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 ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF DISASTERS

11-07-07 08:42:13GUNN$$FM1U
11-07-07 08:42:13GUNN$$FM1U
 ENCYCLOPEDIA
OF DISASTERS
Environmental Catastrophes
and Human Tragedies
VOLUME 1

ANGUS M. GUNN

GREENWOOD PRESS
Westport, Connecticut • London

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 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gunn, Angus M. (Angus Macleod), 1920–
Encyclopedia of disasters : environmental catastrophes and human
tragedies / Angus M. Gunn.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978–0–313–34002–4 ((set) : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978–0–313–34003–1 ((vol 1) : alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978–0–313–34004–8 ((vol 2) : alk. paper)
1. Natural disasters—Encyclopedias. I. Title.
GB5014.G86 2008
904—dc22 2007031001
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.
Copyright  2008 by Angus M. Gunn
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be
reproduced, by any process or technique, without the
express written consent of the publisher.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2007031001
ISBN-13: 978–0–313–34002–4 (set)
978–0–313–34003–1 (vol 1)
978–0–313–34004–8 (vol 2)
First published in 2008
Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881
An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
www.greenwood.com
Printed in the United States of America

The paper used in this book complies with the

Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National
Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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 Contents

Credits for Illustrations xi

Guide to Thematic Entries xvii
Preface xxiii
Acknowledgments xxvii
Introduction xxix

Volume 1
1. Supervolcano Toba, Indonesia, 74000 BC 1
2. Rome, Italy, fire, 64 5
3. Pompeii, Italy, volcanic eruption, 79 11
4. Alexandria, Egypt, tsunami, 365 17
5. Antioch, Syria (now Antakya, Turkey), earthquake, 526 21
6. Constantinople, Byzantine Empire, Black Death plague, 542 26
7. Corinth, Greece, earthquake, 856 32
8. Damghan, Persia, earthquake, 856 34
9. Aleppo, Syria, earthquake, 1138 38
10. Shaanxi, China, earthquake, 1556 41
11. Arequipa, Peru, volcanic eruption, 1600 46
12. London, England, Black Death plague, 1665 52
13. London, England, fire, 1666 58
14. Port Royal, Jamaica, earthquake, 1692 63
15. Cascadia earthquake, 1700 68
16. Lisbon, Portugal, earthquake and tsunami, 1755 75
17. Massachusetts offshore earthquake, 1755 81
18. Bengal, India, famine, 1770 83
19. Connecticut earthquake, 1791 88
20. New Madrid, Missouri, earthquakes, 1811 and 1812 90
21. West Ventura, California, earthquake, 1812 95
22. Tambora, Indonesia, volcanic eruption, 1815 98
23. Natchez, Mississippi, tornado, 1840 103

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 vi CONTENTS

24. Fort Tejon, California, earthquake, 1857 106

25. Calcutta, India, cyclone, 1864 111
26. Kau, Hawaii, earthquake, 1868 114
27. Chicago, Illinois, fire, 1871 119
28. Owens Valley, California, earthquake, 1872 122
29. Bangladesh cyclone, 1876 124
30. Marshfield, Missouri, tornado, 1880 126
31. Georgia/South Carolina hurricane, 1881 128
32. Haiphong, Vietnam, typhoon, 1881 130
33. Krakatau, Indonesia, volcanic eruption, 1883 132
34. Charleston, South Carolina, earthquake, 1886 137
35. Yellow River, China, flood, 1887 141
36. Johnstown, Pennsylvania, flood, 1889 145
37. Louisville, Kentucky, tornado, 1890 151
38. Japan earthquake, 1891 153
39. Imperial Valley, California, earthquake, 1892 155
40. Georgia/South Carolina hurricane, 1893 156
41. Louisiana hurricane, 1893 158
42. St. Louis, Missouri, tornado, 1896 160
43. Sanriku, Japan, earthquake and tsunami, 1896 163
44. Assam, India, earthquake, 1897 165
45. Eureka, California, earthquake, 1899 168
46. New Richmond, Wisconsin, tornado, 1899 169
47. Yakutat, Alaska, earthquake, 1899 171
48. Galveston, Texas, hurricane, 1900 176
49. Cook Inlet, Alaska, earthquake, 1901 181
50. Mount Pelee volcanic eruption, 1902 186
51. Goliad, Texas, tornado, 1902 192
52. Santa Maria, Guatemala, volcanic eruption, 1902 195
53. Turtle Mountain, Alberta, Canada, landslide, 1903 197
54. Chicago, Illinois, fire, 1903 202
55. St. Petersburg, Russia, revolution, 1905 209
56. Mongolia earthquake, 1905 215
57. San Francisco, California, earthquake, 1906 217
58. Socorro 1, New Mexico, earthquake, 1906 224
59. Socorro 2, New Mexico, earthquake, 1906 226
60. Ecuador offshore earthquake, 1906 228
61. Monongah, Pennsylvania, explosion 1907 231
62. Amite, Louisiana, tornado, 1908 236
63. Louisiana hurricane, 1909 238
64. Oregon earthquake, 1910 241
65. Titanic iceburg tragedy, 1912 243
66. Katmai, Alaska, volcanic eruption, 1912 250
67. Omaha, Nebraska, tornado, 1913 256
68. Texas hurricane, 1915 258
69. Pleasant Valley, Nevada, earthquake, 1915 260

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 CONTENTS vii

70. Mattoon, Illinois, tornado, 1917 263

71. Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, explosion, 1917 265
72. World-wide flu pandemic, 1918–1919 270
73. Mona Passage, Puerto Rico, earthquake, 1918 276
74. Vancouver Island, Canada, earthquake, 1918 279
75. Kelud, Indonesia, volcanic eruption, 1919 281
76. Florida/Gulf of Mexico hurricane, 1919 283
77. Humboldt, California, earthquake, 1923 286
78. Kamchatka, Russia, earthquake, 1923 288
79. Tokyo, Japan, earthquake, 1923 291
80. Charlevoix, Quebec, earthquake, 1925 296
81. Illinois/Indiana/Missouri tornado, 1925 299
82. Clarkston Valley, Montana, earthquake, 1925 302
83. Santa Barbara, California, earthquake, 1925 305
84. Florida hurricane, 1926 307
85. Lompoc, California, earthquake, 1927 310
86. St. Francis Dam failure, 1928 312
87. Lake Okeechobee hurricane, 1928 316
88. Stock Market Collapse, 1929 319
89. Grand Banks, Nova Scotia, earthquake, 1929 324
90. Ukraine catastrophe, 1932 326
91. Nevada earthquake, 1932 331
92. Sanriku, Japan, earthquake, 1933 333
93. Baffin Bay, Canada, earthquake, 1933 335
94. Bihar, India, earthquake, 1934 337
95. Quetta earthquake, 1935 340
96. Labor Day hurricane 1935 343
97. Gainesville tornado, 1936 345
98. Hindenburg crash, 1937 347
99. Nanking massacre, 1937 353

Volume 2

100. New England hurricane, 1938 359

101. Imperial Valley, California, earthquake, 1940 364
102. Paricutin, Mexico, volcanic eruption, 1943 366
103. San Juan, Argentina, earthquake, 1944 371
104. Shinnston, West Virginia, tornado, 1944 373
105. Northeast United States hurricane, 1944 375
106. Cleveland, Ohio, gas explosion, 1944 377
107. Hiroshima, Japan, nuclear bomb, 1945 383
108. Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, nuclear tests, 1946 389
109. Unimak, Alaska, tsunami, 1946 396
110. Vancouver Island, Canada, earthquake, 1946 399
111. Nankaido, Japan, earthquake, 1946 402
112. Woodward, Oklahoma, tornado, 1947 404

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 viii CONTENTS

113. Texas City, Texas, explosion, 1947 406

114. Puget Sound, Washington, earthquake, 1949 412
115. Queen Charlotte Islands, Canada, earthquake, 1949 414
116. Assam, India, earthquake, 1950 417
117. Kern County, California, earthquake, 1952 419
118. Kamchatka, Russia, earthquake, 1952 422
119. London, England, suffocating smog, 1952 425
120. Netherlands (Holland) flood, 1953 431
121. Waco, Texas, tornado, 1953 436
122. Flint, Michigan, tornado, 1953 438
123. Fallon-Stillwater, Nevada, earthquake, 1954 441
124. Thalidomide drug tragedy, 1957 444
125. Lituya Bay, Alaska, earthquake, 1958 449
126. West Yellowstone, Montana, earthquake, 1959 451
127. Japan typhoon, 1959 456
128. Chile earthquake, 1960 459
129. New York City, New York, mid-air collision, 1960 464
130. Tristan da Cunha volcanic eruption, 1961 470
131. Vaiont Dam, Italy, collapse, 1963 475
132. Prince William Sound, Alaska, earthquake, 1964 479
133. Hurricane Betsy, 1965 484
134. Aberfan, South Wales, Britain, landslide, 1966 487
135. Hurricane Camille, 1969 493
136. Peru earthquake, 1970 497
137. Bangladesh cyclone, 1970 501
138. Iraq mercury poisoning, 1971 503
139. Hurricane Agnes, 1972 508
140. Munich, Germany, terrorism, 1972 510
141. Managua, Nicaragua, earthquake, 1972 515
142. Iceland volcanic eruption, 1973 518
143. Brisbane, Australia, flood, 1974 521
144. Kalapana, Hawaii, earthquake, 1975 525
145. Guatemala earthquake, 1976 528
146. Teton Dam, Idaho, collapse, 1976 531
147. Seveso, Italy, dioxin spill, 1976 536
148. Tangshan, China, earthquake, 1976 541
149. France oil spill, 1978 545
150. Love Canal, New York, contamination, 1978 549
151. Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania, nuclear accident, 1979 554
152. Mount St. Helens, Washington, volcanic eruption, 1980 559
153. Canada, sinking of oil platform, 1982 565
154. Coalinga, California, earthquake, 1983 569
155. Bhopal, India, gas poisoning, 1984 572
156. Air terrorism, 1985 577
157. Mexico earthquake, 1985 582
158. Nevado del Ruiz, Colombia, volcanic eruption, 1985 584

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 CONTENTS ix

159. Challenger (space shuttle), Florida, fire/explosion, 1986 587

160. Chernobyl, Ukraine, nuclear accident, 1986 591
161. Armenia earthquake, 1988 596
162. Alaska oil spill, 1989 598
163. Tiananmen Square, China, massacre, 1989 604
164. Loma Prieta, California, earthquake, 1989 608
165. Persian Gulf oil inferno, 1991 611
166. Mount Pinatubo, Philippines, volcanic eruption, 1991 615
167. Hurricane Andrew, 1992 619
168. New York City, New York, terrorism, 1993 623
169. Northridge, California, earthquake, 1994 628
170. Rwanda genocide, 1994 631
171. Kobe, Japan, earthquake, 1995 639
172. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, terrorism, 1995 642
173. Srebrenica, Bosnia-Herzegovina, genocide, 1995 652
174. Red River flood, 1997 658
175. Hurricane Floyd, 1999 661
176. Peru offshore earthquake, 2001 664
177. Nine Eleven, New York City, New York, terrorism, 2001 666
178. United States anthrax terrorism, 2001 672
179. Sumatra, Indonesia, earthquake and tsunami, 2004 676
180. Northern California offshore earthquake, 2005 682
181. Hurricane Katrina, 2005 686
182. Pakistan earthquake, 2005 696
183. Taiwan earthquake, 2006 698
184. Greensburg, Kansas, tornado, 2007 701

Appendix 1: USGS List of Worldwide Earthquakes

(1500–2007) 705
Appendix 2: U.S. Natural Environments 716
Appendix 3: World’s Deadliest Disasters 720
Appendix 4: Measuring Natural Disasters 723
Bibliography 727
Index 729

11-07-07 08:42:13GUNN$$FM1U
11-07-07 08:42:13GUNN$$FM1U
 Credits for Illustrations

Figure 1 Artist: Paul Giesbrecht.

Figure 2 Artist: Paul Giesbrecht.
Figure 3 Artist: Paul Giesbrecht.
Figure 4 Artist: Paul Giesbrecht.
Figure 5 Artist: Paul Giesbrecht.
Figure 6 Artist: Paul Giesbrecht.
Figure 7 Artist: Paul Giesbrecht.
Figure 8 Artist: Paul Giesbrecht.
Figure 9 Courtesy National Library of Medicine.
Figure 10 Courtesy Prints & Photographs Division, Library of
Congress, LC-USZ62–54977.
Figure 11 Artist: Paul Giesbrecht.
Figure 12 Artist: Paul Giesbrecht.
Figure 13 Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 14 Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 15 Artist: Paul Giesbrect.
Figure 16 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress, LC-USZ62–3066.
Figure 17 Artist: Paul Giesbrecht.
Figure 18 Photo: P. Hedervari. Courtesy National Geophysical Data
Center.
Figure 19 Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 20 Photo: J. K. Hillers. Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo
Library.
Figure 21 Archival Photograph by Steve Nicklas, NOS, NGS. Courtesy
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/
Department of Commerce.
Figure 22 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Department, Library of
Congress, LC-USZ62–46831.

11-07-07 08:42:13GUNN$$FM1U
 xii CREDITS FOR ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 23 Geo. Barker, photographer, Niagara Falls, N.Y. Courtesy

Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, LC-
USZ62–96085.
Figure 24 Courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration/Department of Commerce.
Figure 25 Courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration/Department of Commerce.
Figure 26 Courtesy of Panoramic Photographs, Prints and Photographs
Division, Library of Congress, pan.6a13048.
Figure 27 Courtesy, Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress, LC-USZ62–123884.
Figure 28 Artist: Paul Giesbrecht.
Figure 29 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress, C-USZ62–47617.
Figure 30 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress, LC-USZ62–75513.
Figure 31 Courtesy: NOAA/NGDC/B. Bradley, University of
Colorado.
Figure 32 Chicago (Ill), 1904, Photographer—Chicago Daily News.
Chicago History Museum.
Figure 33 Chicago History Museum.
Figure 34 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress, LC-USZ62–95042.
Figure 35 Photograph by Ralph O. Hotz. April 1906. Courtesy U.S.
Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 36 Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 37 Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 38 Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 39 Courtesy of the Charleston Gazette.
Figure 40 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress, LC-USZ62–56585.
Figure 41 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress, LC-DIG-ggbain-11212.
Figure 42 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsc-01940.
Figure 43 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress, LC-B2–2571–8.
Figure 44 Photograph by R.E. Wallace. Courtesy U.S. Geological
Survey Photo Library.
Figure 45 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress, LC-DIG-ggbain-25894.
Figure 46 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress, LC-USZ62–126995.
Figure 47 Courtesy of the National Museum of Health and Medicine,
Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, Washington, D.C.
NCP 1603.

11-07-07 08:42:13GUNN$$FM1U
 CREDITS FOR ILLUSTRATIONS xiii

Figure 48 Courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration/Department of Commerce.
Figure 49 Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 50 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress, LC-USZ62–126498.
Figure 51 Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library/Los Angeles
Bureau of Power and Light.
Figure 52 Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 53 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress, LC-USZ62–123429.
Figure 54 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress, LC-USZ62–70085.
Figure 55 Courtesy AP Images.
Figure 56 Photo: Archival Photography by Steve Nicklas, NOS, NGS.
Courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration/Department of Commerce.
Figure 57 Courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration/Department of Commerce.
Figure 58 Photo by R. Morrow. Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey
Photo Library.
Figure 59 Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 60 Courtesy The Cleveland Press Collection, Special
Collections, Cleveland State University Library.
Figure 61 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress, LC-USZ62–134192.
Figure 62 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Department, Library of
Congress, LC-USZ62–53609.
Figure 63 Photo credit: NGDC/NOAA/U.S. Coast Guard.
Figure 64 Photo credit: NGDC/NOAA/U.S. Coast Guard.
Figure 65 Courtesy City of Texas City and Moore Memorial Public
Library.
Figure 66 Courtesy NOAA/NGDC.
Figure 67 Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 68 Photo credit: U.S. Navy.
Figure 69 Courtesy Prints and Photographs Division, Library of
Congress, LC-USZ62–114381.
Figure 70 Photo courtesy of The Texas Collection, Baylor University,
Waco, Texas.
Figure 71 Courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration/Department of Commerce.
Figure 72 Photo: D. J. Miller. Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo
Library.
Figure 73 Photo by J. R. Stacy. Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo
Library.
Figure 74 Photo: I. J. Witkind. Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo
Library.

11-07-07 08:42:13GUNN$$FM1U
 xiv CREDITS FOR ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 75 Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.

Figure 76 Courtesy NOAA/NGDC/Pierre St. Amand.
Figure 77 Courtesy AP Images/stf
Figure 78 Artist: Paul Giesbrecht.
Figure 79 Photo by Emanuele Paolini, Wikipedia commons.
Figure 80 Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 81 Photo: R. Vetter of the American Red Cross. Courtesy
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/
Department of Commerce.
Figure 82 Courtesy AP Images.
Figure 83 Courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration/Department of Commerce.
Figure 84 Courtesy Angus Gunn
Figure 85 Photo Credit: University of Colorado.
Figure 86 Courtesy NOAA/NGDC/University of Colorado.
Figure 87 Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 88 Courtesy AP Images/Kurt Strumpf.
Figure 89 Photo by R.D. Brown Jr. Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey
Photo Library.
Figure 90 Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 91 Courtesy Angus Gunn.
Figure 92 Courtesy NOAA/NGDC/National Park Service.
Figure 93 Figure 55, U.S. Geological Survey Professional paper 1002.
Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 94 Figure 46-C, U.S. Geological Survey Professional paper 1002.
Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 95 Courtesy Angus Gunn.
Figure 96 Courtesy NOAA/NGDC/J.M. Gere, Stanford University.
Figure 97 Courtesy AP Images/Paul Vathis.
Figure 98 Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 99 Courtesy Angus Gunn.
Figure 100 Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo Library.
Figure 101 Photo: M.G. Hopper. Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo
Library.
Figure 102 Courtesy AP Images/Sondeep.
Figure 103 Courtesy NOAA/NGDC/U.S. Geological Survey.
Figure 104 Courtesy NASA
Figure 105 Courtesy NOAA/NGDC/C.J. Langer, U.S. Geological
Survey.
Figure 106 Courtesy AP Images.
Figure 107 Photo: C. E. Meyer. Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo
Library.
Figure 108 Photo by G. Plafker. Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo
Library.
Figure 109 Courtesy Defense Visual Information Center.
Figure 110 Courtesy NOAA/NGDC/R. Batalon, U.S. Air Force.

11-07-07 08:42:13GUNN$$FM1U
 CREDITS FOR ILLUSTRATIONS xv

Figure 111 Courtesy National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration/Department of Commerce.
Figure 112 FEMA News Photo.
Figure 113 Credit NASA GSFC Visualization Analysis Laboratory.
Figure 114 Courtesy AP Images/Richard Drew.
Figure 115 FEMA News Photo.
Figure 116 FEMA News Photo.
Figure 117 Courtesy NOAA/NGDC/Dr. Roger Hutchison.
Figure 118 Courtesy NOAA/NGDC/Dr. Roger Hutchison.
Figure 119 FEMA News Photo.
Figure 120 Photo by Michael Rieger/ FEMA News Photo.
Figure 121 Courtesy Angus Gunn.
Figure 122 Photo by Dave Gatley/ FEMA News Photo.
Figure 123 Courtesy NASA Visible Earth.
Figure 124 Courtesy U.S. Navy. Photo by Photographer’s Mate 2nd
Class Philip A. McDaniel.
Figure 125 Courtesy Angus Gunn.
Figure 126 Courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team,
NASA/GSFC.
Figure 127 Courtesy Jocelyn Augustino/ FEMA News Photo.
Figure 128 D.K. Demcheck. Courtesy U.S. Geological Survey Photo
Library.
Figure 129 Courtesy Lieut. Commander Mark Moran, NOAA Corps,
NMAO/AOC.
Figure 130 Photo by Michael Raphael/ FEMA News Photo.

11-07-07 08:42:13GUNN$$FM1U
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Manuel troubled himself little with questions of art, but often it
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Manuel, who possessed no basis for judgment, was thrown off the
track completely. He could not make out whether they were
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defend such contradictory ideas.
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simplest phrases could be detected the pulse of hatred, envy, and
mortifying, aggressive malice.
In addition to these young men, almost all of them with
venomously sharp tongues, there used to come to the studio two
persons who remained tranquil and indifferent amidst the furor of
the discussions. One was already somewhat old, serious, thin; his
name was Don Servando Arzubiaga. The other, of the same age as
Alex, was called Santín. Don Servando, although a man of letters,
was devoid of literary vanity, or, if he possessed any, kept it so deep
down, so subterraneous, that none could discern it.
He came to the studio for relaxation; with cigarette between his
lips he would listen to the varying opinions, smiling at the
exaggerations and joining the conversation with some conciliatory
word.
Bernardo Santín, the younger of the indifferent members, did not
open his mouth; it was exceedingly difficult for him to understand
how men could battle like that over a purely literary or artistic
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Of course, these gatherings in Alex’s studio were not enough for
the bohemians, so that at night they would come together again in
the Café de Lisboa. Manuel, without being considered one of them,
was tolerated at their meetings, although he was given neither voice
nor vote.
And just because he said nothing he paid all the more attention to
what he heard.
They were almost all of evil instincts and malicious intent. They
felt the necessity of speaking ill one of the other, of insulting one
another, of damaging one another’s interests through schemes and
treachery, yet at the same time they needed to see one another and
exchange talk. They possessed, like woman, the need of
complicating life with petty trifles, of living and developing in an
atmosphere of gossip and intrigue.
 Roberto mingled in their midst, calm and indifferent; he paid no
attention to their plans or to their debates.
Manuel seemed to feel that it vexed Roberto to see him so deeply
taken up with the bohemian life, and in order to enter into his
friend’s good graces, one morning he accompanied Roberto as far as
the house where he gave his English lesson. On the way he told him
that he had made a number of unsuccessful efforts to find work, and
asked what course to pursue further.
“What? I’ve already told you more than once what you have to
do,” answered Roberto. “Look, look and keep on looking. Then work
your very head off.”
“But suppose I can’t find a place.”
“There’s always a job if you really mean business. But you have to
mean it. The first thing you’ve got to learn is to wish with all your
might. You may answer that all you want is to vegetate in any old
way; but you won’t succeed even in that if you keep hanging around
with the loafers who come to this studio. You’ll sink from a mere
idler to a shameless tramp.”
“But how about them?...”
“I don’t know whether or not they’ve ever done anything wrong;
as you will readily understand, that doesn’t concern me one way or
the other. But when a man can’t get a real grasp upon anything,
when he lacks will power, heart, lofty sentiments, all ideas of justice
and equity, then he’s capable of anything. If these fellows had any
exceptional talent, they might be of some use and make a career for
themselves. But they haven’t. On the other hand, they’ve lost the
moral notions of the bourgeois, the pillars that sustain the life of the
ordinary man. They live as men who possess the ailments and the
vices of genius, but neither the genius’s talent nor soul; they
vegetate in an atmosphere of petty intrigues, of base trivialities.
They are incapable of carrying anything to completion. There may
be a touch of genius in those monsters of Alex’s, in Santillana’s
poetry; I don’t say there isn’t. But that’s not enough. A man must
carry out what he’s thought up, what he’s felt, and that takes hard,
constant, daily toil. It’s just like an infant at birth, and although that
comparison is hackneyed, it is exact; the mother bears it in pain,
then feeds it from her own breast and tends it until it grows up
sound and strong. These fellows want to create a beautiful work of
art at a single stroke and all they do is talk and talk.”
Roberto paused for breath, and continued more gently.
“And at that, they have the advantage of being in touch with
things; they know one another, they know the newspaper men, and
believe me, my friend, the press today is a brutal power. But no, you
can’t get into the newspaper game; you’d require seven or eight
years of preparation, hunting up friends and recommendations. And
in the meantime, what would you earn a living at?”
“But I don’t want to be one of them. I realize well enough that I’m
a common workingman.”
“Workingman! Indeed! I only wish you were. Today you’re nothing
more than a loafer who has yet to become a workingman: a fellow
like me, like all the rest of us who toil for a living. At present, activity
is a genuine effort for you; do something; repeat what you do until
activity becomes a habit. Convert your static life into a dynamic one.
Don’t you understand? I want to impress upon you the need of will
power.”
Manuel stared at Roberto dispiritedly; they each spoke a different
language.

CHAPTER II
 Señorita Esther Volovitch—A Wedding—Manuel, Photographer’s
Apprentice

Despite Roberto’s advice, Manuel continued as he was, neither

looking for work nor occupying himself with anything useful; posing
for Alex and acting as servant to all the others who forgathered in
the studio.
At times, when he remembered Roberto’s advice, he would wax
indignant against him.
“I know well enough,” he would say to himself, “that I haven’t his
push, and that I’m not able to accomplish the things he can do. But
his advice is all nonsense,—at least, as far as I’m concerned. ‘Have
will-power,’ he says to me. But suppose I haven’t any? ‘Make it.’ It’s
as if I were told to add a palm to my height. Wouldn’t it be better for
me to hunt for a job?”
Manuel began to feel a hatred against Roberto. He would avoid
meeting him alone; it filled him with rage that, instead of giving him
something, anything at all, Roberto would settle the matter with a
bit of metaphysical advice impossible of translation into reality.
The bohemians continued their disordered existence, their
everlasting projects, until a gap was opened in their midst. Santín
was missing. One day he did not show up at the café, the next he
did not appear at the studio, and in a few weeks he was nowhere to
be seen.
“Where can that fool be?” they asked one another.
Nobody knew.
One night Varela, one of the writers, announced that he had
caught sight of Bernardo Santín sauntering along Recoletos in
company of a blonde girl who looked like an Englishwoman.
“The confounded idiot!” exclaimed one of the group.
 “That’s old stuff,” replied another. “Schopenhauer said long ago
that it’s fools who are most successful with women.”
“I wonder where he got this Englishwoman.”
“That ingle woman![1] He must have got her out of his groin!”
suggested a callow youth, who was learning how to write farces.
“Ugh! These cheap jokes are enough to drive a man to drink!”
cried several in chorus.
The talk drifted to other topics. Three days after this conversation
Santín appeared at the café. He was welcomed with a noisy
demonstration, spoons drumming against saucers. When the ovation
had ended, they besieged him with the question:
“Who is that Englishwoman?”
“What Englishwoman?”
“That blond girl you’ve been out sporting with!”
“That’s my sweetheart; but she’s not English. She’s Polish. A girl
whose acquaintance I made at the Museo. She gives lessons in
French and English.”
“And what’s her name?”
“Esther.”
“A fine article for winter nights,” blurted the fellow who was
learning how to write sainetes.
“How do you make that out?” queried Bernardo.
“Easy. ’Cause an estera[2] adds to the comfort of a room.”
“Oh! Oh! Out with him! Throw him out!” rose a general shout.
“Thanks! Many thanks, my dear public,” replied the joker,
unabashed.
Santín told how he had come to know the Polish girl. They were
all more or less filled with envy of Bernardo’s success, and they set
about poisoning his triumph, insinuating that this Polish miss might
be an adventuress, that perhaps she was in her fifties, and might
have had two or three kids by some carbineer.... Bernardo, who saw
through their malice, never returned to the café.
Very early one morning, a couple of weeks after this scene,
Manuel was still asleep on the sofa of the studio, and Roberto,
according to his habit, was at work upon the translation of the ten
pages that constituted his daily stint, when the door of the studio
was flung open and in swept Bernardo. Manuel awoke at the sound
of his steps, but pretended to be fast asleep.
“What can this fellow have come for?” he asked himself.
Bernardo greeted Roberto and began crossing the studio from one
side to the other.
“You’ve come rather early. Anything the matter?” asked Hasting.
“My boy,” muttered Santín, coming to a sudden stop, “I’ve got
serious news for you.”
“What’s up?”
“I’m getting married.”
“You getting married!”
“Yes.”
“To whom?”
“To whom do you suppose? A woman, of course.”
“I should imagine so. But have you gone mad?”
“Why?”
“How are you going to support your wife?”
“Why.... I earn something at my painting!”
“What can you earn! A mere pittance.”
“That’s what you think.... Besides, my sweetheart gives lessons.”
 “And you intend to live off her.... Now I understand.”
“No, no, sir. I haven’t any intention of making her work for me.
I’m going to open a photographer’s studio.”
“Photographer’s studio! You! Why, you don’t know the first thing
about it!”
“Nothing. I know nothing, according to you. Well, there are
stupider asses than me in the picture business. I don’t imagine it
takes a genius to be a photographer.”
“No, but it requires a knowledge of photography, and you haven’t
the least idea.”
“You’ll see; you’ll see whether I have or not.”
“Besides, it takes money.”
“I have the money.”
“Who gave it to you?”
“A certain party.”
“Lucky boy!”
“You’ll see.”
“I’ll wager you wheedled the money out of your sweetheart.”
“No.”
“Bah! None of your lying.”
“I tell you, no.”
“And I say, yes. Who else would give you the money? Any other
person would first have investigated just how much you knew about
photography and learned whether you ever worked in a studio; they
would require proof of your ability. Only a woman could believe
blindly, simply taking a fellow’s word for it.”
“It’s a woman who’s lending me the money, but it isn’t my
sweetheart.”
 “Come. None of your lies, now. I can’t believe that you’ve come
here just to tell me a string of whoppers.”
Roberto, who had interrupted his writing, now resumed it.
Bernardo made no reply and began to pace up and down the
room anew.
“Have you much work left?” he asked suddenly, coming to a stop.
“Two pages. If you’ve got anything to say to me, I’m listening.”
“Well, see here, it’s this way. The money really does come from
my sweetheart. She offered it to me. ‘What can we do with this?’ she
said to me. And it occurred to me to open up a photographer’s
studio. I’ve hired a place on a fourth floor, with a very attractive
workroom, in the Calle de Luchana, and I have to put the suite and
the gallery in order.... And, to tell the truth, I don’t know just how to
arrange the gallery, for there are curtains to be put up.... But I don’t
know how.”
“That’s rather rare in a photographer,—not to know how to
arrange a gallery.”
“I know how to work the camera.”
“Indeed. You know exactly as much as everybody else: aim, press
the bulb, and as for the rest ... let somebody else attend to it.”
“No, I know the rest, too.”
“Do you know how to develop a plate?”
“Yes, I imagine I could.”
“How?”
“How?... Why, I’d look it up in a manual.”
“What a photographer! You’re deceiving your sweetheart most
shamefully.”
“She wanted it. I may know nothing now, but I’ll learn. What I’d
like you to do is write a couple of lines to these German firms that
I’ve noted down here, asking for catalogues of cameras and other
photographic apparatus. And then I’d like you to step in to my
house, for, with all your talent, you can give me an idea of things.”
“You flatter me most indecently.”
“No, it’s the plain truth. You understand these matters. You’ll
come, won’t you?”
“Very well. I’ll come some day.”
“Yes, do. Take my word for it, I really want to settle down to
business and work, so that my poor father may be able to live a
peaceful old age.”
“That’s the way to talk.”
“And there’s another thing. This youngster that you keep here,—
does he work for you?”
“Why?”
“Because I could take him into my house and he might learn the
profession there.”
“Now that strikes me as pretty sensible, too. Take him along.”
“Will Alex be willing?”
“If the boy is.”
“Will you speak to him?”
“Certainly. This very moment.”
“And can I count on your writing those letters?”
“Yes.”
“Fine. I’ll be off now, for I have to buy some glass panes. Speak to
the boy.”
“Leave that to me.”
“Thanks for everything. And you’ll drop in to my house, won’t
you? Remember, my future and my father’s depend on it.”
 “I’ll come.”
Bernardo pressed the hands of his friend effusively and left.
Roberto, when he had finished writing, called: “Manuel.”
“What?”
“You were awake, weren’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You heard our conversation?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, if you’re willing, you know what you can do. You have a
chance to learn a profession.”
“I’ll go, if you think it best.”
“It’s up to you.”
“Then I’ll go this very moment.”
Without bidding good-bye to Alex, Manuel left the garret and went
off to the Calle de Luchana in search of Bernardo Santín. The
apartment was nominally on the third floor, but counting the
mezzanine and the ground floor, it was really on the fifth. In
response to Manuel’s knocking an aged man with reddish eyes
opened the door; it was Bernardo’s father. Manuel explained the
purpose of his coming, and the old man shrugged his shoulders, and
returned to the kitchen, where he was cooking. Manuel waited for
Bernardo to arrive. The house was still without any furniture; there
was only a table and a few pots and pans in the kitchen, and two
beds in a large room. Bernardo arrived, and the three had lunch and
Santín decided that Manuel should ask the janitor for a step-ladder
and get busy arranging and inserting the panes of glass in the
gallery.
After having given these orders he said that he must be off at
once to an appointment, and left.
 Manuel spent the first day at the top of a ladder, putting the panes
into place with bands of lead and gluing the broken ones together
with strips of paper.
Arranging the panes was a matter of much time; then Manuel put
up the curtains and papered the gallery with rolls of blue printing
paper.
Within a week or thereabouts Roberto appeared with the
catalogues. He marked with a pencil the things that they would have
to order, and instructed Bernardo in the arrangement of the dark
room; he indicated a spot best adapted to the installment of a
transom, where the plates would be exposed to the sun and the
positives made, and informed him upon a number of other details.
Bernardo paid close attention to all Roberto said and then handed
over all the duties to Manuel. Bernardo, besides possessing little
intelligence, was an inveterate idler. He did absolutely nothing. Only
when his sweetheart came to see how matters were progressing
would he pretend to be very busy.
His sweetheart was a very winsome creature; she seemed to
Manuel even pretty, despite her red hair and her lashes and
eyebrows of the same colour. She had a pale little face, somewhat
freckled, a pinkish, turned-up nose, clear eyes and lips so red and
alluring that they roused a desire to kiss them. She was of
diminutive build, but very well formed. She did not trill her r’s,
gliding over them, and pronounced her c’s before e and i as s
instead of th.
She seemed to be genuinely in love with Bernardo, and this
shocked Manuel.
“She can’t really know him,” he thought.
Bernardo, with an unlimited conviction of his own knowledge,
explained to the girl all the work he was doing and how he was
going to arrange the laboratory. Whatever he had heard from
Roberto he spouted forth to his sweetheart with the most unheard-
of impudence. The girl found everything sailing along very nicely;
doubtless she foresaw a rosy future.
Manuel, who saw through the swindle that Bernardo was
perpetrating, wondered whether it would not be an act of charity to
inform the blonde miss that her sweetheart was a good-for-nothing
mountebank. But, after all, what business was it of his?
Bernardo now led a grand existence; he loitered, he bought
jewelry on the instalment plan, he gambled at the Frontón Central.
All he did in the house was issue contradictory orders and get
matters into a hopeless tangle. In the meantime his father cooked
away in the kitchen, indifferent to everything, and spent the day
pounding in the mortar or mincing meat in the chopping bowl.
Manuel would go to bed so exhausted that he fell asleep at once;
but one night, when he had not sunk into slumber so soon he heard
Bernardo, from the next room, declare:
“I’m going to kill you.”
“Is he going to kill him?” asked the voice of the red-eyed old man.
“Take your time,” replied the son. “You made me lose my place.”
And he began his reading over again, for that was all it was, until
he came once more to the sentence, “I’m going to kill you.” On the
following nights Bernardo continued his reading, in terrible tones.
This, without a doubt, was his sole occupation.
Bernardo was no more worried about things than was his father;
all the rest was utterly indifferent in his eyes; he had wheedled the
money out of his sweetheart and was now living on it, squandering
it as if it were his own. When the camera and other apparatus
arrived from Germany, at first he entertained himself by printing
positives from plates that Roberto had developed. Soon, however, he
wearied of this and did nothing at all.
He was stupid and base beyond belief; he committed one
absurdity after the other. He would open the camera while the plates
were being exposed, and confuse the various bottles of fluid. It
exasperated Roberto to see how utterly careless the man could be.
In the meantime preparations were proceeding for the wedding.
Several times Manuel and Bernardo went to the Rastro and bought
photographs of actresses made in Paris by Reutlinger, unglued the
picture from the mounting and pasted it upon other mountings that
bore the signature Bernardo Santín, Photographer, printed along the
margin in gilt letters.
The wedding took place in November, at the Chamberí church.
Roberto did not care to attend, but Bernardo himself went to fetch
him and there was nothing to do but take part in the celebration.
After the ceremony they went for a spread to a café on the Glorieta
de Bildao.
The guests were: two friends of the groom’s father, one of them a
retired soldier; the landlady of the house in which the bride had
been living, and her daughter; a cousin of Bernardo’s, his wife, and
Manuel.
Roberto engaged in conversation with the bride, who struck him
as being very personable and agreeable; she spoke English quite
well, and they exchanged a few words in that tongue.
“Too bad she’s marrying such a dolt,” thought Roberto.
At the banquet one of the old men began to tell a number of
smutty tales that brought blushes to the bride’s cheek. Bernardo,
who had drunk too freely, jested with his cousin’s wife with that
coarseness and gracelessness which characterized him.
The return from the ceremony to the house in the evening, was
gloomy. Bernardo was in high feather and tried to play the elegant
gentleman. Esther spoke to Roberto about her departed mother, and
the solitude in which she dwelt.
On reaching the entrance to the house, the guests took leave of
the couple. As Roberto was about to go, Bernardo came up to him
and, in a lifeless, scarcely audible voice, confessed that he was
afraid to remain alone with his wife.
“Man, don’t be an idiot. What did you get married for, then?”
“I didn’t know what I was doing. Come, stay with me a moment.”
“What! A pleasant joke on your wife that would be!”
“Yes, she’s fond of you.”
Roberto scrutinized his friend, avoiding his eyes, because he had
no relish for jests.
“Yes, do stay with me. There’s something else, too.”
“Well, what is it?”
“I don’t know a thing yet about photography, and I’d like you to
come for a week or two. I beg it as a special favour.”
“It’s impossible. I have my lessons to give.”
“Come, if only during the lunch hour. You’ll eat with us.”
“Very well.”
“And now, come up for a moment, do.”
“No, not now.” Roberto turned and left.
During the succeeding days Roberto visited the newly married
couple, and chatted with them during the meal.
On the third day, between Bernardo and Manuel, they managed to
photograph two servant girls who appeared at the studio. Roberto
developed the plates, which, as luck would have it, came out well,
and he continued visiting his friend’s home.
Bernardo resumed the life of his bachelor days, devoting himself
to loafing and amusement. After a few days he failed to show up for
lunch. He was absolutely without a glimmer of moral sentiment; he
had noticed that his wife and Roberto had a liking for one another,
and he imagined that Roberto, in order to be near the place and
make love to his wife, would do the work in his stead. Provided that
his father and he lived well, the rest did not matter to him.
When Roberto realized the scheme, he grew indignant.
“See here, listen to me,” he said. “Do you imagine I’m going to
work here for you while you go idling around? Not a bit of it, my
dear fellow!”
“I’m no good for working with these nasty chemicals,” replied
Bernardo, sullenly. “I’m an artist.”
“What you are is a good-for-nothing imbecile.”
“Excellent. All the better.”
“You’re utterly worthless. You married this girl just to get the little
money she had. It’s disgusting.”
“I know well enough you’ll take my wife’s part.”
“I’m not taking her part. The poor thing was idiotic enough herself
to have married the like of you.”
“Do you mean, then, that you don’t care to come here and do the
work?”
“I certainly do not.”
“Well, it’s all the same to me. I’ve found a business partner. So
you may as well know. I don’t beg anybody to come to my house.”
“All right. Good-bye.”
Roberto stopped coming. In a few days the partner presented
himself and Bernardo discharged Manuel.

CHAPTER III
 The “Europea” and the “Benefactora”—A Strange Employment

Manuel returned to Alex’s studio. That worthy, displeased with the

boy because he had left the place without so much as saying good-
bye, refused to allow him to stay there again.
The bohemians who forgathered at the studio asked how
Bernardo was getting along, and uttered a string of humorous
commentaries upon the lot that Fate held in store for the
photographer.
“So Roberto developed his plates?” asked one.
“Yes.”
“He retouched his plates and his wife,” added another.
“What a shameless wretch that Bernardo is!”
“Not at all. He’s a philosopher of Candide’s school. Be a cuckold
and cultivate your garden. There lies true happiness.”
“And what are you going to do now?” asked Alex sarcastically of
Manuel.
“I don’t know. I’ll look for employment.”
“See here, do you fellows know a man by the name of Señor Don
Bonifacio Mingote, who lives on the third floor of this house?” asked
Don Servando Arzubiaga, the thin, indifferent gentleman.
“No.”
“He’s an employment agent. He can’t have very good jobs on his
list, or he’d have got himself one. I know him through the
newspaper; he was formerly the representative for certain mineral
waters and used to bring advertisements. He was telling me the
other day that he needed a young fellow.”
“Better go see him,” advised Alex.
 “You don’t aspire to be a grandee of Spain, do you?” asked Don
Servando of Manuel, with a smile blended of irony and kindliness.
“No, nor you, either,” retorted Manuel, ill-humouredly.
Don Servando burst into laughter.
“If you’re willing, we’ll see this Mingote. Shall we go this very
moment?”
“Come along, if you wish.”
They went down to the third floor, knocked at a door, and were
bidden into a narrow dining-room. They asked for the agent and a
slovenly servant-girl pointed to a door. Don Servando rapped with his
knuckles, and in response to a “Come in!” from some one inside,
they both entered the room.
A corpulent man with thick, dyed moustaches, wrapped in a
woman’s cloak, was pacing up and down, declaiming and
gesticulating with a cane in his right hand. He stopped, and opening
wide his arms, in theatrical tones exclaimed: “Ah, my dear Señor
Don Servando! Welcome, welcome!” Then he gazed at the ceiling,
and in the same affected manner, added: “What brings to this poor
habitation at such an early hour the illustrious writer, the inveterate
night-owl?”
Don Servando related to the corpulent gentleman, who was none
other than Don Bonifacio Mingote himself, the reasons for his visit.
In the meantime an ugly creature, filthy and sickly, with arms like
a doll’s and the head of a Chinaman, stuck his pen behind his ear
and began to rub his palms with an air of satisfaction.
The room was ill-smelling, cluttered with torn posters, large and
small, which were pasted to the wall; in a corner stood a narrow
bed, in disarray; there were three disembowelled chairs with the
horse-hair stuffing exposed; in the middle, a brazier protected by a
wire-netting, on which two dirty socks were drying.
 “For the present I can promise nothing,” said the employment
agent to Don Servando, after hearing his story. “Tomorrow I can tell
better; but I have something good under way.”
“You understand what this gentleman is saying,” said Don
Servando to Manuel. “Come here tomorrow.”
“Can you write?” Señor Mingote asked the boy.
“Yes, sir.”
“With correct spelling?”
“There may be some words that I don’t know....”
“Oh, it’s the same with me. We really great men despise those
truly petty matters. Sit down here and get to work.” He placed a
chair at the other side of the table where the yellow man was
writing. “This work,” he added, “will serve as payment for the favour
I’m going to do you,—finding you a first-class situation.”
“Señor Mingote,” exclaimed Don Servando, “my infinite thanks for
everything.”
“Señor Don Servando! Always at your service!” replied the
business and employment agent, refocussing one of his cross eyes
and making a solemn bow.
Manuel sat down before the table, took the pen, dipped it into the
ink-well and waited for further orders.
“Write one of these names on each circular,” instructed Mingote,
handing him a list of names and a package of circulars. The agent’s
handwriting was bad, defective,—that of a man who scarcely knows
how to write. The circular was headed as follows:

LA EUROPEA
Business and Employment Agency
Bonifacio Mingote, Director
 In it were offered to the various social classes all manner of
articles, opportunities and positions.
One might purchase at bottom prices medicinal remedies, meats,
oilskins, fruits, shell fish, funeral wreaths, false teeth, ladies’ hats;
sputum and urine were analyzed; the agency hunted up guaranteed
governesses; it procured notes from the courses in Law, Medicine
and special professions; it offered capital, loans, mortgages; it
arranged for sensational, monstrous advertisements. And all these
services, plus a multitude of others, were supplied at a minimum fee
so tiny as to appear ridiculous.
Manuel set to work copying the names in his best hand on to the
circulars and the envelopes.
Señor Mingote inspected Manuel’s handwriting, and after
congratulating him, wrapped himself up in his cloak, took two or
three strides about the room and asked his secretary:
“Where were we?”
“We were saying,” replied the amanuensis with sinister gravity,
“that the Estrellado Fernández brand of Anis is salvation.”
“Ah, yes; I remember.”
And all at once Señor Mingote began to shout, in a thunderous
voice:
“What is Estrellado Fernández Anis? It is salvation, it is life, it is
energy, it is power.”
Manuel raised his eyes in astonishment, and beheld the agent’s
distracted gaze fixed upon the ceiling; he was gesticulating wildly, as
if threatening some one with his right hand which was armed with
the cane, while his secretary scribbled rapidly over the sheet.
“It is a fact, universally recognized by Science,” continued Mingote
in his melodramatic tones, “that neurasthenia, asthenia, impotency,
hysteria and many other disorders of the nervous system.... What
other ailments does it cure?” Mingote paused to ask, in his natural
voice.
“Rickets, scrofula, chorea....”
“ ... That rickets, scrofula, chorea and many other disorders of the
nervous system....”
“Pardon,” interrupted the amanuensis. “I believe that rickets is not
a disorder of the nervous system.”
“Very well. Scratch it out. Let’s see; we were at the nervous
system, weren’t we?”
“Yes, sir.”
“ ... And other disorders of the nervous system come solely and
exclusively from atony,—exhaustion of the nerve-cells. Well, then,—”
and Mingote increased the volume of his voice with a new fervour,
—“Estrellado Fernández Anis corrects this atony; Estrellado
Fernández Anis, exciting the secretion of the gastric juices, routs
these ailments which age and destroy mankind.”
After this paragraph, delivered with the greatest enthusiasm and
oratorical fire, Mingote brushed his trousers with his cane and
muttered, in his natural voice.
“You mark my word. That Señor Fernández won’t pay. And if only
the anisette were good! Haven’t they sent some more bottles from
the pharmacy?”
“Yes, yesterday they sent two.”
“And where are they?”
“I took them home.”
“Eh?”
“Yes. They promised them to me. And since you made off with the
whole first consignment, I took the liberty of carrying these home
with me.”
 “Lord in heaven! Excellent! First rate!... Have folks send you some
bottles of magnificent anisette so that some other fellow with long
fingers may come along and.... Good God above!” And Mingote
paused to stare at the ceiling with one of his cross eyes.
“Haven’t you any left?” asked his secretary.
“Yes, but they’ll run out at any moment.”
Then he began another eloquent paragraph, pacing up and down
the room, brandishing his cane, and frequently interrupting his
discourse to utter some violent apostrophe or humorous reflection.
At noon the amanuensis arose, clapped his hat down upon his
head, and went off without a word or a salute.
Mingote placed his hand upon Manuel’s shoulder and said to him,
in fatherly fashion:
“Well, you can go home now to eat, and be back at about two.”
Manuel climbed up to the studio; neither Roberto nor Alejo was
there; nor was a crumb to be found in the entire establishment. He
rummaged through all the corners, returning by half-past one, to
Don Bonifacio’s where, between one yawn and another, he continued
to address the circulars.
Mingote was highly pleased with Manuel’s proficiency, and either
because of this, or because at his meal he had devoted himself
excessively to Estrellado Fernández’ Anis, he surrendered himself to
the most incoherent and picturesque verbosity, his gaze as ever
fixed upon the ceiling. Manuel laughed loud guffaws at Don
Bonifacio’s comical, extravagant witticisms.
“You’re not like my secretary,” said the agent to him, flattered by
the boy’s manifestations of pleasure. “He doesn’t crack a smile at my
jokes, but then he steals them from me and repeats them, all
garbled, in those cheap little funereal pieces he writes. And that’s
not the worst. Read this.” And Mingote handed Manuel a printed
announcement.
 This, too, was a circular in Don Bonifacio’s style. It read:

LA BENEFACTORA
Medico-Pharmaceutical Agency
Don Pelayo Huesca, Director
No one makes good his promises so well as he. The
Administrative Council of La Benefactora is composed
of the wealthiest bankers of Madrid. La Benefactora
runs an account with the Bank of Spain. There is no
admission fee to La Benefactora.
It proffers services as lawyer, relator, procurator,
physician, apothecary; it provides aid for births, dietary
regimen, burials, lactation, and so forth.
Monthly fee: one, two, two-and-a-half, three, four
and five pesetas.
(Actions speak louder than words)
General Director: Pelayo Huesca, Misericordia, 6.

“Eh?” cried Mingote when Manuel had finished reading. “What do

you think of that? Here he is making his living in La Europa, and
then he goes and plagiarizes me and runs La Benefactora. That man
is the same way in everything. As treacherous as the waves. But ah,
Señor Don Pelayo, I’ll get even with you yet. If you’re a perfidious
bat, I’ll nail you to my door; if you’re a miserable tortoise, I’ll smash
your shell for you. Do you see, my son? What can you expect of a
country where they don’t respect intellectual property, which is not
only the most sacred, but the only legitimate form of all property?”
Mingote did not point out to Manuel a note that was printed on
the margin of his circular. This was one of Don Pelayo’s ideas. In it
the Agency offered itself for certain intimate investigations and
services. This note, very tactfully drawn up, was addressed to those
who wished to form the acquaintance of an agreeable woman so as
to complete their education; to those who were eager to
consummate a good match; to those who harboured doubts as to
their other half; and to others, to whom the Agency offered probing
and confidential investigations, at a low price, and vigilance by day
and by night, accomplishing all these assignments with the utmost
delicacy.
Mingote did not like to confess that this idea had escaped him.
“Do you understand? It’s impossible to live,” he concluded. “Folks
are nothing but beasts. I see, however, that you make distinctions,
and I’ll take you under my wing.”
And, indeed, through Mingote’s protection, Manuel was able to eat
that night.
“Tomorrow, when you arrive,” instructed Bonifacio, “you’ll take a
package of these circulars and go around distributing them from
house to house, without missing a single one. I don’t want you to
slip them in under the doors, either. At every house you are to knock
and ask. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In the meantime, I’ll be looking after your position.”
On the following day Manuel distributed a package of circulars and
returned at meal time with his task accomplished.
He was getting tired of waiting when Mingote appeared in his
room; he stopped in front of Manuel, swept his cane rapidly through
the air, struck the boy’s arms, stood still, recoiled, and shouted:
“Ah! Rogue! Bandit! Mountebank!”
“What’s the trouble?” asked Manuel in fright.
“The trouble? You knave! The trouble? Wretch, you! You’re the
luckiest fellow on two feet; your future is assured; you’ve landed a
job.”
“As what?”
 “As a son.”
“As a son? I don’t understand.”
Mingote planted himself squarely, gazed at the ceiling, saluted
with his cane as a fencing-master would with his foil, and added:
“You’re going to pass for the son of nothing less than a baroness!”
“Who? I?”
“Yes. You’ve no cause for complaint, you rogue! You rise out of
the gutter to the heights of aristocracy. You may even manage to
acquire a title.”
“But is all this true?”
“As true as I’m the most talented man in all Europe. So get a
move on, my future Baron; spruce up, scratch off your dirt, brush
your hair, scrape the mud off those filthy sandals of yours, and
accompany me to the home of the baroness.”
Manuel was dumfounded; he could not understand what it was all
about. But he knew that the agent would not have taken the trouble
to run all over town simply for the pleasure of perpetrating a joke
upon him.
At once he made ready to accompany Mingote. Together they
entered the Calle Ancha de San Bernardo, strode down Los Reyes to
the Calle Princesa, and continued along this street until they paused
before a wide entrance, into which they disappeared.
They passed into a corridor that led to a wide patio.
A series of galleries with symmetrical rows of chocolate-hued
doors surrounded the patio.
Mingote knocked at one of the doors of the gallery on the second
floor.
“Who is it?” asked a woman’s voice from within.
“It’s me,” replied Mingote.
 “I’m coming. I’m coming.”
The door was opened and there appeared a mulattress in battered
shoes, followed by three poodle dogs, who barked furiously.
“Hush, Léon! Hush Morito!” cried the servant in a very languid
tone. “Come in. Come in.”
Manuel and Mingote walked into a stifling room, which had a
window that looked upon the patio. The walls of the room, from a
certain height, were almost covered with women’s clothes that
formed a sort of wainscoting all around it. From the shutter-bolt of
the window was suspended a low cut sleeveless chemise with lace
edging and bows of faded blue, which displayed cynically a dark
blood-stain.
“Wait a moment. The lady is dressing,” requested the mulattress.
Within a short while she reappeared and asked them to step into
the study.
The baroness, a blonde woman attired in a bright gown, was
reclining upon a sofa in an attitude of intense languor and
desolation.
“Here again, Mingote?”
“Yes, madame. Again.”
“Have a seat, gentlemen.”
The place was a cramped, ill-lighted room crowded with far more
furniture than it could easily accommodate. Within a short space
were heaped together an old console with a mantle-clock upon it;
several crumpled armchairs, upon which the silk, once upon a time
red, had turned violet through the action of the sun; two large oil
portraits, and a bevelled mirror with a cracked surface.
“I bring to you, dear Baroness,” said Mingote, “the youngster of
whom we have spoken.”
“Is this the one?”
 “Yes.”
“It seems to me I know this boy.”
“Yes. And I know you, too,” spoke up Manuel. “I was in a
boarding-house on the Calle de Mesonero Romanos; the landlady’s
name was Doña Casiana; my mother was the maid-of-all-work
there.”
“Indeed. That’s so. And your mother,—how is she getting along?”
asked the baroness of Manuel.
“She’s dead.”
“He’s an orphan,” interjected Mingote. “As free as the forest bird,
—free to sing and to die of hunger. It was in just such circumstances
that I myself arrived in Madrid some time back, and queerly,
strangely enough, strangely indeed, I’d like to go back to those good
old days.”
“And how old are you?” asked the baroness of the boy, unheedful
of the agent’s reflections.
“Eighteen.”
“But see here, Mingote,” exclaimed the baroness, “this youngster
is not the age you said he was.”
“That doesn’t matter at all. Nobody would say that he was a day
over fourteen or fifteen. Hunger does not permit the products of
nature to grow. If you cease watering a tree, or cease feeding a
human being....”
“Tell me,”—and the baroness interrupted Mingote impatiently as
she lowered her voice, “have you told him what he’s wanted for?”
“Yes; he would have guessed it at once, anyway. You can’t fool a
kid like this, who’s knocked about the town, as if he were a
respectable child. Poverty is a great teacher, Baroness.”
“And you tell that to me?” replied the lady. “When I think of the
life I’ve led and am leading now, my hair stands on end. Without a
doubt the good Lord endowed me with a privileged nature, for I
accustom myself quite easily to everything.”
“You can always lead an easy life if you wish,” answered Mingote.
“Oh! If I had only been born a woman! What a career I’d have led!”
“Let’s not talk of that.”
“You’re right. What’s the use? Now we’ll plan our new stratagem.
I’ll get to work preparing the proofs of the boy’s civil status. And do
you wish to take charge of him?”
“Very well.”
“He can run your errands for you. He’s a pretty good hand at
writing.”
“Never mind. Let him remain here.”
“Then, my dear Baroness, good-bye until one of these days when
I’ll bring you the documents. Dear lady ... at your feet.”
“Ay, how ceremonious! Good-bye, Mingote! See him out, Manuel.”
The two men walked to the door together. There the agent placed
his hands upon the youth’s shoulders.
“Good-bye, my lad,” he said. “And don’t forget, if ever you should
become a baron in real earnest, that you owe it all to me.”
“I’ll not forget. You needn’t worry on that score,” answered
Manuel.
“You’ll always remember your protector?”
“Always.”
“My son, preserve that filial piety. For a protector such as I is
almost like a father. He is ... I was about to say, the arm of
Providence. I feel deeply moved.... I am no longer young. Have you,
by any chance, a few coins in your pocket?”
“No.”
 “That’s too bad,” and Mingote, after a sweep with his cane, left
the house.
Manuel closed the door and returned to the room on tip-toe.
“Chucha! Chucha!” called the baroness. And when the mulattress
appeared who had opened the door to Mingote and Manuel, the
baroness said to her:
“See. This is the boy.”
“Jesu! Jesu!” shrieked the servant. “He’s a ragamuffin! Whatever
put it into madame’s head to bring such a tramp into the house?”
Before such an outburst as this, although it was spoken in the
most mellifluous and languid of tones, Manuel stood paralyzed.
“You’ve terrified the lad,” exclaimed the baroness, bursting into
loud laughter.
“But Your Grace must be mad,” muttered the servant.
“Hush! Hush! Not so much noise. Get some soap and water ready
for him and have him wash up.”
The mulattress left, and the baroness scrutinized Manuel closely.
“So the man told you what you’ve come here for?”
“Yes, he told me something.”
“And are you willing?”
“Yes, I am, Señora.”
“Good. You’re a philosopher. I’m quite satisfied. And what have
you done up to now?”
Manuel recounted his adventures, drawing a little upon his
imagination, and entertained the baroness for a while.
“Fine. Don’t say a word to anybody, understand?... And now go
and wash yourself.”
CHAPTER IV
 The Baroness de Aynant, Her Dogs and Her Mulattress
Companion—Wherein is Prepared a Farce

Little work, little to eat and clean clothes: these were the
conditions that Manuel found in the home of the baroness, and they
were unsurpassable.
In the morning his duty was to take the baroness’s dogs out for a
stroll; in the afternoon he had to run a few errands. At times, during
the first days, he felt homesick for his wandering existence. Several
issues of huge novels published in serial form, which Chucha lent
him, allayed his passion for tramping about the streets and
transported him, in company of Fernández y González and Tárrago y
Mateos, to the life of the XVIIth century, with its braggart knights
and its lovelorn ladies.
Niña Chucha, an eternal chatterbox, recounted to Manuel, in
several instalments, the tale of her dear friend, as she called the
baroness.
The Baroness de Aynant, Paquita Figueroa, was a queer woman.
Her father, a wealthy Cuban gentleman, sent her at the age of
eighteen, accompanied by an aunt, on a trip to Europe. On the
steamer a young Flemish gentleman, fair and blond, as elegant as a
Van Dyck portrait, had paid her much attention; the girl had
responded with all the ardent enthusiasm of the tropics, and within a
month after their arrival in Spain, the Cuban miss was named the
Baroness de Aynant, and left with her husband to take up their
residence in Antwerp.
The honeymoon waned, and both the Flemish gentleman and the
Cuban wife, once they had settled down again to a tranquil
existence, agreed that they were not a congenial, well-matched
couple. He was devoted to the simple, methodical life, to the music
of Beethoven and to meals prepared with cows’ butter; she, on the
other hand, was fond of a wild time, of gadding about the
fashionable promenades; she loved a dry, hot climate, the music of
Chueca, light meals and dishes made with oil.
These divergencies of taste in small matters, piling up, thickening,
in time clouded completely the love of the baron and his wife. She
could not let pass calmly the cold, tranquilly ironic remarks that her
husband made concerning the sweet-potatoes, the oil and the
accent of the southern peoples. The baron, in turn, was piqued to
hear his wife speak scornfully of the greasy women who devote
themselves to cramming down butter. The rivalry between oil and
butter, embroiling itself, interweaving itself with their other affairs of
greater importance, assumed such proportions that the couple
reached the point of excitement and hatred leading to a separation.
The baron remained in Antwerp dedicating himself to his artistic
predilections and to his buttered toast, while the baroness came to
Madrid, where she could give free rein to her fondness for fruit and
oily food.
In Madrid the baroness committed a thousand follies. She tried to
procure a divorce, that she might marry a ruined aristocrat. But
when her bill of divorcement was all prepared for filing, she learned
that her husband was seriously ill, and no sooner did she get the
news than she left Madrid, hurried to Antwerp, nursed the baron,
saved his life, fell in love all over again and presented him with a
baby girl.
During this second epoch of their love the couple threw a dense
veil over the great question that had formerly divided them. The
baroness and the baron made mutual concessions, and the baroness
was well on the way to becoming an excellent Flemish dame when
she was left a widow.
She returned to Madrid with her daughter, and soon her Levantine
instincts reawakened. Her brother-in-law, uncle and guardian of the
child, helped her out with a monthly stipend, but this was not
enough. A friend of her father’s,—a certain Don Sergio Redondo, a
very wealthy merchant,—offered her his hand; but the baroness did
not accept, and preferred his patronage to being his wife. Soon she
deceived him with another, and for twelve years she continued this
duplicity.
In the midst of this squandering, this madness and surrender to
caprice, the baroness preserved a moral background, and withdrew
her daughter completely from the world in which the mother dwelt.
She placed her child in a convent school and every month, the first
money that she laid hands upon was used to pay for the girl’s
tuition. When she had completed her education, the baroness
intended to take her off to Antwerp and live there with her, resigning
herself to the career of a respectable woman.
Niña Chucha would grumble and protest at her good friend’s
whims, but she always ended by obeying them.
Manuel found the house a paradise; he had nothing to do and
would spend his idle hours smoking, if there were anything to
smoke, or walking along the Moncloa, accompanied by the
baroness’s three dogs.
In the meantime Mingote was hard at work. His plan was to
exploit Don Sergio Redondo, friend of the baroness’s father and
former protector of the lady. The latter, with the instincts of an
intriguing, deceitful wench, had informed her former protector that
their relations had produced a boy; then she had told him that the
boy had died, and afterward, that the boy was still alive.
All these affirmations and denials the lady accompanied with a
request for money, to which Don Sergio acceded; until the victim,
rendered suspicious, notified the baroness that he did not believe in
the existence of that son. The baroness upbraided him as a
miserable wretch and Don Sergio answered, pretending not to
understand, and keeping a tight lock on his money-chest.
How had Mingote discovered these facts? Undoubtedly it had not
been the baroness who told him, but he ferreted them out none the
less. And as his imagination was fertile, it occurred to him to
propose to the baroness that she hunt up some boy, provide him
with false documents and pass him off as Don Sergio’s son.
 The baroness, who knew nothing whatever about the law and
considered the Penal Code a net spread to catch vagabonds, seized
upon the suggestion as a most excellent and fruitful plan. Mingote
demanded a share in the profits and the baroness promised him all
he should desire. From that moment Mingote set about searching for
a youngster who would fulfill the conditions necessary to the
deception of Don Sergio, and when he came upon Manuel, he
brought him at once to the home of the baroness.
After he had been there a week, Manuel was already provided
with the papers that identified him as Sergio Figueroa. Between
Mingote, Don Pelayo the amanuensis, and a friend of theirs called
Peñalar, they forged them with most exquisite skill.
“And now what shall we do?” asked the baroness.
Mingote stood wrapped in thought. If the baroness were to write
to Don Sergio, that old fellow, in all probability, since he was now
suspicious, might take the whole matter sceptically. They must,
therefore, discover some indirect procedure,—they must let him get
the news from a third party.
“Suppose it were to be from a confessor? What do you think of
that?” asked Mingote.
“A confessor?”
“Yes. A priest who would present himself in Don Sergio’s home
and inform him that, under the seal of confession, you had told
him....”
“No, no,” interrupted the baroness. “And where is this priest?”
“Peñalar will go, in disguise.”
“No. Besides, Don Sergio knows that I’m not very religious.”
“Then perhaps a schoolmaster would be better.”
“But do you imagine that he’s going to believe I confess to a
schoolmaster?”
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