The Conde de Ríos was at last banished to the Balearic Islands. Mendoza suddenly disappeared from Madrid, leaving a letter to his friend Miguel, telling him that he had made his escape because he had been informed that the police were going to arrest him, and asking him to take charge of the paper.
Such a letter as that caused the brigadier's son no little amusement, because he was convinced that the administration had no thought of troubling the poor Brutandor.
Nevertheless, he actually took the chief editorship of La Independencia, the nominal direction of it being, as always in such calamitous times of persecution, under the name of a silent partner.
And, in order satisfactorily to fulfil his trust, he began to attend the so-called círculos políticos, and above all the committee-room of the Congress of Deputies, which was then, is now, and ever will be, probably, the workshop where the happiness of the country is devised. So when he went there for the first time, he could not overcome a feeling of respect and veneration.
At the sight of the stir and agitation which reigned there, our hero could not help comparing that chamber and the corridors around it to a great factory.
A host of laborers, in high hats, were going and coming, entering and bowing, and elbowing each other; their faces bore the imprint of the deep cares that agitated them. Some were sitting in front of desks and feverishly writing letters and more letters; from time to time they would pass their hands over their foreheads and draw a sigh of weariness, and, perhaps, of pain at finding themselves obliged, on the altars of the country's interest, to deny a meeting with some influential elector who did not deserve such treatment.
Others would come out of the chamber of sessions and sit down on a sofa to think over the speech which they had just heard, or would join some group of members warmly discussing some question which, owing to a modesty that did them honor, they had not cared to take part in during the session.
Others would cluster around the entrance and anxiously wait for some minister to pass, so as to recommend to his attention some matter of general interest to his family.
All this reminded Miguel of the bustle, the noise, and the tremendous activity that he had witnessed in an iron foundry at Vizcaya. There as well as here men were moving in opposite directions, each one attending to his task; they were a little less respectably dressed, and their necks and breasts were somewhat more tanned than was the case with the representatives of their country; but this was because there was rather more heat in the foundry than in the salón de conferencias. In place of letters and other documents, the men there were lugging bars of red-hot iron in their hands, and they passed them on from one to the other just as the deputies passed on their papers.
It must not be supposed that it was cool in the salón de conferencias. In each one of its four angles there was a great fireplace where were burning ancient and well-dried logs, which the thoughtful country provides her representatives lest they should freeze. Besides, there are furnaces in the cellar which send up columns of hot air through the open registers; the carpets, the curtains, the ventilators, and the screens also cause the temperature to be neither cold nor hot beyond endurance.