist, epigram-like expression in her beautiful eyes… “Is there nothing wrong here?” The husband’s face expressed satisfaction: that question had just filled him with confidence. I felt this thought pass across his brow: “How well one lives with such a companion!…” “ I don’t think so,” he said; the bookseller assured me that it was a novel “for ladies”… This dialogue, although absurd, did not surprise me; the absurd is so commonplace that it is what makes sense that is surprising. I have often heard my guests say: “It is a spectacle to behold.” that you cannot take your wife.” Or: “That book you speak of is not for ladies…” I am not entirely sure of the reasoning behind those who reason this way: because since the Spanish, while doing their best to keep their wives in complete ignorance, set them up as arbiters of “what should be,” it so happens that the national mentality and morals are represented by a few million women who cannot read… or who barely understand what they read!… And so the country is going!… Don Adelardo’s wife had begun to open the volume with a hairpin and read a few pages; then, distracted, she left it on the seat, got up to arrange her dress, and, upon sitting down again, she did so over the book, as if to demonstrate her confidence in that work in which she had not sinned. The couple was returning from “the second table” when the inspector appeared; Don Adelardo greeted him in a friendly manner, and from the words that passed between them, I deduced that the husband handled risky and significant businesses , and who traveled a lot. While he was punching the tickets, the inspector exclaimed: “So you’re getting off in Medina?” “Unfortunately,” replied Don Adelardo, “Carmen, my lady, is going to San Sebastián, where she has relatives; she’ll spend the summer with them. I’m staying in Medina to go to Salamanca; my partners are setting up a factory there. ” At one-minutes in the morning, we stopped in Medina del Campo. Taking advantage of the solitude they found themselves in, the two spouses were able to say a tender farewell. She threw both arms around his neck; he held her by the waist, and while he kissed her on the lips, he gazed longingly, breathed her in, seemed to drink her in. “Early tomorrow, as soon as you arrive, telegraph me,” begged her husband. ” I’ll do it; just like always! ” “If I don’t receive your telegram, I’ll come looking for you! ” “Are you crazy? And you, as soon as you return to Madrid, let me know. ” He stammered, pale, A hoarse voice said, “My soul… ” “Goodbye,” his wife repeated; “Goodbye… ” “My life!” “Be careful; run… the train is leaving.” At last, after a hard effort that must have hurt his heart, he was able to tear himself away from the silky, soft, fragrant arms that encircled him, and he went down to the platform. They shook hands again, until they were sore; and once again the anguished phrases of farewells blossomed from their lips: “I love you; don’t forget me…” “How can I forget you?” “Goodbye… goodbye…” A bell rang three times, La Tirones blew a long whistle, and we left. Carmen, leaning out of a window, waved her handkerchief and continued waving it until she had lost sight of the platform. Having done this, she straightened up, breathed a sigh of liberation, and raised the window. How grateful I was to her! At that instant, with With a triumphant smile under his gray mustache, the gentleman in the gray suit and with tired eyes, who had caught my malicious attention at the Madrid station, stopped in front of the compartment door . But now I liked him even more: He was, indeed, a charming and worldly man. “Carmen!” he murmured, folding his hands in a very distinguished gesture that simultaneously conveyed respect and desire. He indicated his intention to sit down beside her. She blocked him with a gesture. “Sit opposite me,” she murmured, “and be careful; the inspector knows my husband…” The scene was both amusing and bitter. I thought: “Like us, this lady also changes machines to travel the Camino…” With all the talking they did, it didn’t take long to learn who they were and how long their relationship had lasted: he lived in San Sebastián and had gone to Madrid to accompany his lover on her trip; he did the same thing every summer. As for Don Adelardo, always pressed by grave business responsibilities, if he ever went as far as Miranda de Ebro with his wife, it was to then take the line from Castejón to Zaragoza and Barcelona, ​​where he had business. The signature of that young, friendly, and kind-hearted man was worth several million. And yet—I reflected—she doesn’t love him!… This wasn’t the crime, however, because within the cage formed by the bars of all prejudices, all oaths, and all laws, the bluebird of hope sings victoriously, and we don’t always love whom we should love: that woman’s crime lay in betrayal. Telling her husband, “I don’t love you; let’s separate,” would have been a beautiful act of resolve, a noble act; but saying goodbye to him with kisses and waving from the window until he was out of sight was disgraceful. Why would that man, surely less wealthy than her husband, who was twelve or fifteen years older than him, prefer her? I don’t know, nor is it easy for anyone, not even those interested, to establish the logic of these sudden and dramatic winds of the spirit. The only certain thing is that many women, after finding a husband—and faced with the disappointment of marriage—tend to apply themselves to searching for Love; and that, just as men complain about this same evil, polygamy—whether within the Codes or not—is worldwide: with no other difference than that the laws of Eastern polygamy oblige each man to support “his wives”; while in the West, each man takes care—in partibus—of other people’s wives. This incident, despite its seriousness, is, unfortunately, so frequent, so vulgar, that I would not have spoken about it were it not for the originality of a certain episode, with a vaudeville-like flavor, with which it is embellished. Summer had died. One night, one of the last days of September, upon arriving in San Sebastián on my way to Madrid, I saw Carmen, “the lady in the blue skirt and white blouse,” and her lover, waiting for the express train. As soon as it stopped, they climbed in and, very quickly, taking advantage of an opportunity when no one was looking, they exchanged a kiss; a good, strong, and loyal kiss, the warmth of which reached me. She was leaving alone; her husband was waiting for her at Venta de Baños. As they parted, the lover gave his companion a ring. “In memory,” he murmured, “of these three months. Inside, I had something very much ours carved. Make sure no one sees it. You’ll wear it when we’re together again.” The eyes of her beloved lit up; they shone with gratitude, with childlike joy; perhaps—oh, pain!—there was a little greed in them as well… Already in her apartment, while we were filming, Carmen examined the ring, which was adorned by a precious emerald and a diamond, not very large but of extraordinary light. I had never seen another one so clear or better cut. She felt like crying, and she smiled; she was spellbound; oh, she knew how to appraise a jewel!… Then—I think without haste—on the inside of the ring’s loop she read: “A Night at Sea.” I heard her think: “Yes, it was a beautiful night… But Juan must not have engraved anything on the ring, because, as it is, I dare not wear it. What nonsense!… A student is thinking this up… but not he!… Selfish!… Yes; he did this out of selfishness, so that I alone can show off the ring when I’m by his side…” She hadn’t wanted to put on her gloves and, surreptitiously, afraid that the travelers would notice her joy, she looked at her hands. The two stones were very beautiful; the brilliant and the emerald were already vying for her heart. She continued to meditate: “It would be best to erase that compromising inscription. I’ll tell Juan that I was afraid Adelardo would see it… It’s a good idea!” Juan won’t be angry… The
great value and beauty of the gift had robbed her of sleep, and it wasn’t until she was beyond Miranda that she began to notice that her eyelids were growing a little heavy. She was gently dozing; her traveling companions had extinguished my light. She woke up again, however: the thought, “I have a ring,” shook her, and the two gems filled her mind with clarity. Burgos had been left behind when Carmen got up in search of the dressing room. She couldn’t stay still, and the prospect of embracing her husband very soon also contributed to electrifying her nerves. As she left the “Water Closet,” she crossed paths with two travelers in traffic. She returned to her apartment and tried to sleep; impossible; all attitudes were unpleasant to her. Processions of memories, some grave, others childish, and all limp and fragmentary, crossed her mind and directed it in different directions: the summer had been pleasant; the fall, in Madrid, would be a good time… She thought of her friends… She yawned. Life is always a little sad; she was generally sad; she was bored; so, if it weren’t for the ring… The woman in the white blouse looked at her hands and stifled a scream. In the darkness, I saw her blush, turn pale… She had lost the ring! “I forgot it in the bathroom!” she whispered. She ran, feverishly, down the corridor. Her feet, shod in very high heels, kept bouncing with my trembling, and her fleshy body, as if drunk, bumped against the walls. Turning a corner, the centrifugal force threw her outward with such force that, had there not been an iron handrail there, she would have broken a window. Tears were welling up in her eyes when she reached the “powder room”; it was occupied. “Oh!” she roared desperately. Her tears, barely contained, They ran. She waited; but, unable to contain her impatience, every moment she rapped on the door with her knuckles. Suddenly she restrained herself, ashamed; suddenly, too, she knocked again. Inside, a voice exclaimed, with a foreign accent: “Calm down… calm down, for God’s sake: calm down a little… nobody comes to this place for pleasure…” The door opened and a white-haired, grave, thin lady appeared, with the appearance of an English governess. Carmen stopped her: “Have you seen a ring? ” “No, madam. ” “Yes: a ring…; it has an emerald and a diamond…” She spoke imperiously, as if accusing, and looking her interlocutor in the eyes. The latter made an innocent gesture: “Perhaps it is,” she said; “truly, I haven’t looked.” And she left. Carmen searched the “Water Closet,” examined the corners, dragging the hem of her skirt along the floor. wet and fetid; she put a finger in the drain hole of the basin; she stirred papers… The jewel was gone!… She staggered out into the corridor, stunned. Who could have taken it? She thought of those two men she had passed on her way back to her compartment. But who were they, and where could she look for them, if she hadn’t noticed them?… She was feverish. “What to do,” she repeated, “what to do?… Ah, my bad luck!” She remembered the watchman, who might know something, and rushed to find him. She found him three cars back, in The Misanthrope. The watchman had seen nothing, but promised to find out; he would ask… “Whether the ring will be found,” she said, “depends, as you well understand, on the honesty of whoever found it. ” “I believe,” affirmed Carmen, whose mind was drawn back to the silhouettes of those strangers she had seen as she left the boudoir, “that It is held by a traveler in my car; or by the car in front of mine… This idea was inspired by the direction, opposite to that of the machine, in which Those men were walking. The guard confirmed his offer to search, and she returned to her apartment. Her feet wouldn’t support her; she was broken… As the express train entered the Venta de Baños station, Carmen, who was leaning against a window, began, from a distance, to greet her husband with a handkerchief. Before the train had even stopped, Don Adelardo had already climbed onto my ladder, and the couple were embracing. Then they chatted, questioning and answering each other at the same time, looking into each other’s eyes while clasping their hands. I, meanwhile, added this sad note to their conversation: “He loves her; and she doesn’t love him, I know; but he feigns his affection so well that his lie and the other person’s truth are worth the same…” They had sat down, and in order not to disturb the other passengers, they tried to sleep. Suddenly, she trembled convulsively; her husband inquired: “What’s the matter?” Carmen replied: “Nervous.” It’s nothing. She was lying: the possibility that the guard might return the ring to her had struck her like a whip. “I should have told him,” she thought, “that if he didn’t give it to me before we reached Venta de Baños, he should keep it. Adelardo is going to see her. How could I not have foreseen this?… I’m such a fool!…” A senseless fear seized her; her eyes were sunken and feverish. Her husband was getting worried. It was just getting light when the guard appeared. “Madam, here’s your ring: a traveler in the carriage ahead had it. ” Carmen, unexpectedly, with a strength she summoned from she knew not where, replied: “That ring isn’t mine.” The guard’s jaw dropped in surprise; he was stunned. Don Adelardo, mechanically, had taken the jewel; he looked at his wife: “Is it yours?” “No.” The husband read the inscription: “A Night at Sea”; he examined the stones. “It’s beautiful!” he murmured to his wife in a very low voice; “beautiful and good; it must have cost at least five thousand pesetas…” Greed had lit its yellow lamp in his heart. Calmly, however, he returned the ring to the guard, saying: “It’s not ours.” The guard tried to insist, but hesitated, stunned. He even began to think that the woman in the white blouse and blue skirt standing before him was not the same one he had been speaking to moments before: “Or are there two missing rings?” he thought. Disconcerted and suspicious, but defeated, for he couldn’t understand why anyone would capriciously renounce what was theirs, he stammered a few words of exculpation and left. “She’s mistaken you for another traveler,” Don Adelardo commented. “No doubt!” She was beginning to calm down, and the good color of a clear conscience was returning to her face. Her husband continued: “I like the ring!… It’s distinguished. If its owner had stayed in Miranda, or Burgos, or Venta de Baños… which would be nothing special, I would try to buy it from the security guard. Do you want to?… The inscription on it can be removed…” She nodded happily, and he added, taking pleasure in rounding out his thought: “Or it won’t be removed…” We substituted the word “sea” for “train,” and the inscription became ours: “A Night on the Train.” The wife approved: the husband was continuing the lover’s work, and thus the ring, and what was written on it, belonged equally to both of them. She had a furious desire to laugh; as in a play, everything ended peacefully. Already near Madrid, Don Adelardo sought out the security guard and offered him five hundred pesetas for the ring. “My lady,” he explained, “has fallen in love with her. ” The clerk accepted the deal; he had just gotten a little closer to the truth: he hadn’t quite deciphered the mystery of that jewel, but he was certain it belonged to the traveler “with the blue skirt.” Thus ended the adventure, and I suppose Don Adelardo and his wife will continue to be happy. I spoke a lot about all this with my comrades. I was indignant: my youth revolted against so much falsehood, against the filth of so much perjury. The convoy laughed; it was amused by my good faith. “Worse things,” insisted The Presumptuous One, “have all been witnesses of us.” Until Lady Catastrophe pacified me with these sententious words: “Reflect, Real Man: if you eliminate treason from life, what will you leave of it?”
Chapter 9. The French wagons, by dint of crossing our border day after day, end up speaking a little Spanish and even Basque. With their language, and for the same reasons, the same thing happens to us. That evening, at the beginning of November, the Paris express cars arrived in Irún and gave us some disturbing news. “Be prepared,” they said, “because today we’re bringing bad people. ” “Who are they?” we inquired. “Four of the most notorious bandits. ” “Does your police know they were coming to Spain?” “We don’t think so. We’re asking for details. ” “They’re all well-dressed and young,” our trans-Pyrenean comrades responded. “The oldest, probably, isn’t even thirty . One of them, nicknamed ‘the beautiful Raoul,’ came with us from Paris and proved to be the leader of the gang. We picked up the second, who’s Italian, in Juvisy; before earning his doctorate in crime, he was an acrobat, and the most notable of his feats isn’t his escape from the Toulon prison. His name is Cardini. His other two companions, Jacque Dommiot and Maurice, were waiting for us in Bordeaux. They made the journey in different cars, the better to escape unnoticed; but as soon as we crossed the Bidasoa and the convoy began to slow down, everyone, no doubt following an order, jumped onto the track. The narrator concluded: “Certainly, Cardini, the Italian, to distinguish himself from his companions, did it by doing a complete turn in the air.” Meanwhile, the travelers from France were taking possession of our apartments. There were more than forty of them. Could the four criminals they were telling us about be among them? We wanted to know their address. “The handsome Raúl,” they replied, “is the only one with a mustache; his complexion is pale, and his features, to which his nickname alludes, are of remarkable perfection. He wears a soft felt hat. The width of his back speaks of his extraordinary vigor. He limps a little, very little, when he walks. ” “And Cardini? ” The Italian is olive-skinned, small, vibrant. An old scar cuts across his lips, so thin and colorless that they in turn resemble another scar. His accomplices, Maurice, a former boxer, and Dommiot, are also short and sturdy; true Hercules. Jacqueline Dommiot, in particular, has the neck of a bull beneath his almost microcephalic skull. The three of them were wearing traveling caps, dark suits, and overcoats, and were clean-shaven. The French train bade us farewell, wishing us good night; it was returning to its country; and at the appointed hour, we departed for San Sebastián. A certain sensationalist anxiety—a thrill of adventure— shaken us all. We asked each other: “Do you have one of those fellows with you, Presumido? ” “No, fortunately. And you, Misanthrope? ” “Nor.” Lady Catastrophe claimed she was taking Cardini, but immediately corrected herself: she had confused the Italian with a Catalan traveler. In the end, and after careful consultation, we deduced that the four criminals had stayed in Irún. With what intentions? Perhaps to move to Madrid a few days later; or perhaps to await a coastal ship bound for Santander or Coruña. We judged the latter to be more likely, because they probably feared they had left traces that would betray their passage, and nothing could erase a trail like the sea. I would have liked to have met Jakob Dommiot, the one with the stuck neck; and Maurice, the boxer; and Cardini, the jumper; and, above all, “the handsome Raoul,” whose gallantry—if the nickname given to him was just—must have won him as much sympathy among the women as his profession as a bandit. I had seen many policemen, but never, Knowingly, I was close to a thief; I knew the pursuers, but not the pursued, and perhaps because the former were many and the latter few, the latter attracted me more. The policeman—I reflected—has a secondary importance, an adjective or derived merit. Not so the thief, for if there were no thieves, there would be no policemen; like locks, policemen were invented after many robberies had been committed. The celebrity of a policeman comes from the fearsome prestige of the criminal he apprehended, which shows how the notoriety of one is a reflection of the scandalous light in which the other shines. The thief represents the substantive: and since he is almost always “a product” of collective injustice, the public—even against its own interests—in the theater, as in the movies or in the novel, applauds the thief… Lady Catastrophe, who was following my monologue, interrupted me: “As you think, Cabal, I used to talk as a young man; but the environment in which we move has gradually changed my judgment. Read the newspapers. In France, in England, in Germany, in the United States , you won’t find a single illiterate bandit: those famous international bandits who rob banks and rob trains are men of extraordinary imagination, who write perfectly and dress like gentlemen; who handle all kinds of weapons and know the roughest sports : swimming, horseback riding, and boxing; who understand chemistry and know how to prepare a bomb, drive a car, and forge a check.” These unlikely adventurers, whose inventiveness, organizational talent, and audacity rival each other, and whose memorized schedules of all the “expresses” and the departure days of all the ocean liners are marvelous serial writers who, through their own actions, not with their pens, write their books. Abroad, where education and good nutrition have intensified life, the career of crime has acquired the status of a “vocation.” Those who dedicate themselves to it do so consciously, rationally. Consider what our comrades on the Paris express told us about the four criminals they brought: Cardini was an acrobat; Maurice has fought in the rings; Jacopo Dommiot must also have some kind of trade; and we must not doubt the worthiness of the “beautiful Raoul,” for he exercises leadership over the others. Are you getting the picture, Cabal?… I listened with pleasure: it seemed to me that the old car, which had seen so much, was right. Lady Catastrophe continued: “Among us, banditry ended with ‘Pernales’: it was an almost exclusively Andalusian banditry, a bit anarchist, a bit quixotic as well, which dispossessed the rich for the benefit of the poor, and rode on horseback and lived in the open air. In the art of stealing, cunningly or by force, Spain—as in everything else—lagged behind. Our thieves are poor, starving devils, poorly dressed, who barely know how to write, nor know any weapon other than a rudimentary knife, and who turn to thievery “out of necessity.” Abroad, banditry is practiced by the strong, the rebellious, those disturbed by the utopia of immediate “social distribution”; they take it up for pleasure, and this vocation gives their thankless profession a novelistic piquancy. By stealing, they believe they are verifying a right, and their conviction instills in them an attitude of pride before the prosecutor, which the crowds later praise admiringly. In Spain, the acid attraction of crime has not yet germinated : our country produces few innate killers; here, only the defeated of life, the “unemployed,” cultivate theft; and they do so shamefully, as if they were going to beg; they steal without enthusiasm, thinking that they must give bread to their children, and that God, for this very reason, will forgive them. Our highway robbers are loaded with scapulars, and before reaching for the knife, they usually cross themselves. In this land of saints, at once so cruel and so merciful, between the thief and the robbed there is always a cross… Lady Catastrophe fell silent because we were about to enter a tunnel, and The Shy One, running after him, began to distract him with gestures. When we left the ground, he resumed his discourse, to my great satisfaction: “All this is the reason why robbery in Spain is something miserable, grotesque, and without the slightest spirituality. Ignorance and insufficient nutrition frighten men. Believe me, Cabal: a poor diet does more for public peace than the Civil Guard. I’ll tell you an episode I witnessed. Many years ago, one morning, shortly after leaving Madrid, the brakeman discovered an individual who had thrown himself chest down and full length onto the roof of the last van, believing that in that position no one would see him. “He must be a thief,” the brakeman said to himself. He could have ordered the train to stop, but he didn’t want to; he was agile and brave, and he thought that if he caught him himself, his feat might earn him a reward. The bandit, realizing he was discovered, crawled over to the second car. The brakeman, from the sentry box of the tail van, ordered him to surrender. The man addressed didn’t reply; he looked at him. Then the other, recklessly, because at that moment the express was moving forward very fast, left the sentry box and, crawling, headed toward the fugitive. The latter passed to the next car; the brakeman followed him, closing the distance between them, and shouting furiously: “Surrender!… Surrender!…” We heard their voices and followed the events of the fight with the excitement you can imagine. We had marched more than fifty miles, and I don’t understand how those men didn’t fall to the track in the turmoil they were throwing around some curve. Thus, from car to car, they traveled through the entire convoy and reached me, who was behind the lead car. The thief felt lost, because from the engine and above the pyramid of coal on the tender, the engineer and the fireman could see him. Then, he decided to resist: I have observed that, in inferior temperaments, heroism is not usually opportune calculation, but belated desperation, and that is why they succumb. The brakeman again , with great fortitude, demanded his surrender. The two men were seated—unable to stand—a short distance from each other. The thief took out a revolver and, still silent, aimed at his enemy. Filled with reckless courage, the brakeman continued forward; the other pulled the trigger, but the shot went wide; the brakeman advanced, seeking his salvation in hand-to-hand combat. For the second time, the hunted man pulled the trigger in vain; the revolver didn’t work. At that moment, his enemy managed to seize him by the wrists and, without a struggle, disarmed him. The thief surrendered at discretion, and in El Escorial he was handed over to the Civil Guard. Well, I maintain that that poor man, spirited—if you will—but gaunt, hungry, and with no other weapon than a cheap revolver, is a representative type of national banditry. Do you think he can rob an express train, with a weapon like that and climbing onto the roof of the carriages?… That only occurs to an illiterate person. To undertake such an adventure, a foreign thief would have started by dressing very well, moving into a sleeping car, and spending two hundred pesetas on a Browning; tricks of that nature must be carried out in a “grand lord” manner; and then, at midnight, taking advantage of the noise of a tunnel, murder the guard on duty. That’s how it begins!… I interrupted him to say: “Listening to you, anyone would think you like thieves.” “I like,” replied Lady Catastrophe, “that everyone knows and excels in their trade: that an engineer, for example, knows how to build a bridge; and that an engine driver knows how to guide his locomotive; and that a policeman knows how to track down a crime, and that a bandit knows how to steal… because the progress of a nation is born from the efforts of all its citizens, both the very good and the very bad. Don’t you understand that the very bad serve, precisely, as an excellent stimulus to the very good? Unfortunately, we live in a gray historical moment, in which all the honest They’re a little bit like thieves, and vice versa. Cabal: Castile was once great, once glorious; but today it is worn, sad, and its plains have entered the hearts of men. Having said this, Lady Catastrophe, taciturn and aching from the cold, said no more. The entire convoy, shrouded in fog and smoke, moved forward silently, mechanically, and half-asleep; it rolled along as if it knew, in a subconscious way, that its obligation was to keep going; a phenomenon analogous to those facts that psychologists call ” sensitive memory,” by virtue of which a man’s feet take him where he once thought he was going; even if later, during the journey, he thought of something else. In Burgos, a friar of the Franciscan order boarded my front compartment , and although he was barefoot and his cassock was made of coarse serge, his white hair, his aquiline face, the ivory pallor of his head, and the neatness of his hands and feet spoke volumes of his distinction. The only empty seat left was occupied by the friar, who had to notice the muffled hostility with which his fellow passengers , all tired and sleepy, greeted him. Flexible and worldly, he said nothing, however. Shortly after, the inspector arrived. The friar asked him: “Are there any beds left?” “Coincidentally, you have one in this very carriage. Do you want it? I’ll charge you the ‘supplement.’ ” “Very well: may I come in now?” ” Whenever you like.” The friar, very kindly—perhaps with a touch of irony—greeted the passengers and stepped out into the aisle, the inspector following behind him. At the back of the almost dark room, a disdainful voice uttered this comment: “Men who take a vow of poverty and, as if in praise of misery, go barefoot, shouldn’t travel first class… and even less so in sleeping bags!” There was some muted laughter; the reflection was accurate; the undoubtedly brusque individual who had spoken was right. Some passengers raised their heads to look at him, pleased that someone had said what they—better-mannered, perhaps—didn’t dare to say. Rough or crude people often surpass discreet ones in sincerity. The friar, meanwhile, had begun to undress; once he had rid himself of his habit and sandals, he lay down. Truly, the extreme poverty of his figure was out of place in that comfortable, soft, luxurious environment… And I remembered the reflections that Lady Catastrophe had made to me moments before. “Here’s a man,” I thought, “who’s a friar… and he doesn’t know how to be a friar!” Chapter 10. On the occasion of a major derailment on the line from Córdoba to Seville, my family—I call the convoy “my family”—had talked at length about the hardships of our profession. The Shy One and Lady Catastrophe were of the opinion that the only hours of complete tranquility we enjoy are those spent in the idleness of terminal stations ; when the engine leaves us and we know we’ll have to stay there . Only then do our wheels rest, and the fever in the heating pipes calms , and the silence and the certainty that no danger will harm us spread a restorative drowsiness through our bodies. But while you walk, you suffer: the road is the constant threat, the tragedy that lurks at every crossroads. On the sea, ships can fight against death, stop, change course, run ahead of the storm if they don’t believe themselves capable of resisting it. We, subject to the inescapable tyranny of two iron bands, know none of this. If ships sink, it’s slowly; our disaster, on the contrary, is instantaneous; the collision, the derailment, kills us instantly. We see death coming, and not only are we not allowed to avoid it, but we run toward it, and with our own impetus we facilitate its work. The Presumido, who in the early days of his life had wandered extensively around Andalusia, came up with the following comparison, unfortunately accurate: “We’re like bullfighters: you see a bullfighter healthy and laughing five minutes before the bullfight, and five minutes later he’s dead . So are we: now, for example, I lack nothing: my wheels work well, my seats are comfortable, all my windows close…; and it may be that this very night, before reaching Segovia, you’ll see me turned into splinters.” The unpleasant conversation continued until La Caliente came to pick us up, and under her depressive memory—a memory with a touch of superstition mixed in —we left Madrid. I was in a bad mood, anticipating misfortunes, and whenever the locomotive whistled at the enigma of the gloomy, damp night, a great cold—a cold that was fear— pierced me. In front of me walked El Misanthrope, more sooty and silent than ever; he barely swayed, and his monotonous walk made me sleepy. “Hey, Misanthrope,” I said. But he didn’t answer, and I, without realizing it, fell asleep. When I awoke, I didn’t recognize where we were: my guests were asleep, and since all the lights were off, the train moved forward without projecting any light to either side. The fog was thick; it was impossible to find one’s way; the entire route seemed like a tunnel. At intervals, when the stoker opened the furnace to supply it with coal, the smoke from La Caliente took on a red tinge, resembling, against the night’s darkness, a bloody braid. Only my hearing told me anything: from the various noises of the express train, I knew when we were crossing an open field, or when we were running between mountains. Suddenly, I realized I was on a bridge; then I felt I was sinking into a tunnel; and this frightful blindness increased my fear of dying. The stop we made in Segovia woke us all up; we chatted, and the lights on the platform helped to revive me. Besides, from then on, the road was better. When we arrived at Venta de Baños, my attention was caught by about thirty or forty wagons resting, as if forgotten, on a loading dock. Some were missing their roofs, others had no doors or running boards, and all looked bewildered and rickety, as if they had suffered some terrible bruise. Many, their planks completely splintered, resembled skeletons. It was a tragic convoy. To my questions, The Misanthrope replied: “These cars are here temporarily, waiting to be taken to Valladolid, where there is a repair shop.” I looked at them in horror; I remembered everything my companions had said about derailments and collisions when they began the journey . Those broken, aching, almost useless wagons were like a procession of sick people waiting at the door of a hospital. Finally, the night passed without any misfortune befalling us, and with the first light of dawn and the combative crowing of the roosters, serenity returned to my body. However, when we arrived in Irún at mid-morning, already returning from Hendaye, my tiredness and melancholy plunged me into a deep sleep. I slept for several hours in one go. I was awakened by a clash; from its harshness, I understood it was La Recelosa, always surly and vehement, who was giving me the shock. She had just assumed control of the convoy. It was pitch dark, and there was quite a crowd on the platform . “It’s about time you woke up, Cabal!” a companion shouted at me. “Have I slept that much?” I asked. “All afternoon. ” Lady Catastrophe murmured mysteriously beside me: “I think you did very well to rest, because perhaps we won’t be able to sleep tonight .” Immediately, telepathically, I divined her thoughts. “Are you talking about the French thieves?” “Yes. ” “Have you seen them?” “Two of them are with me, in the same apartment, but they’re not speaking: they seem to not know each other.” A harsh emotion of joy and fear shook me; a vibration similar, perhaps, to that produced in the public in the bullrings by the exit of the first bull. “Who are they?” I said. “From the signs the French Express gave us about them, one must be Cardini, the Italian: coppery, gaunt, with a harsh expression… His lips are cut by a scar that must have been drawn on with a knife. “The same one!” I exclaimed; “and the other one? ” “He’s small, and his head is as sanguine and square as his shoulders. I think it’s Dommiot. ” The Presumptuous one caught Mrs. Catastrophe’s attention: “Look… look!” I looked too. At the door of the station restaurant, whose lit windows gave it a festive air, the friendly, agile, and strong figure, full of romantic harmony, of the “beautiful Raúl,” had just appeared. Moments later, Mauricio, the boxer, who was leaving the canteen, approached him; but if they spoke at all, it was very quickly and without looking at each other. “Do you think they’ll come with us, Catastrophe?” I said. “I think so.” “Are they going to rob the train?” Lady Catastrophe hesitated; if she had an opinion, she didn’t want to voice it. I persisted until I got a response from her that my anxiety deemed less than categorical: “Remember,” she said, “what we discussed about these people a few days ago: if they were Spanish, I would emphatically affirm that they weren’t; if they were French robbers… the truth is!… I don’t know…” I was positioned at the rear of the convoy: behind me were the mail car, with whom I had no communication, and the rear van. In front of me were Lady Catastrophe, and then, in the order I mentioned, The Presumptuous One, The Bashful One, The Misanthrope, and the two Sommier Brothers. I wished Mauricio or the “beautiful Raúl” would travel with me, but, judging by the direction they were facing, I guessed that the front cars interested them more. On the other hand, many travelers, perhaps fearing the possibility of a collision, chose me. Most of my seats were taken, and my hairnets swayed under the weight of my luggage. Among my guests were two thin, gray-haired English tourists studying their Baedekers; and an Andalusian bullfighter, whose name I never learned, but whom I knew from having taken him that summer to the bullfights in San Sebastián. He was a handsome young man with a very gentle presence and a lot of courage, as I would later demonstrate. Under the awning, through whose glass the lights from the platform transmitted a silvery jubilation, an unintelligible murmur of the crowd resounded: the sound of conversations, footsteps; voices of people looking for and saying goodbye to each other; cries… A young man shouted out the titles of the newspapers that had just arrived; Throughout the express, the monotonous voice of a man dressed in a white blouse repeated: “Travel pillows!” “Beautiful Raúl” and his accomplice boarded the train at the precise moment it was pulling away: Raúl got on The Misanthrope; Mauricio, on The Shy One. I was inconsolable. “What a pity!” I sighed. Lady Catastrophe, sensing the reason for my distress, scolded me: “Shut up, Cabal!… It’s better this way. Why do you want to expose yourself to the risk of those heartless people, if they happen to attack the passengers, shooting you ?” I didn’t reply because I was in a state of nervousness unknown to me; and I assumed that my alarm couldn’t be entirely unreasonable when I realized that my companions, more or less, shared it. From one end of the express to the other, as if on an electric wire, our impressions passed back and forth, accelerated and silent. I asked Lady Catastrophe: “Hey, what are those people doing?” ” Jacobo Dommiot is reading a newspaper. ” “And Cardini? ” “He’s not doing anything. ” “Is he sleeping? ” “No: he neither reads nor sleeps: he’s looking. ” “Who?” I insisted, searching in every gesture of the criminals for the prologue to a drama. “No one,” the elderly Lady Catastrophe replied patiently. “Cardini doesn’t seem to notice anyone, he doesn’t look at anyone: his head is leaning against the backrest and his sleepless eyes are staring straight ahead of him, which is much worse. ” After a few minutes, the veteran car, which, despite its age, was curious, inquired: “Presumptuous, listen: ask the Bashful what Maurice is doing.” The Presumptuous, obliging yet eager to know, relayed the question: “Listen, comrade: are you sleeping?… No?… Answer, then: what’s Mauricio doing? ” “Nothing special: I’m taking him in the corridor, smoking. ” “Are many people traveling with you? ” “I’m carrying a full house. ” “A good opportunity to end up crushed under a tunnel!… Huh?” “Shut up, savage!” The Presumptuous liked to tease our companion, whom, in memory of or as a mockery of her many complaints, he used to nickname “Lady Whine.” To make us laugh, he seemed angry, but it wasn’t like that, and they truly loved each other like brothers. Then the curiosity that gnawed at us all soon infected the Presumptuous, who, in turn, asked the Misanthrope: “What’s ‘the handsome Raúl’ doing?” “Nothing suspicious: he has the peak of his cap over his nose and his eyes closed.” “Is he really asleep? ” “No, but he seems to be trying in good faith, and that reassures me.” In this way, the news traveled along the invisible chain that—like links—formed our questions and answers. Those four bandits obsessed us, kept us awake: their stormy life embellished them and served as a prestigious foundation for their figures: we feared them, admired them, and envied their rebel star; among so many people, they stood alone and higher than anyone else; their weapons bore their privileges, their pragmatic principles; they were “the protagonists” of the convoy. At intermittent intervals, from one end of the train to the other, the same questions, so often repeated, and which were like the flames with which our curiosity burned, ran again. “What is Dommiot doing? ” “Reading. ” “And the Italian? ” “Cardini looks; and I suppose he thinks when he looks so much. ” “And Maurice? ” “He smokes incessantly; he seems suspicious; He has just lit his fifth pipe. “And Raúl?” “The beautiful Raúl is asleep… or pretending to be…” We were certain that we would witness something extraordinary that night, and our anxiety was so acute that we shared it with most of the trains—freight or mail—that crossed our path. Emotions, when they are strong, have the virtue of democratizing; emotion makes us poor, it tends toward equality… “We are carrying suspicious people,” we shouted to them as we passed. They, who, from reports gathered here and there along the route, knew who we were talking about, responded: “Are they the four Frenchmen who reached the border a few days ago? ” “Yes.” “Ah!… You’ll tell us all about it when we meet again on the way back!” “Yes… yes…” “Good night!” “Have a good trip!” ” We all—they and we—spoke at once; the locomotives whistled, greeting each other, as large ships do on the high seas, and in this way the news of the possible tragedy that was on our pilgrimage flew simultaneously from north to south, and vice versa. My tenants were beginning to surrender to sleep: some hadn’t opened their eyelids since San Sebastián; the bullfighter snored loudly, wrapped in his cloak; even the English readers put away their books, and in the same attitude they had been in, simply placing a pillow on their shoulders to rest their heads, allowed their tired eyes to rest. No room remained lighted; the passengers, to lessen the air that always enters through the cracks in the windows, had drawn all the curtains. Only a few night owls remained in the aisle, smoking despite the cold. They were the unruly ones, the insomniacs, for whom my corridor symbolized the street they loved so much. However, sleep, little by little, drove them from there and returned them to their seats. At ten o’clock at night, everything was at rest within me, and that peace, that stillness in which my thoughts resided—I believe I said that each passenger was an idea to me—gave me the grace of a great, clear conscience. In the other cars, most of the passengers were also resting. I, sensing a trip full of soap opera adventures , was mistaken; “our thieves” had no warlike intentions and were as dull as police officers. A quarter of an hour after leaving Miranda de Ebro, Lady Catastrophe communicated this observation to me: “Cardini looked at his wristwatch, and then his eyes and those of Jacopo Dommiot exchanged a question. In the darkness, I saw their pupils shine anxiously and fiercely. It’s evident that both were wondering about the imminent execution of something they had agreed to. I’m uneasy.” At the same time, The Presumptuous One relayed the following warning, which The Shy One and The Misanthrope had given him: “The handsome Raúl” had gone out into the corridor to read the time on his watch. Maurice also looked at his watch… This synchronization of identical movements demonstrated that those four men were acting on orders. Almost simultaneously, Jacopo Dommiot and the Italian came out into the corridor. Lady Catastrophe, more and more terrified by the moment, was relating all these details to me, one by one. I no longer doubted that the criminals were preparing to attack the travelers. “They’re only a few,” I interrupted, “I don’t think they’d dare… ” “That’s my fear,” replied the old wagon, “that they won’t operate alone, but in combination with other robbers who have done what was necessary to derail us. Nothing could be easier!” My companion’s speculations filled me with anxiety; I didn’t want to die. I asked: “Is it very dangerous to derail?” “According to: in some places, yes; in others, no. I’ve derailed nine times, and on one of them, I destroyed half my wheels. ” “But the driver and the fireman,” I replied, “are constantly scanning the road; they’re like lookouts, and if they sense any danger, they’ll maneuver to stop it.” “Yes, they would maneuver… So what? We’re going fast, the night is dark, and danger could catch us on a downhill slope… or on a curve… If these bandits really decided to derail us, rest assured they’d have chosen the right spot. Besides, La Tirones brakes poorly. ” The entire convoy shared our fears, and the minutes began to seem very long. We crossed paths with a mixed-race vehicle. “Anything new on the track?” we shouted to him. “No!” he replied. Every time a train passed, we repeated our question, and the encouraging answer was always the same: the track was clear; we could continue. However, my anxiety didn’t subside; rather, it grew; the idea of ​​getting off the rails gnawed at me, chilled me; my body even ached. Lady Catastrophe, who, having known me as a child, loved me and even cared for me with paternal love, tried to calm me down. “Don’t tremble, Cabal: if there’s a derailment, it’ll be the front cars that get screwed. We’re safe because we’re at the back; and, even of the two of us, you’re the best placed. ” At the stroke of midnight, we learned that “the handsome Raúl” had gotten out of his car to join Mauricio in the Shy Guy’s aisle. As they passed the former boxer, he murmured, “Let’s go.” The two criminals crossed into the other car, and Shy Guy sighed in relief. Seeing them continue on, Show-Off began to whisper to Lady Catastrophe, “There they go! There they are.” And the entire train, which was spying on the beginning of the incident and felt safe, began to mock the old car’s bad luck. If a murder, a fire, or a robbery occurred, it would be in this one, which had, like lightning rods, the power to attract misfortune. Cardini and Jakob Dommiot, seeing their companions arrive, walked ahead of them and waited for them at the metal passageway that connected Lady Catastrophe to me. I heard them talking, and as they finished, those four heads with flashing eyes, hard features, and thin, throbbing, colorless lips were almost together. Raúl concisely issued orders: “You know I’ll defend the door.” Everyone nodded. “You,” the leader continued, addressing Cardini, “stay in the corridor.” The Italian nodded. “And you, try to maneuver quickly.” He was speaking to Dommiot and Maurice, the two Hercules of the gang. “And if anyone resists,” he concluded, “give them a good blow. It’s best to work quietly. We should only use weapons in the most extreme cases. ” Having said that, they all rushed at me. “Who would have believed, Cabal,” murmured Lady Catastrophe, “that the party was going to be in your honor?” “The handsome Raúl,” armed with a Browning, remained guarding the bridge that connected me to the front car. His three comrades advanced , and Cardini, faithful to his commander’s instructions, remained in the corridor and cocked his pistol. Dommiot and Maurice reached the end of the passage, entered the last compartment, shone a light, and, with sudden jerks, woke the sleepers. Jacopo Dommiot led the way: “Bring the money,” he said, “the money! Quick! The money! Don’t try to defend yourselves or shout, because we’ll kill you. There are too many of us. ” He spoke confidently and in fairly clean Spanish. “Bring it all! The money… the tie pins… the watches… the rings…” Jacopo Dommiot was the verb; at his side, Maurice, with his fists clenched and ready to box, was the action; behind them, Cardini, livid and agile, supported them with the brief and accurate eloquence of his Browning. The travelers, paralyzed by the terror of surprise, surrendered at will; not even those who were armed thought of defending themselves; the assault had been instantaneous, and the desire to live won out over everyone: some handed over their wallets and whatever money they had in their pockets; some, in their haste to quickly remove their rings, tore off their skin… while Dommiot’s short, hairy hands went from one stolen object to another, tireless, insatiable… and Maurice, always withdrawn, looked at everyone, his eyes circling, ready to strike. The operation ended quickly and silently. Without turning their backs, Maurice and Dommiot returned to the corridor. “Don’t try to go out into the corridor or call for help,” Dommiot warned, “because we would kill you.” Having said this, he turned out the light—as if inviting the robbed to resume their sleep—and closed the door. Immediately afterward, and in the same manner, always silent and executive, they burst into the next compartment, where the previous scene was repeated punctually. Without fuss or shouts, in the midst of absolute silence, the unfortunate travelers, stiffened by the chains of panic—there are no bonds that hold better—allowed themselves to be robbed. The most courageous handed over everything they had; But some of them were so terrified that they couldn’t move their arms, and Jacopo Dommiot had to search them himself. In less than three or four minutes, some eight wallets, as many watches and tie pins, and more than fifteen rings had passed into the thief’s pocket. A fine raid! Meanwhile, Cardini and “the beautiful Raoul” were constantly communicating with each other’s eyes. Raoul’s eyes would say: “Is something wrong?” And the Italian’s: “Nothing: everything’s going well.” Then, in turn, Cardini’s small, bright, and talkative eyes would ask: “Do you hear anything? Is anyone coming?” And those of “the beautiful Raoul,” who seemed calm, would reply: “No…”
I understood then why the cunning robbers had chosen me as the scene of their exploit, and I admired their skill. Any one of the central units of the convoy could communicate with two vehicles at once and was harder to guard than I was. I, on the other hand, being unable to relate to the mail coach, was half-isolated, and my passengers, in order to escape to another carriage, could only do so in one direction and through one door; the same one that “the handsome Raoul” would defend to the last bullet. The interest in the drama grew… grew… and I became so absorbed that I couldn’t respond a word to what my companions, without interruption and anguished, demanded of me. Upon entering the third compartment, and as soon as Dommiot relit the lights, One of the English women began to scream; frantically, she tried to flee, but Maurice struck her with a blow to the jaw, knocking her unconscious to the ground. She remained pinned against the door, half of her body in the passageway. As her hat fell, it flew off her head, her hair scattered, and Cardini, to catch her if she should regain consciousness, placed his foot on her hair. The other English woman seemed petrified. The other passengers also seemed inert and docile. “Purses, quick… rings… tie pins… don’t try to resist, because there are too many of us!” Dommiot repeated. Ignoring the threats, the young bullfighter, who had had time to prepare himself, attacked the thief. Jacque Dommiot gave him a masterful blow to the middle of the chest , but the young bullfighter was tough and, grabbing his enemy , knocked him down onto the couch. Jacopo Dommiot’s neck was covered in blood. Since, given their position, neither Cardini nor Maurice could spare their companion, they limited themselves to watching the remaining travelers intently, menacingly, as if to say, “We advise you not to intervene in the fight; if you remain neutral, we will not harm you.” Everyone seemed to understand, for no one moved or cried out. The doors of the two looted apartments remained closed: evidently, the Italian’s Browning had extraordinary persuasive power. A minute passed. The fighting remained clutched and twisted, panting for some way to strangle one another. Dommiot seemed to be getting the better of it. “But won’t you finish him off?” Maurice murmured. At this moment, the young bullfighter managed to free himself from the arms that oppressed him, stood up, and took a step back. His gaze was burning, and his pale lips bore a murderous expression. He pulled out a knife and moved forward again . Simultaneously, Maurice and Dommiot attacked him, and the boxer received a deep wound in his arm. The two bandits understood that it was urgent to conclude the fight, and they retreated to the door. “Pull,” one of them ordered the Italian. And Cardini fired, and the bullfighter fell dead. “The beautiful Raoul” had grabbed, with all his strength, one of my “alarm devices,” and the brakes worked. The outcome of the terrible tragedy was precipitating. Raoul, furious, rebuked Cardini: “Why did you pull?… Didn’t I recommend that you keep quiet?” The Italian, who continued to step on the scattered hair of the Englishwoman, replied coldly: “If I don’t kill him, we’ll be through all night.” The detonation and the unpleasant squeal of the brakes woke the rest of the passengers. One after another, the doors opened; several passengers came out into the corridor. Raúl shouted at them, threatening them with his pistol: “Back!… Back!” And so he stopped them. The four bandits had gathered on my rear platform, ready to escape as soon as the convoy’s, by the moment, slower progress allowed them. Confused voices resounded throughout the train , voices of anxiety; all the cars were illuminated; the engineer and the fireman looked behind them, and the brakeman, from his caboose, made strange gestures with one arm. Suddenly, the doors of my compartments opened again, and a group of armed passengers came out into the corridor. The Englishwoman lay unconscious in the corridor. Many voices shouted: “Thieves!… Help!” Shots rang out, and several bullets pierced me; the passengers fired at the fugitives. “Get down,” said Raoul, “quickly!” Cardini, the first to leap onto the track, stumbled a few times, and fell to his knees; he immediately got up and began to run. Dommiot escaped after him, who, less fortunate, rolled on the ground for a few meters, though without hurting himself. While Maurice was stepping down onto the step, “the beautiful Raoul” fired at his pursuers, and one traveler fell wounded; the others fell back, and the criminal fled. In the immense, black night, a cold, starless night, the shadows of the four fugitives faded. almost immediately. The express had stopped, and a noisy, frightened crowd invaded me. Upon seeing me, they retreated in terror. There were reasons for this: my corridor, and even more so the compartment where the young bullfighter lay, were a lake of blood. Chapter 11. This tragedy, which the scandalized newspapers talked about for a long time, marks a second period in my biography. That drama—who could have suspected it?—marked the end of my youth, modified my idiosyncrasy, until then superficial and novelistic, suggested new, serious, transcendent ideas to me; it aged me!… For me, in short, it was like that first great downpour that suddenly kills summer. For two weeks I was detained in Burgos, whose courts were responsible for initiating the crime committed against me. They had taken me to a side track, next to some wagons loaded with ballast, and there they left me after carefully closing all my doors. I was something sacred. Every five or six days, several gentlemen—no doubt important people, esteemed for the attentiveness with which the station personnel greeted them—would visit me. After carefully examining, time and again, the horrible reddish stains that marred me and the marks of my many bullet wounds, they would leave surrounded by an air of mystery. What distressed me most was seeing myself separated—in a way I later realized was definitive—from my comrades. When they arrived in Madrid the morning after the tragic assault I’ve referred to, they were visited by the Director and other senior Company officials, who acknowledged that most of the convoy’s units were “tired” and, therefore, in need of repair. The train was instantly wrecked: The Shy One, The Show-Off, and Lady Catastrophe went to the repair shop, and only The Misanthrope and the Sommier Brothers, whose condition seemed satisfactory, were to join the new “team” that that night, first La Caliente, and then La Tirones and La Recelosa, would drag to Hendaye. When I saw them pass alone that early morning, next to me, I felt a deep, untranslatable sorrow; a kind of heartbreak. They greeted me with emotion. I asked them about our “brothers,” those whose work life I shared for more than nine years. “They’re staying in Madrid,” they told me. “What’s wrong? ” “They’re very tired: The Shy One’s heating and brakes were broken; The Show-Off needs to have his seats fixed, and also his springs, so he won’t move so much. Lady Catastrophe is the worst off: that poor wretch hurts everywhere, and it will take him at least two months to get out of the infirmary.” Once the judicial proceedings, always so slow, were over, I was hooked up to the rear of a freight train, which, stopping at every station, took more than twenty-four hours to take me to Madrid. How bored I was during that exodus, which to me, accustomed to great speed, seemed interminable! How vulgar my fellow passengers seemed to me, and how insignificant, how horribly sad, those platforms before which my aristocracy of a “luxury carriage” had never stopped!… And it was then that I began to understand this great truth: that in order to penetrate the epidermis of life, it is essential to live slowly. As my health continued to be excellent, I remained in the workshop for only a few days: just enough to have some carpets and seat covers replaced , and to have my bullet wounds closed. I was immediately transferred to the station, and without further delay I was put on the “direct” train that covers the eight hundred-odd kilometers of the Madrid-Coruña route in thirty-six hours. I don’t want to remember what I suffered. I made the first trips without speaking to anyone. How I missed the speed and cleanliness of my old convoy!… Without being proud, precisely, my distinction, my select upbringing, prevented me from agreeing to share the plebeian status of a Mail train. The carriages labeled “first class” had been born in Spain and were, evidently, far inferior to me. And I won’t mention the “second class” units, pretentious and tacky; and even less so the rudeness of the “third” ones: small, dirty, battered vehicles, reeking of humanity… I resent the vulgar and I also abhor the mesocracy. I have been, from birth, an artist and a nobleman: I adore elegance, discreet joy, what is beautiful, what is rich… To my silence, they, the vulgar, responded with the pettiness and disdain typical of their vile stock: they passed by me without greeting me, and then, even though they understood I could hear them, they would gossip about me in their circles. My exotic origins bothered them, and when they noticed that the distinguished travelers at the stations preferred me, their antipathy turned to hatred. Fortunately, I was the strongest of all, and when the machine, in its maneuvers, caused us to collide with each other, I took great care to injure them. I suffered greatly, however, to the point that I thought I would become ill with sadness. I walked with my mind turned backward; I lived on memories; and since to truly appreciate things there is nothing better than to distance oneself from them a little, in my recollection the bygone years seemed more pleasant and beautiful than ever. I vividly recalled the frenzied pride with which I had first set out on the road in Irún; the appearance of those wild surroundings, where the deep tones of earth and sky harmonize in a chord of rare majesty; the houses with dark facades and long wooden balconies, which at the time of late afternoon, with their illuminated windows, spoke to me of tranquility; the wooded valleys, the haughtiness of the Pyrenees, and more than any other, the very warlike Mount Saint Martial, which has drunk the blood of the strongest peoples of Europe. I also remembered my emotions on the international bridge, in whose midst it seemed to me that I belonged, at once, to two nations, and had two souls; the suspicion that the records and bells of the stations aroused in me, and the different ways in which hands, depending on whether they were French or Spanish, waved goodbye to the convoy: French hands are gentler ; they greet us by showing us their palms and lowering their fingers; they want to say goodbye and call us; still—when there is no remedy, when we are already leaving—they want to hold us back: while in Spanish hands, which turn their backs toward us, the “goodbye” is definitive… Nor could I forget an incident that, having caused me acute fear at first , later moved and stirred me to the point of tenderness. I’d been on the railway for over a year, and I knew all the locomotive’s “signals” by heart: I knew that with two short, consecutive whistles it orders the brakes to be applied, and with a short blast it releases them; that many short whistles announce imminent danger, and that at junctions, or places where the lines branch, three prolonged whistles indicate the train will take the right track, and a single whistle that it will continue on the left, etc. We were running that night between Villabona and Tolosa when the engine began to whistle like never before: it didn’t emit the series of rapid whistles that signal danger, but rather it whistled capriciously. Terror overwhelmed me. The deafening screams of the steamer were now high-pitched and now low-pitched, and all long, desperate, with a new and distressing polyphony. I thought we were going to collide with another train, or plunge into the Oria. “Why is the engine screaming like that?” I asked a colleague. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “Our driver’s father lives nearby , and his son whistles to let the old man know that ‘nothing new’ is happening,’ and that he remembers him… I’ll also mention an episode, perhaps somewhat childish, but which gave me my first impression of death. It was a warm, blue morning in May or June; the meadows had turned green, and hundreds of birds were singing over the telegraph wires. In the whiteness of the farmhouses, in the murmur of the migrating streams, in the joyful bloom of the trees, a jubilation triumphed. of resurrection. I suddenly noticed that a small bird, flying at the height of my windows and parallel to the train, seemed to be enjoying itself by joining us. I heard it chirping happily; it was playing, it seemed drunk with the sun, it was happy… Then, testing the vigor of its wings, it moved forward until it was at the head of the convoy; then it tried to soar up to cross the track; it couldn’t: as it passed over the engine, the terrible column of burning steam exhaled by the chimney reached it, lifted it, almost perpendicularly, to a considerable height, and threw it, asphyxiated, almost burned, to the side of the road. I saw it fall lifeless and hit the ground… “It’s killed it,” a colleague who, like me, had followed the incidents of the little drama told me. “And it won’t be able to move now?” I asked candidly. My colleague mocked me. “Are you stupid? How do you expect him to move? Didn’t you just hear that the machine killed him?” Then I began to reflect, and from my meditations I deduced that “to die was to no longer move.” Thus the idea of ​​death arose in me. Oh, those scenes, those conversations vibrant with youthful emotion, those comrades of my early years, how far away they are! Now life appears different to me, and everything around me takes on the gray hue of my seats; nothing is very good or very bad anymore; everything is “fine” and resembles everything else; black and white have become gray: gray is the color of worn-out consciences… and mine is beginning to be. But if it’s evident that time ruins us and saturates us with melancholy, it also transforms us, and in doing so, it stealthily takes away the very pains it gave us: from which I gather that living isn’t growing old, but rather renewing oneself, and that the mournful idea of ​​old age is more like a mirage than reality. I say this in reference to my meeting with The Misanthrope and the Sommier Brothers at the Madrid station. They informed me that Lady Catastrophe had returned to the Hendaye line with another convoy, and that they crossed paths with it every day; and that The Shy One and The Presumptuous One were part of the Asturias express train. “Those two,” my comrades added, “have made progress: they travel less than before and travel during the day. ” Then they asked: “And you, Cabal? Poor thing! You weren’t lucky; you don’t deserve to be on a mail train.” These words, which months ago would have hurt me deeply, made no impression on me. Why? Had my sensitivity become dulled? Was resignation penetrating me? ” I was better off with you,” I replied, “but I won’t say I’m living badly either. It’s true that my current days are thirty-six hours long, but I walk more slowly, so the dangers of the road aren’t so serious. ” Was it pride, the vanity of not appearing sore in the eyes of my companions that compelled me to speak like this? No: it was simply because, without even realizing it, I had been adapting to the new environment. At the beginning of that second stage, I missed everything: the locomotives, the cars, the road, the frequent and, in my opinion, endless stops. All men seem the same and are different, like the leaves of the same tree. Thus, engines: all in a “series,” in theory, pull similarly, and haul the same weight, and heat and brake in the same way; and yet, I vouch for the fact that each one starts and brakes and heats differently. At first, all this is annoying: the unexpected, the surprising, is always a little unnerving; then, by dint of repetition, it seems to become domesticated and becomes a habit, and we tolerate it and will probably even soon grow to like it. This is what happened to me with my new owners. From Madrid to Coruña, we changed engines four times. It is impossible to specify the exact amount of coal consumed per kilometer: this depends on the nature of the terrain, the weight of the train, the direction of the wind—there are times when the wind resists the train’s progress. inconceivable–; and, finally, the stoker and the engine’s well-chosen interior layout. However, the locomotive that hauled my “mail” from Madrid to Valladolid astonished the experts with the little coal it consumed, hence its nickname, La Económica. It belonged to the “four thousand series”; it was born in the gigantic workshops of Granfenstaden, could pull up to four hundred tons, and ran silently and steadily. From Valladolid to León, we were taken by La Impetuosa—also known as La Casa Real—which would brake almost instantly, which had very unpleasant repercussions on the convoy. In León, we were picked up by La Triste, so nicknamed for its quiet gait and the mournful inflections of its whistle; I swear that never, before or since, have I known another locomotive that whistled like that. It was brought from America, and it was gigantic; It belonged to the “four thousand five hundred series.” With her, we arrived in Monforte, where La Enanita (Little Dwarf) was waiting for us, bustling and puffing, whose small body bore the reason for her name. I became close to all of them, for it is enough to get close to things and glimpse the pain they live in to understand the motives of their actions and excuse them; because to understand is to forgive… The same thing happened to me with my twelve companions in the convoy. At first, they showed themselves hostile, especially the one riding in front of me, whom they called Two-Face, because half of them were “first class” and the other half “second class.” We lived together for several weeks without speaking to each other: he pulled me, I pulled the “second” one behind me, each of us fulfilling our duty, and in this way, we all paid each other back. Until one night, on a tricky curve due to the frost, we were both on the verge of derailing. Out of fear—an enemy of etiquette—I said something that showed my interest in him; he replied immediately and with warm solicitude, and we became friends. I didn’t regret it. Two-Face, who had traveled extensively, was good and well-liked in the convoy, so his affection quickly earned me the affection of the other cars. I was very pleased; however, none of them stood out: they were poor, undisciplined, vulgar cars, without history or significance. It was the same with the small transit stations: life, both that of seemingly inanimate objects and that of men, is a constant adaptation, and I adapted. As long as I belonged to an “express,” I barely got to see those platforms that, because they were so tiny, my luxurious convoy disdained. I didn’t even conceive that any train could stop in them, or even that they would be useful. I hated the dirty, heavy freight cars; I adored the speed and the short stops, and I laughed at the lazy “mixtos” and the “mercancías” (freight trains), which wait half an hour or more at each station. When I learned to walk slowly, my soul changed, and my character became gentler, and my observations more minute and subtle. Nature is always the same, and yet, for children, she has one aspect, and another for young people, and a third, completely different expression for old people. And it was the same with me. The journey from Madrid to Venta de Baños, which I traveled for nearly two decades, and which I believed held no dissimulation for me, now seemed new to me. It was like a book I had sworn I knew by heart, but which, in reality, I had never read. Most of its details surprised me with their novelty, and I admired the grandeur of certain aspects that had passed before my eyes countless times and which I had not noticed: trees, mountains, picturesque ravines, a tower high on the summit of a hill, a cemetery half hidden on the slope of a knoll… Every now and then, I asked myself: “But… is it possible that what I see now has always been here?” And, as I meditated, that is to say, as I exercised myself in the pre-excellent gymnastics of self-inspection, my “I” grew, because nothing reaffirms or broadens our personality as much as reflection. Those village stations, which never appear on the itinerary of the “express” or “rapid” trains, now amused me, and I even felt happy beside their distinctive platforms. I was interested in their “cantinas,” where thirsty passengers came to drink; the old beggars, whom the plow had bent and turned into human rags; the young women who, with a glass in their hand and a jug on their hip, called out in a musical voice to the convoy: “Water! Who wants water?” The attendant, who, unhurriedly, was closing our doors, shouted: “Dear travelers… to the train!” I was also captivated by the crowd gathered there: simple, effusive people, laden with blankets and saddlebags, who rushed en masse to attack the “third-class” cars and filled them with joyful noise; A peasant crowd that courted the women and often carried guitars and even sang a ballad—if the driver allowed time—and that spread a fair-like commotion around them. And what shall I say about those village young ladies who every day, and generally at dusk, come to the station “to watch the train go by”?… They are not interested in the “fast train” or the “express trains” that, haughty, cross whistling and without stopping. What could they care about those luxurious, cosmopolitan convoys, running enveloped in smoke and with all their windows closed, and which they, if they ever traveled, would not get on? On the other hand, the “mail,” which stops for two or three or five minutes, does attract them, because perhaps “the unexpected”—which is the love they await—is within it: because the “Prince Charming” of fairy tales no longer travels on horseback, but by train, but he hasn’t left the world… and “They” know it. I see them wandering along the platforms, holding each other’s waists and dressed simply in black, white, or pink… depending on the weather, and the desire for an ideal that moves them moves me. Some, due to their greater beauty, came to impress me exceptionally, and as I approached the station where they were, I thought about them more. I still remember “the girl with the mole” in Cercedilla; and “the blonde girl” in Venta de Baños… Another silhouette that lingers in my memory is that of a prisoner being led away in handcuffs by two Civil Guards. The curious looked at him avidly: it was “one,” who was leaving, who was being taken away, like the dead; “One” no one would ever see again… He, humiliated, lowered his head. The guards, gravediggers, and like those accustomed to removing the harmful, the rotten, the useless from the cities, followed him impassively. I saw him get into a third-class carriage and knew he was being taken to the Valladolid prison. I was struck by that man’s concentrated expression of pain, defeat, and sterile rage, and the whole way I thought of him; of the barbaric contrast between his enslaved wrists and the thrill of freedom suggested by the rush of a train. Day by day, the simplicity—not deliberate, but spontaneous—of my character earned me better affection among my companions. The long stops, instead of irritating me as they had in the past, pleased me, and I found the conversation of the third-class men, and even of the merchandise men, interesting, because by telling me about their work, they informed me of details that were new to me. Thus I finally became happy again, with that solid well-being which is neither innocence nor blindness, but reason and balance, and then I recognized that the secret of happiness lies in being cheerful and loving everything. Chapter 12. Like ocean liners—so they say—railway life, in its various aspects, affords the observer magnificent displays of character and excellent samples of types. I am constantly looking outside and within myself, and as my perspicacity becomes more abundant, I see figures multiplying, and things and events that I once considered trivial becoming important. Around me, the world seems simultaneously simpler in its essence and in its appearance more multifaceted, varied, and heterogeneous: where before I distinguished nothing or very Little, now I perceive much: a well-disciplined attention is worth a microscope. Among the emotions that first reached me, I have recorded the one produced by the white, green, and red discs in the darkness of the night; on the other hand, I didn’t notice the flags of the gatekeepers, of the same colors, until much later, perhaps because during the day, under the analeptic rule of the sun, danger is less frightening. Then I recognized my injustice, my ingratitude, toward those dark employees who, in heat, cold, or rain, at the sultry hour of the siesta in Castile, and amid the snows of the Cantabrian dawns, await the passing of the trains and with their flag—like a swordsman with his muleta—seem to deceive Death and keep it from our path. How many times, on foggy nights, the locomotive was moving slowly and whistling, and the terrified cars were crowding close together, when suddenly, a gatekeeper’s white flag restored our serenity!… And how many times too, in one of those moments when sleep or overconfidence seems to blindfold the driver, a red pennant stopped us a few meters from disaster!… I remember certain gatekeepers as if they were right in front of me: near Burgos there was a young fellow with a badly shaved beard and a thick head of hair, who looked at us sullenly; he seemed to loathe us and load us with curses, and yet his pennants were always favorable to us. There was a lame man who seemed to know us, for he smiled at all of us: at the Sommier Brothers, at the Misanthrope, at Lady Catastrophe, at me… and his smile was as cheerful as his white flag promised. Until one afternoon, when—rightly—his red pennant ordered the express to stop—we saw that he was also smiling—and from then on, his placidity ceased to inspire us with confidence. Nor have I forgotten a poor , skinny, fat woman who guarded the level crossing on a highway near Dueñas, and who was always pregnant… Of the types I call “home-grown”—I mean the employees who wander around with us—the chief, the most picturesque, is the inspector. I owe inspectors many delightful moments of hilarity. A good inspector is, exactly, the opposite of an alarm clock: because the latter wakes the sleeper when it should, and the former when it least should . A hundred times I have witnessed the following scene: Night falls, and all the passengers are asleep; all… except one!… This unfortunate man is exhausted, he is falling asleep, his aching bones are collapsing, and yet his eyes absolutely refuse to close. What can keep him awake like this? Some remorse, perhaps… some ambition? No: my sensitivity places me very close to him, and I recognize his pure, white soul: he suffers from no jealousy, he fears nothing, his business is going well… His only concern is to rest; and he fails to get it!… Perhaps, by the work of those rare magnetisms to which people are so accessible, it is precisely the bliss with which the other passengers sleep and snore that keeps him so alert… I, who was born compassionate, am moved by his torture: the compartment is dark, and in the shadows the sleepless man sighs and gnaws curses. No matter how hard I search, I can’t understand his nervousness: the temperature is good, the seat is soft, nothing creaks inside me, I brake noiselessly, and I have a smooth ride that I don’t lose even in the most intense bursts of speed. My guest, however, still can’t find that pleasant attitude that, little by little, will calm him. His spirit is full of light; it’s as if a ray of sunlight had been forgotten inside his skull . An hour passes monotonously. The insomniac, his head on the pillow and his body half-slumped on his right elbow, continues to call for sleep: a few minutes pass, he doesn’t achieve his wish, and his attitude changes. Now it’s his left elbow that supports him: one hand has grown cold, and he puts it in a pocket; his collar is bothering him, and he unbuttons it; his legs tingle; one arm feels numb; a boot oppresses him: in order to forget these importunities, now he stretches out in his seat, now he withdraws… Suddenly he feels—oh, joy!—that his eyelids begin to feel heavy; his efforts are about to be rewarded; at last, stealthy, cunning, slowly the divine spirit of sleep approaches. The traveler opens his mouth, his joints and muscles relax, and for a moment the clatter of my wheels seems more distant; everything fades away; consciousness is extinguishing its luminaries; now only one light burns, the smallest… and when this last glow is extinguished, the spirit, most sweetly, will plunge into shadow… And it is then, in that moment of indescribable bliss, that the traveler feels a touch on his arm, and a voice say, with a certain impatience: “Sir… hush, sir!… The ticket!” It is the inspector. This event is repeated several times every night. The inspector will never appear when the traveler is awake, nor long after falling asleep, but at the very divine instant of falling asleep; with such precision, with such strict exactness, that I have come to suspect them of being driven by clockwork. Travelers usually receive the inspector without complaint; perhaps a traveling salesman will grumble something, but nothing excessive. The most feared passengers are the faint-hearted—future sufferers, perhaps, of persecution delusion—who, upon boarding a train, always do so fearing the possibility of being robbed. One of these, on the journey from Palencia to Sahagún, didn’t recognize the inspector who woke him up, and believing he was dealing with a thief, rushed at him and punched him, breaking his nose. Inspectors, who already know these stories, are forewarned. Regarding travelers, there is much to write. Of course—and before getting into details—they must be divided into two large groups: Namely: passengers who “pay for a ticket” and passengers who “don’t pay.” The former includes the “third” and “second” class passengers; the least attended to, precisely; and the latter, the “first” class gentlemen, for whom, nevertheless, all the respect and flexibility of the train employees extend. The custom of traveling for free on the railways is so old that it constitutes a kind of “commonplace” in the biography of every person of a certain prestige, to the point that paying is almost a demonstration of insignificance. I observe it: when the ticket inspection comes, this traveler will present a yellow slip; that one, a red pass; another, a blue, green, or gray “carnet”… as if each of the seven colors of the spectrum contained a reason for not paying. And so much so that if the inspector stumbles—by the rarest chance—on a “whole” bill, he will hardly be able to refrain from looking at its owner with an expression of disdain and astonishment, as if to say: “Why do you let the companies rob you? Don’t you feel sorry for throwing away your money?” I have come to acquire such an immediate and accurate understanding of people that, after meeting them for a short time, I already know in which category I must place them. Rebellious figures, those with a strong personality, are rare; some, very few, traveled with me; but the majority of the types—not in their superficial or formal aspects, but in their substance—resemble each other amazingly, and are very easy to classify. Among honest women—whether they travel alone or accompanied—I admit only two types: the easygoing ones, who don’t seem to care about anyone, and perhaps abuse the courtesies due to their sex to wrest a comfortable seat; and the timid ones, who don’t speak to anyone, don’t dare cross their legs if they’re tired, and aren’t capable of going to the bathroom unless it’s at dawn and when they assume no one will see them. Men’s freedom makes them more varied and colorful. I’ll begin this brief enumeration with the “early bird” traveler. He’s a type that only exists at stations where the train departs, at the so-called “head of the line,” and he’s the first to board the convoy. The idea of ​​spending the night comfortably obsesses him. Since the cars are still empty, he goes through them all, looking for the best seat: going back and forth, testing the solidity of the luggage nets, examining whether the windows close properly, feeling the mattresses, tiring himself, getting his hands dirty… and, finally, choosing a seat. Immediately, and so that the passengers who arrive later think the whole compartment is occupied, he begins to distribute his belongings: here he’ll leave a book and a pair of gloves; there, a pillow and an overcoat; over there, a suitcase… Then he sits down, looks at his watch, and sadly acknowledges that there are still fifty minutes until the train’s departure. In any case, he doesn’t regret having run so far; he believes that luck favors “the early risers,” and the idea of ​​traveling alone charms him: he’s naive. Little by little, the platform becomes lively, and the crowds begin to flow in. At the same time, all the lights in the convoy have just come on, and “the early bird” experiences the anxiety of a fugitive who believes himself discovered. A traveler appears at the compartment door, undeterred by the theatrically scattered objects. “Sir,” he asks, “are these yours?” “The early bird” doesn’t dare lie. “Yes, sir.” And, solicitously, he goes to collect his gloves and books. The newcomer bows, smiles, and settles in. A few moments later, a third traveler appears; from the aisle, he observes and guesses that those seats are unoccupied. He inquires: “Who among you does this suitcase belong to?” “The early bird,” who, avoiding clarification, had leaned out of a window, is forced to turn his head. “It’s mine, sir,” he replies, blushing. And he withdraws it. Thus, one after another, all the seats are occupied. “The early bird” has wasted his time. The idiosyncrasy of the “sleepy” traveler is different. He doesn’t care whether his fellow passengers are few or many, or whether there are women. He never buys newspapers, and for the same reason, he doesn’t care if the lights in his compartment are dim. He hasn’t even asked if the train has a dining car! The “sleepy” traveler doesn’t talk to anyone, and any place is fine. His only concern is sleep, perhaps to make the journey seem shorter. Even if someone pushes him, even if someone steps on him, he won’t say anything; he’ll open his eyes for a moment and then close them again. At the beginning of the night, the “sleepy traveler” will occupy one seat; then—if they let him—he’ll occupy two; and, at dawn, three. Sleep has a kind of expansive virtue… I have observed that, on the train, men of the world stay away from women; They’ll know why: it seems that, as delightful as they are at home, they are annoying on the road… The “gallant” traveler, despite his experience, can’t live without them, and he seeks them out. This markedly Spanish type will walk around the convoy before sitting down , and wherever he finds a pretty lady traveling alone, he’ll try to settle in. He’ll then look for a way to talk to her: with this intention, he’ll offer her a newspaper or ask her permission to light a cigarette. In the case of an adventuress, everything will go well, since the roads that lead to them are flat and short; but if the person she’s seeking isn’t one of those “bitter-skinned” ones, but one of those who are both modest and intelligent and accustomed to traveling, the seducer has lost the fight, at least during the course of that first interview. Generally, the intentions of the gallant and those of the pursued are at odds: he will want to read, and she, slyly, will appear tired and want to turn out the light; He will try to smoke, and she, without forbidding him, but with discreet coughing, will force him to throw away the cigarette. If it is summer, he may be hot, but perhaps she, already in the early morning, will complain of being cold, in which case the “gallant” traveler will hasten—while he staunches his sweat—to close the windows. If, on the other hand, it is winter night, he will generously offer the lady his blanket to keep her warmer, and even his pillow; and, in order for him to rest more comfortably, he will isolate himself in a corner, with no other consolation than the very limited one of looking at his feet. And so, uselessly bitten by the sharp little teeth of temptation, without smoking, without sleeping, with nowhere to rest his already dark head, the pristine brightness of dawn will come to greet him. But there is no need to fear that the “gallant” traveler will learn his lesson; a mediocre success will be enough to save him from a hundred setbacks, and always, as soon as the rosy adventure appears, he will incorrigibly begin again. With these fussiness and profiles, I amuse myself, and, at the same time, I learn a lot. In the intimacy of a long journey, even the most secretive spirits manage to reveal themselves a little. The leisure of so many hours moves them to seek consolation in conversation; Annoyance leads them to utter indiscreet words, and, in a moment of distraction or apathy, physical fatigue often forces them to commit behavioral inaccuracies. I have seen people who, after a night on the train, appear as calm and amiable as when they boarded the carriage. But these are a minority. The careless majority soon suffer the somewhat grotesque need to arrange themselves comfortably: this one will loosen his belt, that one will take off his shirt collar, a third will commit the rudeness of taking off his shoes… What I hate most!… “The important thing is to be comfortable,” each one muses. In this verbose gallery of silhouettes—almost always comical—that I see frequently, there is always “the snoring gentleman”; whom we should not confuse with “the sleepy one,” already introduced. In an apartment there are six people, two of whom, because they are in the center and lack a comfortable angle to lean on, will spend the night moving their heads back and forth or left and right. The expression of these movements will respond to the temperament of each individual: the optimistic and kind-hearted will manifest themselves as open to everything: “Yes… yes… yes…” On the other hand, the pessimistic will continually protest: “No… no… no…” Of my guests, one is old and has a blond mustache; the other is young and sports a handsome black beard. Of the two gentlemen sitting by the windows, the one with his back to the typewriter is very thin, and the other very fat. Each one looks for a means of distraction: one is reading a novel, another is unfolding a newspaper, another is absorbed in the pages of a _Directory_, replete with names and numbers printed in microscopic characters . At intervals they observe each other, and, as time passes, an atmosphere of mutual confidence seems to surround them. Almost simultaneously, everyone thought: “What a pity there are so many of us! If only there were four of us, we could lie down and get some sleep.” Gradually, their reading tires them out, and the newspapers become crumpled on their knees; some, in the rush of the train, slide to the floor. Suddenly, one of the two gentlemen occupying the middle of the compartment—that is, the most uncomfortable, most unpleasant place—begins to snore. Is it possible? Moments before, I saw him rest his chin on the knot of his tie, and immediately, without any transition, his breathing became sonorous. At first, I thought I’d heard wrong: “But… has he fallen asleep?” I wondered. Yes, he’s asleep, there’s no doubt about it; and, for moments, the air he inhales and expels through his mouth and nose reinforces and complicates his polyphony. The people, with their exacting acuity and proverbial wit, distinguish three beats in snoring. In the first, he says, “you blow”; in the second, “you sigh”; in the third, “you ask for bread.” The traveler I’m talking about marks these three beats exactly. He began by blowing with the slow, gentle blowing necessary for putting out a match. This peaceful exhalation is then followed by a placid sigh: “Ah!”… Finally, his lips, coming together and parting rhythmically, as if tasting something, ask for “bread”… Then he blows again. His face slumped forward, his cap or hat tilted to one side, and his plump hands crossed over his round belly, “the gentleman who “he snores,” he repeats beatifically: “Fu… ah… bread!… Fu… ah… bread!…” The other passengers look at him in surprise, and soon this astonishment turns to envy, and then to antipathy, to hatred… Evidently, it bothers them that, when everyone is awake, someone should sleep like that: that peaceful snoring implies superiority, and is an insult to their sleepless eyes. Spite drives them to think aloud. One comments, with dull irritation: “What an atrocity! He has a throat like a saw. What an insolent way of sleeping!” Another replies: “To be like that, you have to be insensitive. I can’t close my eyes on the train. ” “Nor I.” The young man with the black beard adds: “Well, if he doesn’t wake up, we’ll spend the night in Purgatory. He’s one of those who sleeps and doesn’t let anyone else sleep. How rude !” Oblivious to everything about him They murmur, the sleeper happily continues: “Fu… ah… bread!” We arrive at a station, and my guests believe that the sudden movement with which I have stopped will awaken the snorer. A lying hope! In the profound silence of the stop, his snores are better heard. Neither the vibrations nor the cold overcome him. The thin gentleman has a bad thought: “What if we open the window? Perhaps a draft would finish him off…” Those present smile approvingly, but they do not dare; it would be too much… The train resumes its creaking pace, and “the snoring gentleman,” deprived of a support, shudders over himself like a puppet: the fatty prominence of his belly trembles; his arms, now inert, shake; and his head, which remains balanced, affirms… denies… doubts… You’d think it was on a wire!… The next morning, well into the day, he wakes up and his eyes look around in astonishment. His awakening is affectionate and communicative. He yawns, smiles… “Fortunately,” he exclaims, “he spent the night. Have you rested?”… No one answers; but the gloomy faces, the lackluster looks of his listeners say otherwise. “Oh?” he continues. “Goodness!… I haven’t slept either.” The thin traveler, and the fat one, and the old man with the blond mustache, and the young man with the black beard… look at him angrily, and each one misses his revolver. There are impudences that must be answered with gunfire. As a counterpoint to “the gentleman who snores,” there is another type who is never lacking either, and that is “the gentleman who doesn’t sleep.” But his figure—unlike the other one—speaks of distinction, aristocracy, sovereignty… Two minutes before the train left, when I thought no one would get on , a gentleman arrives. He is friendly without being jovial, serious without being stern. “Good evening,” he murmurs. He places his luggage on the net: a briefcase, a hatbox, and an umbrella, all very neat and brand new, and to settle down, he doesn’t choose a spot, but accepts the nearest one. Then he unfolds a thick plaid blanket, which he wraps around his legs and body up to the waist, and sits upright, feet together and hands crossed on his abdomen. He looks fifty years old, medium build; his hair and mustache are entirely white; pale complexion, aquiline profile; his cleanly defined chin reveals determination. Military type, in short, from a commander upwards. Bowler hat fitted tightly over his black eyebrows, so that it cannot be twisted from one side to the other; A blue overcoat, very brushed; yellow suede gloves; the collar of his shirt, very white, shines in the light. That man, of a tormenting impassivity, neither reads nor smokes: his lively pupils gaze into space, examine the travelers, and, at intervals, linger on me. To his distracted curiosity, mine responds. We have been together for more than an hour, and yet his feet have not moved, and the folds that, when he sat down, formed the blanket with which he warms himself still remain. Only the position of his hands has changed: the left, which was under the right, is now above. Little by little, my tenants are encouraged to chat, and the conversation becomes general: they speak ill of Spain, an unavoidable unhealthy cliché among Spaniards, and the cigarette smoke colors the air. There is laughter, interjections. Only the gentleman with the snowy mustache remains serious, silent, and not smoking, and his inscrutability shrouds a reproach. Suddenly, the chatter ceases, and, under the first hints of sleep, each person seeks a comfortable position. This one buries his head in a pillow while stifling a yawn; that one snuggles into his overcoat; someone pulls his cap down better to keep the light out of his eyes; eurythmy is lost… Only “the gentleman who doesn’t sleep” hasn’t shuddered: only the arrangement of his hands has changed again: the right hand covers the other. Nothing seems to bother him: neither the stiffness of his starched collar, nor the persistent trembling of my gait, nor the probable hardness of the seat. With the almost horizontal brim of his bowler hat, perched plumb, his vertical spirit seems to draw a cross. The meticulous neatness of his attire speaks of neatness: it’s clean, it’s stiff, like a tailcoat . Ironed, it wouldn’t be better. In myself, so accustomed to meeting people, this typical traveler inspires an admiration that the other passengers share. The gentleman next to him questions him politely. “I’d like to lie down for a while. Would it bother you if I put my feet up on the seat? ” “Not at all. ” “Don’t you want to lie down? We could both fit very comfortably. ” “Thank you very much.” He offers him a newspaper: “If you’d like to read…” “Nor do I; thank you. ” “Don’t you sleep when you travel? ” “Never.” Another gentleman, who has just buttoned the earflaps of his cap under his beard, asks him: “Do you mind if we turn off the light? ” “None.” Nothing else is said, and the compartment is plunged into darkness. The darkness, however, is not complete, and in the gloom, though dense, I see the eyes of “the man who never sleeps” flashing, stubborn and implacable. Those merciless eyes resist sleep, silence, the slumber of the monorhythmic trembling of my gait; and, most prodigiously, they resist the terrible drowsiness of darkness. Nothing troubles them. Inquisitive pupils, vigilant pupils, how can you overcome the shadow? An hour passes, two pass: it is five in the morning, and the watchful eyes, similar to “the eye of God,” of that man remain open. The next morning, under the sunlight that in proud streams sets my windows ablaze, the travelers shake off their sleep, stretch, and begin to correct the disarray of their suits. He picks up his collar and tie from the floor; Another has his hair disheveled, and his shirt is sticking out from between his waistcoat and trousers… To the example and shame of all, “The Gentleman Who Doesn’t Sleep” is as they knew him the day before. Fourteen or sixteen hours of travel haven’t upset the stern equilibrium of his individuality by a jot. That painful exodus has been lapidary for his body, sweet and easy like a ride on a streetcar. We have arrived at the terminal station, and my guests are hurrying to pack their suitcases. “The Gentleman Who Doesn’t Sleep” is the first to leave me: in a jiffy he has folded his blanket and gathered his briefcase, his hatbox, and his umbrella. “Good morning,” he says. And he leaves. Not a single stain or wrinkle on him: his trousers are free of knee pads, his cuffs are clean, his tie bow intact, his hat poised… As if he were going to take a picture!… Chapter 13. The individuals I tried to describe in the previous chapter are “fundamental” and we encounter them on every journey, as if nature had preserved its archetypes or prototypes and had obtained from them thousands of reproductions that it then distributed along the countless roads of the world. As I said, the physical or plastic element of these profiles can vary–and does vary–to infinity: the traveler “Gallant,” the “early bird,” “the gentleman who never sleeps”… they may be fat or thin, blond or dark-faced, old or young: this, the accidental, is of no importance: what is immutable, what resurges inflexible in them, is their character, their arcane or spiritual personality, which neither falters, nor cools, nor bends. But alongside these silhouettes with obvious “family” features, there appear “the odd ones,” who are rare because they are so; the wayward souls, the unadaptable wills who, when they pass by, do so radiating a bit of restlessness around them. In them, their very inner life, resounding and fervent, imposes on them a face that is “their own,” for we already know that the face is the platform where the soul ascends to speak, and the pulpit is, almost always, the mirror of the orator. “The Strange One,” therefore, will impress, for example, by his way of looking—although neither the size nor the color of his eyes are extraordinary—by his way of combing his hair, dressing, and cutting the pages of the book he is about to read; by something, in short, rambling and swashbuckling, that is unique to him! Precisely his sympathy, the interest he arouses, come from there. I have known one of those “startled ones,” guerrillas of love and life who remain on the fringes of social routines and even on the outskirts of the Code. A woman lost him, and since she traveled with me many times over the course of three years, and I heard him think and cry, and had opportunities to read the letters she and he wrote to each other, I can say that I was present at his last moments. His age fluctuated between twenty-eight and thirty, and he had—I later learned—a very Spanish name; A three-syllable name, grave and heroic, that sounded like a ballad: his name was Rodrigo. He was of average stature and slight, but vigorous, judging by how much his fibrous, hairy hands and the very agile nature of his movements spoke of his strength. His coppery, aquiline face resembled that of an Arab, while his blond, upturned mustache and large , clear green eyes were Dutch; and from this antithesis of features came the striking originality of his face. His dark complexion sharpened the clarity of his gaze and the whiteness of his teeth, which, with their light and in equal measure, intensified the copper of his skin. There was, then, within a perfect harmony, a magnificent contradiction of races. Don Rodrigo resided in the city of Valladolid, and the night— or rather, the early morning—when I met him, his figure, as soon as he appeared on the platform, captured my attention. There were few passengers. I saw him approach, followed by the porter carrying his luggage, and board one of the first-class compartments of Dos Caras, which was traveling in front of me. But the intimacy of the old, oft-repaired carriage must not have pleased him, for he soon got out and joined me. From then on, Don Rodrigo, whenever he waited for my courier, either because I was the best car on the train, or because of that attraction that inanimate objects exert on people we like—of which I have already spoken—preferred me. On that first meeting, rather than the discreet elegance and gallant bearing of my host, it was the extreme agitation of his spirit that captivated me. As chance would have it, there was no one in the apartment he had chosen, and in solitude his spirit was more easily revealed. Thanks to this complex sensitivity of mine, which—as explained in another chapter—is an abbreviation of the five bodily senses of man, I simultaneously saw Don Rodrigo and heard him, and just as the skin perceives heat, in the same way his ideas and desires, as they were being produced, reached me. I—I don’t think it’s superfluous to repeat this— understand people who are still and thinking deeply better than if they were speaking, because their immobility and silence, which in a certain way transform them into inanimate things—to put it in the words a mortal would use—bring them closer to my way of being. Don Rodrigo was going to La Coruña in search of his lover. Her name was Raquel, and In the lover’s imagination, the woman’s silhouette appeared or blurred, as if by virtue of a kind of systole and diastole in his memory. Her head, in particular, was clearly defined: her hair was walnut-brown, her mouth was receding, and she had the black, burning eyes of a great sensual woman. One hand was also clearly visible, the left, in whose fingers she dreamed of an emerald and cursed a ruby. Alternately, that hand and that face continued to be hidden, or reemerged marvelously, like images in a photographer’s “bathroom. ” Don Rodrigo thought… he thought incessantly, but his thinking was rudimentary, schematic, and a few words, very few, summed it up. I saw them pass through the fervent spirit of the meditator: they passed by, alight, burning like flames, and like the little horses on a Merry-Go-Round, they seemed to go around: they left, they returned, they left again, only to resurrect again, stubborn, imperious, hallucinatory… Sometimes they were disjointed, at times they strung together sentences, syllable after syllable; they seemed like neon signs. They would say: “Rachel…” “I’m going to see you…” “Rachel, your lips have the sweetness of life, and your eyes the color of death…” “Rachel…” “Your hair…” “Your hands…” “Did you receive my telegram?…” “Yes?…” “You’ll be waiting for me, as always, at the station…” “Rachel…” “I, to see you first, I’ll go leaning out of the window…” “I’ll embrace you…” “Oh, my silken flesh!… ”
At intervals, the lover, absorbed, smiled at certain ideas, and according as his attention lingered on one or another, the corresponding image blossomed as if bathed in a miraculous light. I accompanied him in this continuous and feverish imagining, and, infected by his impatience, I almost came to enjoy and suffer with him. He said, “You’ll be waiting for me…” and I saw a woman appear, distinguished in appearance, wrapped in furs. She said, “Your lips…” and I saw a mouth as bright as a heart. She said, “Your buttocks…” and I saw a wave of pink flesh pass by. She said, “Your eyes…” and I thought I was sinking into a tunnel… Impatient, Don Rodrigo got up and went out into the hallway. There, before that cold and lazy February dawn, he meditated on Raquel again. He was happy because they were going to be together; suddenly he became sad considering that, later on, they would be separated again. Then he thought of the final separation, of the one-way journey of death. He looked at the misty landscape, and his gaze stopped on a tree. Instantly, he became sad. “One day,” he sighed, “they’ll lower me to earth in a box. Have I seen… am I now seeing… the tree whose wood will be used to make my coffin? Because there’s no doubt that this tree already exists, destined to rot with me. And when I expire, of all the words I know and use daily, which will be the last I utter?… It seems impossible that men could be so vulgar as never to reflect on this…!” He sat down again, and while he lit a cigarette, his gay-green eyes examined me. He found me comfortable. “It’s a good car,” he said. Almost at the same time, he exclaimed, slapping his knee: “Let’s go very slowly!” And then he remembered Rachel; and when he imagined her, he began with what captivated him most. “Her eyes…” “Her hair…” “Her lips… ” “Her hands…” From her lips, I moved, invariably, to her hands; and from her hands, to her hips; I rarely thought about her breast , and I noticed that always, when reconstructing the image of the Beloved, I followed the same order. When we arrived at the Coruña station, among the hundred or so people waiting for the “mail,” I saw a woman of reasonable height and well -built, with black eyes, wrapped in a fur cape. A frank youthful laugh bathed her face in light. “Raquel,” I thought. Before the train stopped, Don Rodrigo jumped onto the platform and ran to embrace her, and I saw how, under the convulsive pressure of his arms, the bending figure of the Beloved undulated and yielded. They kissed. Then, leaning against each other , still looking at each other, they walked away looking for the exit. I spoke about all this with Two-Face, who knew them and gave me some information: for reasons my companion couldn’t explain, they lived separately; he in Valladolid, and she in La Coruña, but they met frequently , sometimes in one city or another. “They’re old ‘clients’ of mine,” Two-Face continued. “I mean, they’ve both traveled a lot with me, because if she doesn’t go looking for him, it’s because he comes.” I thought I detected a hint of contempt in his words, which didn’t surprise me, since old Two-Face accepted all the ordinances of current morality “with all due respect.” Perhaps jealousy and spite at seeing “his clients”—as he called them— leaving him for me also spoke within him. ” They’ve been in love for over a year,” he said, “they’ve both been in love. Bah, they’ll get tired of it!… Neither of these free unions lasts; sometimes it’s their fault, sometimes it’s their fault.” Marriage is the only thing capable of preventing women and men from separating. That’s why any woman who goes to live with a man without being married to him is a bitch. This petty and one-sided statement unsettled me; it expressed an irritating intransigence. “Shut up, barbarian!” I shouted at him. “It’s clear that you were made from Castilian wood, and that this land of ours, so harsh—land of inquisitors—infiltrated its cruelty.” Two-Face maintained his opinion: love can only exist in married women ; in “the others,” in those who live in concubines, there is no affection; it’s self-interest, it’s vice, whatever there is… He managed to infuriate me, and I launched into my argument with spirited fervor. In the social lottery, marriage is “a prize” that, because it is awarded by chance and not logic, credits no merit to the recipient. There are adventuresses who were born to have a home, and married women with the souls of lost souls. “As long as men,” I continued, “monopolize all the jobs; as long as they have control of money, the key to life; as long as they prevent their companions from learning, working, and developing; as long as they ” invite” them—a hateful word!—love, whether practiced behind the backs of the Law or under its protection, will be for poor women “a business,” a dirty transaction of buying and selling. Men, selfish, terribly selfish, have their victims by the stomach. “If you are ours,” they say, “we will clothe you and provide you with food; otherwise, you will die of hunger.” And “they” accept. The problem of love, therefore, is, in essence, a terrifying economic problem. A woman who does not love, or who does not lend herself to love, does not eat. And she needs to eat! The least demanding—with or without affection—give themselves freely; they sell themselves on credit; the most forward-thinking or the most fortunate ask for much more: they demand marriage, which, if necessary, will help them claim compensation; those who marry “sell for cash,” because their husband’s signature represents money. But all of them, single or married, sell themselves; slaves to the profoundly immoral environment that oppresses them and condemns them to turn their beds into offices or counters, all of them—and quite against their will!—carry their future in whatever part of their bodies they sit on… With these exalted assertions, Two-Face became so upset that, losing his composure, he said very unpleasant things to me. I rebuked him with equal insolence, and we would have gone far ahead in our discord had it not been for the “second” who was rolling behind me and, with kind phrases and happy-humored wisecracks, managed to reconcile us. I was the first to soften my brow. “From now on,” I exclaimed, “we will not argue again: why would we, if we weren’t supposed to understand each other?… Let each one keep his own house and his own opinion! I, although noble, am a bit of a troublemaker: I like free love and thieves. ” “And I,” replied Two-Face, “being a traditionalist, I like marriage and the Civil Guard.” Two weeks later, one night, Raquel and Don Rodrigo reappeared. They were going to Valladolid. She made a gesture to get into Two-Face; he stopped her; with a gesture, he pointed at me. “This is where we’d better go,” he said; “it’s the car in which I made my last trip.” She immediately agreed with a friendly vivacity, and I shuddered, extremely pleased to have them so close. Two-Face grunted something I couldn’t quite make out, but it seemed to me that, ironically, he was congratulating me. In the compartment the lovers occupied, there were two people. They found a corner near the corridor, and from that very moment, the happiness of being together isolated them from everything. While she spoke, he looked into her eyes; fleeting tremors agitated his lips, and with his long, hairy fingers he impatiently twisted his mustache. Raquel’s conversation was versatile, cheerful, childlike; Don Rodrigo’s, serious and vehement; she seemed to love him because she loved life; while he, more somber, inflamed his passion with fear of death. Evidently, the lover’s affection sank its plow deeper. She laughed easily; he laughed little, and his wary words were like twins directed toward the interrogation of tomorrow; they were profound, unsettling; Raquel, listening to him, gave me the impression of a little girl peering into a well. Oh, what a marvelous book could be composed by stringing together the phrases with which lovers unconsciously became intoxicated!… I remember Don Rodrigo saying: “Just as every second, one by one, leads to death, so all the women I have known brought me closer to you, because they all had something of you, and I, who sensed you, without suspecting it, loved you in all of them. And when I traveled, it was not the desire to explore new cities—as I believed—that moved me, but the longing to find myself with you. Now you are for me Spain, France, Italy, Switzerland…; you are America… I would like to flee from you, but it would be impossible! Your memory surrounds me; I see you like a horizon, and inevitably all roads lead me to you. Who would escape its horizon? Raquel, my Raquel… I adore you and fear you, because I feel you are my Destiny. She laughed; the pride of understanding herself, so desired, made her happy, and in those moments she was like a goddess intoxicated by the incense burning before her altar. To me, who was closer to her soul than Don Rodrigo, that superficiality, that laughter, instilled fear: Raquel was one of those women, with a small head, who don’t know how often a great love is a date that brings death. Suddenly the conversation changed course and became completely joyful. They spoke of their plans, and then I learned that they were thinking of visiting the never- enough-celebrated castle of Simancas—today the General Archives of the Kingdom—a glorious fortress similar to an old warrior transformed into a scholar. After a brief silence, she asked, for no reason, “What time is it?” Don Rodrigo, informed that his traveling companions were asleep, replied, “Time for a kiss.” She laughed, he laughed, and silently they joined their mouths. After a few minutes, Raquel mechanically said again, “Hey… what time is it?” And Don Rodrigo, “Time for another kiss. ” They laughed again, but she, beginning to get sleepy, insisted, “No… really! I want to know the time!” He didn’t reply; or rather, he didn’t speak with his lips, but with his long, diaphanous green eyes, through which a light had passed. He quickly went out into the corridor, tore off the watch he was wearing on his wrist, and threw it out through the open window. He wasn’t uncomfortable; on the contrary! He had never been happier than at that moment! He sat down again and placed Raquel on his knees: “Kiss me,” he sighed; “it is time; Eternity has no other time for us than this; the time to kiss each other…” His hands searched anxiously among the clothes of the Desired One, and his heart beat violently: he paled, reddened, turned pale again. Raquel looked like agate: her flesh was hard, soft, cold… Eight or ten days later the two lovers were waiting for me in Valladolid. Don Rodrigo was going to see Raquel off, who was returning to La Coruña. The following month–and always with me–Don Rodrigo went to La Coruña, from where He returned alone. The following month, the same thing happened: it was an uninterrupted wandering , a beautiful and anguished inability to live apart: at the Coruña station, she was the one saying goodbye, and at the Valladolid station, it was he. But there were times when, unable to separate, he courted her as far as La Coruña, and she accompanied him to Valladolid. Meanwhile, I didn’t know what Don Rodrigo was up to, nor Raquel’s true social situation, nor did I know the motives that prevented them from being united, loving each other so much. This idyll, which fascinated me, made old Two-Face laugh. “These two simpletons,” he would say, “with so much coming and going, have turned our “mail” into a swing; a kind of swing at ground level.” Chapter 14. What geographers call the Central Plateau of our Peninsula includes the two Castillas, the provinces of the ancient kingdom of León, and those of Extremadura. It traces an inclined plane bordered to the north by the Cantabrian mountain range, the one with its marvelous landscapes; to the east and west by the Iberian mountain range and the Montes de Galicia, respectively; and to the south by the Marianic mountain range, among whose rugged knots the roads of Andalusia open. Thus, surrounded by mountains, the Iberian massif, both in its reddish background and its shape, resembles an amphitheater. I have frequently heard learned people—engineers, no doubt—who traveled with me assert that in the Tertiary period, this entire part of our country was covered by enormous lakes that, when they dried, gave rise to sedimentary terrain arranged in horizontal strata, some of considerable thickness. From there, from the agony of those lakes that the thirsty subsoil drank, the plain was born; those uniform, calm plains, with some water dormant in their serenity. Castile is a sea made land; and perhaps stimulated by the very vastness of its horizons, its men stood out among the most wandering and brave on the planet, because something of the seafarer lay hidden in the most arcane of their souls. In the fourteenth century, those fields appeared covered with dense forests, where magnates practiced hunting wild boar and bear, and pursued deer. Until, little by little, wars and the genuinely Spanish hatred that rustic man professes for trees destroyed the leaves. When these began to dwindle, the clouds fled, and with them the rain, the spring of life, and the forest transformed into a steppe. And while Spain was bleeding to death outside its borders in useless wars, the human ashes that the winds collected in the embers of the autos-da-fé seemed to fall, like a curse, upon the abandoned and desolate homeland, covered with wild thistles and boulders . Ashes cannot fertilize the land, and our inquisitors knew no other way to fertilize it; and that is how I knew it, inhospitable and dry like those very hearts that fought so hard over it. The Castilian soil is even; I mean that, except for slight variations, its appearance is identical whatever the season. Scorched by the sun in summer, frozen by frost in winter, lashed by winds as sharp as knives that burst through the snowy ravines of the northern mountains, the plain retains unchanged that yellowish color typical of lands that have drunk much blood, and to which one of the three stripes of the national flag seems to allude. The mountains, which are easily covered in vegetation or, with snow, in the space of a single night, are dressed in white; the mountains whose sonority changes continually and seems to jump from one side of the road to the other, have many followers; they are lies. Not me; I prefer the plain, with its monotonous prayer: the plain always imitates itself ; it doesn’t surprise, it doesn’t understand theatrical artifices, nor does it collaborate in the cowardice of ambushes; in it, the enemy can be seen from afar: it is faithful, it is noble. Around the Central Plateau the coastal regions draw a green ring; and so, seen from above, Castile, bare and sad, is like the the bald skull of a god girded with vine shoots. On the itinerary I am now following, the happy zone does not begin resolutely until the vicinity of Palencia. The road ceaselessly tries to repent of everything it has done, and I say this because it hardly descends when, without transition, it rises again, running from right to left, as if drunk. The “roller coasters” that the common people enjoy at fairs are a poor caricature of what a trip to Galicia is all about. Who would count the bridges and tunnels that scatter surprises along the route? We have just left Castile, and already it seems we have left it far behind: such is the captivating power of the new region we are crossing, and the historical interest of certain places. We leave behind Tierra de Campos, which could well be called the “breadbasket of Spain,” on which, since the 12th century, the ruins of two once powerful fortresses have stood. We pass Paredes de Nava, where Alfonso de Berruguete was born; Cisneros, birthplace of the terrible Cardinal, and Sahagún, the Roman city where the much-disturbed bones of Alfonso VI rest. The
convoy arrives in León, which, more than its cathedral, a model of Gothic architecture, is proud of having witnessed the birth of the guardian of Tarifa, Don Alonso Pérez de Guzmán; then to Veguellina, which gained fame with the “honorable passage” maintained in the first half of the 15th century by the very gallant Suero de Quiñones; and shortly after, to Astorga, the _Asturica Augusta_ of the Romans, the one that Pliny described as a “magnificent city,” and whose towers and walls still give it a military profile. We are in the heart of the Montes de León, and we are about to enter the Galician region through the so-called “Paso de Manzanal,” opened between the stations of Astorga and Ponferrada. The eloquence that landscape geniuses displayed there is astonishing and astonishing. Around us, incessantly, the land, like a sea whipped by a storm, descends, climbs, depresses, and crags until it becomes an abyss, or arches and prodigiously gains the clouds; and in each cresting profile there is such vehemence, such rhythm, that the mountains, especially on moonlit nights, seem to move. This inexhaustible succession of valleys, ravines, steep torrents, and hills play with the winds and, from hour to hour, mystifies the temperature: we roll along under a blanket of stars, and suddenly the sky clouds over and a downpour falls; this doesn’t prevent the moon from reappearing minutes later, pale, sad, and spectral. The steep slopes are covered by forests of oak, chestnut, and beech; Apple trees also abound, and in the deep, sheltered spots, orange, lemon, pomegranate, fig, and laurel trees flourish. Sometimes the air is cold, sometimes warm; here the ground will be covered with corn, and a little further on with wheat or vines; and, without ceasing, as the train passes, the mountain range will have a special light, and an unexpected echoing capacity. For the second time, we have crossed the Tuerto River, and reached the Brañuelas station, located exactly 1,000 meters above sea level. We continue on, plunging into a long tunnel; the route—we clearly appreciate it —descends rapidly, and we cross a second tunnel, and a third, and then another and another… up to thirteen!… According to my companions, to cover the distance of one kilometer, we will need to travel seven kilometers. We are in the most dangerous part of the track. La Triste, our engine, despite its power, gasps for breath. We too are resenting the roughness of the road; our ironwork is beginning to overheat, and from overuse, our brakes are aching. From La Granja, where we stopped for a few minutes, we set off hesitantly, plunging into the El Lazo tunnel; a sinister tunnel where many engineers and firemen were at risk of suffocating to death from the locomotive’s smoke. This feeling of suffocation , which the same passengers often experience, even when the car windows are closed, occurs when the wind, blowing in the same direction as the train, prevents the smoke from escaping backward. We continue descending: we have crossed the small platforms of Torre, Bembibre, San Miguel de Dueñas, Ponferrada, and Toral de los Vados, until , tired of running underground, we reach Quereño, the first station in Galicia. Our imagination of the landscape, far from being exhausted, heats up, and at times composes more rugged and beautiful perspectives. With astonishing eloquence, it renews itself and relentlessly surpasses itself. The colors, especially, have multiplied; the greens triumph, and a pleasant scent of thyme and damp earth floats in the air. Farmhouses abound, rocky narrows, and small waterfalls through which, as if through severed arteries, the mountain range seems to bleed. The valley narrows, and the Sil River and the road to La Coruña advance parallel to us, and as they alternately emerge and disappear, they seem to play among the trees. We cross the extensive vineyards of Rúa Petín; We pass through Montefurado, near which the tunnel built by the Romans to divert the course of the Sil River and collect the abundant gold mixed with the sands of its original channel still exists; and after a long downward path that goes in search of the Lemos basin, we arrive at Monforte, the famous stronghold of the Counts of Lemos, from whom it takes its name. La Triste remains there, and from now on it will be La Enanita, bustling and picturesque, less powerful than her sister, but much more agile, who will fight at the vanguard of the convoy. We rest for a few minutes, and onward, once again! More tunnels; we pass through one that measures nearly two thousand meters, and continue descending, as if drawn by the sea; we pass the stations of Oural and Sarria, and that of Puebla de San Julián, where the line rebels against the humiliating magnet of the coast, and begins to climb again. The Dwarf whistles, puffs, and sometimes the desperation in her efforts makes us laugh. “Work hard, deckchair,” the cars comment, “you have no reason to be tired. What would you say if, like us, you had been traveling for thirty hours? One more effort brings us to Lugo, where we rest. We then cross the Calde and Ladra rivers, tributaries of the Miño, and the Parga; we arrive at Curtis station, a well-known place for pilgrims on their way to Santiago de Compostela; and then at the famous Betanzos, at whose gates the spirit of Islam left vestiges of its grace. Afterwards, and still walking downhill, we will see the platforms of Guísamo, Abegondo, Cambre, El Burgo, El Pasaje pass by. Finally, the terminal station appears: La Coruña. Oh! And with what joy, with what an irresistible need for calm, we stop under a marquee, after a journey in which we’ve felt death slipping beside our wheels a thousand times!… Despite this, this route pleases me: not only for its beauty, which many people who have traveled through Switzerland and know the wildest corners of the Tyrol rave about, but also for the kind of people who travel with me. Like the Basques, the Galicians are polite and clean, and this last quality, especially, wins them my sympathy; because, despite having had to suffer so many uneducated people, I still haven’t been able to get used to anyone spitting on me, or leaving the mud from their boots on my carpets. In the midst of this uninterrupted droning from the center to the periphery of Spain, and back again, my life is a bit monotonous, because the scenes—like the people—repeat themselves. At the departure or departure station, all the cars, swept, dusted, and with our windows freshly scrubbed, appear cheerful and gleaming. The machine, well-oiled, well-rubbed, with all its mechanisms polished and ready, also seems new. Suddenly, two or more doors open, and the passengers burst onto the platform and assault us; with the impoliteness of impatience, women and men shove and shove, grabbing our stirrups, then rushing from one side to the other, as if crazed, looking for a seat. Meanwhile, the platform attendants load us with suitcases, hat boxes, blanket carriers, picnic baskets, and bundles of all colors and shapes, which they load into the platform . hastily, and as if by force, through the windows. Each one of these seems like a mouth; each step, a boarding ladder. We are already all crammed with people and luggage, and as soon as the train pulls away, the traveling crowd quiets down and begins to show signs of that air of boredom it will retain throughout the journey. A strange atmosphere of monotony, of fatigue, haunts us. Nothing unusual ever happens at the transit stations: some passengers get off, others get on… The conversations of our occupants are peaceful, and all their attitudes are languid and careless: one reads, another gazes distractedly at the landscape, most doze: at intervals, a yawn, a quick comment… The sleepy ones have changed positions a hundred times, and as many the reader has opened and closed his book. Only fatigue and silence triumph. Suddenly, half an hour before arriving at the terminal station, as if struck by an electric shock, that disjointed and apathetic crowd reacted unanimously. With a rare synchronization, everyone thought: “Here we are…” and this thought shook them, stirred them; their bodies stiffened, their eyes widened; some straightened their tie knots and dusted off their shoes with a handkerchief; some ran to the powder room to comb their hair; some hurriedly packed their suitcases. The women leaned out of the windows, and it seemed to them that, just a few moments ago, the train had been going faster. As soon as we stopped, our guests left us with the same impatience and joy with which they had won us over hours before; their boredom had turned into hatred for us, and they wanted to lose sight of us as quickly as possible. Some, to avoid wasting time climbing down the steps, jumped onto the platform from the carriage. The tireless station attendants plunder us, and the luggage shoves out the windows; the small bundles escape in bunches. When the convoy is empty, the cars appear stained in a thousand ways and reeking of tobacco: the crumpled and trampled newspapers, the dirty pillows, the empty bottles, the fallen curtains, give us the appearance of a place where a battle has just been fought. Moments later, our cleaning staff—women and men—enter us: they beat our seats to soften them; they examine their springs, gather the curtains, dust us, sweep us… and, ten or twelve hours later… we begin again!… Chapter 15. I left La Coruña that autumn night with Raquel, who was going to Valladolid, and two newlyweds of whom—in due time—I will speak again. They were on their way to Madrid, and since the only sleeping compartment at the post office was mine, and it had been held by three gentlemen since the day before, the newly married couple had to settle for a first-class compartment. They spoke sparingly, and from the lack of appreciation and stupidity of their gestures, they seemed ashamed of what the friends who had come to see them off on the train had maliciously shown to expect of them. Of the bride, neither her body, nor her eyes, nor even her youth—she couldn’t have been twenty—interested me; she was insignificant. Her name was Digna. He, too, resembled hundreds of individuals I had seen. “What has this man fallen in love with,” I mused, “who is a young man whose work would have allowed him to aspire to a better partner?” As if in answer to my question, that old and sad Spanish adage came to mind: “The fate of an ugly woman is desired by a beautiful woman.” And that is undoubtedly true, as the saying goes. But where can we look for the logic of this fact? Perhaps it is in the reluctance that many men have to court a woman who, because she is beautiful, they assume is very reserved and proud of herself, and therefore difficult to access; and this fear of being snubbed holds them back and leads them to the feet of the ugly woman, from whom they proudly expect to be admired. “Humanity,” I thought, “is well covered: it dresses itself in lies.” inside, and rags outside, and love needs both disguises. Nudity is the truth, and illusion has rarely lived off the truth. To undress a woman or to undress a soul is to expose oneself to the creation of a caricature. Fortunately for them, men are unaware that within every good caricature lies a shameful portrait hidden behind them… For a long time, Digna and her husband remained silent: they looked into each other’s eyes, smiled, and clasped hands. I read their minds and their candor amused me. He desired her, but something, more decisive than his will, forbade him from making any bold gesture, and this intimate struggle took away his desire to speak and made his cheeks blaze. She, his wife, was afraid. The two of them, however, were happy to be there, alone, after a day of feverish agitation. “How good we are now!” he exclaimed. Digna confirmed: “Very well!” They fell silent: they had nothing new to say to each other, and it seemed to them that they had been married for a long time. Their traveling companions had fallen asleep, and they, in turn, were feeling a certain fatigue; Digna’s eyelids were drooping. He asked: “It’s a pity at night, isn’t it?” His remark was surrounded by a sexual impatience that the woman delicately pretended not to notice. “Why?” he said; “Aren’t we together?” Not daring to express his idea, the husband remained silent. Then: “Do you love me?” he inquired. ” I have observed that men are always those who love the least, and those who care the most about being loved.” She replied simply: “Don’t you know?” They shook hands again, and after a brief silence, he said something sad, something cowardly… that I didn’t understand; and she suddenly began to cry and hid her face against his chest. He exclaimed, bewildered: “Why are you crying?… Say… Why are you crying?” Digna didn’t answer; she didn’t know; later, she attributed it to her nerves… In reality, she was crying instinctively, crying out of fear at the indecipherable future, made of unsolvable hieroglyphics; the way children cry at the doors of dark rooms. An hour later, almost embracing each other, the two of them were asleep. The night passed. When I arrived in Madrid, I ran into Doña Catástrofe, my old companion, who was getting ready to leave. “Have they told you about the catastrophe?” he shouted. “Which one?” I replied uneasily. “The one about the Gijón express. ” “No.” “They told me about it last night, in Irún. Terrible! Beyond Busdongo, moments before leaving the La Perruca tunnel, there was a landslide. El Presumido and others were saved; but La Tirones and several cars, including El Tímido, were crushed. The news—reported the next day by the press—had a heartbreaking effect on me: that engine and that car, precisely, represented half of my youth, and when they disappeared, something of mine went with them. I didn’t know what to reply; I began to tremble… “Do you remember,” the old wagon continued, “the fear that poor Doña Quejido, as we called her to annoy her, had of the earth? ” “Yes, I remember. ” “Well, there you see: we said it was a mania of his, and it wasn’t : it was a premonition.” Chapter 16. For many days I was sick with sadness; as much because I considered the lightness of our existence, as because of the forgetfulness and disdain with which the living hold their dead. Until slyly the toils of daily work and the selfish consideration that I too was exposed to the greatest risks, began to relieve me. A comic scene effectively contributed to restoring my usual good humor, which for several weeks provided the whole convoy with topics of laughter and amusement . There were barely a few minutes left before we left Madrid when I noticed two gentlemen talking in sign language, a few steps away from me. Their eyes shone unexpectedly, their lips moved silently, and their gesticulating hands sometimes interlaced their fingers, sometimes curled or stretched them upwards or downwards. These complicated caresses They sometimes accompanied the conversation with crouching movements and exaggerated shoulder movements. “They’re mute,” I thought. I had never witnessed such a scene, and to convince myself I was right, I asked Two-Face his opinion. “Yes,” he replied, “they’re mute. I’ve seen the taller one several times, and I even believe he’s traveled with me.” I liked both types because their silence brought them a little closer to me. “A mute,” I reflected, “is the transition between those who feel and speak, and those who feel and cannot speak.” Of the two, one was clean-shaven and blond; the other was short, thickset, and dark-haired, and adorned his pearly-cheeked face—like that of an ephebe—with a short, pointed beard. We were already leaving when the gentleman with the pointy beard climbed onto my plane, waved effusive greetings to his friend from a window, and then wandered through the traffic looking for a place to settle down. My guests, eager to travel as comfortably as possible, pretended not to notice the distressed concern in their glances. I read in their selfish souls: “A mute!” they all grumbled; “Bah! Let him go to hell!” Until a more pious traveler waved his hand and pointed to an unoccupied seat next to his own. The gentleman with the French-trimmed beard appreciated the suggestion and, to show it, used expressive curtseys. He immediately distributed his luggage in the nets and, by means of signs, began to converse with his protector, who was a well-dressed, thick -skinned young man. “Another mute!” I thought, astonished. “That’s also a coincidence! I’ve never seen mutes before, and suddenly I know three!” From the way they looked at each other, I understood that my passengers were almost as surprised as I was. Meanwhile, the two secretive interlocutors seemed delighted to be together and to be speaking in a language that no one understood, and they snatched the words from each other’s lips, if not from their fingers. I need hardly say that their winks and musings were completely untranslatable to me, but I didn’t need to, because everything they were thinking in a straightforward and clear manner reached me, syllable by syllable. Their conversation was vulgar: that empty, playful dialogue with which all people, in order to appear sociable and well-bred, pester each other on journeys. “Where are you going? ” “To La Coruña. ” “I’m very glad of it: me, too. ” “There are too many people; we won’t have a good rest. ” “Yes; unfortunately, there are too many of us.” Do you sleep on the train? –Very little: only in the early morning. –Like me. It’s a purely nervous affair! I’m beginning to think that the inspector will come to wake me, and I can no longer close my eyelids… A truce. The gentleman with the beard feels obliged to offer the young man with the mustache a cigarette; the latter accepts, and in the wake of this reciprocal attention, the two exchange friendly compliments: their lips and eyes smile, probably their fingers smile as well… More than an hour has passed, and we arrive at El Escorial, where we pick up a traveler: a thin, pale man with a gray mustache, who gets on with me. I think I know him. As we pass the compartment where the two mutes are sitting, he exclaims affably: –Bless you, Don Andrés!… The gentleman with the pointed black beard turns his head and answers: –Don Juan, this way!… He quickly runs to shake the ghost’s hand. Those present are astonished, and the young man in the elegant costume more than anyone. Surprise has widened his eyes: he seems attentive; he seems to be listening; he has the illuminated expression of someone lurking behind a door… “Are you well placed?” Don Juan asks. “No,” Don Andrés replies. “I have had the misfortune of landing next to a poor deaf-mute who never ceases to bore me with nonsense…” Everyone present bursts out laughing. Someone asks: “But aren’t you mute?” Don Andrés also laughs. “No!” he exclaims somewhat contemptuously. “Little by little: what am I to do?” to be mute!… In turn, the young man with the mustache, somewhat disturbed by anger, exclaims: “But I am not mute either, my lord!” No one responds; a current of panic has circulated among my guests ; everyone falls silent. Don Juan does not understand what is happening, and now it is Don Andrés’s whose eyes are bulging and his lip is dropping. The young man with the mustache, by the moment more angry and self-possessed, continues defiantly: “As for saying that I tell you nonsense… I will not tolerate it!” The gentleman with the little beard hesitates, wants to withdraw those words that are undoubtedly offensive, and his friend Don Juan and the other travelers intervene warmly in his favor. Faced with such unanimity of conciliatory opinions , the provocateur subsides, the prudence of both sides tempers their words, and finally the moment arrives for the pacifist explanations. “I,” says Don Andrés, “can speak masterfully with my hands. A friend, mute from birth, had already come to the station to see me off. ” “And I,” interrupted the bespectacled young man, “who also know the mime alphabet perfectly, and when I saw you speaking with signs, I thought: ‘This gentleman is mute!’ And so I called you with a gesture. ” “And I thought you were mute!” exclaimed Don Andrés. “We’re the same!… Besides, if it’s not about trifles, what can two people who don’t know each other possibly converse about?” Having said this, Don Andrés and his announcer shook hands, and the spectators of the picturesque event began to laugh and gloss over it playfully, with whose buzz they made me have a most pleasant time. Later, while we were resting in Avila, I told Two-Face everything that had happened, and he found it so funny that the next morning he was still laughing. In Valladolid, I took Don Rodrigo and Raquel into my presence, and scarcely had I seen them before they seemed changed and as if aged. I found him in particular dejected, withered, as if oppressed by a great sorrow—sorrow weighs more than the years. They settled close to each other, and in their words and in the attentions with which they showered one another there was sweetness; but a sad sweetness, in which a severe and hidden thought diluted its bitterness. I soon understood that the man suffered from jealousy: his eyes spoke volumes, and above all his hands declared it, which at times clasped those of his companion with outbursts more of hatred than love; a hatred that was inflamed by the anxiety of parting from her. Gently, as if with pity, Raquel asked: “What’s the matter?” He didn’t answer. She leaned even closer to him, squeezing her lips, trying to feel the touch of his shoulder better. But his tenderness laced a touch of compassionate superiority, perhaps a little—oh, very little!—of irony, for she was the strongest, and only the strong laugh well. Breathing the breath of his words into her face, he repeated: “What’s the matter?… Talk to me…” In turn, Don Rodrigo looked into her eyes and, nervously, began to twitch his mustache; his bony fingers trembled slightly. It was clear that he was struggling against the beast in his heart. “Where would I begin to explain what I have?” he murmured. “Do you think it an easy task? I would need to tell you about all our love, since this present moment is the sum, the synthesis, of these three years in which the only reason for my life was you. I can only swear to you this: that when, at the beginning of our acquaintance, I loved you little, I was happy; that later, as I loved you more, my happiness increased; and that today, when I adore you, today when this affection overflows from my heart, I am infinitely unhappy. Do you understand this? Raquel was silent, listening; perhaps for a fraction of a second, a flash of fear touched her attention. Don Rodrigo continued, always in a very soft voice, and with that conquering lyrical exaltation that lightened the bronze of his face and steeled his eyes: “In _The Ring of the Nibelungs_—do you remember?… we saw it together—Venus says to Tanhauser: “You will never find rest, nor will you attain salvation! Return to me, if you seek peace! If you seek Salvation, return to me!…” But the goddess lied; twice she lied!… The soul does not rest in love; our soul is not satisfied with what it has, however immense it may be; it wants what it does not have, it seeks what it does not see…; and in that, which “does not see,” are the demon of presentiment and the worms of suspicion; our poor soul has its hell in “what it does not see,” because the flames of that hell scorch but do not illuminate. He interrupted himself; he feared being indiscreet, revealing himself too much… “Why continue?” he exclaimed; “Why speak to you of this when, if you were to penetrate the infinity of my love, without realizing it and as if “satisfied” with so much affection, you would gradually cease to love me?” He continued speaking, but soon fell silent, imagining that she was sleepy, and his silence filled his spirit with new splendors. In the gentle and sleepy soul of I couldn’t read anything about Raquel; her thoughts and desires were confused; she seemed like an old, half-erased manuscript. Don Rodrigo’s spirit, on the other hand, vibrated magnetically; his ideas shone forth, one by one, in scorching letters, and it was impossible not to see them. The man distrusted his companion: his restlessness didn’t respond to any denunciation, nor did it rely on any specific clue: that woman daily bore witness to her affection, her vigilant and helpful concern, her unwavering loyalty; and yet, he was suspicious of her. Her torture, as on other occasions, amazed me while it made me suffer. “She’s hiding something that I’ll never know,” I mused; that is to say, there’s something in her that perhaps isn’t hidden, but that I don’t see. If they told me: “That woman is capable of stealing,” I would say: “It’s a lie.” If they told me: “That woman speaks ill of you,” I would say: “It’s a lie.” But if they told me: “That woman is deceiving you…” I wouldn’t know what to reply. That’s my torment! Ah!… If only I could look into her conscience, as I look into her white skin!… But that miracle will never happen!… In the supreme embrace, all the parts of the entwined bodies coincide: the foreheads, the eyes, the mouths… The hearts, no; they beat each on its own; nature did not want, even in that divine instant, for souls to be together… He continued his inquiry: “It’s not possible that she loves me blindly, ‘by instinct,’ as I understand true love wants. Love is a decentralization of the spirit, an illness. Many times the sick person says to themselves: “This love is not good for me; I must discard it”… And, at the same instant, she feels her affection growing stronger. I, unfortunately, am one of those. But Raquel, no; Raquel is too intelligent, too balanced, to give herself away like that . Love—I’ve said it before—is blindness, and in that creature’s brain there is excessive clarity. I have observed her well; the subconscious means very little in her: her will is reasoned, her fantasy too; even her memory, in which each recollection, like the words in the dictionaries, is in its place! Her reason, consequently , occupies and clarifies her entire soul; and instinct is photophobic, because light kills it… So, why does this woman love me so much?… Or, to put it another way: why, if she truly does not love me, does she try so hard to show me that she is overcome and blinded by love?… It is not arbitrary, because the tuberoses of caprice never bloomed in her garden; therefore, her passion must be reflexive, cemented… At this point, the tight soliloquy seemed to unravel; Don Rodrigo was getting lost; he began his meditation on the assumption that love doesn’t reason, and after much deliberation, he concluded that Raquel loved him “because it reasons”… And he hardly caught himself in the act of praising someone when he forced his thoughts to change course. Suddenly it seemed to him—how many times had it seemed to him !—that he was beginning to understand. Raquel was striving to offer him great love, not to deceive him, but out of the sole beloved desire to create a work of beauty, since perfect love is the only absolutely artistic thing that exists. She loved for aesthetic reasons, because it is beautiful to love, but not because she was positively enamored of the person who served her. to make a “work of love,” just as a sculptor can spend his entire life polishing and beautifying a statue without finding himself in love with it. Love is the Ideal, the god placed far above the icon that represents him. To love infinitely is to draw close to heroes, to excel, because only the chosen, the “exceptional,” are capable of being loved and of loving to the point of perdition. To say: “I love and I know how to make myself loved with frenzy,” is more than saying: “I possess all the wisdom or all the gold of men.” To love is to preach harmony, to spread joy; “to make art,” in short… “What many inferiors do by instinct,” Don Rodrigo continued, “Raquel achieves with her superior intelligence. What others paint or write, she lives. I happened to court her when her heart felt the need to “produce beauty,” and she materialized her aspiration in me; another man would have come along then, and it would have been the same; The only thing the others didn’t do, and I did, was pass in time. Why should we be surprised, when all the soul’s capacities reside in intelligence? A brave man faces death calmly, effortlessly, and solely because of the natural breadth of his heart; and an intelligent coward verifies the same feat through reflection, to impose himself on the admiration of the crowds with the example of a heroic death. Man was not born to fly, and yet he flies, because his intelligence gave him wings; he was not born to swim underwater, and yet his intelligence allows him to do so; and so, and for similar reasons, a person can not love, and with his enlightened intelligence create a love… He said no more, and in the dimness of the apartment his aquiline face seemed gaunt, dull, with an indefinable expression of farewell. Then he folded his hands, as if praying, rested his cheek on Rachel’s head , and fell asleep. A week later, Don Rodrigo returned to Valladolid, and I was surprised that his beloved hadn’t come to see him off. “She must be ill,” I thought. He seemed thinner and worse-looking. His nervousness had worsened: as the train ran, Don Rodrigo suffered, considering how the distance separating him from Raquel increased; when we stopped at a station, his torture was interrupted; but as soon as we started off again, his torment would resume. During that summer, he made at least five trips to La Coruña, and when he reappeared on the platform of the Galician station, he was always alone. Raquel no longer accompanied him. One morning he arrived in La Coruña, and the same day he returned to Valladolid. He had no luggage, and between his eyebrows I saw a dark, ominous crease. Outwardly, that man resembled the Don Rodrigo I knew, but inwardly he was another man. While we were rolling, I told Two-Face everything I had seen and observed in the relationships of his former clients. The veteran wagon driver was slow to respond. “I don’t know,” he said, “what could separate them; but I assure you that, of the two of us, one ends badly. ” “Why? ” “Because women don’t know the seriousness of jealousy: for them, infidelity is of no importance, perhaps because—deep down —they believe that their possession, which men so celebrate, is worth little. But they think the opposite, and jealousy has killed more people than railroads. ” After a few moments of silence, he added: “Tell me the truth, Cabal: and let it be known that I don’t ask this out of idle curiosity, but to better orient ourselves on the matter at hand: Have you ever been stained with blood? ” “Yes. ” “Outside or inside? ” “Inside and outside.” I told him about the suicide of the unknown man who threw himself in front of my “express” between Viana station and the bridge over the Duero, and the tragedy of the French robbers near Burgos. “The most serious thing, the thing that decides your fate,” Two-Face replied calmly, “is the suicide. How old were you when your wheels were covered in blood? ” “Probably less than eight.” “Death came to you early!” He spoke with the emphasis of a soothsayer, and as I pestered him with questions, he added sibylline: “Blood attracts blood, and I see in you a jettatura of drama. Some black cat, when they were building you, must have cursed you. I wish I were wrong, but I believe you will witness more than one crime!” He concluded: “Now I affirm that this Don Rodrigo will not die in his bed: you have communicated your curse to him. ” I remained silent, not because my companion’s words had frightened me, but because I considered them meaningless. “This fool,” I thought, “cannot conceive that travelers would prefer me to him and wants revenge somehow .” Unfortunately, at the end of that same year, the events that put my life in desperate danger showed me that Two-Face, whether by chance or because he was truly blessed with the prophetic gift, had spoken correctly. We left the Court on Christmas Eve, with a small crowd— there were no more than sixty occupants in the convoy—and a clear, magnificently starry sky. The frost was terrible; that Madrid air , which, according to a very true adage, “kills a man and doesn’t extinguish a candle,” seemed to pierce our every pore with a crystal needle, and within an hour our imperials were metallically gray under the moon, as if covered in sugar candy. Already on the heights of Robledo de Chavela, the weather changed; the moon hid, and the mist robbed us of the beacon-like joy of the stars. The wind, that terrible enemy, eased its slumber, and we felt enveloped in a squall of hail, rain, and smoke, which mercilessly soiled us. Minutes later, the atmosphere cleared a little, and over the slope of a craggy hill, as if resting on it, the moon reappeared. Immediately the space became cloudy again, and as we entered Avila, it began to snow. Behind the walls of the old city, drunken voices, the uproar of tambourines , and the barbaric snoring of zambombas echoed, spreading a vague sadness throughout the gloomy, silent confines of the station. Born to a nomadic life, I have never understood those celebrations I hear called “family celebrations,” where unpleasant noises and drunkenness are obligatory. My bad mood was compounded by the fact that I was the last unit of the “mail,” so the heating arrived at me in a very weak state. Two Faces preceded me, and a van followed; I couldn’t have been in a worse position. Harassed by the cold, Two-Face grumbled: “The train masters don’t take care of their duty: if they fulfilled their duty and looked after the well-being of the passengers, how would they allow you and I, the two best cars, to go to the rear?… To think that the thirds are more warmly dressed than we are!… That’s unfair!… Which seats are paid for more? Ours. Which cars earn the Company more money? Ours. Consequently, the best places in the train should be reserved for us. ” I laughed. “As for our earning more money than the thirds,” I said, “that would be a lot to talk about, since you know very well that most of our passengers travel for nothing. ” “Well, yes,” Two-Face stammered; “but that doesn’t matter. ” “I think like you. ” “Let’s not confuse the usefulness of men with their aristocracy.” I don’t demand frills: I only ask to be treated with the consideration due to units of our category. A train is an imitation of society: the locomotive symbolizes Public Power; “thirds” are the people; “seconds” are the middle class; we, the nobility. “Thirds” and “seconds” must work for us and boast of our luxury. The aristocracy—especially in current times—is of no use, or of very little use, and yet , in the convoy of life, it is “first”; it has always been thus… We continued talking, and since nothing shortens the journey as much as a reasoned conversation, we suddenly realized that we had left the El Pinar station behind, and that the lights in front of us It was the Valladolid route. There was only one passenger on the platform, Don Rodrigo; as if he had been waiting for me, he clambered up to me as soon as he saw me and settled into the first empty compartment he found. He carried a small carry-on bag, which he placed on a seat. I examined him probingly. His appearance hadn’t changed; but his spirit was so ablaze that, in order not to miss anything that was happening there, I cut short my conversation with Two-Face. Don Rodrigo’s soul was something impermeable and rectilinear: memory, imagination, reason had disappeared. Of the four great faculties that determine the four cardinal points of the mental horizon, only one remained: the will; but not as a power susceptible to discernment, but rigid and transformed into an inexorable desire. Don Rodrigo’s soul, “the whole soul,” was a will; or, rather, a fanaticism, a purpose: the purpose of murdering Raquel. As soon as he approached me, I read his intention; and I could read no more, because there was nothing else in his heart… After the inspector had left, Don Rodrigo took a dagger and a pistol from his pockets. He tested the triangular, glittering point of the former by placing it in the palm of his left hand; a drop of blood immediately flowed out. Satisfied, he put the weapon away, after dabbing it thoroughly with a handkerchief. This cruel thought crossed his mind: “You will reach the depths of her heart: where I was unable to reach.”… Next, he disassembled the pistol, which was a larger Browning : he took it apart, examined it, and cleaned its parts one by one. He removed the bullets from the magazine and slowly replaced them , thinking: “This will be the one that gives me peace; and if not this one, it will be the other, or the other… It must be one that frees me… because every bullet has something of a key in it.” He began to meditate, his head leaning back against the back of his head; his eyes were strangely open, as if those reflections were written before him on some canvas… “What that anonymous friend told me, I suspected… I almost knew it!… and yet, how much harm it has done me!… Do I have the right to kill Raquel?… Yes, because I don’t want to kill her to take revenge on her, but to rest from her love: I kill her because I love her too much , and her love kills me.” My God! How happy I would be if I loved her less! So, when I kill her, I will do it serenely, with the tranquility of someone who opens a door to leave a room. Afterwards, if I couldn’t commit suicide, they would arrest me, lock me in a dungeon… It’s all the same! If I was never to see her again, what did I need freedom for? From his wallet he took a telegram, which he read attentively. It said: “I’m sure of seeing you tomorrow, give me joy back. I’ll wait for you at the station. I adore you, Raquel.” Don Rodrigo sighed; he remained silent, without thinking, like an idiot. He immediately resumed his speech: “She adores me, she says! It’s true. I know she loves me, and, despite loving me, the damned woman loves someone else. Or perhaps she only loves me, which doesn’t prevent her from surrendering to another love. She doesn’t lie! Her heart is mine; The deceived one is my rival, because she doesn’t love him… But if she loves me so much, how can she follow someone she doesn’t love? What is the logic of this absurdity?… Violently, he lunged at his briefcase, from which he took eight or ten thick bundles of letters, tied with kraft paper. “I’d forgotten them!” he murmured; “Oh, how careless! They must be destroyed immediately; I won’t allow anyone to read them: they’re hers, they’re sacred… because they’re hers!” He began to tear them up perpendicular to the lines, the better to deface the writing; this task, to which he applied himself diligently, took him nearly an hour; there were many letters; I counted more than six hundred, the smallest of which took up two or three sheets. He also tore up several hundred telephone calls. And when everything was reduced to shreds, he opened a window, filled both hands with those little pieces of paper, hot as ashes, in which a hand of Day by day, the woman wrote the biography of her heart and threw them into the black space. Then she threw another handful, and then another… and another… Then she looked out the window and saw that most of those little pieces of paper, attracted by the emptiness that the train’s march left in its wake, were flying like agile white butterflies behind the convoy; they seemed to follow him, to harass him, with the obstinacy of memories; they seemed to be alive, and their human anxiety distressed the lover: at first, those pieces of paper were many; quickly their number diminished because they fell to the ground, as if tired; some, which had managed to stop on the overhangs of the van, were blown away by the wind and also flew away with the pain of dry leaves. One still fluttered, however; the last, the most tenacious: it rose, it fell, it rose again… “Why is it holding out so long?” Don Rodrigo thought. ” Does he want to tell me something? What word of salvation is written on it?” And he continued watching it until it fell. He looked again. There were none of them left, and the history that had been between them vanished, like a perfume in the ungrateful expanse of the countryside; what was born in the warmth of a bedroom died in the wind and the snow. Don Rodrigo, wanting to cry, turned his head and opened the window. The first stab of that drama had been for him, and he felt it in his heart. As he showed signs of going to sleep, I resumed my dialogue with Two-Face, to whom I related everything I had just observed. “And do you think,” he replied, “that he will kill Raquel at the station?” “I’m sure of it, because he is terribly impulsive and won’t know how to stop himself.” “Only,” he growled, “if he shoots with his back to us when he does it!… I wouldn’t be very pleased if I got riddled with a bullet…” The snow had stopped, and as we left Astorga, the fog was so thick that the cars could barely see each other. It was impossible to distinguish the signals our discs were making; it was drizzling. We were traveling at less than forty kilometers per hour, and La Triste frequently shocked us with her painful whistling. Minutes before crossing the Porqueros River, she stopped, began to honk, and finally continued on with extraordinary slowness. The night was absolutely black; we knew—because the wheels told us so—that we were going uphill, and nothing more. Two-Face spoke to me. “Cabalón, are you afraid?” I answered truthfully. “Yes, old man: I’m afraid; and you?” “So am I; more than you, because I have more experience. It’s likely that crazy Don Rodrigo has brought us the bad luck.” “Do you believe in witchcraft?” “I believe,” he replied, “that no one knows what lies behind death, and that if there is a spirit interested in saving Raquel, it could happen that Don Rodrigo never reaches La Coruña.” His mysterious words frightened me, and I remained silent; but as we emerged from the Lazo tunnel without incident, I felt my good spirits return. The fog, however, didn’t let up; we were forty minutes behind schedule, and La Triste maintained her cautious pace, even though the downhill road invited us to run. “Are you still afraid?” I asked my companion. “More afraid than ever,” he replied, “because when the locomotive whistles so loudly, it’s because the driver can’t see and isn’t sure of the path.” Shortly after leaving Ponferrada, our speed increased, which I judged to be a good sign. “The driver will be in a hurry to get to Toral de los Vados, where we must meet the train from Villafranca del Bierzo,” commented Two Faces. At that moment we heard several whistles, which seemed to respond to those of La Triste, and in that distant whistling there was an unforgettable anguish. “A train!” I shouted. “A train is coming!” “The one from Villafranca,” moaned Two Faces. ” Are we going to crash? Do you think we’re going to crash?” I didn’t hear my companion’s reply; an instant and formidable shudder ran through the convoy, and the brakes immobilized our wheels. The stop was so rapid that, as they told me later, the pyramid of coal from the tender fell forward, crushing the The engineer and the fireman. But the sacrifice of those two brave men didn’t prevent the catastrophe. How can I describe it if I didn’t see it? The collision between the locomotives was so intense that they were embedded one into the other, and when they collided, they did so head-on that they didn’t even derail . The first three cars of our convoy were reduced to splinters; two others suffered very serious bruises, and Two-Face, terrified by the noise of the collision, which resounded among those mountains with the crash of twenty cannons firing simultaneously, fainted. I suffered a terrible shock and lost all my windows; my doors, water tank, and heating pipes were also dislodged. The luggage rolled on the floor, and some jumped from one net to another. When, after the first moments of panic, I realized I was safe and was able to look inside myself, I saw Don Rodrigo’s body lying in the middle of the corridor, his forehead broken… He had collided with me, and I had killed him. “I’ve saved Raquel,” I thought. Chapter 17. This event marks a new important course in my biography. The day after the catastrophe, in which five people were killed and more than thirty injured, a machine sent from León to help us took me, along with Two Faces and other companions who still had their wheels in good condition, to the workshops in Valladolid, where we remained exposed to the elements for several weeks, waiting for our time to be repaired. I remembered having seen, years before , a row of sick cars on that spot; I, being a solid young man, looked at them with disdain; it seemed impossible to descend to such prostration. And now, finding myself prostrate like them, I understood that the downward spiral of my life had begun. During the fifteen days of my convalescence, my healers—carpenters, plumbers, glaziers, cabinetmakers, electricians, upholsterers, etc.—inflicted cruel suffering on me. The damage and deterioration of my health were far more serious than I had imagined; the collision had been formidable, and that barbaric effort with which, at the same time, all the units of the convoy tried to invade, and as if to plug into each other, battered my entire body. In an instant, I was bruised and battered, but I didn’t know it: the pain began later: my flanks, the floor, the roof were bothering me; particularly the bullet wounds I received during the assault on the Hendaye express had opened up with the furious blow and were causing me considerable pain. To these localized pains were added other vague, general, and deep pains, which, due to their very vagueness, workshop surgery could not combat. I listened to the carpenters’ arguments: some said that my frame suffered so much because my timbers, cut before their ripening, had cracks that diminished its strength; the oldest maintained that the weakest part of my frame was the middle of the side corresponding to the aisle, and that such weakness was caused by several rolls in my planks; a very serious illness that originates in the trunk of the tree and is caused by the failure to completely fuse the layer of wood from one year to the one from the previous year. These explanations revealed to me that a certain vague uneasiness that afflicted me from time to time and that I had noticed was aggravated by dampness, did not stem from a construction error, but from myself, from those ancient trees that gave me life, and was, consequently, something like a bad inheritance. As in the days of my birth, my handlers again nailed me, plane me, adjust my joints, tighten my screws, and hammer out my dents; they straightened the heating pipes, re-covered my seats, secured the luggage racks, re-lined the powder room, whose tiles the crash had reduced to smithereens; they covered my transit with linoleum, and once well polished, clean, and with the fittings shining, I returned to circulation. As I left the workshop, my glassware and all my My body, perfectly varnished in a dark green, gleamed in the sun. My comrades congratulated me. “Congratulations,” they said; “you’re better off than before, younger… ” “Have a good trip, Cabal!” Two-Face shouted to me, whom his repairmen had not yet “discharged.” I was happy, although not as happy as on the “first morning” of my story: now I was a fine, experienced gallant, painted, retouched, made up like a dirty old man; I knew men, and I was certain that they were going to teach me nothing new; my joy was not the clean, innocent “joie de vivre,” but the vulgar “habit of living.” Besides, I was worried about that red curse that, according to Two-Face, was acting on me. “Blood calls to blood,” the old companion had assured me; and Death, who had visited me four times in less than twenty years, could return… From Valladolid, I was rolled to Madrid, where I was forgotten for several days, and then I was added to the Asturias express train, replacing a first-class train that, ingloriously, was “shunting,” derailed, and broke an axle. This return to my former days of splendor gave me great satisfaction; it was like being resurrected. During the seven or eight years I trained at the Galician post office, where the carriages didn’t communicate, my bellows were inactive; I felt them gradually stiffen in idleness, and they were to me like those luxurious pieces of furniture that speak to their ruined owners of a better past. Upon using them again, upon appreciating how their efforts brought me closer and closer to my comrades, my class pride began to tingle again: the “couriers,” like the “mixed” ones, are heterogeneous convoys, transport trains, whose mixture of social classes deprives them of unity; in them, the cars, even if they run together, cannot be truly united, because they despise or hate each other, like their passengers; while the “express” and the “fast” ones, whose cars are of equal dimensions and similar weight, shudder less, run and brake better, and represent a nucleus, a caste. I worked on the Asturias line for two months; Enough to get to know the imposing jungle beauty of the Pajares Pass, which, from Busdongo, where the famous La Perruca tunnel begins, to the Puente de los Fierros station, is, according to many travelers, one of the most rugged, rugged, and wonderfully rugged places in the world. One morning, shortly after returning to Madrid, I learned that the track guards had received orders to transfer all the “first” trains from the Asturian “rapid” to a loading line. Why? Neither my companions nor I suspected the reason for such a decision. The next morning, at the usual time, we saw the “rapid,” which had been “ours,” depart, equipped with new units, and with the regret of not being able to leave, we suffered the shame of being overlooked. We, veterans of the road, were left behind in favor of those inexperienced, probably poorly constructed, cars. Several days passed; A few drizzly, dreary September days , which aggravated our gloom. We felt dismissed; we were unemployed. Another week passed. And, meanwhile, the everlasting coming and going of the trains, the invigorating clatter of the puffing locomotives, the mysterious chatter of the records, all that feverish station existence, in short, beside which our immobility seemed even more tragic. Finally, one afternoon we received a visit from three very personable and stingy-talking gentlemen who were coming to examine us; and from what they said, we learned that the Northern Railway Company was selling two hundred cars to the Madrid Zaragoza Alicante Company, and that we were among the lot. Upon recognizing me—and he did so with severe conscientiousness—one of those gentlemen exclaimed: “This car doesn’t look bad!” The gentleman to whom I was addressing the observation replied: “It was recently repaired; you could say it’s as good as new.” Both of these reflections saddened and offended me with the compassion they showed me. My examiners, in appraising me, did so Recalling my years of service, as if convinced that my greatest success lay not in my present, but in my own history. I had no doubt about this, because when we say of an individual or object that “it doesn’t seem bad,” it’s because we don’t judge it to be good either. My comrades and I were accepted, however, and another morning a pilot machine pulled us out and, circumnavigating the capital on lines we had never seen before, landed us near the Mediodía station, at a spot from which we could see the top of a beautiful building, which I later learned was the Ministry of Public Works. This change upset all my comrades, except me. In truth, my youth was more simulated than real: the accident at Toral de los Vados had changed me: at intervals, I experienced, here and there, deep pains, and at high speeds my stern tubes groaned. I , once so solid, so quiet, now felt the need for everything to make me sigh: sometimes it was an axle that groaned, other times a door frame. In that particular area, where my last carpenters had thought they’d noticed several creaks, my timbers, as soon as they warmed up with movement, produced a monotonous, thin, almost musical groan; something like that “murmur” doctors hear in worn-out hearts. It was evident that rheumatism, the sure enemy of bodies that begin to tire, was infiltrating me; the rain, and even more so the frost, was hurting me, as were the sloping roads, which, by unevenness, imposed greater strain on my walls. For all this, I was glad to find myself destined for the South, where the flatness of the terrain softens the work, the sun warms more intensely, and the air is drier. “Any of the lines that lead to Andalusia or the Levantine regions,” I thought, “will be as pleasant to me as a winter season.” Great was my joy to find myself added to the Seville express, which left Madrid at eight-twenty at night. In the morning—and as if to erase my past—two men busied themselves replacing most of the advertisements and landscapes that adorned my corridor with others corresponding to the southern region. The sparkling beverages of the North were replaced by wines from Jerez and Málaga, and the photographs of San Sebastián, Bilbao, La Coruña, and Gijón were replaced by brand-new ones from Seville, Granada, and Córdoba. I was restless and joyful, both from the novelty of the journey and from the curiosity to meet my fellow travelers. By mid-afternoon, I was placed in third place in the convoy, counting from the top. Behind the first van was a “first” van, which, to do justice to its color, was called “El Negro” (The Black One). Then, me; and behind me was another “first” train, very boastful and pleased with himself, nicknamed El Majo, who enjoyed a reputation as a bully, because once, while shunting the engine, he rammed two abandoned “third” trains on a track and derailed them. He had polished, powerful buffers, spoke pompously and with a pronounced Andalusian lisp, and boasted of having a net weight of thirty-eight tons. These circumstances made him a target of the express, and everyone, even the sleeping cars, showed him respect. While waiting for the hour to leave, my comrades told me their names and, in turn, wanted to know who I was and where I came from. I answered their inquiries succinctly—for I never liked to walk quickly in friendship. I told them I had served for nearly nine years on the Hendaye line, which I later transferred to La Coruña—I did not say it was on a “courier”—and that after the clash at Toral de los Vados I worked for two months on the Asturias route, where I came from. My accent, markedly Castilian, but with Galician and Basque inflections at times, amused my listeners. Everyone, when they looked at me, assumed a superior air; I must have seemed bland, simple-minded, and perhaps even a little foolish. I felt in bad company; those fools were trying to intimidate me to laugh at my expense; I had just arrived and they wanted to make me pay for it. “hazing”; it was something that—as I’ve often heard told— happens in military academies to newly arrived students. “You’re in for a big surprise!” I mused. Brusquely, with his brash, do-gooder air, El Majo questioned me: “Where are you from? ” “And you?” I replied in the same insolent tone. “From Zaragoza. ” “I was born in Saint Denis. ” “Saint… what?” “Saint Denis,” I repeated. “Frenchie, then… ” “No; Frenchie, no; French. And, since I arrived in Spain, they’ve called me El Cabal, a name that will explain my condition; and it is that I am complete; or, what is the same: since I lack nothing, no one can have more than me. ” “That must be the case,” El Majo replied. But I sensed that he said it reluctantly and that he was holding a grudge against me. The Andalusian travelers had been ushered onto the platform; our seats began to fill rapidly, and the laughter and voices of the exuberant southern character captured my complete attention. Nothing surprises foreigners as much as this radical versatility of the Spanish soul. A trip around Spain is equivalent to an excursion through five or six totally diverse countries. Each Hispanic region has its own character, its architecture, its music, its dances, its costumes: the Romans could not defeat the Cantabrians, and the Basques and Asturians—although very different from each other—retain the blood of the primitive Iberians; the Galicians are Celts; the Andalusians and Valencians descend from Arabs; the Goths, the Franks, and the Phoenicians influenced Catalonia…; and it is amusing to observe how each of these regions projects a kind of breath onto the Madrid platforms at the departure time of their respective trains! Each convoy is an extension of that distant province that gives it its name, a reflection of its soul. Despite its cosmopolitanism, the broad, bony shoulders, long, aquiline noses, slender cheekbones, and light eyes of the Basque race predominate; the guests on the Galician and Asturian convoys are serious, prudent men with a respectful and cordial demeanor. One hears them converse in Galician and Bable in measured fashion, and there is usually a noble respect for women traveling alone. The South is more turbulent: on the express and mail trains to Barcelona— I found this out for myself years later—only Catalan is spoken; on those to Valencia, Valencian, and Andalusian on those on the Andalusian lines. At night, during those couple of hours when most trains depart, each of the two large railway stations in the Cortes recaptures the “moral plane” of half the Peninsula. Spanish good humor, which, truth be told, never seemed very great to me, is the exclusive heritage of cold regions: the Basque provinces, Aragon, Galicia, and Asturias are joyful: it is proclaimed by their music, their dances, their penchant for physical sports, their stomach power, and a certain candor that presides over the popular rejoicings under the northern orchards. In contrast, Castile, and even more so Andalusia—the old Vandalia—are sad, like the plains. The joy of the Andalusian is superficial; the Andalusian laughs with his skin; he laughs out of elegance, out of altruism, because he knows that pain is unpleasant; but his flesh, all his sensual flesh, is tragic. Let us not fall into the widespread vulgarity of confusing joy with grace. A man can be very funny and always be very sad, like the clown in a famous story; or, on the contrary, be in a very happy mood and eager to laugh, yet be completely lacking in grace. These two concepts, despite their obvious diversity, tend to become entangled in our minds by the habit—a reflection of our selfishness—of believing others to be in the same frame of mind as us. Someone, with their wit, tickles our hilarity, and we immediately assume they are laughing too; and, conversely, we will call sad someone who, however pleasant they may be, fail to amuse us. Thus, the Andalusians, even if they secretly cry or are bored, seem happy to us, for they possess, like no other people on earth, the mystery of a good laugh. Joy is for them a kind of suit, and each one strives to appear better dressed than anyone else: if the former succeeds with a joke, the latter will try to succeed with two: for the Andalusian, grace is the most common form of philanthropy. “For our interlocutor,” he thinks, “I must entertain him, console him, help him forget his sorrows, of which he will have more than one.” The same thing happens to the person in question; each one adds a pirouette to his inner drama , and thus, from the centuries-old pain—the pain of race—of all Andalusians, paradoxically springs the eternal proverbial grace of Andalusia. In the seven years I traveled through those unforgettable lands of Córdoba and Seville, I was greatly entertained by the inexhaustible spicy humor of the conversations, the peppery questions, the mischievous—sometimes corrosive—snapbacks, and all that saltiness lavished without measure as soon as the conversation began. The night I referred to earlier—my first trip to Seville—was one of the last in June, and the intense heat seemed to snuff out everyone’s desire to talk. A comedy troupe was traveling with us, heading for Cádiz, and most of the actors were divided between my compartments and those of the Negro. All, or almost all, were Andalusian. The lead actress, Matilde Manzano, whom I had taken to San Sebastián and La Coruña in other years, was in the first carriage; the “young gallant,” whose name I couldn’t find out because his comrades called him “Pedro Domecq,” in honor of the large amount of cognac he drank, was traveling with me. From their respective windows, Manzano and the comedian were shouting: “Do you know who I pinched this afternoon?” he was saying. “A fat girl, I guess. ” “You’re wrong: a skinny girl. ” “Jesus, what bad taste! ” “Pilar Gil. ” “Don’t tell me where you pinched her. ” “Where I thought she had the most flesh. ” “Anyway, you’d get to the bone right away. ” “Did I get there? It’s like I lost my nail!” The spicy indiscretion continued. “Pedro Domecq” wanted to attract the actress to his apartment; she resisted and flirted: “Come here, darling… ” “Is there an empty seat? ” “But you think I was going to offer you a seat, like an old woman? ” “So what?” “My knees, which seem made of feathers, they’re so soft. ” “They’re no good for me. ” “Were you going to be too hot?” “Too cold, because you’re very fresh. I’d better go here, and then you won’t be able to deny later that you’ve been following me all night… ” “There’s no problem, as long as you let yourself be caught in Cádiz. ” The conversation was cut short by the appearance on the platform of the impresario, who was about to see his company off. “Pedro Domecq” immediately addressed him, and from the irreverent confidence with which they treated each other, I understood that they were old-fashioned friends: “What do you want me to bring you from Seville, Don Emilio?” “Well… what do I know!” “Ask without fear, with your big mouth you can do it. Come on! What can I bring you? The Giralda?” ” How about bringing… I wish you could bring a little more grace than you’re taking. ” “That’s very difficult!… Wouldn’t it be all the same to you if I brought you, for your personal use, even a hundred grams of shame?” “Where were you going to buy it?” “I’d ask where they sell good stuff.” “As you wish: but consider, child, that you don’t understand that and they’re going to trick you…” As the train pulled away, the cheerful servants of the show began to applaud Don Emilio, who waved his hat at them. “Don’t waste your applause,” the impresario repeated; “don’t waste it, you’ll need it later!” From every car, many white handkerchiefs and many women’s hands waved “goodbye.” We had barely walked a little when a gust of air freshened our scorched inside; the heat, however, was intense, and my guests’ faces appeared polished and varnished with sweat. We sped past the Villaverde, Getafe, and Pinto stations, where the Princess of Eboli’s tears had flowed, and as we stopped at Valdemoro, “Pedro Domecq” began calling from a window: “Miss Manzano!… Miss Manzano!” The actress leaned out: “What do you want?” “Ask you a question. ” “Hello. ” “Don’t you think it’s a bit hot for this station?” Matilde Manzano burst out laughing, and with her many passengers. Wits flew from window to window; a childish good humor, a fairground alacrity, shook the convoy. Another quarter of an hour passed, and upon reaching Aranjuez, “Pedro Domecq” once again shouted : “Miss Manzano!… Miss Manzano!… For the second time, the genteel comedian revealed her mischievous countenance: “What do you need, typhoid fever?” “Don’t you think, like me, that the heat is still unseasonable ?” Some of my tenants had moved into the dining car, but the majority, including “Pedro Domecq,” were dining inside me, which , as always, seriously alarmed my fondness for neatness. Beyond Castillejo, where we parked for two minutes, the desolation of the La Mancha plain began to strike me, sadder even than the plains of New Castile. Everything lay dead, horribly dry, under the livid moon; What wasn’t dust was stone, and among the yellowish slopes on which the travelers, leaning out of the lit windows, cast their shadows, the train’s din resounded like the noises in unfurnished houses. Arid, straw-colored, tinged with a melancholy of bones, the towns of Villasequilla, Tembleque, and Villacañas gradually fell behind; but as soon as we stopped , the ironic voice of “Pedro Domecq” resounded, inquiring: “Miss Manzano, don’t you think the heat is unbecoming of this season?” Kept awake by the stifling temperature, many passengers roared with laughter at this question, which, the more often it was repeated, the funnier it seemed. “How’s our engine?” I asked Negro. “Most Superior,” he replied, immediately falling, in true Andalusian fashion, into the picturesque side of hyperbole. I’ve been driving it for four years now , and it hasn’t given me a single problem. It brakes well and manages the heat like no other in winter. If it didn’t throw out more water than smoke, it would be perfect; that’s why we call it La Regadera. In Córdoba, La Sabrosa will pick us up: a charm!… soft, willful, and smooth; an engine that, when it says “here I come!”, sounds like a dove… This news reassured me: despite being a novice on that express, I was pleased to find myself among distinguished cars, and with a “train manager,” a “brakeman,” “watchmen,” and “routes” at my service, as before, in my prosperous years. La Regadera had a rhythmic and comfortable gait, conducive to sleep; my occupants were calming down, and their silence invited me to sleep. Most of my lights were off, and an ineffable laxity invaded me: little by little, I stopped hearing, I stopped seeing; My sensations were quietly, as if on tiptoe, receding… A sudden halt woke me; we were in Baeza and it was beginning to get light. The voice of “Pedro Domecq,” hoarse from cognac and the chill of dawn, repeated uselessly: “Miss Manzano… Miss Manzano!… Isn’t it unseasonably hot ?” Chapter 18. Once I had set out to travel, in a few weeks my well-trained attention became acquainted in detail with the peculiarities and horizons of the main Andalusian line; and the more I reflect on the surprises its study gave me, the greater amazement I feel at the plurality of masks or facets of Hispanic psychology. Here, more than in any other nation, a mountain, a river, a fault in the terrain possess incredible isolating capacities. Knowing Andalusia, knowing Galicia, or Castile, or Aragon, or Valencia… does not entitle a foreigner to say: “I know Spain.” And how could it not be so when the variety of peoples, rough and combative, who passed through here, unable to fully fuse with one another, made of it, more than “a soul,” an incredible “cluster of souls”? If we applied the rules of metoposcopy to our peninsula, we would conclude that Spain, with its sad, barren, yellowish, and wrinkled steppes, resembles an old face tired of crying. Its bare mountains, its barren plains, its waterless rivers—the same ones that centuries ago lavished its wealth and today run humbly like ruined millionaires—tell us of a long history of wars and savage fanaticisms, and the centuries-old hatreds that separated some cities from others, although polished by culture, still slumber in the subconscious of the race and make each Spaniard an ungovernable subject . As before the character of the Basque provinces, and later the spirit of the Galician region, so the Andalusian soul quickly penetrated me. My relationship with El Majo continued to be of the most acidic kind, and we were certain that we would end up clashing, since neither he renounced his bargain-basement pragmatics, nor I tolerated them. On the other hand, the other units in the convoy were very fond of me, especially El Negro, who always rode by my side, and another car nicknamed El Rubio, not because of its color, but because of the considerable number of Englishmen who had traveled in it. Both professed a touching devotion to me and were full of praise for my subtlety in the art of knowledge and my memory. In the 560-odd kilometers between Madrid and Seville, the landscapes that most interested my sensibility were the surroundings of Tembleque, through whose heights, dotted with windmills, runs the line that divides the basins of the Guadiana and the Tagus. Then come the quixotic plains of La Mancha; the accursed lands—lands of salt—of Villacañas; the Moorish castle of Alcázar de San Juan; the town of Manzanares, built on the warlike foundations of a fortress; and further on, those of Valdepeñas and Santa Cruz de Mudela, famous for their immense vineyards. The Almuradiel station occupies the highest point of the track, which soon after entering the Guadalquivir basin begins to descend, reaching Venta de Cárdenas and piercing the Marian mountain range through the famous Despeñaperros gorge . Tunnels, dangerous curves, and rattling cliffs follow one another, and we run between gigantic blocks cut perpendicularly, as if by a knife; arid and dark rocks, with a Castilian austerity. We arrive at Santa Elena, the first Andalusian station, and after Vilches, dominated by an old castle, and Vadollano, we rest for five minutes in Baeza, the starting point for trains to Granada and Almería. They then pass—and I need only mention the main towns—Menjíbar, which in ancient times marked the boundary between “interior” and “ulterior” Spain; Espelúy, where travelers on their way to Jaén must disembark; the church of Villanueva de la Reina, with its sullen citadel-like features ; Andújar, whose earthenware jars and earthen jugs made it famous; and beyond Montoro and Pedro Abad, we will greet the seven towers—ten hundred years old—of the castle of Bujalance, built at the expense of the third Abderramán. A little further and we reach Córdoba, sad, august, and hermetic—as the public says—like an altar; and then Villarrubia, where Don Pedro the Cruel once hid his treasures; Posadas, which enhances the whiteness of its buildings with the lush greenery of its dense orange groves; Peñaflor, which seems to be proud of its name; Lora del Río, to which its wheat fields give a golden halo; Tocina, from where the branch that leads to Mérida, the Roman city, departs; and, finally, Brenes, on whose horizon the Giralda, marvel of Andalusia, seems to pray simultaneously to Islam and the Cross… The always fair appreciations of my best friend El Negro, They helped record the moral arcana of the lands we passed through. “We belong,” my companion said, “to a miraculous country; and I call it that because it lives on despite everything its inhabitants did to destroy it. From that Castile, which you have traveled more than I, the lack of trees has scared away the birds, which so benefit the fields, because they chase insects; and since the trees are missing, the clouds migrate, and with them the rain, which turns everything green. Are you counting the links in this terrible chain correctly? In Castile, the atmospheric changes are atrocious; the drought cracks you, the dust blinds you, and meanwhile, the locusts fertilize the earth, hardened by human neglect . You can’t imagine the devastating power of that insect: it arrives in clouds made up of millions upon millions of individuals that, when they fall, cover the crops, erase the roads, strip the trees of their foliage in moments , and stop the trains. Two years ago, the locust stopped us as we left Tembleque: the rails were invisible and the entire countryside around us appeared black. The cloud had happened to fall right on the railroad track, and since these little creatures, when crushed, expel an oily slime, the locomotive soon began to skid. It was grotesque, incredible, that such little bugs could be so powerful. The poor Regadera was giving off water and steam like never before; we had never seen it so furious. The engineer, to help it, threw sand on the rails; but this, when mixed with the oil from the crushed locusts, formed a mass that, adhering to our wheels, forced us to stand still. He was silent for the few moments it took us to cross a bridge and continued: “In Andalusia, where agricultural activity is somewhat greater, locusts don’t usually appear; but if there aren’t locusts there, there are caciques, and I couldn’t explain which of these two calamities seems greater to me. I’m almost ready to say that the cacique is afraid of locusts!” “The cacique,” I interrupted, “a caricature-like descendant of the feudal lord, is a type that abounds in Castile, Galicia, and probably in many other places. ” “Yes,” replied El Negro, “caciquismo is a very Spanish disease; but it can’t be serious in the northern provinces, where the land is neatly divided among small landowners; while unfortunate Andalusia, due to the neglect or bad faith of our rulers, languishes in a few, generally idle, hands.” Here, the best lands are dedicated to cattle ranches or hunting reserves, and there are thousands of laborers who need to emigrate in search of work. Swear to me, Cabal!… Our men are leaving, not because America dazzles them with its gold, but because Spain, with its misery, dismisses them. Cabal, in this country, anyone who is not a soldier or a friar or a politician, or even an employee of a certain rank, must leave. Here, the rich don’t give jobs to the needy, but alms; it’s more comfortable for them and, of course, more theatrical. These meditations resurrected in my memory those that, apropos of a very different subject, my old friend Doña Catástrofe shared with me one night as I was leaving Hendaye . Spain is impoverished and apathetic; in this country of ours, where governing is not a thankless duty, but a business, the poor cannot live. Not even steal!… Convinced of their helplessness, the working legion passively bends under the authority of the chief and the priest. “What the world haggles with me,” they reason, “heaven will give me.” Because in men, faith in the “hereafter” grows as faith in themselves diminishes. And, in this way, they reach death without having lived. The wealth of a nation is measured by its agriculture, its mines, its factories; every piece of land, every vein, every smoking chimney is a figure…; and also, but inversely, by its cathedrals, its barracks, and its palaces. Those beggars who beg in the shadow of the church towers represent the true foundation of those towers, because what raised them and keeps them standing is pain. Ah!… How is it possible that the Progressive spirits, don’t you read all this fluently?… Chatting in this tone, in which there was more melancholy than passion, we left Seville that night. It was the middle of September, if I remember correctly. Traveling with me, among many others , were a naval officer from Cadiz; five Yankee tourists; and a Spanish couple, who were being escorted by a certain gentleman, a friend of both of them—but devoted to “her” rather than “him,” as I will demonstrate later— . What I will immediately relate is more of a dialogue than a scene; but… so expressive, so burlesque, and, at the same time, so serious!… Perhaps that conversation, which I will try to repeat verbatim, was the “prologue” to some novel whose plot I was to ignore, and—for that very reason—when I remember it, I will refrain from laughing. Who knows! Life, although it is the only drama that men begin without rehearsals, is always something very serious. Thus, parodying comedy writers and to better conceal my personality as a snooping, gossiping wagon train driver, I will introduce the characters before letting them speak. IDA: twenty-eight years old. Nice figure. Blonde. She has ironic lips and beautiful light eyes, which, if they were ever optimistic, now only retain “the will” to be cheerful. Throughout her long body, a master of the delicate grace of melancholic attitudes, there persists a laxity alluding to the idea surrounding her name: Ida; a name as sad as goodbye. DON ALFONSO: Ida’s husband. Forty years old; a type both disdainful and cordial ; that is, distinguished. Good-looking. Dressed in dark clothes. “THE OTHER MAN”—I never heard his name—the same age as Don Alfonso. “Man of the world,” tall and a little sad. Premature gray hair at the temples . His clean-shaven face expresses kindness and tiredness: a very common double expression, because kindness—among humans—is usually one of the expressions of fatigue. Gray suit and gloves. In the lapel, a freshly cut carnation, red, tragic… Upon leaving Seville, Don Alfonso has taken a ticket for “the first table”; “the other gentleman” takes his for “the third”; both because he says he had a late lunch, and so as not to leave the lady alone. Ida never dines on trains; she can’t; she gets seasick. A dining car servant passes by me, repeating at the small door of each department: “Gentlemen: the “first table” is about to begin… ” DON ALFONSO.—Rising. Please authorize me to leave. To her. Shall I send you some tea? IDA.—Sweetly. No, thank you. DON ALFONSO.—Complimentary. A tea, well sweetened… and with some biscuits… IDA. It would hurt me; don’t you know? _Looking at him lovingly_. Eat well ; eat for both of us… Don Alfonso leaves. Ida and “the gentleman with the red carnation”–for that’s also what we can call him–are left alone in their apartment. Around them, on the seats, are books, newspapers, travel pillows… Ida, who seems to be spied on, searched, by her companion, turns her head and, unwillingly, looks at him. I prepare to listen: it has always amused me to see how hearts seek, in order to get closer, the most twisted paths, and their determination to justify their love: the only thing that doesn’t need to be justified. HE. On trains, at night, you can’t do anything. IDA. If the light weren’t so dim, I would read. _She gives my two lamps a contemptuous look, which offends me._ HE. _Do you like to read? IDA.–According to… _Brief pause._ Entertaining books are rare. It is as difficult to find an interesting book as to meet an entertaining man. HE.–_With a confident accent._ Aren’t interesting men very rare ? IDA.–Two out of a thousand. HE.–You’re exaggerating. IDA.–Do they seem few to you? HE.–They seem many to me. Men are extremely boring: the fewest because they know too much and pedantically abuse their knowledge; the most because they are ignorant of everything. They both smile. IDA.–If we women knew that in time, we wouldn’t marry… or we would We would marry too late… I married at seventeen! HE.–You did well: we should marry early, because then we will have a lifetime to repent of our mistake. Ida sighs. HE.–I, too, am greatly disappointed. _Short pause._ The world is monotonous, gray… Did you not notice the fondness of individuals who, like me, were past forty, for dressing in gray?… Because it is the only color that your experienced eyes see everywhere. _Another discreet silence._ When I was young, my illusion seemed like a gigantic and marvelous Sèvres vase. How it shone! How well it occupied and gladdened my whole soul!… Until one evil day it collided with reality and shattered into pieces. I thought I would die. Afterwards… what else could I do!… I applied myself to searching among the drama of the broken pieces for the largest piece, determined to be content with it. IDA.–Did you find it? EL.–Not yet. _Looking expressively into her eyes._ Or, perhaps, yes… I don’t know!… IDA.–Are you still searching? EL.–Always. IDA.–Then you are happy. At least, happier than I am. _With an almost imperceptible tremor in his voice._ I… I’m not searching anymore! EL.–Come to your senses: if you want to be happy, love it fanatically, propose it to yourself… and you will be. In the vast majority of cases, happiness is reduced to a mirage of our will. IDA.–Perhaps… _Shakes her head._ But why bother trying to create that mirage, if, in the end, we will be defeated?… Remember that behind “Don Quixote,” symbol of illusion, walked “Sancho”… As in life! EL.–_Fervent._ Because we are cowards. Let us fight; And if the world defeats us… let us fight again! They are silent, as if granting each other a truce. Without realizing it, a rapport has just sprouted between them. I feel it well, and I am glad. La Sabrosa has strengthened her pace, and in the silence of the moonlit fields , my wheels move with greater enthusiasm. IDA. What could I seek? Nothing. Laurels? No, because I am not an artist. Money? For what? Love? HE. Interrupting her vehemently, Yes, love! IDA. Love is forbidden to me: society forbids it. Besides, I loved my husband . Do you believe it is possible to love more than once? HE. Undoubtedly, and I appeal to the testimony of the immortal book whose authority you invoked before. How many times did “Our Lord Don Quixote” go out in search of the Ideal? Weren’t there three of them?… _Cheering up._ Ah, if only the person I’m in love with would love me back!… IDA.–What madness! To love is to enslave oneself. HE.– True: but is there slavery comparable to the slavery of boredom? IDA.–And the responsibilities, not only moral, but economic, that love entails?… _Smiling._ Listen to the men… HE.–_Becoming excited._ Wretched ones!… The woman we don’t love certainly weighs us down and hinders us; but the one we love revives us and serves as a springboard and a boost on every occasion. The first is a burden; the second, a force. The difference between the two is the same as carrying our lunch in our hand or carrying it in our stomach. Ida laughs. At that moment, the naval officer, dressed in white, crosses in front of the compartment : on the white of his uniform, the buttons and the golden braid shine martially. The officer is pot-bellied, and as he walks, he sprawls to maintain his balance. He carries a large pipe between his teeth, and the light from the tobacco stains the smoker’s fleshy face red. Ida and her companion continue their conversation, but in a more confidential voice. HE.–_With a new ardor in their accent._ The objective world doesn’t really exist: everything is within us, Ida; everything depends on us… and I maintain that you, or anyone, can be happy provided you are a little cruel. _A silence that will be spent gathering ideas._ Do you know Pietro Fosco’s admirable film, _The Fire_?… Ida shakes her head, and her clear, surprised, naive eyes seem to become childlike with curiosity. EL.–A young, beautiful, elegant, capricious, and wealthy woman…; a woman who carries within her the complete tragic bouquet of temptations, greets a painter one afternoon in the countryside. The artist’s poverty, his adolescent beauty, and, even more so, his lofty inspiration, interest her. “I’ll come to your house,” she announces, “to get to know you better.” The following evening she visits him. He, trembling with emotion, has adorned the studio with flowers: on the table and under a green screen, an old kerosene lamp burns. She examines one by one the canvases, the unfinished plurality that decorates the studio, and at times she appears more in love with the painter. “You have great talent,” she repeats; “an extraordinary talent, and you deserve to win.” Informed of the circumstances that hinder the young man’s existence, she adds: ” We will send your mother as much money as she needs, but on the condition that you separate from her. You must renounce everything and dedicate your entire soul to Art. In exchange for this sacrifice, I will give you love, laurels, fortune… and you will be so happy that your heart, thirsty today, will desire nothing…” He hesitates; he is still so young!… “And my fiancée?” he asks pleadingly. “Sacrifice her too: it is essential that everything be blown to bits for you to triumph.” And she continues: “How long does that lamp burn with the light it has now?” “Eight hours, madam.” “And you resign yourself to living in such sad gloom?” “What will I do,” he replies, “if it cannot give better light?” “You’re mistaken. There’s a formidable force in your lamp that you don’t know, but I do. Look!…” And, seizing the lamp, he smashes it against the floor. A blaze of fire fills the studio, and the painter, dazzled, blinded, by that splendor of the Ideal, follows the sorceress… IDA. Trembling. What a wonderful symbol! Oh! My hands have gone cold with emotion. HE. Before each man there are only two paths: the path of the resigned, and that of the rebels. It’s best to choose, and choose quickly. Which shall we prefer? To vegetate boredom under a vulgar light, or to charge against all dangers and make our lives a bonfire? IDA. I don’t know. HE. Yes, I will; I’ll break my lamp. Passions attract me more for their intensity than for their duration, for it doesn’t matter if the flame lasts an instant if it’s enough to teach us everything. _Mysterious and prophetic._ And the time has come to follow my example. Ida: “Break your lamp.” IDA.–I don’t dare… She looks at him, terrified, as if her eyes were plunging into an abyss. EL.–“Break your lamp.” _Gloomy._ IDA.–And after? EL.–Don’t ask that: Happiness has no future, no “after.” When the fire has allowed you to see “the infinite,” why would you want to go on living? _Pause._ IDA.–_With childish curiosity._ How does the painter end his adventure? EL.–Badly: because he ends his days, an idiot, in a mental asylum, making paper butterflies. _Transition._ But what does it matter if, before falling into idiocy, he was famous, rich, and loved?… Ida’s husband, returning from the dining room, appears unexpectedly: “Good evening.” Ida lets out a small cry. DON ALFONSO.–Am I importunate?… What were you talking about?… IDA.–Since we didn’t hear you arrive… _Recovering._ Our friend was telling me the plot of a movie. DON ALFONSO.–In the next carriage I greeted the Marchioness of Guzmán; she is bringing one of her sick granddaughters; I told her you would stop by for a moment to visit her; do you want to?… IDA.–_Rising._ Yes, yes; you did very well. DON ALFONSO.–_To your friend._ We will be back before you leave for dinner. THE MAN WITH THE CRISP CARNATION.–Very well… _Gives his greetings._ The couple leaves; Don Alfonso walks ahead. As she passes through the small door of the compartment, Ida turns her head and smiles; and that look and that smile, “the man with the red carnation” receives them simultaneously , like two arrows, in the heart. Chapter 19. April had begun, and the number of “tourists” was incredible . Spaniards and foreigners who were brought to Seville by the world-famous Holy Week and Fair festivities . Every day, the trains on all the Andalusian lines were packed with people, a fact greatly contributed to by the occasional issuance of inexpensive round-trip tickets, whose great cheapness encouraged even the most lazy to make the pilgrimage. Our trains were exhausted from the weight they carried on each trip; the cars, regardless of class, as well as the wagons and trucks, left loaded with passengers, luggage, merchandise, and even furniture. There were locomotives that left Madrid hauling more than 350 tons. At the central station, we informed each other about the traffic. “How was the express train this morning?” ” Full,” a voice responded. “And the mail train?” ” Full too: it left late because at the last minute it was necessary to add two third trains.” All the trains ran like this, even the phlegmatic “mixed” trains, which we nicknamed “the ones caught up” because they were always left behind. This overwork tired us out, but at the same time excited us, for joy is always involved in action, and the boisterous—somewhat plebeian—good humor of our guests was transmitted to us. The distinctly Andalusian character of the festivities being held stimulated the Andalusian sentiment of the passengers: the Andalusians exaggerated their accents and “ate” more letters than ever, and even the natives of other regions, carried away by their example, tried to imitate them. My express train, from the tender to the caboose—and especially on the curves, which give it a picturesque undulation—resembled a street in Seville or Córdoba; I myself, despite my Basque-French origins, began to speak a little Andalusian… On “Holy Saturday,” which, with the cacophony of its bells, dispels the shadows of Holy Week, the number of our passengers increased. According to the common saying, on our platform “one could not take a step.” Contributing to this was the fact that a great bullfighter and a minister were traveling with us, men whom Spain, a poor nation, greatly venerates, perhaps because of the lavishness with which they earn their money. “His Excellency,” the newspapers said that morning, “would stay in Córdoba to attend, in the name of the king, the laying of a “first stone,” and then to study “a problem”… I don’t know which one!… I observed him: my simplicity has always amazed those great men who dedicate their lives to addressing stones, as if to test their resilience; to studying problems and then carefully hiding everything they know. The bullfighter, one of the most glorious of his time, went further than “Your Excellency,” as he was going to Seville to treat the wound inflicted on him in the Valencia bullring by a spectator who had thrown a bottle into the ring. The minister was escorted by several journalists and a large group of parliamentary figures. Most of those gentlemen were over fifty, conversed in measured conversation, and wore frock coats and top hats. I began to establish connections between the shape of those hats, worn only by transcendental figures, and the smokestacks of our locomotives. Do they stimulate brain activity, determine “a shot” in ideas?… “Your Excellency” chatted with everyone, lavished greetings, and his belly and bearded face denoted satisfaction. The audience, upon recognizing him, stopped to look at him, and he tried, at all times, to maintain a tribunician attitude. An atmosphere of success surrounded him, and the character made sure that his fame matched his figure. For the common people, presence is talent. “The theater,” I reflected, “must be something like that…” The bullfighter traveled in my sleeping compartment, and he was accompanied by his manager and the men of his gang, most of them from Seville, plus another fifty or sixty people of diverse social standing, according to their manner of speaking and dress. The famous “espada” Manuel González would not have reached the age of twenty-four, and so The crowds talked about his art, the two million pesetas he had saved, and the direction of his life. They nicknamed him “El Meñique” (Little Finger) because of his small stature, and his gypsy heritage was proclaimed by the jet-blackness of his eyes, the copper of his skin, and the agile, flexible, and harmonious disposition of his body. I noticed that his worshippers were more numerous than those of “His Excellency,” and that they regarded him with greater affection and less interested devotion. From my windows, several passengers also observed him, and there was a stillness of happiness on their faces: that dark, gaunt, and sad man seemed to them the symbol of the Andalusia they were about to visit. The crowd stopped to contemplate him, happy to have him so close, while remembering those triumphant Sundays when, dressed in gold and silk, he played with death. I could swear there were a few seconds when the minister, jealous of the bullfighter’s popularity, made a gesture of greeting him. Meanwhile, Littlefinger was sucking on a toothpick and discreetly narrowing his eyelids, as if the display embarrassed him… There were two or three minutes left before the express was due to depart when a gusty wind blew across the platform. He was hauled up by a very large group of passengers—more than thirty—who couldn’t find seats and were looking for the stationmaster to demand that he add another “first” class to the convoy. Those gentlemen, pale with impatience and anger, were making a very curious anti-patriotic demonstration. All of them, in unison, were denouncing Spain. “What a country!” they shouted. This only happens here!… The most enraged one was going without a hat and shouting: “I need to get to Seville tomorrow!… If I don’t get there, I’ll lose forty thousand duros!” One said: “It’s embarrassing to be Spanish!” And several, at the same time: “Yes, sir; it’s embarrassing!” Saying this, they looked at each other, satisfied with showing off their cosmopolitanism and elegance. The demonstrators, followed by about a hundred unemployed people, found the station master and the express conductor near me, and in loud voices they expressed their desire. The master explained to them, in well-considered words, the impossibility of satisfying them because there were no cars available. One of them replied stupidly: “Well, you made them up!” A phrase that, despite its lack of meaning, considerably inflamed all those gentlemen. Arms were raised, the shouting intensified, and hands became threatening. The gentleman “with the forty thousand duros” exclaimed: “If I don’t leave for Seville tonight, I’ll shoot the director of this company!” A tiny gentleman said, looking from one side to the other with tiger eyes: “This is happening to us because we lack courage! There’s no bloodshed here!… In Germany the people would have already burned down the station!” The chief replied measuredly: “No, gentlemen: neither in Germany, nor in any well-civilized country, does the public protest, because they assume that when the employees who are at their service don’t please them, it’s because they can’t do it.” Everyone roared: “It’s an abuse!… If you don’t provide a car for us, we won’t let the train leave!” “The engine,” shouted the chief so that everyone could hear him, “can’t pull more cars than it can carry! You know that!… Gentlemen who want to leave today, stand up!… I authorize you.” “I can’t do any more!” The demonstrators replied: “Well, the train isn’t leaving! We won’t let you leave!” The leader, who had been losing ground during the discussion, reacted: “Everyone back!” he suddenly ordered; “Stand back… or I ‘ll be forced to call the Civil Guard!” The rioters mechanically retreated a few steps; they were slowing down. The leader repeated, advancing: “I need this part of the platform clear. Everyone back!” The crowd, cowed, retreated again, silent, with the humility of a herd. I thought: “How poor Two-Face would have liked to see all this!” At the same time a bell rang. The watering can whistled and the convoy began to move. Leaning out of a window, El Meñique greeted his friends, taking off his flat-brimmed hat, and I saw that the celebrated bullfighter was bald. “Viva Manuel!” shouted a voice from the platform. Many excited voices echoed: “Viva!” While “His Excellency,” from his car, smiled at the crowd, as if those endorsements of sympathy were for him. El Meñique attended the “first table,” and the emotion his presence produced in the dining car must have been extraordinary, because when he returned to me, he was followed by fifteen or twenty people traveling in other cars. Dodging this sticky adhesion, the matador entered his apartment, where he sat down. He then took off his hat, and in the light his Socratic baldness shone with the melancholy of ancient ivory. In that position, his aquiline nose seemed longer, and his gaunt face, prematurely aged by anxiety, offered, now on his cheekbones and chin, now in the hollows of his dry cheeks, all the shades of copper. Attentive to everything the illustrious bullfighter was saying to his friends, I soon learned the names of those who watched him most closely. Seated on his left was his manager, Don Ricardo Fernán, a person, it seemed, of his greatest favor; and on his right was a young nobleman, with a profuse conversation and a raucous laugh, whom everyone familiarly called “marquesito.” Standing right in the doorway, almost completely filling it with his shoulders, stood Juanito Paisa, a young notary from Seville, whom everyone respected for his obvious influence over Manuel. Juanito was dressed by Manuel’s tailor, his shoes by Manuel’s shoemaker, and his hatmaker was Manuel’s. Juanito Paisa was, par excellence, “Manuel’s friend,” and he was known and regarded for this more than for his profession, as if the culminating feature of his biography were having won the matador’s affection. Therefore, Juanito Paisa wasn’t bothered by the fact that “El Marquesito” was lounging next to Manuel: if the aristocrat occupied that spot, it was because he had generously ceded it to him; he didn’t want to “monopolize” Manuel; a man like El Meñique owed his life to humanity, and happiness should be shared; but he was certain that, at the slightest suggestion from him, “El Marquesito” would have gotten up. Behind Juan Paisa, along my corridor, many curious onlookers crowded around, eager to see the bullfighter: the little ones, despite my trembling, stood on tiptoe. All my seats were occupied; it was hot, and the heavy air from the windows wasn’t enough to cool the atmosphere. The topic of conversation was Manuel González’s art and his fear of bulls. They also talked about the man: one traveler had found him thinner than before; another found him the same; a third celebrated the brilliant displays of the swordsman’s breastplate. The wound that caused Manuel to limp was mentioned at length; it was on his right foot, at the ankle. “It was inflicted on him with a bottle at the very moment he was about to go in for the kill.” The newspapers say they had already given him the “second warning” and that the crowd was growing impatient. These conversations, which I translated poorly because they concerned places and matters unknown to me, interested me less than the naive enthusiasm of the talkers, who, in their preoccupation with Manuel, even forgot their own affairs. This unanimous and fervent admiration surprised me; it was new to me; I had never seen so many souls vibrate in time, and I thought that in a novel of bullfighting customs, rather than the matador, the central role should be assigned to the crowd, since the picturesque, the implausible within the most acute degrees of comedy, the comical, in short, is in the crowd. Throughout my journey I heard whispers: “What is El Meñique doing now?” This candid curiosity, which everyone found very legitimate, very reasonable, ran from one traveler to another until the door where “the “A friend of Manuel,” whose well-known privacy everyone envied, stood sleepless on guard, and the answer came immediately: “He’s talking about the bullfights in Seville…” And this information was reassuring and sweet to everyone, like a gust of good air. Then the news spread that El Meñique had paid seven thousand pesetas for a horse; then, that he wanted to buy a farmhouse on the banks of the Guadalquivir…; and for a very long time my guests could talk only about horses and farmhouses. A gentleman, well-built and with a bushy mustache, who was traveling with his wife and two daughters, now women, left his seat with the intention of greeting El Meñique. “Will you be back soon?” his wife asked him. “At once.” He went out into the corridor and, leaning on his elbows, began to make his way through; the task was arduous, because the mass of travelers stationed there barely offered any space. However, leaning on some, gently pushing others, resorting to urbane phrases To the general friendliness , always advancing in profile, as if swimming against the current, the gentleman “with the bushy mustache” managed to approach Juanito Paisa, whose attention he solicited by touching him on the shoulder. Paisa turned his face. “Good evening; excuse me: I wished to greet Manuel… ” “Manuel’s friend” fixed the newly arrived man with a scrutinizing look, the look of a doorman. He inquired: “Do you know him? ” “No, sir… and I would like to have the pleasure. If you will be familiar with him and can introduce me…” Juanito Paisa’s cheeks flushed with pride; he uncoughed and smiled boastfully. “May I introduce you?… I believe you! You couldn’t have addressed anyone better than me. As if I were your best friend!… But please wait a little, because Manuel is talking and he doesn’t like being interrupted.” Very patiently, the gentleman “with the bushy mustache” replied: “I’ll wait…” This postponement irritated him. A few seconds; then he calmed down: he looked back, realized the difficult road he had just traveled, and this consideration delighted him deeply. From his position, he could see El Meñique and even hear, from time to time, one of the many words he was saying, and he experienced the satisfaction of a man who recognizes himself well-situated in life. Juanito Paisa had turned his back on him. Twelve or fifteen minutes passed, and the man “with the bushy mustache” thought he had been forgotten; Paisa’s shoulder blades projected an emotion of loneliness over him; he felt abandoned again, almost miserable…; he was about to return to his compartment, but thought that his wife and daughters would ask him for details of his conversation with El Meñique, and this made him change his mind. Drawing courage from his own weakness, he caught the attention of “Manuel’s friend.” “Could it be now?” he murmured as gently as he could; ” because… since my family is waiting for me…” Juanito Paisa understood the tribulation of that man; he had gone through similar hardships before becoming, through perseverance and small sacrifices, the matador’s best friend… and he was merciful! “Right now!” he exclaimed. “Don’t worry!” He moved forward only as far as was necessary, only as strictly necessary, so that the gentleman “with the bushy mustache” could pass through the door, and added, addressing the bullfighter: “Manuel, excuse me: there’s a gentleman here who wants to meet you…” Manuel González stood up; his dark lips hinted at a movement that never quite formed into a smile, and he extended his hand to the newcomer; that hand he dipped in bull’s blood every Sunday. “I’m glad to see you so kind, friend,” he said. “Thank you very much, too,” replied the man “with the bushy mustache,” visibly troubled . He didn’t mention his name. Why would he? It would have been a sign of pride. There, neither he nor the others meant nothing; before the glorious matador there could be nothing but admirers. Littlefinger added courteously, offering him his seat with a gesture: “If you’d like to rest a while…” “Thank you very much… thank you very much: I only came to have the honor of greeting you…” El Meñique acknowledged this courtesy with another gesture. Then he felt obliged to introduce the two people he was with: “Don Ricardo… “the little marquis”… a gentleman who wanted to meet me…” The visitor, at times more embarrassed, bowed several times. Afterward , and without further ado, he offered the swordsman a delicious cigar. “For you to smoke to my health,” he said; ” there was nothing better at the station tobacconist’s . ” Manuel looked at his agent, smiled, and put the gift in his pocket. “It’s appreciated,” he murmured. Very pleased with himself, “the gentleman with the mustache” shook the bullfighter’s hand again; he said goodbye to Juanito Paisa, thanking him profusely for the favor he had just done him, and once again broke through the travelers blocking my corridor. Behind him, admiringly, the crowd whispered: “He’s a friend of Meñique’s…” And envious glances followed him. In Alcázar de San Juan, about twenty people were waiting for the express to arrive to greet Manuel, and “the idol” had to lean out of a window. They all asked him the same question: “And your foot?… How’s your foot?” “It’s much better. ” “A bottle, right?” With great composure, El Meñique repeated: “Yes, a bottle…” His longanimity, his elegant resignation, inflamed his fans’ affection for him. “If I were there,” they said, “I swear the barbarian who threw the bottle at you would eat it…” The bullfighter didn’t answer; he seemed tired. “We’ll go to Seville to applaud you,” one offered. “Let’s all go and we’ll carry you out of the Plaza on our shoulders,” another exclaimed. Sadly, Manuel González repeated: “Thank you very much; if I’m lucky…” The Watering Can whistled, and we began to roll. Then those men ran along the platform; they pushed and jostled one another, while shouting: “Hand, Manuel!… Give me your hand!” No one wanted to renounce this honor, and Manuel González tried to please everyone. Then, while Juanito Paisa rushed to close the window, I noticed El Meñique moving and looking at his fingers, as if they were in pain. Juanito, who was watching him closely, also noticed. “They hurt you, right?… But I’ve advised you a thousand times not to shake anyone’s hand!” Mockingly and melancholy, Manuel sighed: “And what am I going to give, Juan? ” “You’ll give me one knee!” the notary replied. The news spread through the corridor that El Meñique had just hurt himself, and many passengers, who had already taken their seats, returned to the aisle. With great joy in his heart, “Manuel’s friend” felt obliged to offer explanations. “If I shake hands with him,” he said, “nothing happens to me; but people love Manolo too much, and, unintentionally, of course, they damage him. Last year, in Madrid, as we got off the train, an admirer took his hand, and with the joy of seeing him, he began to squeeze it… more… more!… without being able to contain himself, as if in an epileptic frenzy, until it was so bruised that he couldn’t fight the bull the next day. He gazed at the “idol” with humble and tender eyes. “That’s why,” he concluded, “as soon as someone comes to greet him, I stand by his side: I won’t allow such a good man as him to be harmed!” The shadows the express train cast from side to side over the steep hills indicated to me that the passengers in the other cars were asleep, for all the carriages were in darkness. Only my windows remained lit, and my passengers, as if kept awake by the matador’s proximity, had no intention of sleeping. In Manzanares, where El Meñique received heartwarming cheers and congratulations from a group of devoted Manzanares residents, a small, skinny man in his thirties got on my bus and, as soon as he saw Juanito Paisa, he went up to him with open arms. “Juanito… Juanito!” the man repeated as he walked on. “Juanito!” “Manuel’s friend” seemed pleased to see him. “Don Felipe!” he exclaimed. There was, however, a certain lukewarmness in his expression; it was a greeting from master to servant; Juanito considered Don Felipe “inferior. ” “Where are you going?” he added. “To Seville, my son; to the Fair. Like every year!… To see “that man,” that marvel!” He was referring to Meñique. Paisa replied proudly, with the pride of someone opening a safe: “There he is. ” “I know it!… They had told me: “Meñique is coming in the second carriage.” And that’s why I came in here. I suppose you’ll introduce me to him, right?” ” Right now. ” “You already know I deserve it… ” “How do you deserve it?” Juanito agreed, “more than anyone else!” “Inside!” They entered the bullfighter’s compartment. “Manuel,” said Paisa with a calmness that lent solemnity to his words, ” I’m going to introduce you to a ‘good’ friend, a true supporter of yours. When I tell you so!” Little Finger stood up and shook Don Felipe’s hand, who, with elegance and aplomb, had taken his hat off. That man was also bald, and I was amazed at his brotherly resemblance to the matador: he had his black eyes, his coppery complexion, his sad cheeks, his eagle-like profile… “I warn you,” continued “Manuel’s friend,” “that he’s not bald; Don Felipe isn’t bald, but he shaves his head to look more like you. ” Little Finger laughed heartily. “Many… thank you very much!” And he examined him; and the more carefully he went into detail, the more the illusion of standing in front of a mirror grew in him. “That’s right,” confirmed Don Felipe. I shave my head twice a week, to look more like you. And when someone asks me, “Are you Meñique’s brother?” I feel a swell of satisfaction. Once seated, they continued talking, and Don Felipe declared that he had saved in albums and classified chronologically nearly four thousand portraits of his favorite bullfighter. It was after midnight. I thought: “Is it possible that these people don’t get sleepy?” I had never witnessed such a long vigil. In Valdepeñas, where we arrived late, they were also waiting for Meñique. The scenes from Manzanares and Alcázar de San Juan were faithfully reproduced; the questions were always: “How is the wound?” “Was it a bottle blow, wasn’t it?” These were followed by several offensive words for the mother of the man who threw the bottle. Then, congratulations, handshakes, promises to go to Seville soon, cheers… and the train departs. Upon leaving Valdepeñas, Manuel asked for his bed to be prepared for him, as he wanted to sleep, and delegated to his agent the task of receiving any people or commissions awaiting him along the route. “Because,” he declared, “I can’t move my body. ” Don Ricardo assured him that no one would bother him, and with this encouraging prospect, the matador said goodbye to his “close friends” and, limping, returned to his compartment. Just as he was closing the door, Juanito Paisa called him, putting his lips through the light-filled gap that still remained between the door frame and the jamb. Juanito was jealous of all of Manuel’s friends and never missed an opportunity to show them that he was more obsequious than any and always “the last” one the bullfighter spoke to when going to retire. “Do you want something, Manuel?” the notary inquired. “No, thank you. ” “Is there anything I can offer you?” “Nothing.” Great bullfighters, as I witnessed on that and other occasions, tend to keep their conversation short. “Manuel’s friend” looked at the matador with filial affection, with surprise, with rapture: that man was his admiration, his joy, his pride; he was almost the “why” of his life… and, watching him, he languished like a painting dilettante before a masterpiece. With the tenderness of a woman, he asked: “What suit are you going to wear when you get off the train?” “This one.” Juanito Paisa made a very slight grimace of sadness, and El Meñique opened his mouth. the door a little; that wink had just stung his presumption as a well-bred young man; at that moment, his pride hurt more than his foot. “Why do you say that?” he exclaimed. “I don’t know… for no reason… ” “Speak up, man! Don’t you like this suit?” He examined himself: it was a “complete” brown suit, very tight, oozing majesty, the work of one of Seville’s most famous tailors. In turn, Juanito looked at him in ecstasy, almost sorry he had spoken. “The “brown” suit,” he was finally able to say, “is perfect, like all yours… ” “So? ” “But you’ve worn it two days in a row. That’s why, to enter Seville, I’d like to see you in the gray one. You don’t know how it suits you!” Manuel shook his head; he considered that, to please his friend, he would have to take the trouble to open his suitcase. Juanito Paisa added: “With the gray suit you’re… come on!… You’re like no one else! Was I going to deceive you?” Detached and patient, El Meñique replied: “All right, man; sleep peacefully: I’ll put on the gray suit…” And he closed the door. So that the bullfighter could rest better, Don Ricardo Fernán, “the little marquis,” and “Manuel’s friend” retired to the adjoining apartment, ready to sleep. My other tenants were also resting, and all my lights, except those in the hallway, where a few sleepless smokers remained, were turned off. Thus we arrived at Venta de Cárdenas, where, unafraid of the untimely hour, several admirers of the bullfighter were waiting. I heard them ask: “Where is Manuel?… Don’t you know which car he’s coming in?” The fact that the cars were in darkness confused them, and they began to run, bewildered, ahead of the convoy. They were enraged by the fear of not seeing the “idol.” Some began to shout: “Manuel, Manuel!” Meñique’s agent and his companions looked at each other with glee, holding an index finger to their lips, ordering each other to remain silent. The residents of Ventas insisted on their demand and knocked on the carriage windows with their knuckles; but the express train moved on again and they were disappointed. The same thing happened at the Santa Elena and Vadollano stations, and at Baeza, a man, tired of calling out for Meñique, threw a large rock at me and broke a window. The barbarian was arrested. “The danger is in Córdoba,” said Don Ricardo. And “Manuel’s friend” repeated, deeply distressed: “That’s it! In Córdoba, where we have a fifteen-minute stop! There’s no escape there!” His sad predictions were fully confirmed. As we entered the Córdoba station, almost at daybreak, I saw a crowd of more than four hundred people, eager to see the wounded bullfighter. That swarm of people advanced to meet the train and instantly formed a battle line in front of the convoy. A shout of “Viva El Meñique!”, launched into the air by a robust chest, was met with a collective, deafening, and overbearing “Viva!!…” . The sleeping cars remained muffled in darkness, but in the “first” cars, the lights shone because the flow of passengers was considerable. From the front car to the tail, I could hear people repeating: “Manuel!… Where’s Manuel?” Other voices were arguing: “His agent and Juanito Paisa must be coming with him. ” “What Juanito Paisa are you talking about? The notary?” “That one’s in Seville!” “I assure you he’s coming here: Juanito Paisa is “Manuel’s friend” and accompanies him everywhere. I’ll bet you anything!” The clamor of the demonstrators grew so loud that Don Ricardo decided to show himself at a window. Paisa and “the little marquis,” delighted to be showing off as well, remained behind him, very close. “Good morning, gentlemen,” said the agent simply. His words, although spoken in a low voice, had the magical virtue of reaching everywhere, because immediately, the crowd rushed to gather in front of me. “I am very grateful to you,” continued Don Ricardo, “for this gesture of yours .” adhesion. What did you want? To see Littlefinger?… It’s not possible, because he’s lying down. At the same time, cruelly, the audience replied: “Let him get up!” ” He’s asleep; he had a very bad night… ” “Wake him up!” they shouted in unison, “we had a bad night too. Most of us here haven’t gone to bed to see him. ” “Gentlemen,” insisted Don Ricardo, “I don’t dare wake Manuel; bear in mind that he’s a wounded man… ” “It doesn’t matter,” replied the spectators unanimously; “a foot wound isn’t serious. Tell him to get out of bed! We want to see him… we want to speak to him!” They considered that eight or ten minutes had already passed, and that the time for the express to leave was imminent. They began to get irritated. Were they disdained? Suddenly the crowd was about to become angry, because in the collective soul neither admiration nor hatred have fixed roots or channels. Fortunately, Don Ricardo understood in time. “If they persist,” he shouted, “wait a moment. I’ll beg him to get up!” He ran, followed by Paisa, to Manuel’s bed, who was awake and in a very dark mood. “Get up, Manolo!” Don Ricardo implored. “You heard me fighting with them; I couldn’t do more… ” “I won’t get up,” the bullfighter muttered. ” You’ll do very wrong; you don’t need to get dressed; wrap yourself in your traveling rug and look out for a moment.” The essential thing is that they see you, that they don’t think you despise them… “Half Córdoba” is there… The bullfighter’s admirers shouted again: “Manuel!… Come out!… Long live El Meñique!” Some began to hit me with their canes, to make a noise. There was a tremendous burst of applause; then new voices resounded: “Manuel!… We want Manuel to come out!” Behind Don Ricardo, Juanito Paisa mournfully begged the matador: “Please them, Manolo; if you don’t, consider that you’re going to make many enemies, and that, one day or another, you’ll have to come bullfight in Córdoba…” With a resigned, almost mystical air, El Meñique sat up in the litter. “I’ll obey you as long as you leave me alone.” He got up limping and, wrapped in a red and green kimono, looked out the window. –Greetings, gentlemen… Small, thin, copper-skinned, and bald, and dressed in that oriental disguise, in the white light of dawn, Little Finger must have resembled an icon. Many warm applauses and cheers greeted his appearance. Immediately, absolute silence fell. The bystanders, enraptured, gazed at the “idol”; and he, in turn, gazed back at them. Thus passed eight, nine… ten seconds… Curious phenomena of emotion!… Now in the presence of the marvelous gladiator, no one dared to open their lips, and their minds were as if paralyzed. Until, amidst the deep and general contemplation, a voice said: –What was that bottle shot?… Manuel didn’t reply, and his pale, fetish-like face expressed nothing either. The scene had a supreme comic force. The same voice continued: “We’ve all read the newspapers here: so it’s true that you were left in a bad way in Valencia?” Gentlemanly, with a gentle yet bitter irony, El Meñique replied: “You made me get up to ask me that?” When no one responded to such a fair observation, the bullfighter added: “Gentlemen, your intention is appreciated.” And gently, without anger, he raised the window. At that moment we were leaving , and then, lukewarm and lagging behind, a few applauses rang out. El Meñique, pained in his flesh and in his heart, perhaps wanting to cry, threw his kimono to the floor and returned to bed. Although convinced that Manuel González was not truly responsible for anything, I had harbored ill will toward him: because of him, his followers in Córdoba beat me with clubs, and in Baeza a savage, with a stone, had broken a window. That was one of the worst trips of my life. My tenants shared this bad mood, as the applause for Littlefinger kept them awake. “It will be the last time,” they murmured, “that I travel again in the company of a bullfighter “on the bill.” What a night!… The gentleman to whom I have awarded the nickname “the gentleman with the bushy mustache” did not rest well either; although it was not the voices or the noise, but remorse, that kept him from sleeping. This excellent man was tormented by the resentment that the cigar he had given to Littlefinger had not turned out to be any good, and because of it, the great bullfighter had formed an unfavorable opinion of him. That nefarious, perhaps poisonous cigar was, in the righteous eyes of his conscience, like a dagger stuck in the matador’s respiratory system . He shared this anxiety with his wife and daughters, who were also troubled. His wife asked: “How much did the cigar cost?” “Three pesetas; it was one of the most expensive.” “But it’s a ‘brand’ I’m not familiar with…” “You should have bought two, so you could smoke one; and if yours burned well, give him the other. ” “You’re right…” sighed the husband, biting his lip. “You’re right! How could I not have thought of that?” His entire family suffered from this pain, terrified of how easily discredit can hurt people. The following consideration had taken root in the mind of the man “with the abundant mustache”: “Before, Littlefinger didn’t have a reason to despise me, and now he does…” ” What if you were to visit him again,” suggested the lady, “under the pretext of inquiring about his health, and thus… chatting… ask him if he liked the cigar?” “That’s an excellent idea, Papa!” supported the daughters. These words, anointed with discretion, lit a light of hope in the eyes of the naive gentleman. “Perhaps you’re right!” he exclaimed, both suspicious and pleased. ” Women are the Devil: I’ll try.” It was after eight in the morning, and we were crossing the Los Rosales station, when “the gentleman with the mustache” left his compartment, determined to put doubts aside. In the corridor, he met, of all people, Meñique, dressed in gray, and Juanito Paisa, who was puffing on a cigar. “So as not to spend too much time with them,” he thought, “I’ll pretend to be heading for the dressing room…” He quickened his pace and tried to give his greeting an elegant lightness. “Good morning, Manuel… ” “Good morning,” replied the matador. “I’m glad to find you alone! May I ask you a question? ” “As many as you want to ask me. ” “What was the cigar I gave you last night like?” The fear that it might be bad has kept me awake. Little Finger questioned Juanito Paisa: “The cigar you’re smoking, isn’t it the one the gentleman gave me? ” “The same one,” replied Juanito, “and it’s very good!… On my word!” “The cigars you’re offering me,” added the bullfighter with his usual slow speech, “I accept them as gifts for my friends; but I don’t smoke… ” The gentleman “with the bushy mustache” stammered a few vulgar farewell phrases and, to do something, went into the dressing room. He was ashamed. Chapter 20. The Seville newspapers informed their readers that the day before, as a result of an unskillful maneuver, the Madrid express had left about half an hour late; but in the jumble of facts that fill daily life, the incident escaped unnoticed, which didn’t surprise me, since men believe that conscious life does not extend beyond themselves. Ah! If they had known how to read—just a little!—in the Mystery, they would have recognized that what they had believed to be a fortuitous collision between two wagons was a challenge. Indeed, time, far from softening the rough edges of my relationship with El Majo, had made them more tense and difficult. Accustomed to exercising despotic hegemony over the convoy, my enemy would not accept that I treated him as an equal, and without any other consideration or reverence than the exact same ones he paid me; I, for my part, would not allow the slightest authoritarian insinuation: we were of the same strength and of similar temperament, and, inevitably, we had to fight. He never missed an opportunity to attack me: in At the stations, the traffic would stop suddenly so that I would hurt myself against him; on the uphill slopes, he would let me help him, and one night, crossing Despeñaperros, he tried to throw me off the track on a curve. The cowardice of his betrayal inflamed my anger, and I was driven to heap the most vile insults on him. “You are,” I told him, “a fool and a villain, and we must kill each other. ” “I was going to propose it to you,” he replied, very cockily. “Well, the first opportunity will come, and I’ll be able to do little if I don’t expel you from the convoy. ” We were, then, challenged, and all the cars were hanging on the line. Even the engines heard the news, and needless to say, their sympathy was unanimously on my side. It was certain that El Majo, a professional barterer, wasn’t afraid of me; but neither was he afraid of me, and if we hadn’t already settled accounts, it was for lack of opportunity. She finally showed up at the Seville station one afternoon, due to a sleeping arrangement that, due to breakdowns, had to be removed from the “express.” It so happened that when La Sabrosa was on maneuvers, either because she needed to drink water or stock up on coal, or help push some “merchandise,” she always went alone; this was common. Sometimes, however , she took the first van with her, and also the Negro; and so I always stayed put and joined the “tail” of the convoy. On the afternoon I’m referring to, the porter who came to split us up, whether by mistake or because he had been ordered to—I’m inclined to believe the former—instead of separating me from the Negro, as he usually did, he separated me from the Majo, and thus gave us the opportunity to fight that we so craved, for nothing resembles thirst, nor does it go better with insomnia than the desire for revenge. While they were separating us, my rival warned me: “Well, the offensive is yours; take it with courage. ” “Tell me later,” I replied proudly, “if I knew how to please you.” And I followed the engine. Our duel had to be, necessarily, very swift: it was limited to the clash, more or less rude, that we would have later, when we came together; consequently, all our hatred, all our future credit as well, had to be concentrated in a supreme and decisive blow. To prevent the engineer—as he always did—from regulating the approximate movement of the two parts of the “express,” I needed to interest La Sabrosa in the challenge and establish her as a kind of ” field judge.” Through Negro, the lead van, and the tender, I spoke to her, and no sooner had we exchanged a few words than her will was on my side. “It’s essential,” I told her, “that when we go back and I’m within fifty or sixty meters of El Majo, you increase your speed, so that your regulator doesn’t work, otherwise the driver will force you to go slowly. ” “I’ll do it that way,” La Sabrosa replied, “but, honestly, are you really looking forward to running into El Majo?” “I want,” I exclaimed vehemently, “to break his body. ” “We’re going to cause a scandal… ” “It doesn’t matter, because a lesson is involved in that scandal. It’s best to teach those who forgive lifesavers a lesson. ” “Well, get ready, Cabal, and gather your strength,” La Sabrosa replied, “because we’re going back soon.” She had drunk enough and collected six thousand kilos of coal, and, greased and shining, she was moving backward with her smooth, powerful, stately roll. From other rails, many cars were watching me, and from the expectant attention they were paying, I understood they were warned about the incident. Those glances, each of which had a bite to my pride, redoubled my spirits: I felt my entire planking contract and harden, like a muscle; my bolts and screws tighten, and at the same time, in their respective frames, all my doors and windows were preparing to slam. “Lean on me, Cabal,” El Negro murmured behind me. At the end of the track, my rival was waiting for me, and at each of his stops, round as fists, there was a murderous threat. Only fifty meters separated us when the driver tried to reverse; but La Sabrosa didn’t slow down; the worried engineer clamped both hands on the wheel, and for the second time he was disobeyed. The brakes also seemed to be rebelling; the crash was going to be terrible; several employees ran toward the locomotive, shouting: “Back… back!” The engineer, very pale, shouted: “I can’t!… It won’t obey!” When I met El Majo, I said: “Hold on, if you can!” And I closed in on him, serving my destructive purpose with all my weight. I derailed him: first, his four front wheels came off the track; then his body began to lean, and seconds later he lost his balance and collapsed on his side, all his running gear exposed, as if dead. His imperial, almost along its entire length, was open. I, to the astonishment and delight of my comrades, remained firm: not a single one of my pieces shuddered; Not even my dynamo suffered. From that fray, in which, through no fault of their own, the stoker and the driver were injured, I emerged with only the broken windows. I remained idle for three days while they repaired my glasswork and a carpenter hammered in some nails that, with percussion, had protruded from the wood as if to give an account of what had happened; and then I was added to another newly formed “express,” a convoy filled with that proverbial Andalusian good humor so rich in hyperbole and joyful similes . My companions called themselves “comedians,” and I remember having mentioned something of this in another chapter of these “Memoirs.” The engine that operated between Seville and Córdoba was The Enterprise; the sleeping car, The First Actress; Among the “first” units there was a Gallant, a Prompter, a Characteristic, a Beard… As for me, although they knew my name and my recent adventure had given me prestige, they began to call me The Representative, because of how urbane and well-disposed everyone found me, and they did so with such good grace that I never once wanted to protest. I rode with these excellent comrades for a long time, and their optimism and witticisms provided me with many pleasant moments. What has become of them? My health is still in poor health, but I understand that my spirit has changed, and I notice it in the reluctance with which I speak, because as things—with age—become less important in my eyes, day after day , and in equal proportion, it becomes more difficult for me to discuss them with enthusiasm. “Everything fades, everything ages,” I think; and sadness and fatigue, the very core of life, imperceptibly penetrate me. I have acquired a new and useful ability to approach what seems small and to understand its depth, and thanks to this gift, I imagine the world to be more abundant and varied than before. To this I attribute the resurrection of certain images that, for three or four decades, my own youthful turbulence kept discarded and as if covered in dust in the last corners of memory. For example: when I was very young, one autumn evening I arrived at a Basque village. Was it Andoaín? Was it Urnieta?… Hernani, perhaps?… It matters little: I only know that it was raining heavily, that it was cold, and that the downpour drummed on the roofs and windows of the convoy. Far away, in the misty landscape, a few lights shone. It smelled of rockrose. Behind the small station, suddenly, the strumming of guitars resounded, and a manly voice, full of tune and warmth, began to sing a zorcico. That damp twilight , that stubborn rain, that sad little tune… how well they rhymed! The couplet seemed to dissolve into the tearful landscape, and the landscape, in turn, sobbed in the song. Why now, after so many years, does this delicate memory return to me? Perhaps because it is shifty and wandering, I was interested in the rivers, whose waters only say goodbye to us once; and more than rivers, which carry out the paradox that, while always on the move, they never quite leave, the roads. Oh! Those roads that, at night, under the astral fever, simulate dry channels! Who has not suffered their arcane poetry? They mean so much. More than a bond between two peoples: they are a happy parody of Time, because like it, they are at our side, and in front… and behind; and like it, they do not change, and yet there have never been two points exactly alike above them; and, like it, in short, they do not move and yet it seems, nevertheless , that they are going away. Likewise, they constitute, like Time, the vehicle of the worst and the sweetest: Glory and Fortune wander through them; the brides of men come through them, dressed in white; through them, after the goddess Adventure, the sons left, and the fathers passed by in a black carriage… They are also experience, and for that reason, without speaking, they guide; and while the uniform field remains silent, they, to the pilgrim who has lost his way, say: “Follow me!”… If the earth, with all those divisions that political geography determines, represents “the face of humanity,” the roads mark the folds or furrows of that face. Emotions, following identical trajectories time and again, come to paint wrinkles on a man’s face , just as rustic folk, wandering with no other guide than their instinct, sketched out the first paths; and their intuition was generally accurate, for the engineer’s pencil later confirmed, on paper, the course left in the green field by the uneven feet of the lout. Intelligent and mobile faces abound in wrinkles, just as there are many paths in nations deeply invested in progress. For impressions, the furrows of the skin are the paths of the countenance; for vagabonds, the roads are the wrinkles of the earth. Iron roads, along which, at a speed of eighty and ninety kilometers per hour, life runs; clean, stately cartways, on which you unwind your gray ribbon under the protection of the Law; bridleways that, crossing forests, preserve in your undulating line an uncertain and troubadour gesture; Covered paths, boldly suspended between the plain and the mountain cliff; mountain trails that, sometimes climbing, sometimes descending, skirt the terror of the abysses and preserve—like a wild perfume—the indecision of the first traveler; routes, in short, whatever your category and preeminence, with which the horizon seems to respond to the unsatisfied impatience of men: who has not felt your magnetism? Who was born so deaf of heart that he could not hear your siren voice vibrate in the deepest recesses of his soul? And what is your poetry that you magnify everything so that even the sea itself, when the moon stretches its silver causeway over it, appears more beautiful? Ah! If I could speak to humans, I would exhort them not to languish, not even for an instant, in the sterile repose of quiet lives, but to march constantly, both along the paths of the world and in pursuit of ideas and passions, paths of the spirit. I would say to them: “Men, old or young: desire, move, renew yourselves without sleep, adore the paths: always have a direction for your feet, always carry an ambition burning in your soul, like a compass. However much you have struggled, remember that Death, when it comes to you, must find you standing.” What I say about paths explains my affection for trees, which distribute good and die in silence, and have the sweetness of pantheistic philosophy. I will not speak of those that cover solitary places and, protecting one another, form dense forests: the chestnut trees, the oaks, the walnut trees, the cork oaks, the evergreen pines, the holm oaks—my grandmothers—twisted like roots, the olive trees descended from those that flourished in the garden where Jesus let his hands be tied. They all live apart from human activity and seem happy: tall grasses flourish around them, protecting the freshness of the soil and benefiting them; in the mornings, their dust-free, dew-drenched fronds have the strong green joy of the sea. In summer, at the breezeless hour of the siesta, the lascivious chirping of the cicadas lulls them to sleep, and at night, under the melancholy moon, their shadows, lengthened over the earth, They look like souls. They live like this for centuries: no one bothers them; from time to time, a poacher, a group of smugglers, a train fleeing in the distance … Nor will I mention those trees that beautify the public gardens. Lined up, pruned, monotonous, they lack the haughtiness or the sullen melancholy of their fellow forest brothers: rather , they appear weak and sad, as if conscious of their slavery. They are, nevertheless , true darlings of fortune, and uniformed servants watch over their repose and clean their trunks of parasitic vegetation and harmful insects. They are fertilized, watered, surrounded by grass, and everything around them is cheerful, because the crowds that flock to the promenades come only to enjoy themselves. Perhaps this is where my disdain for them lies; they seem to me to be city employees. I’m not interested in them… I dedicate my entire love to the trees forgotten by fate, to the pariah trees, to the tragic trees, which man or chance planted along the roadsides. No one defends them, no one cares for them; and yet they don’t vegetate selfishly like the others, but rather, kindly, they spread their branches over the aridity of the road where the pain of a poor life, of a sad life, slowly passes, and they shelter the pilgrim and defend the laden beasts from the sun. I could never see without emotion those rows of trees that, in the dryness of the Castilian plain, drift toward the horizon, marking the undulations of a road. They seem to be marching behind a burial, and in their sparse branches that shade the dusty route at intervals, there is an asceticism. What sadness, so profound! Alone, abandoned, no one will come to lift them up if the hurricane knocks them down, nor will they be freed from the weeds, nor will they be washed away the chalky dust that kills their foliage, nor will they be given a little water when their roots, under the August sun, die of thirst. Nothing defends them. The carter will cut from them the pole he needs to beat his cattle, and at the foot of their trunks, on winter nights, the shepherds will light the fire with which they must warm themselves. Eucalyptus trees, fig trees, erect poplars, graceful black poplars, silver acacias … the ungrateful person who tears a single leaf from your garment deserves no forgiveness . If you are beautiful and good, if you bring beauty to the landscape and health to mankind, who will demand more of you?… This assorted inclination of mine toward the helpless and the humble has helped me delve deeper into the human soul, and placed me in a position to discern sentimental nuances that I would not have seen in the past. My current sensitivity reaches a greater range than ever before. In a word: I have refined myself, I have polished myself. Thanks to this, I understood the painful emotional acuity of the episode I will narrate below , which I unhesitatingly place among the most beautiful of my life. The first chills of October were beginning to be felt; day after day, the sky-blue indigo weakened, and yellowish tremors ran through the fields. Some dry leaves had already fallen, and the scorching heat was beginning to fill the ditches with pain. It was the season when trains return to the Court loaded with vacationers and leave empty. That night, as I left Madrid, I only had five passengers with me. One of them interested me because of his dejected appearance. He looked fifty years old, but he was perhaps much younger: he was tall, skeletal, bent, tremulous, and when he walked he leaned on a cane as a crutch which he held with a thin, damp, impatient hand, with that feverish desire to grasp everything that puts agony in the fingers. That man , whom no one came to see off , rented four pillows and settled down next to the corridor with his back to the machine. He had a long and agonizing fit of coughing, and soaked a handkerchief in blood. I thought he would lie down; but he remained sitting, perhaps because he breathed better in this position. Little by little he arranged the pillows around him: one at the level of his lower back; another behind his head; the remaining two under his arms. Having done this, he seemed to rest, and gently, as if relieved, he closed his eyes. eyelids; but scarcely had his eyes—which were large and burning—did dim when it seemed to me that his straw-colored face had taken on a new lividness, that his aquiline nose had sharpened, and that his prominent cheekbones had become more pronounced; and I also noticed that between his straight mustache and his unkempt beard, his white-lipped mouth had remained open. Thus, wrapped in an old overcoat, with his profile turned upwards and a beret pulled down at his temples to emphasize the convexity of his forehead, my host looked like a corpse. “You’ll soon be back on earth,” I thought. From time to time, disturbed by my shaking, he opened his eyes, coughed, spat into his handkerchief, and dozed off again; though it wasn’t sleep, but the weakness and total ruin of his system that immobilized him. I soon forgot him. On the platform at Alcázar de San Juan, I saw a tall woman with brown hair and dressed in mourning, whom I immediately recognized. It was Raquel!… And the bloody silhouette of the unfortunate Don Rodrigo passed, like a pang of remorse, through my memory. In the four years since then, the silhouette of my former “client”—as Two-Face would have said—had improved. I found her slimmer and more agile than before, and sadder too; mourning undoubtedly spiritualized her, beautified her. “Does she dress like that for ‘him’?”… I asked myself. And I continued meditating, while I watched her: “If only you knew that this train car, which you think you don’t know, is the same one that took you so many times to and from La Coruña to Valladolid! If only you knew that I, reading the thoughts of your lover, who adored you, saw you naked many times!… If only my heart could explain to you that you owe me your life, because it was I who killed your man on the very night he was going to kill you!…” Raquel approached the Library to buy something to read, and I heard her chatting with the saleswoman. The young woman had requested works by Leonardo Ruiz Fortún, a writer very much in vogue at the time. There were none left in the cupboards, visible, so the saleswoman began to search through a chest: her knowledgeable and diligent hands, well accustomed to handling books, went from one volume to another. “I knew very well,” she exclaimed, sitting up, “that there were several left!” Here, take it: _Silence_… It’s a novel that the ladies ask for a lot. Raquel sighed, because that work held a memory for her: “I’ve read it…” “Look, another one: _The Intimate Friend_. ” “I’ve read that one too; I know almost all of Ruiz Fortún’s work; he’s my favorite author. ” “Another one… the latest: _Years of Peace_. ” “Oh?… Is it new?” ” It just went on sale; we received it yesterday. ” With a detached air, Raquel paid the price for the volume, which she began to leaf through, and when, suddenly, she came across that “interior landscape,” with its iridescent and piercing observation, that all book lovers look for in a newly purchased work, her eyes—ah, prodigies of art!—sparkled with emotion. He immediately approached the “express,” which was already leaving, and, without hesitation, obedient to the arcane suggestion of things, climbed onto my lap and went to place himself—facing the road—in the compartment where the sick man I spoke of earlier was traveling. It was the same compartment in which Don Rodrigo made his last journey, and the straightforward decision—a voice of fatality—with which he entered it, having been able to have chosen another, chilled me. I would have liked to say to her: “Raquel: the carriage that is now taking you to Andalusia is an old acquaintance of yours; it is the one that you and your Rodrigo called ‘our carriage’. I know how you kiss, and I can attest to how much he loved you; I have heard him doubt your affection and I have seen him tear up your letters. I also saw him dead: where his body had been lying, you, now, without knowing it, have just set foot; there was his blood there, where you have passed.”… Raquel, after sitting near a window, looked around ; that is, “she looked at me.” Then, and perhaps under my influence, she thought of her dead lover, and a melancholy crept across her brow. In her mind I read this name: “Rodrigo”; and then the clear eyes and the blond mustache of the unfortunate man. She sighed, and her conscience filled with darkness. I looked at her fondly: if I had seen her accompanied by another man, I would have hated her; but she was alone, and that affection that, after so much time, she had shown to her beloved made her sympathetic to me. And I thought again: “For whom will she mourn?” From her left hand, once adorned with an emerald and a ruby, the emerald was missing, as if its owner had wanted to imply that hope had left her heart. Raquel gazed at the clear, starry sky for a few moments. Then she took an ivory and gold folding knife from a toiletry bag, and with a slowness that was almost a caress, she began to cut the pages of the book: she did it with care, with love… She immediately began to read, and, interested as much by the passionate style as by the subject matter, she read at least twenty pages in one sitting. Suddenly, the traveler I’ll call “the four-pillow man” began to cough; with each new effort, he sat up, panting and livid, as if about to dictate his last will, while with a desperate hand he scratched his chest. “He’s a consumptive,” Raquel monologued, “an incurable person.” And, although pious, she turned her eyes away in disgust from the stranger, who projected a macabre profile against my gray background. She resumed her reading. At that moment, the author was tracing, with masterful strokes, the lazy spell of an Andalusian siesta: It was three o’clock in the afternoon on an August day: “Alicia,” the heroine, was waiting for her lover, hidden between the blinds of the balcony; a wave of fire was descending from the blue sky; in the provincial calm of the street, a small piano played the notes of a sensual waltz; In the windows and on the flowerbeds of the rooftops, the pots of carnations and tuberoses burned like flames in the sun; and in that oriental intoxication of heat and light, Alicia’s heart flew toward the countryside, where everything is healthy and violent… For the second time, Raquel looked at her traveling companion. The unfortunate man was coughing and choking; thick drops of sweat beaded his forehead; his eyes bulged with anguish. Then, now calm, he leaned his head back again, and his cheeks, momentarily purple from suffocation, regained their lividity. Raquel thought selfishly: “This poor man disgusts me. If he doesn’t go to sleep, I’ll change cars.” She returned to her reading, and quickly the superior spirit of Ruiz Fortún, her favorite author, possessed her again: like a sorcerer, he dominated her, stunned her. There was in the words of the great artist, adored by women, a burning, iridescent emotion, endowed with miraculous vigor. Everything in him was passion, impetus, romantic and exalted love. Leonardo Ruiz Fortún was a Greek who resurrected the optimistic spirit of ancient Hellas in the weary West. From his books, pessimism, which is cowardice, was banished, and all his characters were bold and beautiful like heroes… Enraptured, Raquel slowly closed her long, black eyes… and suddenly , the distant image of Don Rodrigo occupied her memory for a few seconds. She lowered her head; she remained sad, with that sure melancholy that emanates from boredom; this depressive disposition of soul had been visited upon her for some time. “I’m bored,” she thought, “and being bored, when we’re alone, is equivalent to not being satisfied with ourselves; it’s “hating” ourselves a little…” Then, a picturesque idea pleasantly disturbed her spirit: “What would Ruiz Fortún be like?” Ah! Had she known him, she would surely have loved him. We were arriving at Santa Cruz de Mudela, where we were changing engines; it was after one in the morning. The man “with the four pillows,” whom my lights gave a spectral appearance, suffered another fit of coughing, and Raquel made an effort not to hear him. Moments later, he resumed his soliloquy: “Yes; the author of _Years of Peace_ was right: not everything in the world is rottenness and felony. The vulgar are mud, but over the selfish and sordid rabble, adamantine wills and spirits horrified by impurity, who know how to make life a sublime prayer; and Ruiz Fortún belonged to those chosen ones…” The patient’s cough, which sounded lugubrious like a voice from the earth, temporarily broke the golden thread of those meditations. The young woman had another gesture of impatience and disgust. Then her imagination pirouetted again, and she thought of writing to Ruiz Fortún explaining the desolation of her spirit and the admiration—veneration, rather—she felt for him; and since the novelist, being the dutiful gentleman that he was, would hasten to answer her, it was certain that they would become friends… lovers, perhaps… At this point in her laborious discourse , the figure of the writer worried her for the first time, for she could never have fallen in love with an ugly man. No!… Nature does not like to leave her works unfinished: divine and deformed artists, like Leopardi, are, fortunately, very rare. And Raquel calmed herself when she convinced herself that Leonardo Ruiz Fortún would have, like Lord Byron, a beautiful, youthful, serious, and sad head… In Venta de Cárdenas, two travelers came up to me and settled into the compartment where Raquel was. They must have been from Madrid, from what I could gather from their accent and conversations. The night passed. The next morning, upon arriving in Córdoba, the man “with the four pillows” stood up, greeted his fellow travelers with a cold smile, and went out into the corridor. He walked stooped, trembling, and dragged one foot as he walked. Behind him, the smell of a hospital lingered in the compartment . When he stepped off the platform and I saw him walk away, his back to me, I thought: “I’ll always see you like this, because you’re not coming back…” I was extremely astonished to hear one of the two passengers who had traveled with him from Venta de Cárdenas say to his friend: “Do you know that man who just left?” “No.” “Leonardo Ruiz Fortún. ” “The novelist? ” “The same: I think the poor thing will stay in Córdoba… Raquel, who, like me, had been following this conversation, with great difficulty suppressed a cry. Was it possible that this tubercular man, this pitiful wreck of life, was the same writer of fervid inspiration, of broad purposes, of robust style, whom she had dreamed of just hours before? How could such a spirit lodge in a bloodless, almost dead body ? Or was it perhaps that the same implacable ember of the soul had gnawed at the flesh until it was consumed?… “Nature is blind! Why fantasize?” “Why should we strive to be happy?” Rachel reasoned. After a pause, she coldly threw the book out the window. Chapter 21. In some illustrated magazines forgotten on my seats, I have read laudatory articles about the latest work of the mountain sculptor Pedro Juan, who, when I was working on the Hendaye line, traveled several times with me to Miranda de Ebro, and whose aquiline, very pale face, thin, as if consumed by the embers of his extraordinary eyes, I remember very well. The critics celebrated with a zeal that attested to the sincerity of their praise, the expression, the throbbing emotion, “the elasticity of living flesh”–her words–that the brilliant artist transmitted to the stone… Without a doubt all those dithyrambs were just, and I use them to reinforce what I have stated in various passages of this book regarding the vibrations of intelligence, will, memory and physical sensitivity, which man communicates to all the objects that habitually accompany him. If a sculptor, for example, with only the effort of his inspiration and his hands, infuses a piece of marble with the warmth of his soul, how can we deny that constant and accurate “transfusion of soul” – let’s call it that – with which, over the years, people, surreptitiously, enliven their clothes, their furniture, and the rooms they inhabit? Without knowing it, man divides his vital treasure into two parts, of which he reserves the larger, and the other, which escapes through his eyes, and through the tips of his fingers and with the warmth of his own The body is the one that distributes, that diffuses around itself and sticks to things. This is why suits fresh from the tailor’s shop are “cold,” no matter how well made; and why autobiographical novels, no matter how simple their plot, are more captivating and gain a greater number of readers than imagined ones, the exclusive fruit of the author’s art and inventiveness. This acquired life, this tacky life thanks to which I feel and speak, is a subconscious gift from men, and if they knew it, their writers would understand that the story, for example, of “a bank note,” which passed through thousands of hands and could have served both to pay for a sick person’s medicine and to buy a murderer, well deserves the honor of being committed to paper. I will say more: these books of “Memoirs” are, by their very nature and composition, more difficult to write than novels; They are exhausting: because in each novel there is only one plot and one or two protagonists, while in a life as hectic as mine, with each new character that appears, a new protagonist emerges, and with it, perhaps, a new plot. A book of “Memoirs” is equivalent to a succession of novels. In my biography, there are thousands of tedious, absolutely identical months that I would not have wanted to live; but, fortunately, from time to time Adventure, the divine witch with the green eyes, looked at me, and her touch was so effective, so sublime, that even if it only lasted a few hours, it was enough to console me for my boredom of several years. Remembering those little girls who, when I was traveling on the Galicia line, would come out to see me on the transit platforms, I would think: “I’m like them in waiting; they waited every day for the visit of the Extraordinary, and so am I. I am, within my sphere, like a small station where, sooner or later, the train of the Unforeseen will stop ‘for a minute’.”… The Surprise Fairy, stingy at times to the point of sordidness, is at times excessively profligate. Her soul is hysterical, illogical, and, perhaps for that very reason, adorable. Sometimes she gives nothing, sometimes she gives a great deal; But if he were to distribute his gifts more proportionately, wouldn’t they seem less delightful to us?… The two events I am about to narrate took place, one after the other, on the evening of December 24th—it is the second notable Christmas Eve I remember—and the morning of the 26th: the first is a lyrical, placid episode; a duet at once sensual and romantic, which, if it ended as its supporters obliged me to, ended up as a beautiful tale; but if it had a “second part,” it served as the first chapter of a novel whose outcome I ignore. The other episode is a tragic entanglement, a sinister caper, a nightmarish vision: that one was “white”; this one black; that one had the color of bridal orange blossoms, and this one the dark hue of coagulated blood. That time, Adventure— a prodigious artist—spent thirty-six hours making a “Rembrandt.” I left Madrid, as happened every year during the Christmas holidays, with a small number of passengers. My occupants couldn’t have reached eight. A woman and a man were traveling in my second compartment. I had heard them talking on the platform; he was standing next to me, renting a pillow, when she approached him to ask: “Sir… can you tell me if this is the train to Almería?” She had a sweet, harmonious voice; a “humid” voice—I can’t describe it better—an idyllic voice, made for speaking of love and telling Desire “yes.” He fixed the stranger with a hollow, hungry, hawk-like gaze; a gaze with which he stripped her naked and touched her, searching her body and soul alike . “Yes, ma’am.” This is the train… And he added affirmatively: “I’ll take a pillow for you.” “Fine, thank you very much.” She hurriedly reached for her purse to pay the amount for the offer, but he had already paid. “It’s all the same,” she said with an elegant smile and gesture; “It’s all the same!” One after another, they boarded me, and he personally placed first his traveling companion’s suitcases, and then his own, in my nets. She seemed pleasantly impressed, yet embarrassed; the efficient devotion with which she was served placed her, out of gratitude, in a certain inferiority position before this gentleman full of opportune initiatives. I clearly read her soul. I thought: “I’d get another carriage because this gentleman interferes too much in my affairs, but since I owe him the rent for the pillow… And he’s nice!… It’s a shame he looks at me like that, as if he wanted to eat me… although it’s possible he does it with no ulterior motive. Anyway, if that’s not the case, I’ll always find a way to stop him…” The traveler’s age fluctuated between thirty and thirty-five : she was dark-skinned, black-eyed, rather well-endowed than lacking in form, she dressed carefully, seemed to boast—and I can see she could—of having a beautiful leg and a small, well-shod foot, and was, in short, what the Spanish people, in a concise and picturesque style, call “a real girl.” He, lithe, tall, and properly dressed, appeared to be of the same age, and his polished hands and his aquiline, prematurely fatigued countenance spoke of an aristocratic past. He didn’t seem, however, ill with reluctance, for he immediately ignited and maintained the conversation with exceptional eloquence, directing the dialogue in whatever direction he wanted and expressing himself with unusual frankness and skill. “You told me you were going to Almería?” he asked. “Yes, sir. You too? ” “No, ma’am: I was supposed to go to Huelva…” She made a vague gesture: she didn’t understand how a train bound for Almería could pass through Huelva, or vice versa; she thought she’d misunderstood. He smiled silently , giving his interviewer time to notice his hilarity and be surprised by it. And so it was: the young woman, curious, inquired: “What are you laughing about?” ” About a little prank I’ve committed, and you ‘ll forgive me immediately.” You know that the Almería and Granada line starts at the Baeza station… She nodded affirmatively, and with the anxiety of the explanation she awaited, her face seemed more beautiful. “The train we’re on,” the traveler continued, “passes through Baeza at three -fifteen in the morning, and the one to Almería doesn’t leave until nine or ten… ” “How awful!” “The train you should have taken wasn’t this one, the eight- twenty express, but the mail train that leaves forty minutes later, at nine, and arrives in Baeza at six-thirty. You could have slept comfortably on it until that time, and thus the wait until the time to take the mail train to Almería would have been shorter. ” She, somewhat annoyed, replied: “Naturally!… Why didn’t you have the kindness to explain all that to me while there was still time? ” “Out of selfishness. ” “I don’t understand.” “Out of selfishness, yes, madam: so as not to deprive me of the pleasure of traveling with you.” They were seated face to face, able to look each other squarely in the eye. “Sir,” exclaimed the young woman, barely restraining her annoyance, “at the bottom of that gallantry I find nothing but inexcusable impertinence!” She had turned red, and, as before with anxiety, now she was embellished with spite. He replied with disconcerting, yet sincere, naturalness: “Don’t be angry with me, for it would be useless. Everything that is happening and will happen tonight is inevitable. Consider the scope of that concept, divine or cursed as the case may be: ‘the inevitable.’ Madam: not by the force of my hands, for I would rather cut myself than use them against you, but by the dictates of the sympathy that already exists between us, and which is the most irrefutable of orders, neither will you be in Almería tomorrow, nor will I arrive in Huelva tomorrow.” She inquired, astonished: “Why?” ” Because you yourself, in a little while and by virtue of a marvelous revolution that is already taking place in your soul, will feel, like me, the need to open a twenty-four-hour parenthesis in our respective journeys . Above the monotonous reality of those provincial corners where we are headed, perhaps more for our own joy to spread happiness among those who love us than for our own joy, lies the reverie, the novelistic chance of having found each other. She, at once scandalized and seduced, felt obliged to protest in the name of her honesty; but he, at times more pressing and a good plotter, reduced her to silence: “Wouldn’t you judge unfavorably,” he said, “someone who, after buying a theater ticket, didn’t go see the performance? Well, that’s the case of someone who, having a ticket for the theater of Life… doesn’t enter into life!… And you, from the moment we exchanged our first words, have a ticket for that theater; Mother Aventura gave it to you… the best of mothers… take advantage of it!… Believe me; When Chance laughs among us, we must imitate it… She vigorously repelled these theories, but I, reading her conscience, marveled at the lack of faith in her opinions and at the speed with which her piper-piper collaborator had won her over. So much so that, an hour later, the conversation had changed the grave frown of controversy for the mischievous smile of flirtation, and we were facing Castillejo when she and he, now seated side by side , clasped hands with a vehemence that quickened their pulses. Truly, the gallant, knowing how to show himself at the right moment joyful or melancholic, optimistic or disillusioned, was an emeritus hunter of souls. “Everything brings us closer,” he insisted, “and, more than loneliness, the mystery, full of family intimacy, of Christmas Eve. It is the night when everyone embraces, when no one, not even the most unhappy, is alone…” the night that the children of the dead take advantage of to return home and be forgiven… And for that reason, because this is a night of forgiveness, you mercifully heard my pleas. Let us keep each other company, let us defend each other from loneliness… let us shelter ourselves against the frightful cold of not being loved by whom we would like to be!… He made a gesture of listening, and for a few seconds he remained like that, his neck erect, his pupils blazing; and then he added, mysterious and festive: “Do you hear what the car is saying?” At this moment, our car is moving with a three-syllable clatter, and in those three beats of its motion, I distinctly perceive the three syllables of the sweetest imperative: “Quié re le…” “Quié re le”… The car advises you to love me; it does not advise you; it commands you… “Quié re le…” Do not think for a moment of disobeying it, because you might become irritated and derail. “Listen!” The third-party accusation that the clever trickster charged me with in his love dispute amused me, and I immediately wished him victory. Amused and smiling, the young woman also listened. Then she exclaimed: “It’s true!… I can hear you now… Ah, it’s marvelous!… but he’s ordering me the exact opposite of what you suppose; you’ve translated badly… You perceive three syllables and I distinguish four… The wagon says: “Don’t believe him…” “Don’t believe him…” “Don’t believe him…” He bent over the hands that the Desired One held crossed at chest level, and slowly, devoutly, with mystical unction, kissed them. He stood up again, brought his face close to hers, and, looking intensely into her eyes: “The wagon will say,” he murmured, “whatever your heart wants it to say; because all the questions and all the answers in life are in our own hearts. Outside of ourselves there is nothing.” When you think the world has told you something, it’s because your soul has answered itself . The young woman didn’t reply, and all her beauty was covered with melancholy, a circumstance I judged to be a very good omen for him, for nothing like Melancholy softens the beds that Love then unmakes. There was a brief respite. What was she doing? Was she dreaming… was she listening? Finally, languidly, with that soft voice of defeat, of surrender, that had so impressed me, and as if speaking to herself, she murmured: “You were right: the carriage says: ‘Quié re le…’ “Quié re le…’ And she closed her eyelids, which he, fervid, rushed to kiss. He remained like that for nearly a minute, immersed in the ecstasy of that happiness. Then, without moving his lips from where he had rested them so happily , he asked: “Do you hear well what the carriage is telling you? ” “Yes,” she replied, reclining her insane head on the man’s chest; “I couldn’t hear him before… but now I do… ” “At times you understand him better, don’t you?” “Better,” she repeated, “better… I think I’ll be listening to him all my life…” And, happy to feel herself defeated, and as if to thank him for the good he had done her by cleansing her soul of scruples, she threw her arms around his neck. The express train had just stopped, and in front of the darkened, airtight carriages, an indolent voice was calling out: “Alcázar de San Juan!… Change of train for the Valencia, Alicante, Cartagena, and Murcia lines!” We were, as they say in railway slang, “on time”; it was ten past eleven . The lover spoke in a whisper: “Everything seems to be moving in step with our desire. We’ll stay in Valdepeñas, where we’ll arrive at five to twelve. There’s a hotel right next to the station. We can still go to Midnight Mass… and thus complete our Christmas Eve… a Christmas Eve we’ll remember all our lives. ” The train was moving again, and the shudder I felt when it started off restored the Seduced to her awareness of her duties. “What are you saying?… I can’t stay in Valdepeñas!” She seemed to be awakening from a deep lethargy, and there was terror in her eyes. He inquired calmly: “Why?… Don’t you want to?” “Yes; I do want to… But my love is waiting for me in Almería… ” She didn’t finish the sentence because he quickly closed her mouth with one hand. “Shut up!” she begged. “I don’t want to know who’s waiting for you. Are they your parents?… Your husband?… I don’t need to know… nor should you tell me. But consider that these people, whom you can reassure with a telegram, will always be waiting for you… You grasp well the meaning of that terrible word: ‘always’!… While the adventure I offer you doesn’t wait, because it’s only a dream…; a beautiful dream that will vanish with this night; my love is like those enchantments in fairy tales, which are broken as soon as the day dawns… ” She looked at him in astonishment; she didn’t understand. “And then?” he asked. “I don’t understand: what does ‘later’ mean?”… “Later on, how would we manage to see each other?… You told me you were going to Huelva: do you live there?”… “Don’t think about that: you shouldn’t be interested in knowing where I live, just as I shouldn’t be interested in where you live: Huelva, Almería, Madrid… what does it matter, if our night tonight will never be repeated and if we will never hear from each other again?” He was silent for a few moments, genuinely saddened, perhaps. The beautiful black eyes of the Desired One had moistened. “Never to see each other again!” she sighed. “Never,” he affirmed, “because in that… only in that!… lies the secret of always loving each other. Don’t you recognize that, among all the people who fill your biography, you feel, like me, a little alone?… Which means that none of them managed to get completely close to your soul.” What would I gain, then, by learning about your occupations, and who you live with, and all that jumble of monotony, sadness, ” prose”—in short, what paints your daily life in gray? If I am only captivated by your spirit, why should I worry about everything that remains outside of it?… Do the same. I don’t want—listen carefully—”I don’t want” to know anything about you, not even your name, because a name is a “materialization” of the soul; something that vulgarizes it, that soils it a little; and, furthermore, because by coming to me and leaving without removing the mask of anonymity, we will not offend the people who, in their own way, love you. Give me this night, for later, in the ungrateful passing of time, we will not call Christmas Eve, but “Unique Night”; and tomorrow, on different trains, we will flee. one another. She still didn’t quite understand what the stranger was proposing; but her heart, impulsive and sentimental, already loved him. “I love you,” she stammered, “I love you, my master…” Her violent confession was more like a sob than joy. He replied: “We will always love each other, and I’ll explain why. Tell me: from your earliest youth, didn’t you cherish the joy of belonging to a man who adored you and in whom you adored? ” The naive woman exclaimed: “It’s true! ” “Did that man have a certain countenance? ” “No.
” “What was his name?” She replied, surprised at how that brief exchange clarified her still hesitant understanding: “I don’t know; I never gave him a name. ” “You see?… Then, if he never had a face or a name, why wouldn’t it be me?… And that, precisely, happens to me with you.” If, docile to universal routine, we were to tell each other our names, we would immediately share a certain resemblance to the millions of women and men with our namesakes; whereas, by remaining nameless, you will always be “She” to me… do you understand?… the “Nameless One”… the “Only One”… and I, to you, the same… Fainting, intoxicated by the romantic piquancy of that adventure, the young woman repeated: “Whatever you want… you decide…” “Tomorrow, after having been very happy, will you have the resolve to leave?” And, as she received no response, she added: “Good; I like it that way; you won’t regret it… because later, when your experience matures, you will recognize that the most determined love lasts less than our brief life, and is in relation to her–oh, pain!–like a suit “that has been cut too small”… We were in Valdepeñas. A voice announced: “Valdepeñas!… One minute!” Instantly the two lovers stood up, hurrying to collect their luggage. “Do you hear?” he exclaimed triumphantly. “Happiness passes, and to take us with it, it grants us one minute. Just the right amount!” They went down to the platform, and I saw them head, walking quickly, toward the station’s exit door. In the distance, in the cold, starry darkness of the night, the bells rang happily, announcing that Jesus had opened his eyes… Chapter 22. To the Baritone, who was rolling in front of me, I told him, as a joke, the unusual idyll I had just witnessed. “Lucky you!” he interrupted sourly, “for you had the good fortune to stumble upon some clean people. If you only knew how I am! ” “What’s the matter?” ” Don’t ask me; I’m fit to be put in bleach for eight days straight.” I begged him not to mortify my curiosity any longer, and to spill his guts, trying to distort the truth as little as possible; and I said this because he had a well-deserved reputation among us as a fantasist and liar. “It just so happens,” he explained, “that the most extravagant and amusing fellow you could dream of is traveling with me. He’s alone, and when he took off his overcoat, I noticed he was dressed in a tuxedo. “Where does this man come from?” I thought. He’s small and blond, very blond, almost albino; ​​he wears a monocle; he looks English, but he’s actually Spanish, perhaps from the heart of Old Castile, because, when he speaks, he can’t even swallow a letter. As soon as we left Madrid, he took a succulent snack out of a briefcase: two bottles of Rioja wine, two more of Champagne, and a flask of gin. He then poured himself a glass of Rioja, and with great elegance and emphatic ceremony stood up: “Gentlemen,” he exclaimed, addressing some imaginary bystanders, “I am infinitely grateful for this meal that the courtesy of everyone has organized in my honor; and I thank you all the more effusively, as spending this Christmas Eve alone would have been very painful for me. Dear friends: I toast your health, and I hope that next year, on this same date, we will be together again.” He raised the glass to his lips, sipped slowly, and immediately began to clap, earning himself a warm ovation. “He is offering himself a banquet.” “Same,” I thought. With the proper, cold bearing of a gentleman, “the man with the monocle” sat down, unfolded his napkin, and began to eat. At intervals, he seemed to carry on brief conversations with the diners nearest to him , asking and answering courteously: “Another slice of sausage, Marquis?” ” Thank you very much.” “A glass of wine, Don Eugenio?” “It is accepted, yes, sir; and with great pleasure!” “Best regards, Don Eugenio.” “Best regards, gentlemen!” Every time he sipped, that is, every three minutes, he would stand up. This did not stop him from chatting. “To treat me,” he would say, “you could not have chosen a more appropriate place. This hotel is good, the cuisine excellent, and from that vantage point, if there were a moon, we would see a magnificent view.” When I arrived here a few moments ago, I was sad; but now my melancholy has vanished, and I hear a bell ringing in my heart. Oh, how beautiful life is for the man who, like me, finds himself surrounded at all hours by talkative and fraternal friends!…”–“Bravo!… Long live Don Eugenio!…”–“A thousand thanks, comrades: and, since the two bottles of Rioja, surrendered beneath our caresses, lie lifeless, I think we drink Champagne.”–“Very well!!…” –With the skill of an old waiter–the Baritone continued his story–Don Eugenio, for that must be the name of my host, uncorked a worthy bottle of Clicquot, a detonation rang out, a jet of foam wet my seats and my roof received a blow to the cork. The man “with the monocle and the smoking” stood up again: his right hand, which was already beginning to tremble, held a glass filled to the brim with sunshine .–“Gentlemen,” he exclaimed, With this wine, blond as Marie Antoinette’s braids ; with this wine that carries in its joyful frivolity the image of what our life should be, let us toast the glory of France!…”—“Hurrah!… Bravo!…” Don Eugenio bowed:—“Thank you, brothers: may the Drunkenness be with you…” He spoke such nonsense very seriously, without smiling once and with the most impeccable correctness of gestures, as if he were, indeed, among people of his greatest respect. This farce lasted for more than an hour: little by little his cheeks reddened, and his shining eyes began to wander. Intoxication invaded him and his tongue became tangled, like his thoughts. Forgetting the shadows that accompanied him, he spoke to himself. His eyelids were heavy, and it took a great effort to raise them.—“Do you want more wine?” he monologued; “No?… Why?… No one’s answering?… Eh?… No one’s answering?…” He opened his eyes. “Ah!… Has everyone gone?… Cowards; they were afraid of getting drunk and they’ve gone!… Well; it’s all the same to me. I’ll drink alone: ​​fortunately, to do with my head what I want, I don’t need anyone… Come on, champagne…” He uncorked the second bottle and a jet of wine soaked his shirtfront. “Thank you,” he continued, “this cold is good…” With a kick he threw the suitcase that he had held between his knees and that had served as a table into the traffic. ” The banquet’s over!” he exclaimed. “I’m not in a hotel anymore, but in my own house; a house that is moving, that is drunk, like me… What time is it?” With great difficulty he found his watch. “Eleven forty.” “Bravo!… At twelve o’clock I’ll go to Midnight Mass…” This resolution took root in his mind, and he repeated it a hundred times. He remained seated, and my shaking, which I tried to keep rough, shook him around very gracefully: so small, so blond, with his cheeks flushed, his monocle, his tie askew, and dressed in a dinner jacket, he looked like a doll. When he tried to pour himself another glass of champagne, he noticed that the bottle was empty. “Are you dead too?” he exclaimed. He inspected it against the light; he waved it in the air, and its silence convinced him that there was no champagne left. Then, with a sad gesture of disappointment, he threw it to the floor. “Go away,” he growled, “I don’t need you; you’ve lost your joy; you’re drier than a heart. But don’t think, ungrateful woman, that I’m alone: ​​look, “This one accompanies me…” he grabbed the gin bottle. “What did you imagine? That I would be faithful to you? Never! There are many drinks, just as there are many loves. Let’s change… let’s renew ourselves! Our life cannot be reduced to worshipping a single woman, nor to drinking a single kind of wine; life is a sum…” he laughed: “a sum of loves and bottles…” He remained silent and as if drowsy for a few minutes; suddenly I saw him recover. He looked at his watch. The idea of ​​going to Midnight Mass obsessed him. He immediately grabbed the gin bottle. “I too,” he stammered, “know how to pray… although in my own way. My Jesus: for your divine foolishness of wanting to redeem us… He brought the flask to his mouth and took a good gulp. “For the lashes you received tied to the column…” Another gulp. “For the three falls you suffered on your street of Bitterness…” A third gulp. “For the crown of thorns they placed on you…” Another gulp. “For the wound in your side…” Another, and that makes five. Suddenly he collapsed onto the seat, the flask fell to the floor, and I drank the little gin that was left in it. The poor man began to put his hands to his head; he was livid. “I feel so bad,” he stammered, “my temples hurt… I feel nauseous… I feel like I’m going to die…” My shaking made his suffering worse. I realized that the heat was contributing to his dizziness, and he tried to sit up to open a window; But the unfortunate man couldn’t move. He raised his head and his agonized eyes darted from side to side, perhaps searching for the alarm bell. I’ve never witnessed a more exemplary drunkenness in my life. I couldn’t stop, not for a moment, staring at his mouth… you can imagine why! The poor Baritone made a gesture of disgust that turned my insides. “Shut up!” I interrupted. “Until the retching he suffered produced its natural effect. Damn my luck!” “You have reasons to swear and give yourself to hell, my friend,” I replied. “But admit that a guy who has the ‘English sense of humor’ to put on a smoking jacket to offer himself a banquet in a railway carriage is extraordinary. ” “I agree; but if what I’ve told you happens to you, you who are so clean, you’d burst with rage. If you saw him now! ” “What’s he doing? ” “He’s asleep. He’s He fell from his seat and is lying on the floor in a pool of wine. He looks like a broken vase… Thus, chatting, we ended the journey, and when La Sabrosa dropped us off at the Seville station at eight minutes past eight in the morning, I was already so tired that, as soon as the porters in charge of cleaning me had finished sweeping and scrubbing me, I fell into a very deep sleep. A gentle push from the Baritone woke me nine or ten hours later; it was nighttime, and I was surprised to see a traveler lying in one of my “head” compartments . I was surprised because there were still at least two hours left until the departure of the “express,” and I noticed that, as usual, all my doors were closed. How then could that individual have gotten in there?… “It must be some employee of the Company,” I thought. The memory of what the Baritone had told me the day before, and the fact that we were on a date after Christmas, led me to suspect that this intruder was drunk. “He could very well It could happen, I said to myself, that he was a friend of the inspector, and the latter had locked him up to sleep here. That man was lying on the seat opposite the engine—I emphasize this detail because it is essential—he was thin and short; he wore black trousers and brand new patent-leather boots, and his head was perfectly hidden between the peak of a traveling cap, which must have been very large on him, and the turned-up collar of a gray greatcoat. What first struck me was the fact that he had both hands buried in the pockets of his coat. There was something doll-like about that little man. After watching him for a while, my attention, as always happens when we think we have sufficiently examined an idea or object, wandered and began to flutter over all the little incidents that occurred around me. Travelers were beginning to arrive, and I was certain that, as in other years, the crowd would be extremely small. In front of me was a gentleman with a distinguished and attractive appearance, but who had a “dead face.” I mean, his grave, yellow face made one think of death, just as other countenances, for one reason or another, make one think of life. This fact is undeniable. We constantly hear: “So-and-so has died.” And the news doesn’t surprise us; we find it natural, because we had always imagined him dead. On the other hand, we are told: “So-and-so died last night…” And we refuse to believe it, because everything about So-and-so was strength, laughter, exhilaration… In this, my observant spirit rarely fails. I, for example, see a man walking by with his hat on, and, without knowing why, I say to myself: “That gentleman must be bald.” Or else: “That gentleman must be a stutterer…” And, strange coincidence! I’m never wrong. Well then: the gentleman “with the dead face,” who had remained on the platform for a long time as if waiting for someone, who ultimately didn’t arrive, a minute before the “express” departed, climbed onto me, followed by a porter who was panting under two very heavy suitcases, and went to settle himself in the compartment where “the man with the cap” was still asleep. “Good night,” he said as he entered. The porter, with great effort, placed the luggage on one of my nets, which groaned; and left. Almost at the same time, the inspector appeared. “If the gentleman isn’t well here,” he said, “you can go to another compartment: the car is almost empty. ” The person addressed replied: “Thank you very much. ” “You’d probably be better off somewhere else.” The traveler was perhaps going to give in; I could see it on his face; But he looked at his baggage, considered its weight, and instantly reaffirmed his intention not to move. Besides, it was cold; very cold… “Thank you,” he said, “there are only two of us here, and we’ll be able to sleep well. ” The inspector seemed hesitant and renewed his offer. “Traveling alone is always pleasant. If you’ll allow me, I can carry the suitcases myself.” His persistence was beginning to annoy me, all the more so since that man, with his dark, treacherous face, had always been unpleasant to me. My host, also irritated, replied very curtly: “I prefer to stay here.” The inspector left, only to return shortly with a small noticeboard marked “Hired,” which he placed at the entrance to the compartment. ” This way,” he explained, “you can rest, secure in the knowledge that no one will bother you.” In return for such courtesy, the traveler tried to give him a penny, but the inspector refused to accept it; And after punching the ticket of the gentleman “with the dead face,” he left without asking the “man in the cap” for his own. Why? This worried me, and since I couldn’t find the explanation I was looking for, I thought again: “They must be friends…” After a few minutes, I began to feel that, despite myself, “the man in the cap” worried me. How could he sleep so much? My thunderous running shook him strangely; his arms, his legs, seemed broken. But what most captivated my curiosity was his invisible face, with his chin resting as if bent on his chest. What contributed to my fear was the frequency with which, at every moment, the inspector, or a “route”—who worked in another car—or both, would pass by me. What were they looking for there? And in their eyes my sagacity discovered terror, anguish. The traveler “with the dead face” was also shocked by this unusual coming and going. “They’re spying on me,” he thought. The stations of Guadajoz, Lora del Río, Palma, and Posadas were behind him. The inspector finally left to carry out the ticket check; the “ruta” also left. I began to feel afraid: I sensed the proximity of something inexplicable, the secret presence of a threat. I said to myself: “This man, with the face of a dead man, is a curse-caster.” Until, suddenly, what I had vaguely expected happened. In a The inertia tore the passenger’s gray overcoat from his seat and threw him to the floor. With the crash, his cap flew backward, and his hands came out of his pockets. They were bruised, convulsed, swollen, and his face was horribly made up from asphyxiation. The man wasn’t asleep or drunk, but dead: he had been strangled. Seeing him fall like that, with that murky sound and that heaviness that only corpses possess, the traveler “with the dead face” let out a scream and stood up; his countenance, transformed under the reign of terror into a hideous mask, was indescribable. Ah, how many photographers would have liked to photograph him!… I, who was spying on him, followed step by step the extremely rapid changes, shorter than seconds, that his spirit underwent. His first movement was to rush to the alarm bell ; but, immediately, almost without transition, he regretted it. He found himself arrested, embroiled in a high-profile case, accused, perhaps, of homicide… And he was afraid. The unfortunate man looked at the deceased as if he had actually murdered him: his jaw was trembling, his eyes, horrified, bulging from their sockets. What to do? A soap opera-like idea dawned on him. The “express” had just left the Córdoba station, and nearly an hour would have passed before it stopped again . The man “with the dead face” quickly leaned into the hallway to make sure no one was there; he immediately returned to his apartment, opened a window, picked up the body, and, with force, threw it onto the track. He immediately raised the glass, sat down, and pretended to be reading a book. At that moment, the inspector and the “route” reappeared, and I am still shaken by the spectral pallor that disfigured them when they found the passenger “with the dead face” alone. I saw them lean against each other, trembling, and their lips turned violet. Their legs buckled. They wanted to speak, but their voices failed them. “These are the ones who killed ‘the man in the cap,'” I thought. For his part, the traveler with the mortuary face stared at them , almost as frightened as they were. Finally, the inspector, although choking, managed to stammer: “Sir… the gentleman who was here?” The person addressed replied coldly: “I don’t know; he left a moment ago.” Hearing these words, which involved something supernatural, the two wretches, certain they were in the presence of a miracle, withdrew without replying. The next day, the evening newspapers reported that an Argentine millionaire, recently disembarked in Cadiz and en route to Madrid, was robbed and murdered on the Seville express train during the journey from Cordoba to Montoro, and that the criminals had thrown the body onto the tracks. Poor Justice never learned more. Chapter 23. Like soldiers in time of war, we wagon trains are obliged to come to each other’s aid in danger and to “cover” the casualties caused by collisions, derailments, fires, or simply old age and overuse. The infamous collision at Chinchilla, where the Valencia mail train and a mixed train from Cartagena collided, and in which eleven cars—mostly passenger cars—ended their working lives, spread unrest throughout our railway network. Repair shops returned some wagons to service; Several trains, which I will call “classic” because they always consist of the same units, were broken down under orders from the General Directorate, and their cars were transferred from one convoy to another. This surge reached us as well, and as a result, the Baritone and I had to say goodbye to The Company, the Leading Actor, and other veteran comrades of our supposed showbiz, to join the “express mail” service from Valencia, which leaves Madrid at 9:35 p.m. This change of horizons satisfied us greatly, not only because of the well -founded desire to get to know that Valencian orchard that shines, next to the dry The yellowness of the Iberian massif, like an emerald, but also the mildness of the climate and the smoothness and shortness of the road: 490 kilometers of flat land scare no one. As on the Andalusian line, The Baritone continued rolling ahead of me, and although the lower category of the train we were now serving had taken away the bridge that previously bound us, finding ourselves among unfamiliar units helped to better strengthen the ties of our old affection. What surprised us first was the Valencian dialect, which we were quick to translate, and we soon recognized that the natives of the Levantine region are a very cheerful and talkative people, but without that turbulent alacrity given to them by the sun precluding their temperance in their words, nor their courtesy. This and the incidents of the road provided us with abundant reasons for conversation, and thus, observing and glossing over what we observed, we pleasantly entertained ourselves for many days. Beyond Getafe, where official vulgarity opposed the genius of Julio Antonio erecting a monument to “Our Lord Don Quixote,” the road to Alcázar de San Juan was familiar to us. Then the route took on a new meaning. We successively passed, in the moonlight and in picturesque rows, Campo de Criptana, which seemed to bid us farewell with the arms of its windmills; the wheat fields of Socuéllamos and the magnificent holm oak grove that inspired the “Manchegan gentleman” in his speech about “the golden age”; Villarrobledo, which took its name from the oak groves that surround it; Minaya, which evokes the exploits of El Cid; and past Albacete, famous for its weapons factories, Chinchilla, where its prison, installed in a towering castle, casts a bitter halo; and then Almansa, ancient bastion of the Castilian plain, with its bare, bare, whitish castle, like a skeleton, near which Philip V, with hands stained with Austrian blood, secured the crown on his temples; and ten and eight kilometers further on, the hamlet of La Encina, surrounded by desolation. Until there, Castile extends its austerity, its dryness, its yellowness of an old noble face; but, once we have crossed the platform of Fuente la Higuera and the two tunnels that follow it, the landscape changes and soon the jovial Levantine fertility begins to penetrate our souls. Mogente, the Moorish one, flees back ; the glorious ruins of Montesa and Játiba—the Roman _Sætabis_—a romantic and artistic town, birthplace of the Borgias and the Españoleto, in whose formidable castle, overlooking Mount Bernisa, the Infantes de la Cerda and the Duke of Calabria suffered harsh captivity . From minute to minute the landscape becomes more beautiful, and the pristine glow of dawn adds prodigious nuance: fertile forests of orange and pomegranate trees approach the road and, around the curves, seem to block our path. At times, a traveler who stretches an arm out of a window can touch them. The small village of Carcagente, whose palm trees infuse it with a tropical greed, is now behind us; we cross the Júcar, and on the right, its houses unfolding along the windings of a ravine, Alcira appears, with the grace and polychromy of a watercolor. Every now and then, my companion, the Baritone, would say to me, “Look!” And I, in turn, would reply, “Look!” And neither of us could tire of admiring it. The light is intoxicating: sometimes the colors enhance and enhance each other; other times, they hinder each other: the earth, depending on its quality, appears covered with weeds, or golden, or red, and on the reddish ground, the foliage of the orange, lemon, fig, and almond trees appears darker. On either side of the road, white villages can be seen, with the dazzling whiteness of the snowy slopes; and also those rustic little houses, with carefully whitewashed walls and hooded roofs, which the Valencians call “barracas,” and which give the landscape a Creole sweetness. The sun, a formidable painter, works with enormous brushstrokes: next to the ochre flash, the purple spot, or the green one, or the indigo one…; and around this orchard that Obscure and blind, in the grandiose confines, Valencia, the capital, which traces a white line at ground level; the blue profiles of the Sierra de Cullera and Sierra de las Agujas, and Lake Albufera, which seems to vanish into the sapphire of the sea. The air is fresh, healthy, strong, and I breathe it in with delight. That immense horizon is like a lung. After the first few days—always impervious to emotions—the Baritone and I were gradually adapting to the environment, and as this imperceptible adaptation took place, we declared the similarity of all men and places in all that is most substantial, and the true essence of the universal soul, so monotonous beneath the protean nature of its appearances, penetrated us once again . The figures and scenes I had seen when I wandered, years before, along the roads of Andalusia, Galicia, Asturias, or Hendaye were repeated on the Valencian line: with superficial variations, the paintings, the individuals… even the words!… were the same; which showed us that, unfortunately, long before life ends, our interest in living fades… I do not mean to deny with this the educational and astonishing effect—this is its best term—of experience: it taught me to be inclined to grant small things their merit; it sharpened my sensitivity and enabled me to appreciate certain episodes that I had once been unable to see. To put it in a word: it “elegantized” me, since elegance, in its essence, is reduced to the gift of knowing how to observe. And the same thing happened to the Baritone, who was around thirty years old, for Humanity is a book so wise, so profound, that we do not begin to understand it until we have read it several times. Until then, for example, I hadn’t noticed the students, the emigrant type who had repeatedly, always at the end of summer, passed by me. Like the swallow announcing summer, the student proclaims the approach of winter. Returning with him to the provincial capitals—and especially to the Court—are the joy of the streets, the bustle of the reopening theaters, the inns, and the cafés; the students symbolize the noise, the hope, the laughter of the triumphant Tomorrow. I understood the merit of that silhouette for the first time in Carcagente, where we had stopped for six minutes. I remember that the student’s name was Pedro: he looked to be well over twenty, and he had a supple waist, laughing lips, talkative, protruding, pitch-black eyes, and a complexion tanned by the Mogrébian air of the orchard. Several people surrounded him, among them his father, who watched him with calm tenderness. He was a short, gentleman who—as I heard him say—had only been to Madrid once, and who believed he had a precise understanding of life . “All things, united today,” he thought, “will be separated tomorrow.” And he shrugged his shoulders: just as he had left his father, now his son was leaving him. Nothing could be more natural, since forgetting runs through the veins dissolved in the blood! But the lad’s mother was unfamiliar with this resignation, and every moment her old eyes, which had not stopped weeping for days, grew tender again. Pedro looked at the blue sky, from where the swallows and swifts seemed to bid him farewell with their harsh cries of independence, and he was surprised that in his heart, suffused with freedom, there was no pain. The machine whistled; We’re leaving… The student embraces and kisses his father, who represses his pain, thinking: “It’s necessary.” His mother, more impulsive, wets his face with her tears and, without anyone noticing, slips an envelope of money into his pocket. Everyone around him speaks to the boy and bids him farewell at the same time, and a shower of advice falls on his mad forehead like lustral water. They recommend that he write, that he be judicious, that he study hard… Pedro tears himself away from those arms that still hold him “the past” and climbs onto my bed. Leaning out of a window, he waves a handkerchief, saying goodbye, at the same time, to his family, to the landscape, to the church, with its bells and unforgettable voice, and to those trees in whose shade he read… so many books that saddened him, telling him of beautiful and distant scenes. Pedro sits down, searches his pockets, and his fingers stumble upon an envelope. Surprised, he tears the envelope open, and two hundred… three hundred pesetas appear… “It’s my mother,” he realizes, “who gave them to me.” But the fate of that money can’t be serious, because if it were, she wouldn’t have given it to him secretly… and the student understands that poor mothers, however innocent locals they may be, know life better and are closer to youth than any man. A feverish explosion of joy overwhelms him: at last he is going to see Madrid, the great cosmopolis, with its University, its illustrious Athenaeum, its coliseums, its dances, its casinos, all its centers of wisdom and perdition… And he laughs: apart from that train that is taking him, nothing worries him. He raises his face, looks toward the countryside, runs a hand through his hair…; In the face of his unbridled ambition, the whole world seems like a road. Another silhouette I hadn’t paid enough attention to is that of the beggar; a very Spanish profile, by the way… We’ve stopped at a small Castilian station; one of those almost anonymous halts stationed at the entrance to a tunnel. The afternoon is fading: through the blue space sail little clouds stained with carmine and opal; the sun gilds the dome of the church; an eaglet, suspended in the luminous immensity, describes, without beating its wings, homocentric circles, and its white breast seems silver. On the platform is a blind man, old and tall, with a vine; the habit of groveling in the face of pain has bent his back; a black handkerchief—heir to the Moorish turban—circles his forehead; he wears a patched brown cloth suit and covers his gaunt muscles with chaps; He’s barefoot, and his hands, with their knobby fingers, seem desperate. “A little alms, for the love of God, for one who can no longer see…” he repeats, directing his dead eyes toward the convoy. In the silence, his humble voice takes on a moving cadence, and a few coins fall at his feet. Standing before his mystical figure, tourists are often reminded of the loving arms that await them, and their souls vaguely experience the superstition that the beggar’s goodwill can save them from some unpleasant encounter. Frequently—oh, shame!—a little alms is nothing more than cowardice. We’ve already left, all the windows have already closed. Then the beggar, leaning on his staff, returns to the village, and as I watch him walk away, I consider that if the railway line is a stream of wealth, the road he follows seems like an arm; the arm with which the wretched village begs alms from the trains. For a year and two months I worked on the Valencia route, on which nothing unpleasant or extraordinary happened to me. And one morning, while I was in Madrid, I learned that that night the Baritone and I would be leaving for Barcelona on a mixed-class train with a notice board warning of “No Passengers Allowed.” The van driver who brought me this news—an old Catalan I had known for some time—assured me that we were being assigned to the Port Bou line, where, at the exit of the international tunnel, the furious wind had derailed two first-class trains. I hurried to tell the Baritone what I had just been told, and his joy mirrored mine: he, too, was of French origin, and, like me, was delighted to revisit his native country. Our joy was also fueled by the desire we both had to see Barcelona, ​​a desire we already considered impossible to achieve because the “expresses” that go to Catalonia are made of the “best material”—as the railway phrase goes—and we were getting old. We spent the day restlessly, fearful that some counter-order would return us to our old course; but that was not to be the case: in mid-afternoon, a pilot engine came to take us out of the Valencian convoy, which watched us leave with envy, and when night fell, we left for Barcelona . This slow journey, strewn with endless stops and unfolding under the warm serenity of a September night, is the most beautiful of my life. It was embellished by my inner repose, the satisfaction of not having to carry No one inside me: my lights were off, my doors were locked ; all my pipes and my seats were at rest too: I was like a conscience without remorse, like a heart without worries. The Baritone enjoyed the same well-being, and we often smiled and hugged each other, congratulating ourselves on our good fortune. “Look,” my companion would say, “for the first time our masters are carrying us, driving us around, without demanding that we carry anyone. We are, then, true travelers. ” “Does anything hurt?” I would ask him. “Nothing: when I’m heavily loaded, yes, I usually get a pain in the second compartment that quite knocks me down; but now I feel agile and eager to run, like a boy. If you only knew how elastic my springs still remain!… I loved the Baritone.” After the Shy Guy, the Show-Off, the Misanthrope, Lady Catastrophe, and the Sommier Brothers, my fraternal colleagues on the Hendaye Express, no companion had managed to capture my friendship as much as this one; not even old Two-Face, from whom, due to his fussiness and rancid autocratism, I was always somewhat distant. During the years when I served on the French line, he worked on the Asturias line and witnessed the collapse of the tunnel where La Tirones and The Shy Guy met their deaths. Afterward, he traveled for a long time on the Galician route with the Express. Although we had never spoken, The Baritone knew me from crossing paths with me along the Galician line, and, as he told me, he always considered that the Company, by including me in a “courier,” was unfair to a car of my importance. These words—why deny it?—flattered me, and equally predisposed me to recognize my comrade’s eminent qualities . The baritone resembled me in the elastic vigor of his movements, in the beautiful conformity of his profiles, in his interior pomp , in his elegance… and if I didn’t come to consider him identical to me, it was perhaps because my presumption and my pride—my two great defects—never allowed me to see clearly in others. That night, rolling at the tail of a “mixed” whose slowness and clumsy way of braking made us laugh, we once again entertained each other with the story of what each of us had seen, and the pictures and people who filled our itinerant existence arrived in droves. In the end, we recognized that, although of the same age, my history was far more eventful than his, and this reaffirmed the influence I had always exercised over him. In Barcelona, ​​we rested for three days; There they cleaned us up again, and after examining all our mechanisms, they hooked us up at the head of the “luxury express” that leaves for the border at 8:50 in the morning. What can I say about the youthful joy we felt when we felt ourselves being carried? “We’re leaving, Cabal!” The Baritone shouted to me. “Yes, old man,” I replied, “we’re leaving, and in four hours we’ll be in France.” As it seemed to him that my words didn’t contain enough warmth, he exclaimed: “Aren’t you glad? ” “Yes, I am glad; very glad!” In truth, I understood the love for one’s country less than he did, and so my joy didn’t equal his. He continued to add cheerful additions to his joy, and even revealed to me his hope—completely unrealizable—of one day riding on French roads. “And if they find me old,” he sighed, “let them send me to a repair shop and make me a “third class.” “Would you be capable,” I interrupted angrily, “of degrading yourself to that extreme? ” “Yes, I would: as long as I see Paris, I’ll accept anything.” Then he became sad. “Listen, Cabal: this returning to France, after so much time and when we’re almost old, isn’t that a bad sign? ” “Symptom of what?” ” An omen or harbinger of death. I have well observed that many people who lived as expatriates suddenly felt the longing to return to their country, and they barely satisfied it when death caught up with them.” surprised… exactly as if that wish had been the voice of the earth where they were born, calling them!… We come and go… we devour millions of kilometers… we believe ourselves free… we are like birds… until one day the earth, our mother, calls us… and we must obey her!… When we left France a long time ago, it was over a bridge, in the midst of light and air… do you remember?… And now we return to her through a tunnel, under the earth… Cabal: Don’t you think there is a curse in this?… I didn’t know what to argue with him, but it seemed to me that he was right, and a gentle melancholy descended over us both. To die!… What desperate darkness surrounds that word? Is to die to descend, to leave… or is it to return to the station of departure?… For a long moment I remained silent, as if pierced by the cold; But then the landscape, with its perspectives of beautiful violence, revived my optimism. We were walking well: in due course, the stations of Gerona, the heroic one; of Flassá; and of Figueras, whose prison term put an end to so many lives, were left behind. Immediately, the ground, which was already beginning to stir, becomes heated, ripples furiously, and the first foothills of the Pyrenees appear. The enormous mountain range behind which Spain and France are entrenched grows bluer in the distance, and its peaks seem to gallop northward. “The Pyrenees!” cries the Baritone. “Yes,” I repeat excitedly. “The Pyrenees!… These are not the ones I knew; yet, how gladly I see them!… And, from Cape Creus to Cape Higuer, my thoughts go back and forth. We run between the mountains and the coast, and the sea is so close that, at times, its foaming waves crash against the foot of the track. A little further and we reach Port Bou, where we stop for half an hour; seven minutes later we are in Cerbere. France!… The flag has changed; but I, who don’t think like the Baritone, believe that, since all trains—whether coming or going—must emerge from a tunnel, it is there, underground, where future society should definitively bury the retrograde concept of “homeland.” That tunnel, for me, is a lesson. For only twenty days I wandered along the Port Bou route. One afternoon, upon returning to Barcelona, ​​I learned that a derailment had occurred near Calatayud, and that the Madrid express train was being rebuilt. Early the next morning, some track guards approached the Baritone and me, and we heard them talking: “Are these the two cars that arrived recently from Valencia?” someone asked. “Yes,” another voice replied, “and they must be uncoupled. When the convoy was heading for the border, The Baritone marched ahead of me; on the way back, the opposite happened, and because of this, I was the chosen one. ” “They’re separating us, Cabal,” my companion moaned. “Yes, brother,” I replied, moved, “and you can’t imagine how much I’m going to miss you .” Those men untied the chains that held us, raised the little metal bridge that joined us, and prepared to push me. “At this moment,” The Baritone exclaimed, “we’re both growing a little older: to separate is to die… ” “Or to prepare to live again,” I interrupted cheerfully; “and it’s better to believe the latter!… May you be happy, may fortune always accompany you!” He replied, magnificent and priestly: “May happiness march with you.” That night, on the “luxury express” at eleven minutes to eight, I left for Madrid. Months later, I learned that my comrade had been hit and killed by a locomotive in Cerbere. You were right, poor brother! Your desire to return to France was an appointment given you by the land. Chapter 24. If I had the time and memory—and the patience too—to commit even a quarter of my memories to paper, my confessions would fill several volumes. So many horizons, so many episodes, so many figures paraded before me!… And this same thrumming life exasperated my sensorial acuity, for function creates the organ, and so renewed impressions are to the nerves what exercise is to the muscle. physicist. The more intense and persevering the meditation, the greater the intelligence. The emotional treasure of those early years remains intact in me. I still remember, without the images having faded, the agitated impatience of those first trips; the playful eagerness with which my fledgling wheels glided over the brilliance of the rails; the reckless enthusiasm with which we attacked the uphill climbs; the clamorous vertigo of the descents through fields drunk with flowers and sun; the elegant risk of the curves traced by the engineers on the backs of precipices; the intoxication of the vertiginous races, when the wind deafened and La Caliente, or La Recelosa, or La Triste—any of my former owners—choked and panting, dragged us along at eighty-five or ninety kilometers per hour. And I also recall, moved, the gentleness of Galician twilights, the grave melancholy of Castilian late afternoons, the misty evaporation—a scent of humidity—that blurs the northern distances, the profound rustic silence of those tiny stations where our locomotive, weary, covered in soot and sweat, stopped to drink. There are names of cities and towns that resonate in the subtle eardrums of memory with the sweetness of a woman’s name; and that evocative power, which I heard men say music exerts on them, is held for me by certain street cries: some summarize entire chapters of my life. Inside me, I hear shouts: “Venta de Baños!… Change of train for the Santander, Asturias, and Galicia lines! ” And I scan the landscape, the throbbing engines, the stacks of cars ready to depart, the travelers asking questions and running from one convoy to another. Or: “–Miranda de Ebro!… Train change for travelers from Bilbao, Logroño, Castejón, Pamplona, ​​Zaragoza, and Barcelona!…” And the marvelous Sierra de Pancorbo rises before me. The evocative voice cries: –“Good cheeses from Burgos!…” And the historic city passes by, with its dark houses over which the cathedral raises the prodigious lacework of its two towers. –“Daggers and knives from Albacete!…” It is La Mancha, ochre-colored, treeless and austere, and also the green illusion of the Valencian region, which is drawing closer. –“Tortas de Alcázar!…” It is the cold nights, the cutting air, the unwelcome rain. –“Water!… Fresh water, water!… Who wants water?…” It is Castile, it is the scorching earth, it is the wagons whose imperial ships fan under the blazing sun, the paltry arbor that shades the rim of an almost dry well… Thus, thinking of all this, I believe I am rejuvenated, and my spirit performs the miracle of experiencing many times what dull matter only knew and enjoyed once. The line from Madrid to Barcelona is harder and 195 kilometers longer than the one from Valencia; but, compared to the one from Galicia or the one from Irún, it is flat and accessible as a platform. The “express” consists of a machine from Grafenstaden, belonging to the “four thousand series,” over thirteen meters long, and which its handlers nickname The Quibbler, because—like soft-mouthed horses—it is very sensitive to any indication, and so it stops or runs with sudden violence, as if it were angry; and nine units: two sleeping cars, two vans, a mail car, and four “first-class” cars, of which the one following me is called The Old Man, which saddened me a little when, chatting with him, I found out we were the same age. The dining car is, in our convoy, somewhat odd, since the one they hook up in Madrid stops in the small town of Arcos de Jalón in Soria, and the one that leaves with us from Barcelona doesn’t go further than Mora la Nueva. The moral heterogeneity that the various Spanish regions present in relation to one another, and of which I have already spoken, surprises me again here. The public that now travels with me does not resemble the Valencian public, and even less the Andalusian public; perhaps the Andalusian and the Catalan public are the ones that Two more dissimilar Spanish temperaments. I like this town: they dress well, are serious, quiet, hard-working, energetic; their women are plump and tall, and wear jewelry with care, and the men have a deliberate expression and talk about business. Leaving Madrid, however , the psychology of the passage is not absolutely pure; it has an Aragonese streak that will persist all the way to Zaragoza. Once across the Ebro, the race of the Hispanic Phoenicians will appear cleansed, and the Castilian language will have died, as if thrown onto the road as useless. As for the road, while not among the most beautiful, it is interesting, and brings you near cities, ruins, and perspectives worthy of remembrance. For example: Torrejón de Ardoz, within whose eroded walls the ducal families of the Olivares and Alba families have their graves; Alcalá de Henares, birthplace of Miguel de Cervantes and Catherine of Aragon; Guadalajara, won from the Moors by Alvar Fáñez, the Cid’s friend; Sigüenza, founded by Rome; the citadel of Medinaceli, and other fortresses scattered throughout those rocky surroundings that once defended the passage from the Ebro Valley to Castile; the Moorish Calatayud; Zaragoza, the Iberian and the heroic, whose two cathedrals—El Pilar and La Seo—we see, as we cross the bridge, reflected in the river; Caspe, which once decided the future of Spain; Reus, Pobla, San Vicente… Through a forest of maritime pines, the railway approaches the Mediterranean, and the landscape takes on even greater beauty. It passes Villanueva y Geltrú, surrounded by lush vineyards, and beyond Sitges, the expressway, which runs along the cliff-lined coast, heads, without interruption, through so many tunnels that one could say it runs underground. These tunnels offer numerous gaps, like loopholes opening onto the joy of the Latin American sea, and their light, which flashes before us in bursts, is like optimistic ideas that intermittently clarify the darkness of a sad spirit. We then face the rugged shores of Garraf, and among so many rocks our wheels creak and crackle with a deafening commotion. To the left, in that distant confines where the sky seems to demand a foothold from the earth, the remains of Montserrat loom blue; and in the distance, staining the horizon white from the foot of Mount Tibidabo to the bastion of Montjuïc, the city of Barcelona, ​​surrounded by factories whose thousands of chimneys resemble the pipes of an organ intoning, since dawn, the Labour Mass; the only certain one… Soon it will be the fourth anniversary of my arrival on this line, and nothing worth publishing has happened to me yet. Why? My life has never been so peaceful. To what should I attribute this calm? Is it because I’m getting old? Perhaps because Adventure, tired of protecting me, flees from me? Oh, pain! The silence that accompanies old age seems an emanation, a contagion, from the Eternal Silence; as if, just as rivers pour their current into the sea, Death projects its sadness into Life… In the other regions I know, people travel for pleasure, for tourism, to swim on the beaches of San Sebastián or La Coruña, or to attend, in mid-April, the bullfights in Seville. On the Catalan route, people travel out of necessity, for business; my guests are hardworking and orderly people, for whom life is a logical activity and not a pastime. They are not brusque, as the common people of other provinces believe, but diligent in action; they are not miserly, but enterprising and productive. Just as within the total idiosyncrasy of our Peninsula, it can be said that Andalusia represents fantasy and grace, Catalonia symbolizes action, the covetous and persevering impulse. Bilbao and Valencia imitate it, follow it very closely… but Catalonia is, to this day, “the will” of the future Spain. In this strong land, men are valued for their energy, for their useful production; here, on the trains, a bullfighter doesn’t attract attention, and, logically, a minister is even less interesting than a swordsman. In Reus, where we stopped for eight minutes, one morning I picked up a Marriage. The husband could have been almost forty-five, and the wife, who could never have been pretty, looked a little younger. Both were vulgar in appearance, in the expression of their passive faces, in their clothing… Nevertheless, they impressed me; I was sure I knew them , and I began to wonder: “Where have I seen them?… When?… It must have been a long time ago!” I paid attention to what they were saying, in very low voices, as if ashamed of having something to share. The wife said: “I think Mrs. Nicasia will take care of the chickens…” “I suppose. ” “And that she’ll water the garden as I explained it… ” “Yes, yes, she’ll water it; don’t worry about it.” The husband’s replies were pacifying, cordial. Small, with a swollen belly and very short legs and arms, that simple, round-faced man radiated good faith. He said for a few moments: “Our Alejandro will be getting up soon to go to the station. ” “If he received your telegram…” She was always suspicious; he believed. “Why shouldn’t he?” After a moment of silence, the wife exclaimed: “My poor son!” Her husband sighed, shook his head…; he sighed again: “Yes; it’s very sad to raise a son only to have his country take him away from us like that. Anyway, let’s not despair: the commandant has promised to place the boy in an office, as a typist, so that he won’t be sent out into the countryside… ” From what they talked, I gathered that they were living in some small hotel on the outskirts of Reus, and that this Alejandro, their son, had to go off to a war that Spain was waging in Morocco, and about which, from time to time, the newspapers published telegrams. “Poor woman and poor man!” I thought. I watched them with an attention that was more compassion than curiosity. –Fortunately,–I continued,–men, along with the idea of ​​”homeland,” place the idea of ​​”military honor”; alongside the prejudices that torment them, the poor place other prejudices, equally false, but comforting… and so they live on!… Suddenly—oh, incredible dredgings of memory!—I recognized in my guests those newlyweds whom one night, and while Don Rodrigo was still alive, I had transported from La Coruña to Madrid; the same ones who, clumsy and embarrassed, after clasping their hands and as if they had already ” told each other everything,” fell asleep. Now I saw them clearly, as they had appeared to me then: she, small, scruffy, ugly; he, prudish, plump, and swollen inside the suit he had worn for the first time that day and which seemed a bit tight. Ah, painful changes of time!… And how changed I found them; How old, how flabby, how sad!… “Is it possible,” I exclaimed, “that he has dedicated his entire life to her, and she hers entirely to him? Is it likely that each soul resigns itself to reading only in another soul, in which, incidentally, there is nothing to read?… I began to weave cabals: they had been married for nearly twenty-one years; their son, therefore, was twenty years old… or nineteen… What could the two of them have done in so much time?… I saw the monotonous hours pass over their gray hair, the peaceful, identical days, as if uniformed, with no other joy than their love—which was not “love,” but a poor, grave, lukewarm, almost mechanical attraction. They wasted their humble lives like that, waiting… What?… Ah, very little!… If it was night, they waited for day; and in the morning, the hour of lunch; and after lunch, the hour of supper; and, dinner over, it was time to go to sleep… and it was always the same, feeling that watching their son grow was doing enough. Probably, both of them got along well, although without enthusiasm, and now from their hearts, like bottles of essences that had been left uncorked, the desire to live–aroma of souls–had vanished. What a sad sunset!… I had to sigh very loudly, because The Old Man asked me: “What are you complaining about, Cabal?… Go on and don’t be lame, for We arrived. I shared my observations with him, and the sorrow the ravages of time caused me. He had a composed and self-sufficient expression. “I’ve seen worse things,” he replied, “I’ve seen them. Growing old! That happens to everyone!… Ah, if only I could talk!… I swear, right here where you see me, a novel could be written about my life. ” I burst out laughing with such good-natured abandon that I annoyed my interlocutor. “What’s all this fuss about?” he interrupted. “I’m laughing,” I retorted, without interrupting the flow of hilarity that stirred in me , “at how vulgar you are. You just spoke like a man. Didn’t you know that?” Two of our travelers had barely chatted for half an hour and were getting along. One of them exclaimed, always with a slight melancholy in his voice, as if remembering were a pain for him: “My story is a novel.” Others think one volume isn’t enough, and they say: ” My story has enough material for three or four novels…” My comrade, more humiliated than ashamed, replied: “So what?” “Nothing! To relieve yourself of the weight of your biography, you should find someone else, because I can’t stand it. ” “Don’t you think that any man’s life, like yours… like mine… is a novel?” “Possibly. ” “Then I’m right!” ” Look, Old Man,” I exclaimed; “don’t crowd around and think about what I’m going to tell you: since the majority, if not the totality, of men are vulgar; since they don’t know how to live, it happens that the novel you glimpse in them must necessarily be bad; and, therefore, if every citizen… do you hear me?… were to fall into the temptation of writing his story, no one would ever buy a book again.” He grunted, sullenly: “If nothing has happened to you… I congratulate you.” “On the contrary!” I interrupted briskly. “If I don’t speak, it’s because so much has happened to me. Souls, Old Man, are like rivers: the deeper they are, the quieter they are… ” Thus ended the skirmish. Chapter 25. My biography, my entire biography, as if Fate had divided it with the blow of an axe, offers the most incongruous and separate aspects: alongside the light and blue fragment, the red chapter; alongside the sentimental or spicy episode, the grim pallor of the drama. During that last four years, I had begun to get a little bored: I found my life too uniform, and I attributed this lack of emotion to my years, which were becoming many. “Adventure no longer wants me!” I reasoned in my soliloquies, strewn with melancholy and memories. And I considered the book of my life definitively finished when the terrible and divine muse “with the emerald eyes,” the one who with her surprises aged my iron and mahogany limbs, looked at me again. And… how, with what tragic force!… It is a reddish and burning page, like a serial novel. We were in Madrid, and the hands of the luminous clock—the eye of the Station—that presides over the comings and goings of the trains, were going to give us the order to leave. It was 18:15. All the cars, fraternally pressed against each other, awaited the signal: we had the lights on; the heating on high; the brakes well adjusted; the wheels greased and ready to move. The Quibbler snorted arrogantly, and the beating of her flanks shook the convoy. A bitterly cold wind swept across the almost deserted platforms, for it was All Souls’ Day , and on such a significant date, which carries, as the common people say, a certain curse, no one wants to travel. There were no more than forty passengers on the express . Better! Let these relatively leisurely journeys be a relief and atonement for those in which the crush of strangers and luggage forces us each to carry seven or eight tons of weight. At the train’s tail, a slow voice called out: “Travel pillows!” And its cadence was so monotonous, so languid, that it invited sleep. Three of my compartments were empty. In another, there was a couple in their fifties, of bourgeois appearance, kept pressed to a window by the presence of several relatives, who had come to bid them farewell. Especially in winter, these greetings bother me greatly, because they make me feel cold. Moreover, they are disgustingly hypocritical, because, in most cases, everyone, both those who stay and those who leave, wants to part ways. They’ve already said everything they needed to; they’ve shaken hands several times… and the train isn’t leaving!… What can I do?… “But… go!” the passengers plead. The others respond: “No way…” “We’re sorry to see you there; you’re just bothering each other.” –It’s not a nuisance, it’s a pleasure… –How kind!… The “clappy phrases,” the “commonplaces” of courtesy and emotion, come… come… The protocol of farewells dictates that–at a certain moment–manly heads be uncovered, and handkerchiefs be taken out of pockets to greet each other, and eyes cloud with sadness: and for this scene to have the desired moving effect, it will be essential that the convoy move off. The following recommendations also seem absolutely necessary: ​​–“Have a good trip…” –“Don’t stop telegraphing; we wouldn’t forgive you!” –“You know you can use us.” –“Yes, yes!… Thank you very much!… Until we get back!…” Ah!… When I consider the petty worth of men, their falsehoods, their perjuries, their deceitfulness, and the eternal carnival of their souls, I am tempted to derail. At the exact hour, the stationmaster signaled the start of the express train; the engine whistled, and we departed. A dreadful night! The rain had formed large puddles between the rails, and as soon as we left the awning that sheltered the platforms, a furious hurricane of snow engulfed us. Fortunately , our “route visitor” quickly closed a small door of the next sleeping car, which had been left open, and through which a gusty gust of air blew in, freezing us all. The car ahead of me, which we nicknamed “The Fish” because of its speed, was complaining about an axle; I could hear it creaking. “That’s it,” I pointed out, “a bit of cold; as soon as we’ve been rolling for a while and you warm up, it’ll pass.” We had passed the small stations of Vallecas and Vicálvaro, and the pleasant meadows of San Fernando, and we could already see the sad, scattered lights of Torrejón approaching. Once past Alcalá, La Quisquillosa quickened its pace, and the heat increased. What a delight! Those waves of steam were to us what a glass of alcohol was to a frozen walker. My companion’s aching core stopped. “Are you feeling better?” I asked. “Yes,” he replied, “I’m fine now. ” “Well, go ahead, brother; because El Viejo is a slacker, and if you don’t help me, I won’t be able to beat him. ” He did what I asked, and I thanked him: he was strong and kind, and younger than me; so I declare that he surpassed me in loyalty and good faith. To live is to become corrupted… The platforms of Meco and Azuqueca fled from our side like shadows; in Guadalajara, we made, as usual, a five-minute stop, and then we left for Fontanar. The dining car had turned off its lights early, as the grumpy passengers ate dinner quickly, for nothing shortens the duration of after-dinner conversations like melancholy. The few occupants of the sleeping cars were also drowsy. In the cars of my class, the long journeys seemed deserted and ghostly, shaken by the crackling progress of the convoy. We passed the stations of Junquera, Humanes, Espinosa, Jadraque, Matillas… and at Sigüenza, the old one, I picked up a passenger. I made out his silhouette long before we reached the station, as there was no one on the deserted platform but his. He was a man of about thirty, well-dressed and of a genteel presence, and I noticed a nervousness, a haste to escape, in the way he grabbed my stirrup and opened the door. That individual was evidently fleeing from someone: his pupils shone like those of the “beautiful Raoul”, like those of Dommiot, like those of Cardini, the Italian… Already in the corridor, he lowered a window and stuck his head out, He looked broadly from side to side, as if suspicious that someone had boarded the convoy; and thus, in this attitude of implacable vigilance , he remained until we left the station and our speed began to increase. Then he looked for one of my empty compartments, and a gesture he made and the sigh that escaped his throat revealed to me his satisfaction at being alone. His luggage was reduced to a small satchel, which he placed on the net, and a blanket rack whose straps he began to unbuckle. Without reason, and perhaps by the stealthy work of a premonition—I explained this later—my curiosity was enslaved by the lush youth of my host, the vivacity of his large, novel eyes, the abundance of his black and naturally wavy hair, the solid build of his back, and the elegant anatomy of his hands and feet. “Here is a man,” I mused, “with whom Love must not be elusive.” The inspector appeared, and I learned that the new traveler was going to Barcelona. Left alone, the stranger extinguished the two lights in the compartment, closed the door, and drew all the curtains. Having done this, he settled into a corner, wrapped himself in his blanket, and stretched both legs out on the seat. He sighed again, like someone suffering a secret sorrow or fear, and stubbed out the cigarette he was smoking in my ashtray. In the darkness, his figure almost disappeared: only his shiny patent-leather boots—I remember them well—caught some vague light that reached them from the corridor, and I saw them glow in the darkness like jet. Who was that man? What interest could there have been in his life? I compared him to Don Rodrigo and judged him, incontestably, more handsome than Raquel’s lover, but also less distinguished, because he was less “strange.” Minutes later, I heard him snoring loudly, and I myself, having crossed the Arcos station, fell asleep. Often, we old carriages, with our inveterate habit of rolling on a leash, and the certainty that the engine is watching over us and won’t let us stray, walk unconsciously, and it is this automatism that allows us delightful moments of light sleep. A voice shouting: “Alhama!… Just a minute!” Half interrupted my repose; but The Quibbler resumed her pace, and my pores, barely awake, became impervious to sensation once again , and my consciousness once again plunged into the unfathomable darkness of not thinking. A long time passed before a shout and the harsh squeezing of the brakes woke me. In addition, my last car—El Viejo—had just given me a hard jolt upon stopping; it was undoubtedly asleep. I recognized the Calatayud station, silent and horribly sad under a torrential downpour. Not a sound. The panting of the engine tore through the silence and was as disturbing as the beating of a heart. At the same time, I thought I saw a shadow climbing onto the last “primera” train, on the side between the tracks, which showed me that whoever it was was careful not to be seen, and perhaps was trying to travel without a ticket. Half an hour later, with fairy-like steps and through the traffic that linked me to the Old Man, a tall, slender woman arrived, her features hidden beneath a hallucinatory black cloak. A strange tragic breath animated her, preceded her… I saw her advance along the corridor, and for a few seconds I was able to admire her white hands, the aquiline energy of her face, and the leonine halo surrounding her golden hair: magnificent, curly hair, warm and luminous like threads of sunlight. It shone with its own radiance; it was alive; I don’t remember ever having seen anything more beautiful… The stranger stopped in front of my first apartment, whose door she gently opened; she turned on a light, looked quickly, and quietly closed it again. In the adjoining apartment she did the same: she opened the door, poked her head out, and dodged again… It was evident that she was looking for something. Suddenly I associated that search with the figure of the traveler who had come up to me. in Sigüenza. “She’s looking for him…” I thought. And I was afraid, because I sensed that something sinister was about to happen. Startled, I caught my companion’s attention. “Listen, Old Man, and help me clear up my doubts: have you seen a tall woman dressed in black pass by? ” “Yes; she boarded the train in Calatayud, near the rail line…” “The same one. ” “As if she were fleeing… ” “Exactly,” I exclaimed, “I thought all that!” ” She stayed in the last car for a long time; then she went to the other, and then to me, where the inspector asked her for her ticket. ” “Did she have a ticket? ” “To Barcelona.” She waited in my corridor for the inspector to leave, and then searched my apartments, one by one. She looks like a madwoman. Then she left. Do you know where she is? ” “Here.” ” With you?” ” Yes.” “What’s she doing?” “Searching.” The lady in mourning was indeed continuing her search, and in the solitary passage and under the pale, flickering glow of the lamps, her silhouette took on a ghostly quality. On her livid face, her black eyes had the expression of drama. Fate, the Inevitable, looked with them. The Old Man, intrigued, asked me: “Has he left already? ” “No. ” “What is he doing now?” ” Search… be quiet!… let me see…” The mysterious stranger was pushing open the door of the apartment where “the traveler from Sigüenza”—I will call him that—was sleeping. Oh, if only I could have woken him!… They were a few frightful seconds , one of those moments when we seem to hear Death tiptoeing, and within us our entire anguished soul takes on the shape of a question mark. The intruder, no sooner had she lit the lamp, than she turned it off again, and, aided by the light in the corridor, advanced. His outstretched right arm, which now, beneath the cloak, resembled an enormous, malevolent wing, held a dagger whose clean blade painted a subtle triangle of light in the gloom. He bent down to see better, gasping for breath. He thrust forward his face, whose Eucharistic pallor his lips trembled… Then, with mighty force, he placed his left hand on the sleeper’s mouth, preventing him from screaming and covering his eyes, forcing his head back. And when he had him thus, mute and blinded, with his throat clearly exposed, with a single cruel blow he cut his throat. The knife sank down to the cross, and as it emerged, a torrent of blood, purple and as wide as a tongue, spurted from the wound. Certain she had killed him, the murderer, with sudden presence of mind, entangled a long black hair she had prepared for this purpose around the shining pin in the deceased’s tie , threw the weapon into a corner, and fled. At the end of the corridor, she entered the powder room, washed her hands, and came out again. No one had seen her. Without wasting a moment, she opened my small door, stepped down onto the step, and easily jumped out, for we were approaching the Casetas station and the train was traveling at less than a quarter of a speed. Seated, his back of his head resting against one of my headboards, the victim, both livid and russet, had not moved. Around him, as if haloing his mortal whiteness, everything appeared stained with blood: the couch, the backrest, the carpet… The presence of that corpse, whose face grew whiter by the minute, caused me unspeakable terror. Add to this the sensation of blood soaking through me and rapidly turning cold. I felt fear, pity… and also a bit of disgust. At first, I felt only compassion for the man; then I decided to meditate on the killer, and to pity her pain. What desperate story had unraveled there? And that black hair, for what purpose had it been entangled in the victim’s tie, and to whom did it belong? Instinctively, my noble conscience sided with the woman and voted in her favor. “When she decided to cut his throat,” I thought, “it was because he would have stabbed her heart first.” Between lovers, a “A stab is often the settlement of a debt.” As soon as the express left Casetas, I told Pez and El Viejo what had happened, and the former became so frightened by the idea of ​​a dead man following him that he began to nod and try to get away from me. A good tug I gave him, to punish him, brought him back to his senses. He wasn’t angry about it. “Is the corpse very pale?” he stammered. “Very much so; he looks like wax; his face also seems to have grown thin. ” “And cold? Do you notice he’s cold?” “Yes: the cold in his flesh is, by the moment, getting worse: it passed through his clothes a while ago and began to invade me… Now it penetrates me and reaches very deep inside me. It’s horrible!” The news spread rapidly from one end of the convoy to the other, and the information provided by my companions confirmed everything El Viejo had told me moments before. The unknown woman began her tragic exodus, clinging to one of the running boards of the last car, in whose lavatory she was locked for more than an hour, from which our comrade concluded that this woman, despite her beautiful appearance, was hiding a mystery. Then he left his hiding place, looked through all the compartments, and went to the second car, where he did the same. “When I saw her come forward down my corridor,” exclaimed the Old Man, “so tall, so thin, and wrapped in that long black cloak between whose folds her eyes shone like lanterns, I thought that Death had entered me. ” “And it was true that she did enter,” I commented, “because love and greed are the two smiles of Death: when Death doesn’t want to frighten men but only wants to lose them, he becomes Money or he becomes Woman!… In Zaragoza, where we were to remain for twenty-one minutes while we changed engines, we only picked up three passengers, who boarded the sleeping cars at the head of the train. It was two in the morning. The Quibbler, that wouldn’t go any further, had separated from us, and the convoy remained inert and as if headless. All the cars, immersed in darkness, seemed to be asleep, drowsy from fatigue and cold. The Old Man and The Fish had also quieted down. Only I kept watch, and, if I could, I would have called for help with resonant voices. That deceased, whose face still acquired, at times, the whiteness of a shroud, chilled me: neither Don Rodrigo, nor that Argentine so mysteriously murdered on the Seville line, had his expression: I didn’t want to see him, and yet, not for a second was my curiosity strayed from him. Since he ended without agony, death had not disturbed the peace of his features: his lips remained half-open, and the peak of his cap covered his eyes; but the fingers of his stiff, white hands —more than white, translucent—against the background The purple of her blood-covered suit had a fascinating expression: they were tortured, contracted, horribly twisted: they looked like roots… An unexpected blow revealed to me that La Ronca—she suffered this nickname because of her poor whistle—had joined us. We were about to leave, and I was glad, because movement weakens the voice of ideas. Then… the usual: a bell, a whistle, a sleepy, automatic voice ordering: “Dear travelers… to the train!…”, the locomotive letting out a short shriek and huffing, and the train picking up again… The crime perpetrated between Calatayud and Casetas was discovered when the new ticket check was made, past El Burgo. Immediately the inspector rang the alarm bell, and the express stopped. For the second time, the news, like a red butterfly, flew from one end of the train to the other: unexpectedly awakened, all the passengers, some half- dressed, rushed out of their apartments and ran to me. In my corridor, the curious crowded together, pressing themselves together and craning their necks, eager to see. Those fortunate enough to obtain a position opposite the scene of the attack were struck dumb with terror and could not dissuade their eyes from the corpse, whose features, already hardened, seemed, under my lights, like transparent marble. Since nothing could be done, the conductor closed the compartment, and the train continued on its way at high speed to make up for lost time. We stopped in Caspe, and the stationmaster telephoned the court, which immediately arrived and proceeded to “remove the body.” Assisted by the notary, the judge took detailed statements from the inspector, the “ruta” (travel agent), and several passengers. The interrogation was in vain; no one knew anything. The only certain thing was that the murdered man boarded the train in Sigüenza with the intention, according to his travel ticket, of going to Barcelona. In the victim’s wallet, a note issued to Antonio del Rey was found, along with several letters, which, to save time, were not read, and forty thousand pesetas in bank notes: this last detail clearly indicated that robbery was not the motive for the murder. The judge immediately noticed the long black hair—the hair of a young woman—pinned to the deceased’s tie pin, which he considered a valuable piece of information. He also carefully examined the knife, which was brand new and among the finest and most beautiful produced by the famous Toledo gunsmiths. At once, the suspicion of a crime stemming from jealousy dawned on those present. “And it’s a dark-haired woman,” they exclaimed in unison, “who killed him!” Someone said that no female hand was capable of stabbing him like that. But the unanimous, opposing vote of the audience soon led him to change his mind. The murderer had to be a woman. How else to explain the presence of that hair? Precisely that hair was “the thread” of the bloody ball, the trace that the murderer had forgotten behind her. Added to this was another fact no less significant: the exquisite beauty of the knife: it was a genuinely feminine weapon, elegant, and belonging to a wealthy person. A man, seeking revenge, wouldn’t dream of buying such a beautiful object. Around the image of a “dark and young” woman, accepted by all, the commentaries spun endlessly. “She” must have boarded the train in Sigüenza, without “He” noticing; although, if she knew of his trip—a very plausible assumption—she could have met him at the Arcos station, or at Alhama… and, finding him asleep, slit his throat. Afterward, he would have remained in Calatayud… The reason for the crime returned to haunt the minds. Evidently, that woman had killed out of jealousy. Antonio del Rey, upon receiving the stab, did not defend himself; perhaps death was so instantaneous in him that it anticipated the pain; he died without suffering: his closed eyes and the serenity and composure of his demeanor proclaimed it . Regarding the hair tangled around the tie pin, someone said—and his words met with general approval—that, once her revenge was satisfied, “She,” like Salome, would feel the desire to kiss the stiff lips of her beloved—didn’t Love and Crime always walk together?—and, as she bent down to do so, her hair caught the pin, and a strand, which would serve as a compass in the hands of Justice, became caught. The judge remembered Theseus, and was delighted… Witnessing these soap-opera-like, but very plausible, ramblings of the popular imagination, I was despairing. How could I tell them?… “The criminal is blonde; her head looks like a hot coal: that black hair you boast so much about finding, far from being a trace, is a betrayal, a trap, a ruse, to throw us off the scent…” The only one who knew everything was me, and I couldn’t speak. Ah! When will men who have made so many useless inventions discover a way to communicate with the objects that share their lives? Would there be robberies if safes knew how to cry for help? Would there be adulteries if bedrooms could talk? How could the wise, tenacious pursuers of Truth not think of this? Because then… Lies would truly leave the world! When the Court concluded its proceedings, some orderlies took away the body of the unfortunate Antonio del Rey, and I, with the doors closed, was uncoupled from the convoy and taken to a a side track, pending the future investigations that the investigating judge intended to conduct on me. “They’ve screwed you, Cabal!” El Viejo told me. “The men, to console themselves for not catching the murderer, seize you… and it will take them a while to release you. ” The express left Caspe two hours late. How can I describe the cold silence, the pain of abandonment, that came over me when I saw it leave? The rest of the morning I slept in the rain. The next day I endured a severe search, and three days later another. The judge, assisted by the notary, the bailiff, and two other people, reconstructed—and I declare quite accurately—the crime scene: the position in which the victim was when she received the blow; the probable height of the assailant, whom everyone assumed to be tall; and then they carefully examined the corners of the compartment, and my stirrups, hoping to discover there some vestige that would clarify the mystery. A pin discovered by the bailiff was enough to make all those gentlemen lose themselves in new and useless musings, but it added no light to the summary. How bored I was! Why didn’t they get me out of there? The young women from Caspoli who used to stroll along the platform kept coming to see me. They stopped a short distance from me, holding each other by the waist, and then, with slow steps, they walked around me. My imposing size, my luxury, and my curtains, drawn, as if in mourning , over the vermilion enigma that was inside me, theatrically impressed the public imagination. “This is it…” my onlookers said to each other. They didn’t go further than that; And, as they left, they walked slowly, turning their heads to look at me. In Burgos, where I was taken after the attack on the Hendaye express, the same thing happened to me. But this notoriety did not console me for my days of inaction. Every twenty-four hours, my convoy passed by, feverish and noisy, and my companions, delighted with their freedom, made innocent fun of me. “You’re having a good time, lazy bum!” they would say. A week later, and with the label “No Passengers Allowed,” I was reinstated on the express and transferred to Barcelona, ​​where the bloody upholstery of my seat and backrest was replaced with new ones. How grateful I was! They didn’t replace the carpet, but rather carefully washed it. A small blood stain, however, remained ; but it was so weakened and barely visible that the “material inspectors ” reckoned the passengers themselves would soon finish cleaning it with the soles of their shoes. These memories still shake me . Isn’t there something gruesome in the fate of that blood, which was once youth, hope, warmth… life, in short!… and which a crowd then tramples on, indifferent, and carries away in its feet?… I returned to circulation, and from my first trip I had opportunities to convince myself that the murder of Antonio del Rey continued to captivate the attention of the press and the public. The crime remained a mystery. The statements of the victim’s relatives did little to clarify the enigma: it was learned that Antonio del Rey had a tall, blond Italian lover in Madrid, a café-concert artist named Emma Sansori; and also that he planned to marry a young, dark-haired woman of notable beauty, the only daughter of a banker who lived in Barcelona. At first, public opinion pointed to Sansori as the perpetrator of the crime; but she managed to prove that she had spent the night in question in Madrid; moreover, the gold in her hair protected her. Her hair screamed her innocence… Then Justice directed its investigations in other directions, and arrested an adventuress whom Del Rey had met the previous summer at the San Sebastián Casino, and her sister. This new lead also yielded no fruitful results. The Police advanced among shadows, and were lost. Discarded the supposition that the murderer was a man, the ghost of a young woman with black hair was reborn triumphantly. That hair stopped, apparently by chance, in the victim’s tie, It entangled Justice’s feet like a shackle and wouldn’t let her move. Nine or ten months passed, and in this matter of speeding along the train of Life sets an example for us all… One afternoon, minutes before leaving Barcelona, ​​I heard the newspapers shouting “about yesterday’s crime.” What new drama was this? Ever since the last murder I witnessed, the “red tape” had exerted a morbid attraction over me. ” I’ll know what it’s all about later,” I thought. I’ve already said that, about everything that happens in the world, I get my information from what I hear travelers talking about, or from reading in the newspapers I’d forgotten on my seats. Shortly after embarking on the journey, my curiosity began to be satisfied: several passengers animatedly commented on the bloody event, the account of which was splashed across the front pages of the newspapers. The dead woman was a young lady from the best Barcelona society, who was on the eve of getting married. Her name was Mercedes Eloy. According to reporters, on the morning of the crime, Mercedes received a letter, which—according to a maid—the young woman read with marked anxiety. It is presumed to have been an anonymous letter inviting her to a date. During lunch, Mercedes’s mother noticed that her eyes were red, as if she had been crying. At dusk, Miss Eloy, dressed simply, left her house saying she was going to the Carmen Church and would return shortly. Her doorman saw her get into a carriage. Hours later, in a lonely, shady corner of the park, her body appeared, with two stab wounds, one of them in the heart. Commenting on the incident, a newspaper added: “There are people who attract tragedy like lightning rods attract the wrath of the clouds. Our readers will not have forgotten that Miss Mercedes Eloy was the girlfriend of Don Antonio del Rey, mysteriously murdered on the Madrid express train.” This postscript was a revelation to me. I saw clearly. “Then,” I exclaimed, “it’s Emma Sansori who killed her.” I couldn’t doubt it. The Italian woman had set herself an exterminating task, which she carried out to the end: first, “Him”; then, “She”… Oh, Italy!… Country of art and passion, hot land where vengeance has the power of a barbaric cult, how faithfully you portray yourself , sometimes, in your children!… And I come to the conclusion of this pamphlet, which seems written by the same inexorable hand of Fate. A few days later, I was leaving Barcelona with my convoy, and at the Gracia Station, a tall, blond woman, dressed in strict mourning, got in, whom I recognized at once: it was Emma Sansori. And how could I not recognize her when I’d seen her eyes, and eyes in which we once read the desire to kill are never forgotten? Perhaps because she’d lost weight, she seemed taller to me, and I noticed that, by virtue of inexplicable psychophysical mystifications, the pain in her face had become beauty. Then I examined her livid hands, nervous and tortured, like remorse; especially that right hand, twice a criminal, in which Death seemed to have left a key… Sansori examined my apartments one by one, which by the strangest chance were almost empty, and settled in the very same one where—soon to be a year—she stabbed her lover. Who guided her there? Why did she choose that place and not another? Was it a coincidence, or the result of those subconscious attractions that objects, witnesses of a crime, exert on the criminal? And, in the face of such hallucinatory coincidences, who would deny that, from birth, every soul carries its destiny within it? Very late, past the Reus station, Emma Sansori—as if my thoughts were magnetically reaching her—began to realize where she was. For a very long time she had remained motionless, her gaze lost in space. Suddenly she was shaken by the shock of a memory, and looked around her. Then she stood up, cast a quick glance at the deserted corridor, closed the door, and sat down again. She changed places twice : first with her back to the machine, then with her forehead. I, who had been constantly observing her, understood that her nervousness was reaching an alarming crescendo. The silent lips of her soul repeated, incessantly, a name: “Antonio”… “Antonio”… ; and just as in Don Rodrigo’s spirit I had so often seen the figure of Raquel reflected, so in Emma’s spirit appeared the head–only the head–of the murdered man, with a host-like whiteness on his cheeks, his eyelids closed, and a tremendous red stab wound, still bloody, in his neck. When this gloomy image faded, Sansori’s consciousness darkened so that not even the slightest glimmer of light remained. Suddenly, the three syllables of the adored and hated name lit up: “Antonio”…; And once again, as if rising from the darkness of the grave, the bloodless face of the man who had been beheaded appeared again. She began to speak to him: “Why don’t you open your eyes? Don’t you want to see me?” But his eyes remained sealed. A suspicion crossed her mind , like a black bird, like this: “Could this be the car where I killed him?” Instinct led her to the spot Del Rey had occupied, and she examined it carefully. Then she looked at the carpet, on which a trace of blood still remained, though very faded, and her hands made a gesture of horror: on the mantle that covered his head, her wax fingers clenched in agony. Eager to see better, she knelt on the floor. Then she understood; she had recognized the place: it was right there… That stain was blood; of the blood she adored and for which she would have given her own… She stood up, stifling a cry, and her mourning figure seemed to lengthen and touch the ceiling. In her bulging eyes, Madness had just ignited its yellow lights. Sansori tried to escape into the corridor and stumbled against the door, and the force of the blow—which also hurt me— knocked her onto a seat. A second time she tried to get out and collided again against the thick glass, then fell. It seemed to her that invisible arms were holding her from behind, but she lost courage. She clasped her hands, her livid lips trembled, and she sank to her knees. “Antonio… Antonio… Antonio…” she muttered three times. With a leap she sat up; finally, she managed to open the door, and went out into the corridor. She looked from one side to the other: no one. She seemed to have recovered her serenity, but her soul was in darkness. “She’s going to commit suicide,” I thought. And immediately I was convinced I’d made the right decision. She was going to commit suicide. There are times when resolutions acquire such intensity that they are visible on our foreheads like a poster stuck to a wall. Emma Sansori reached my front platform, opened the opposite door on the side of the track, and with a powerful leap, launched herself into space. We were crossing a bridge. The enormous gust of wind that lifted the train’s speed tore the cloak from her shoulders and scattered her golden hair. Instantly, her body, dressed in black, vanished into the infinite darkness of the night; but not her hair, which flickered for a few seconds, like a flame, in the vast darkness, and were like a clot of sunlight descending into the abyss. No one saw her. At that moment, the express, frantic, as if fleeing from itself , was traveling at ninety kilometers per hour. Chapter 26. Another three years of a monotonous life passed over me, and they meant that, definitively, the autumn hour would strike on the clock of my modest destiny . I was not surprised. Since the catastrophe at Toral de los Vados, I, although scrupulously repaired, never again felt that extraordinary well-being—an athlete’s health—of my pristine days. My quarrel with El Majo also damaged me, and I resented the wounds inflicted by the French “Apaches” from time to time. The Basque fogs, the Galician humidity, the heat and drought of Castile, the strain that sloping roads—whether ascending or descending—demand from our frame, the loud vibration of accelerated marches, the traffic of passengers, the fatigue of our bulkheads overloaded with luggage, and The same fatigue that emotions carry with them had slowly disconcerted my vital organs. The elasticity of my wheels, the activity of my heating pipes, the gaiety of my lamps— why deny it?—were not the same. The doors of my compartments no longer fitted their frames as before; the glass in my windows didn’t fit properly; my seats were less soft; the basin and mirror in my water closet were broken, and the linoleum of my passage was deplorably worn and stained. In the polychrome photographs of the corridor, in the dark patina of my smoky ceiling, in the melancholy of the curtains, in the “I don’t know what” of oldness, of disillusionment, of sadness, that permeated my entire body, I understood that my biography was coming to an end. The treatment I received in the Valladolid workshops soothed my ailment without eradicating it, for no remedy had been invented for the injuries of time. When my healers returned me to a rolling life, I looked like a veteran of the battlefield, covered in scars; or a ” dirty old man,” squinting, mended, with dyed hair and false teeth… and it was natural, therefore, that my deformed and feigned youth was short-lived. The sun, the rain, the frost, the dew brought it to an end… Add to this the archive of memories—and whoever said memories, said melancholy—that wandered with me. The poles of the soul are imagination and memory: imagination is “the streetwise faculty” that searches, dreams, discovers, or invents paths; and memory, “the mistress of the house,” that scrupulously records and classifies what has happened: the former is artistic and changeable; The second, bourgeois and quietist, and while the former squanders and dissipates and adorns herself with bells, her sister is loaded with keys and does calculations. In me, perhaps precisely because I traveled a lot, my imagination wandered little, and my memory acquired exceptional preponderance. My retention is formidable, and within me, memories remain clear, precise, with their minimal colors and details. I have forgotten nothing: in the crystals of my memory, the old images reappear sharp, vivid, and emphatic; remembering is equivalent, for me, to leafing through an album of illuminated postcards. This rare ability, which at all times places me face to face with my own life, causes me great suffering. I think, all the time: “I have rolled over the body of a man; I—although unintentionally—killed Don Rodrigo; I felt the bandit Cardini step on the hair of a woman who had fainted on the floor of my corridor; and I saw a corpse thrown onto the track, and Antonio del Rey’s throat slit, and I witnessed Emma Sansori’s mortal leap…” And considering that Méndez Castillo, Conchita “the Witch,” that Carmen “of the blue skirt and the white blouse,” Raquel, “the newlyweds from La Coruña,” the “nameless” lovers from Valdepeñas, and many other people wandered with me at different times, I tell myself: “I, who travel so much, am, in turn, like a road: everything in the world is a road, because everything serves to make everything go away… With that terrifying slowness with which the Inevitable operates, failure has penetrated me: day after day my oak and mahogany beams are They buckle, and the teak paneling that has served as my shield up to now cracks; my movements are noisy, awkward, and at intervals, the angles of my timbers creak like old bones lacking synovium, or squeak with ornithological gibberish. There is something in me like a crutch’s noise… I don’t speak of any of this with my colleagues, even though I find them as badly off as I am. On several occasions, we have heard the employees who clean us grumble: “This material is useless, but since the Company only cares about making money, they don’t replace it.” The public, who previously preferred me to all the cars in my convoy, also begins to murmur. Many times, for example, a married couple has boarded me, and after examining my compartments, the husband has said: “This car is too old; let’s go to the other one…” They have reason to send me away! Recently, my roof cracked on the side of the car. “fourth bed,” and a leak formed which, fortunately for the traveler, didn’t fall straight down, but rather trickled down a partition, where it left an embarrassing mark; a stain whose yellowish outlines resembled those of the continents on a geographical map. Most of my occupants grumbled: “What a shame! This car is uninhabitable!” Some called the route guard to show him my plight. I thought, terrified: “When they declare me finally unfit for use, what will become of me? Will they destin me to be burned?” I soon knew what to expect. The Old Man, The Fish, and I, who displayed roughly the same symptoms of old age and defeat, were uncoupled from our express train in Barcelona and taken to Zaragoza, from whose Madrid Station—also called the Sepulchre Station because of its proximity to the Campo de’ Sepulcro—we were taken to some vast repair shops that I was unfamiliar with. For several days we remained together and idle, until one Monday, very early in the morning, we were separated and I was wheeled into a sort of carriage house filled with the clatter of countless hammers. “This is our ‘spoliarium,'” I told myself, “my story as a gladiator of the roads ends here.” But it wasn’t destroying me but rather infusing me with a second youth, which is what skilled and good hands—or more than good, eager to wring out the maximum output of each crippled carriage—intended to do to me. At the same time, a dozen workers, some upholsterers and others cabinetmakers, attacked me, and the saws, drills, rasps, planes, chisels, augers, scrapers… all those instruments of torture I knew in my childhood, and whose terrible steel teeth I hadn’t forgotten, returned to bite me. From the feverishness with which these men worked, they seemed to be working tirelessly, and I would have believed that they only wished to destroy me had I not heard them say: “This carriage is still good; it will be as good as new.” Consoled and fortified by these words, I resigned myself to suffering. “They are not my assassins,” I thought, “but my surgeons; their blows do not kill me, they cure me; what they suppress from my body will be the useless, the rotten, the irreparable, what absolutely must go.” And, with this conviction, I gave myself over to the joy of living again, and I considered all the pains that threatened me as joyful. My healers tore out all my linoleum, beneath which appeared some very worn pieces of carpet; They also took my mattresses, my backrests, and my luggage nets, and dismantled my seats: the curtains, the brackets, the mirrors, the signs, the small tables between the windows, the ashtrays… everything disappeared!… Nothing remained of the “sleeping compartment.” They were quickly leaving me hollow, bare, and my gaunt frame was taking on the appearance of a skeleton. Now, against this emptiness, my imperial figure seemed taller ; the light that filled my windows was harsh, unpleasant, and I realized that, as in an unrented house, the slightest noise inside me was resonant and resonant. My workers then proceeded to reinforce the eight largest angles of my body: they changed nails, tightened screws, replaced the timbers that were worn out and no longer fit properly, straightened with hammer and fire the pieces that had buckled from moisture or continued stress, removed all the cracks in my sides, and patched up all the splits or tears in my roof. The only thing they didn’t touch was the heating pipes or the electrical wires . Another day they dismantled me, set me up on three sawhorses, and hauled away my frames, which I was pleased with, because they were out of level and their springs were in desperate need of repair. I felt like singing, like laughing; I was happy like a boy who has been promised a new suit and shoes… This immense joy–jubilation of resurrection, pride of rebirth–gives the true measure of the tremendous pain, made of humiliation, shame and rage, that I experienced when I became certain that the Company was reforming me. Not with the elegant aim of keeping me in my “first-class” carriage status , but to make me a humble “third-class.” Without respect for my history, they wanted to degrade me, confuse me with the common people, and impose on me the disgraced role of the “down-and-out” nobleman. Out of spite and anger, I burst into tears, and overcome with sadness , I spent the night until the merciful fairies of reflection and hope came to console me. “Why do you worry about your parchments?” said the other one; “the important thing is to live, to be cheerful, to be healthy…” And the second: “What do you know about the good times that still await you?” Once their demolition work was completed, my workers began to restore me. To facilitate air circulation, the upper part of the canvases that had previously insulated my apartments was removed; The place of my old hairnets, with their steel bars so firm yet so subtle , was taken by solid wooden panels; and my gray divans, those whose softness had known beauty and gathered the warmth of so many elegant women, were replaced by solid benches. Everything that I had possessed in the happy period of my birth, of voluptuousness, of femininity, I would now possess as manly and inhospitable. The layout or fundamental architecture of my apartments didn’t change, but their appearance did. Over my windows, instead of curtains, there were blinds; my headboards, once so soft, were replaced by wooden ones; my bedside tables, my bedside tables, and my ashtrays disappeared, and in the rectangle that my mirrors had once occupied, they placed a “Regulations of the Spanish Railways,” printed in tiny type and quite verbose and diffuse for a country where eighty percent of its inhabitants cannot read. This, of course, struck me as very amusing, and, because it was so inappropriate, “very Spanish.” My walls were covered with very strong vertical pine planks, my floors were parquet, and everything—flooring, ceiling, partitions, seats—was painted a dark yellow that, once thoroughly varnished, acquired considerable prestige. It looked good: it displayed a plebeian, healthy, and garish simplicity. Then they plastered my entire exterior green, erased those AAs that for more than thirty-four years proclaimed my aristocracy, and twice wrote on my flanks an egalitarian and very Christian number “three. ” “How can it be?” I mused. “Patience! They’re dressing me in a blouse… ” Another day they brought me some brand-new rolling shoes, which seemed most excellent to me, and no sooner had I been installed on them than I experienced the well-being resulting from the simplicity and vigor of my new social status. I was like a ruined nobleman, like a “great lord” who, won over by the democratic atmosphere of his time, and in order to continue living, had accepted a job. I left the Zaragoza workshops, where I remained for six months, without either El Pez or El Viejo seeing me, which I was pleased about. When I was hooked up to the express train that carries “first” and “third” classes and leaves Madrid for Barcelona on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays at 9:20 in the morning, all the cars looked at me, and their way of observing me revealed a unanimous esteem. The “first” women thought: “How distinguished he is!” And the “third” women: “He doesn’t look like one of us!” Assured of the nobility of my origins, I passed proudly among them . Now, as before, I was “El Cabal” (The Fair One). After half a year of rest and confinement, that first trip brought me extraordinary joy. As in the past, as a youth, it was the landscape that captivated me first. In the morning I never tired of looking at the trees, the houses, the arid slopes over which the sun projected the shadows of the cars and the engine, with its long plume of smoke. All afternoon we ran across the plain: always the same miserable landscape, the same clay-colored hamlets, the same dusty roads, and, as a horizon, a line of rugged mountains; while we, the slaves of the railroad, advanced along the same Straight road… straight… inexorable as an order. The old impressions, so beloved, were repeated exactly. At dusk, we arrived at a small station—what does the name matter?—where we stayed for “a minute.” People are looking at us, envying us; envying us because we are leaving, and, as everywhere, a group of girls in their Sunday best smiles at the travelers. A bell and a whistle ring: we are leaving… Now the countryside has been covered in shadows: nothing is visible, but the roar of our race, the echoes that respond to the “alerts!” of the locomotive, say that the panorama has changed and that we are rolling between mountains. At intervals, when the stoker opens the furnace to throw coal into it, the burning entrails of the engine throw, to the right and left of the track, a reddish flash that seems an omen. The wind has changed direction; it is cold; then it begins to rain, and the water and coal mixed together make us deplorably dirty. Everything is damp, everything is black… Suddenly, the chilling thrill of a bridge stretched over a ditch whose bottom cannot be seen; then, the darkness of a tunnel: the steam screams, we are going downhill, and the brakes draw horrifying shrieks from our wheels; the roar of our speed bumps is deafening, and the granite mountain trembles and seems to split open. At last we emerge from its depths, and, under the rain, the delirious flight continues through other mountains and over other bridges…; until, the next day, now gathered in the repose of the terminal station, the sun, with its warmth, dries us and cleanses us. Chapter 27. All these impressions, which I had known since ancient times, only entertained me during the twenty-six hours of my first journey. Those who interested and amused me greatly were my new guests, so different from that world of aristocrats, distinguished clerks, high-ranking military officers, artists, fashionable bullfighters, and wealthy merchants who had frequented me. My current audience was made up of “those from below”: workers, field workers, soldiers, maids, emigrants… those who had the most to share in the universal suffering!… At first, they bothered me: I hated them because they went barefoot, for the most part; because they smelled of sweat; because they talked loudly and pushed each other, both going up and down, and peppered the most trivial conversation with interjections and blasphemies; I hated them because they were always laden with stinking saddlebags and chickens; because they stretched out their arms and treated the women disrespectfully, and because they hammered nails into my walls to hang their bundles, and they made me horribly dirty with their spittle and the remains of their meals. Later, as I got to know them, I began to appreciate them. I want to explain nothing of their rough appearance; they couldn’t be worse. Their savage rudeness constituted grace and a testament to masculinity among them. I heard them reason: to say that someone was “very crude” was equivalent to considering them very noble, very straightforward, very straightforward, very brave, “very manly,” in short… But beneath this troglodytic shell, their souls—oh, miracles of the race!—remained pure, and although violent, they were dominated by an innate nobility: they were affectionate, generous, simple, and when touched in the registers of courage or charity, they all responded. Thus, in a short time, I managed to forgive the rudeness of this unfortunate people, who, if they are guilty of being uneducated and illiterate, it is because no one cared to educate them, and if they go about—to the scandal of the foreigners who visit us—shirtless and barefoot, it is not because they are running away from work, but because the rapacity of caciquismo, on the one hand, and the lack of understanding and neglect of their rulers, on the other, have them naked. The people, perhaps thanks to those who command them, are unconscious; I mean, they don’t properly measure their unhappiness, nor do they have a precise notion of the pain that surrounds them, nor of the thousand age-old denials that weigh upon them; they have never meditated—how, if no one taught them to think?—that life is something more than a day’s wages and a woman… And, thanks to that, to the fact that they don’t think, they are boisterous and communicative, and quickly fraternize. It’s a shame that the leading figures of politics always leave Madrid in a sleeper car! For by traveling in “third class,” even once, they would have been able to experience the infinite national pain and experience the shame of their own blunders and the desire to remedy so much harm, convinced that being a minister in a country like ours is either a disgrace or a sacrifice. They would have suffered, like me, with the ignorance and total abandonment of those rabble, and seen the river of tears flow left behind by the emigrants carried away by hunger and the thousands of soldiers called away by war. Ah, gentlemen politicians! If you only knew how people cry on the platforms of villages, how despair twists arms and makes them scream, and how mothers, wives, and daughters curse the train that’s taking their men away… and then run after it until they fall, covered in blood, on the tracks!… These scenes of suffering helped me study the psychology of the Hispanic people, who ask a miracle for the health they cannot find on earth. On one occasion, I arrived in Barcelona loaded with emigrants who were about to embark, some for Buenos Aires, others for Cuba, and the next day I returned to Madrid crowded with pilgrims returning from Rome. I have observed it: in souls, pain increases the calories of faith, and the greater the economic depression of a country, the more successful its religious congregations are at organizing pilgrimages and pilgrimages. Lourdes and Rome are the two great sanatoriums where those sick of faith go for healing; Although I understand that the treatments performed there are not definitive, since, after some time, the patients need to return… Despite the bitterness of these considerations, I will not deny that my current life is noisier and more picturesque than ever. Before, I wandered through Spain full of silence; my clients were discreet, reserved, and elegant, and elegance always conversed in low voices: those people were alike, smiled silently, gesticulated soberly, and almost always agreed on all sorts of issues. In my current guests, good humor, like anger, is strident; their emotions know no nuances or perspectives; all of them, the small as well as the large, are “first terms”; one might say they wear their hearts on their sleeves. They shout, swat, jostle, fraternize, or quarrel in a quarrel: they don’t know the bridle. I have a lot of fun with them. We’re going to stop for “a minute” at a station, which could be Torralba, or Ariza, or Puebla de Híjar… and from the moment we “enter the switches” I see how four or five individuals overloaded with saddlebags, blankets, jugs, and baskets, and those who are about to see off fifteen or twenty other people, run, without knowing exactly why, along the platform. Nervously, they all shout, squeeze together, and their arms move like windlasses: the women are tiny and sallow; the men, also wiry and earthy-colored, wear brown cloth jackets and shorts, and lacking a hat, they wrap a handkerchief around their shaved heads. As soon as the convoy stops, that crowd, which cannot read, instinctively attacks the luxury vehicles, because they think they are better. The inspector and the bus drivers shout at them: “Not there, you brutes!… To third class!… You to third class!” They look from one side to the other, extremely distressed, disoriented; finally, they understand, and in an avalanche, they rush toward me. I’m “full”; there’s not a single empty seat in me, and yet my occupants, despite understanding that this is detrimental to their comfort, are prepared to help those who arrive. In the upper-class carriages, this beautiful solidarity doesn’t exist: the passengers are cold, individualistic, and, far from helping one another, they try to hinder each other by mutually opposing passive resistance . The “third-class” people, on the contrary, sacrifice themselves for one another, and with loud, sincere voices call out to one another: “This is it, this is it!” shout those inside. And throwing their bodies out of the windows they help to hoist the rickety suitcases, the baskets full of fruit, the swollen boots of wine, the mattresses stuffed with clothes tied with rope, the countless bundles of various colors and shapes that constitute the baggage of their new traveling companions. These, meanwhile, hurriedly bid farewell to their families: the eyes of both those who leave and those who stay behind fill with vehement tears; arms are linked and hands clasp each other’s necks. “My dear child!” “Mother, another kiss!” At first, these goodbyes touched me; they seemed final. Later, when I learned that often the traveler who bid farewell in this way had to stay at the nearest station, the meaninglessness of that overwhelming sorrow inspired laughter in me. The train rolls on again. I’m completely packed with people and packages, and my surroundings, once filled with pleasant smells, now reek of chicken, fish, melons, and cheese… Of the travelers who couldn’t find a place to stay, some have settled themselves on their belongings, others remain standing, and all, at the same time, smoke and talk. No one wants to ignore what concerns their neighbor, and they mutually reveal and confess their names, their occupations, their families, where they’re going, and the reason for their trip… Suddenly, one of them exclaims: “Bunny!… Say no more!… I know who I’m talking to!” The face of his interlocutor brightens at this sudden insight. “Aren’t you Mr. So-and-so?” “That’s my name.” “The one married to So-and-so, the one from the grocery store next to the church? ” “The same.” –Let’s finish, man!… I was sure we’d seen each other somewhere!… Meanwhile, and if mealtime has arrived, the snacks come out of their baskets, the bottles and wineskins are passed from hand to hand, and the expansive power of the must accelerates the work of sympathy that began the conversation. The Spanish people are generous, despite their poverty, and each person offers, from the heart, to those around them what little they have: this one offers a bunch of grapes, that one a loaf of bread, that another an omelet or a plate of baked potatoes; who distributes cigarettes… With the joy that comes with good drinking, tongues are twitching, hilarity spreads, people talk from one compartment to another, the strumming of a guitar is heard , and soon that crowd, united by the life of poverty common to all, seems like a family. A group of young men have begun to clap; A ballad is playing… At this moment, the ticket inspector appears, and at the same time, a fulminating and virulent argument breaks out. Why?… No one knows. In first class, brawls are rare; in third class, they are not, because here everything is impulsive. A voice, without shouting, with that temperance men use when challenging Death, said: “When the time comes, I’ll break the chest of the Son of God.” And another voice, equally measured, responded: “Let’s go see him, if you want, right now.” All the passengers have risen to their feet, and the singer, eager to hear, hasn’t finished his ballad. The women, accustomed to obeying, docile, with a docility of many centuries, don’t move from their seats and wait, without fear, for the drama to pass. Fortunately, the conductor intervenes in time: he shouts, threatens to stop the express train and call the Civil Guard—I was reminded of Two-Face again—and, in the end, he prevails: the belligerents calm down, their faces soften, and a humorous phrase, thrown by anyone, puts a happy end to the matter. The inspector, however, insists; he wants to consolidate his work of pacification: “Before fighting,” he says with an authoritarian air, “everyone must be convinced of their rights, and for that, it is necessary to know the “Railway Regulations.” Why don’t you take the trouble to read them? Don’t you have them there?…” His outstretched right hand points to a “Regulation” placed under one of the baggage shelves. Unanimously, the bystanders follow this gesture with their eyes, and there is a silence. Someone suddenly exclaims: rejoicing: “Shall we read in that painting? What a joke! As far as I’m concerned, the Company can take it: I can’t read!” Another adds: “Here! Neither can I!” The crowd bursts out laughing, and I hasten to follow their example so as not to cry at the joy of so much ignorance. Another of the small episodes I witnessed then, and which I consider worth remembering for its lesson, is the journey of a young Belgian couple I picked up in Barcelona. They were headed for Madrid. They were among the first to board me, evidently hoping to get settled, and both of them sat near a window, facing the road, because the wife—I later learned—was getting seasick. They had a suitcase, a small box of chocolates, and a bottle of water, and they placed everything on the luggage rack in the place corresponding to their seats. They were two men of insignificant appearance, but their dark clothes, although very modest and well-worn, were perfectly clean. She was small, thin, and half-blond, and the only attractive feature of her freckled face lay in the complacent expression of her eyes. Her nose and mouth were worthless, and her dry hands, which had worked hard—her nails showed as much—had a tendency to cross. Her husband was also short, and there was something comical about his face, with rosy cheekbones and elongated by a black beard cut to a point over the flowing bow of a scarf. His rough boots, recently shined, gleamed under the seat. He took one of his companion’s sad hands and asked: “Aren’t you hungry?” She replied, smiling: “No; sugar feeds…” And, as they gazed sweetly at each other, they seemed to kiss with their eyes. Without interruption, my usual tenants, the women and men with the large, smelly baskets and overflowing saddlebags, were invading me with great commotion, and had barely entered when they stormed the windows to collect the belongings their companions handed them from the platform. Excited by the pride of the journey, everyone was talking loudly, shouting at each other, laughing, and exchanging the crudest interjections. Under the impatient exertion of so many feet, some bare, my floor creaked. The women, most of them disheveled, were fat, or seemed so with the numerous skirts they wore; many men, although the morning was not hot, were in shirtsleeves and espadrilles. In no time, my seats were occupied, and my shelves loaded, up to the height of my roof, with crates and bundles. As I passed, several bundles of blankets, a chair, two partridge cages, and some kitchen utensils stuffed into a trough formed a barricade. My passengers, satisfied with being settled, made a platform at my windows. A voice shouted: “Let’s go, engineer, it’s time!” And another: “Get going, man! My mother-in-law is waiting for me in Caspe!” These and other nonsense were rewarded with loud laughter. Faced with this impetuous and untidy crowd, the foreign couple remained self-conscious, with their feet tucked under the seat. Their secrecy, the neatness of their clothes, and a certain distinction they possessed secretly annoyed the pride of the passengers in that compartment. They recognized themselves as inferior, which irritated them. They found the wife ugly, and the husband ridiculous. It also seemed to them that both she and he “were putting themselves forward.” They began to murmur, but only loud enough for the aforementioned to hear, as if they were looking for trouble. “They’re too ‘fine’ to come here,” said one. “Well, if they don’t like us,” a large woman retorted intemperately, ” they can go to ‘first class,’ no one has called them… ” “La Millanes,” our engine—it had been christened with its driver’s surname —whistled, and we set off. General rejoicing! Someone took out a wineskin, filled to the spout with good Aragonese wine. “Who wants it?” he shouted. Several hands were put forward, as if thirsty. “I believe,” said an old man, “that no one should refuse.” The wineskin was passed from one to another, and everyone received it with such love that when it returned to its owner it had lost half its weight. The former, however , presented it to the couple: “Don’t you drink?” He did so rudely. The husband, very kindly, replied: “Thank you very much. ” And she repeated: “Thank you.” The woman who had spoken before commented provocatively: “I’m glad: it’s not their fault, but the fool who wants to give them a gift. ” Someone said: “It’s just that in their country they don’t have the custom of drinking like that.” The woman replied: “Bob! Then let them go back to their own land!” Nevertheless, the polite and courteous appearance of the foreigners was winning everyone’s sympathy. The morning passed, during which, twice , the wife had eaten chocolates and taken a few sips of water. They had no snacks, and this led me to suppose their situation was precarious, which moved me. Perhaps they had no money at all… At midday, the passengers felt hungry, and each one reached for their provisions, and from the baskets and plump saddlebags emerged potato omelets, hard-boiled eggs, cans of preserved food, Extremadura sausages, slices of Serrano ham, bunches of grapes, and large pieces of bread that the knives cut into slices. The boots circulated again in a joyful saraband, and the bottles sang on their sultry lips. A burly man, wearing a sash and chaps and shirtsleeves, who was sitting opposite the Belgians, offered them bread, sardines, and some Rioja peppers that he assured them were as hot as fire. The couple, whose good looks overrode their appetite, refused, although without conviction. The unfriendly voice of the big woman who seemed to have declared war on them intervened: “Don’t insist!… If they don’t want to!” “The man with the zahones” exclaimed angrily: “Silleta, but they don’t have anything to eat! They’ve been sucking on sugar all morning!… Are we going to let them die of hunger?” And facing the Belgian, he repeated: “Eat yourselves, bun, root… because here in Spain what is offered is offered willingly!” Then, with sudden joy, the guests accepted, and this served as a signal for a downpour of muzzle fire to fall upon them. With touching vehemence, each person rushed to give them their food: some a piece of chorizo, some a piece of meat pressed between two slices of bread, or a chicken leg, or some asperiega apples… The Belgians seemed delighted, and with the little Spanish they squandered and polite nods of their heads, they tried to reciprocate such a long nobility. The wife was the most excited, perhaps because she ate and drank the best: her eyes shone, her cheeks were purple, and her laughter was easy. “The man with the chaps” said to her husband: “You idiot… and you didn’t want to eat!… Look at your wife: she’s even become beautiful!” The strangers, simply by being friendly, had won their hearts, and each one resolved to take the utmost care of those two people, who surely missed their country very much. The afternoon passed, and when night fell upon us, far away in Sigüenza, the generous scene of lunch was repeated. After lunch, “the man with the chaps” asked the Belgian: “Do you want pillows?” “No, thank you very much.” The foreigner, always polite, didn’t want to bother. “Boo, so much bothering me! But you’re not bothering me! We’re happy to serve you!” Indeed, it was: a traveler got them two pillows; another, a blanket… “Do you want more?” they said. “No, no… thank you very much!” Since the pillows were long, the couple settled down on one of them; the other served as a backrest, and the blanket covered them up to just above their chests. They had eaten well, and the happiness of their Their stomachs suggested cheerful thoughts; they lovingly clasped hands. He inquired: “Are you feeling well? ” “Yes. Have you seen what good people these are? ” “Very good. ” “At first, this morning, I was afraid of them; but now, I’m not: they’re rough, but good. Shall I tell you something? I’m beginning to love Spain… ” They continued talking, and every moment, she to him, or he to her, they asked each other: “Are you well?” The woman had taken off her shoes, and he felt her feet to make sure they weren’t cold. Then, sweetly, they fell asleep with their heads together. Those present, from their respective corners, looked at them, saying to one another: “How they love each other!…” And then they turned their faces toward their wives, as if amazed that they had never loved them so. I thought: “No; they don’t love each other more than you love your wives: it’s that they love each other with greater tenderness. In Spain, affection is great, violent; here, passions reach the point of sacrifice, they reach the point of crime… but they don’t know how to caress, they don’t know how to pamper… and tenderness is in the gentle caress. In Spain—I have seen it—in the relationships between parents and children, between husband and wife, tenderness doesn’t exist, perhaps because there has always been too much pain in our land… ”
Meanwhile, I felt with joy that all those people, belonging to two different races, had known how to show each other the best that was in them; and thus, to the Belgians’ lesson in gentleness, the Spaniards—so poor and so rich—knew how to respond with an example of generosity. I have been serving as a “third” for four years, and I am certain that the humanity that now frequents me is not very entertaining. Their variety, at first glance so motley, is superficial; deep down, my guests today bear a striking resemblance to the sleeping-car tenants: the same appetites, the same figures… from which I deduce that the aristocracy is a well-dressed rabble. There is one type, however, unique to third-class carriages, and who, due to his prominence and the frequency with which he appears, deserves to be remembered. I am referring to the “funny one.” To “establish himself” as a man of witty and caustic humor, the “funny traveler” needs an audience, because the presence of many people sharpens his wit. He has a confident demeanor, a colorful and agile repartee, a well-tuned voice, and knows many stories, almost all of them spicy. He is already well into his second youth, and the habit of traveling around the world has given him poise. He begins by striking up small talk with the people near him, and if his banter is well received, he is soon up and chatting with everyone. To achieve early success, “the funny traveler” follows the simplest path: the autobiographical one. His first epigrams are directed against himself , and his life and personality serve as targets for his witty words. The audience generally laughs at this intimate display of defects, real or feigned. Enraged, “the funny traveler” gradually becomes an actor, and with grotesque devices or through sheer aplomb, he makes up for the lack of his comic streak. If someone makes a witty comment to him, he’ll know how to respond immediately. Women almost always look favorably on the preface, half orator, half clown: after all, he represents ease, mischief; he’s something unexpected that stands out, that shines. When the train arrives at a station, “the funny one” monopolizes a window and talks nonsense to the onlookers on the platform. His jokes are sometimes funny, sometimes not; but they are always laughed at, because in the collective psychology, hilarity is a “downhill climb.” Later, tired of satirizing himself, “the funny guy” turns his barbs on another passenger. This change of scene delights the audience. The “attacked” man, faced with the ridicule that threatens him, defends himself with incoherent phrases. The general hilarity intensifies. “The funny guy” is a definitive success: he is applauded, and wine is offered to him. The women call out to him, wanting to be near him, because they feel protected by him. This enviable vogue doesn’t last. Night has fallen, and suddenly, “the gracious traveler” falls silent: he’s said all he knows, and he’s tired, exhausted. They’ll try to find his mouth in vain; they can only bite his nerve, and he won’t speak. “I’m sleepy,” he declares; “enough joking; I’m going to sleep now.” And, wrapped in his blanket, he stretches out full length; a basket or some saddlebags will serve as his pillow. Since he’s managed to make himself sympathetic to the community, no one bothers him. Then he’s heard snoring. Then, from a neighboring compartment, an ungrateful voice asks: “But did he finally fall asleep? ” “Yes. ” “Thank God!” Moments later, everyone has forgotten him. Regarding this “type,” I will relate a brief, sad scene; or, what amounts to the same thing, a grotesque one; because from the grotesque, if we squeeze it well, a tear will always fall. We had been parked for a while in front of a small platform, waiting for a crossing. My guests were growing impatient. Suddenly, a traveler, half serious, half joking, said something very loudly that was laughed at, and almost immediately he let loose with another witticism that also drew unanimous laughter . By exerting himself, that individual managed to summon from his wit a third felicitous phrase, happier, perhaps, than the previous ones. Astonished, everyone looked at him. Who could speak so wittily? Women and men had risen to meet the witty traveler, and the general sympathy burst into a tremendous ovation of laughter and applause. Then I witnessed something disheartening. That man, suddenly overcome by the fumes of success, blushed and lost control of himself. Without knowing what he was doing, he stood up; his bright eyes darted from side to side; it was as if his sanity had been lost. His tongue loosened and he began to speak almost without connection. He cracked a joke, which no one understood; then another, which likewise went unnoticed; he launched into three or four more, which also failed… Faced with the severe silence of the audience, he began to get disconcerted; ideas churned in his head. Why did he make people laugh before and not now?… And he was about to insist when a cruel voice stopped him: “Well, man, enough!… Shut up!… Can’t you see you’re not entertaining?” And “the funny one,” who was no longer funny, sat stunned and said no more. He remained obscured. Only I observed the blush on his cheeks, the humility of his lowered eyes. For a few minutes, the diminished one tasted the honey of success, and, as he went to enjoy it, his laurels fell. His pain was that of the singer who suddenly loses the note that made him famous; The pain of the woman who was much desired… and ceased to be. Chapter 28. Two years later, a derailment between the Vallecas and Vicálvaro stations served as an unexpected culmination to my story. Truly , I had no inkling that the end was so near!… What happened to me was what happens to those elderly people, still in one piece, who, upon leaving their homes, stumble or slip and break their skulls on the ground. So I did: I started out from Madrid that morning, happy, as always, and suddenly—perhaps because my brakes didn’t moderate or restrain me enough—my wheels came off the track and I plunged down an embankment, dragging down the two cars following me in my misfortune. The crash, which resulted in one passenger dying, was tremendous. Losing my balance, I fell on my right side, but the momentum that animated me dragged me eight or ten meters along the ground. I immediately spun around on my imperial plane with a tragic internal jumble of passengers and luggage, and I lay down again, only to immediately recover and finally remain on my wheels. But… what a state!… With the roof broken in several places, the sides bent, the doors dislocated, the pipes and the dynamo torn to pieces, the vital parts twisted… and I must still congratulate myself that my architecture, as a whole, resisted!… For several days I remained abandoned on that slope, into whose soft earth my wheels were gradually sinking, and beside my companions in misfortune, one of whom, less solid than I, was completely destroyed. When it broke, the agony gave it a lugubrious foreshortening, and, especially at night, under the astral fever, its bruised frame, devoid of planks, had the profile of a skeleton. How I suffered!… We had remained several meters below the track, over which the trains continued to pass, full of people and lights, and I saw the curiosity, not always compassionate, with which their passengers leaned out to watch us. Our misfortune was for them an amusement, almost a joy, and they pointed at us with their gestures. It was the end of October, and the cold, as soon as the sun set, was considerable. Of the two comrades who derailed with me, neither spoke, and their silence increased the horror of my situation. I found myself with one of my platforms embedded in the ground, dismantled, in the dark, all the glass shattered , and through my defenseless windows the wind and the terrible frost of the early morning hours pierced me. Eventually, a pilot machine came to pick me up and, using a very strong rope, pulled me up, while from high on the track, many men managed, with the help of ropes, to keep me upright . Staggering, feeling my balance slipping from me every moment , stumbling over stones and getting tangled in the weeds that obstructed the climb, I managed to pull myself up to the railway , and when my wheels once again took possession of the rails , I experienced a joy of resurrection, the jubilation of a castaway, because the track was a beach for me… Slowly, since my extremely serious injuries prevented any rapid movement, I was taken back to Madrid, and on a loading lane next to the repair shops, exposed to the elements, they left me. Around me were several hundred useless cars, some passenger, others freight, which gave that part of the station a strange urban appearance. They were defeated fighters, scattered links of old trains, docile retinues of old locomotives that had long since died. In their rickety and battered condition, they resembled me in a similar way; And since some of them knew me by sight or from having worked with me, and knew of my aristocratic past, news of my appearance soon spread among them. I heard them whispering. “They’ve brought the Cabal…” they said. “Yes. ” “Who is he?” ” That big one, the one painted green; he derailed recently and they’ve towed him away half dead…” And the legend of my adventures on the lines of Hendaye, Galicia, and Seville passed from one to another. To avoid the trouble of speaking, I shut myself away in a nonchalant attitude. The dew of the long winter nights and the rain that, through my cracks, fell freely inside me, intensified my pain. There is no woodworm that destroys like damp, nor leprosy that gnaws like abandonment. For me, stillness consumed me: hour after hour my timbers warped, my wheels grew rusty. One night, two rats—an animal I didn’t know—climbed up on me and bit me. The year ended, and everything around me remained the same. My fellow exiles and hospital companions—the corner where we were sharing both sorrows—didn’t complain; they barely exchanged a few words from time to time; they seemed dead. My rebellious nature grew desperate in that peace. “Why don’t they come for us?” I asked myself. “Isn’t it better that, once in a while, they reduce us to firewood than let us rot here?” The elements systematically undermined my health, and eventually, there wasn’t a part of my body that didn’t hurt: sunny days dried me out, rainy days soaked me, and with these alternations, my serious wounds continued to open. One morning we received a visit from the director of “the equipment,” accompanied by two men, and in his contemptuous way of looking at us, I read our death sentence. They wouldn’t fix us because we weren’t worth the money it would cost to fix us. We belonged to the “incurable,” and we were like those sick people who no longer receive medicine because it’s useless. Walking slowly through those mournful rows of dying carriages, the director approached me and—what he did with no other—stopped to examine me. I felt that his experienced eyes, the eyes of a surgeon, were examining me carefully. “This was a good ‘first’ carriage,” he said. One of his companions replied: “Yes; but later they renovated it and made it a ‘third’ carriage. It’s very old; it’s been worked on a lot: look over here at how it is…” Rearing up, he pointed out, through a tear in my sidewall, my shattered floor. “I can see it clearly!” replied the director; “what a pity about this carriage! The ones being built now are far inferior…” And they left. “Now, indeed,” I sighed, “my story is over!” In the midst of this pain, however, I received a joy: the satisfaction that those men, at the same time as they condemned me to death, had proclaimed my merit. Ripped, faded, ratty, crooked, dirty… I was still beautiful, I still retained vestiges of my former power, and I could still say: “They called me El Cabal…” The whole winter passed, the first joys of spring appeared with April, and, upon awakening from a sleep that, according to calculations I later made, must have lasted several weeks, I saw that some weeds, growing beneath me, were entwined around my wheels, similar to those bonds with which rheumatism binds the legs of the paralyzed. I don’t know what love, what affectionate desire to retain me, I guessed in them, and their small love moved me: “You will not leave us again,” they seemed to say. But my adventurous Destiny was not pleased that I should end there, and after making me aware of the struggle, it wished to grant me peace. One morning in early June, eight or ten men employed at the station approached me . The one who looked like a foreman asked an old man standing next to him: “Is this the carriage you asked the director for, Mr. John?” He gestured toward me. Mr. John replied proudly: “Yes, this very one! This…” ” You’re going to have a fine house,” replied the foreman, jokingly. “It won’t be bad; you’ll see how nice it will look once I fix it up to my liking . ” Between them all, they rolled the carriages in front of me, then pushed me, forcing me from one track to another, until I was in front of the main railway. I blessed my fate, which decreed to make me, until the last moment, something useful. “They’re going to turn me into a dwelling,” I thought. And I remembered those ancient carriages, converted into railway guards’ huts, which I had seen one morning—the first of my life—as I left the Irún station. In a few days, I was stripped of my wheels and buffers and dragged to the place where I was destined, where, to make my living more comfortable, I found a platform two feet high, which was to serve as a support or foundation. The haste and care with which the carpenters undertook the task of my transformation told me that they were working on orders from the Company, which, in renovating me, found a way to avoid having to build a house for itself. For the third time, hammers, chisels, drills, and amputating saws tortured me. All my seats were removed, and for each of my two compartments, removing the partition or canvas that separated them, they made one. The washroom was converted into a pantry, and in the bedroom they installed an iron stove, the chimney of which was led out through a circular hole they cut in the roof. On my side, which faced the corridor and the road, they left only three windows, with their glass casements; the rest disappeared, just as my old sliding doors were replaced by larger ones with hinges. One of my platforms was transformed into a washroom, and the other continued to serve as my entrance. Later, they painted the roof red, and the windows and door white, which gave an extraordinary liveliness to my four facades, plastered with verdigris. I looked like those little German-made houses that children play in. One morning, at daybreak, my new tenants appeared behind a cart loaded with furniture; “the last,” no doubt… The family consisted of Mr. Juan, employed by the Madrid Zaragoza Alicante Company for more than half a century; his son Roberto, María Luisa’s husband; and two grandchildren: Lolita, who was already beginning to grow up, and Miguelín, three years old. All that copious luggage, new to me, interested me enormously: without missing a detail, I saw how the beds were made, and how the drawers of a dresser worked, and how they adorned my interior with photographs and modest gilt-framed mirrors, and how they arranged the kitchen utensils in the room. The furniture was discreetly distributed: in the bedroom—let’s call it that—intended for the couple, the widest bed and the dresser were placed ; in the other, they arranged the dining table and Lolita’s bed; and in the third, which retained its original dimensions and was therefore the smallest, the cot where Mr. Juan and Miguelín were to sleep. Before noon, the small furnishings were in order, and I never tired of observing all that intimate, uniform, collected life , which I knew only from afar. It wasn’t until then that I began to understand how time passes slowly in homes, nor how clothes were washed, nor how the fire was lit and a meal prepared. Finding myself not suspended in the air, as before, but firmly planted on the ground, gave me an unknown and comforting impression of stillness, of stability: I felt more grounded and in control of myself, as if my personality had grown. What a difference between my current sheltered well-being and those implacable nights of oblivion and cold that followed my derailment! The soul of my inhabitants was rapidly invading me: a week after having them in me, the dampness left me: I smelled of the bedroom and the kitchen; It smelled like home… and I was glad to smell that way. “I’m becoming more bourgeois,” I thought. I had finally surrendered to the discretion and good nature of those people. Mr. Juan, who was a gatekeeper, only cared about holding the flag with which he let the trains through; Roberto, a carpenter by trade, worked all day in the station’s workshops; María Luisa, who was pregnant, was a sweet, hardworking, and slightly sad little woman, always shaking me; Lolita also looked after me a lot, and Miguelín’s innocent pranks sometimes touched me and other times made me laugh. One Saturday afternoon, Roberto brought a good number of canes and slats on a wheelbarrow, with which, taking advantage of the next day’s holiday, he built a trellis next to me. Another Sunday, she surrounded me with a high fence, four or five handspans high, between which and me there was a space of about three meters, which Lolita’s fairy hands immediately filled with flowers, and so I had a tiny, charming garden, like a toy. The girl did more: she adorned my windows with climbing plants that she planted in broken vases or in tins that had once held peppers; and she planted ivy next to me, which grew in no time and invaded most of my roof, giving me the picturesque appearance of a grotto. Soon after, I was able to see myself in a postcard, the work of a photographer who was a friend of my guests, and I was surprised—not to say enamored—by my rustic nature. I was standing half a kilometer from the station, very close to the main railway artery where the trains from Barcelona, ​​Andalusia, and Valencia run, which held so many memories for me. I saw the swift, howling, stormy engines pass by, and the silhouettes of the stokers, dyed Dantesquely red by the fire in the furnace, lost in their black whirlwind ; I saw the fast “expresses,” the “mail trains,” the endless and dark “merchant trains” fleeing, covered in lights ; I heard the hissing voice of the locomotives, the horns of the trackmen, the roar of the convoys… and I felt no nostalgia whatsoever. One day, on a “four-thousand” that was passing by, I recognized La Regadera; I also discovered Dos Caras, disguised as a “third-rate train,” in the “mixed” from Alicante, and my joy at seeing them was absolutely pure. I was glad that they continued living their lives, the one that was mine as well; but I had no desire to roll around beside them. I also saw the Blonde, the Black, the Leading Actress, the Beard… and several other comrades who came and went with the same terrible longing as always, and I felt a certain compassion for their inexorable servitude. I meditated: “They move, and I don’t: but does the earth enslave me more than movement enslaves them?… ”
For a long time those old companions came and went without noticing me; then, as my position as a motionless wagon surprised them, they began to examine me, and finally they recognized me. The one who first realized who I was was Two-Face. One morning, as I was passing by, he called out to me : “Is that you, Cabal?” “It’s me, old man,” I replied. And he didn’t have time to tell me more because his convoy was moving fast. The news of my being converted into a room spread quickly, carried by the trains, and all my friends, some mocking, others compassionate, asked me: “Goodbye, Cabal; are you bored a lot?” I always answered: “No; I’m not bored. ” “Are you happy? ” “Yes, I am: I’ve never been happier… And it was true!… For today, thanks precisely to the solitude that surrounded me, I could descend deeper into the mystery of life. The people I knew before remained by my side for a few hours, at most a night; while these now grew old with me: I saw them sleep, eat; I heard them speak… and their experience was mine too, in its entirety. With this stillness, I was again like my ancestors, the trees. The earth attracted me, and, sewn to it, as time sped by, imperceptibly, I felt better. I was beginning to understand the poetry of domestic celebrations, the reason for Christmas Eve, the enormous emotional and reflective power of silence; because it is while matter rests that the luminaries of the spirit shine brightest. Considering Mr. Juan’s helpless old age , and listening to his son speak, I learned how , throughout the centuries, the capitalist perpetuates in the worker, his brother, the fratricide of Cain, and I glimpsed the mechanism of the social rigmarole, that tragic wheel in which wages are transmuted into bread, and bread into effort and pain that will then become wages again. I saw María Luisa give birth, and I understood love; And watching Miguelín, amused by lining up toy soldiers, launching boats into the soapy water of the trough, and dragging tin railways around the garden, I realized that in this world—of paradoxes and vice versa—a child plays and laughs with the same things that make a man cry. I’ve been a home for almost three years, and I don’t miss, not one bit, my nomadic youth: María Luisa and Roberto’s third child is growing up very well; Lolita already has a boyfriend, and I attribute to this why he sings so much in the mornings; Miguelín learned to write and amuses himself immortalizing his name on my walls. All of this, which is now part of me , delights me and accompanies me. I’m becoming more like Mr. Juan. I have something of a grandfather about me, and I’m happy with these beings who grow up by my side, with the flowers that surround me, with the ivy that covers me and seems to bring me an embrace from the earth. My old brothers along the way say something to me every day: “Would you like to come with us, Cabal? ” “Why,” I reply, “if at no point in the world where you find yourselves will your horizon be greater than mine? Indeed: I am not weary, but satisfied, and I have no desire, because I have known movement and tasted stillness; all there is; and because I have grown old… and to be old is to be in a position to remember and to forgive, and nothing is more beloved than memory, nor more elegant than forgiveness. Life is good, for, being so short, it provides three great joys: in childhood, the desire to live; in the present indicative of youth, the joy of living; in old age, the generous pleasure of seeing others live. Madrid, October 1922. FINAL EDITION OF THE COMPLETE WORKS OF EDUARDO ZAMACOIS Renacimiento offers its readers in Spain and America the first Complete Collection of the works of this distinguished novelist, one of the public’s favorites. This is a very careful, serious, and definitive reprint, supervised by the author himself, who wishes to offer it without any kind of misrepresentation. Everything we could say about the vulgarity with which the works of the illustrious author of _Europe is Leaving_… were treated at different times is summarized in the “Warning” that we insert below, signed by Zamacois himself, and to which we send to booksellers and readers: WORDS OF THE AUTHOR Many writers are reluctant to correct their books once they are printed. I think the opposite: books should be examined and polished with each new edition, because if Time alters the lines of our faces and whitens our hair and bends us, how could it not also change our tastes? The hours that transform the body, how could they not revolutionize the spirit, par excellence so vibrant, fickle, wandering, and changeable? Experience and reading are the two great winds that stir our inner garden. An intelligent man lives in perpetual discussion with himself; and to discuss is to doubt, to rectify “points of view,” to substitute one belief for another, to modify oneself, to contradict oneself. Progress constitutes a constant amendment, and thus life should be nothing more than a pretext for repenting today for what we did yesterday. No one should be surprised, therefore, by the differences in thought and form that separate the volumes that are appearing now, at the midday of my life, from those I call “of my first period.” Written in haste and sold at ridiculous prices, I admit, with great sorrow and mourning in my heart, that I threw them into the world dressed in rags. They really did not deserve such bad treatment, and so I wish with the present edition to remedy somewhat the damage I did to them. Neither the fable nor the architecture or distribution of the chapters were altered; I did not think it necessary to plunge the scalpel so deeply. I have only tried to relieve their style of solecisms, repetitions, and other grammatical embarrassments that tainted it. I also tried to calm it, simplify it, and free it of rhetorical profundities… A I am referring to _The Sick Woman_, _Black Dot_, _Incest_, _Lovestruck_ , _Tik Nay_, _The Seducer_, _Duel to the Death_, _Memoirs of a Courtesan_, _On the Abyss_, _Of Flesh and Bone_, _Cruel Hours_, _Impressions of Art_. Consequently, the only edition of my books I dare recommend is this one, RENAISSANCE. All the previous ones, poorly printed, poorly corrected, and vilely soiled with obscene covers, are execrable and deserve only silence. To redeem the thousands of copies sold in the last nineteen years, the author would give his right hand. We have reached the end of Memories of a Railway Car by Eduardo Zamacois. We hope you have enjoyed this vivid and human portrait of the society of his time, seen through the unique window of a train car. Don’t forget to subscribe to Now of Stories to continue exploring more gems of classical literature together . We appreciate your company on this literary journey and we look forward to seeing you at our next reading. See you soon.

🚂📜 ¡Embárcate en un viaje literario inolvidable! 📜🚂

👉 Bienvenido a *Ahora de Cuentos*, donde te traemos la obra *Memorias de un vagón de ferrocarril* de Eduardo Zamacois, una joya de la narrativa española. Sumérgete en este relato lleno de observaciones agudas, reflexiones humanas y personajes entrañables que se encuentran en un vagón de tren, compartiendo historias y emociones durante un viaje inolvidable.

✨ ¿Qué encontrarás en este audiolibro? ✨

– Retrato vívido de la sociedad de principios del siglo XX 🎩👒
– Humor, ironía y crítica social 👀🎭
– Una prosa brillante y cercana de Eduardo Zamacois ✍️📚
– Perfecto para los amantes de la literatura clásica y las historias costumbristas 📖❤️

🎧 Disfruta de una experiencia auditiva única. Déjate llevar por la magia del tren y las historias que nacen en su interior.

👉 ¡No olvides suscribirte y activar la campanita! 🔔
https://bit.ly/AhoradeCuentos
-🚂 Memorias de un vagón de ferrocarril 📖✨ | Eduardo Zamacois [https://youtu.be/sMfRUCd60lY]
📣 Comparte este audiolibro con tus amigos y familiares. La lectura en voz alta es el viaje perfecto para cualquier momento del día.

# MemoriasDeUnVagonDeFerrocarril #EduardoZamacois #Audiolibro #LiteraturaEspañola #CuentoClasico #RelatoCostumbrista #HistoriaDeUnTren #NarrativaClasica #AudiolibrosEnEspañol #AhoraDeCuentos #ObraClasica #LiteraturaDelSigloXX #ViajeEnTren #HistoriasDeViaje #EscuchaYRelajate #CulturaLiteraria #ProsaEspañola #NarracionDeCuentos #LecturaEnVozAlta #PatrimonioLiterario #CuentosParaViajar