THE QUEST ***

Produced by Eric Eldred, Cam, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

THE QUEST

BY PÍO BAROJA

TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH By ISAAC GOLDBERG

CONTENTS

PART ONE

I Preamble--Somewhat Immoral Notions of a Boarding-House Keeper--A Balcony is Heard Closing--A Cricket Chirps

II Doña Casiana's House--A Morning Ceremony--Conspiracy--Wherein is Discussed The Nutritive Value of Bones--Petra and Her Family--Manuel; his Arrival in Madrid

III First Impressions of Madrid--The Boarders--Idyll--Sweet and Delightful Lessons

IV Oh, Love, Love!--What's Don Telmo Doing?--Who is Don Telmo?--Wherein the Student and Don Telmo Assume Certain Novelesque Proportions

PART TWO

I "The Regeneration of Footgear" and "The Lion of the Bootmaker's Art"--The First Sunday--An Escapade--_El Bizco_ and his Gang

II The "Big Yard" or Uncle Rilo's House--Local Enmities

III Roberto Hastings at the Shoemaker's--The Procession of Beggars--Court of Miracles

IV Life in the Cobbler's Shop--Manuel's Friends

V La Blasa's Tavern

VI Roberto in Quest of a Woman--_El Tabuenca_ and his Inventions--Don Alonso or the Snake-Man

VII The _Kermesse_ on Pasión Street--"The Dude"--A Café Chantant

VIII Leandro's Irresolution--In La Blasa's Tavern--The Man with the Three Cards--The Duel with _Valencia_

IX An Unlikely Tale--Manuel's Sisters--Life's Baffling Problems

PART THREE

I Uncle Patas' Domestic Drama--The Bakery--Karl the Baker--The Society of the Three

II One of the Many Disagreeable Ways of Dying in Madrid--The Orphan--_El Cojo_ and his Cave--Night in the Observatory

III Meeting with Roberto--Roberto Narrates the Origin of a Fantastic Fortune

IV Dolores the Scandalous--_Pastiri's_ Tricks--Tender Savagery--A Modest Out-of-the-way Robbery

V Gutter Vestals--The Troglodites

VI Señor Custodio and his Establishment--The Free Life

VII Señor Custodio's Ideas--_La Justa, el Carnicerín_ and _El Conejo_

VIII The Square--A Wedding in La Bombilla--The Asphalt Caldrons

PART ONE

CHAPTER I

Preamble--Somewhat Immoral Notions of a Boarding-House Keeper--A Balcony Is Heard Closing--A Cricket Chirps.

The clock in the corridor had just struck twelve, in a leisurely, rhythmic, decorous manner. It was the habit of that tall old narrow-cased clock to accelerate or retard, after its own sweet taste and whim, the uniform and monotonous series of hours that encircle our life until it wraps it and leaves it, like an infant in its crib, in the obscure bosom of time.

Soon after this friendly indication of the old clock, uttered in a solemn, peaceful voice becoming an aged person, the hour of eleven rang out in a shrill, grotesque fashion, with juvenile impertinence, from a petulant little clock of the vicinity, and a few minutes later, to add to the confusion and the chronometric disorder, the bell of a neighbouring church gave a single long, sonorous stroke that quivered for several seconds in the silent atmosphere.

Which of the three clocks was correct? Which of those three devices for the mensuration of time was the most exact in its indications?

The author cannot say, and he regrets it. He, regrets it, because Time, according to certain solemn philosophers, is the canvas background against which we embroider the follies of our existence, and truly it is little scientific not to be able to indicate at precisely which moment the canvas of this book begins. But the author does not know; all he can say is, that at that moment the steeds of night had for an appreciable time been coursing across the heavens. It was, then, the hour of mystery; the hour when wicked folk stalk abroad; the hour in which the poet dreams of immortality, rhyming _hijos_ with _prolijos_ and _amor_ with _dolor_; the hour in which the night-walker slinks forth from her lair and the gambler enters his; the hour of adventures that are sought and never found; the hour, finally, of the chaste virgin's dreams and of the venerable old man's rheumatism. And as this romantic hour glided on, the shouts and songs and quarrels of the street subsided; the lights in the balconies were extinguished; the shopkeepers and janitors drew in their chairs from the gutter to surrender themselves to the arms of sleep.

In the chaste, pure dwelling of Doña Casiana the boarding-house keeper, idyllic silence had reigned for some time. Only through the balcony windows, which were wide open, came the distant rumbling of carriages and the song of a neighbouring cricket who scratched with disagreeable persistency