The Quest | Page 5

for the admiration of those who happened along the corridor,
a huge white udder streaked with coarse blue veins.
After this matutinal ceremony, and not infrequently during the same,
complaints, disputes, gossip and strife would arise, providing tid-bits
for the remaining hours.
On the day following the scrape between the landlady and Irene, when
the latter returned to her room after having fulfilled her mission, a
secret conclave was held by those who remained.
"Don't you know? Didn't you hear anything last night?" asked the
Biscayan.
"No," replied the landlady and the Baroness. "What happened?"
"Irene smuggled a man into the house last night."
"She did?"
"I heard her talking to him myself."
"And he must have opened the street door! The dog!" muttered the
landlady.
"No; the man came from this tenement."
"One of the students from upstairs," offered the Baroness.
"I'll tell a thing or two to the rascally fellow," replied Doña Casiana.

"No. Take your time," answered the Biscayan. "We're going to give her
and her gallant a fright. If he comes tonight, while they're talking, we'll
tell the watchman to knock at the house door, and at the same time
we'll all come out of our rooms with lights, as if we were going to the
dining-room, and catch them."
While this plot was being hatched in the corridor, Petra was preparing
breakfast in the obscurity of the kitchen. There was very little to
prepare, for the meal invariably consisted of a fried egg, which never
by any accident was large, and a beefsteak, which, in memories
reverting to the remotest epoch, had not a single time by any exception
been soft.
At noon, the Biscayan, in tones of deep mystery, told Petra about the
conspiracy, but the maid-of-all-work was in no mood for jests that day.
She had just received a letter that filled her with worriment. Her
brother-in-law wrote her that Manuel, the eldest of Petra's children, was
being sent to Madrid. No lucid explanation of the reason for this
decision was given. The letter stated simply that back there in the
village the boy was only wasting his time, and that it would be better
for him to go to Madrid and learn a trade.
This letter had set Petra thinking. After wiping the dishes, she washed
herself in the kneeding-trough; she could not shake the fixed idea that if
her brother-in-law was sending Manuel to her it was because the boy
had been up to some mischief. She would soon find out, for he was due
to arrive that night.
Petra had four children, two boys and two girls; the girls were well
placed; the elder as a maid, with some very wealthy religious ladies, the
younger in a government official's home.
The boys gave her more bother; the younger not so much, since, as they
said, he continued to reveal a steady nature. The elder, however, was
rebellious and intractable.
"He doesn't take after me," thought Petra. "In fact, he's quite like my
husband."

And this disquieted her. Her husband, Manuel Alcázar, had been an
energetic, powerful man, and, towards his last days, harsh-tempered
and brutal.
He was a locomotive machinist and earned good pay. Petra and he
could not get along together and the couple were always at blows.
Folks and friends alike blamed Alcázar the machinist for everything, as
if the systematic contrariness of Petra, who seemed to enjoy nagging
the man, were not enough to exasperate any one. Petra had always been
that way,--wilful, behind the mask of humility, and as obstinate as a
mule. As long as she could do as she pleased the rest mattered little.
While the machinist was alive, the family's economic situation had
been relatively comfortable. Alcázar and Petra paid sixteen duros per
month for their rooms on Relojo street, and took in boarders: a mail
clerk and other railroad employés.
Their domestic existence might have been peaceful and pleasureful
were it not for the daily altercations between husband and wife. They
had both come to feel such a need for quarrelling that the most
insignificant cause would lead to scandalous scenes. It was enough that
he said white for her to cry black; this opposition infuriated the
machinist, who would throw the dishes about, belabour his wife, and
smash all the household furniture. Then Petra, satisfied that she had
sufficient cause for affliction, shut herself in her room to weep and
pray.
What with his alcohol, his fits of temper, and his hard work, the
machinist went about half dazed; on one terribly hot day in August he
fell from the train on to the roadbed and was found dead without a
wound.
Petra, disregarding the advice of her boarders, insisted upon changing
residence, as she disliked that section of the city. This she